Page 128 of All the Missing Pieces

My eyes stung as pain grabbed hold, but I forced myself to turn around.

Sully stood there, blood streaming down his face from what looked like a broken nose. He leveled the gun at my head. “What’s it going to be, Ridley?”

52

COLT

The lead detectivefrom the state police stood on the back deck, hands on his hips, staring down his nose at me. “You want me to start a statewide manhunt for someone because your sister remembered someone chewed grape gum?”

I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood. “He fits the profile.”

“A made-up profile from cases we aren’t even sure are related,” Detective Holden spat. “And between you and me, your sister doesn’t seem all that stable. Her testimony probably wouldn’t even hold up in court.”

A whole different sort of fury surged. My fingers clenched, knuckles itching to collide with Holden’s nose. As if reading my mind, Ryan stepped in front of me. “We’ve already put Shawn Sullivan in the vicinity of four other missing women just weeks before they disappeared.”

Holden scrubbed a hand over his face before shaking his head. “Come talk to me again when you’ve put him at the scene of the disappearance. We’re wrapping up and heading back to headquarters. We’ll keepyouin the loop of the investigation.”

He shot that last sentence at Ryan specifically. Because he’d wanted me off the premises of the crime scene from the momenthe’d arrived. It was just too bad for him that it was my sister’s house.

“I found something,” Marshall called, running up the steps to the back deck.

My hands fisted tighter as I tried to hold on to control. But I could feel it slipping. Too many awful images flew through my head. Ones I knew because of all the crime scene photos I’d studied over the past month.

Knowledge was supposed to mean power, but I’d never felt more powerless. Those images flashed in my mind, but instead it was Ridley’s face on their lifeless bodies.

“Tell me,” I snarled.

Marshall didn’t deserve my rage, but he didn’t take it personally. He knew I was holding on by a fraying thread. Instead, he started talking. “We got a hit on the gray Jeep. It’s registered to an LLC. The same LLC that reserved the single campsite at the bluffs for the next two weeks. It took a little digging, but that LLC has a single member.”

“Shawn Sullivan,” Ryan finished for him.

Marshall nodded.

But I was already moving. Running for my SUV. I didn’t give a damn about protocol or procedure. All I could see was Ridley.

I was halfway to my vehicle when a hand caught my arm. Ryan jerked me to a stop as deputies donned their Kevlar and moved to their squad cars and SUVs. “You know you can’t go.”

“The hell I can’t,” I growled.

“And what happens when we take him down and the whole arrest is called into question because you were the one to do it?” Ryan challenged. “What happens if we lose him because ofyou? How are you going to explain that to the families of those missing women? To the family of the one who disappears next?”

Rage blasted through me, but I knew she was right. I also knew I couldn’tnotgo. I had to be there for Ridley when sheneeded me. “Don’t cut me out. Let me be there in the end. She needs me.”

Indecision swept over Ryan’s face until she finally relented. “You ride with me. I don’t even want any record of your official vehicle on the premises.”

I jerked my head in a nod and ran to my SUV to grab my vest. Pulling it over my head, I secured the sides and slid into Ryan’s sedan. She was already behind the wheel and barking orders over the radio.

The instructions were to go in quiet, no lights or sirens, nothing that would spook Sullivan. Ryan led the parade of law enforcement vehicles, all of us making the trip in record time. As she pulled to a stop at the campsite, my stomach hollowed out.

A gray Jeep and a large RV stood sentry. The RV’s door was wide-open and flapping in the wind. But it was more than the ghostly reception that had me frozen to the spot. It was that they were familiar.

“I’ve seen that RV before,” I choked out.

“Where?” Ryan clipped.

“At Ridley’s campsite. I’m not sure when that was exactly. Before her attack.” My gut soured. I’d missed it. Hadn’t thought back to that fancy RV I’d seen previously, thought to check the camp’s registry. “He’s been watching her all this time.”

“Hold it together, Colt. If you don’t, I’m going to have to cuff you to this squad car, and I really don’t want to have to do that.”

---