Page 28 of Outlaw Ridge: Jesse
Lauren’s breath caught in her throat. Belinda had found the bunker.
The walls of the police station seemed to close in, the air suddenly too thick. A long-buried part of her, the terrified girl who had run for her life through the woods, wanted to shut all of this out. It was too much. But the cop in her needed to hear every word.
Lauren leaned forward, her voice edged with urgency. “Did you find the other captives?”
Belinda’s answer came quickly. “No.” She shook her head. “It was empty.”
Lauren’s gut twisted. Empty. She couldn’t decide if that made things better or worse. If the bunker had been empty when Belinda got there, it meant someone could have maybe moved the other captives. But who? Had they been rescued? Had someone else taken them?
Or had they managed to escape?
Lauren’s heart hammered, her mind spinning with all the possibilities. She searched Belinda’s face, looking for any flicker of hesitation, any crack in her composure.
“You’re sure?” she pressed. “There was no sign of them?”
Belinda’s throat bobbed as she swallowed hard. “I would’ve helped them if they were there.” Her voice softened. “I would’ve helped you.”
Lauren wasn’t sure what to believe. Sixteen years ago, she had barely made it out of those woods alive. Now, she was supposed to believe that the man who’d hunted her had died that same day and that his sister had stumbled across the place where she’d been held captive?
It felt like another piece of the puzzle had been forced into place, but the picture still didn’t make sense.
“There was some food in the bunker,” Belinda went on. “And I did find a tattoo gun. It had belonged to my uncle. He used todo that, but after he hurt his hand, he gave it to my dad. Thought he might want to use it to brand our cows or something.” She shuddered. “Reggie volunteered to do that, and I could see the sick pleasure he got from burning marks on them.”
Lauren’s hand went to her arm. To what was left of the tattoo that monster had put on her. He’d practiced on cattle.
“Does a heart tattoo with an infinity symbol inside it mean anything to you?” Lauren had to ask. “Did it mean anything to Reggie?”
“No,” Belinda repeated, and the way she glanced back at her husband told Lauren that Reardon had told his wife about it. Lauren’s question certainly hadn’t come as a surprise to her. “But Reggie wasn’t stupid. He would have known what the infinity symbol meant. So, maybe this was his way of branding you as his forever.”
A chill slithered down Lauren’s spine.
Branding you as his forever.
Her stomach twisted at the thought. The tattoo had always been a mystery, an unanswered question etched into her skin. Had Reggie marked her like she was some kind of possession?
She forced herself to hold Belinda’s gaze. “But you don’t know for sure about the meaning of the tattoo?”
Belinda shook her head. “No. I never saw him do anything like that before on a person, but he was always escalating. Always looking for new ways to break people.”
Lauren’s pulse pounded in her ears. If Reggie had been the one to give her the tattoo, then why did Abilene and Nicky have the exact same one? The connection was there, tangled and suffocating, but she couldn’t quite unravel it.
She glanced at Reardon, whose expression remained unreadable.Secretive. But she couldn’t tell if that was because he wanted to protect his wife.
Or himself.
“There was no tattoo gun found in the bunker,” Jesse pointed out. Lauren knew from his tone and expression, he was in the protection mode, too.
For her.
“I took it,” Belinda admitted. “I don’t know why. But I took it and went back to the dried up springs hole and threw it in with Reggie’s body.”
That didn’t make sense to Lauren, but a lot of things about this didn’t make sense. Why go back to his makeshift grave? Why not just leave it there or throw it away someplace closer?
Belinda reached into her purse, her hands trembling slightly as she pulled out a worn photograph. “Do you want to see him?” she asked, her voice tight with something Lauren couldn’t quite place. Guilt, grief, maybe both.
Lauren hesitated. Did she want to?
But she had to.
