Page 57 of Cold Case Discovery

“Yeah,let’s.” She studied him through narrowed eyes, then Chloe.

“Have they found who?” Chloe asked, her voice devoid of any emotion. But when Jack slid a glance at her, her hands were curled into fists. Fury flickered in the depths of her dark eyes. And she was purposefully drawing her mother’s attention away fromhim.

And it worked. “Your father, of course.” Then Jen’s mouth spread into a wide smile.

Jack was stunned silent. He hadn’t known what to expect, but this was...

“You killed Dad?” Chloe said, sounding as shocked as he felt.

Jen laughed. “OfcourseI killed him. That’s what this is about. That’s what it’salwaysbeen about.”

There was something about the way she saidalwaysthat settled in Jack all wrong.Always. Here in this campground. Where his parents had last been seen.

Always. Likeallthe way back. Like skeletal remains on a ranch Jen might not have owned but would have had access to at the time. Would have known where to bury bodies without them being found. “You killed my parents.”

Jen flashed a grin at him. Mean and with a frantic kind of glee in her eyes. “You’re finally catching on,Sheriff. Good for you.”

CHLOETHOUGHTSHEwas going to be sick. Of all the things she was prepared for, all the worst-case scenarios she’d considered, her mother’s involvement in any of this had never once crossed her mind.

And it should have. Dad and Ry had always had a contentious relationship. Abusive, yes. Ry had been somewhat submissive to Dad on occasion. But they’dfought.

It was their mother who had true control over Ry. Always had. Chloe had just been under the impression Mom had taken off and was as no-contact with Ry as she was with Chloe.

Chloe tried to wrap her mind around it all. Years of...her mother being a cold-blooded killer from way back? Even if she couldn’t put murder past her volatile mother, her killing Jack’s parents just didn’t make any sense that she could come up with.

So she asked the simplest, most concise question she couldn’t swallow down.“Why?”

“You should learn a lesson, Chloe, from his bitch of a mother.” She jerked her chin at Jack. “Sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong is always going to come back to bite you in the ass.”

She heard Jack’s intake of breath, but she couldn’t look at him just yet. She would crumble if she did. And if she reached out for him, comforted him in any way, her mother would see. And pounce on it like it was a weakness.

Chloe wouldn’t be a weakness. She wouldn’t risk Jack. Not now. They had to save each other. And she couldn’t think about what this revelation meant to him if she was going to accomplish that.

“Move along now. Not much farther.” Jen gestured with her gun, so Chloe felt she had no choice but to swallow and follow Courtney once more. Courtney led them through thick trees, over a tiny trickle of a creek and to the craggy rock face of a mountain.

Jen and Sarah came around to the front of them, stopping at a small crevice in the rock. Jen pointed at it. “In you go.”

“Mom, you can’t make me go in there with them!” Ry said, sounding like a petulant teenager. When he was agrownman. Would he ever get over himself? After this, if they survived, Chloe was finally going to have to accept the answer was no.

Jen stepped forward, up to Ry. Chloe recognized the expression on her face. Itlookedsympathetic, but that was how you knew something awful was coming.

Before Chloe could step in front of Ry—because old impulses die hard—their mother whipped her gun back and slammed it across Ry’s face so he fell backward and onto his butt. Chloe tried to catch him, but she hadn’t been fast enough.

“Get in the cave. Now,” Jen said.

Chloe grabbed Ry by the elbow, and Jack grabbed his other. Pulling him toward the crevice, still cuffed. All while Ry moaned and sniveled.

Chloe hesitated at the opening of the crevice. All dark. All black. A small, little opening. Chloe wasn’t even sure Jack would be able to fit through if he tried. She tried to swallow an old panic fluttering around in her stomach. She didn’t like heights and she didn’t like enclosed spaces.

She had learned to keep her fear of heights hidden from her parents, but only because her fear of enclosed spaces had been something she hadn’t known she should hide until her parents had used it against her when she was a little girl. Mom especially. She’d loved to lock her in the little closet in their apartment in town.

Chloe had to focus very hard on not remembering, on not going back to those old feelings of being a helpless little girl. She was an adult. She was a cop. She could handle this. She could survive it—just like she had then.

“Go on, Chloe. Get in there,” Mom said in a little singsongy voice, clearly reading her panic and enjoying it.

Chloe took a deep, steadying breath. She wouldn’t give her mother the satisfaction of panic. Not when she had to somehow protect Ry and Jack from whatever this turned out to be.

Because if she’d confessed to essentially three murders, Jen had no plans to let them go. Maybe she wasn’t ready to kill them yet for some unknown reason, but that had to be the plan.

---