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A wet cough from inside the fort reached her ears and her heart stopped. She shot her gaze to the door.
“Uncle Bobby must be waking up. Perfect. I thought everything might be ruined when I had to act quicky back at the store. But now that you’re both here, I can make this work. I’ll find a way to pin everything on him.”
Hope crashed to the muddy ground. If Bobby was in the fort, she couldn’t leave him in Eddy’s clutches.
Which meant when she got her opportunity, she’d have to do more than hurt him. She’d have to kill him.
23
The rain continued in sheets, washing away whatever tracks etched the woods. Chet kicked a pile of stones in the empty lot behind the trading post. Anger boiled in his gut, ready to explode any minute. Panic gripped his chest, and the urge to scream out his fury clawed at his throat. “We’re wasting time. Eddy had to have taken her through the woods. His damn truck is still parked out front. We need to go after them.”
Tucker ran a hand over his face. “We can’t just go charging into the wet forest with the rain coming down harder by the second.” He kept an eye on Otto who trained his nose to the wet ground at the tree line.
Chet had called Tucker as soon as he’d hung up with Cruz. Tucker had wasted no time getting into town. Now the two of them, along with Otto, scoured the overgrown weeds and tangles of brush and grass behind the store. No footprints or broken twigs pointed showing them the way to go. Not even a snagged thread to clue them in on the way Eddy had taken Mia.
“We should talk to Cruz and Lincoln,” Tucker said. “See if they found anything else at Bobby and Missy’s. Maybe it will point us in the right direction.”
Tucker’s plan was logical, but Chet couldn’t just stand around and wait. Not when every second that passed was a second closer to Mia losing her life because he couldn’t keep her safe.
The crunch of gravel hit his ears, and Chet turned as Cruz drove into the lot and parked, Lincoln in the passenger’s seat.
The surprise of their arrival had him sprinting to the vehicle, needing to know what news the two officers brought with them.
Cruz stepped out of the car, a wide-brimmed hat blocking the rain from his face. “Find anything?”
Chet shook his head. “No trail back here, and any tracks through the thicket were washed out by this damn weather.”
Lincoln joined them at the hood of the police cruiser. “Does he own any other vehicles?”
Chet rubbed the back of his neck, the skin of his cold hand colliding with the heat of his anger. “None that I’m aware of, but he couldn’t get a truck back there. Hell, not even one of those compact cars could make it through these woods.”
“What about a dirt bike or four-wheeler?” Tucker asked. “Something easier to get through the thicket?”
Chet stared through the trees as if he examined them hard enough, he could see exactly where Eddy had taken Mia. “Could work. But I don’t see tire tracks.”
“Then we press deeper into the forest. If Eddy wanted to be prepared without anyone realizing what he was up to, he could have parked something where no one would notice. Something he could get to quickly.” Lincoln ducked back into the car and reappeared with a similar hat as Cruz and shrugged into a canvas jacket.
“Any chance he’d double back and bring Mia somewhere close so he can grab his truck?” Tucker asked.
“Until we know where he took her, anything’s possible,” Cruz said. “But I’ve got an officer keeping an eye on the store and his vehicle, plus someone camped out at his place, another at Bobby’s, and state patrolmen are keeping an eye out as well. All the bases are covered.”
Appreciation squeezed Chet’s chest. The last time the woman he loved was missing, he’d felt adrift. Lost in a sea of suspicion and confusion and fear. Now, with his friends by his side, acting fast to find Mia, a beat of hope pulsed through the constant terror gripping his entire being.
“Any idea what’s out there?” Lincoln asked. “I still don’t know the area too well. Is there a place back in the woods he could take her? A path that leads somewhere Eddy would use? A place he’d gone hunting with his uncle as a teen? The pictures we found meant something for him to hide them for this long.”
Chet searched his memories for any place that would make sense, but he didn’t have a ton of memories with Eddy. He spent all his time with Tucker, with Eddy tagging along whenever he was in town. When he was lucky, Laurie would hang with them, too. But no place held a special meaning for him and Eddy. “Did you bring those pictures with you?”
Cruz nodded.
“Let me see them,” he said, holding out his palm.
Cruz plucked them from the inside of his jacket and handed them over.
Chet hunched over the photos, not wanting to get them wet. The first one was of Laurie. She still had the look of innocence, with eyes bright and alive and a smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose. His heart lurched. This is what Riley would have looked like if she’d been given the chance.
Before his emotions spilled over the surface, he flipped to the second photo. The picture of him, Tucker, and Eddy. He couldn’t hide his smile. He towered over both his pals, but his limbs were long and lanky. His mouth was too big for his face and a few whiskers poked through his chin. All three of them held a large walking stick in their hands, holding them high for whoever captured the picture to see.
Tucker glanced over his shoulder and chuckled. “Damn. I haven’t thought about that place in a long time.”
