Page 51 of Cold Case Discovery

But as they walked around a curve in the road, they both spotted someone. Jack put his free hand on the butt of his weapon as he scanned the area. One solitary figure. Stumbling.

Too tall to be Ry, but there didn’t appear to be a weapon, a threat. Still, Jack didn’t take his hand off his gun until...

Both he and Chloe seemed to recognize the man at the same time, because they said his name and moved forward at a jog in unison.

When they reached Hart, he stumbled a little when he lifted his head to look at them. It was clear he’d been hurt. Blood crusted over the side of his face. But he was alive, and that was better than Mark Brink.

It wasn’t Ry, and that was a shame for Chloe, but maybe it was a lead. If all these disparate things connected.

“Hart, what the hell happened?” Jack asked, dropping his hand off his gun and offering an arm for the man to lean against him. The fact that Hart did gave way to just how hurt he was.

“It was a woman,” he rasped. Jack couldn’t make sense of the words right away.

“A woman?” Chloe repeated gently. She stood on the other side of him, ready to take any other needed weight.

“I was getting into my car at the sheriff’s department, and I heard a woman scream for help,” Hart said, clearly trying to find the strength to stand on his own two feet as he recounted what had happened. “I looked over and I saw her. So I jogged over. I think I did...? I don’t know. It’s a little fuzzy. The next thing I really remember is waking up. Which I did, because I fell.” He gestured with one arm, hissed out a breath, clearly in pain. “Not sure where I was. I think I might have been dumped out of the back of a truck. Once I could, I got up and started walking, hoping to find someone.”

That would make sense, as they were close to the highway out here. Jack surveyed the distance between where they were and the parking lot where the other Bent County deputies were. Too far.

“We’ll call you an ambulance,” Jack said.

“Call Laurel. She’ll get it sorted and know I’m okay all in one fell swoop, and she can pass it around to my family.”

Chloe nodded and pulled her phone out of her pocket, taking a few steps away—in search of service, no doubt.

“I don’t know what the hell’s going on, Sheriff,” Hart said in a quiet tone Chloe wouldn’t be able to hear. “But I do know whatever it is ties to the Brink family. There’s just no way it doesn’t.”

CHLOEJOGGEDAWAYin search of service. Jack and Hart followed at a slower pace, and when she finally had a bar, she lifted her phone to her ear and called Detective Delaney-Carson.

She tried to feel relief as they moved through the next steps. A sense of happiness that even though Hart was hurt, he hadn’t ended up like her father.

But Ry was somewhere out there, and she wasn’t sure she’d feel anything good until she knew where. Until she knew he was okay.

With the phone call made, Chloe fell back into step with Jack and Hart. Chloe wondered if they should have him sit and rest, but if he’d suffered any kind of concussion, he probably needed to stay alert.

“What did this woman who called for help look like?” Jack asked Hart.

Hart licked cracked lips. He needed water. Probably some stitches for that gash on his head. They should really let him take it easy, but Chloe wanted answers, so she didn’t stop Jack’s questions.

“I don’t really remember. It happened so fast. I heard it more than anything. ‘Help.’ Someone needed help.” He said it as if trying to convince himself when it was clear that it had been a ploy. A ploy to get him away from the scrapbook, and that had to have been perpetrated by more than one person.

And none of those people could have been her dead father. He hadn’t had the scrapbook on his corpse.

Ry also couldn’t be involved in that. Because Hart had disappearedbeforeRy had taken off from the ranch. So he wasn’t involved. She tried to comfort herself with that knowledge.

But she was too much of a cop not to accept that while he hadn’t been part of the ploy to distract or hurt Hart, that still didn’t mean he couldn’t be involved in other things that connected.

Some comfort.

“I didn’t have my full belt on me, but I did have my gun. They took it,” Hart said with disgust. He stumbled a little, even with Jack holding him up, so they stopped their progress.

Chloe knew she shouldn’t keep poking at him. He was hurt. But... “They also took the scrapbook. Out of your car. From the security footage, it seems like that’s what they were after. Them letting you go seems to add credence to that theory.”

Hart scowled. His gaze lifted briefly to Chloe, but then he looked back at Jack. He didn’t say anything to that, so Chloe continued.

“You guys looked through the scrapbook when you had it. Right? You looked through it and couldn’t find any evidence of note. But Delaney-Carson said she thought you should keep it, and you were the one who wanted to give it back.”

“She wanted your take on it,” Hart confirmed.

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