23. Colt

23

COLT

I leaned back in one of the conference room chairs, its metal groaning with the movement. It felt like my bones were giving the same damn protest. But I reached for my coffee because I knew we weren’t close to done.

“I don’t like this,” Ryan muttered as she pulled her hair up into a knot on the top of her head.

I scowled down at the array of photos and files. “There’s nothing to like.”

I knew most precincts were fully digital now, but I liked holding the paper in my hands. The tactile experience of being able to see all the pieces at once like we were now. Ryan and I had been locked in this room since lunch, after a quick trip to talk to Dawson.

He hadn’t provided any new information, but the footage from the cameras had. It wasn’t like we had a lot of them, but we had enough. And every single lens that pointed at the route from the woods to the side door had been blacked out. Someone had approached each device from the side and spray-painted the lenses black.

Fucker.

But whoever it was, they were a bastard who knew their way around the station. And that told me it was a Shady Cove local, not someone who’d merely been passing through town now and then.

My gut twisted at the thought that whoever had taken Em was still living among us. All of a sudden, her fear of going out in public seemed less like an illness and more like a perfectly logical decision.

“Colt,” Ryan said, cutting into my spiraling thoughts.

I sat upright again. “Sorry.”

She studied me for a long moment. Even though she was a few years my junior, she had a wisdom in her green eyes. “I know this has to be a lot.”

I appreciated that her voice hadn’t gone gentle with her words. There was no pity in them, just simple facts. “I hate thinking that whoever took Em has just been living free and easy ever since. Watching us walk around with our thumbs up our asses.”

Ryan’s mouth thinned into a hard line. “I go over the case every year too. The casework is solid. They talked to everyone in Emerson’s orbit.”

“So maybe it wasn’t someone close. Maybe it was someone watching from afar.” My gut roiled at the thought of some creep watching my sister for days or even weeks, just waiting for the perfect moment to strike. And he had because I’d given him the opportunity.

“If it is the same person, they’re getting desperate. And desperate people make mistakes.”

I grunted in agreement. But it wasn’t enough. Not with this much at stake.

“Gotta thank the Sawyer woman for that,” Ryan muttered. “She’s obviously pushing buttons.”

I shifted in my seat, my mind drifting to Ridley, wondering if she’d gotten the basket I’d left her. I knew she must have. I wasn’t sure what reaction I expected. For her to show up at the station and throw herself at me in thanks? It was more likely she’d dumped all the food out for the bears. And I wouldn’t have blamed her.

I scrubbed a hand over my face. The scruff there had officially tipped over from stubble into a beard. I needed a shave.

“Still not a fan?” Ryan pushed.

I sent a scowl in her direction. “I think that what she’s doing is risky.”

“Never said it wasn’t. But sometimes risky is needed to break through.”

“Or all hell is going to break loose,” I argued. Because if there was one thing that Ridley was good at, it was chaos.

Ryan shrugged. “That’s what we’re here for, to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.”

I wanted to believe it could be that simple. That we could rein it all in when things got out of hand. But unless Ridley was letting us in at every step, that wasn’t possible. And it had dread stirring somewhere deep. Worry for Emerson and for Ridley.

I shoved it all down and turned back to the files. “I want to get an alibi for everyone who was a suspect in Emerson’s case. See where they were last night.”

Ryan’s brows lifted. “Going hard, no tiptoeing.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway. “There’s no point. I think the shock of a head-on approach might actually tell us more.”

She nodded and ripped a piece of paper off the notepad in front of her, then picked up a pen. “You want to go with the core three or talk to everyone who was questioned at all?”

“Everyone,” I answered immediately. The three main suspects the sheriff’s department and state police had circled were Grady, Coach Kerr, and Emerson’s math teacher. The math teacher was in his early seventies now and had Alzheimer’s, so I doubted he could’ve managed a break-in like this one. Grady and Kerr needed to be talked to for sure, but we needed to cast a wider net.

“That’s over thirty people,” Ryan reminded me.

“I know. And they’re not going to be happy.”

“Understatement of the century. It pissed people off back then. It’ll be worse revisiting it.”

I knew she was right, but there was no way around it. We had to start somewhere, and this was the best shot we had. “We can start tomorrow. I want you or me in on every interview. No sending deputies alone.”

Ryan nodded. “You got it.”

A knock sounded on the door and then it opened, Dina stepping inside. Her halo of frizzy, gray hair always made her look a little frazzled, but the fact that her gaze jumped all over the room added to it tonight.

My gut hollowed out. “What’s wrong?”

Dina swallowed. “It’s that woman. The podcaster. Someone found her beat to hell at the campground.”