“You trashed my office, didn’t you? It wasn’t Daniel.”
“The office was Daniel,” Cody said with a flicker of annoyance that she’d interrupted his story. “He thought if he scared you enough, you’d go running into his arms. He didn’t count on your running to Bear McKenna instead.”
“He didn’t paint ‘stop looking’ on my wall.”
“He did. I just... helped him along. Gave him the idea.”
Greta’s throat closed. She thought about all the nights she’d lain awake in her house across from Bear’s, listening for sounds, checking the locks. All the times she’d blamed Daniel for the vandalism, for the notes, for the feeling of being watched.
All of it had been Cody. Pulling strings from the hardware store like a puppeteer, using Daniel’s obsession the same way he’d used Tasha for her hair color—as a tool, a means to an end.
“How many other women were there?” she asked. “Before Alice and Tasha?”
Cody looked at her for a long time. His gaze moved across her face like he was trying to memorize every pore, every line.
“Seven,” he said at last. “There were seven.”
thirty-seven
The blacktop radiated heat through Bear’s boots as he paced the length of the sheriff’s department parking lot for what felt like the hundredth time.
Three hours.
Greta had been inside for three hours with that monster, and Bear’s blood pressure had been climbing with each passing minute. King kept pace beside him, the dog’s ears swiveling at every sound, picking up on the tension radiating from Bear’s body like a physical force.
“All right, that’s enough.” Bear stopped and braced his hands against his thighs. “We’re walking.”
King tilted his head, his droopy face creased in concern.
“I know. This is crazy. But I can’t sit in that truck anymore.”
He started toward the main road that ran past the sheriff’s station. King fell into step beside him.
“And I can’t go in there, because if I see him, I’ll?—”
He didn’t finish the sentence. Didn’t need to.
King bumped his leg as they walked, the dog’s solid weight a grounding force when Bear’s body wanted to go back to the sheriff’s department, walk straight through that door, and find Cody Simms.
He’d promised Greta he’d stay outside.
He’d promised Logan he wouldn’t do something stupid.
He’d made that promise to himself, too, eight years ago when he walked out of Deer Lodge. He wouldn’t be the kind of man who lost control again. Who hurt people. Who let anger take the wheel.
But the image of Cody’s face — that placid, normal face that had sat across from Greta at missing persons meetings for years, telling her not to give up hope while keeping her sister in his basement — kept flashing behind Bear’s eyes. His hands curled into fists at his sides, the old scars across his knuckles aching with the tension.
“Jesus,” he muttered, forcing his fingers open. “Get it together.”
King whined softly.
“I’m fine.” Bear scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m handling it.”
The dog didn’t look convinced.
They walked the edge of the road in silence, Bear counting his breaths and trying to stay in the moment instead of imagining what was happening inside. Greta was strong. Greta was capable. Greta had knocked Cody unconscious with a chain, for fuck’s sake. She could handle an interview.
But he’d seen her face that morning in his kitchen—she had been bracing her impact. She’d gone in there knowing what she’d hear, knowing what Cody would tell her about those women, about Alice, about thirty years of a cabin in the woods.
