Page 40 of Outlaw Ridge: Jesse
Isabel shook her head. “No. No,” she repeated a moment later. “The man I was meeting wouldn’t have done that.”
Maybe. But Lauren had her doubts. “This man didn’t report you missing when you didn’t show up to meet him?”
“No. He thought I’d changed my mind. He had no idea what’d happened to me,” Isabel added in a mutter.
Lauren decided to go with a hunch. “Was the man you were supposed to meet Dr. Graves?”
Isabel’s mouth tightened, but she finally nodded.
Hell. Why hadn’t Graves mentioned that? That was something Lauren wanted to know. Jesse, too, and he took out his phone to fire off a text to Hallie so she could ask the doctor about that during their interview.
“The person who took me was a stranger,” Isabel went on. “I’m sure no one I know would have done something like that to me.”
Lauren wasn’t so sure. Graves could have been Reggie’s accomplice. And it would explain why Graves had volunteered his profiling services. It would have allowed him access to the investigation to maybe make sure his involvement didn’t come to light.
“The man who took me kept me in a bunker in the woods,” Isabel continued, her voice cracking. “There were other girls there. I don’t know how many, but I heard them. He… he put a tattoo on my arm.” Her hand instinctively went to the spot on her sleeve where Lauren had noticed her touching earlier.
Lauren’s chest tightened, but she kept her focus. “How’d you get out?”
Isabel’s breath hitched. “One of the girls escaped. I don’t know how, but she got out. He chased after her, and that’s when I ran too. I didn’t look back. I was too scared. I think… I think there might’ve been a third girl, but I don’t know what happened to her.”
The tears came harder now, Isabel’s polished veneer crumbling. She leaned forward, her hands gripping the edge of the desk like it was the only thing keeping her grounded.
“Please,” she whispered, her voice raw. “Please catch him before he comes for me again.”
Lauren exchanged a look with Jesse, her jaw clenched, heart pounding. They would catch him. They had to.
Reggie had stayed hidden for sixteen years, but he wasn’t hiding anymore. And this time, they couldn’t let him slip away.
Chapter Fifteen
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Jesse sat on the edge of Lauren’s desk, watching the door click shut behind Isabel. The echoes of the woman’s ordeal still lingered in the room, as sharp and heavy as the words she’d left behind.
Please catch him before he comes for me again.
He had no doubt that Isabel’s fear was the real deal. And right now, everything was pointing to Reggie as being the sole abductor of not only Isabel and Lauren but another unknown, unnamed woman as well. Reggie could have also been operating solo in taking Abilene and Nicky.
One man and a nightmare that had spanned sixteen damn years.
And it was continuing.
Because Reggie could indeed go after Belinda, Lauren, and Isabel. That’d been the reason Isabel had said she’d be hiring a bodyguard. Maybe Reardon would do a thorough job protecting Belinda. And Jesse sure as hell intended to protect Lauren. He wouldn’t let this sick sonofabitch get to her again.
Even if they couldn’t find him.
After Jesse’s call to Austin PD, they’d immediately sent a patrol car to Isabel’s estate, but Reggie hadn’t been there. Not only that, the gardener had insisted he hadn’t seen Reggie in days, that the man had quit showing up for work. Maybe becauseReggie hadn’t gotten what he wanted. Not Isabel but a young version of her in her stepsister.
Did that mean Nicky had been taken as a substitute for Lauren?
Possibly.
But Jesse figured that substitutes weren’t Reggie’s end game. He could have used them for practice. Or to torment Lauren and to force Belinda into confessing what she’d done to him. Now, with the mind games done, Reggie could try to move in for a final kill.
Trying not to let his anger and frustration gnaw away at him, Jesse shoved that thought aside and glanced at Lauren. She was in her chair, staring at the laptop screen though Jesse knew she wasn’t seeing it. The muscles in her jaw were stirring, her posture rigid, but it was the tension in her eyes that told him just how deep all of this had rattled her.
Without overthinking it, Jesse reached out, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder. “We’re going to get him, Lauren. This ends with us finding Reggie.”
