Page 58 of Outlaw Ridge: Ryker
Celeste stood abruptly, her shoulders still tight with worry. She pulled a small notepad from her coat pocket and scribbled down a number, tearing the page off and sliding it across the desk.
“Please,” she said, voice rough. “Call me the moment you know anything. Anything at all.”
Ryker nodded, folding the note and slipping it into his jacket. “We will. I promise.”
Celeste held his gaze a moment longer, then turned and walked out, her boots echoing against the tile until the bullpen door swung shut behind her.
The silence that followed was brief.
Emma turned to him, her expression mirroring everything churning in his own gut. “We need to go to the estate.”
Ryker didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely. Even if he’s not there, there might be something left behind. A trail. Something he didn’t cover.”
They moved in sync, grabbing their coats off the rack. Ryker snatched the brown paper bag off his desk with a quick glance inside. The sandwiches would no doubt be cold, but they were still edible, and their bodies needed fuel. He grabbed their to-go cups of coffee as well.
“We’re heading out to the Harper estate in Rhorer’s Crossing to check out a lead on Ethan,” Emma called out to Jemma as they passed the front desk. “Let us know if anything comes in.”
Jemma nodded from behind the monitors, already typing. “Be careful.”
Ryker opened the door, and they stepped out into the bitter morning wind. Snow flurries swirled through the icy morning air as they hurried to the cruiser, breath puffing in quick bursts. The cold stung his skin, the wind sharp as they slid inside and shut the doors against it.
Taking the wheel, Ryker punched the address into the cruiser’s GPS. The Harper estate was tucked just outside a small ranching town, about thirty minutes out, winding through the northern stretch of the Texas Hill Country.
He passed Emma one of the breakfast sandwiches and pulled the other from the bag. They ate quietly as the cruiser rolled through the twisty rural roads, steam rising from their coffee tumblers, the engine humming low beneath them.
Outside the windows, the Hill Country looked like something out of a half-forgotten painting. Patches of icy scrub dotted the limestone hills, oak and juniper trees dark against the pale dusting of snow. The bare branches swayed in the wind, andoccasional rocky outcrops jutted from the ground like the backs of sleeping beasts. Everything looked frozen, but not still, like the land was holding its breath.
Ryker swallowed the last bite of his sandwich and wiped his fingers on a napkin.
“I hope the county brought plenty of manpower,” he muttered, eyes still on the road. “If Ethan’s holed up there, he might try to shoot his way out.”
Emma, still watching her phone, nodded. “I reminded them to approach with caution. Just in case.”
Ryker pressed a little more pressure on the gas, the tires crunching over a thin layer of frost. After a series of winding turns through the hills, the Harper estate came into view, and Ryker felt his jaw tighten.
The place looked like it had been plucked out of the Victorian era and dropped into the middle of Texas limestone country. Sprawling and elegant, the house was three stories of dark stone and wrought-iron trim, with a central turret that jutted skyward like a spire. Ivy clung to sections of the outer walls, brown and brittle in the cold. Frost glimmered along the steeply pitched rooflines, and tall windows reflected the gray morning light like watchful eyes.
The wrought-iron fence that Celeste had mentioned was even more imposing in person, easily ten feet high, with needlepoint finials. But the gate… the gate was hanging ajar, clearly jimmied open. Ryker could see the fresh gouges in the lock plate from where someone, likely the county deputies, had forced their way in.
He saw that the cruiser ahead of them was marked with county plates. Ryker eased the Outlaw Ridge vehicle to a stop behind it and threw the gear into park.
Two deputies were already on the front porch, one bracing the door while the other hefted a battering ram. The door didn’tlook like it was giving up easily, thick oak, reinforced hardware. The kind of door you had installed when you didn’t want anyone coming in unlessyousaid so.
Ryker and Emma stepped out of the cruiser, coats whipping in the cold wind, and he called out as they approached, “Outlaw Ridge PD. Deputies Caldwell and Bonetti.”
The deputies paused mid-swing. One of them, grizzled, late fifties, with a no-nonsense stance, lowered the ram slightly and turned to face them.
“Good timing,” he said, breathing hard from effort. “I’m Deputy Hank Colburn and this is Deputy Ray Haskin. We had to bust the gate to get in, and the place is locked up tight. No sign of movement, no one answering. We’ve already announced three times.”
Emma moved up beside Ryker, her eyes scanning the upper windows. “Any sign of the bodyguard. Jared Ellis?”
The deputy shook his head. “No movement. No lights. Whole place feels off.”
Ryker didn’t like the feel of it either.
The next swing from the battering ram cracked the lock, and the heavy front door gave way with a groan, swinging inward on its ornate hinges.
Ryker stepped in first, and stopped cold.
