Her shoulders loosened as if my answer was the key to all her problems, and it hit me that she’d never get to see Garrett marry or have children of his own.
A soft smile lifted the corners of her mouth, and she wrapped her arms tight around herself after waving me off again. “Get on home to her then.”
Warmth spread throughout my chest. Instead of heading down the steps, I spun around and pulled Ellis to my chest with an arm around her shoulders. I presseda kiss to the top of her head, eyes squeezing shut. “I’m sorry.”
She stood there quietly, but she didn’t need to speak for me to know all the thoughts bouncing around in her head. Ones she often didn’t want to think, because sometimes it was easier that way.
After a few seconds of holding her, she set a palm on my chest and gently nudged me away. She tried to hide it, but I heard her sniffle.
Without another word passing between us, I carefully navigated the steps before getting back in my truck. I waited until she disappeared inside to pull out of her driveway and head home.
Ellis and I shared a lot of memories of Garrett, and with that, we shared the grief, too. She mourned him in different ways than I did, but I could always tell the days when it got to her the most. A parent should never outlive their child. The hole that was left behind was devastating, but she still smiled. Still spoke about him like he was still around, just in a different space. She likely heard him in the wind, too. Heard his laughter down the halls and felt his presence like I did.
After a slow drive home, I rolled up the driveway, my bigger tires digging through the snow until I came to a stop. I killed the headlights and shut off the engine, grabbing the dish on the passenger seat before getting out and heading up to the house.
I stomped my boots on the mat before turning the handle on the door, but as I did, I froze.
My forehead creased.
I’d locked this door when I left.
I shook my head. Parker had likely unlocked it when she heard my truck coming up the drive.
After I was inside, I slowly closed the door behind me and scanned the room. Something didn’t feel right, yet everything looked in place. Even the bath water was running down the hall, which meant Parker was simply waiting for me. Maybe she was refilling it with more warm water after it’d gone cold.
With snow slowly melting and dripping off my boots, I set the casserole dish on the counter and headed down the hall.
“Sorry that took so long,” I said as I rounded the corner for the bathroom—but I immediately froze when I stepped in a puddle of water.
The bath was overflowing, and Parker was nowhere to be found.
Without thinking to turn off the faucet, I ran for our room.
Empty.
I checked the guest room, then bolted back for my bathroom. Every damn spot where she might have fallen or been hiding was empty.
“Parker?” I yelled out, and when only the sound of running water responded, I knew for sure she wasn’t here. Something was wrong.Verywrong. And that fact sat in the pit of my stomach like a five-ton boulder. My hands flexed and unflexed more times than I could count, that inner part of me needing to do something but not knowing where the fuck to start.
“Fuck,” I gritted out as I darted into the bathroom, boots splashing in the water pooling on the floor, and shut off the faucet. I had no time to pull the plug on the drain without getting my sleeve wet, and if she wasn’t in here, that meant she was somewhere out there.
The idea that she might be cold and lost out in this storm, or worse, taken by some fucking maniac, had panic coursing through me.
I ran out of the bathroom, grabbing my pistol and shotgun from the gun safe in my closet, then beelined outside. I left the front door unlocked in case she came back because, with her truck sitting out front, I doubted she had any keys on her, and I didn’t want her stuck out here freezing longer than she had to.
Before getting in my truck, I scanned the snow for prints. In the direction of her car, there were none, but the snow was coming down so fast, if there had been any tracks, they’d likely have disappeared by now—depending on how long she’d been gone. It only made me feel more lost, more helpless, and when it came to Parker, that wasn’t a fucking option.
Realization dawned on me, and I tucked my shotgun under my arm and yanked out my phone. I clicked her contact, then navigated to the screen where I could see her location. The few seconds it took to load felt like an eternity as every worst-case scenario flew through my head.
Her profile picture—one I’d snapped at the diner of her laughing and biting down on a cherry—popped up in a small circle just east of me, up in the mountain. Izoomed in, confused as to why she’d be up there and how she’d gotten there so fast. It’d taken me a little under an hour to get to Ellis’s and back, and that hike on foot would have taken at least five times that.
That meant I wasn’t looking for footprints. I was searching for tire tracks. Or a snowmobile. And with her truck still being here, that meant she wasn’t alone. Someone had taken my Parker into the fucking mountains during a snowstorm. Ideas of what I’d do to whoever took her flew through my mind, the possibilities endless. But only one outcome was for certain with all of them: they weren’t making it out of this alive.
I did one more quick look around the other side of the house and stopped when I came upon exactly what I was looking for. The distance between the tracks was too narrow to be a car or truck, which meant they were on something like an ATV.
That gave me some sort of idea of what I was looking for, at least.
I sprinted for my truck, tossing the shotgun on the passenger seat, and fired up the engine. Squinting through my windshield and the rapidly moving wipers, I followed the path of the faint tire tracks. With the snow falling fast, the tread imprints were quickly disappearing, so I pressed harder on the gas.
