Page 169 of The Woman By the Lake

Yeah.

Something wasn’t right.

Fuck.

He threw the covers back and bolted off the bed, grabbing a pair of jeans from his chair and tugged them up on the move.

He also buttoned them on the way, his heart in his throat, his feet moving fast.

He got to the front door, yanked it open, and saw Wade Dickerson out on his deck, in uniform, his head bent to his phone, probably to call Riggs so he didn’t ring the doorbell and wake, therefore alarm, Ledger.

Wade’s head jerked up when he opened the door, and he said, “Hey, man. Everything’s okay. She’s all right.”

She.

His gut dropped.

Riggs unlocked the screen door and pushed it open.

Wade came inside, and when he stopped with Riggs on the landing, Riggs demanded, “Talk to me.”

“Someone’s fucking with Nadia again, and they’re escalating that shit.”

Goddammit.

“Why didn’t she call me?” Riggs muttered a question he assumed Wade didn’t have an answer to, about to make a move back to his stairs to finish getting dressed.

But Wade did have an answer.

“She told Harry she didn’t want you disturbed. Said she’d tell you tomorrow. Murphy left today, and she knew you were here with Ledger, and you couldn’t leave him, you couldn’t bring him with you. But Harry knows you’d lose your shit if he didn’t tell you, so he sent me here to stay with Ledge so you could head over there.”

That was when Riggs moved, and he did it saying, “You know how to make coffee, bud. Make some if you want, anything else you want is yours.”

His stairs weren’t designed to take two at a time, but by damn, he took them that way.

He hit his room, pulled on a tee, tugged on his running shoes, then he jogged back out.

Wade was sitting on a stool at his kitchen bar, doing something on his phone, and Riggs bid, “Owe you one. Later,” and raced out the door.

By the time he got in his truck, started it up and made his way to the cabin, he could run there, so that was what he did.

Riggs sprinted down the trail, only memory and moonlight to lead his way, until her cabin came into view.

And it was all lit up, shining like a beacon. Every light inside and out seemed to have been turned on.

When he got close, he saw the back door was open, so he made his way there.

The loose hold he had on his shit got weaker when he saw the state of Nadia’s back porch.

There were two rocks on the porch, big, around the size of a couple of softballs, one in the seat of one of the wicker chairs, and two of Brenda’s pots had been smashed by two more rocks, dirt and flowers all over the place.

Two women inside, middle of the night, those big stones hitting the porch, they had to be terrified.

His head hazy with anger, he hit the back security door, went through and knew how edgy the vibe was because of three things.

One, Gia growled at him before she realized who he was. Only then did she whimper and make her approach.

Two, Maribeth looked freaked right the fuck out.

---