🗝️Detective Ryker Viltarin must uncover dark secrets before he loses not only his heart but also his life.🗝️
You're on your own, far from home
The wind is blowing in the top of the pines
A gloomy sky where the sun never shines
Deep...
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The leaves rustled under their shoes as Evelyn and Liam followed one of the forest's countless wild trails back to the cottage's gravel road. The rain from the day before glistened on the red, orange, and yellow leaves, coating them like dew—just like her son's cheeks, which were flushed with excitement, exertion, and tears.
A glance at the face of the watch on her arm told Eve that they had spent the last few hours looking for Chief. None of them had hunger, let alone nerves, to eat breakfast. So while Ryker had gotten in the car to (supposedly) drive around the neighbourhood, but really to seek out Dylan, she had headed into the nearby woods with Liam.
They shouted. Again and again and again.
Eve feared every bush, every fallen tree trunk and every hollow because Eve feared finding Chief lifeless out there. Her heart raced every time she heard a rustling sound. But in the end, their search was unsuccessful, and to avoid getting lost in the vast, pathless forest, they finally had to turn back.
Liam's eyes were swollen with tears, and her son kept blowing his nose loudly or wiping his face with his sleeve.
"It'll be all right, my darling. We'll find him," she kept saying, but the words sounded stale and unconvincing to her ears. Although they had only been on the road for a few hours, she felt exhausted when the cottage came into view again.
"I want to keep looking for Chief," Liam whined tearfully, breaking her heart even more.
"I know, my darling. But it's dangerous in the forest off the beaten track, and we don't know our way around very well. Let's get some clothes and lay a trail? Chief is a very clever dog; maybe he'll find his way home that way," she suggested, and she felt her stomach tighten even more with these words. It was as if ice-cold fingers were reaching into her stomach and twisting it around a few times.
Liam sniffled again, then nodded, his shoulders sinking a little lower.
Eve's fingers gripped her son's small hand a little tighter to show him that she was with him and shared his pain. If she could have, Eve would have taken the weight off his shoulders and put the heavy stones in her own pockets. As it was, she carried his burden in silence. Worries about whether something had happened to Chief because of her or whether there was a chance that Dylan would now hurt Ryker too?
