Page 39 of Outlaw Ridge: Ryker
“What took you so long?” she asked, voice sharp and shaking. “I’ve been sitting hereterrifiedhe’d come back. The killer. What if he’s still around?”
Ryker stepped out slowly, keeping his tone calm. “Then it’s best if you’re inside. Doors locked.”
“I tried,” she said, lowering the umbrella slightly. “But I panicked. I couldn’t remember the code to the door. I just froze. So I stayed in the car.”
Emma glanced past Janette toward the edge of the property, where a blue tarp lay half-pulled back by the wind.
The shape beneath it was unmistakable.
And if it wasn’t another mannequin… then someone else had indeed died. And they were running out of time.
Gravel crunched behind them as Hayes and Jesse pulled to a stop, stepping out of their cruiser with matching urgency. Neither asked for an update, just scanned the scene, already taking it in.
Janette turned to look at the tarp again. Her knuckles were white around the umbrella’s shaft.
“Who is it?” she asked, her voice cracking. “Is it Ethan?”
Tears welled in her eyes, the kind that made her mascara smear just slightly, and she looked at Emma like she wanted her to fix it, like Emmacould.
“We don’t know yet,” Ryker said, voice even. “But I need to ask, what are you doing here, Janette? Why rent a place this close to Outlaw Ridge?”
Janette dragged the back of her hand across her face, smudging her makeup even more. “I just thought… if Ethan wasalive, maybe he came home. Maybe he’d try to find someone he trusted. Plus, Ethan and I stayed here a couple of times, and he really liked this place.”
Emma bit back the urge to roll her eyes. This had been Janette and Ethan’s love nest. Or rather one of them. She wondered if Ethan had brought Dr. Colvin here as well. He certainly hadn’t brought Emma, and she considered that a good thing. She was having to deal with enough memories of Ethan without having a visual of where some of those memories had been created.
“Get back in the car,” Emma told Janette, already moving toward the tarp with Ryker beside her.
But Janette didn’t budge. “If it’s him,” she said, her voice rising with each word, “Ineedto know.”
She started trotting behind them, umbrella still in hand like it gave her some kind of right to follow.
Emma stopped short, turned, and leveled a look at her. “Back. In the car.Now.The last time we saw something like this, someone fired shots at us and tried to blow us up.”
Janette froze. And for once, she listened.
Emma moved with Ryker down the slight slope toward the tarp, her eyes constantly sweeping the tree line. The luxury cabins in this area were designed for their views, cleared underbrush, wide spacing between the trees, sightlines straight to the creek. Pretty for couples. Not so great for cover.
Still, she didn’t take any chances.
She scanned every shadow, every movement in the distance, looking for the flicker of a scope, a shimmer of reflection, the shift of branches that didn’t match the wind.
Ryker did the same, his stance alert, hand near his weapon. She caught him glancing back toward Hayes and Jesse, who were doing their own sweep of the area as they followed from behind.
Emma’s pulse stayed steady, but that familiar thrum of anticipation was there, tight in her chest, just under her ribs.
Too many bodies. Too many masks.
And now one more, laid out like bait.
She reached the edge of the tarp and paused, eyes cutting back one last time toward the trees.
No movement.
Still, something crawled at the edge of her instincts.
Emma’s boots crunched over damp gravel and pine needles as she moved in step with Ryker, her senses tuned to everything, the creak of branches, the steady rustle of water from the creek, the low murmurs of Jesse and Hayes behind them.
The tarp flapped once in the breeze, a quiet ripple that tightened something in her gut.
