Page 60 of All the Missing Pieces

I scrubbed a hand over my face. The scruff there had officially tipped over from stubble into a beard. I needed a shave.

“Still not a fan?” Ryan pushed.

I sent a scowl in her direction. “I think that what she’s doing is risky.”

“Never said it wasn’t. But sometimes risky is needed to break through.”

“Or all hell is going to break loose,” I argued. Because if there was one thing that Ridley was good at, it was chaos.

Ryan shrugged. “That’s what we’re here for, to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.”

I wanted to believe it could be that simple. That we could rein it all in when things got out of hand. But unless Ridley was letting us in at every step, that wasn’t possible. And it had dread stirring somewhere deep. Worry for Emerson and for Ridley.

I shoved it all down and turned back to the files. “I want to get an alibi for everyone who was a suspect in Emerson’s case. See where they were last night.”

Ryan’s brows lifted. “Going hard, no tiptoeing.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway. “There’s no point. I think the shock of a head-on approach might actually tell us more.”

She nodded and ripped a piece of paper off the notepad in front of her, then picked up a pen. “You want to go with the core three or talk to everyone who was questioned at all?”

“Everyone,” I answered immediately. The three main suspects the sheriff’s department and state police had circledwere Grady, Coach Kerr, and Emerson’s math teacher. The math teacher was in his early seventies now and had Alzheimer’s, so I doubted he could’ve managed a break-in like this one. Grady and Kerr needed to be talked to for sure, but we needed to cast a wider net.

“That’s over thirty people,” Ryan reminded me.

“I know. And they’re not going to be happy.”

“Understatement of the century. It pissed people off back then. It’ll be worse revisiting it.”

I knew she was right, but there was no way around it. We had to start somewhere, and this was the best shot we had. “We can start tomorrow. I want you or me in on every interview. No sending deputies alone.”

Ryan nodded. “You got it.”

A knock sounded on the door and then it opened, Dina stepping inside. Her halo of frizzy, gray hair always made her look a little frazzled, but the fact that her gaze jumped all over the room added to it tonight.

My gut hollowed out. “What’s wrong?”

Dina swallowed. “It’s that woman. The podcaster. Someone found her beat to hell at the campground.”

24

RIDLEY

A light flashedacross my eyes, making me wince.

“Does that hurt?” the doctor asked, concern radiating through her voice.

“Doesn’t feel like kittens and rainbows,” I rasped. My voice sounded like I’d been a chain-smoker from the age of two and followed it up with whiskey on the regular. But I guessed that was what happened when someone tried to strangle you.

I shivered at the reminder. The memory of that voice in my ear. Of slipping into the darkness.

That darkness was punctuated by shouts. A twentysomething and his girlfriend who were camped nearby had found me. The EMTs asked me all sorts of questions.

And the pain. So much pain.

That hadn’t left me. Not yet. And Dr. Sapra hadn’t wanted to give me drugs yet. Not until the MRI results came back.

She hadn’t messed around when I arrived. After getting my vitals, it had been straight to get X-rays and an MRI. Thankfully the X-rays had shown that nothing was broken, but the MRI took longer to read.

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