Outlaw Ridge: Ryker (Hard Justice: Outlaw Ridge #9)

Chapter One

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Deputy Emma Bonetti was looking for a dead body.

One she hoped she didn’t find.

But if it was here, then it wasn’t exactly a serene final resting place, that was for sure. More like the kind of place nightmares came to rot.

The old Calhoun Ranch looked even worse than she remembered. Neglect and drought had scorched the land to brittle bone, leaving the fence in a twisted lean and the barn slouched as if it was too tired to stand.

The only thing that was thriving here was the Texas thistle and other assorted weeds. They poked up through the gravel drive and pretty much everywhere else, including near the edge of the field where the wind flapped at a blue tarp. It was half-buried in dirt and just visible from the road.

That tarp was what the utility worker had seen, and it was what had prompted the call. It had raised serious concerns too.

Because the utility worker had said he thought there was a dead body beneath that tarp.

Emma wasn’t ruling it out, but the odds were that it was just a dead animal or some debris.

The Calhoun Ranch had been vacant for going on four years, tied up in an ugly inheritance dispute that left it in legal limbo and practical ruin.

No one lived here. No one should have visited either.

The place had No Trespassing signs tacked to every fence post still standing.

A call like this usually ended with a dead deer tangled in plastic or some overactive imagination. Still, something about the setup didn’t sit right.

Beside her, Deputy Ryker Caldwell killed the engine of the cruiser. The hum died, but the tension in her shoulders remained.

“Didn’t figure our first call-out would bring us here,” he said, scanning the open stretch of land with a slow, measured sweep.

“Place isn’t exactly on anyone’s beaten path.

” He paused, his eyes narrowing toward the empty field.

“Well, maybe for a utility worker. But the power lines aren’t down, so what the hell was he doing all the way out here? ”

She glanced at him, then back at the barn. “It wasn’t even a standard call. The worker phoned me directly.”

Ryker’s brow lifted. “Not dispatch?”

“Nope,” she verified. “Said he recognized my name and figured I’d want to check it out myself.”

That hadn’t surprised her. Since transferring from Austin PD a month ago, Emma had learned that some locals still treated her like a direct line to the badge, especially those who’d known her late uncle, the longtime sheriff of Outlaw Ridge.

It wasn’t the first call that had come in personal and probably wouldn’t be the last.

Ryker didn’t question it either, but the look he gave her said he was thinking through what that meant. For the case. For her. And for them as partners.

He hadn’t been her first choice to be paired with at Outlaw Ridge PD, but she hadn’t objected out loud.

She couldn’t fault his skillset. Former military.

Former Strike Force. He moved like a man who had survived more than one close call and remembered every one of them.

He had the instincts of someone born to be a cop, sharp, fast, and quiet.

But none of that made this partnership easy.

Because Ryker hadn’t just been a fellow soldier.

He’d been her ex’s friend. Ethan’s friend.

From everything she’d heard, Ethan and Ryker had served together. Bled together. He had been in her orbit during the Strike Force days, always just close enough to matter but never quite part of the chaos between her and Ethan.

Still, Ryker knew enough.

He knew Ethan as a brother-in-arms. He knew Emma as the fiancée who’d been left behind… or worse, depending on which version of the story people chose to believe.

That shared history was unspoken but heavy, and it hung between them like smoke. Now they were partners, working the same small town where half the locals thought she got away with murder.

Emma adjusted her vest and stepped out into the cold. February in Outlaw Ridge meant gray skies and air that bit through her coat. The forecast had been flirting with sleet all day, and she could feel the threat of it in the wind, sharp and damp, creeping beneath her collar.

Ryker shut his door and fell into step beside her. His breath puffed out in faint clouds as they walked toward the tarp. Not exactly a quiet walk either. Their boots crunched over gravel and frost-hardened dirt.

He slowed near the tire ruts etched into the road’s edge and crouched, pulling out his phone. “Fresh,” he said, angling for a photo. “Probably the utility worker, but… maybe not.”

Emma scanned the field again, instinct buzzing beneath her skin. “You get any gut feeling about this?”

Ryker stood and slid his phone back into his coat pocket. “That we’re out here chasing a tarp someone probably tossed out with a busted scarecrow.” He paused. “But I’ve also got this itch in the back of my neck I don’t like.”

She nodded once. “So, maybe a body.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe someone wanted us to think that.”

Emma didn’t answer. The tarp was only twenty yards away now, flapping with every gust.

They moved slowly, eyes scanning, staying off the path where the dirt was still soft enough to hold impressions. And Emma could see Ryker’s focus kick in. His gaze kept firing around them, his every movement deliberate.

He veered slightly left, knelt by the edge of the tall grass, and brushed aside a few brittle stalks.

“Tracks,” he said, his voice low. “Footprints, maybe. But look at this. Drag marks.”

Emma stepped closer, careful not to disturb the ground. The flattened path in the weeds looked fresh. Uneven. Like something or someone had been pulled.

Ryker snapped a couple of photos with his phone. “Doesn’t look staged. I haven’t heard about this place being used for pranks or high school dares. You?”

She shook her head. “No reason to come out here. Nothing to steal. And the house and barn would probably collapse if you breathed too hard near them.”

She scanned the horizon again. Nothing moved. The nearest neighbor was miles off, so whoever had been here didn’t want an audience.

“This spot’s just under five miles outside town,” she added. “Quarter mile more and the county would’ve been the ones responding.”

That suddenly didn’t feel like a coincidence.

Emma’s gut tightened, sharp and instinctive. Whoever left the tarp maybe knew the boundary lines. Knew just how far to go without pushing it into another jurisdiction. Which meant this wasn’t random.

She made another slow, sweeping glance around the field, eyes tracking the tree line, the barn, the overgrown fence posts. The wind stirred the tarp again, louder this time, as if it was daring them to come closer.

They kept moving, boots crunching frost, until Ryker stopped again. He crouched near another patch of flattened weeds and took a few more photos, angling his phone to catch the light.

“Something heavy came through here,” he murmured. “Not just a person walking.”

Emma scanned the field, her worry settling even deeper. They were almost to the tarp when Ryker stiffened and reached toward the ground near a half-buried clump of grass.

“Hold up,” he said.

She stepped closer and saw it. Something poking out of the dirt, edges curled and streaked with grime. Ryker used the corner of his glove to brush away the loose soil. It was paper. Old and water-stained.

A flyer.

He flipped it over.

And Emma’s stomach dropped to her knees.

She knew that flyer. She knew the exact photo on it. Ethan, smiling. His eyes as blue as the shirt he was wearing. The sheriff’s office had posted those flyers all over town four years ago.

Ryker looked up at her, the flyer still in his gloved hand, his expression darkening. There was a storm of emotion flickering in his face. Confusion, recognition, and something deeper that she couldn’t name.

He was nothing like Ethan, not in the ways that mattered. Ryker had black hair, darker eyes, olive skin that hinted at long days under the sun. Where Ethan had been all charm and edge, Ryker was quiet strength and calm calculation.

But she saw it now. The brother-in-arms bond. The connection he and Ethan had once shared, forged in uniform and under pressure. That connection flickered behind Ryker’s eyes now, tangled up with everything else.

“I didn’t kill him,” she said.

The words came out flat, but her voice shook just enough to make Ryker’s head snap up.

He straightened and held her gaze. “I never thought you did.”

She blinked, startled by the certainty in his voice. “Well then,” she muttered, looking away. “You’re in the minority in Outlaw Ridge.”

Ryker didn’t speak. He waited.

She didn’t mean to keep talking, but the silence cracked something open.

“We argued,” she admitted. “In public. Loud. Ugly. Ethan said things he couldn’t take back. So did I.” Her jaw clenched. “That was two days before he disappeared. No note. No trace. Just gone.”

She crossed her arms and stared hard at the tarp in the distance. “And then people started whispering, saying that I snapped. That I buried him out in the middle of nowhere. That I was dangerous.”

Ryker stayed silent. It didn’t feel like judgment. It felt like he was processing.

He looked down at the flyer, then back at her. “We’re obviously going to need to have an air-clearing at some point,” he insisted. His voice was low and steady. “About Ethan. About all of it.”

Emma kept her arms crossed, her heart hammering harder than she liked. She gave a small nod but didn’t trust herself to say anything.

Ryker slid the flyer into his coat pocket and tipped his head toward the tarp. “But for now, we deal with that.”

Yes, they would. And she actually welcomed the change in subject. A possible dead body was better than thinking about the man so many people believed she had murdered.

Emma forced her feet to move. Ryker fell into step beside her, both of them drawing their weapons as they closed the final distance.

She kept her eyes on the tarp as they approached. She could see something now. Boots, scuffed and dirt-stained, sticking out from beneath the edge of the plastic.

Her stomach clenched.

Ryker stopped beside her. He crouched low, and he glanced up at her, no doubt to make sure she was ready. She was. Together, they gripped the corner of the tarp and lifted.

For one long second, Emma braced for the worst. Then she blew out a sharp breath. “It’s not a body.”

Ryker let out a breath too. “A mannequin.”

It was life-sized. Facedown in the dirt, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt. Heavy enough to pass for human at a glance, especially with the way it had been half-buried and arranged. The boots were real. The weight and staging were intentional.

Emma crouched beside it, frowning. “Someone wanted us to think this was a corpse.”

Ryker nodded. “Mission accomplished.”

With his gloved hand, he reached out and turned the figure slightly. That’s when she saw it. A corner of worn leather sticking out of the back pocket.

Ryker spotted it too. “Wallet.”

He pulled it free, and she saw it. Not just any wallet. She knew the stitching. The frayed edge. The small burn mark near the clasp.

Her pulse jackknifed. “This belonged to Ethan,” she said. “He carried it every day.”

Ryker flipped it open. And she got confirmation of what she already knew. Inside was Ethan Ross’s driver’s license. The photo was old, a few years worn, but there was no mistaking his face. The name. The address they had shared at their Austin apartment.

“What the hell is going on?” she whispered.

Emma slipped on a glove and took the wallet from him. She couldn’t stop staring at the license. It felt like holding a ghost in her hand.

Ryker held out an evidence bag. “Let me take that.”

With her fingers stiff and cold, she passed him the wallet. He sealed the bag and tucked it into his coat pocket, then turned back to the mannequin.

“Let’s see what else we have,” he muttered. He shifted his grip and rolled the mannequin fully onto its back.

Emma could have sworn her heart skipped a beat or two.

The face was a mask. A disturbingly accurate replica of Ethan’s face stretched across the mannequin’s head. Not the clean-cut, smiling image used on the flyers. This one had closed eyes, ashen skin, and a dark smear of blood at the temple, as if he had been shot or struck. The detail was chilling.

Too precise.

Too intentional.

Emma stumbled back a step when she saw the rest. There was something scrawled across the bottom edge of the mask, just under the chin. Block letters, dark brown ink, jagged and angry.

Emma Bonetti is a killer. And she has to pay for what she’s done.

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