Chapter 33 #2
“Do it,” I said. “And put a BOLO out for Colin, last name unknown to you, but I can provide it if you need it, and any dark SUV that isn’t local. I’m not asking. I’m telling you what’s coming.”
Another pause. “Sir, I need you not to take matters into your own hands.”
I laughed once, sharp and humourless. “You’re already too late with that piece of advice.” I ended the call and sat in my truck for half a second, hands on the steering wheel, breathing through the heat in my chest.
Then I drove.
Because sitting still while she was out there was a kind of madness I wouldn’t survive.
I took the road out of town and forced myself to think like a man who didn’t care about comfort, only control.
Colin wouldn't stay close to town. He wouldn’t risk cameras.
He wouldn’t risk witnesses. He’d go where the land went quiet, where gravel turned to ruts, where trees hid roofs, where people didn’t drive unless they had a reason.
There were too many places like that.
Old hunting shacks. Abandoned cabins. Empty properties people forgot existed. A busted trailer tucked into a bush with a padlock on the door. A stretch of crown land where you could park and disappear for a day, and no one would ask why.
I drove the back roads first, because that’s where you moved when you didn’t want to be seen. I watched for fresh tire tracks, for disturbed gravel, for a dust plume in the distance that didn’t belong.
Half an hour out, Holt’s truck and trailer pulled up beside me at a turnout, dust still settling around the wheels. Evan and Travis were behind him, faces tight, posture already braced.
Holt climbed out and came to my window. “What’ve you got?”
I told him. The co-op. The waiting man. The dark vehicle. No plates. No clear direction beyond the obvious.
Holt’s jaw went hard. “Colin.”
“Yeah. And we’re not waiting for permission to look.”
Travis shifted, scanning the horizon. “You got a place in mind?”
“I’ve got a list,” I said, and it wasn’t an exaggeration. This land was full of places that could hide a person if someone wanted it to.
Evan rubbed his hands together, restless. “How’re we splitting?”
I looked at the three of them and forced myself to stay clear-headed. “We don’t scatter and lose each other. We work patterns. We keep phones on. We check in every twenty minutes. You see something, you call. You don’t play hero.”
Travis’s mouth twitched. “We’re not the heroic type.”
“Good,” I said. “Evan, you take the ridge roads and watch for any vehicle that doesn’t belong. Travis, you take the south loop past the coulee and the old irrigation sheds. Holt, you’re with me. Everyone on horseback, we can cover the ground better than in a vehicle.”
Holt expected it because the horses were already saddled as we led them out of the trailer. He climbed onto the back of his horse without a word, and the weight of having him there steadied something in me. Holt was the only one who could pull me back if I stepped too far over a line.
We rode for hours.
The sun climbed, then started its slow lean toward afternoon. The heat built. The dust clung to our clothes. The land stretched out, indifferent and wide, and I hated it for how easily it could hide her.
Every time my phone buzzed, my heart slammed into my ribs.
Each time, it was Evan or Travis reporting that nothing was found.
Once, it was the constable asking where I was and telling me to return to town to give a formal statement.
I lied, and I said I was on my way.
Then we rode deeper into the quiet.
We checked an abandoned equipment shed on an old farm site first, the one that sat half collapsed on a neighbor’s back quarter. Holt walked the perimeter while I scanned the ground for fresh tracks. Nothing but old ruts and deer prints.
We checked a hunting shack near the river, the kind of place teenage boys used to sneak beers in when they thought they were grown. The door was padlocked, and the dust on the porch boards was undisturbed.
We checked a broken-down trailer tucked into a stand of poplars, the windows busted, the door hanging loose. It smelled like mice and rot.
Each empty place tightened the fear, not because empty meant safe, but because empty meant we were behind.
Holt didn’t talk much; every so often, he’d point at a track, and we’d both lean out to study it, debating whether it was fresh enough to matter.
Late in the afternoon, we stopped at a turnout overlooking a shallow valley. From up there, the land rolled in soft lines, patches of trees breaking the fields, coulees cutting scars into the ground. The kind of view that usually makes people feel small in a good way.
Today, it made me furious.
“She’s out there,” I said, voice low, and it wasn’t a guess. It was a fact that lived in my bones.
Holt’s gaze stayed on the horizon. “Yeah.”
“I should’ve pushed harder for her to keep someone with her,” I said before I could stop myself. “I should’ve taken her seriously when she looked like she was about to crack.”
Holt finally looked at me. “You can’t rewind. You can only move forward.”
I nodded, because he was right and because it didn’t help. We got back on the horses and kept going.
Dusk started to creep in when Travis called.
“I’ve got something,” he said, and the words hit like a jolt of electricity. “Not her, but something.”
“Where?” I demanded.
“Old logging road off the south loop,” he said. “There’s a set of fresh tracks going in. Deep. Like a heavier vehicle. Looks recent.”
My grip tightened on the wheel. “Any sign of her truck?”
“No,” Travis said. “Just the tracks and a spot where someone pulled off into the trees.”
“Stay there,” I said. “Don’t go in alone.”
“I’m not stupid,” Travis replied, but his voice was tight. “Get here.”
I kicked the sides of my gelding and took off like a bee stung the horse.
Holt kept pace beside me, silent, braced, eyes scanning everything we passed. The light turned gold, then amber, then thin.
When we reached Travis, he was standing at the edge of the logging road, arms crossed, jaw set. Evan was there too, standing beside him, dust still settling like he’d ridden in fast.
Travis pointed. “There,” he said.
I got off and crouched, studying the tracks. They were fresh. The edges were crisp. The gravel was disturbed in a way that hadn’t had time to settle.
A vehicle had gone in.
Not long ago.
My pulse hammered. “How far does the road go?”
“Couple kilometers,” Travis said. “Then it dead ends near an old line shack. Been empty for years.”
Holt’s gaze flicked to mine. “We go in together.”
I nodded once. “Together.”
We moved slowly down the logging road, staying on the grass so we made minimal noise. The trees thickened, the light dimmed, and the world felt like it was closing in, even though the prairie wasn’t supposed to close around anything.
The road ended where Travis said it would, at a clearing that held the remains of a small structure. Not a cabin, not really. A shack with a sagging roof and grey boards, the kind of place built for temporary work and then forgotten when the work moved on.
My blood went cold.
I tied the horse to a tree and stood still for a second, listening.
No voices. No movement. No sign of life.
Holt was the first to speak, barely above a whisper. “That could be where he was staying?”
“It could,” I said, and I hated how steady my voice sounded, like my body decided terror wasn’t useful anymore.
We got out and moved in carefully, boots quiet on the dirt. Evan and Travis flanked, wide, scanning the tree line. Holt stayed close, like he could feel the exact second I might lose control.
I reached the porch first and looked through the window.
Empty. I checked the ground. Fresh footprints.
Two sets, maybe three, hard to tell in the disturbed dirt. One set smaller. One set larger.
My throat tightened. “She was here,” I said, and the words felt like a vow and a curse.
Holt swore under his breath.
I moved toward the shack, every muscle in my body braced.
The door was shut, but it wasn’t latched properly. It hung slightly open, as if someone had been in a hurry or hadn’t cared.
I pushed it with the back of my hand.
It creaked inward.
The smell hit first. Old wood. Dust. Mouse droppings. Stale smoke, faint but real, like a fire had been lit and put out not long ago.
The space inside was small. A table. A broken chair. A pile of old blankets in one corner, mouldy at the edges.
No one was there. Nothing but emptiness and the echo of what could’ve happened.
I scanned the floor again, and then I saw it.
A single dark strand of hair caught on a splintered board near the doorway. Long. Dark.
My chest seized.
I didn’t touch it. I didn’t move it. I only stared, because staring was the only thing keeping me from tearing the place apart with my bare hands.
Travis shifted behind me. “What?”
“She was here,” I said again, voice rougher now.
Evan’s breath came hard. “Where’d they go?”
That was the question that mattered, and it was the one the shack couldn’t answer.
Holt moved past me and checked the back corner, then the window, then the ground outside. He came back in with his face set.
“There’s another set of tracks leaving on foot,” he said quietly. “They went east into the trees.”
My pulse slammed. “Why leave the vehicle?”
“Because they didn’t want it found on the main roads,” Holt said. “Or they swapped vehicles. ”
My mind raced, mapping the tree line, the coulee beyond, the faint paths deer used that could lead to a hidden road. It was too much land and not enough time.
I forced myself to breathe. In, out. Control. If we rushed blind, we’d miss what mattered.
“We call this in,” Holt said.
My jaw clenched so hard it hurt. “And wait.”
“And bring law down on it,” Holt corrected. “Wyatt, you want her alive. You want her back. You don’t want to stomp through here and wipe out the only tracks we’ve got.”
He was right. And I hated him for it.
I nodded once and pulled my phone out, hands steady only because I didn’t have a choice.
I called the detachment and told them where we were. I told them we’d found a likely suspect vehicle, an abandoned structure, recent tracks, and possible hair evidence. I told them we hadn’t entered further into the bush beyond the immediate shack area.
I lied about how close I’d come to doing exactly that.
The constable’s voice sharpened. They said units were on the way. They said to stay put. They said not to engage.
When I ended the call, the air felt thick. The light outside turned low and bruised, dusk settling into the trees like a lid.
Evan shifted, restless. “We’re just going to stand here.”
“No,” I said, and my voice came out quiet and deadly. Travis looked like he wanted to argue, but Holt’s hand landed on his shoulder, firm.
I stepped out of the shack and stared into the trees where the tracks vanished.
Somewhere out there, she was breathing. Somewhere out there, she was alive, because I refused to accept any other possibility.
And somewhere out there, Colin was walking around wearing his sickness like a suit, convinced he could control the world by controlling her.
I stood in the fading light with my hands curled into fists and the taste of metal in my mouth, and I let the promise settle in my chest like a brand.
I hadn’t found her yet.
But I’d found a thread.
And I was going to follow it until it became a rope, until it became a noose, until it dragged the truth into daylight, whether Colin liked it or not.