Chapter 16
sixteen
. . .
FINN
“That’s it, girl,” I praised Zigzag as she and her owner looped around the paddock. If all went well, Zigzag would be leaving us today to head to her new home. I wanted to give her one final test to ensure she wouldn’t buck her owner.
So far, she was performing beautifully, a totally different horse than the one that had arrived here a few months ago.
Atop her back, the woman grinned and let out a joyous whoop.
Damn, I loved my job.
My phone vibrated against my ass, and I pulled it out to see Reagan’s name on the screen.
“Reagan?” I asked in surprise when I answered. “Everything okay?”
Her voice shook as she said, “I found a note.”
That was it.
I found a note.
No further explanation was required to raise my hackles, adrenaline spiking my blood in preparation of taking on a yet unknown foe.
“What kind of note? Where?”
“On my car.”
She was likely in shock and unable to offer more than the most bare bones of sentences.
“Tell me where you are. I’m coming.”
“I-in front of the barber shop.”
“I’ll be right there. Don’t move.”
She mumbled incoherently before the line went dead.
Shouting at one of my ranch hands to take over with Zigzag, I raced for my truck, grateful I’d driven to the barn today, and peeled out.
I drove well over the speed limit, racing like hell to get to her.
She’d sounded so…scared. I’d do anything to take that fear away, to make it so she never had anything to be afraid of again.
Reaching town in record time, I miraculously found a parking spot only two spaces away from her monstrous SUV. Reagan was in the front seat, unmoving, eyes staring off into the distance, door hanging open.
I approached cautiously and murmured her name so I didn’t spook her.
Her attention whipped to me, and then she was climbing out and throwing herself into my arms.
“Baby,” I murmured as I held her tightly, the endearment slipping free without my permission.
Reagan either hadn’t heard it or didn’t care to acknowledge it, because she simply clung to me, her hands fisting in the front of my shirt, pressing as close as she could possibly get. I bracketed one arm around her waist, the other cupping the back of her skull, resting my chin atop her head.
Fuck, it felt good to hold her again.
Like two crazy people, we stood there for a long while, until she finally pulled back.
“Thank you for coming,” she whispered.
“I’ll always come for you.”
She gave me a soft smile, then shifted—though, I noted with no small amount of satisfaction, she didn’t let go of me—and pointed to a piece of printer paper resting on the center console of her vehicle.
“What happened?”
“Found that under my wiper. Freaked me the fuck out.”
“What’s it say?”
“‘Welcome to Dusk Valley, Reagan Lindsey. You’ll be seeing your sister very soon.’”
As she recited the words, my distress immediately morphed into a rage that had me wanting to raze this entire fucking town to the ground.
“I’ll kill him.”
Reagan choked on a laugh. “I have no doubt you could, soldier. With your bare hands too. But we don’t even know if it is a him, and that’s not your job.”
“What is my job, then?”
“To protect.”
Our gazes collided as a third word hung unspoken in the air between us.
To protect me.
Something shifted in that moment. For all her talk of not being able to do this with me, not while her sister was still missing, I’d still been the first person she called when she felt threatened. The sheriff’s department was right around the corner, and she’d still called me.
“‘Protect’ is my middle name,” I grinned, trying to diffuse some of the tension in her body.
She giggled. “Is it really?”
“Nah, it’s Conrad.” I brushed a lock of honey hair behind her ear, leaning closer so my lips brushed against the shell. “But I will stop at nothing to protect you and keep you safe, belle. Don’t forget that.”
Reagan sucked in air, a quick, breathy gasp, and I chuckled as I pulled back.
“Noted,” she clipped. “Now what the fuck do we do about that?”
“We call my brother.”
She groaned, and I remembered they were supposed to have a meeting this morning. I wondered what had happened during it to make her apprehensive to call him now.
“I’m working,” my brother said when he picked up. “What do you want?”
“Reagan found a creepy note on her car. Seems like something you might want to check out.”
Lane swore creatively, then mumbled something about being grateful he’d at least been informed of the note before several months had passed this time.
“Where are you?” he asked me.
“In front of the barbershop.”
“We’ll be right over.”
Less than five minutes later, my brother rounded the corner a block away, a small squad of deputies following in his footsteps like eager little ducks trailing after their mother. I would’ve laughed at the sight if the situation didn’t seem so dire.
Lane approached us, his hands already encased in nitrile gloves.
“Where is it?” Reagan pointed into the car, and Lane asked, “Anyone but you touch it?”
“You mean other than the sick fucker who left it there?” I said with a snort.
“No,” Reagan told Lane.
Pinching the corner between two fingers, Lane pulled it out of the vehicle and held it in front of his face. His deputies gathered at his back, reading over his shoulders.
“Looks like standard printer paper,” he mused. “Nothing remarkable about it at all.”
“Other than the fact that it’s a fucking taunt,” I ground out.
Reagan elbowed me, and I snapped my mouth shut.
“We’ll get it up to Boise,” he told Reagan, turning to one of the deputies who held out an evidence bag.
Lane tucked the note inside, open, smoothing the crease down the center once he sealed it in.
He handed it back to the deputy who, with a dismissive nod from Lane, turned and went back to the department.
“I’ve got an FBI friend at the field office who I know will want to help,” Lane continued. “I’m also sending her your sister’s journals. She’s got some background in profiling, so I’ll let her take a look and see if anything pops.”
“Thank you.”
“We’re going to need to take the wiper too,” Lane said, nodding at one of the other deputies, who stepped forward with a larger bag, popped the wiper off, and sealed it away. “There’s a hardware store up there on the corner—”
I cut him off. “I can handle it.”
“You don’t have to—” Reagan started, but Lane interjected.
“Fine.” To his remaining guys, he said, “You guys can go. I’ll be back in a bit.”
They dutifully trotted away, and I wondered why the fuck so many of them had come out in the first place.
Likely to get a peek at the freak show, which annoyed the shit out of me.
“We have to find this fucker,” I gritted out to my brother.
“You think I don’t know that?” he retorted, swiping a hand down his face—which he only did when he was stressed to the max and needed to throw his fist into something. “This is my fucking jurisdiction, Finn. My town. And now I’ve got another fucking crazy on my hands.”
My brother only let his carefully constructed, do-gooder sheriff’s demeanor slip when he was around people he trusted.
I wasn’t surprised it fell around me, but I was that he let it go so easily in front of Reagan.
His attention locked on her, and he said, “I’m sorry for earlier. I was out of line.”
“It’s fine. It wasn’t anything I haven’t asked myself a million times in the last month.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked Reagan, then turned to Lane. “What did you say to her?”
“If she wants to tell you, she can,” my brother said, stepping away, taking his phone out of his pocket. “Fuck!” His abrupt and rather loud shout drew the attention of several people nearby, including glares from a number of families with small children. “I can’t believe this is happening again.”
“Aspen,” Reagan said, surprising both me and Lane.
“You know about that?” Lane asked.
Reagan shrugged, feigning nonchalance, but her cheeks pinkened a bit in embarrassment. “I’ve read her book,” she admitted. “And I had lunch with her today.”
“What?” I blurted. “How did that happen?”
“After your brother so kindly accused me of being the reason my sister is missing,” she said, shooting a glare toward Lane that could’ve killed if such a thing were possible, “I sort of had a panic attack when I came out of the station. She talked me down and invited me to lunch.”
My gaze narrowed on her as the wheels in my head spun.
Aspen was a private investigator.
Reagan had a missing sister.
“What’d you talk about?”
“Girl stuff,” she said quickly, an obvious lie I didn’t buy for one second. “Did you know her sister died when she was a teenager?”
“I did,” I said slowly. “She told you about that?”
Aspen was tough as nails, a bad ass with the backbone of steel her chosen profession demanded, hardened further by all the shit she’d endured in her life.
She wasn’t exactly an open book, preferring to handle all of her problems on her own—or with Crew’s help, though that had taken a long time.
We’d all come to accept that about her, knowing she’d share with us when she was ready.
Telling a virtual stranger about Lola was out of character.
“We bonded over our losses.”
“Your sister isn’t dead,” I reminded her, tone vehement. Placing a palm over my chest, I said, “You’d feel it, right?”
She mirrored my stance. “I would,” she agreed. “I know she’s still out there somewhere.”
And I guaranteed she’d conscripted the help of Aspen McKay, top-tier private investigator, to find her.
Lane butted into the conversation by clearing his throat, though his attention remained on his notebook.
“I need to get back to the station and set up a canvass of the area,” he said as he continued to scribble. “And I need to call Trey to check the cameras. I’ll catch you guys later.”
Yet again, we relied on fucking technology, and for Reagan and Lainey’s sake, I was getting goddamn tired of the waiting game.
A month without anything resembling a lead would drive even the strongest person insane.
This guy was dust in the wind, it seemed, and Reagan’s shoulders were stiff with tension.
The lines around her eyes appeared a little deeper, coupled with purple bruising beneath them.
Clearly, she hadn’t been getting enough sleep, and all the unknowns surrounding her sister’s disappearance were starting to take their toll physically.
“What happened earlier with Lane?” I prompted.
“He…questioned why I didn’t call in a missing person’s report on Lainey sooner.”
God, my brother could be such a prick sometimes.
I gently cupped her face, and she leaned into my touch, her eyes fluttering closed.
“This isn’t your fault, Reagan. Do not think for one second that it is. The blame for all of this rests solely on the shoulders of the creep who took your sister.” I swiped a thumb along her cheek, her skin so smooth beneath my calloused fingertip. “Look at me, belle. Tell me you understand.”
Her eyes popped open, and I immediately lost myself in the hypnotizing green depths, the shade the same as the soft, pale underside of a maple leaf.
“I understand.”
“Good,” I murmured, then quickly pressed a kiss to her forehead before she could stop me. Gauging her reaction, I was deeply pleased to find her lips twitch at the corners, an almost smile appearing on them. “Now let’s go get you a new wiper and head home. Sound good?”
She nodded, following me toward the hardware store. Less than ten minutes later, we were on the road, headed back to the ranch.
I followed her all the way to the turn off toward my house.
She rolled her window down and waved at me as she headed into the trees.
I wasn’t entirely comfortable letting her go back there alone, without me nearby to keep an eye on her, but I wasn’t going to press the issue.
I didn’t want to suffocate her, and I had to get back to work.
Besides, I was utterly gone for that girl, and the proximity only made things worse.