“Do I look okay? I’m in handcuffs. All I wanted was for us to be a family again.”

“I’m so sorry, honey. I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding. Just tell us where Teagan is, and we’ll forget this ever happened.”

“I don’t know where she is. We had this planned so that we’d be a family again. We just wanted to scare you. I went to get some groceries and when I got back, she…she was gone.” Bria sniffed and began to sob, putting on quite a performance, but I saw it for what it was. She didn’t care about anyone but herself.

“Bria, I’ve been looking for you. I’ve missed you. I want us to have a chance, but you have to help us find Teagan. We all know this wasn’t your fault. Help us.”

“I don’t know where she is. I’m telling you the truth.” Her full attention lasered on my brother, sizing him up, as if assessing the level of the bullshit meter. She blinked several times, and her face transformed from maniacal to seductive.

“Jock,” she purred, attempting to step forward. The uniforms held her tightly, but she wasn’t deterred.

“Let’s start over. Be a family again. The kids miss you.”

Bria’s gaze slipped to me and that beautiful face of hers changed again like a switch turning on and off. “You! This is your fault.” She swung her gaze to Axel. “You did this. You ruined my life. All of you ruined my life. You’ll never find her. Never!” she shouted and began to kick and struggle. Her shouts were unintelligible rants and obscenities.

“Take her away,” the detective ordered.

They pushed Bria into the back seat of a police cruiser, still raging over all the injustices Jock, Axel, and I had done to her.

The grim-faced detective watched the passenger door close, drowning out the bulk of her histrionics. The car navigated down the logging road and onto the paved county road, disappearing from sight.

“We’re doing everything we can to find your daughter. I’ll be interrogating Bria closely to see what we can find out from her.”

Jock nodded. His face was pale but determined. “I want to help. What can I do?”

“We’re organizing search teams to scour these woods in the hope she’s out there somewhere.”

“We want to join.” Axel stepped forward, ready to go to work.

“What do we do?” Jock said.

The detective studied the three of us and nodded. He’d figured out pretty quickly that arguing with us would get him nowhere. “Check in with Sherry in the red coat over there. She’ll put you to work.”

Jock sprinted for the search coordinator and Axel and I followed closely behind.

We waited impatiently for our assignments. Jock wanted to go out there and blindly start searching, but Axel and I managed to talk sense into him.

“She has to be out there somewhere, and we’ll find her, Jock,” I said.

“There are a ton of good people here who are experts at finding lost people,” Axel added.