Page 53 of Outlaw Ridge: Jesse
“Why?” Lauren demanded. And the words just came rushing out of her. “Is this because I left you behind in that bunker? Because I didn’t save you?”
Jesse shoved Isabel onto her stomach, his knee pressed into her back as he yanked a pair of plastic restraints from his pocket. His movements were swift, controlled, fueled by the same anger that pulsed through Lauren. The zip of the restraints made a snapping sound when they locked in place.
Lauren stood over them, gun still in her hand, her chest heaving. She stared down at Isabel, disbelief warring with rage, her mind struggling to process everything.
“Why?” Lauren demanded, her voice rough and low. She took a step closer, her pulse pounding in her ears. “Why did you try to kill us? Was it because I ran? Because I didn’t rescue you from that bunker?”
Isabel’s head snapped up, her face twisted with fury, her hair tangled and wild around her face. “I didn’t need rescuing,” she snarled, her voice sharp and venomous. “I saved myself.”
Lauren’s breath hitched, but she didn’t back down. She kept her eyes locked on Isabel, needing to hear the rest, needing answers that didn’t make sense.
“When you ran,” Isabel spat, her voice dripping with bitterness, “The bastard who had us went after you. That’s when I got out. While he was busy chasing you, I slipped away, and I went in the opposite direction, far away from both of you.”
Jesse tightened the restraints, his jaw clenched, his eyes dark with fury, but he didn’t say a word.
Isabel kept talking, her words tumbling out like poison. “I found an old woman living alone in some rundown trailer. She let me use her phone, and I called a friend to come get me. I didn’t tell my mother. I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Because of the scandal it would have caused,” Jesse spat out, the sarcasm dripping from his voice as he dragged Isabel to her feet. “You’re a twisted piece of shit, you know that. You’d hide the fact you were abducted and held captive all so your snobbish mother wouldn’t learn that you’d sneaked out of the house.”
“Damn right, I wanted it hidden,” Isabel fired back. “My whole future would have been ruined. No one would have seen me as Isabel Markham, heiress to a fuckin’ fortune. They would have seen me as that poor pitiful victim who got exactly what she deserved for disobeying her parents. I would have become a joke, one of those cautionary tales fordon’t do this, kiddies.”
Lauren’s stomach turned, not just from the venom in Isabel’s words, but from the cold truth in them. Isabel didn’t feel guilt or remorse. She felt resentment—for being seen as vulnerable, for being human.
Jesse didn’t verbally respond to Isabel. He just gave her another nudge, forcing her to stumble forward. They started their way toward the main road, only about twenty yards away, the ground uneven under their feet. The truck was still burningto their right, flames crackling and casting flickering shadows across the trees. The wail of sirens grew louder, closer now, a reminder that the nightmare might soon be over. This time for good.
“So, why try to kill us?” Lauren asked, and she prayed she got an answer. One that she could learn to live with.
Isabel let out a bitter laugh. “I didn’t plan to kill you,” she snapped, her tone dripping with disdain. “Not at the start anyway. But you just got in the way. You were digging too deep, asking too many questions. Like fuckin’ dogs with fuckin’ bones. You might have discovered what I’d done.”
Lauren’s heart kicked against her ribs. She stepped in front of Isabel, blocking her path, her jaw tight. “What would we have found out?” she pressed, her voice colder now.
Isabel’s eyes burned with defiance, but something in her face shifted. Maybe she was tired of hiding, or maybe she just wanted to twist the knife one last time.
“Abilene found out,” Isabel said, her voice flat. “She discovered the truth about my abduction, and she was going to write about it. Some true crime blog. Thought it’d impress her criminal justice professors.” She groaned, shaking her head like it was some petty annoyance. “Abilene was always a selfish little bitch. Thought she was smarter than everyone else.”
Lauren’s stomach turned, bile rising in the back of her throat.
“I taught her a lesson,” Isabel added, her smile cold and devoid of any humanity.
Jesse’s grip tightened on her arm, his jaw clenched. “You’re the one who abducted Abilene,” he said, his voice low with disbelief.
Isabel snorted. “No. My gardener did. I paid Clyde to take Abilene and Nicky. Told him to put that tattoo on them so the cops would think the old abductor had returned. It was all aboutmisdirection.” Her lips curled into a mocking smile. “It was Clyde who stole Reardon’s phone, set him up to take the fall.”
“Your gardener, not Reggie,” Lauren murmured.
“No, Clyde told me that Reggie wouldn’t follow orders. He was only there to take the fall. Then, the bastard gets killed, and Clyde decides he wants out so I have to kill him. Those two sonsofbitches were going to hang me out to dry. So, I took matters into my hands.” Isabel spat out the words, punctuating each one of them. “I had to save myself again.”
Lauren felt like the ground shifted beneath her feet. All the threads they’d been pulling, all the pieces they thought fit together—it had been Isabel all along, weaving her own twisted narrative.
“You’re a monster,” Lauren whispered, the words falling like a stone between them.
Isabel didn’t flinch. She just smiled. “I’m a survivor. I’ll get out of this, you’ll see.”
Jesse let out a short, sharp laugh, his grip on her tightening. “Doubt that,” he shot back, his voice dripping with contempt. “No snobby family or circle of friends can help you out of this one. You’ll be a pariah—a walking reminder that crime doesn’t pay. A life lesson that people whisper about when they want to scare their kids straight.”
Isabel’s face twisted with rage. She let out a feral howl and tried to jerk free from Jesse’s grip, her whole body straining against the restraints. But Jesse didn’t budge. His hold was like iron, and Isabel’s fury only made him grip her tighter.
The wail of sirens grew louder, cutting through the night, and Lauren turned her head just as a police cruiser rounded the wreckage of Jesse’s burning truck. The headlights sliced through the smoke, illuminating the grim scene in the harsh, white light.
