Headlights distracted me, and I turned my head in their direction. An SUV that looked a lot like my car was coming down the road from Jay’s cottage toward the exit. It stopped by the shed I had escaped from, and I hit the gas, accelerating to catch up to it just as I saw Jay looking inside the ruined entrance. He had a hand on his ballcap, and as he heard my approach, he turned with a look of horror on his face.
Arabella wasn’t anywhere to be seen.Please be somewhere safe. Please be stuck at a ranch calving or warm inside a rancher’s house drinking something hot. Please, please…
I skidded to a halt beside my car just as Jay sprinted for the driver's door. I launched myself out of the truck and sprinted for him. I caught him by the back of the coat just as he tried to vault into the driver’s side. I wrenched him out and slammed his back against the truck. I didn’t hesitate as I threw a cross into his nose, my form automatically bringing my left hand up to guard my face and my chin tucked down.
The crunch, and resulting howl of pain, was so satisfying, I almost did it again. But I needed this fucker coherent and able totalk, so I immediately pulled him into a guillotine choke, forcing him to his knees and holding his neck hostage between both of my arms and facing down. He let out a strangled, terrified sound, and I gave him just enough slack to get words out. “Where is Arabella?”
He struggled, scrabbling at my arms, so I tightened my hold until he panicked, deprived of oxygen and losing strength. I let off and asked again. “Whereis mywife?”
Jay sagged in defeat, his knees in a foot of snow as the storm pelted us both. “I sent her… told her… you went to the river.”
“You what?” My brain could barely comprehend the inhumanity of such a thing in this storm. “You told her I went to the river? Jay, did she go there?”
“Took the four-wheeler,” he choked out.
I had the sudden, blinding urge to flex hard and break this fucker’s neck. It would be easy in this position with him facing me, his head bent down at a hard angle and wedged between my arms. I could do it in a second and rid the world of this miserable excuse for a human being.
But it would devastate Arabella. No matter what he had done to her, whether she was safe right now or not, it would break her if I did that on her behalf. I bent him forward until I knew he would be in so much pain, he wouldn’t be able to think straight. He screamed, and over his wailing, I roared, “Where? Location. Now.”
Jay sobbed. “Ph-phone. Pockets. Please stop.”
I shoved him to the ground in the snow, taking control of his back and pressing my knee between his shoulder blades. “If you move one inch, I will break your neck, you motherfucker. Understood?”
Jay had his face in the snow, and pitifully, he whined, “I’m sorry. I—I was going to take a horse to get her. I was going to call 9-1-1. I shouldn’t have done it. I panicked.”
I dove into his coat pockets until I had my phone and his. “Location. Where is it?”
“M-my password is four-eight-six-one-one. Open maps. First one.” I did as he instructed, sent the coordinate to my phone, and thrust his head into the snow again for good measure.
“She took the four-wheeler. How do I get to her?”
Jay groaned like he knew I was going to be even angrier. “Only… only thing in this storm and in that terrain is maybe a horse.”
“Fucking hell.” I pulled him roughly to his feet by his collar and shoved him toward the truck. “Get in, you piece of shit. You’re saddling a goddamn horse for me.”
Jay scrambled into the truck, breathing heavily and putting a hand to his neck, and I climbed in after him, threw it into reverse, and went back to the barn. “I’m making a call,” I warned him. He had stuffed himself into the corner of the passenger side, his murky brown eyes wide and terrified.Good,I thought savagely. “If you try anything, I’m not kidding—I will kill you. I’m half a second from it, anyway.” He nodded mutely. As we pulled up to the barn, I called emergency services.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
“This is Dr. Theodore Spencer at Mending Hearts Ranch. I need to report a missing person, my wife, Arabella Spencer.” I went around to Jay’s side, and he yelped as I yanked him out and guided him roughly toward the barn. As I gave the dispatcher our address, I threw open the barn door, ushered Jay inside, and pointed to Spets with murder in my eyes. He hurried to get the horse saddled up.
“Can I get more information on Arabella, Dr. Spencer? Missing for how long, and what leads you to believe she’s missing?”
“She was falsely led to believe that I was in trouble at a location in the woods. She went out in the storm to rescue me from whereshe believed me to be. She was told these things by another person with malicious intent.”
Jay looked up, stricken with fear. I glared until he went back to grabbing the tack off the hooks on the wall.
“Is Arabella on foot?”
“Four-wheeler, as far as I understand.” I watched Jay slip a halter over Spets, his hand shaking so badly, I wondered if the idiot would be able to correctly buckle things.
“Does Arabella have a phone? Has she contacted you?”
“I’ve tried contacting her, but no luck. I don’t know if she has her phone.”
“She does,” Jay offered from the stall. He looked intensely nervous, and I glared harder, hoping he would piss himself.
“Do you have specific coordinates? You mentioned a river?” I read off the coordinates on the map as well as I could understand them through the app on my phone. “I’m notifying Search and Rescue, but I’ve been advised that there has been an influx of emergencies due to the storm,” the woman on the other line said with perfunctory factualness. It sounded like she’d said that a lot tonight.
