Page 49 of When It Reins (Three Rivers Trevors Ranch #5)

mitch

I know before I even see the open doorway to her apartment that something isn’t right.

Something went horribly, horribly wrong when she left her apartment, and I don’t know if that means Aaron got to her, or if she really is trying to get away from the stuff that is hounding us endlessly.

“Mitch!” Stetson’s voice pulls me out of the misery I am feeling. Staring at her empty apartment and knowing that no matter what I look at, it isn’t going to tell me she is okay, or anywhere near okay.

“Her car is in the lot,” Stetson says, knowing that saying that is putting a nail in a coffin I never wanted sealed.

“Fuck!” I throw my fist into the wall, feeling a moment of satisfactory release when the drywall breaks and ignoring the pain.

“Calm down, man. We’ll find her,” Jax says, coming into the apartment.

“I have nothing to go on!” I break, hearing the anger and despair in my own voice. I see my brothers eyeing me sadly and want to take it all away, but I can’t.

“Well, let’s just start driving. We’ll have Thea check the restaurant. We’ll call the ranch and see if she showed up there, and send someone up to your property,” Stetson offers, shrugging his shoulders. “We’ll check everywhere.”

Weariness threatens to drag me under, but I push through, knowing that if I just give up, something worse than death could be headed straight for Juniper. “If her car is here, then she’s with him, Stets. She’s not just walking to work or the ranch or wherever.”

“I know. It’s just…” Stetson sighs, pulling his ball cap off and running his hands through his hair roughly. “I just want to help you find her, man.”

“I know.” I nod my head, biting my lip hard. Where the fuck would he take her?

He is wanted in this town. The sheriff has been notified that Aaron is the one who blew up my cabin, that he is the one who tried to take Juniper out, and that we are all looking for him. Wondering when he is going to show up.

So…he would leave. He would take the most direct route out of town and make a break for it.

“We need to go,” I say, marching out of the apartment and down the stairs. CT hangs up his phone when he sees us.

“Logan is driving this way. He was heading down the mountain to take Lue to something and turned around.”

I nod as we hop in the truck, and my leg moves restlessly. I think about every place he could take her. There are too many options if he wants to hide. If he were smart, he would have a place ready for them, some place secluded that no one knows about.

But judging by the way things have been going with him, how careless he’s been with his actions, I am guessing he didn’t think that far ahead.

As a matter of fact, I am certain his plan hadn’t involved taking Juniper at all.

It was his Hail Mary. His only card he had left to play to feel any kind of redemption for losing what he had. I am ready to show him what losing really feels like.

“Logan’s calling,” CT says, pressing the button on the screen of his truck to answer. “Hey. We’re just past?—”

“CT.” The graveness of Logan’s voice has my heart stopping cold. The pit of my stomach falls, and I already know what he’s going to say.

“You found her.”