Page 16 of Cold Case Discovery

“Jack, it’s a sick prank.”

“Fine. I’ll call it in.”

She looked away from the gruesome sight and scowled at him. “Jack Hudson, you will not waste Sunrise’s resources on something so pointless.”

“Okay. You’ve called it in to me. I’ll take the report. And the pictures.” He patted his pockets, pulled out his phone and started taking pictures of the splattered remains.

“You’re not on duty.”

“I’m the sheriff. I’m always on duty.”

Chloe rolled her eyes, but there was, per usual, no arguing with him. He took the pictures. He noted the time, looked around the house for footprints or tire prints that didn’t belong to him or her cruiser.

Chloe went to the garage to figure out what she could use to clean it all up. Part of her wanted to make Ry do it, because God knew this probably had to do with him, but then he’d be out here with Jack, and she tried to keep them from being in the same orbit as much as she could.

Embarrassed of your own brother. What a great sister you are.

She strode into her garage, pushing away those old thoughts. Because Rywasembarrassing. He made bad choices she didn’t approve of, and while that might not reflect on whoshewas as a person, while she might not be able to take over and stop him from those bad decisions, theydidstill affect her, and she got to have feelings about that.

She was adamngood sister, considering what her baby brother had put her through.

She blew out a long breath, attempting to get her rioting feelings under control. How ridiculous that they were more about Jack and her brother than chunks of mutilated snake all over her porch.

Maybe Jack was right, and this was connected to last night. If she removed all feeling from the situation, it was plausible. But there were alotof plausible explanations. Especially since her brother was staying with her right now and he was a beacon for trouble.

She got a shovel, then trudged back to the front porch. For all the ways she was used to Jack taking over, it still surprised her when he tried to grab the shovel out of her hand.

“I’ve got it.”

“I’ll do it,” he replied. “You just want it buried out back, right?”

There was that forever internal fight. Let someone else handle it versus handle it herself. Jack was the only one in her acquaintance whose stubbornness ever matched her own, and it had made her complacent. She didn’t want to be that.

Except she didn’t want to fight him. She let him take the shovel, scoop up the snake remains—he’d even gotten some gloves from his truck and picked out the one in her flowerpot. Then he buried it all while she stood there...internally arguing with herself.

And still, per usual, she came to no answers. Because Jack was...

A problem.

Once he was finished, he put the shovel away himself, not even asking her where it went. Still, she knew he’d put it in the exact right place. And there was something about the current situation—the potential that his parents had been murdered and buried on her family’s ranch—that made her fully realize just what had made him this way.

She liked to thinkOh, that’s just Jack Hudson, but it was more, wasn’t it? Trauma. Through and through. He’d been forced to take care of five siblings and a ranch ateighteen. And instead of faltering, instead of losing himself in drugs or bad behavior as her brother had with all their trauma, Jack Hudson had built himself intothis.

It was amazing. But more than that, for the first time, she really just felt sorry for him. The pressure he must have put on himself. The sheer weight he carried on those broad shoulders and probably didn’t even realize it. Probably didn’t even think to share it.

Because he’d always had to do it on his own.

It made a lump form in her throat because she knew all too well what that felt like, and still she knew he’d taken on more.

When he returned to her on the porch, his expression was grim. “I want you to come stay at the ranch.”

Okay,thatwas a step too far, even with all this emotion swirling around inside her. “Honestly, Jack, what do you think this is besides some bad joke? Either by one of Ry’s friends or some kids whose beer I poured out last week or maybe the guy I arrested for domestic assault last month or—”

“Two skeletal remains were found on property you partially own last night, then it just so happens you get a threatening prank at your cabin today? That’s enough cause. Go on inside and get Ry.”

She blinked, so taken aback by all this that she felt like she’d forgotten how to fight when her whole life had been about the fight. “For what?”

“He’s coming too. I’ll call Mary. We’ll have two rooms ready.”

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