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I don’t know how I forgot until now. My hands begin to tremble as Duke pulls closer to us.
Surely, it has to be important, some kind of clue. Who did they send the message to if not my family?
After he opens the door for me and we both climb into the truck, Holden turns back to face me. “What did the message say?”
I twist my hands in my lap. “Just my name, that they were holding me, and to get me back, they wanted twenty million dollars.”
Holden faces his brother as the truck turns onto the highway. “When did that happen? What day?”
I rack my brain, my eyes traveling out the window at the passing desert terrain. “The second one, I think.”
“Well, who do you know that has twenty mil sitting around?” Duke quips, shaking his head and looking over at Holden.
He rubs his hand across the back of his neck, and my stomach drops. I know exactly what he’s thinking.
My father.
“The other thing I’ve been wondering about is, who was sending the texts from Rosie to Dolly and her aunt? Was it Jed?” Duke asks.
My hands start shaking, so I slide them between my body and the seat to keep them still.
“Whoever took me must have grabbed my phone.”
“They must have had it near the cabin because that’s where the location was pinging, even though it was days old. That’s how I found you,” Holden says.
Who could have done this to me? Why?
32
HOLDEN
The fight to remain in the seat of a vehicle for five hours without climbing in the back seat to be closer to Rosie is overwhelming. I can’t stop fantasizing about putting a bullet in her father’s skull, and holding her while she sleeps seems like a fucked-up thing to do while thinking that.
I don’t have any reason to be so determined that something about this scenario is amiss, but if Clay Dixon knew his daughter was missing on the second day out of six, why did her aunt come looking on our land four days after that?
If that fucker knew and simply didn’t bother to share that information with anyone …
I clench and unclench my fists, resting my head back against the leather seat and shutting my eyes.
“What has Cash said?” Duke asks.
I glance into the back seat to see Rosie’s face cradled up on the seat as she lies across it, sound asleep. Her long lashes brush against her cheeks, which have finally gained some of their color back.
“Sheriff searched the ranch. He made it over to the cabin about eight hours in, after inquiring if there were any abandoned structures on the property. They’d buried the body near the ravine where the hog and cow carcasses get dragged to. The sheriff left yesterday after not finding anything.”
“What about the cabin? There wasn’t any trace of her being there?”
I shake my head. “Dolly cleaned it up. Told them she’d been planning a getaway there for her birthday coming up.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Duke shifts in his seat as the entrance to the ranch comes into view. “This is fucked, Holden. Whoever did this is fucking us in the ass.”
“I’ve got it under control, but I need you to know that when they take me into custody, you don’t tell them anything, not a damn thing. You plead the Fifth and let Warner do the talking.”
His silence is all the response I need.
I cradle Rosie closely to my chest as I walk through the double front doors to the house. Dolly gasps when she sees us, rushing toward me. Her eyes fill with tears as I nod toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms. She starts to open her door before glancing up at me with a question in her gaze. She closes it before moving down to mine. She pulls back the covers on my bed and lays a pillow down before backing away.
I try to keep the sound of my boots on the wood floor as minimal as possible as I lay Rosie down on the sheets. She miraculously doesn’t stir as she sinks into the pillow. My fingers reach out to brush the hair away from her face. The delicate, pale skin of her neck and cheekbones are as pure and beautiful as ever. I pull the covers up over her and press a soft kiss to her lips before exiting the room.
