Chapter Two

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Hope. Redemption .

Those were the two words pulsing in Owen's head. Hope that he had finally found Brynn. And he'd get that much sought after redemption if he could actually succeed this time and bring her home.

Of course, home wouldn't be what Brynn had been dragged away from three years ago when she'd been barely twenty. Back then, Brynn had been in a small apartment near the University of Texas campus where she'd been a student with Owen as her pseudo-father since both of her parents were dead. She had been living a life that she certainly hadn't known would result in a horrific incident that'd left her blood all over the apartment.

Maybe Brynn would actually want to come back home to him.

Owen sure as hell wanted that. It had been a burning ache inside him to think that she might not want that as well. That possibility had caused a darkness to settle over him, and it just wouldn't go away. But he had to accept that she might never want to see him again, that he had played into her disappearance. Because he had failed her as her uncle and protector.

A touch to his hand had Owen snapping out of the suffocating cocoon of memories, and he saw Ruby brush her fingers over his.

It was a comforting gesture, something that people didn't normally expect with Ruby, who could often sport a ball-buster expression. But Ruby had somewhat of a soft spot for his late twin sister since she had served with Olivia in the military. In fact, she'd been Olivia's captain. And Ruby had lived part of the nightmare with him of losing both Olivia and Brynn.

"Tell me about this crime scene where Brynn's DNA was found," Ruby prompted, drawing her fingers back from his hand. "And put some ice on those knuckles," she added.

He glanced at his knuckles and saw the fresh bruises and scrapes he'd gotten on top of the old ones from the first fist fight with Rocco Culpepper, AKA the abusing dickwad. Owen propped the ice on the worst of the injuries and gave a verbal command to his AI app that controlled, well, pretty much everything in the house and his headquarters.

"Deckard, put the Marino case file on the screen," he instructed.

"Deckard," Ruby muttered, raising her eyebrow. "As in an homage to Blade Runner ?"

He nodded, and while she didn't make a that figures comeback, he guessed Ruby was thinking in that time and place of the movie, he would have been a cop like Deckard.

And that wasn't a cop who would always toe the line.

Nope.

Owen had not barely toed a bunch of lines, in some cases, he'd leapt right over them. That was a big difference between Ruby and him. She believed in justice within the law. Owen, however, was more morally flexible when it came to getting dickheads the justice they deserved.

He would do that now for Brynn. Would do whatever it took to get back his niece.

The massive Texas Hill Country landscape painting over the fireplace faded to reveal the first photo in the Marino file. Owen had already studied it while he'd been waiting for Ruby. It was the reason he hadn't immediately spotted Rocco and his bat-carrying siblings. That was another screwup on his part because his lapse had caused Ruby to get injured. She'd never admit to being hurt, but Owen knew that she was.

"Howard Howie Marino," he said, referring to the file.

As expected, that caused Ruby to get to her feet and move closer to the screen. Even though she could no doubt see the dead man's license photo just fine, she wanted an up-close study of that face.

Not a stranger.

"Howie," she repeated. "He didn't age well," she muttered, her gaze combing over the twenty-four-year-old man with already thinning mouse brown hair. The acne he'd had earlier in his short life had left deep pox marks on his cheeks and forehead.

Howie had had that acne three years ago when he'd first been questioned, questioned, and re-questioned about Brynn's disappearance. He'd earned that "honor" of scrutiny since he was best friends with Trent Barber, the stinking rich, abusive sonofabitch who'd become obsessed with and had attacked, and likely abducted, Brynn. Howie had always claimed that he'd had no idea where Trent and Brynn were, and he'd basically been uncooperative with the cops, Ruby and Owen.

Seeing the photo of Howie was an in-the-face reminder that Brynn would now be twenty-three. A grown woman. One who'd possibly endured three years of hell. Still, that was better than her being dead.

Wasn't it?

Brynn might not think so.

"The last words Brynn said to me was that she hoped I'd rot in hell," Owen muttered, and he scrubbed his hand over his face.

Ruby glanced at him. "I have a daughter about ten years older than Brynn so, yeah, I know all about shouted words that kids don't mean."

Owen knew she was right. In her specific case, anyway. From all accounts, Ruby and her daughter were now close. But he hadn't had these three years with Brynn so he could try to repair their relationship. Hard to repair something when the other person wasn't around. All he had were the horrible memories. The what if's.

The nightmares.

"I hadn't heard from Brynn in days when I went to her apartment to check on her," Owen heard himself say. Here he was spelling it all out again, though Ruby probably already remembered every single one of the ugly details. "She had bruises on her face and arms, and when I pressed her about it, she finally admitted that Trent had hit her."

Oh, the anger that had soared through him. So much rage. He'd wanted to tear Trent from limb to limb. Owen had wanted to kill him, and apparently, Brynn had seen that in his eyes.

And she'd sided with Trent.

His niece had said all the things that some abused people said. She'd provoked Trent. It was an accident. It wouldn't happen again. And the cherry on top? Brynn was adamant that Trent was so very sorry and that he loved her with all his heart. Loved her the way that no one else had since he was her soul mate.

Owen had lost it. He'd demanded that she stop seeing the asshole and report Trent for assault. He'd shouted, and Brynn had dug in her heels. After a very heated exchange, she'd ordered Owen out and had finished it off with the rotting in hell remark.

He had indeed left and in less than twenty-four hours, Brynn had gone missing. Witnesses had heard her arguing with Trent. Had heard what they were certain was an actual attack. But no one had seen Brynn and Trent leave together.

Only her blood had remained.

Spatters of it on the apartment wall. A pool of it on the floor. More on the kitchen counter. The quantity had been enough to convince the police that Trent had attacked her and that Brynn had likely been killed in the altercation. Likely, too, that Trent had disposed of the body and then become a fugitive.

Owen had never been convinced of the being killed part. Or rather, he hadn't wanted to be convinced. Because that would mean no hope, no redemption. It would mean that he'd failed his sister and her only child.

But now it seemed he'd been right to hang onto that hope. Brynn was alive. Hope and redemption were possible.

"I won't ask if you're okay," Ruby commented, drawing his attention back to her.

Good. Because he wasn't. But he cleared his throat and continued with his explanation.

"I've been keeping tabs on Howie over the past three years," Owen went on. Monitoring his social media, finances, and movements. And sometimes Owen had just outright followed him. "So, I knew he'd moved to Dallas about a year ago. Deckard, put up the next photo," he instructed.

Howie's DMV photo vanished, and in its place was an even less flattering picture of the young man. In this shot, he was dead, his lifeless eyes staring up at nothing. His jaw was slack. Not a drop of color in his skin.

And there was a pool of blood around his head.

"Dallas PD believes he died sometime late last night or the early hours of the morning. However, his body wasn't found until about seven hours ago when his cleaning lady used her keycode to let herself in," Owen spelled out.

He'd learned about the murder within minutes of it being reported because Howie's name had been flagged in the Strike Force database. But it had taken another five hours for the DNA match to come back. Shortly thereafter, he had texted Ruby and requested a meeting.

Or rather, he'd demanded it.

He was glad that she'd come without an argument because it meant she still cared enough about Brynn to help him see this through. Ruby knew almost as much about the case as he did, and he was hoping her allegiance to Olivia would fuel her to let him use her every available resource at Maverick Ops.

Including Ruby herself.

"Cause of death is blunt force trauma?" she asked, studying the photo right along with him.

"Yes," Owen verified. "The post-mortem might give us more answers, but there are no defense wounds. No sign of a break-in. No signs of a struggle either. The murder weapon, whatever it was, wasn't left at the scene, but it appears the wound was caused by a hammer."

Ruby didn't react to that. Definitely didn't flinch or grimace. She was a military officer now, absorbing info from a briefing.

"The medical examiner believes Howie might have also been drugged," Owen added, "and tox reports should be in soon on that."

Ruby made a sound that could have meant anything or nothing, and her attention shifted from one side of the photo to the other.

The dead man's living room looked like a bad interpretation of a bachelor pad. Lipstick red leather sofa and a white fuzzy rug on the ebony wood floor. There was an excessive amount of modern artwork, mostly nudes, on the lime green walls and several arrow-shooting gold cherub statutes in the corners. The décor screamed of someone trying too hard.

Or an asshole.

Owen figured he was projecting about that last part, but Howie had indeed done some asshole things when he hadn't cooperated in the search to find Brynn. Hell, he hadn't even cooperated to locate his so-called best friend. That made Owen believe that Howie not only knew Trent was alive and well but that he could also be aware of Trent's location.

"Howie was killed in this spot," Ruby muttered. Not a question, as she was using her finger in the air to trace the outline of the blood pool.

"He was. This is the living room of his condo," Owen explained. "It's a trendy area. Low crime. Lots of craft beer bars and pubs nearby. Plenty of foot traffic from college kids."

"Traffic cameras?" she was quick to ask.

"Loads. A member of my team is collecting it now. Hayes Brodie," he provided, knowing she would recognize the name since Hayes had assisted one of her operatives on a hostage situation several months back.

Owen stood and motioned toward a shiny marble end table in the photo. "A strand of hair was found on it, and when tested, it was Brynn's DNA."

Ruby turned to look at him, and he knew from the way she gathered her breath what she was about to say. "Hair can be planted."

He nodded. Gathered his breath. "I'm not sure that's what we're dealing with here. It's possible, uh, Brynn is…well, cleaning house. Maybe doling out some payback for what happened to her." Owen paused a heartbeat. "Deckard, show the next photo."

Again, the posted picture faded, and the third and final one took its place. A note that had been scrawled in blood on one of the lime green walls.

One down. Six to go .

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