Page 15

Jack walked in front of Chloe, following the lead of the flashlight she held. Every few steps, there was a splotch of blood. Sometimes they got smaller, but then they’d get bigger again.

Jack gripped his gun. He occasionally looked out into the dark around them but never caught sight of anything, never heard anything that seemed out of place. Even though he was on edge, there wasn’t that feeling of impending danger to him and Chloe.

But there had been danger here, that was for sure. The blood splotches along the trail no longer got smaller, only bigger, until they became almost a continuous trickle of blood.

Every so often, Jack glanced back at Chloe holding the flashlight. He could feel the tension pouring off her. She was worried it was Ry doing the bleeding, and so was Jack. The other option wasn’t much better—that Ry had been the person to cause the bleeding in someone else. Both were going to be hard pills to swallow for Chloe. But there was no pill to swallow until they figured out what was going on here.

Jack wondered how long they could walk before they found something, before Bent County arrived at the parking lot and wondered where they were. He wondered a lot of things on this slow, nerve-racking walk that never seemed to end.

The trail narrowed, and the trickle of blood seemed to disappear. Though, more likely, whatever had been bleeding was now bleeding in the grass rather than the dirt.

Jack paused, not sure whether to press on or study the grassy sides of the trail for the blood. No doubt it didn’t just miraculously stop bleeding.

“Jack.” Her voice trembled on just the single syllable of his name.

He heard it then. The rustle and clicking sounds. Not a human threat, but animal. Still, he wasn’t sure why that would scare Chloe, who’d grown up around wildlife and the potential threat and danger of them just as much as he had.

Until he turned to where the beam was pointed. Two pairs of eyes glowed back at them. But it wasn’t the animals—coyotes—that had caused that reaction in Chloe. It was what they were standing next to.

A human body.

Jack moved without fully thinking. Just placed himself between her and the body. Just made sure his body stopped the beam of light from reaching that far. He hadn’t seen the details, just the body—the very still body—being studied and perhaps other things by the coyotes.

“It’s Ry, isn’t it? It’s... He... Someone...”

Jack moved forward and pulled her into him. “We don’t know that, Chloe.”

Her breathing hitched on a little sob. “It’s someone .”

He wanted to give her his gun and tell her to follow the trail back to the parking lot. Wait for the cops. He wanted her to let him handle whatever this was. But it would leave him with only his phone for a light and with no other form of protection. He didn’t think the coyotes would be much of a problem if he didn’t approach, but he’d have to approach to identify the body.

Chloe needed to know. For sure. So he couldn’t send her back yet. He had to...

“Stay here. Put your phone flashlight on, and give me this one.” He pried the flashlight from her fingers. He didn’t think she was holding it so tight because she didn’t want to relinquish control, but because she was in shock.

“Chloe,” he said sharply. She jerked her gaze to him. “Pull out your phone. I’m going to get closer and see if I can get an ID.”

She shook her head. “Jack, they’ll... You can’t approach wild animals feeding.”

“I’ll be careful. You stand right here.”

“Jack.”

But he ignored her protests and moved forward. Luckily, she stayed put, or he would have had to stop. He didn’t want her seeing whatever this was, but he knew she needed answers.

He’d get her those answers.

He pointed the beam back at the animals. They didn’t move, but they watched him approach. Then they started to move a little nervously. Low growls began to emanate from where they stood.

Jack made a few ridiculous noises, loud and sudden, hoping to scare the coyotes off as he approached. They were clearly reluctant to leave the body, and reluctant to deal with Jack. They backed off a little , though not as far away as Jack would have preferred.

He moved the beam from the coyotes to the body. An arm was bloody and mangled, no doubt some from the coyotes, but perhaps some from whatever injury had caused the trail of blood, because most of the body looked to be intact.

Jack circled, hoping to get closer to the head and face. As he did, he saw hair, and immediately knew it wasn’t Ry because the brown was too long and peppered with gray.

“Chloe, it’s not Ry,” he called out to her, still trying to creep close enough to get a glimpse of the face without upsetting the coyotes too much. He kept making noises and flashing the beam of the flashlight at the animals, hoping to keep them back.

They did keep inching away, but they didn’t stop their warning growls or take off like he might have preferred. Still, he got to a better angle, slightly closer, and was able to point the light at the face of the body.

Not Ry. Familiar, but Jack wasn’t sure... Until it dawned on him just who it was.

He let out a slow breath, then began to back away from the body, from the coyotes, back toward Chloe.

When he reached her, he realized she was shaking. She hadn’t turned the light on her phone on, but she held it in her hands.

“Chloe.”

“It’s Ry, isn’t it? It has to be. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” She was crying. Panicking, clearly.

He had his hands full and wasn’t quite sure whether to put down the light or the gun. In the end, he placed the flashlight on the ground and gripped her arm with his free one. “Chloe, listen to me, sweetheart. It’s not Ry.”

She nodded, like him touching her finally got it through to her. When she finally spoke, her words were choked. “Then who is it, Jack?”

He took a deep breath. He didn’t want to draw it out, and still... It was hard to say. “It’s your father.”

C HLOE DIDN ’ T brEAK DOWN . Or at least, she didn’t lose it over the fact her father was dead. That information kind of helped her pull herself together. Breathe again, wipe her cheeks. In those first few moments, she couldn’t have cared less about her dead father. She had just been so damn relieved her brother hadn’t ended up that way.

So far.

Then the chaos had started, which was kind of a nice distraction. It was this strange, buzzing foundation to whatever was going on inside her. Jack took her back to the parking lot, where Detective Delaney-Carson had arrived and was investigating the car.

Jack told the detective everything—or at least, Chloe thought he had. The panic that it had been Ry lying in a bloody, dead heap had been hard to fully come out of. And the fact of the matter was, even knowing it wasn’t Ry didn’t ease her worry. Because Ry was still out there somewhere since this was her car in the parking lot.

Maybe Ry was the aggressor, but more likely to Chloe’s way of thinking, he was another victim to whatever their father had dragged him into.

Detective Delaney-Carson called in more backup, and pretty soon there were cops everywhere. Dealing with the coyotes and the body, and determining what their next steps were going to be.

Jack had tried to convince Chloe to go back to the Hudson Ranch multiple times, and even the detective had suggested it, but Chloe couldn’t budge. Not until they found Ry.

She kept expecting to feel something when they brought her father’s body out of that field in a body bag. Some sort of...not grief, obviously, when he’d been nothing to her, really, besides a tormenter. But she’d expected to feel something.

Instead, there was nothing but an odd sort of numbness when it came to her father’s death. Murder. Whatever it was. The only feeling she really recognized was worry over Ry, over whatever was going on with Hart missing, about what this all meant for Jack’s family. Really, about what this all meant .

Because as much as she’d felt her father didn’t have anything to do with stealing that scrapbook, there were no leads here. No answers. Just a dead man. So it was more questions and no leads.

“Deputy Brink, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“I think any questions can wait,” Jack said, stepping in between the detective and Chloe herself.

It was funny how she could appreciate the gesture but not want it all the same. “No, I’d like to answer all the questions I can right now. I want my brother found. No matter what.”

Jack moved to the side, still standing beside her but no longer blocking the detective, and it was the combination of sticking up for her and being able to stand aside that gave her the ability to lean on him, when she usually didn’t want to lean on anyone.

“Do you have any reason to believe your brother could have killed your father?” the detective asked.

Chloe let that question settle over her. It was the natural one to ask, and it was one she’d been asking herself since Jack had broken the news to her. “My father was a cruel man. He was verbally, emotionally and physically abusive toward Ry. But in the way of abusers, Ry might have spoken badly about him, he might have even hated him, but he did what my father told him to do. Is it possible Ry had a moment of snapping? Of finally refusing and that resulted in some kind of altercation that left my father dead? Sure, it’s possible. Is it plausible? No. Because he’s still an immature boy seeking the wrong people’s approval.”

And he was out there. Somewhere. Probably in this forest preserve. And maybe her brother was capable of murder. Maybe that was in him, and she was blind to it. Maybe her father had pushed and pushed, threatened, started it. Maybe Ry had finished it and panicked. Possible. So possible.

And yet she just couldn’t visualize it. She couldn’t buy into it. Not with Hart and that scrapbook missing. There was some thread they were missing. Eventually, the detectives would find it, and normally she would step back and let them.

But she couldn’t do that with Ry missing.

“Deputy Brink, I’m going to ask you to go home,” the detective said. “Or to the Hudson Ranch. I’m going to ask you to leave this up to Bent County to investigate.”

“Are you going to expect me to listen?”

There was a pause. The detective looked at the scene around them. Flashlights and cops and a vast wilderness that could hide so many answers. Then her gaze returned to Chloe, and she shook her head. “No, I’m not.”

“Good.”

“Just try to stay out of my guys’ way. And keep me in the loop. I think the timing is too coincidental. I don’t know how it doesn’t connect, but if Hart and that scrapbook have nothing to do with your brother and father, that means we’ve got two cases to solve instead of one. I need your cooperation.”

Before, Chloe might have hesitated, being worried about Ry and trouble. But they were in the same position, really. The detective’s partner was missing, someone she probably cared about from years of working together. Someone she was responsible for due to the nature of their jobs. Chloe’s brother was missing, and she loved the little rat bastard.

Connected or not, they were problems that needed solving no matter what. So they’d have to work together. “You’ve got it.”

Someone hailed the detective, and she excused herself. Chloe turned to Jack and took a deep breath. She met his gaze—not cop-blank but worried. About her.

“I’m going to ask you to go home, Jack.”

“Chloe—”

“Hear me out. This is... This place has meaning to you. Bad meaning. You shouldn’t have to scour it and be reminded. You can send Baker or Clinton out to help me. I can ask Carlyle to come out—she’s got the skills to help me look for Ry. Or even Zeke would probably help. It doesn’t have to be you here .”

“It doesn’t have to be, no. But it’s going to be.”

She’d known that was going to be his answer. She’d known she wouldn’t be able to talk him into leaving. And still, she’d needed to hear him say it. To get that stern, irritable look from him at her even suggesting he left her to this.

“I love you, Jack.” And who the hell cared if there were cops all around them. She loved him, and no matter what horrible things were happening, they were going to make this one thing work.

She was determined.