Page 46 of Cold Case Discovery

The phone rang and when the detective answered, it was with a terse, “Yes.”

“It’s Deputy Brink. We haven’t found any sign of Hart, but my brother took off from the Hudson Ranch. We’ve tracked him to a parking lot in the Franklin Forest. I don’t know if it connects to Hart, to the scrapbook, but I think you should send someone over. We’ve found my car that he used, abandoned in a lot.”

There was a pause. “I’m coming myself,” she replied. “We got word from Texas. Mark Brink didn’t show up for his last parole meeting. He’s missing.”

Chloe didn’t swear. She couldn’t even muster up surprise. Maybe she didn’t think her father was behind stealing that scrapbook because it didn’t make any sense, but maybe she was giving him too much credit to think hehadto make sense.

“I’ll send you our exact location,” Chloe said.

“Good. I’ll be there soon.”

The call ended, and Chloe sent the location to Delaney-Carson. She took a deep breath, staring at her car. Parked. Ry’s phone must be in the car, but Ry wasn’t.

Unless...

She swallowed down a bubble of fear. If he was hurt, well, she’d deal with it. “Let’s look at the car but not touch anything. I don’t want anyone accusing us of tampering.” Because if she stood here waiting for Laurel without doing anything, she’d think of a million terrible situations that involved Ry bloody and dead somewhere and she couldn’t...

She was so angry at him, but she knew herself well enough to know she’d make a wrong choice if she let herself get too worked up about the possibilities of him being hurt. And she... She’d made too many bad choices when it came to her brother.

That ended now.

“Chloe—”

“If I say we should look at it, we should look at it. If you want to go first and keep me behind you, I’d start moving.” She knew she was being a jerk when Jack was trying to be protective and sweet, in his way, but she was holding on by a thread.

She needed to do everything she could to treat this like a crime scene that had nothing to do with her. To treat Jack like a fellow cop, not the man she loved.

They moved forward in tandem, Chloe training the flashlight on the car. They were quiet, watching for movement, listening for sound. But there was nothing as they got close enough to the car to look inside.

Chloe swept the beam over the entire car and in each window, heart in her throat,prayingit would be empty.

And it was. There was nothing amiss inside. It looked almost exactly like it had when she’d left it on the Hudson Ranch, with the one exception of Ry’s phone lying in the console.

That made her nervous, of course, but at least it wasn’t a body.

At this point, Ry had made bad choices. She could accept that. She had given him every opportunity to make different, better choices. He’d refused. She could mourn that, but she couldn’t keep blaming herself for it.

But she could never stop hoping he was alive. Hoping he’d find some way to get himself out of all the choices he’d made. Maybe it hurt her heart, but that was the bottom line now.

Meanwhile, Jack Hudson stood beside her, offeringnotto call the authorities they needed to call, wanting to protect her—and if that meant bending his very strict moral code, apparently he was willing to do it.

Chloe couldn’t let him. It would just about kill her.

“I want to know who he talked to, but we better wait for Bent County to open the door with gloves. There might be prints that give us a hint as to what’s going on. If he was here with someone else.” She looked out into the darkness around them. “Meeting someone? I don’t know. But it’s going to be Bent County’s job to figure it out.”

Jack nodded. “Okay, but if he drove your car here, left it here, we should be able to pick up his trail for a little while.” Jack reached for the flashlight. He didn’t take it from her but pushed it down a little so the light illuminated their footprints. Nothing super clear, but enough of an indentation to tell that someone had been walking across the makeshift lot. “Or we can stay here and wait.”

It was up to her. A lump formed in her throat. Funny how she wouldn’t mind him sweeping in and making the decisions for her right now. But that was because these were the kind of decisions she had to make for herself, even if she didn’t want to.

Chloe used the beam, searching out footprints that weren’t hers or Jack’s. Eventually she zeroed in on a pair that was either Ry’s or some other random person’s. Jack walked ahead, gun drawn and at the ready, as her beam led them away from the parking lot and into the low grasses that made up the field in front of them. There was a path, it looked like, though it was hard to tell in only the beam of the flashlight if it was just from animals trampling through or an actual marked hiking trail in the forest.

She didn’t want to follow his footsteps too far with Bent County coming, but it was hard to hold herself back knowing Ry could be out there. Doing who knew what.

“Chloe.”

Jack had that tone in his voice. Like something bad was coming, but she didn’t see what it could be. She looked around, she listened, but nothing.

Then his hand came over her wrist, he pulled her a little forward and he moved the light beam to something on the ground.

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