Page 5 of Outlaw Ridge: Shaw (Hard Justice: Outlaw Ridge #5)

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Shaw wished he had the power to reach through the phone and drag out the sonofabitch who’d just sent that text. Even more, he wished he could make this all go away.

He looked at Ava, knowing what he would see on her face. The sickening dread. The fear. The first wave of panic.

Yeah, it was all there, and there was nothing he could do to make this better for her. Well, nothing short of catching the asshole playing this game, and it was going to be damn hard to do much “catching” when the killer was keeping Ava and him on their toes.

Shaw turned at the sound of footsteps and saw Owen. His boss stopped for a moment and did a sweeping glance, taking in their expressions and the grips they still had on their phones.

“Did you get another riddle?” Owen asked, and there was plenty of dread in his voice, too.

“Not yet,” Shaw let him know. “Just the Let’s Play a Game .” But he had no doubts, none, that the riddle would soon be coming.

The sick bastard doing this probably liked the idea of giving them a jolt. Of rattling them, knowing they were suffering. Then, the second slam would come with the actual riddle, and the race would be on to save someone’s life.

Again.

There was a special place in hell for the person doing this, and Shaw sincerely hoped he would be the one to send this bastard there.

“All right,” Owen said as if trying to steady himself. He gathered his breath. “Lexa told me that Dell’s sister was here. Get anything from her?”

“Nothing concrete, but she’s got no alibi and a Texas-size motive,” Shaw explained.

“She also pointed the finger at Lorelei, who might or might not want revenge for her sister’s death.

Instead of trying to get that revenge on Dell, she could be aiming her anger at Ava, me, and anyone else involved in the investigation. ”

Owen sighed. “I can get started on checking to see if Lorelei could be the killer.” He shifted his attention to Ava. “Look, this is a shitty deal for both of you, but I can send someone else out to play this game.”

She was shaking her head before Owen finished.

“A substitute could be a death sentence for the person who’s been taken.

With Dell, it was all about following the rules, and I think it’s the same now.

” Ava paused. “In fact, I think we might have to accept that we could be looking for the same killer, that we put the wrong man behind bars.”

Hell in a handbasket. Shaw did not want to even consider that. There’d been that DNA evidence and Dell had actually been found at the crime scene when Ava had had to be rescued. And there was something else.

“If Dell wasn’t the Riddle Killer, then why did the murders stop once he was captured?” Shaw threw out there. “It’s been seven years. That’s a long time for a serial killer to go dormant unless he doesn’t have the opportunity to kill.”

Ava nodded but didn’t look one hundred percent convinced that they’d arrested the right man. Shaw was no longer certain either. And that’s why they had to go over everything again. Just as Dell’s legal team was doing with this new appeal they were launching.

The twin sounds of new texts ripped through the silence, and Ava’s gaze, filled with fresh dread, met his for a split-second before she looked at her phone screen. Shaw looked, too, and wasn’t surprised at what he saw.

“A new riddle for Ava and Shaw only. The more you take from me, the bigger I get ,” he read aloud . “What am I? You know the drill. Come alone or somebody will pay the price.”

Shaw tried to ignore his own slam of emotions while he typed that riddle into a search engine and got the answer right away. “A hole.”

“A hole,” Owen repeated, taking out his phone, too. No doubt to try to figure out where the killer had stashed his next victim. “I don’t want to think how many holes are in the state.”

Ava started some research on her phone as well. “The original riddles all took place within a mile radius in San Antonio,” she said. “Since Outlaw Ridge appears to be the killer’s new stomping grounds, focus on local stuff.”

She was probably right, but instead of checking the internet, Shaw settled on things that immediately came to mind while he tried to tamp down that growing desperate urge to rush out and find whoever was in danger.

“There’s a section of the creek called Sinner’s Swimming Hole,” Shaw let them know.

Ava and Owen looked up at him. They didn’t exactly have raised eyebrows, but it was close to that reaction. “I think it got that name because a whole lot of skinny dipping and other things went on there.”

Owen nodded. “I’ll get a drone out there to check it out. Is it near the bridge?”

“No. About a quarter of a mile east of it. The only way to reach it is a trail.”

While Owen worked on that, Ava obviously came up with a possibility. “The miniature golf course has an area called the Hole in One.”

That was a possibility, but Shaw didn’t want to go rushing there just yet. Added to that, he didn’t get a buzz about it. A buzz wasn’t exactly concrete evidence, but he was hoping it would help them narrow down things.

“I’ll get a drone out there, too,” Owen said after finishing a text. “What else could it be?”

“Maybe something out at the quarry,” Shaw suggested. After all, a quarry was just a hole. Ditto for any swimming pool or the many dried up mineral springs that were around the area.

That urgency inside him just kept snowballing, and the adrenaline was driving it. Everything inside him was shouting for him to move. To save a life. To catch the sonofabitch doing this and put an end to the danger. But they couldn’t go off half-cocked either.

“Down the Rabbit Hole,” Ava said, still doing her search. “That’s the outdoor reading area for the library.” She shook her head, obviously dismissing it. “Too visible. It’s right by a busy part of the park.”

“Hank’s Post Hole Drilling Services,” Owen piped in.

Shaw didn’t get a buzz, but the business was run from a trailer that was out in the middle of nowhere. “Definitely a possibility,” he admitted.

“I don’t have another drone on standby,” Owen muttered, “but I’ll get Ruby to send one out.”

Good plan. Ruby Maverick was Owen’s significant other and also the owner of the elite security agency, Maverick Ops. She had just as many resources as Strike Force did.

“Hole in the Wall bar,” Ava said while Owen was texting Ruby. “It’s on the edge of town and closed down a couple of years ago.”

“Bingo,” Shaw couldn’t say fast enough. That buzz was a full roar now.

Ava must have had it, too, because she snapped toward Owen. “Do a repeat of the last one with another deputy and you following behind us?”

“Yeah,” Owen agreed. “And like last time, vest up.”

They did, stopping by the supply closet and putting on the Kevlar and the earbuds. But there were some new items that’d been added. An axe and a shovel.

“I had them brought over after we got back from the last riddle,” Owen explained. “Thought they might come in handy.”

They could indeed so Shaw grabbed them before hurrying out to a cruiser. He tossed them on the backseat and sped away with Owen right behind them. Not alone either but with Lexa.

Maybe, just maybe, they’d get to this one in time to stop another murder.

Shaw hit the lights and sirens to get people out of his way as he sped down Main Street. Thankfully, this wasn’t the city with a tangle of traffic to slow him down. The few vehicles he did encounter immediately pulled to the side so he could get by.

His phone dinged with a text, and Owen’s message appeared on the screen. “I’ve diverted the drone from the post hole drilling company to the Hole in the Wall. Should have images for you right around the time you arrive.”

Good. Because the drone images had saved them some precious time during the last riddle. It hadn’t been enough to keep Donovan alive, but with every second counting, the drone could be the difference between life and death.

“The Hole in the Wall has been closed for four years now after the owner was arrested for serving minors and allowing the sale of drugs on the property,” Ava said, obviously reading from some info she’d accessed on her phone. “Have you ever been there?”

“Yeah,” Shaw admitted. “Not for drugs or underaged drinking but because a girl I once dated wanted to see the place.” He mentally pulled up those images now of what had been a dump way back then.

“The place has one main room with a bar that stretched across the entire back wall. The toilets are in outdoor stalls.”

“Can you recall if there’s an office or some other room?” she asked.

He had to shake his head. “A fight broke out about five minutes after we got there so we left.” Shaw had been within weeks of leaving for his Air Force training, and he hadn’t wanted to end up getting arrested in a bar brawl.

“All right,” Ava said under her breath. “If it’s one big room, the victim could be underneath the floor or encased in the bar if it’s still there. Or the wall or toilet.”

True, but the sonofabitch could have just buried him or her outside. If so, maybe the drone would detect a fresh dig site.

Shaw passed the last of the businesses and shops, and he only had to drive about another quarter of a mile before the bar came into view.

It was just off the road, surrounded by an unkept parking lot.

The unkept description applied to the building itself, too, with its paint-scabbed exterior, boarded-up windows, and rust streaks snaking down the warped tin roof.

Nothing about the place looked inviting or safe, but Shaw knew that Ava and he would be going in there. Inside to face whatever hell this killer had arranged for the victim and them.