Chapter Fifteen
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The coordinates glowed cold and steady on Ryker’s phone screen, the numbers digging into Emma’s nerves like a splinter she couldn’t pull out. She watched his jaw tighten as he stared at them, standing motionless in the middle of Veronica Harper’s ornate, blood-streaked living room.
“In the woods,” Ryker said, his voice low. “It’s a trap. He wants to lure us in and kill us.”
Emma didn’t argue. She met his eyes. “I know.”
She didn’t need to say anything more. Of course it was a trap. That’s what Ethan did, he pulled strings, made people dance, then watched them fall. But walking away wasn’t an option.
“We have to go,” she said.
Ryker’s gaze held hers a beat longer before he gave a short nod. “Yeah. But I’d like to do more than just walk into it.”
Emma exhaled. “Then let’s come up with something smarter.”
From behind them, Deputy Hank Colburn stepped into the room. “We’ll ride with you if you want extra guns.”
Emma turned to him and shook her head. “No. Stay here. Go room by room and sweep the place in case there’s actually someone here, someone who needs help. Someone could be injured.”
While Colburn nodded and disappeared down the hall, Ryker pulled out his phone and started dialing. “I’ll get Outlaw Ridge PD to send a team. They can park outside the drop zone. Stay out of sight until we call them in.”
Emma glanced at the note again, her stomach tight. Two hostages. One choice. She hoped Veronica and the housekeeper were still alive. She hoped Ethan hadn’t already decided who died.
Ryker ended the call, slid his phone away, and looked at her. “Hayes and Jesse will head to the drop. And they’ll bring a drone with them.”
Good. They were going into the woods. Into Ethan’s game.
But they wouldn’t do it on his terms.
Emma followed Ryker out to the cruiser, the cold biting at her exposed skin as the wind kicked up around them. The sky was still gray, snow flurries dancing through the bare branches like drifting ash. This wasn’t just another callout, it felt like they were heading into a war zone.
Ryker popped open the trunk, and without a word, they each grabbed a Kevlar vest. Emma slipped hers on, and she took a backup sidearm from the gear case and holstered it at her ankle. Ryker did the same, checking the magazine before snapping his vest into place.
This wasn’t a show of force. This was survival.
They had no margin for error now.
They got in the cruiser, and Ryker pulled out onto the road. The trees thinned behind them, giving way to long stretches of icy pasture and silent hills. Emma was just starting to reach for her phone to check the backup team’s location when Ryker’s rang.
He answered on speaker. “Talk to me,” he said.
Hallie’s voice came through, tight with frustration. “Ethan just unleashed a flood of posts online. Video rants, social media blasts. The works.”
Emma’s stomach sank.
Hallie continued, “He’s calling on anyone who was ever arrested by either of you, wrongfully or not, to contact the FBI. Says, and I quote, ‘Flood the lines. Bring these two dirty cops to justice.’”
Ryker’s grip tightened on the wheel. “He’s trying to bury us in noise.”
Emma’s mind spun. Ethan was upping the pressure on every front. Turning the public against them. Forcing them to question their own cases. Drowning real threats in a sea of false ones.
“All part of the show,” she muttered. “He wants us distracted. Looking over our shoulders.”
Hallie sighed. “Exactly. I’ve already got Lexa and Griff triaging the incoming mess. But you two need to stay focused.”
“We are,” Ryker said.
Emma tried to tamp down her fury. Ethan could post whatever he wanted. He could spin his narrative. But in the end, they were the ones coming for him.
The road curved away from Outlaw Ridge, dipping into rougher terrain, narrower shoulders, heavier woods.
Emma stared out the window, noting the stretch of pine and oak that boxed them in on either side.
They were heading in the opposite direction of home base, and she couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t random.
“The meeting spot Ethan chose is the opposite direction from the station,” Emma said. “He knows that keeps us farther from immediate backup.”
Ryker gave a quiet grunt of agreement. “But with that one-hour deadline he had to know it’d be enough time for deputies to get close.”
“Yes. So maybe he’s not just planning an ambush. Maybe he wants us watching the tree line while the real danger’s under our feet.”
She looked out at the growing blanket of snow on the shoulders of the road. It softened everything. Made it pretty, almost.
Almost.
“If he planted explosives out here,” she added, “the snow’s going to make them harder to spot.”
Ryker’s grip on the wheel tightened. “We’ll stay sharp.”
They’d have to. Because if Ethan really wanted them dead, he wouldn’t come at them from just one direction.
The trees soon thinned into a clearing where the road narrowed to a single lane, lined with frost-covered grass and thick patches of cedar. The GPS flashed that they’d arrived.
Ryker slowed the cruiser and flicked on the flashers. He didn’t pull off immediately, letting the vehicle idle on the road as they both leaned forward to peer through the windshield.
The snow had blanketed most of the area, but beneath it, the ground looked undisturbed, no fresh tire tracks, no churned soil. Still, Emma knew that meant little. If Ethan had hidden anything beneath the surface, they might not see it until it was too late.
Ryker finally eased the cruiser onto the shoulder with care, tires crunching through the thin layer of snow.
“Twenty-five minutes early,” he said, checking his watch. “We use it.”
Emma nodded. They both reached under their seats for binoculars and scanned the clearing and tree line. It was quiet. Too quiet.
No sign of Ethan. No hostages. No movement at all.
She lowered her binoculars and exchanged a glance with Ryker. “Doesn’t mean he’s not watching.”
“Agreed,” he said, taking out his earbud communicators and sliding them in place. Emma did the same and then tapped hers once to confirm the connection. A soft click answered from Ryker’s end.
They both reached for their guns at the sound, and it took Emma a moment to realize it wasn’t a threat.
It was the buzz of a drone whispered overhead.
It hovered into position above the clearing.
Searching. Helping them pinpoint Ethan’s exact location before Ryker and she had to go into those woods.
Emma checked her watch again. Jesse and Hayes would be arriving any minute, parking out of sight per the plan. But for now, it was just her, Ryker, and the trees.
The trap had been set. They were already in it. Now they just had to wait to see how it would spring.
Ryker’s phone buzzed quietly with the incoming drone feed. He angled the screen so they could both see, the image jittering slightly before stabilizing into a bird’s-eye view of the clearing and surrounding woods.
Emma leaned in, eyes scanning the black-and-white footage as the drone swept over the area directly around them. Snow-covered branches. Stillness. Nothing.
The drone adjusted, angling farther west, deeper into the tree line.
Still nothing.
Emma’s chest tightened. “He could be trying to rattle us. Send us on a wild goose chase.”
Ryker didn’t answer, but the tension in his jaw said he was thinking the same.
Then another thought struck her, colder, sharper. “What if this isn’t about us?” she said, her voice not much more than a whisper. “What if he’s using this as a distraction to get to Charlotte?”
Ryker’s eyes flicked toward her, surprise and understanding flaring at the same time.
“He was willing to kill her at the house with that grenade,” she added. “He might want her gone.”
Emma pulled out her phone and quickly typed a message to Hallie: What if Ethan’s using this to get to Charlotte? Double-check her location. Confirm protection.
She hit send. Before she could lower the phone, the drone feed shifted again, and this time, the image jolted.
Twenty yards into the woods, just beyond a narrow ridgeline, a figure crouched behind the trunk of a wide oak. Dark clothing, snow dusted over his shoulders. The unmistakable glint of a weapon angled across his body.
Ryker zoomed in on the screen.
“Ethan,” he said flatly.
Emma’s pulse kicked up. She didn’t need to see his face to know. The stance. The build. The way he held the weapon like it was part of him.
The drone continued its slow sweep, the image shifting as it circled from one quadrant of the woods to the next. Emma barely breathed, her eyes locked on the screen. Snow whispered across the frozen ground, but even the wind seemed to quiet as the feed tilted to the right.
Then, movement.
Ryker tapped the screen to zoom again, just as the figures came into view.
Two of them. Kneeling.
Even though she had expected to see the hostages, it still gave Emma a jolt.
The two were gagged. Hands tied behind their backs.
They were positioned close to a fallen log, half-hidden beneath a light scattering of snow and pine needles.
One shivered visibly. The other tilted her head slightly, as if listening for help.
But it wasn’t Veronica Harper and her housekeeper, Marta.
No.
Emma stared, stunned, her brain taking too long to make sense of what she was seeing. “That’s…” she whispered.
“Dr. Colvin,” Ryker finished, his voice tight. “And Janette.”
The realization hit hard and fast.
Ethan had switched them. Or maybe they’d always been the targets. Maybe he had never intended to hurt Veronica, but to use the threat of her to draw Emma and Ryker further in.
It had worked.
Emma gritted her teeth as she watched the two women tremble, helpless in the cold.
“We’re not letting him kill them,” Emma said, her voice steady despite the tight knot in her chest.
Ryker gave a sharp nod, eyes still on the screen. “No. We end this.”
But as the drone hovered over the image of two bound women in the snow and Ethan crouched nearby with a rifle in hand, the weight of reality pressed in.
How the hell were they supposed to save them both… and walk away alive?
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