Chapter Two
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Ryker stood beside Emma in Sheriff Hallie McQueen’s office, watching as she flipped through the photos on his phone. She didn’t say much as she scrolled. Just the occasional exhale, the hard set of her jaw sharpening with each new image.
The trampled weeds. The drag marks. The wallet. The mask.
Hallie stopped on the close-up of the message scrawled across Ethan Ross’s eerily lifelike face. Her thumb hovered over the screen, but she didn’t move to the next image.
Ryker flicked a glance at Emma.
She hadn’t said much since they’d left the Calhoun property. Neither had he. He’d driven back to the station as if he’d been on autopilot, barely speaking. But he could feel the storm of emotions in Emma, coiling beneath the surface. She was shaken.
Hell, anyone would be under circumstances like this.
But she was holding it together the way she always did, tight-lipped and squared up. All cop.
Hallie finally set the phone down on her desk, leaning back in her chair. “So, what’s going on here?” she asked, her voice calm but edged with steel. “Is this some sick gaslighting attempt? Someone with a grudge against you?” Her gaze slid to Emma. “Or is it Ethan, come back to threaten you?”
Emma didn’t move or respond for a second. She just stared at the edge of the desk like the answer might be hiding in the wood grain.
Then she said, quietly, “I don’t know.”
Ryker kept his voice steady when he added his two cents’ worth. “Whoever it is, they knew what they were doing. They staged that scene like a body dump. They wanted it found. They wanted it to shake her.”
“It worked,” Hallie muttered. She looked at Emma again, softer this time. “You think Ethan’s still alive?”
Emma’s hand flexed at her side, the only outward sign of what she was holding in. “I’ve always thought that. I just haven’t been able to prove it.”
Ryker nodded. “That wallet, it was his. Emma recognized it on sight. And the driver’s license is the real deal. Someone’s either got access to his personal effects… or he handed them over himself.”
Hallie leaned forward, elbows on the desk, fingers steepled. “All right. Let’s say Ethan’s alive and this is him. Why now? Why after four years?”
Ryker didn’t have an answer for that. But judging by the way Emma’s jaw tightened, she had some theories.
And none of them were good.
Emma’s silence stretched for a beat too long. Long enough for Ryker to shift his weight slightly, bracing for impact.
Then she looked up, her eyes hard but voice controlled. “It might have something to do with me moving back here,” she said.
Hallie’s brows lifted slightly. “You think that’s what triggered this?”
Emma nodded once. “Ethan always wanted us to come back to Outlaw Ridge. Thought it would be good for us. Slower pace. Closer to family, and we could maybe both work for my uncle. But I liked Austin. I liked the job, the pace, the challenge. He didn’t.
He thought I was chasing something that didn’t matter. ”
Ryker watched her carefully. Her hands stayed still at her sides, her posture straight. But he could tell every word cost her.
“We argued about it more than once,” she continued a heartbeat later. “He accused me of choosing the job over him. I told him I wouldn’t trade everything I’d worked for just to make him feel more in control.” Her mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “That comment didn’t go over well.”
Hallie gave a short exhale through her nose. “So when you finally did come back…”
“It might’ve felt like unfinished business for him,” Emma finished for her. “Like the door opened again. A chance to punish me. Or a chance to fix what he thinks I broke.”
Ryker folded his arms, and he kept his gaze fixed on Emma. “Ethan’s been waiting.”
Emma met his eyes. “Or watching.”
Hallie looked between the two of them, then slowly leaned back in her chair. “So either your ex-fiancé faked his death and came back to mess with your head… or someone else is staging it to make you think he did.”
Emma didn’t blink. “And either way, they want me to believe I’m next.”
Ryker could feel it building again, that burn in his gut that always came before things went sideways.
The kind of slow-build tension that meant someone was laying groundwork for something bigger.
He’d felt it before, on ops that turned into ambushes.
That same prickle along the back of his neck was here now.
“I’ll start digging into anyone who might’ve known about Ethan’s disappearance,” he said. “Old cases, known associates, PD personnel in Austin who might have had access to the flyer or his records.”
Hallie nodded. “Do that.” Then, she turned to Emma. “You sure you’re good to stay on this?”
Emma’s jaw ticked. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Ryker didn’t say it out loud, but he wasn’t letting her go anywhere alone either. Not now. Not with someone out there setting the stage for her to fall.
“Maybe it wasn’t just the move back to Outlaw Ridge that triggered him,” Ryker threw out there. “What about your last case in Austin?”
Beside him, Emma’s head turned. “You know about that?”
He shrugged, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “What can I say? I like to be informed about my partner. Makes it easier to watch your back if I know what kind of trouble tends to follow you around.”
His tone was easy, almost teasing, but his eyes held something steadier, a quiet promise that he wasn’t going anywhere.
Hallie looked between them. “What case are we talking about?”
Emma hesitated, just for a second. Then she exhaled and leaned her hands on the back of one of the chairs in front of the desk.
“It was one of Ethan’s old cases. A homicide that he investigated just before he disappeared.
A guy named Lionel Ruiz was charged and then convicted of stabbing his girlfriend to death in their apartment. ”
She paused, gathered her breath, and then added, “Three months ago, I reopened the investigation. Something about it always felt off, even back when we were together.”
Ryker stayed quiet, but he could hear the tension tightening behind her words.
“I found evidence that had been overlooked or ignored,” Emma went on. “A blood smear behind the dresser that didn’t match Ruiz or the victim. It led to a new suspect. We got a confession. The case was overturned.”
Hallie’s eyes narrowed. “I remember now. That made the news.”
Emma gave a humorless smile. “Yeah. It made a lot of headlines. The department tried to bury it, but the media ran with the narrative, how a decorated detective, Ethan Ross, rushed the case, missed the signs, and sent the wrong man to prison. His reputation as a cop was shredded. Even in absentia.”
Ryker nodded slowly. “If he’s alive, and he saw all that… it could’ve pushed him over the edge.”
Emma’s voice dropped. “It wouldn’t be the first time he couldn’t handle the fallout of his own decisions.”
“So now we’ve got motive, maybe. And a warning with that masked mannequin. Next step?” Hallie asked.
Ryker looked at Emma, then back at Hallie. “We figure out if Ethan’s still breathing, and if he is, we find him. If he’s not, we figure out who’s pulling the strings on this sick game.”
Hallie leaned back in her chair, tapping a finger against the edge of the desk as her gaze shifted between them. Then she nodded once, decision made.
“Use the cold case office,” Hallie instructed. “You’ll have access to the digital wall screen. It’ll help to lay everything out. Files, maps, timelines. Start fresh and build it from the ground up.”
Ryker gave a small nod, already running through what they’d need to pull. Ethan’s personnel file, the case Emma overturned, everything tied to his disappearance.
Hallie paused, her gaze narrowing just a fraction. “I’m assuming you both still want to stay on this. Even with the personal connection.”
Emma didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
Ryker echoed her. “We’re on it.”
“Good.” Hallie gave a nod of approval, then added, “Keep it tight. Don’t share details unless it’s with someone you’d trust with your life.”
Which, for him, narrowed the list to about six people.
After Hallie gave them a dismissive wave, Ryker opened the office door, holding it for Emma as they left. She gave him a quick glance as she passed, the tension in her shoulders a little less rigid than before, but just barely.
As they walked toward the cold case room, Ryker couldn’t help but take in the now familiar details of the station. Clean walls. Reinforced doors. Updated tech. None of this had been here a year ago.
Strike Force’s founder, Owen Striker, had made sure of that.
Owen, Ryker’s former boss at Strike Force and one of the most relentless men he’d ever known, had poured time, money, and tactical planning into rebuilding Outlaw Ridge PD after the massacre that nearly wiped it off the map.
A loss that had included Sheriff Marty Bonetti, Emma’s uncle.
Ryker hadn’t known Marty that well, but he remembered the stories. Hell, even as a teenager growing up in a town two counties over, he’d heard about the straight-shooting, bigger-than-life sheriff who ran Outlaw Ridge like a fortress and loved his niece like a daughter.
He glanced at Emma again.
That’s why she came back.
Not just for the job. Not just for the quiet. Emma had come back because this place had bled, and her family had bled with it. And now Ethan, or whoever the hell was behind the dummy, had come to finish what he started.
Or reopen wounds that hadn’t healed.
They reached the cold case office, and Ryker keyed in the access code.
The door unlocked with a quiet click, revealing a room that looked more like a command center than a rural PD workspace.
Smart screens lined one wall, digital filing stations along the other.
A sleek table dominated the center, surrounded by high-backed chairs.
It was the best setup small-town money couldn’t buy.
But Strike Force money could.