My legs became weak. “How…how many boxes are there?”
The look of disgust on my cousin’s face nearly brought me to my knees. “We counted twelve.”
Everything started to spin. Randy quickly moved toward me and took hold of my arm. “Are you okay?”
All I could do was nod. “Yeah, I’m…I’m okay.”
Randy cleared his throat. “Liam…we found another box that contained a purse, shoes, and a small horseshoe charm. The initials were EL.”
I instantly dropped to my knees and started to cry. “Emily…”
Chad was at my side, his hand on my back as I leaned over. I had a small hope she might have been transported to Canada. Grief hit me so quick, I could hardly breathe. I had known deep in my soul that Emily wasn’t alive, but getting proof that she really was gone made me want to cry out in rage. I wanted to find Jonathon and kill him with my bare hands.
“Why?Why would he do this?” I whispered as I struggled to get my emotions in check. “Why take Emily?”
“I’m so sorry, Liam. I don’t know what to say.”
Chad sat down on his ass; his arms were rested over his knees. “He liked her.”
Turning to look at my brother, I asked, “What did you say?”
“Jonathon liked Emily. I remember when he asked her out in high school and she turned him down. She told him she wasgoing out with you. He was so pissed about it, and I never really understood why. Plenty of girls had turned him down before, but with Emily, he was distraught over it.”
“Do you think he took her because she was going to marry Liam?” Randy asked.
Chad looked up, and the look of pain on his face caused me to reach for his shoulder and give it a squeeze.
“Chad, you didn’t know. None of this was your fault.”
He ran his hand down his face. “The trips he went with me on. Chicago, Seattle, Denver…what if he and David and were using them as scouting trips to find women? I invited him to go with me each and every time. That bastard.”
Randy put his hand on Chad’s other shoulder. “Dude, you could not have known. None of us knew. Hell, he was my boss, and I worked side by side with him on missing cases all the time. With him being a cop, he knew all the things to do to cover it all up. Hide all the things he was doing.”
After a few minutes, we all stood. My fists clenched. “I hope he rots in hell.”
“There’s more,” Randy added in a lowered voice.
“More?” I asked, a chill running through my body. “What more could you have possibly found?”
“The FBI called the state police to bring in cadaver dogs to see if we can locate any human remains. We think Jonathon might have buried his victims, or at least the ones that weren’t transported to Canada, out here somewhere.”
My hand sliced through my hair. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.
My phone went off with a text from Bubba.
Bubba: He’s here. The main barn is now on fire. This isn’t another accident.
“What’s wrong?” Chad and Randy both asked in unison.
“Jonathon’s at the ranch.”
##
The second Randy told the FBI Jonathon was at the ranch, I found myself, along with Chad and Randy a few other FBI agents, in a helicopter.
Talking through the mic, I said, “There’s the smoke, you can land in that field.”
It hadn’t taken us long to get back to the ranch. The moment the helicopter landed, I went to jump out, but Agent Hollows held me back and shook his head. “We don’t know where he is.”
