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Chet held his breath as distress pressed against his lungs. “What was in the shoebox?”
“Sketches of what appear to be different variations of the brand used on all the victims. On you.” Cruz’s voice dipped low, anger tainting his words.
The brand Chet always covered burned beneath his shirt. He slid his hand up the sleeve and brushed the pad of his thumb over the raised skin.
“That’s not all. There were two pictures. One of Laurie when she was a teenager.”
“What?” Fury pounded through his veins. Bobby had kept his identity as a murderer well under wraps, but the truth that he’d held a flame or some sick obsession for Laurie since she was a teenager was the shit icing on the fucking cake.
Chet’s legs shook and he lowered himself on the edge of the sidewalk, his feet planted on the side of the road. Moisture seeped into the back of his jeans, but he couldn’t care less as his world crashed in around him. “How could I have missed this? How could I not see the type of man Bobby really was?”
“There was another picture,” Cruz said, cutting into Chet’s ramblings. “One of you, Tucker, and Eddy.”
Chet’s mouth fell open and his mind spun. “The three of us? Together? From how long ago?”
“Looks like young teens. Eddy has a bandage wrapped around his forearm. You remember when that happened?”
He ran a hand over his face, threading his fingers through his thick beard. “Actually, yeah. Probably the summer he was attacked by a dog. He claimed the neighbor’s dog jumped out from the bushes and just latched onto his arm. I always doubted his story because the pet was always docile. But the dog ended up dead, and Eddy’s been weird around dogs since.”
A flash of clarity parted through the fog of pain engulfing Chet. “Wait a second. Eddy always stayed in the guest room when he crashed with Bobby and Missy, which was pretty frequently. His parents weren’t the greatest, and Bobby treated him like one of his own.”
“Does Eddy ever stay at the house still?”
Chet shook his head. “I don’t know. You could ask Missy.”
A memory crashed against Chet, and he shot to his feet. “Shit. Otto.”
“Otto? Tucker’s dog? What about him?”
He scrambled to his feet and bolted toward the store. He had to get to Mia. He’d left her inside with a killer. The sky opened and the drops of rain came down in torrents. “When Otto saw Eddy the other day at my place, he sniffed him real good. Made Eddy uncomfortable as hell. I figured it was because of his past, but Otto was tracking the killer’s scent in the woods. He smelled Eddy.”
Chet ran through the downpour and pushed open the door. “Mia!” Nothing but the buzz of electricity in an empty store returned his call.
“Is Mia okay? Where are you?”
Realization almost choked him, blocking his airway. He had to get to Mia. He raced down the aisle to where he’d left her with Eddy, but no one was there. “Mia!” he called again, his heart racing so fast it made him dizzy. “Damnit, she’s not here.”
“Where?” Cruz shouted, slicing through the furious thoughts and fears running rampant in Chet’s mind.
“Truly’s Trading Post. Eddy was showing her supplies for her new dog, and I stepped outside to take your call. They’re not here.” Panic clawed up his throat, and the scars around his wrists burned.
“Check the back,” Cruz suggested. The words came out choppy, the syllables shot through the line in cut-off bits and pieces.
Chet sprinted toward the storage room, pounding open the swinging door, only to be greeted by more silence. A clap of thunder echoed off the aluminum roof but sounded close. Too close. He followed the noise, the phone still pressed to his ear. “Shit. The door’s open. Two sets of footprints are leading into the back lot. She’s gone.”
* * *
Branches whippedagainst Mia’s face as she sat pinned in front of Eddy, his arms trapping her as he drove a four-wheeler through the woods. The chilly breeze beat back her hair. Her dark ends whipping around. Terror squeezed her throat, and she wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and imagine herself back in her home, tucked safely against Chet’s side.
But she couldn’t close her eyes. Not when she needed to pay close attention to where Eddy was taking her. The gun wasn’t pressed against her back anymore, but no way she could duck under his arms as they flew over the uneven terrain and throw herself from the speeding recreational vehicle. Her teeth rattled, and rain splattered through the canopy of leaves, soaking through her clothes.
The weight of her purse sat on her lap. In his haste to get her onto the four-wheeler Eddy had parked deep in the woods, he hadn’t thought to make her leave it behind. Her fingers itched to grab the pocketknife still inside from the day before, but she couldn’t risk it. Not now when one wrong move could send her flying into a tree.
A sharp turn on the moss-covered trail had her nearly spilling over the side, and she stifled a scream. Loose stones skittered down a steep ravine.
Eddy squeezed his arms against her sides, keeping her in her seat but causing her skin to crawl from his touch.
Bile crept up her throat and coated her tongue. She forced it back down, keeping her focus on her surroundings. She didn’t know the area well, but if she hoped to make it out of this alive, she’d have to find a place to run. To escape. To hide. Chet would know who took her, it was just a question of how long it’d take for him to discover her gone and if he could find her before it was too late.
