Page 1 of Outlaw Ridge: Ryker
Chapter One
----- ? ----
Deputy Emma Bonetti was looking for a dead body.
One she hoped she didn’t find.
But if it was here, then it wasn’t exactly a serene final resting place, that was for sure. More like the kind of place nightmares came to rot.
The old Calhoun Ranch looked even worse than she remembered. Neglect and drought had scorched the land to brittle bone, leaving the fence in a twisted lean and the barn slouched as if it was too tired to stand.
The only thing that was thriving here was the Texas thistle and other assorted weeds. They poked up through the gravel drive and pretty much everywhere else, including near the edge of the field where the wind flapped at a blue tarp. It was half-buried in dirt and just visible from the road.
That tarp was what the utility worker had seen, and it was what had prompted the call. It had raised serious concerns too.
Because the utility worker had said he thought there was a dead body beneath that tarp.
Emma wasn’t ruling it out, but the odds were that it was just a dead animal or some debris. The Calhoun Ranch had been vacant for going on four years, tied up in an ugly inheritance dispute that left it in legal limbo and practical ruin. No onelived here. No one should have visited either. The place hadNo Trespassingsigns tacked to every fence post still standing.
A call like this usually ended with a dead deer tangled in plastic or some overactive imagination. Still, something about the setup didn’t sit right.
Beside her, Deputy Ryker Caldwell killed the engine of the cruiser. The hum died, but the tension in her shoulders remained.
“Didn’t figure our first call-out would bring us here,” he said, scanning the open stretch of land with a slow, measured sweep. “Place isn’t exactly on anyone’s beaten path.” He paused, his eyes narrowing toward the empty field. “Well, maybe for a utility worker. But the power lines aren’t down, so what the hell was he doing all the way out here?”
She glanced at him, then back at the barn. “It wasn’t even a standard call. The worker phoned me directly.”
Ryker’s brow lifted. “Not dispatch?”
“Nope,” she verified. “Said he recognized my name and figured I’d want to check it out myself.”
That hadn’t surprised her. Since transferring from Austin PD a month ago, Emma had learned that some locals still treated her like a direct line to the badge, especially those who’d known her late uncle, the longtime sheriff of Outlaw Ridge. It wasn’t the first call that had come in personal and probably wouldn’t be the last.
Ryker didn’t question it either, but the look he gave her said he was thinking through what that meant. For the case. For her. And for them as partners.
He hadn’t been her first choice to be paired with at Outlaw Ridge PD, but she hadn’t objected out loud. She couldn’t fault his skillset. Former military. Former Strike Force. He moved like a man who had survived more than one close call andremembered every one of them. He had the instincts of someone born to be a cop, sharp, fast, and quiet.
But none of that made this partnership easy.
Because Ryker hadn’t just been a fellow soldier.
He’d been her ex’s friend. Ethan’s friend.
From everything she’d heard, Ethan and Ryker had served together. Bled together. He had been in her orbit during the Strike Force days, always just close enough to matter but never quite part of the chaos between her and Ethan.
Still, Ryker knew enough.
He knew Ethan as a brother-in-arms. He knew Emma as the fiancée who’d been left behind… or worse, depending on which version of the story people chose to believe.
That shared history was unspoken but heavy, and it hung between them like smoke. Now they were partners, working the same small town where half the locals thought she got away with murder.
Emma adjusted her vest and stepped out into the cold. February in Outlaw Ridge meant gray skies and air that bit through her coat. The forecast had been flirting with sleet all day, and she could feel the threat of it in the wind, sharp and damp, creeping beneath her collar.
Ryker shut his door and fell into step beside her. His breath puffed out in faint clouds as they walked toward the tarp. Not exactly a quiet walk either. Their boots crunched over gravel and frost-hardened dirt.
He slowed near the tire ruts etched into the road’s edge and crouched, pulling out his phone. “Fresh,” he said, angling for a photo. “Probably the utility worker, but… maybe not.”
Emma scanned the field again, instinct buzzing beneath her skin. “You get any gut feeling about this?”
