Chapter 37
thirty-seven
The blacktop radiated heat through Bear’s boots as he paced the length of the sheriff’s department parking lot for what felt like the hundredth time.
Three hours.
Greta had been inside for three hours with that monster, and Bear’s blood pressure had been climbing with each passing minute. King kept pace beside him, the dog’s ears swiveling at every sound, picking up on the tension radiating from Bear’s body like a physical force.
“All right, that’s enough.” Bear stopped and braced his hands against his thighs. “We’re walking.”
King tilted his head, his droopy face creased in concern.
“I know. This is crazy. But I can’t sit in that truck anymore.”
He started toward the main road that ran past the sheriff’s station. King fell into step beside him.
“And I can’t go in there, because if I see him, I’ll—”
He didn’t finish the sentence. Didn’t need to.
King bumped his leg as they walked, the dog’s solid weight a grounding force when Bear’s body wanted to go back to the sheriff’s department, walk straight through that door, and find Cody Simms.
He’d promised Greta he’d stay outside.
He’d promised Logan he wouldn’t do something stupid.
He’d made that promise to himself, too, eight years ago when he walked out of Deer Lodge. He wouldn’t be the kind of man who lost control again. Who hurt people. Who let anger take the wheel.
But the image of Cody’s face — that placid, normal face that had sat across from Greta at missing persons meetings for years, telling her not to give up hope while keeping her sister in his basement — kept flashing behind Bear’s eyes.
His hands curled into fists at his sides, the old scars across his knuckles aching with the tension.
“Jesus,” he muttered, forcing his fingers open. “Get it together.”
King whined softly.
“I’m fine.” Bear scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m handling it.”
The dog didn’t look convinced.
They walked the edge of the road in silence, Bear counting his breaths and trying to stay in the moment instead of imagining what was happening inside. Greta was strong. Greta was capable. Greta had knocked Cody unconscious with a chain, for fuck’s sake. She could handle an interview.
But he’d seen her face that morning in his kitchen—she had been bracing her impact. She’d gone in there knowing what she’d hear, knowing what Cody would tell her about those women, about Alice, about thirty years of a cabin in the woods.
And he’d let her go in alone.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He yanked it out, heart hammering, but it was just Walker.
“Any word?”
“Nothing.” Bear stopped walking, and King sat at his side. “She’s still in there.”
“She’s tough.”
“I know.”
“She’s going to be okay.”
Bear closed his eyes. “Yeah.”
“Logan’s with me at the ranch,” Walker continued. “He’s helping Anson in the forge today.”
“Good. That’s good. I want him as far away from this as he can get.” He paused. “How is Alice?”
“Sleeping. Johanna says it’s healing sleep, not trauma sleep.” A pause. “How are you holding up?”
Bear let out a short laugh. “I’m walking in circles in the parking lot, Walker. What do you think?”
“I think you’re doing exactly what Greta asked you to do, even if it’s killing you.” Walker’s voice softened. “She’ll be out soon.”
“I know.”
“Call me when she is.”
Bear pocketed the phone and turned back toward the sheriff’s station.
His truck sat alone at the far end of the parking lot, the metal too hot to touch in the afternoon sun.
The building itself was a squat brick structure with narrow windows and a flagpole out front, the Montana state flag barely moving in the still air.
Nothing to indicate the hell happening inside.
He’d promised Greta he’d stay out here. He’d promised.
But as he stared at the building, at the glass door he’d watched her walk through three hours ago, something in him rebelled.
Every minute she stayed in there was another minute she spent hearing details that would haunt her, another minute Cody Simms got to see her face as he destroyed another piece of her world.
Bear started toward the door.
King followed, then pushed ahead, his massive body blocking Bear’s path.
“Move, King.”
He tried to step around, but the dog shifted, staying in front of him.
“King, come on.”
King sat down. Directly in Bear’s way. His brown eyes locked on Bear’s face with an intelligence that was sometimes unsettling.
“She’s been in there too long,” Bear said, as if the dog might understand. “Something’s wrong.”
King didn’t budge.
“Goddammit.” Bear dropped his head back, staring at the cloudless sky. “I know what I said. I know what I promised.”
King whined softly.
“Yeah, I know. Breaking promises is what got me in trouble last time.”
The dog leaned forward and shoved his massive head against Bear’s chest, nearly knocking him back a step. Bear’s hand came up automatically, fingers digging into the thick ruff at King’s neck.
“I’m not going in,” he said quietly. “I’m not.”
King nudged him again, harder this time.
“I’m not,” Bear repeated, and turned away from the building.
He’d taken three steps when the glass door of the sheriff’s station opened behind him.
Bear spun, heart in his throat, and there she was — Greta, walking out into the sunlight with her shoulders hunched and her face blank.
For one terrible second, Bear couldn’t move.
Then he was running across the parking lot, King loping at his side, and Greta was walking toward him with her eyes fixed on his face.
She made it five steps before her legs gave out.
Bear caught her, his arms going around her waist, and she collapsed against his chest with a sound that bypassed language entirely. Her body shook, tremors running through her from head to foot, and her hands came up to grip the front of his shirt.
“I’ve got you,” he said, his voice rough. “I’ve got you.”
She pressed her face against his chest and the tremors turned to full-body shakes. Bear tightened his arms around her, one hand coming up to cup the back of her head, and held her while she fell apart in the sheriff’s department parking lot with the afternoon sun beating down on their backs.
“I’ve got you,” he said again, his mouth against her hair. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
She shook her head, the motion jerky against his chest. “No,” she said, her voice muffled. “I’m not.”
He didn’t have an answer for that. So he just held her, one hand moving in slow circles on her back, and waited for her breathing to steady. King sat at their feet, his massive head tilted up, watching Greta with worried eyes.
After a long minute, she pulled back just enough to look at his face. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face blotchy with tears, but her jaw was set. She was going to get through this no matter what.
“Her name was Tasha McLaughlin. The bones we found. Her name was Tasha. She was twenty-six. She worked at a bank in Spokane.”
Bear kept one arm around her waist, supporting her weight. “He gave you the name.”
“He gave me a lot of things.” She drew in a breath.
“Cody took Tasha because she looked like Alice. Same hair color. From a distance, in the right light, she could have been Alice. So he took her and kept her at the cabin for seven months. And then he...” Her voice cracked.
“He says she got sick, but I don’t believe him.
I think he killed her when he saw the opportunity to get the one he really wanted, and then he took my sister. ”
Bear’s stomach turned. “Jesus.”
“He buried Tasha in Alice’s clothes. He needed people to stop looking for her, and he thought Tasha would be found fast, but she wasn’t.”
Bear closed his eyes. He could see the casket. He could see Greta standing on a granite shelf above the valley, screaming until her voice broke. All of that grief, and Alice had been alive and in a basement nine miles up the mountain.
“That’s not all,” Greta said.
He opened his eyes.
“The vandalism at my office. The notes. The STOP LOOKING painted on my wall.” Her jaw worked.
“Cody told me. He fed Daniel the idea. Daniel did most of it on his own— Daniel was obsessed with me, the way he was obsessed with Alice. But Cody was the puppeteer. He used Daniel’s obsession as cover.
Made me think the threat was the loud, drunk asshole everyone could see, when the real threat was the man I sat next to at every missing persons meeting for ten years. ”
Bear’s vision went white at the edges.
He had visited Cody Simms’s hardware store just about every week since he’d come to Valor Ridge. He had let his son work for the man.
A wave of nausea passed through him so hard he had to swallow hard to keep it down.
“Hey.” Greta’s hand came up to his face, her palm cool against his skin. “Hey. Breathe.”
He breathed.
“Bear.” She waited until he was looking at her. “Don’t. He’s where he needs to be. Don’t give him any more of you than he already has.”
He nodded and took another breath. “He had my son working in his store.”
“I know.”
“Stocking shelves in a hardware store owned by a man who—”
“I know.” She put both hands on his chest, holding him steady. “I know. And Logan will have to process that. We’ll help him.”
He let out a breath. Tried to.
She kept going, voice steady. “I have to go back in there.”
He stared at her. “What?”
“He told me there were seven women total, but he only gave me Tasha’s name. The others he’s holding. He says he’ll give them to me, one a week. He wants to draw it out.” She paused. “So I have to go back.”
The rage that had been building in his chest since Greta walked into the interview room crystallized into something cold and hard.
He had spent three hours pacing this parking lot today, and she was telling him he was going to do it again. And again. And again. While Cody Simms sat in a cell and decided how slowly he wanted to bleed Greta out, family by family, name by name.
“Bear.” Her voice cut through his thoughts. “I have to. Those families—”
“I know.”
“They deserve—”