Page 48 of Cold Case Discovery

“I’ll be careful. You stand right here.”

“Jack.”

But he ignored her protests and moved forward. Luckily, she stayed put, or he would have had to stop. He didn’t want her seeing whatever this was, but he knew she needed answers.

He’d get her those answers.

He pointed the beam back at the animals. They didn’t move, but they watched him approach. Then they started to move a little nervously. Low growls began to emanate from where they stood.

Jack made a few ridiculous noises, loud and sudden, hoping to scare the coyotes off as he approached. They were clearly reluctant to leave the body, and reluctant to deal with Jack. They backed off alittle, though not as far away as Jack would have preferred.

He moved the beam from the coyotes to the body. An arm was bloody and mangled, no doubt some from the coyotes, but perhaps some from whatever injury had caused the trail of blood, because most of the body looked to be intact.

Jack circled, hoping to get closer to the head and face. As he did, he saw hair, and immediately knew it wasn’t Ry because the brown was too long and peppered with gray.

“Chloe, it’s not Ry,” he called out to her, still trying to creep close enough to get a glimpse of the face without upsetting the coyotes too much. He kept making noises and flashing the beam of the flashlight at the animals, hoping to keep them back.

They did keep inching away, but they didn’t stop their warning growls or take off like he might have preferred. Still, he got to a better angle, slightly closer, and was able to point the light at the face of the body.

Not Ry. Familiar, but Jack wasn’t sure... Until it dawned on him just who it was.

He let out a slow breath, then began to back away from the body, from the coyotes, back toward Chloe.

When he reached her, he realized she was shaking. She hadn’t turned the light on her phone on, but she held it in her hands.

“Chloe.”

“It’s Ry, isn’t it? It has to be. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” She was crying. Panicking, clearly.

He had his hands full and wasn’t quite sure whether to put down the light or the gun. In the end, he placed the flashlight on the ground and gripped her arm with his free one. “Chloe, listen to me, sweetheart. It’s not Ry.”

She nodded, like him touching her finally got it through to her. When she finally spoke, her words were choked. “Then who is it, Jack?”

He took a deep breath. He didn’t want to draw it out, and still... It was hard to say. “It’s your father.”

CHLOEDIDN’TBREAKDOWN.Or at least, she didn’t lose it over the fact her father was dead. That information kind of helped her pull herself together. Breathe again, wipe her cheeks. In those first few moments, she couldn’t have cared less about her dead father. She had just been so damn relieved her brother hadn’t ended up that way.

So far.

Then the chaos had started, which was kind of a nice distraction. It was this strange, buzzing foundation to whatever was going on inside her. Jack took her back to the parking lot, where Detective Delaney-Carson had arrived and was investigating the car.

Jack told the detective everything—or at least, Chloe thought he had. The panic that it had been Ry lying in a bloody, dead heap had been hard to fully come out of. And the fact of the matter was, even knowing itwasn’tRy didn’t ease her worry. Because Ry was still out there somewhere since this was her car in the parking lot.

Maybe Ry was the aggressor, but more likely to Chloe’s way of thinking, he was another victim to whatever their father had dragged him into.

Detective Delaney-Carson called in more backup, and pretty soon there were cops everywhere. Dealing with the coyotes and the body, and determining what their next steps were going to be.

Jack had tried to convince Chloe to go back to the Hudson Ranch multiple times, and even the detective had suggested it, but Chloe couldn’t budge. Not until they found Ry.

She kept expecting to feel something when they brought her father’s body out of that field in a body bag. Some sort of...not grief, obviously, when he’d been nothing to her, really, besides a tormenter. But she’d expected to feelsomething.

Instead, there was nothing but an odd sort of numbness when it came to her father’s death. Murder. Whatever it was. The only feeling she really recognized was worry over Ry, over whatever was going on with Hart missing, about what this all meant for Jack’s family. Really, about what this allmeant.

Because as much as she’d felt her father didn’t have anything to do with stealing that scrapbook, there were no leads here. No answers. Just a dead man. So it was more questions and no leads.

“Deputy Brink, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“I think any questions can wait,” Jack said, stepping in between the detective and Chloe herself.

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