Burke nodded once, brisk. “Get back inside and lock your doors. Tell your husband to do the same. No one comes out until I clear this street.”
The woman didn’t argue. She slipped inside, the entry closing soft behind her.
The noise that followed made the hair on his neck rise. Rosie wasn’t barking anymore—she was mourning. It tore through him like something alive.
He drew his sidearm, flashlight in the other hand, and crossed the yard.
The hinges whispered as the wind nudged the door wider. A faint trace of tomato and oregano lingered—pizza—and beneath it, something metallic, like terror had a scent, bleeding through the walls.
He pressed his back to the siding, nudged the threshold open with his boot.
“Sheriff’s Office!” His voice cut through the shadows, sharp and commanding.
He cleared rooms one by one—living room, kitchen, bath, guest room—methodical, steady. Empty. No noise but Rosie’s muffled howls behind a closed door down the hall.
At the final door, she battered the wood like a heartbeat. He steadied his hands and unlatched it.
Rosie burst through, nails scraping hardwood, nose to the floor as she tore for the rear door. Burke followed, beam slicing through the dark.
Outside, she skidded to a stop at the open gate, barking sharp and relentless. Her paws dug into the dirt, nose buried deep where the grass was bent and torn. Burke’s light swept over deep ruts carved straight up to the porch—tire tracks pressed into the soft ground, churned soil reaching all the way to the steps.
Burke’s stomach turned to stone.They dragged her out. Right here.
Rosie circled tighter, whining, desperate to pick up the scent again.
Burke crouched beside her, flashlight trembling in his grip. He didn’t want to look. Every instinct screamed not to see what he was seeing, but he forced himself to.
“Oh God…” Fury and grief crashed together. He pressed a palm to the porch rail, feeling it vibrate with Rosie’s frantic pacing.Darcy…
He stood, forcing the pain down where it couldn’t paralyze him. Sheriff first. Man later.
He keyed his mic. “Dispatch, send crime techs to Oak Street. Full scene processing—prints, tire impressions, trace. Set a two-block perimeter. No one in or out until it’s cleared.”
“Copy,” came the reply.
He scanned the darkness one last time, eyes burning. Whoever had taken her hadn’t covered their trail well enough—and Burke intended to use every inch of it.
There was only one person he could think of who might help. Someone Darcy trusted, someone who might know something—anything—to point him in the right direction.
He turned toward the truck. “Come on, girl.”
He ran a hand over Rosie’s flank as she clambered into the cab, her fur damp and bristling. “We’ll find her,” he promised, not sure which of them needed to hear it more.
Burke climbed in after her, slammed the door, and hit the lights.
The cruiser’s siren shattered the silence as he tore away from Oak Street—racing toward the only chance he had left to bring her home.
Chapter 43
Masquerade
Sheriff Burke Scott
Burke tore away from the cottage, siren keening through the valley. Headlights carved wide arcs through the trees. Panic clawed at him—Darcy was gone, and he didn’t know why.
Within minutes, the truck slid to a halt outside his great-aunt Emma’s house. The porch light blinked on as tires crunched the gravel. Rosie bounded out, nose to the ground, circling the rocking chairs. She knew. Darcy had been here.
Burke took the steps two at a time. Emma opened the door in her pajamas, gray hair loose, eyes wide.
