Page 22 of All the Missing Pieces

I nodded. “I want to find him. I want to make him pay for what he’s done. But more than that, I want to bring the families closure, justice. It won’t bring their loved ones back, but it might help them begin to truly heal.”

It was more than a want. It was a need so desperate, it had almost turned me feral in my single-minded focus. But I didn’t care. I would do whatever it took to find answers. Anything except force survivors like Emerson to talk. It didn’t matter howdeep the need to solve this particular case went. I’d never steal someone’s free will, never become a monster likehim.

Emerson opened the door a little more. I could just make out the entryway, lined with paintings and sketches of every size, shape, and medium. Her fingers gripped the doorknob tighter. “Why?”

My brows pulled together.

“Why do you want to find him?” she asked. Her voice didn’t tremble, and while everything about her situation here, from the cameras to the fact that she didn’t leave her fortress, suggested she lived in fear, nothing about that voice was weak. “You want more streams on your show? Want to be the one to solve it and get that reward?”

“I wantjustice.” The word vibrated in the air between us, the force of it linking us together. “And I don’t want him to hurt another soul. Don’t want him to destroy another family. And if he started with you, you’re the one who can help me find him.”

Emerson’s eyes widened in shock, but then a steeliness slid into them. The kind of strength I knew this woman must have had to get free from a monster and launch herself out of the back of a truck, to walk miles on a broken hip to find help, to, no matter what, survive.

She opened her mouth to speak, but it wasn’t her voice that rang out. It was a masculine one, a familiar one. And it was full of fury.

“Get the hell off my sister’s property.”

8

COLT

The moment a deputydropped that Open Records request on my desk, dread had pooled in my gut. But fast on its heels had come anger—no, rage. People like Ridley didn’t have the first clue the kind of damage she could do with her bullshit questions and nosiness. They had never known what it was like to have a single moment rip your world apart.

It had done the most damage to Em, no question, but the rest of us hadn’t exactly made it out unscathed. Mom had held us so close after that, the fear creating fractures in her heart that had finally broken it altogether. My whole worldview had changed that day; everything seemed darker. I’d ditched my plan to open a bar with Trey and went to the academy instead. And that didn’t exactly help my perspective. Instead of seeing the best in humanity, I started to see the worst.

It didn’t matter how many people I helped, even the handful of lives I’d saved. Nothing could erase the guilt I felt. The knowledge that everything would’ve been different if I just would’ve been there when Emerson needed me, been there when I wassupposedto be.

Twenty minutes past when I’d said I would be there to pick Em up from her obsessive tennis practice, I'd finally arrived. And when I got there, she’d simply been gone.

At first, I’d been pissed. Beyond annoyed she hadn’t texted to let me know that she’d gotten a ride with a friend and didn’t need me going out of my way to get her. And then I saw her duffel. The pink one with the sports company’s logo on the side and her name written in purple Sharpie on the strap. A panic unlike anything I’d ever known had set in.

My little sister, the one who’d come along from my mom’s second marriage, the surprise who’d taken to me instantly as if she believed I was the one who could keep her safe in this world, had vanished. No,vanishedwas the wrong word. She’d been taken. And it was my fucking fault.

“Your sister?” Ridley parroted as she gaped up at me as if I were some sort of alien who’d crash-landed on my sister’s front porch.

I was sure she was confused by the fact that we had different last names, but I didn’t give a damn. It only pissed me off more. As though the fact that we were half-siblings would make me care less somehow.

“My.Sister. Now get the hell off her property before I arrest you.”

“Colt,” Emerson said softly. “That’s not necessary.”

My gaze swung to her, and she snapped her mouth closed.

I turned back to Ridley, who still hadn’t moved. “What? You get some sort of sick charge out of harassing victims? Bringing up the worst moment in their lives and forcing them to relive it? You’re scum.”

Pain streaked across Ridley’s face. It was so vicious, I swore I could feel the fiery claws of it rake at my chest. But just as quickly as it appeared, it was gone, tucked away under a mask of nothingness.

I’d seen Emerson do something similar. Lock away the pain by tuning out the whole world around her. The masks were different, but a sudden twisted fear punched through me as I wondered if she’d been through something similar.

“Ridley—”

But then the fire was back, sparking through those blue eyes. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.” Her gaze jerked away as she tugged something from her pocket and handed it to my sister. “If you want to talk, you can reach me here. But no pressure. Only you know if you’re ready to go down that road. I’ll keep looking for the truth no matter what. Promise.”

That rage came flooding back, drowning out any worry for Ridley. I opened my mouth to tear into her yet again, but she was already jogging down the steps and toward that goddamned bike I couldn’t believe she’d ridden all the way out here. As furious as I was, I still couldn’t take my eyes off her as she climbed on and took off.

“Think you could’ve been any more of an ass?”

Emerson’s exasperated question tugged my gaze back to her. I could see a slight tremor in her hand as she gripped Bear’s collar. That kept the anger burning bright. “She doesn’t have any right to come up here, to shove all this back in your face.”

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