Chapter Four #2
He pushed to his feet with a groan, rubbing his shoulder. “You should grab the shower first. I’ll take mine after. No offense, but you smell bad.”
Emma arched a brow. “Pretty sure you smell worse.”
“Probably,” he said, grinning. “But ladies first.”
She stood, slowly, as if her body was still trying to remember how to be upright. Her coat creaked with dried mud, ash smudged across one sleeve. As she moved past him, their shoulders brushed, barely a touch, but enough to send heat flickering through him.
It didn’t help that the idea of her in the break room shower flashed through his mind. Water sluicing down her back, hair darkened and slick, steam curling around her skin. He forced the thought out with a sharp breath, but his gaze had already lingered too long.
Emma paused at the door, giving him a look that said she’d maybe caught that flicker too. Or maybe she just felt it, the same way he did, raw and unresolved, humming just beneath the surface of everything else they weren’t saying.
Before either of them could speak, there was a knock at the door.
Ryker blinked, the moment dissolving.
The door eased open, and Deputy Jemma Salvetti stuck her head in. “Sorry to interrupt. You’ve got a visitor. She asked for both of you. Says her name is Janette Ward.”
Emma stiffened.
Ryker’s memory clicked into place, Janette. The woman who’d sent Ethan that photo. The one who started the unraveling four years ago.
He crossed the room in two steps and shut down the digital evidence board with a tap. The glowing screen winked out, leaving only the overhead light and the shift in atmosphere behind it.
“Bring her back,” Ryker said.
But every instinct he had told him, this wasn’t going to be a social call.
Ryker stayed standing, arms loose at his sides but every muscle coiled with tension as Jemma stepped aside to let Janette Ward into the cold case office.
She looked exactly how he remembered from the photo Emma had shown him four years ago, just older, sharper around the edges.
Long auburn hair pulled into a ponytail that was halfway undone.
Faint smudge of mascara beneath one eye.
A little too thin, dressed in black leggings and an oversized denim jacket like she’d left her house in a hurry.
But the confidence she’d exuded in that photo, the one she’d sent Ethan, practically smirking at the camera, was nowhere in sight now.
She looked frantic.
“Is it true?” Janette blurted, barely inside the room. Her voice shook. “The oil field, someone said there was an explosion. That you were shot at. It’s all over the news.”
Emma stepped forward, still rigid from the call with her mother, but she nodded. “It’s true.”
Janette’s breath hitched. Her eyes bounced between them, wide and searching. “Was it Ethan?” she asked.
The words dropped into the room like a live grenade.
Ryker’s pulse jumped. He hadn’t expected that, not from her, not that fast.
Janette’s voice trembled as she repeated, “Was it Ethan?”
Emma didn’t answer right away. Her eyes narrowed, her body still as stone. “What makes you think it was?”
Janette didn’t speak. Instead, she reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out her phone, tapping quickly before holding it out between them.
“I saw someone near my place last night,” she explained. “Didn’t think much of it at first, just a guy walking past the end of the driveway. But after what happened today…”
Emma took the phone, and Ryker stepped in close to look over her shoulder.
The photo was grainy, taken from a distance. It showed a man, partially obscured by shadow, standing near the tree line. He was wearing a dark hoodie, head slightly turned, face mostly in profile.
Ryker squinted. The angle was bad, the quality worse. But there was something in the jawline. The shape of the shoulders.
Possibly Ethan. Possibly not.
Emma zoomed in, slowly, her fingers tightening around the phone.
Ryker took the phone from Emma’s hands, his gaze lingering on the blurred photo for a final second before he passed it back to Janette.
“Forward that to me,” he said, rattling off his number.
She nodded and typed quickly, the whoosh of the message sending breaking the silence. A second later, Ryker’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, checked the file, then forwarded it straight to the lab with a brief note to enhance and run facial recognition if possible.
When that was done, he looked up at Janette. “When was the last time you’re sure you actually saw Ethan?”
Her eyes flicked to Emma, then back to him. She shifted her weight, her shoulders tightening like she wanted to vanish into her oversized jacket.
“The afternoon before the wedding reception,” she said finally. “The one where he and Emma fought. I saw him a couple of hours before they left to come to Outlaw Ridge.”
Emma didn’t say a word, but Ryker could feel the change in her beside him. Ethan had been with his lover right before he’d stepped back into his fiancé role with Emma.
Janette went on, avoiding Emma’s gaze. “He called me afterward. Said there’d been a blow-up between them. That she’d dumped him in front of everyone. He was,” she hesitated “, spiraling.”
Ryker kept his voice level. “And?”
“He blamed me,” Janette said, voice smaller now. “For sending the photo. For everything falling apart. I thought maybe he’d show up at my door again, angry, demanding something. But he didn’t.”
Then her gaze finally landed on Emma, and for a beat, she held it.
“Of course, he blamed you even more,” she added softly. “He said… he said he was going to make you pay.”
Ryker saw the weight of that hit Emma square in the chest. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t respond. But Ryker saw the shift in her eyes. And it told him one thing with certainty, if Ethan really was alive…
He wasn’t done.
Still, there were too many blanks she hadn’t filled in.
“It’s been four years since Ethan disappeared,” Ryker said. “If he’s alive… why come back now? Why hang around outside your house?”
Janette exhaled hard through her nose. “Because of that case Emma overturned. Ruiz.”
She said his name like it was obvious. Like it explained everything.
“Ethan worked that case,” she continued. “Thought it was solid. Thought it proved how good he was. And then Emma reopened it and tore it apart. Got the guy released. I figure… Ethan has to be pissed about that.”
Ryker narrowed his eyes. “So he vanished for four years and came back because of professional embarrassment?”
“No,” Janette said quickly. “I mean, maybe not just that. The cops asked me the same thing back then. Why he disappeared. I didn’t have an answer then, and I don’t really have one now.”
Janette shrugged and continued, “Maybe he snapped. Maybe he needed to regroup mentally. Or maybe he just wanted to vanish and see how people reacted. When the rumors started… that Emma had killed him?” Her voice lowered.
“I think he liked it. I think he enjoyed it. Letting her twist in it. Watching.”
Ryker didn’t respond. Just let that settle in the space between them. But he felt it. The cold certainty of it sliding into place.
That fit.
Two men Emma had dated, one mugged, one had his car set on fire. The stalking. The fear. The way Emma had slowly cut herself off from anything that looked like happiness.
Maybe Ethan had been in the shadows the whole time. Not gone. Not dead. Just waiting. Watching. Making her pay for walking away.
And the Ruiz case? That might’ve been the final crack that made him crawl back into the light.
Ryker watched Janette closely as her eyes flicked between them, her posture shifting slightly, shoulders lifting, chin angling just a little higher.
“I think his shrink might know the truth,” she said. “About where he went. Why he snapped. Has anyone talked to her?”
Emma frowned. “His shrink?”
“Yeah,” Janette said, like it was obvious. “He was seeing someone for his PTSD. It started after that domestic case blew up on him at Austin PD. He said the scene haunted him, and the therapist helped him keep it together.”
Emma’s expression sharpened, confusion giving way to something colder. “Ethan was in therapy,” she murmured.
Ryker could see it hit her, that she hadn’t known. That Janette had.
Janette’s lips curved ever so slightly. “Dr. Maris Colvin. Downtown Austin. Ethan saw her weekly for months. I even went to one of the sessions with him.”
That landed too. Harder.
Emma blinked, and Ryker saw the flicker of surprise pass across her face before she locked it down.
Janette hesitated, then added quietly, “He did love me, you know.”
The room chilled. Ryker didn’t move, but Emma did, just a shift of her stance, a tilt of her head that said she’d had enough of being blindsided.
“Then why ask me to marry him?” Emma asked flatly.
Janette didn’t flinch. She seemed to have the answer ready. “Because it looked good. You were the perfect fit. Rising star at Austin PD, respected, admired. He thought you were going places in the department.” She paused. “And he wanted to go with you.”
Ryker watched Emma’s face, waiting for the flash of anger or disbelief. But she just nodded, slow and quiet, like she’d finally put words to something she’d sensed but never quite been able to name.
Ethan hadn’t wanted love. He’d wanted to ride on her coattails.
Ryker kept his gaze locked on Janette, even as the last of her words hung in the air like smoke.
“You should call her,” Janette pressed, a little too quickly. “Dr. Colvin. She might know something. Where he’s been. What he’s planning. Ethan never shut up around her.”
Emma didn’t respond, but Ryker could see the muscle twitching in her jaw. Whatever had just cracked open inside her, she wasn’t ready to let it spill.
He leaned forward slightly, voice level. “If Ethan loved you like you say… why’d he leave you behind?”
For a second, just a second, something flared in Janette’s eyes. A spark of real heat. Anger, raw and immediate, before she forced it down with a sharp breath and an artificial smile.
“Because she gutted him,” Janette said, flicking her gaze toward Emma like she wasn’t already talking about her. “Destroyed him. Publicly. Personally. He couldn’t face anyone or anything after the messy breakup. Or so I guess.”
She straightened her coat as if she hadn’t just exposed an old wound, her movements clipped and too controlled.
Emma didn’t say a word. Just stared at her like she was done playing audience to anyone else’s version of Ethan.
Janette gave a little shrug, like she’d said her piece and wrung it dry. “I’ve told you what I know,” she said. “Now do what you need to do.”
Without another glance, she turned and walked out.
Ryker watched the door shut behind her, the tension thick in the room. Then he turned back to Emma. “You okay?”
Her expression didn’t change.
But the quiet in her eyes said everything. No. Not even close.
Ryker didn’t press her, not yet, but when he turned back to Emma, she was already meeting his gaze.
“I’m okay,” she said quietly, but there was no wobble in it.
Then, with more strength, she added, “I’m not jealous of Janette. Whatever Ethan had with her, whatever he said, it doesn’t matter. My love for him died a long time ago. I’m not mourning him.”
She paused, jaw tight. “I’m just furious at myself for not seeing him for the asshole he really was.”
Ryker smiled, actually smiled, because there it was. The fight in her. The steel. Not the Emma who had been shaken to the bone earlier at the oil field or frozen by the thought of old wounds reopening. This was the one who’d survived everything Ethan had thrown at her and was still standing.
“Good,” he said, keeping his tone easy. “Because that makes two of us. And for the record, I like this version of you way better.”
She gave him a look, but her lips almost twitched.
Ryker reached for his phone, intending to pull up the grainy photo Janette had sent, the possible Ethan lurking outside her house, but before he could tap the screen, it started to buzz in his hand.
He checked the caller ID and when he saw it was the crime lab, he answered immediately on speaker. “Caldwell.”
The voice on the other end was brisk. “We’ve got a hit on the blood used to write the message on the mask, the one on the dummy.”
Ryker straightened. Emma looked up at him, alert again.
“It’s a match to Charlotte Ross,” the tech said. “It’s hers. No doubt.”
Ryker’s grip tightened on the phone.
So it wasn’t just a theory now. Ethan’s sister wasn’t on the sidelines.
She was in this.
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