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Jack didn’t immediately drop the weapon. If any of the women really wanted to shoot, they could have done it before drawing anyone’s attention. They could have killed them all, then and there, because he and Chloe had been so intent on Ry.

A mistake. His own. But he couldn’t worry about how he’d failed just yet. He had to get them out of this first.

“Sarah?” Jen—Chloe’s mother—said, her gaze never leaving Jack’s. “If he doesn’t put the gun on the ground by the time I count to three, shoot her,” she said, clearly referring to Chloe. “To kill.”

Jack knew it wasn’t a bluff. Part experience, part the look in Jen’s eyes. He held his hands up in mock surrender, or maybe temporary surrender was a better term. Slowly, he crouched and gently laid the gun in front of him.

Just as slowly, he straightened.

“Courtney? Collect his gun.”

The third gunman—someone Jack felt like he vaguely recognized, probably from run-ins with the law—scurried over and picked up his gun. Jack could have stopped her, but he was afraid it would prompt Jen or Sarah to start shooting.

Maybe they didn’t want to take them all out, but he wouldn’t put it past Jen.

Jen’s attention turned from Jack to Chloe. “Didn’t I always tell you to listen to your brother?”

“Yes, because you shared all his worst impulses,” Chloe returned, her voice cool, calm and collected even as fury shone in her eyes.

But Jack was relieved she looked more mad than emotionally hurt, more determined than scared. They could get out of this if they kept their wits about them.

Or so he’d keep telling himself.

“Mom, make them let me go,” Ry groused from where he sat on the ground, still handcuffed. “This hurts.”

Jen looked at Ry sitting on the ground, eyes narrowed. “Do you think I’m brainless ?”

Ry didn’t meet his mother’s gaze. He looked down at the ground. “No, ma’am.”

“Get up, then. Your feet aren’t cuffed, and your legs aren’t broken. And stop whining.”

Ry struggled to get up on his own. Jack didn’t feel the need to help him, though Chloe was clearly fighting the impulse.

Jack considered the interaction between Ry and his mother. What Ry had said before Jen had shown up made him rethink...everything. Ry had clearly been working with these women, not with Mark Brink. But what did that mean for the murder? For the scrapbook that connected to the Brink family, not Jen Rogers? Why would she have hurt Hart, taken the scrapbook? Was it really all disparate parts that didn’t connect? Or was there something bigger he couldn’t fathom?

Jack wasn’t sure which would be worse.

“Why’d you try to kidnap a cop, Mom?” Chloe asked, sounding bored.

“I didn’t try . I succeeded,” Jen snapped.

Jack wasn’t sure it was smart to rile Jen up, considering she was clearly a violent criminal, but Chloe probably had a good sense of her own mother no matter how little they’d communicated recently. So he followed Chloe’s lead.

“Why didn’t you kill him, then?” he asked, keeping his voice and demeanor conversational. “Because we found him, and he’ll survive. Probably ID you pretty quick, and then what?”

Jen barked out a laugh. “They’d have to find me. What do I care if they ID me? I could have killed him. Don’t for a second think I couldn’t have—or that I won’t kill you.” She waved the firearm in the air like she was swatting at an irritating gnat. “We didn’t need a missing cop. That always makes your kind crawl out of your holes. Can’t have one of your own disappearing, can you? Honestly, we would have left him bleeding in the parking lot, but we needed a little bit more time to create confusion.”

She sighed heavily, surveying Jack and Chloe. “Cops. Always causing problems.” She shook her head, then looked at the two women she was with. “We’ll have to do this one special, girls.”

The two women with her nodded like they knew what that meant. Jack did not think special was going to be good.

“What about him?” Courtney asked, gesturing her gun at Ry.

“Good question. Not sure yet. Let’s get everyone home and go from there. Courtney, you take the lead. You three will follow. Sarah and I will handle the rear.”

“Where are we going?” Chloe asked.

“On a fun little hike, sweetie. You just used to love those, didn’t you? Anything to escape me, right?” Jen demanded, bitterness and something akin to hysteria tinging her tone.

Courtney started off down where Ry had initially run. There was no clear trail, but it was easy enough to follow the woman. Chloe walked stiffly at Jack’s side, and Ry stumbled behind them. Unnecessarily, in Jack’s estimation.

But Ry was in handcuffs. Chloe and he were free. They didn’t have their weapons anymore, but they had training. Jack still had his pack on. Play their cards right, they could take down all three women without anyone getting too hurt, set off a flare, and end this here and now.

But the guns made it riskier than he liked. He’d have to bide his time.

Jack considered it his good fortune that he’d been over every last yard of the forest preserve, especially this area around the campground. Wherever the women took them, he’d have a general idea of where they were and where they’d need to go to get out.

He thought about the flare in his pack. The women hadn’t searched it yet—clearly not quite the thorough criminals they fancied themselves. Not that he could currently use the flare, so maybe he shouldn’t pat himself on the back just yet.

“Have they found him yet?” Jen asked. When the question was met with silence, she reached forward and tugged Chloe’s ponytail. Hard.

Before he thought the move through, Jack reached forward and grabbed Jen’s wrist to stop her from hurting Chloe. Which earned him a gun shoved into his chest.

He dropped Jen’s wrist immediately, then held up his arms slowly. “Let’s everyone keep their hands to themselves.”

“Yeah, let’s .” She studied him through narrowed eyes, then Chloe.

“Have they found who?” Chloe asked, her voice devoid of any emotion. But when Jack slid a glance at her, her hands were curled into fists. Fury flickered in the depths of her dark eyes. And she was purposefully drawing her mother’s attention away from him .

And it worked. “Your father, of course.” Then Jen’s mouth spread into a wide smile.

Jack was stunned silent. He hadn’t known what to expect, but this was...

“You killed Dad?” Chloe said, sounding as shocked as he felt.

Jen laughed. “Of course I killed him. That’s what this is about. That’s what it’s always been about.”

There was something about the way she said always that settled in Jack all wrong. Always . Here in this campground. Where his parents had last been seen.

Always . Like all the way back. Like skeletal remains on a ranch Jen might not have owned but would have had access to at the time. Would have known where to bury bodies without them being found. “You killed my parents.”

Jen flashed a grin at him. Mean and with a frantic kind of glee in her eyes. “You’re finally catching on, Sheriff . Good for you.”

C HLOE THOUGHT SHE was going to be sick. Of all the things she was prepared for, all the worst-case scenarios she’d considered, her mother’s involvement in any of this had never once crossed her mind.

And it should have. Dad and Ry had always had a contentious relationship. Abusive, yes. Ry had been somewhat submissive to Dad on occasion. But they’d fought .

It was their mother who had true control over Ry. Always had. Chloe had just been under the impression Mom had taken off and was as no-contact with Ry as she was with Chloe.

Chloe tried to wrap her mind around it all. Years of...her mother being a cold-blooded killer from way back? Even if she couldn’t put murder past her volatile mother, her killing Jack’s parents just didn’t make any sense that she could come up with.

So she asked the simplest, most concise question she couldn’t swallow down. “Why?”

“You should learn a lesson, Chloe, from his bitch of a mother.” She jerked her chin at Jack. “Sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong is always going to come back to bite you in the ass.”

She heard Jack’s intake of breath, but she couldn’t look at him just yet. She would crumble if she did. And if she reached out for him, comforted him in any way, her mother would see. And pounce on it like it was a weakness.

Chloe wouldn’t be a weakness. She wouldn’t risk Jack. Not now. They had to save each other. And she couldn’t think about what this revelation meant to him if she was going to accomplish that.

“Move along now. Not much farther.” Jen gestured with her gun, so Chloe felt she had no choice but to swallow and follow Courtney once more. Courtney led them through thick trees, over a tiny trickle of a creek and to the craggy rock face of a mountain.

Jen and Sarah came around to the front of them, stopping at a small crevice in the rock. Jen pointed at it. “In you go.”

“Mom, you can’t make me go in there with them!” Ry said, sounding like a petulant teenager. When he was a grown man. Would he ever get over himself? After this, if they survived, Chloe was finally going to have to accept the answer was no.

Jen stepped forward, up to Ry. Chloe recognized the expression on her face. It looked sympathetic, but that was how you knew something awful was coming.

Before Chloe could step in front of Ry—because old impulses die hard—their mother whipped her gun back and slammed it across Ry’s face so he fell backward and onto his butt. Chloe tried to catch him, but she hadn’t been fast enough.

“Get in the cave. Now,” Jen said.

Chloe grabbed Ry by the elbow, and Jack grabbed his other. Pulling him toward the crevice, still cuffed. All while Ry moaned and sniveled.

Chloe hesitated at the opening of the crevice. All dark. All black. A small, little opening. Chloe wasn’t even sure Jack would be able to fit through if he tried. She tried to swallow an old panic fluttering around in her stomach. She didn’t like heights and she didn’t like enclosed spaces.

She had learned to keep her fear of heights hidden from her parents, but only because her fear of enclosed spaces had been something she hadn’t known she should hide until her parents had used it against her when she was a little girl. Mom especially. She’d loved to lock her in the little closet in their apartment in town.

Chloe had to focus very hard on not remembering, on not going back to those old feelings of being a helpless little girl. She was an adult. She was a cop. She could handle this. She could survive it—just like she had then.

“Go on, Chloe. Get in there,” Mom said in a little singsongy voice, clearly reading her panic and enjoying it.

Chloe took a deep, steadying breath. She wouldn’t give her mother the satisfaction of panic. Not when she had to somehow protect Ry and Jack from whatever this turned out to be.

Because if she’d confessed to essentially three murders, Jen had no plans to let them go. Maybe she wasn’t ready to kill them yet for some unknown reason, but that had to be the plan.

“I’ll go first,” Jack murmured as they approached the rock. “Push Ry in after me, and I’ll pull. Then you.” He looked at her, right in the eye. “Got it?”

He was trying to be her anchor, and she appreciated it. Because she needed one, and if anyone could be one, it was him. Jack Hudson.

Who is in this mess because of you . Whose parents are gone because of yours.

And who loved her anyway, she reminded herself. Because he did. She saw it in his eyes, in his move to protect her and Ry. So she would be strong for him as much as for herself.

Jack flattened himself against one side of the rock and shuffled in through the crevice, just barely making it. Chloe couldn’t see him, but she pictured his dark, steady gaze and helped Ry maneuver himself inside as well.

She glanced back at the trio of women with guns. She knew she shouldn’t do it, shouldn’t give her mother a chance to see her fear. But it was her mother she studied now.

“What are you doing, Mom?”

Mom’s mouth curved into a vicious smile. “Ruining as many lives as I can. Just like how your father and high-and-mighty Laura Hudson tried to ruin mine.”

It made no sense. It had never made any sense. Her mother’s unending well of anger, of blame, of needing to hurt anyone and everyone she could reach.

“Get inside, Chloe. Or I start shooting.”

Chloe nodded and then pushed herself through the crevice. Inside, it was so dark. Damp and cold and dark and—A hand clasped around her forearm and gently pulled her inside.

Jack.

She wanted to lean into him, but she was afraid to allow herself the weakness. Afraid of what her mother might see and use against her.

So she held herself upright and tried to allow her eyes to adjust to the dark. But not long after they’d all gotten inside, a light clicked on. A lantern, some battery-powered thing hanging from a hook dug into the rock face. The cave was much bigger than the crevice had let on and was full of things. Makeshift beds, a table, a whole little outdoor-kitchen setup. Like people lived here.

Mom had said home . Was this... Was this where she’d been living all these years? It didn’t make any sense, except that it explained why no one had been able to find her. A cave in a remote forest preserve.

But...why?

Chloe watched as Sarah settled herself in a chair at the entrance of the cave, gun pointed in their direction. Had the three of them been together all this time? She understood them conspiring to kill her father. And they’d clearly spent years planning it, as Mark had been in prison for six years now.

But Jack’s parents... So many years ago. It just made no sense.

“Make yourselves comfortable,” Sarah said with a mean smile.

Mom entered, standing next to Sarah, scowling. “For the love of God, shut him up,” she said, referring to Ry.

Chloe looked down at her brother. His mouth was bleeding, and he was making little whimpering noises. Chloe felt a mix of worry and sympathy and bone-deep anger that he’d been part of this at all. “Come on, Ry, buck up,” she told him. Just like she had when they were kids and she had to be the strong one. The one to protect them both.

He glared up at her, anger in his gaze. Anger when he was half the reason they were here. For so many years, she’d given him a pass. Because their childhood had been rough. She’d blamed herself for not being strong enough, smart enough, good enough to save him from all the trouble he caused.

But she’d had no one, and she’d turned out okay. Better than okay. She’d cobbled together a damn good life for herself, and Ry had complained and blamed and worn his victimhood like a second skin.

Chloe just wished she’d realized all this sooner.

“I thought you didn’t want the hassle of cops trying to find other cops,” Jack said, sounding so calm and in control. He couldn’t be, though. Not knowing the woman standing in front of him had killed his parents. He was holding on to their training. He was dealing with the crisis at hand.

Chloe felt like everything she’d ever learned about being a cop, about de-escalating a situation, about self-preservation, had deserted her. Her entire world twisted inside out.

Except Jack.

Jen smirked at him. “Sure, it’s a hassle when you don’t have time to do it right. When there’s too many witnesses. Now I have all the time in the world to make sure you all end up just like your parents, Sheriff. Because that’s what happens to people who butt their noses in where they don’t belong. They disappear without a trace.”