Page 48 of All the Missing Pieces

Colt eased up a bit, and Sully went on. “I’ve got an alibi for Ridley. The audio files she just uploaded are time-stamped. We can get them over to your techs to verify.”

Colt frowned. “Time-stamped…”

“Yeah. Because I’ve been here for the past five hours working and recording just like I said. Now unless you really are going to arrest me, get the hell out and don’t come back without a warrant.”

Colt’s deep-brown eyes darkened to black. “Ridley?—”

“Don’t,” I snapped. “I forgave you once. Forgave you for being a dick of epic proportions at least three times. But now I’m done. Just stay the hell away from me.”

And with that I slammed the door right in his face.

19

COLT

It was nearingmidnight when I left the station, but I couldn’t find it in myself to go home. Not yet. All that waited for me there were hours to mull over what a prick I was and Bowser’s deep snores. So instead I walked toward The Barrel. If I killed another hour or two, maybe sleep would find me when I finally made it home.

Shady Cove was locked up tight, every shop and restaurant still. There was nothing that indicated someone in my town could do the things I knew they’d done: break into a police station, give Dawson a concussion that was severe enough the hospital was keeping him for observation…abduct Emerson.

Because it was looking like Ridley hadn’t done it. The files her editor submitted had been verified by our tech. She’d been recording off and on during the entire window of the crime. There was no way she could’ve been the one to break in.

And worse than that, I’d hurt her. I could see it in those deep blues. I’d cut her to the quick.

Fucking hell.

I hauled open the door to The Barrel, and let the music and voices wash over me. It wasn’t the balm it normally was. Neither was seeing familiar faces, like Ezra on a stool, or Celia and Mirachatting it up at a table, or even Trey at his usual station behind the bar. Still, I made my way over to him.

“Whiskey or Coke?” he asked, the most important question for now.

“Better make it a Coke.” With everything going on, I needed my faculties.

Trey dumped ice into a tall glass and shot soda into it. “Start talking.”

There was no sense in keeping the details close. They would make the rounds by morning regardless. “Break-in at the station. Our cold case room. Dawson got clocked good, and he’s in the hospital for the night as a precaution.”

“Hell,” Trey muttered, then those gray eyes went flinty. “This is about Emerson.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway. “There were three cases that were disturbed, and hers was one of them.”

“That’s not a coincidence,” Trey growled.

“No, it’s not.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to alleviate the tension headache that was brewing there. It didn’t help. “You got any painkillers back there?”

Trey crouched, opening a cabinet and pulling out a bottle of Tylenol. He handed it over. “You need food? Kitchen’s closed, but I could probably scrounge something up.”

“Just need the drugs and a Coke,” I muttered.

Trey’s lips twitched. “Only the hard stuff for you.”

I washed down the two pills with a swig of Coke. Somehow I didn’t think they’d touch the ice pick jabbing the backs of my eyes.

I felt Trey’s eyes on me more than saw them. That probing energy trying to figure me out. “There’s something else,” he said.

Again it wasn’t a question. But that was the way Trey operated. Putting together the pieces without asking a single query.

My throat worked as I swallowed. “Had to ask Ridley where she was.”

Trey was silent, letting the sounds of the bar swirl around us. Finally I was forced to look up. He leaned against the back bar, hands gripping the wood, a tattered copy ofTo Kill a Mockingbirdresting there. He reread it every year. The pages were yellowed and bent, the spine cracked in a million ways.

---