Page 3 of Cold Case Discovery

Though never his own.

His parents—good, upstanding ranchers not involved in anything shady, that anyone had ever found—had disappeared on a camping “date weekend” one night seventeen years ago. Just vanished.

All these years later, hours and hours of police work, private investigator work, research from every single member of his family, no one had ever discovered even a shred of evidence of what had happened to Dean and Laura Hudson.

He told himself, day in and day out, that it was over. There would never be answers, and sometimes a man just had to accept the hard facts of life.

He was also an expert in denial.

The woman in his passenger seat, case in point. Chloe Brink hadn’talwaysbeen a problem. Or maybe she had been and he’d just been younger and delusional. Hard to say now.

They’d been engaging in this wholethingfor a year now, and he didn’t relish the secrecy. It was an irritating necessity. But one of the short list of positives was that this was something his siblings had no idea about and, therefore, no say in, no opinions.

Everything that happened with Chloe wasallhis.

“Don’t worry,” Chloe said in the dark cab of his truck as he slowed down to take the turn into the Brink Ranch entrance. “Even if Ry said something about us arriving together in the middle of the night, no one would believe him. Or at least, not believe the real reasons.”

Jack didn’t respond, though it required him to grind his teeth together.

He knew she didn’t understand his determination to keep this a secret. He’d never tried to explain it to her because she wouldn’t believe it. In her mind, he was embarrassed, and he knew her well enough—whethershewanted to admit it or not—that it stemmed from her own issues. It took a lot to be a cop in the same place where your last name was pretty much synonymous withcriminal.

Hell, wasn’t that part of why he liked her so much? He wouldn’t say they were too alike outside their profession. Chloe was fun and friendly. No one had ever accused him of being either. Not since he was a teenager anyway.

But they both shared a dogged determination to see through whatever they thought was right.

What she would never understand—partly because of that dogged determination and a thick skull—was that people knowing about their...relationship...would cause problems for both of them.

He’d been around enough to know she’d bear the brunt of any negative reaction to their...relationship. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, but it wouldn’t matter what she did. Or whathedid to try to protect her.

She was a woman, and she’d get the short end of the stick when it came to their work reputations. Right or not, police work—especially police work out here in rural Wyoming—was still male dominated. Jack dealt with the public enough to know a lot of people were still stuck in the Dark Ages.

He wouldn’t let Chloe get a bad rap all because he... He was weak when it came to her, and that washisfault. He’d be damned if he let her take the fall for that.

So it had to be a secret, but that didn’t mean he didn’t care or wasembarrassedof her.

It also didn’t mean he had to like it.

Jack Hudson was well-versed in all the things he didn’t like but dealt with anyway.

He pulled through the open gate to the old Brink place. It was open at a crooked angle and clearly had been that way for a while, as grass and vines had grown up and twined around it.

He didn’t say anything about that either. Chloe’s family was her business, andmaybehe’d onoccasionmentioned something about her brother, this ranch and so on, but she always put him in his place.

When he pulled up to the house, Ry was standing out in front of it, pacing back and forth. Jack could see the look on his face in the harsh light of the porch—just a light bulb screwed into the wall, no cover.

Ry was all nerves. Worry. Concern. But something was missing, and he’d dealt with Ry enough in a professional capacity to find it interesting. Chloe’s little brother, for once, didn’t look guilty.

Yeah, interesting.

“Why’d you bring him?” Ry asked on a whisper when they got out of the truck. Not quiet enough for Jack to miss it, but he pretended he had.

“What’s the emergency, Ry?” Chloe asked, sounding less like a sister and more like a cop—but if she was thinking with her cop brain, she wouldn’t be here.

“It wasn’t anything to do with me. I just found it,” Ry said, louder this time, making sure Jack heard it.

Jack studied Ry Brink. No doubt he’d been high at some point today, but whatever he’d been on was wearing off. He was jittery, gray faced. Scared.

Chloe’s expression was blank. “Show us,” she said. She switched on a flashlight Jack hadn’t realized she’d grabbed on their way out, so he figured he could turn on the one he’d gotten out of his truck as well.

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