“Fuck!”He ran Meredith’s words through his mind.If Dez had been with her, she hadn’t said a word.She could have been bound and gagged, but Dez wouldn’t have gone down without a fight.Especially if she knew he was on the phone.She’d have given some kind of sign.Meredith had sounded annoyed and out of breath.Tying up loose ends.Had Dez escaped?
He picked up his phone again and called dispatch to confirm that Meredith was involved.
He rounded another bend, and his headlight caught a reflector.He skidded to a stop, his tires screeching.
Tucked off on a gravel road was a blue Toyota.He steered and parked behind it.Grabbing his flashlight and unclipping his gun from its holster, he got out, keeping the weapon trained on the ground.
“Dez?”he called.“Meredith?”
An owl hooted, the eerie call almost a warning.He shined the flashlight on the license plate and it matched the one he’d committed to memory.The constriction in his chest eased a fraction.
He’d found them.They couldn’t be far.
He wiped his brow and shined the flashlight into the interior of the car.Empty.His gaze caught Dez’s phone on the passenger seat.
He jogged into the woods, keeping his flashlight and gun locked in front of him.“Dez!”he yelled into the night.“I’m here.Meredith, it’s over.The police are on their way!”
Critters scurried away, shaking the foliage around him.
Otherwise, there was silence.
He lit the ground with his flashlight.Some of the earth had been kicked up by feet.Not a perfect trail of breadcrumbs, but a start.He followed the footprints off the path and headed deeper into the woods.The rush of the Twin Sisters River reached his ears.Fuck.
If Dez had escaped, he had to find her before Meredith did or this could end really badly.“Meredith!”he screamed at the top of his lungs.“Come out with your hands up!”
Nothing but the squawk of a pissed-off crow.
Sweat rolled off his brow.He mopped it up with his elbow, not daring to lower either the flashlight or his weapon.Fear pinched his chest, making his breath come out ragged.He yelled again, this time calling for Dez.
Branches snapped under his weight and tree branches swatted his chest and shoulders.Where the hell are they?
He had to refocus.He spotted a fallen tree and climbed onto the trunk.Lifting the flashlight over his head, he swung it in a circle around him.There had to be something he was missing.The river was close.Had Dez run the other way?Crossed the street rather than enter the woods near the car he’d found?Shit, if he’d missed—
Snap!
A twig cracked behind him.His body turned to stone.
“Hello, Aiden.”Meredith emerged from the trees.
Still standing on the trunk, he jerked the flashlight and aimed it down at her face.She squinted and lifted her hand.
“Where is she?”he demanded.He hopped down from the log.Part of him wanted to charge across the twenty feet that separated them and wrap his hands around her neck, but he couldn’t do anything to jeopardize Dez.He lowered the flashlight’s beam to Meredith’s chest so he could read her face.
Her mouth twisted with distaste.She lifted a shoulder.“Not far.”
He took a step forward.“Goddammit, Meredith.What the hell is wrong with you?”
She turned a gun on him.
He trained his on her forehead.
Forcing a calm he didn’t possess, he dropped the weapon a few inches.“Please.You don’t want to do this.I know you don’t.”
She flicked her hair over her shoulder.“I’ve wanted to get rid of that bitch since she opened her tacky, evil little store.When she put you under a spell is when I lost all my patience.”
“A spell?Is that what you think?”His voice rose an octave.“Look,” he said, striving for a placating tone but wanting more than anything to smash shit.Starting with her.“I thought we were on the same page and we both didn’t want anything serious—”
She tsk-tsked.“Guys always say that.”
