Chapter 55 Louise
LOUISE
Idon’t remember screaming—but Ryder said I did.
What I do remember is the sensation of the world tilting, my knees giving out beneath me, and Ryder’s arms catching me just before I hit the ground.
“Shhh…” His hand stroked the back of my head as he held me tightly against his chest. I could feel his heart pounding beneath his coat, a deep, steady thrum against the chaos spiraling in my mind.
The cold air whipped around us. Clumps of snow dripped from the trees, landing in my hair, on his shoulders, melting between us. All I could hear was my own breath, ragged and panicked, echoing off the trees and the deep ravine beside us.
When Ryder felt my breathing begin to slow, he pulled back and gripped my shoulders, firm and steady.
“Lou.” His eyes were hard now, trained and focused. “I need to check to see if she’s alive. I don’t think she is, but I need to be sure. Is that okay?”
“Yes,” I choked out, nodding frantically. “Go. Please.”
He hesitated, scanning my face, his fingers tightening ever so slightly. “Stay right here. Don’t move. You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m okay.” I lied. “Just go.”
Ryder pulled the gun from his belt and placed it in my hand. He wrapped my fingers around the grip, anchoring them there.
“You know how to use this?”
“Aim and pull the trigger.”
“Yes. Assess. Aim. Pull. If anyone you don’t recognize comes near you, you yell for me, then aim. Tell them to stop. If they don’t—”
“I shoot.”
“Exactly.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “You shoot to protect yourself. Do you understand me?”
I nodded, breath fogging between us.
He leaned in and kissed my forehead. “I’ll be right back.”
I stood there, trembling, gun gripped tight in my frozen hands, watching Ryder descend the ravine. He moved with precision—like he’d done it a hundred times before—his boots finding each ledge, his hands gripping the gnarled, icy roots and vines that snaked up the rocks.
The forest was silent around me. Too silent. Unnervingly silent. Like the world was holding its breath.
I began pacing, my boots carving lines into the snow. My fingers were raw around the trigger, tears slipping down my cheeks, blurring my vision.
The moment Ryder reached the bottom, I stopped. Watched him make his way to the body.
Then he looked up.
Even from this distance, I saw it in his expression.
No.
He shook his head once.
The breath was ripped from my lungs. Margie was dead. Another woman, dead.
And then another thought slammed into me with the weight of a freight train.
A woman was dead—on Ryder’s land.
“Ryder!” I screamed. Ryder was climbing now, boots digging into the snow-dusted rocks, his jaw clenched tight. “Oh my God—she’s on your land. There’s a dead woman on your land. You’re on parole!”
Panic crashed into me like a wave.
“What if—what if they blame you? What if they send you back?” My words were a jumble, each one louder than the last, spiraling out of control.
When he crested the edge, he stepped toward me, his breath fast, his skin pale beneath his stubble.
“It’s fine,” he said, voice low. “Everything’s going to be—”
“No, it isn’t!” I threw my hands up, the gun flailing with them.
“Whoa, easy.” Ryder stepped forward, gently easing the weapon from my shaking fingers. “Give me the gun, sweetheart. It’s okay.”
I let him take it. My hands dropped to my sides, useless. “What if you go back to prison?” I whispered. “For the rest of your life?”
The fear in my chest was unbearable. My ribs couldn’t contain it. My skin couldn’t hold it in.
“I won’t,” Ryder said, his voice steady—but his eyes betrayed him. Just for a second. That flicker of doubt, that whisper of what if.
I collapsed against his chest, and he caught me again. He always caught me.
“But everything is tied to you,” I sobbed. “The pendant, another body. You’re a convicted murderer, Ryder. You said it yourself, you’ll be the first person they’ll look at. They’ll try to pin it on you. You’ll be taken to the station and interviewed. What if they put you in jail again until—”
“Lou, stop.” He pulled away and gently grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to look him in the eye. “Stop. You’re spinning.”
“What if we hide the body?” I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. “Or dump it just off your land? I can carry the feet. That way it won’t be as obviously tied to you.”
What the hell was I saying? And exactly how crazy in love was I with this man to consider tampering with a crime scene to ensure he remained safe?
Mack’s warning echoed in my head. Keep him out of trouble.
I’d failed miserably.
Margie was dead because of me. If I wouldn’t have organized the search for Kara and guilted them into helping, Margie would still be alive. If I would have let the authorities handle it, as Ryder had suggested so many times, she would still be alive.
And Ryder, his life just got turned upside down—again—because of me.
I’d dragged him into the case, kicking and screaming.
He would have never gone to Hollow Hill and found the pendant if I wouldn’t have chosen to drive through a blizzard, pushed my way into his life, and guilted him into helping.
He also would have never known about the second boot print.
Everything was my fault.
Ryder was right, I was impulsive and tunnel-visioned, never looking at the bigger picture. I was the living, breathing definition of bad judgment.
One person was dead because of me. Another person might go back to prison because of me, and if not, would spend the rest of his life wondering about the unsolved mystery of his unborn baby’s murder.
Ryder squeezed my shoulders, yanking me from my sickening thoughts.
“Stop, Lou. Please. You’re not thinking straight.
We need to get back to the house and call the cops.
We’re not moving the body. I’m innocent, and I’ll remain that way.
We have one thing to do right now, and that’s to call this in.
” He wiped the tears from my cheeks. I was trembling.
“Don’t do this to yourself. Take a deep breath. You didn’t do this.”
I swatted Ryder’s hands away, my sobs sharp and jagged as I scrambled up onto Prudence’s back. My limbs felt heavy, uncoordinated, like I was moving through water. He tried to steady the stirrup, to help me mount, but I slapped him away again, nearly slipping.
“Don’t,” I choked out. “Just—don’t.”
I was shaking. Broken. A complete wreck. My face burned from the tears and wind. My throat ached from screaming. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t look at anything.
Instead of arguing, Ryder mounted Liberty and gently took hold of Prudence’s reins. Wordless, he guided us back down the mountain side by side, his jaw locked, his posture rigid. He stayed close, never letting the distance between our horses widen.
We didn’t speak.
I cried the entire way. Each step down the mountain dragged us further into the gravity of what had just happened. Of what we’d seen.
By the time we reached the clearing, the sky had darkened to a bruised gray. Austin was waiting at the end of the drive, pacing. Miles sat on the porch steps, coffee in hand, hair sticking up like he’d rolled straight out of bed. The moment he saw us, he stood, mug clattering to the floor.
Their eyes locked on my face—tear-streaked, blotchy, wrecked. I slid off Prudence with Ryder’s help this time—too exhausted to fight him—and stumbled forward as if in a daze.
Ryder dismounted, tied off the reins, and stepped forward. His voice was calm. Controlled.
“We found Margie,” he said. “She’s been murdered, and was left at the bottom of a ravine about a half mile from here. Based on the marks around her neck, she was strangled.”
Miles’s jaw fell open. The color drained from his face. Austin’s eyes narrowed, his gaze drifting toward the tree line like he expected someone—or something—to emerge.
Ryder turned toward the house, already pulling out his phone. “I need to call the cops. Everyone inside. Now. No wandering. They’re going to want to speak with each of us.”
Miles shook his head like he was trying to wake himself from a nightmare. “She was strangled? Are you sure?”
“I don’t make guesses about things like that,” Ryder snapped, tension finally bleeding through his voice.
I turned to go inside. My legs were shaky, my boots slipping slightly on the icy steps. I felt Ryder’s presence just behind me, his hand hovering near my lower back, not touching me, but close enough to catch me if I fell.
I couldn’t stop shaking.
And I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was just the beginning.