Chapter Fourteen #2
“About four years ago, my mother hired a private bodyguard,” she said. “Not that she needed one. The estate’s locked down tighter than Fort Knox and she rarely leaves. But this guy just appeared one day, and suddenly, he was living there full-time.”
Hell, Ryker got a bad feeling about this and knew where it was going. “Name?”
“Jared Ellis,” she said. “Said he was former military, then private sector security. I ran a background check on him myself, and came up clean. No red flags. No priors. Nothing.” Celeste’s voice dipped lower.
“But then I noticed Mom started giving him money. Not a salary. Transfers. Big ones. First every few months. Then more frequently.”
Ryker leaned forward slightly, tension tightening across his shoulders. “How big are we talking?”
“Hundreds of thousands,” Celeste said. “That’s when I started to wonder if he’d conned her. Or maybe…” She hesitated. “Maybe she’s slipping. I don’t know. I confronted her about it. She shut me down. Hard. Said it was none of my business and ordered me off the property.”
“And that was the last time you saw her?” Emma asked.
Celeste nodded. “Two years ago. Haven’t spoken since. She stopped taking my calls. I sent letters. Nothing.” Her voice faltered as she looked between them, then back down at her phone. “I saw a picture of Ethan Ross on the news. The segment said he’s wanted in connection with multiple murders.”
She stopped, swallowed hard, her hand tightening around her phone. “I’m telling you… I’m certain that’s the same man who’s been living in my mother’s house. The man she calls Jared Ellis.”
Ryker felt it like a punch straight to the gut. His mind went immediately to the woman in the photo, Veronica Harper. Reclusive, aging, vulnerable. If Ethan had been there, had been living there, the possibilities twisted in his stomach.
Emma was already moving, her face gone pale with urgency. She pulled out her phone and made the call.
“This is Deputy Bonetti with Outlaw Ridge PD. We need county deputies to do a welfare check on Veronica Harper,” she said. “Possible armed suspect, Ethan Ross, on site. Suspect may be using the alias Jared Ellis.”
Ryker didn’t look away from Celeste. “We’ll find out what’s going on.”
But every part of him was bracing, for what they might have already been too late to stop.
The alarm flickered across Celeste’s face, sharp and real now, not just lingering tension. “I tried to see my mother before I came here,” she said quickly. “This morning, just after sunrise. I didn’t want to waste your time if I was wrong.”
Ryker leaned forward. “And?”
“My gate code didn’t work.” Her voice tightened. “Someone changed it.”
Emma and Ryker exchanged a look.
“I tried the intercom at the gate,” Celeste went on, her hand shaking slightly as she ran it over the brim of her cap. “No answer. And her housekeeper, Marta, she’s always there. Always answers.”
“And this time?” Ryker asked.
“Nothing. Just silence.”
“I considered climbing the fence,” Celeste added. “It’s ten feet of wrought iron and was scabbed with ice. I’m good with things like that, but not that good. I would’ve broken my neck.”
Ryker felt the unease rise in his chest. If Ethan had taken over that house, changed codes, silenced staff, then Celeste had walked up to a threat and didn’t even know how close she’d come.
Emma ended her call and nodded to Ryker. “County’s en route now, and I told them to go in heavy.”
“Good,” Ryker said, keeping his voice even though his pulse was thudding in his ears.
Because something was wrong at that house.
And if Ethan had done what Ryker feared, then Veronica Harper wasn’t just off the grid. She might already be gone.
Celeste stood abruptly, her shoulders still tight with worry. She pulled a small notepad from her coat pocket and scribbled down a number, tearing the page off and sliding it across the desk.
“Please,” she said, voice rough. “Call me the moment you know anything. Anything at all.”
Ryker nodded, folding the note and slipping it into his jacket. “We will. I promise.”
Celeste held his gaze a moment longer, then turned and walked out, her boots echoing against the tile until the bullpen door swung shut behind her.
The silence that followed was brief.
Emma turned to him, her expression mirroring everything churning in his own gut. “We need to go to the estate.”
Ryker didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely. Even if he’s not there, there might be something left behind. A trail. Something he didn’t cover.”
They moved in sync, grabbing their coats off the rack. Ryker snatched the brown paper bag off his desk with a quick glance inside. The sandwiches would no doubt be cold, but they were still edible, and their bodies needed fuel. He grabbed their to-go cups of coffee as well.
“We’re heading out to the Harper estate in Rhorer’s Crossing to check out a lead on Ethan,” Emma called out to Jemma as they passed the front desk. “Let us know if anything comes in.”
Jemma nodded from behind the monitors, already typing. “Be careful.”
Ryker opened the door, and they stepped out into the bitter morning wind. Snow flurries swirled through the icy morning air as they hurried to the cruiser, breath puffing in quick bursts. The cold stung his skin, the wind sharp as they slid inside and shut the doors against it.
Taking the wheel, Ryker punched the address into the cruiser’s GPS. The Harper estate was tucked just outside a small ranching town, about thirty minutes out, winding through the northern stretch of the Texas Hill Country.
He passed Emma one of the breakfast sandwiches and pulled the other from the bag. They ate quietly as the cruiser rolled through the twisty rural roads, steam rising from their coffee tumblers, the engine humming low beneath them.
Outside the windows, the Hill Country looked like something out of a half-forgotten painting.
Patches of icy scrub dotted the limestone hills, oak and juniper trees dark against the pale dusting of snow.
The bare branches swayed in the wind, and occasional rocky outcrops jutted from the ground like the backs of sleeping beasts.
Everything looked frozen, but not still, like the land was holding its breath.
Ryker swallowed the last bite of his sandwich and wiped his fingers on a napkin.
“I hope the county brought plenty of manpower,” he muttered, eyes still on the road. “If Ethan’s holed up there, he might try to shoot his way out.”
Emma, still watching her phone, nodded. “I reminded them to approach with caution. Just in case.”
Ryker pressed a little more pressure on the gas, the tires crunching over a thin layer of frost. After a series of winding turns through the hills, the Harper estate came into view, and Ryker felt his jaw tighten.
The place looked like it had been plucked out of the Victorian era and dropped into the middle of Texas limestone country.
Sprawling and elegant, the house was three stories of dark stone and wrought-iron trim, with a central turret that jutted skyward like a spire.
Ivy clung to sections of the outer walls, brown and brittle in the cold.
Frost glimmered along the steeply pitched rooflines, and tall windows reflected the gray morning light like watchful eyes.
The wrought-iron fence that Celeste had mentioned was even more imposing in person, easily ten feet high, with needlepoint finials.
But the gate… the gate was hanging ajar, clearly jimmied open.
Ryker could see the fresh gouges in the lock plate from where someone, likely the county deputies, had forced their way in.
He saw that the cruiser ahead of them was marked with county plates. Ryker eased the Outlaw Ridge vehicle to a stop behind it and threw the gear into park.
Two deputies were already on the front porch, one bracing the door while the other hefted a battering ram. The door didn’t look like it was giving up easily, thick oak, reinforced hardware. The kind of door you had installed when you didn’t want anyone coming in unless you said so.
Ryker and Emma stepped out of the cruiser, coats whipping in the cold wind, and he called out as they approached, “Outlaw Ridge PD. Deputies Caldwell and Bonetti.”
The deputies paused mid-swing. One of them, grizzled, late fifties, with a no-nonsense stance, lowered the ram slightly and turned to face them.
“Good timing,” he said, breathing hard from effort. “I’m Deputy Hank Colburn and this is Deputy Ray Haskin. We had to bust the gate to get in, and the place is locked up tight. No sign of movement, no one answering. We’ve already announced three times.”
Emma moved up beside Ryker, her eyes scanning the upper windows. “Any sign of the bodyguard. Jared Ellis?”
The deputy shook his head. “No movement. No lights. Whole place feels off.”
Ryker didn’t like the feel of it either.
The next swing from the battering ram cracked the lock, and the heavy front door gave way with a groan, swinging inward on its ornate hinges.
Ryker stepped in first, and stopped cold.
The foyer was pristine white marble, or it had been. Now it was streaked in crimson. Blood. A lot of it. There were smears across the floor, like someone had been dragged or stumbled, maybe both.
Emma came in right behind him, and they exchanged a grim glance. Behind them, the county deputies drew their sidearms without a word, eyes scanning the space like seasoned pros.
“Law enforcement. Anyone here?” Ryker called out.
Silence.
He moved forward, following the trail of blood as it led into the main hallway and opened up into the living room, ornate, grand, and chillingly quiet.
No body.
But there was something.
On the antique coffee table, scrawled in what looked like blood, were ten jagged words: Emma. Ryker. I have two. You can only save one.
Beneath it, written in a steadier hand, calmer, colder, was a set of coordinates and a time: One hour. Pick who lives. Come alone or they both die.
Emma stood beside him, unmoving, her face like stone. But Ryker felt the shift in the air, the sharp drop in temperature that had nothing to do with the winter air pouring through the bashed open door.
Ethan wasn’t just taunting them now.
He was forcing them to choose. And someone’s life would end depending on what road they took next.
───── ? ────