Chapter 14
SLOANE
I thought I’d been smart tailing Ryker out in the middle of nowhere.
I’d kept my headlights off when possible and stayed far enough back that his taillights were just a smear in the dark.
Hang back. Match speed from a distance. Let the road do the work.
Every investigator learned it early. I’d just never expected to use it on someone like him.
But Jesus Christ, what had I just seen? I ran for my car, feet hitting the earth too loud, too fast. My lungs burned and my stomach heaved, hot bile climbing up my throat.
What the fuck had I seen? But I knew. God, I knew what I’d witnessed through the thick of the trees even as my brain screamed to reject it. It tried to claw it apart and rewrite it into something less monstrous.
Moonlight sliced through the branches, casting razor-sharp shadows across four men. Three wore masks. The fourth stood exposed, trapped in the middle of them, eyes wild with terror.
Even though my mind fought it, I recognized the one in the crow mask. His body. How he stalked. His predatory stance. The lethal stillness in his shoulders. The way his muscles coiled beneath his henley like a weapon being loaded. His violence wasn’t emotion. It was execution.
Then the rabbit tattoo flashed in the moonlight when his sleeve shifted. That destroyed every doubt that tried to form.
It wasn’t stress, or an illusion. It wasn’t my fucking imagination finally snapping under the weight of my cold case. It was Ryker.
When he pinned the man to the tree with a blade through his hands, and carved him up, my vision tunneled so hard the forest disappeared.
He stabbed him in the neck, and everything narrowed to that single violent motion.
The moonlight glinted off the blade right before it sank into flesh, blood burst from the man’s neck in a dark spray that didn’t look real until the sound followed.
A wet, gurgling choke. The kind of sound that made the inside of my mouth go dry.
Terror twisted my nerves into a pretzel.
Paralyzed, I stayed wedged behind the trees, lungs barely working, convinced they could hear my breathing.
Convinced the slightest tremor would turn me into the next problem they solved.
But none of them looked my way. No pause.
No head turn. Like what I was watching wasn’t a murder, but simply another evening out with the boys.
Instead, my body went painfully quiet. My fear didn’t warn me away.
It slid a hand over my mouth. I forced my legs to unlock and ran.
By the time I reached my car, I practically slithered into the seat and pulled the door shut so softly I wasn’t sure it latched.
My hands shook as I started the engine. My pulse beat in my throat so hard I thought it might give my location away.
What if one of them had seen me, and I hadn’t realized it?
For a split second, my mind tried to do what it always did when it couldn’t bear something. Reach for a weapon. My hand went to my hip on instinct and found nothing there. No familiar weight. No gun. I didn’t carry anymore.
Not since … Not since the foster home neighborhood, when I’d followed a lead alone, at night, convinced I’d been about to solve my case I couldn’t let go of. A shadow moved, and I drew my firearm. I fired one round.
I grazed someone who had nothing to do with my case. The blood belonged to an innocent stranger. I watched it soak into my hands while I tried to keep them talking and breathing. I heard their voice shake with fear and pain, and the worst part was knowing I’d caused it.
My badge didn’t survive it. My permit didn’t either. Neither did my trust in myself. In this moment, though? I wished like hell I still had my fucking gun.
I backed down the path I’d found on the opposite side of where Ryker had left his Audi, inch by inch, barely breathing. The darkness pressed against the windshield. Every shadow felt like a body waiting to step out.
When my tires finally hit the paved road, I flipped on my headlights and floored the pedal.
“Fuck!” I screamed, slamming my fist against the steering wheel.
If Ryker was capable of cold-blooded murder, then he was capable of … anything.
My thoughts reeled, scrambling to make sense of my cold case as if it had suddenly come alive and started breathing down my neck.
The tattoo. The photo. That shadowy figure behind Ryker.
Now that I’d seen the men together, I knew.
It had to be either the guy wearing the devil mask or the grim reaper.
Either way, Ryker had moved from suspect to something so much fucking worse.
Something that made my skin prickle like I’d walked through an invisible web.
I couldn’t go home. The thought of my house, quiet, empty, normal, made my stomach roll.
Not because home wasn’t comforting, but because comfort was a lie that tonight had already stripped away.
If Ryker could do that, if those men could stand there as if it meant nothing, a locked door was a stupid suggestion.
So, I drove to the only place that had ever made me feel like monsters could be contained.
Red Thread.
The thought of it gave me a thin sliver of peace.
Thin enough to snap if I breathed wrong, but it was something.
If anyone realized where I was, my body would be found there sooner than at my place.
I would leave evidence of what I’d seen Ryker do.
Notes to Jade and Eli. Something that said I tried.
I wasn’t crazy. I didn’t imagine it. Be careful, he’s a fucking monster.
Almost two hours later, I pulled into the small parking lot of Red Thread. I hadn’t gone to Jade or Eli’s homes. I hadn’t gone to mine either. If someone had seen or followed me, I wasn’t leading them to the only people I couldn’t afford to lose.
The lights were off, except for a single lamp inside. It cast a soft glow through the front window. Maybe Eli was working late. Or maybe the building was pretending to be safe.
I turned off the engine and sat there for a second, staring at the glow, listening to the silence. My pulse hadn’t slowed. It had learned a new rhythm. One built for hiding.
I climbed out and locked my car, turning in a slow circle as I searched the lot. The street. The shadows near the dumpster. The empty stretch of road. Every place a pair of headlights could have appeared.
Nothing.
Which didn’t mean shit. I wasn’t safe if Ryker had realized I was there, watching him brutally kill another human being.
My hands shook as I unlocked the door and slipped inside. Once I secured the locks again, I leaned back against the wall and slid down until my ass hit the floor.
My breaths came in short, ragged bursts. The images kept replaying as if my mind was trying to punish me for surviving it. The man’s pleas. The horror in his voice. Ryker’s cold responses, like remorse wasn’t something he’d ever learned. Then the blood. So much fucking blood.
I pressed my hands to my cheeks, holding myself together by force.
“I have to report it to the cops. And worse, I have to decide what the hell to tell the asshole who’d left a goddamn head in my refrigerator.
” The words tasted like poison. If I did, I would never learn how Ryker was connected to my case.
That nagging little voice I’d kept at bay whispered he’s involved. It would shove itself down my damned throat after tonight, demanding truth and telling my denial to go to hell. The tattoo. What he was capable of. A killer.
A shiver shot down my spine, leaving me breathless. I needed a plan.
My chin jutted up as I pushed myself off the floor. My legs felt wrong, too weak, and too heavy, as I walked toward my desk. My phone buzzed in my back pocket. It was almost ten. No one texted me this late unless something was wrong. I pulled it out and stared at the screen.
My stomach dropped. My thumb hovered over the screen. My pulse thudded in my neck.
I should have ignored it. I didn’t.
Unknown:
You shouldn’t be at the office this late.
The hair on my arms lifted. I stared at the dark building around me, at the quiet that suddenly felt alive. I typed anyway.
Me:
Who is this?
Unknown:
Don’t report what you saw tonight.
Heat flared through my panic. The nerve of it made my hand steadier for half a second.
Whoever was on the other end of that number said don’t report it.
I wouldn’t. But not because they told me to.
Because Ryker was the only lead I had on Nate, and I wasn’t handing that over to anyone—not the cops, not some faceless threat with a burner number. I was doing this my way.
Me:
You don’t get to tell me what to do.
The reply came instantly.
Unknown:
You already know what I can do. Stay quiet.
My stomach rolled.
The fridge flashed through my mind. Cold. Deliberate. Impossible. My skin turned clammy.
I forced my fingers to move.
Me:
What do you want?
A pause. Long enough to make my pulse climb.
Unknown:
It’s about what you want. Your cold case.
My breath caught.
Not a question. A stated fact.
Unknown:
Talk to Ryker.
My thoughts cut to my board without meaning to. The rabbit symbol. The photo. The shadow behind him.
I hated the way my fingers trembled as I typed.
Me:
What does he have to do with this? How is he connected?
Unknown:
He is the only door left to you.
My throat tightened.
Me:
Why are you doing this?
Unknown:
Because you saw something you weren’t meant to see.
Unknown:
And because you are predictable.
My grip crushed the phone. Rage wanted out. Fear held it in.
Me:
If you’re trying to keep me quiet, this isn’t the way.
Unknown:
Quiet is a choice.
Unknown:
I am offering you another one.
Another buzz followed before I could blink.
Unknown:
Look outside.
My head lifted slowly toward the front windows.
Unknown:
At your car.
My heart slammed.
Me:
No.
Unknown:
Yes.
Unknown:
If you want the truth about your cold case, you walk out. Now.
I swallowed hard. My mouth tasted like metal.
Me:
And if I don’t?
The reply came like a blade.
Unknown:
Then you go home. In a body bag.
I stood so fast the chair scraped the floor, the sound too loud in the empty building. The car keys were on my desk, and I closed my fingers around them like they were a weapon. My phone buzzed one last time as I stepped toward the door.
Unknown:
Bring your keys.
My legs trembled as I stared at the messages, toying with the idea of ignoring the sender.
Whoever it was didn’t have eyes inside the building, or they would have known I had already picked up my keys.
They didn’t need it. They only needed my location and a view of the lot—traffic cam, a building across the street, someone parked with a line of sight.
My brain answered with a sharp, immediate no. Ignoring them would be the stupidest thing I’d done tonight, and that was saying something. Whoever had broken into my house and left the head wasn’t only connected to my case. They were connected to Ryker. That much was clear.
They knew about the rabbit tattoo. They knew about what I’d witnessed in the woods. They knew enough to steer me like a piece on a chessboard.
Thoughts swarmed, relentless and biting. I tightened my hold on the keys, my palm damp.
Suddenly, my body betrayed me with one more need I couldn’t ignore. I had to pee. Bad.
Maybe it was stupid. Maybe it was defiance. Maybe it was my brain clinging to something normal to prove I could. I’d been holding it for hours, and adrenaline had kept it quiet until now. Now it demanded attention like it was the only thing in the world that made sense.
I rushed down the small hall to the bathroom, flicked on the light, and locked the door behind me out of habit even though I knew a lock didn’t mean shit. My hands shook as I finished, as if fear had rewired my muscles and forgotten how to let go.
When I stepped back into the hall, the building was still silent. I turned off the bathroom light and walked back to the front, my footsteps too loud. I kept glancing at the windows, at my reflection, at the dark outside where anything could be waiting. I paused at the door and listened.
Nothing.
I cracked it open anyway.
Sharp, cold air brushed across my face, and I welcomed the sting on my cheeks. The parking lot sat empty and dark, my car parked where I’d left it under the weak lamplight.
Then I saw it. A white piece of paper tucked beneath my windshield wiper.
My stomach dropped.
I locked the door behind me and checked the lot, my gaze sweeping the corners, the shadow line near the building, the tree line beyond the pavement. I couldn’t see under my car from here. I couldn’t see the backseat clearly, either. I would have to get closer.
I slid the longest key between my first two fingers the way I’d seen people do in self-defense videos. It didn’t feel like a weapon. It felt like a fucking joke.
Still, I held it tight until it bit into my skin.
I took a slow breath and tried to steady my heartbeat, but it only made my chest ache. My body was stuck in survival mode, and it didn’t care that I was trying to think like a professional. It cared that I was stepping into the dark.
Cautiously, I moved toward the car, my steps slow and deliberate. Gravel shifted under my shoes. I got close enough to look into the backseat.
Empty.
I glanced over my shoulder, then crouched low enough to check beneath the car. My breath puffed in a small white cloud as I searched the shadows under the frame.
Nothing. No shoes. No movement. No shape that didn’t belong.
Relief tried to rise, but it didn’t get far. I stood and reached for the paper that was folded in half. My fingers hesitated for a beat, like my body knew opening it would make it real. Then I pinched the corner and pulled it free, lifting it into the dim light.
I flipped it open. The rabbit symbol filled the page. The same one that was on Ryker’s arm.
Only this time it was outlined in red, thick and wet-looking, with drops of blood pooling at its neck and dripping down to its feet. Someone had taken the symbol and turned it into a warning.
Panic crawled through me, and every instinct screamed run.
I didn’t hear footsteps.
I didn’t hear a door.
I only heard a voice behind me, low and close, like it had been there the whole goddamn time.
“Breathe.”
My blood turned to ice. I tried to spin, but it was too late. Something soft clamped over my nose and mouth. A cloth. A hand. The smell hit first, sharp and wrong. My lungs fought, then stuttered. I clawed at the grip, my vision blurring as the parking lot tilted.
The paper slipped from my fingers. The rabbit on the page flashed once in the weak light, red dripping from its throat.
Then the world folded in on itself.
And everything turned black.