3 1
D E X
THE CABIN SWIRLED with people now, making the space feel infinitely smaller. The sheriff’s department. A couple of crime scene techs from the county. And my whole family, minus Orion. Mav had taken Owen and Yeti into my yard to play.
He’d gone begrudgingly, knowing something distinctly not good was up. But Mav had distracted him by pulling out some Nerf guns from his truck. I had no idea why the hell my brother had them. But he did, and I was grateful.
Waylon ambled into the living room with a camp mug that readDrink coffee, then find Bigfoot. “You’ve got quite the mug collection. I picked my favorite.” He grinned at Brae as he set the mug down. “Chamomile tea with some spiced honey. My own blend.”
Brae sent him an unsteady smile. “This going to burn my mouth off?”
Waylon let out a guffaw. “I know you’re made of way stronger stuff than this tea.”
She was. Brae was made of pure steel—the kind that still managed to lock a door despite nearly passing out from a panic attack. The kind that pulled it together to assure her kid she was okay, even though everything in her was breaking.
“Thank you.” She wrapped her hands around the mug and held it to her. There was a blanket draped over her lap, but
despite that, the tea, and the already eighty-degree weather, she shivered.
I fucking hated that. It stoked the rage I’d shoved down deep. I wanted to find whoever had done this and ruin them.
No, more than ruin them. I wanted tohurt them. My father’s genes were alive and well in me. I’d always known it, but this was a brutal reminder.
“You want anything to eat?” Wylder asked, worry etched into his face.
Brae shook her head. “Thank you, but I don’t think I could stomach much right now.”
My hands fisted at my sides, and a heavy palm landed on my shoulder. Kol. He squeezed hard. “She’s safe,” he whispered. “Breathe through it.”
Always looking out for us. Always knowing when one of us was hitting our limit.
Heavy footsteps sounded behind me. Two sets. I turned to see Roger and Travis heading our way. Both had a serious set to their features, but Roger’s anger broke through a little more.
He stepped forward, clearing his throat. “How are you feeling, B?”
I tried to swallow down the annoyance at the fact that he’d given her a nickname of sorts. Because I didn’t have a right to that emotion. I didn’t have a right to anything when it came to Brae.
“Much better,” she lied. “I’m sorry…sorry about being such a mess when you got here.”
“Don’t you dare apologize,” Travis ordered. “This would be too much for anyone.”
“He’s right,” Roger agreed. “You need to cut yourself a little slack.”
Waylon patted her shoulder. “You’ll be back up to fighting strength in no time.”
“Do you think you’re ready to walk us through what happened?” Roger asked.
“You don’t have to if you need some time,” I bit out, sounding more than a little pissed off. I was usually better at masking, hiding the rage that lived inside me. But not today.
Not when someone was messing with Brae, threatening her,
scaring the hell out of her.
Roger sent me a shut-the-hell-up look.
“I’d rather get it over with,” Brae said quietly.
I hovered a few feet from the couch, but I wanted to go to her. Touch her. Sit next to her. Pull her onto my lap and cradle her to me. But I didn’t. Because I couldn’t be trusted.
Not when there was this much darkness swirling inside me.
Roger pulled out his phone. “Is it okay if I record?”
Brae nodded woodenly. “Sure.”
An elbow hit me square in the gut, and I turned to glower at Wylder. “What?” I hissed.
He inclined his head toward Brae. “Be there for her, asshole.”
His words were only whispers, but each one hit like a carefully placed blow. I didn’t respond. Couldn’t. Because going to Brae now felt as risky as tangling with a grizzly.
“Then I will,” Wylder clipped, starting toward her.
Some otherworldly force spurred me into action. I rounded Wylder, giving him his own elbow to the gut but a hell of a lot harder than the one he’d given me, and crossed to the couch.
Wylder doubled over, coughing. Waylon thumped his back.
“You okay there?”
“Peachy,” Wylder wheezed.
I lowered myself to the couch and instantly regretted it.
Brae’s scent wrapped around me—red currant and something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it was just the magic created when that scent came into contact with her skin. Heady and drugging, pulling me under.
Just like it had last night. When I’d lost all control and kissed her. Even though she deserved so much better than me, I hadn’t been able to stop myself.
My back teeth gnashed together as I reached for Brae’s empty hand. I wove my fingers through hers, trying to be a steady, grounding point and fighting to keep the rage from my grip.
Brae’s golden eyes flicked up to mine. There were endless questions there, ones I had no answers to.
Roger cleared his throat, a hint of annoyance in his expression. I got it. He likely thought I’d keep her from sharing everything, from having to speak about anything that would cause her pain. But the truth was, I needed all the same information he did.
“Ready?” he asked, his voice far more gentle than his
stare.
Brae nodded.
“Walk us through what happened.”
Brae gripped my hand like a lifeline. Only I knew it wasn’t a lifeline she should count on. She swallowed hard, her delicate throat working with the motion. “Normal day. I was getting ready to take Owen to camp and then head to work. I wanted to take my stuff to the car so I could help Owen with his.”
Her fingers tightened around mine. “I wasn’t thinking about anything other than how many trips it would take to get everything. And then I opened the door and saw it.”
A slight tremble took root in Brae, and I couldn’t help but move closer, pressing my body against hers, giving her something to lean on.
“What did you see?” Travis asked softly.
“I… It was…the necklace I gave Nova for Christmas five years ago. It’s an antique. The etchings are unique—these little stars carved into it. She wore it every day. It’s in every photo. Every memory. She loved it. And it was there. With blood. And that note.” Brae’s body shook harder.
Fuck this.
I pulled my hand from hers and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her against me as I took her empty hand with my
other.
“Did you see anyone? Anything out of the norm?” Roger asked.
Brae shook her head. “I didn’t see a thing.”
“I’m going through the footage,” Kol said, staring down at his phone as he stood opposite the couch. “Dex put cameras on all four sides of the house, including one over the door.”
At my cabin, I had motion alerts. Anytime something moved within camera range, I got a notification. But Brae hadn’t wanted that. She hadn’t wanted to be woken at all hours because a bunny hopped by. I didn’t mind that. Sleep came fitfully for me these days anyway.
Roger’s gaze flicked to Kol’s cell. “You’ll send that to us, right?”
Even though Roger and Kol were on the same team, things got a little dicey with interagency overlap. It was a delicate dance.
“Already sent to your and Trav’s emails,” Kol said, not looking up.
Roger eased a fraction and turned back to Brae. “Has anything else out of the ordinary happened recently? Other
than the phone call you received?”
“No, I…I can’t think of anything.”
Roger’s lips thinned. “We’ve got techs going over the front porch. The gravel makes it impossible to look for tire treads, but we’ll keep at it. We’re gonna find this son of a bitch, B. I promise.”
My grip on Brae’s hand tightened reflexively.
“Nova,” Brae said softly. “We need to find Nova.”
Everything inside me twisted. It was the same sort of feeling that had taken hold that day all those years ago when I told Maverick we should sneak into Dad’s workshop. The day I realized who he really was. Because the phone call, the necklace with the dried, caked blood…none of that told us Nova was alive. It only told us that something bad had happened to her.
A flicker of movement caught my eye, Kol’s spine going ramrod straight as his expression turned thunderous.
“What?” I demanded.
“They’re on the camera footage,” he gritted out.
But the frustration and fury bleeding into Kol’s words didn’t speak of getting an ID on someone.
“I want to see,” Brae demanded. There was no waver in
her voice now, only pure steel.
Kol shook his head. “Brae—”
“Show me,” she demanded.
A muscle fluttered in Kol’s cheek, but he flipped the phone around.
We all leaned in to watch as he hit Play. There was nothing at first. Just the low light of the sconce that stood next to the door. But then a shadow flickered over the steps.
I braced as a figure moved into frame. Hooded. Baggy black sweatshirt and dark work pants that made it difficult to make out the person’s size. They slid the note and necklace out of their pocket with hands covered in leather gloves.
They arranged it, then rearranged it, making sure it was just
so.
And then they looked up at the camera.
Like they knew exactly where it was. And it wasn’t the hood of their sweatshirt covering their head. It was a mask— one of those terrifying burlap masks with black eyes and a mouth, andX’s crossing all of them.
The figure’s head cocked one way and then the other, an animalistic quality to it. And then they lifted a hand and fucking waved.
Brae sucked in a sharp breath as she gripped my hand like a vise.
“They’re fucking taunting her,” Wylder snarled.
“He knew exactly where the camera was,” Roger noted.
I shook my head. I wanted that to be a clue, but I knew better. “There are cameras all the way around this house,
and they aren’t exactly hidden. One casing at a distance and they’d know.”
“He’s got a point,” Travis muttered, but the frustration in his voice was clear. “Then we look for other identifiers.
Where’d he get that mask? Anything unique about his shoes?”
Wylder shook his head. “Might not even be a he.”
Travis’s face scrunched. “You think that’s a woman?”
“I think we don’t know. The clothes are baggy. They hide any real data of size or shape. We can’t close any possibilities off until we know for sure,” Wylder explained.
I forced myself to keep breathing, to not let all of this send me into a downward spiral I’d never come back from.
My fingers tightened around Brae’s shoulder. “I need to make a call.”
Her gaze flicked up to mine. Her face had gone unnaturally pale, and the last thing I wanted to do was leave her. But it was to keep her and Owen safe. That was the only thing that could’ve pulled me from her at that moment.
“I’ll be fine,” she said hoarsely.
Such a goddamned lie. But she was lying to try to make it easier on me.
I forced my fingers to uncurl from her shoulder and release her hand. But it hurt so bad it was like peeling my flesh from my bones. I didn’t look at Brae as I stood. Instead, I looked at Kol. “Send that clip to Anson.”
He jerked his head in a nod.
“Wait just a damn minute,” Roger clipped, squaring his shoulders. “Who the hell is Anson? You can’t bring random people into an ongoing investigation.”
“He’s not random,” I growled. “He was one of the best profilers the BAU has ever seen. And he’s going to give us insight into this bastard. So back the fuck off.”
I didn’t wait for a response. If Roger wanted to turn this into a pissing contest, fine. I’d just go around him.
Stalking outside, I let the back door slam. I could see Mav and Owen in the distance. They ran and whooped and shot off Nerf guns as Yeti tried to snatch the darts out of the air.
I pulled my phone from my pocket as I watched them, hitting Anson’s name in my contacts. It rang four times before he answered, and I heard sawing in the background, meaning he was on a jobsite. “Dex, how the hell are you?”
There was a warmth to his tone that had never been there before. Not until he met his fiancée. Rhodes had turned my broody best friend’s world upside down in the best possible way.
“Need your help.” My voice had gone emotionless. It was the only way I could function at the moment, when memories were battling for supremacy.
The sawing grew fainter in the background of the call.
“Talk to me.”
“Got a neighbor here, new to Starlight Grove. Moved up here because her friend went missing a year ago while they were hiking the canyon. She always thought it was foul play.
Local law enforcement didn’t agree.”
“And let me guess, they dawdled because of it,” Anson surmised.
“Some resources were extended, some leads investigated, but the sheriff shuffled it off to the cold case files the minute they hit a year out. Now, my neighbor’s getting threats. A call from her friend’s phone with heavy breathing. Just got a bloody necklace that belonged to the friend with a note that
readHow much do you miss me?”
Anson cursed. “Blood fresh or dry?”
“Dry.”
Anson was quiet for a long moment, and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was: The chances of Nova being alive were slim to none. And if shewas alive, what had she lived through?
“Send me everything,” Anson clipped. “You need me in person?”
Hell, he was a good friend. Willing to drive a good four and a half hours from Sparrow Falls, Oregon, at the drop of a hat. “Not yet. Just need your brain.”
“You got it. Wylder working the victim profile?” Anson asked. He’d talked with my brother a handful of times as Wylder honed his skills. Two psych nerds going down rabbit
holes.
“Yeah, he’s pulling things together.”
“I’ll call him to get his take, too,” Anson said.
“Thanks,” I rasped. It was all I could say.
“How many times you get my ass out of a sling the past couple of years?”
He wasn’t wrong. Anson and his now family had run into more than their fair share of trouble in Sparrow Falls. But they’d made it through. And that gave me hope that Brae would, too.
“You know I’m happy to break into any internet hidey- holes for you.”
Anson chuckled. “Good to have the gray hat on my side.”
He might think I was a blend of the light and the dark, but I was feeling a hell of a lot darker lately. “I’ll check in later
when I’ve sent everything over.”
“Dex?”
“Yeah?”
“Watch your fuckin’ back, okay? I really don’t want you getting dead.”
One corner of my mouth kicked up. “I’ll do my best.”
Anson hung up without a goodbye, like he always did, and I headed back inside. It was only to find a blustering Sheriff Miller in the middle of the living room.
“Why the hell are there civilians at my crime scene?” he snarled. “All of you get the hell out of here.”
Waylon’s chest puffed as he straightened his shoulders.
“Oh no you don’t. She’s got no family around these parts, so I’m stepping in. Brae’s my family now. So back off, you blowhard.”
Miller’s face turned tomato red. “You can’t just make someone your family.”
“The hell I can’t. Family isn’t always blood. Sometimes, it’s a choice and showing up time and again. You’d know that if anyone but your blood kin could stand being in the same room with you for more than five minutes,” Waylon snapped.
“He’s gonna get himself arrested,” Wylder mumbled.
“You watch your tone with me, you—”
“Hey, Sheriff,” a younger officer cut in at the door. “Just got a call that the Lerners’ cows got loose again. They’re blocking traffic on the highway.”
“Goddammit,” Miller swore, glaring at all of us. But he stalked out the front door to deal with his new crisis.
“He’s a no-show, no-answer on the radio for hours and then shows up just to throw his weight around,” Travis muttered.
Waylon let out a huff. “Sounds just like the asswipe.”
Brae looked up at Waylon, her eyes glittering. She hadn’t let a single tear fall since I’d gotten to the cabin. Her voice and body had trembled, but she’d never given in to the tears until now.
“No one…” She swallowed and tried again. “No one has ever claimed me before. I never…I never felt like I belonged.
Not with anyone but Nova.”
Fuck me. Brae sliced me to the bone: with her pain, her bravery, her pure honesty. And I couldn’t hold myself back from her.
I moved right to the spot I’d vacated, wrapping an arm around her shoulders again and pulling her into my side.
“We’re claiming you, Hellion. You belong with us now.”
And, God, I wanted her as more than family. I wanted all of her. And it fucking terrified me.
