Chapter 38 Dom
DOM
We pulled up just outside the Lazy Moose’s main gate, but I didn’t drive in.
I couldn’t.
If I saw Elia, Claire, or Maya right now, I’d say something I couldn’t take back. Things slip when you’re barely holding yourself together, and I didn’t trust myself not to.
So I stopped at the fence line with the engine still running and my hands clenched around the wheel like it was the only thing holding me in place.
Noah looked over. “Dom, you’ve gotta breathe, man.”
I didn’t.
“Look at me,” he said. “We’ll find her. But we’ve got to be smart.”
I dragged in a breath, then nodded once.
Smart. Fine. But the fire inside me wasn’t cooling. It was focusing.
“The bullet’s deformed,” I said. “If we hand it to Missoula, it’ll get lost in the backlog for weeks. Maybe months. I don’t have time for that.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I know someone in L.A. A forensics expert. She’s damn good, and she’s fast. Her name’s Susan Nolan.” I scrolled through my phone and sent the number to Noah.
“Okay,” he said, checking his phone.
“She’s a friend. She knows about the case, and she knows about Autumn. Ask her to meet you at Bozeman airport. Deliver the bullet in person.”
“I’ll call her now,” he said without second-guessing me.
“Tell her I sent you. Have her send the results to you, to me, and to Deputy Boone at the sheriff’s office.”
“I’ve got you, Dom.”
I stared him down. “Go.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“Find Autumn.”
That was all.
I didn’t care how long it took, who I had to go through, or what lines I had to cross.
Whoever took her had no idea what they’d just done.
They didn’t steal a woman.
They stole my woman.
I had promised myself. I just never thought I’d have to keep it. But hell, I was going to burn the fucking world to bring her home.
It was late. The kind of late where decent people were in bed.
But I didn’t care.
I wasn’t polite anymore. I was done playing nice.
Deputy Boone met me outside a bar, his jacket half-zipped, his eyes wary. He probably thought I was going to punch him.
He wasn’t entirely wrong.
“You’re going to tell me,” I said, “who put out the sketch of Autumn and who said she robbed someone at gunpoint at that trail.”
Boone shifted, hesitating.
I added, “Don’t make me ask twice. And don’t tell me it’s Whitaker’s case!”
He finally exhaled, his shoulders dropping. “It was a farmer. He lives down near a little-known patch of Buffaloberry Hill called Timber Loop.”
“Timber Loop?” I repeated.
It all came rushing back. Autumn was nervous the day we were waiting for Log to pick us up.
That was at Timber Loop. I remember how she hadn’t wanted to be seen.
She must’ve felt it. The danger. The eyes.
Maybe Lulu had given her a heads-up. Because I was sure as hell nobody else but that old man with a beagle had seen us.
Could that old man be the farmer?
I was about to find out.