Page 82 of All the Missing Pieces

I mulled over whether it was my place to tell Emerson or not, but finally decided Ridley wouldn’t mind. Because Emerson was a part of it all. A thread in the woven fabric. “Her sister went missing the night before their college graduation.” My mouth went dry, and I wished I’d asked Em for something to drink when she’d offered. “Ridley thinks the man who took her is the same one who abducted you.”

Emerson gripped her bottle as if it was the only thing keeping her in the here and now. And maybe it was. Because she stared across the table, but it wasn’t like she was seeing what was actually in front of her. She was somewhere else entirely.

“She thinks I was the first attempt,” Emerson said, her voice almost robotic.

“Yeah. She does.”

“Ridley’s sister. Did they find her?”

I swallowed acid climbing up my throat, all thosecould’ve beens. “No. They haven’t.”

Emerson kept staring at nothing, her gaze unfocused. “You think he’s killed people.”

I wanted to lie to her, to shield her from this, but I knew I couldn’t. “We do.”

“I was the lucky one,” Emerson whispered. “I got away. Nothing really bad even happened.”

“Em—”

Her gaze cut to me. “So why can’t I just get over it?”

Pain swept through me, waves of icy shards. “Because it was a trauma. It takes time to process.”

“It’s been ten years!” Emerson shoved her chair back, releasing the bottle to rattle against the table. “Ten years, andmy life just gets smaller and smaller. And here Ridley is, having gone through something horrible, and she’s turned it into a mission. Why can’t I be like that?”

I pushed to my feet. “Hey, now. Don’t you talk about my sister like that. She’s one of the strongest people I know.”

“Colt…”

“It’s true.” I dipped my head so she was forced to meet my eyes. “Everyone’s path is different. Takes different routes. You’ll get to where you’re meant to go.”

Emerson’s shoulders slumped. “I’d like to get there before I’m eighty.”

I pulled my sister into a hug. “You will. I promise.”

But my heart broke for all she’d already lost. All she’d missed out on. And I was going to make the bastard who’d stolen it all from her pay.

I pulled to a stop in front of my cabin but didn’t turn off the engine. I simply stared at the structure. I’d been so damned proud of it when I’d had it built, but Emerson had never seen it outside of pictures. Never felt safe enough to come visit, even if Trey and I were both with her. That ache in my chest only intensified as my brain made a laundry list of all the things she’d missed.

I couldn’t fix that for her. Couldn’t erase it. But maybe if we found the monster from her nightmares, she’d be able to start living again.

Shutting off the engine, I climbed out of my SUV and headed for the house. I needed to go for a run. Burn off some of the anger coursing through me. Or maybe I should’ve gone to the station to work out the aggression on the bag.

But I hadn’t. I’d come home. Because some part of meneededto see Ridley. Just lay eyes on her to make sure she was okay.

I unlocked the door and stepped inside, slipping off my boots as I quickly keyed in the code on the alarm panel. I’d insisted we both start using it from the moment Ridley had laid out those twenty-three cases. And the more I learned about each one, the more I didn’t think an alarm was nearly enough.

As I walked deeper into the house, all thoughts of alarms and cases fled from my brain. My steps slowed and then stopped altogether. There was Ridley, her palms on the floor, one leg in the air, resembling some sort of weird-ass triangle.

She wore another of those damn tank tops, and it was worse because it was paired with those tiny shorts she always wore when she went paddleboarding. The outfit was golden peach, the sort of hue that melded with her tan skin. It made it almost feel like she wasn’t wearing anything at all.

My gaze skimmed over her limbs, tracing the lines and curves, memorizing every detail, details I would torture myself with later in those nightly cold showers. Her perfect ass and hips dipped into a waist that would be just right for my hands to hold on to as I pounded into her. Waves of sun-kissed hair I could fist as she took me. Even the ridges of her spine somehow managed to be sexy.

Ridley’s body twisted again, her other leg going up as she turned toward me. A smile pulled at her lips, twisting like her curves did. “Hey, Law Man.”

Fuck me.

I thought it was bad seeing her from behind. That had nothing on those baby blues searing me to the spot. The way her tank dipped just enough for me to get a hint of the swells that would fit in my hands perfectly.

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