CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Mia raked through the files like a starving dog tearing into a T-bone. She”d been at this for three, four, five hours. She wasn’t sure. Time had a funny way of slipping through the cracks when your world was crashing down around your ears.

Every scrap of paper, every cryptic scribble from Martin”s pen - she”d pored over them all, searching for some clue to the storage spot. The place he supposedly stashed that damn kerosene. The same one found on Trevor’s corpse. If she could find Martin’s storage place, she might just find Martin.

But the files she”d seen Martin elbow-deep in just last night? Vanished into the ether like a puff of smoke. Along with any crumb of evidence that might prove Ella”s crackpot theory right - or bang it tight into a coffin.

Ripley shoved back from the desk hard enough to send the chair skidding. It screeched across the hardwood like a cat getting its tail stomped, but she barely heard it over the drumbeat pounding in her skull. She lurched to her feet, paced the floor like a caged tiger.

What”s the play, Mia? The little voice in her head piped up. Burning daylight chasing fairy tales when there”re real monsters running wild out there?

Ripley shook her head like she could rattle the doubts loose. But they clung like ticks, burrowing deeper with every step.

She couldn”t shake it - this bone-deep hunch that the storage spot was the key. The linchpin holding this whole mess together. If she could just get eyes on it, just see for herself what skeletons Martin was hiding in his closet, then maybe she could unravel this mess.

And then what? The voice needled. Say you do find some musty old shed packed with gas cans and guilty secrets. What”s that prove? That Ella”s on the money about your man being a guardian angel with a body count?

There were two ways this could go. Either Ella”s hunch was right, and Ripley had been living alongside a secret monster for the past few months, or this was all a big misunderstanding.

‘Shut up,’ Ripley snarled. She slammed her palm against the doorframe and relished the pain. She couldn’t just stay here, devouring Martin’s belongings like a jilted lover. She had to get out into the open, inspect every bar, every corner, every fishing hotspot. Martin was out there somewhere, and as a woman who’d spent her life finding people who didn’t want to be found, how hard could it be to track the man she shared a bed with?

Keys. She needed her keys. And her Glock.

Mia strode down the stairs into the kitchen, grabbed her equipment and made for the door. She burst out into the unusual sucker-punch heat and unlocked her car. She yanked the door open, threw herself behind the wheel and fired up the engine.

No destination, no plan. Just an animal need to move, to put distance between herself and the doubts nipping at her heels. She”d rattle every cage in this town if she had to. Chase down every lead, every whisper. Throw herself against the walls of Martin”s secrets until something cracked.

Storage lots. Abandoned factories. Some backwoods cabin where the screams wouldn”t carry. Wherever he”d burrowed, she”d dig him out. Drag the truth into the light, kicking and screaming if need be.

And then what?

The question hit her like a freight train. For the first time, Ripley let herself really picture it. Imagine the look on Martin”s face if she actually found him. Dug up his hidey-hole and shone a light on all the dark, twisted things he”d kept buried.

Betrayal. Shame. Maybe even relief, in a sick way. Like lancing a boil, letting all the poison out.

Christ, was this really what it had come to? Ripping her own life apart, chasing shadows and gut feelings like a dog after its own tail? When had the lines gotten so blurred?

Suddenly, the shrill of her cell phone made Ripley jump halfway out of her skin. She fumbled for it one-handed.

The display flashed. Jacobs, from the tech pit. Maybe with an update on the plate she”d asked him to track. The one belonging to Martin”s car.

‘Ripley,’ she bit out.

‘Hey, it”s Jacobs.’ The kid”s voice was a notch too high, tight with excitement or nerves. Maybe both. ‘That license plate you wanted eyes on? We got a hit.’

Ripley”s blood fizzed in her veins. ‘Where?’

‘Empty lot, ass-end of town. Tucked behind some condemned warehouses.’ A crinkling sound, like he was consulting a map. ‘3400 block of Oakwood.’

She could picture it - weed-choked, scattered with broken glass and junkie trash. The kind of place you went to dump a body or cook up a batch of meth. Anonymous. Isolated.

‘Jacobs, I could kiss you. Tell Edis I”m-’

‘There”s something else,’ the tech cut in. He swallowed audibly, like the words were sticking in his craw. ‘The car... it”s on fire. Caller reported an explosion, then flames a couple minutes ago.’

Cold flooded Ripley”s gut. The bottom dropped out of her stomach like she”d crested the peak of a rollercoaster.

‘Say again?’

‘It’s on fire. Fire department are on the scene right now.’

Ripley let the phone fall from her numb fingers. The road ahead blurred, hot and hazy.

So this was it. The moment of truth. The universe calling her bluff, shoving her chips to the center of the table.

She mashed the gas, tires shrieking, chewing up asphalt. The car leaped forward like a horse stung by a whip.

Oakwood. 3400 block. Towards the flames and whatever waited on the other side.

Ripley just prayed she was ready for it. Ready to face whatever hard, ugly truths rose out of those ashes.

Because one way or the other - there”d be no more running from this.