42. Sloane
SLOANE
“Hi! I’m so glad you made it.” Ella pulled me in for a hug, then stood back, allowing me into the penthouse.
“Me too. I think Ryker feels better if I’m not alone right now.
” I gave her a genuine smile. There was something so real about Ella.
A quiet strength, but she seemed to also truly care about her friends and family.
You also didn’t have to guess where you stood in her life.
I liked that. We were the same in that way.
“Come meet the other ladies.” She ushered me into the kitchen where a stunning red-haired beauty along with a gorgeous blonde sat at the bar, sipping wine.
“You know Holland, and this is Cami. This is Sloane. Ryker’s …” She glanced at me.
“Uh. Friend.” We hadn’t defined it. We’d just … started it. I didn’t need the label as long as I belonged to him. He was all I needed.
“What? Ryker has a girlfriend?” The blonde grinned and waved. “I’m Cami. Nice to meet you, Ryker’s girlfriend.”
Holland laughed and rolled her eyes. “Sloane. I’m glad you’re here. I won’t lie, I want to know all the details of where you met Ryker, and how long you two have been seeing each other.”
Maybe I should have been irritated that I was suddenly on display, but the ladies seemed interested in who I was for their friend, not petty or jealous. Plus, if Ella vouched for them, I suspected they were good people. I was about to find out.
“Sit.” Ella pointed to the additional bar stool. “I have some chilled Pinot Gris. Would you like a glass?” She turned to the cabinet and removed a wineglass, anticipating my answer before I replied with a yes.
Over the next hour, I learned that Holland was Kip’s fiancée and a psychologist. Cami was a nurse and had dated one of the group’s friends for a while, but things hadn’t worked out.
I noticed the sadness in her tone when she talked about Ryan.
Once she mentioned he was a cop, I told them I used to be a detective. Holland and Cami froze on the spot.
“It’s okay,” Ella said, helping out. “Sebastian and I already knew about Sloane’s past. She has her own organization that works on cold cases.”
The girls’ shoulders relaxed, but I wondered what they were hiding. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have cared what my past occupation had been.
I figured now was as good a time as any. “I know about the Horizon Society. I think it’s amazing. Ryker told me about it already.” I purposefully left out that I also knew Ryker and some others killed the bad guys they rescued the women and children from.
“You don’t have a problem with it since you were a detective, and society breaks a lot of laws?” Cami asked before she took a sip of her wine.
“There’s too much that falls through the legal system if you ask me. Who am I to stand in the way?” I ran my thumb down the glass stem.
“I feel the same way,” Holland added. “I’m also a fan of the psychology behind it. When women know they’re safe, and never have to run again, it heals something inside of them.”
“I get the impression you have some experience in that area?”
Holland gave me a gentle smile. “More than I’d like to have.”
“Are you safe now?” I’d asked that question so many times over my lifetime. First in the foster homes with Nate, then in my line of work.
“Thank you for asking. I’m safe. Kip helped me out a lot when we first met.
” She tucked a stray lock of her red hair behind her ear.
“I think a lot of people don’t know how to react to that kind of information.
They struggle with something to say. That tells me a thing or two about you as well.
You’ve seen things, lived things you shouldn’t have had to. ”
“My …” I rolled the stem between my fingers before I continued. “My parents died when my brother and I were young. We went straight to foster homes and bounced around in the system until we aged out.”
“Shit.” Cami reached for my hand. “Girl, that’s a lot.”
Ella leaned against the kitchen counter, listening and watching the interaction between us.
I had a feeling she was seeing how I’d fit into the group.
I didn’t blame her. They had secrets, and I suspected I didn’t know the half of it.
Maybe someday we would be close enough to share.
I hadn’t had that with women outside of Jade.
I could belong to this group if Ryker and I worked out.
“How’s your brother doing now that you two are grown?” Holland asked.
My lips pursed and I forced the sudden tears back.
Instead, I took another drink of my wine.
“We’ve always been close. I took care of him when we were growing up.
He’s younger, so I became the one stable thing in his life.
We used to sketch escape routes on foster home ceilings with our flashlights under the blankets after midnight.
I tried to make it seem like our lives were better than they were simply because we had each other. ”
My stomach clenched. The smell of those years hit me like roadkill in August heat, something dead and festering that wouldn’t wash off. I could survive the smell.
I couldn’t survive the thought of losing Nate forever.
“I bet it helped,” Ella said. Her voice had a faraway sound to it. “Sometimes hope is all we have.”
Cami gave her a sad smile. There was definitely more to these women.
“I think it did. For the most part, Nate stayed out of trouble. Until he was older. He got arrested for shoplifting. I didn’t know it at the time, but he got in with a bad crowd. That was about four years ago. I haven’t seen him in three.”
Cami’s mouth dropped open, and a hush fell over the room. I think they were too afraid to ask why, so I offered the answer for them.
“He went missing. He’s my cold case I won’t let go.” I tipped my wineglass and drained it. At least there wasn’t much left, and I didn’t look like a total lush.
“Ryker is helping me. It’s how we got connected.” I glanced at Ella, and she nodded slightly that she would support whatever I chose to tell the ladies. “Turns out Nate and Ryker have the same rabbit tattoo.”
“Oh, shit.” Holland placed her hand over her lips as if she didn’t mean for her outburst.
“Yeah. So, we’ve been trying to see how they’re connected. What the tattoo means.”
Ella opened the fridge and removed the bottle of wine. “More?”
“No, thank you.” I huffed out a laugh.
Cami held her hand up to say no. “Same. I have a shift later tonight.”
Holland and Cami had both gone quiet in a way that didn’t match the casual wine night vibe.
I set my glass down. “Okay. That freeze you both just did?” I kept my voice calm. “That wasn’t about me being a detective. That was about Nate.”
Holland glanced at Ella, then back to me. Her expression softened, but the tension stayed in her shoulders. “It’s not that we don’t want to talk,” she said carefully. “It’s that certain things … aren’t that simple.”
“Try me,” I said. “Because I found something that doesn’t make sense.”
I leaned forward. “Ryker’s rabbit tattoo?”
Cami went still.
“Nate has the same one,” I said. “Same rabbit.”
Cami’s attention sharpened on mine. “You’re sure it’s not only … a rabbit.”
“I’m sure,” I said. “It’s the same.”
Cami set her glass down like she didn’t trust her hand. “What’s your brother’s full name?”
The question hit too specific. Too fast.
“Nate,” I said carefully. “Nathaniel.”
Cami’s breath caught. “Ryan told me if I ever heard that name, I had to remember it,” she said. “Especially if it showed up anywhere near Ryker.”
My pulse kicked. “Why?”
Ella didn’t move, but I saw the warning in her gaze. The kind that meant she’d been holding this line for a while.
Cami’s fingers curled around the stem of her glass until her knuckles blanched. “Because Ryan’s still a cop,” she said. “And because he’s been trying to keep certain things from turning into paperwork that gets people killed.”
My nails bit into my skin as I made a fist. “You’re telling me Ryan knows about Nate?”
“I’m telling you he’s been watching the edges of this,” Cami said. “For Ryker. For Sebastian. For all of them. He doesn’t say much, but he does things.”
Holland nodded, slow. “Ryan does a lot behind the scenes to protect the right people.”
A cold pressure spread through my chest. “Cami. What does he know?”
Cami glanced at her handbag that was hanging on the back of her barstool.
“Ryan didn’t text it,” she said. “He told me in person. He said no screenshots, no messages, no notes in my phone. ‘Anything digital can be pulled,’ he warned me. ‘If this ever comes back on me, you don’t want it living in your camera roll.’”
“Why you?” Ella asked, attempting to hide a smirk.
“He came to me because no one would think to look at me for it. And honestly …” she glanced at her glass. “I think he wanted a reason to show up.”
She reached into her wallet and slid out a tiny scrap of paper. It was creased, smudged, the kind of thing you’d toss without thinking twice.
At first glance, it looked like nothing. A quick scribble. A reminder.
ham
carrots
bunny food
milk
ice
“That’s it?” I asked, because my brain refused to accept that something this small could matter.
Cami almost smirked. “If anyone found it, it’s a grocery list.” She tucked her blonde hair behind her ear. “To Ryan and me, it’s a map.”
She tapped the first line. “Ham is Hamilton Archer.” Her finger dropped to the next two. “Carrots, bunny food—rabbit.” Then she traced the last two words. “Milk, ice. Cold. Don’t talk about it. Don’t put it anywhere permanent.”
Anxiety crawled under my skin. “What does it mean for Nate?”
Cami’s voice lowered. “Ryan said Nate’s file is restricted, and Hamilton is the control point. The only authorized contact. If anyone can ‘trade’ information on him, if anyone can make him appear or disappear on paper, it’s Hamilton.”
My hand went cold around the edge of the counter. “Hamilton,” I whispered.
Cami nodded. “Ryan doesn’t do coincidence. If he put that in my hands, it’s because he thinks Hamilton is the bridge.”
Holland leaned forward. “Cami, how long have you had that? I didn’t know you and Ryan were on speaking terms.”
“We don’t talk much. He needed help with this a couple of weeks ago,” Cami admitted, her cheeks flushing as she spoke. “Ryan told me it was active. Current. Not an old entry. Not a dead lead.”
My pulse started pounding in my ears. “Active,” I repeated, barely able to breathe around it. “As in … there’s hope that he’s alive?”
Cami didn’t say yes. She didn’t have to.
Ella’s expression tightened, and she set her glass down with a soft click. “Sloane …”
I couldn’t feel my fingers. I couldn’t feel my mouth. All I could see was one goddamn word on that scrap of paper and what it meant. The one word that suddenly connected everything.
Hamilton.
I forced air into my lungs and picked up my phone.
“Ryker’s with Hamilton right now,” I said, more to myself than anyone. The words came out flat, stunned. “He went there tonight.”
Cami’s voice shook. “Call him.”
I hit Ryker’s name. It rang, then went to voicemail.
My chest tightened so hard it hurt. I pulled the phone away and stared at it, blinking fast.
I looked up at Ella, Holland, Cami, my voice barely there. “Fuck. He’s not answering.”
I sat there with that grocery list burning in my head, realizing I’d been chasing a missing person …
When the truth had been waiting behind a door Ryker just walked through.