Chapter Seven
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The morning light pushed weakly through the blinds, casting long stripes across the papers spread out on her desk.
Emma sat in her office, fingers wrapped around a mug of coffee she hadn’t tasted in three sips.
The scent of it filled the room, comforting, grounding, but it did nothing to settle the ache in her chest.
The CSI reports were on her computer screen, the black-and-white facts of Lionel Ruiz’s death laid out in stark, clinical detail. Photos, notes, timelines. No motive. No mercy.
She skimmed the words, but they all bled into each other.
Everything felt as if it were bleeding together.
Ryker was in the guest bathroom down the hall, the sound of the shower faint behind closed doors. She was glad he hadn’t been in the kitchen yet when she’d gone in for coffee. Glad he was still starting his day. She needed this moment alone, even if it felt like she was unraveling in the quiet.
She hadn’t slept. Not really. Maybe an hour here or there, but mostly, she’d just laid in bed, eyes open, brain churning.
The guilt was sharp and steady. Lionel Ruiz was dead. And part of her couldn’t stop replaying that courtroom moment when he’d walked free. When he’d looked at her and thanked her like she’d saved his life.
She had.
Only for someone else to take it.
She pressed the coffee cup to her lips again, trying to focus on the warmth.
But it wasn’t just Ruiz’s death keeping her up. It had been the adrenaline still surging through her system, leftover from the explosion, from the shots fired at them. From the raw edge of being hunted.
And then there had been Ryker.
Right across the hall.
She’d felt him there, solid, close. Safe. That knowledge had curled around her in the worst of her grief, a tether when everything else felt like it was slipping away.
There’d been a moment, several moments, where the ache in her chest had threatened to pull her right out of bed and into his room. Where the loneliness and the grief had twisted together so tight that reaching for him had felt like the only thing that might break it.
But she hadn’t.
Because it would’ve been a dangerous move. Too much emotion. Too many cracks.
She didn’t want to lay all that weight on him. Not when everything inside her still felt like it was breaking.
So she’d stayed in bed. Alone. Awake.
And now, morning had come. And Ruiz was still dead. And the only thing she could do now was figure out who was going to pay for it.
Emma heard the soft thump of a door closing and the faint creak of floorboards as Ryker moved through the house. The water had stopped running a few minutes ago, and now it sounded like he was heading for the kitchen.
He didn’t come into her office, which was fine. She needed a few more minutes of pretending she could focus.
She tried to read the CSI report again, started from the top, hoping maybe something would hit differently the third time through, but the words still refused to stick.
Her eyes traced the paragraph describing the blast radius, the condition of Ruiz’s remains, the partial fibers found under the body.
She flipped a page and stared at a grainy overhead shot of the oil field.
It felt like looking at someone else’s nightmare.
She hadn’t even heard him approach, but a few minutes later, Ryker walked into the room carrying a tray like it was a peace offering.
He set it gently on her desk and gave her a look that was somewhere between casual and calculated.
“Pickings were slim,” he said, “but here are your breakfast options: one bowl of cereal, expired but probably still edible, coffee, which you already have and are clearly not drinking, two crushed Pop-Tarts I found in the back of your pantry, and… a pint of ice cream.”
Emma stared at the tray, then at him. And despite the grief pressing hard against her ribs, she smiled. Barely. But it was still a smile.
She reached for the ice cream without hesitation.
“Solid choice,” Ryker said, dropping into the chair across from her. “Stress tastes better with chocolate chip.”
Emma dug into the pint of ice cream, the cold hitting the back of her throat like a shock, but it was the good kind. Temporary relief. A distraction. The sugar chased back the hollow ache, at least for a moment.
Across from her, Ryker reached over and tilted the laptop screen slightly toward him. His hand brushed hers in the process, light contact, but it still sent a flicker through her that had nothing to do with grief or caffeine.
He scanned the screen for a beat, then sighed and minimized the open CSI report. “I read through this before I hit the shower,” he told her. “Let me save you the trouble.”
Emma set the spoon down, wiped her fingers on a napkin, and listened.
“The CSIs, M.E. and bomb squad don’t have much yet. No solid trace. No clean explosive signature. They’re still running forensics on what’s left of the device.” He tapped his finger lightly on the desk. “Bottom line? Ruiz is dead. He was wearing Ethan’s ring. That’s the part we can confirm.”
Emma didn’t speak. She already knew that part, but hearing it again somehow made it more real.
“The ME doesn’t know if he was killed before the explosion or because of it,” Ryker added. “And they’re not sure they’ll ever be able to figure it out.”
Emma exhaled slowly, the spoon hanging loose in her fingers again.
“So,” Ryker said, shifting his chair closer. His knee brushed hers, the movement casual but steady. He reached over and pulled up a different folder from the dock. “Instead of circling the same burned-out mess, let’s focus on this.”
She looked at the screen as he opened the new file, an Austin PD report.
“They’ve been working Ruiz’s last known movements,” Ryker said. “The timeline’s tight. It’s not a full puzzle yet, but we’ve got new pieces.”
Emma leaned in beside him, the scent of his soap still fresh and close. She felt the shift, not just in proximity, but in direction.
And for the first time in hours, it felt like they were moving forward.
Ryker pulled up the report and began scrolling, his voice steady, focused. All business, but with just enough warmth underneath to keep her grounded.
“Ruiz was last seen about twenty-four hours ago,” he said. “Security footage shows him leaving his apartment around six-thirty in the morning, heading out to work. He never made it.”
Emma frowned, her fingers tightening around the spoon.
“He was taken, or lured, somewhere between his place and his job,” Ryker continued. “It’s only a six-mile stretch. Austin PD’s pulling traffic cam footage, canvassing the route, checking for witnesses. They’re doing their jobs.”
She nodded slowly, eyes still on the screen. That six-mile stretch suddenly felt like a canyon.
“And yeah,” Ryker added, his voice dipping just slightly, “some of those cops probably feel like shit for this happening on their turf. For letting Ruiz down. But no one feels worse about it than you do.”
He glanced at her, and she didn’t deny it. Couldn’t.
“But,” he said, his tone firmer now, “you’ll put that aside. We both will. And we’ll focus on getting the bastard who did this.”
Emma stared at him for a beat, the knot in her chest loosened just a little.
Then she gave a small, exhausted smile. “Thanks. I needed that.”
She lifted the pint of ice cream slightly. “Also, this. The sugar high’s helping clear out the cobwebs.”
Ryker grinned. “Told you. Chocolate chip solves most things.”
Emma didn’t say it out loud, but yeah, he was helping too. More than she’d ever admit.
“I’ve got cobwebs,” he said, licking a bit of chocolate from the corner of his mouth, eyes locked on hers. “But at the moment, they’re taking a backseat to you. And to catching the sonofabitch who blew Ruiz to bits and has been playing hell with our lives.”
And there it was.
The reason for this mixed bag of emotions she was feeling for the hot guy who’d served her ice cream for breakfast. There was the curl of heat added to the kickass cop determination.
Yeah, Ryker was covering all the important angles, and she knew in her gut that whenever this ended, when the threat had been neutralized, that things wouldn’t end for Ryker and her. No. This was just the beginning.
Her phone buzzed on the desk, the sound slicing through the moment like a knife. She grabbed it, thumbed the screen, and saw the message from Jesse.
Charlotte Ross is here for her interview.
Emma blinked. “She’s early. An hour early.”
Ryker leaned in to glance at the screen. “Guess she couldn’t wait to explain that smirk.”
Emma typed a quick reply. Ryker and I are on our way.
She stood, setting the half-eaten ice cream aside, her focus snapping back into place like a switch had flipped. The heat between them cooled, tucked neatly beneath layers of that kickass cop.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Ryker was already on his feet, grabbing his coat without another word.
Emma stopped by the kitchen so she could slide the pint of ice cream back into the freezer.
It was still half full, though the comfort it had offered was already a distant memory.
She pulled on her coat, the heavy black one she kept near the door, and grabbed her keys from the hook without breaking her stride.
They went through the garage, the door lifting with a mechanical groan as she unlocked her SUV.
The cold hit her face as they stepped outside, sharp and biting despite the pale morning sun bleeding through the clouds.
The sleet had stopped sometime in the early hours, and the streets were no longer slick, but the air still carried winter’s edge.
She drove, Ryker in the passenger seat, both of them running on too little sleep and too many unanswered questions.
It was just before 8 a.m., and Outlaw Ridge was only starting to wake up. The roads were mostly empty, just a few early risers in trucks or bundled-up pedestrians waiting for the coffee shop and diner to open.