And I’m following him straight into it.
7
LUKE
The county road cuts through pine forest, moonlight flashing silver through the trees. I kill my headlights and let my eyes adjust to the darkness as I close in on the access road that leads from here up to the ridgeline between Emma’s property and Turner’s.
My phone rings, and I put it on the speakers. “Here.”
“I’m pulling up the feed now.” Mason’s calm voice fills the cab. “You want backup?”
I check my rearview mirror. There’s been a patrol SUV on my ass since I left town, headlights still on, maintaining distance. Harper, of course. I recognize the way she drives—cautious but aggressive when she needs to be. Of course she followed me. “Already got that covered.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” Up ahead, a delivery van suddenly swings out onto the road. I switch my focus to the target, maintaining my speed. It’s too fast for a legitimate delivery, which wouldn’t happen this late on a Wednesday anyway. “Ace, white panel van just came off the Circle H access road. No headlights. No markings. Run the plate.”
His typing clacks loudly in the enclosed space of my truck. “Numbers.”
I rattle them off as I close the distance, my truck eating up the road between us. I shake my head. Wrong—everything about this is wrong. The timing. The location—right on the border of Circle H and Turner land. The way the van accelerates the moment it hits the county road.
“Registered to a bakery in Spokane,” Mason says after a moment. “Kip’s Cupcakes.”
“Cupcakes, my ass.” I press down harder on the accelerator.
Jake clicks on the line. “Luke?—”
“They’re running something.” The van’s taillights flare as it takes a curve too fast, fishtailing slightly before the driver corrects. “Right off Emma’s property line. You think that’s a coincidence?”
“No.” Jake’s voice is grim. “But you don’t know what’s in that van.”
Or who. I think about the photos Emma took a couple months ago of the women Cole Turner’s been trafficking through Iron Ridge—of Mason’s woman, Lily, who’d been kidnapped by Turner’s crew years ago but lucky enough to have escaped—and go stone cold. “I’m about to find out.”
8
HARPER
Luke’s maybe fifty yards ahead of me, closing on the white van with predatory precision. His headlights are still off, his engine roaring. He’s not trying to stop them—he’s trying tocatchthem.
Does he know there’s a one-lane bridge around the next bend?
My cop brain screams what my gut already knows: narrow bridge, a hundred-foot drop on either side into a ravine over a churning river that’ll swallow a vehicle whole.
Luke accelerates.
The van swerves, panicked.
“No, no, no—” I slam my foot on the accelerator, but I’m too far back, and Luke’s too committed. I can see exactly what he’s about to do—I can see it like watching a car crash in slow motion.
He’s going to force them off the bridge.
Or follow them over it.
9
LUKE
“Uh, Riot,” Mason starts.