"We still need to conduct a search of the property."

I blanch. "Are you serious?"

"You fucking know my sister had nothing to do with this shit!" Dallas stands, making Gillians take a step back.

"Look," Detective Mayfield puts a hand on Gillians's chest, pulling him back from Dallas. "I know it's inconvenient-."

"Inconvenient?" I guffaw. "Inconvenient doesn't begin to cover it."

Mayfield gives me a glance. "We still need to carry out the search warrant." He says calmly, eyeing my brother for any sudden movements. "With everything that's happened, we still have to be able to officially clear your sister. It's just protocol." He looks back to me. "Additionally, Carter has had access to this residence and like it or not your property is our most likely place to find any clues on Ms.Farmer."

I shiver in my seat.

Not one bit of this feels real.

I am stuck in this dream state where nothing makes sense and everything is turned on it's head. The entire room seems to be on a tilt-a-whirl. Every time I feel like things are settling, the ride goes for another spin and my stomach lurches at the inertia of it all.

They still need to find Amie Farmer's body. We all know at this point we aren't looking for the girl. No one expects to find her tucked away somewhere scared and alone but alive. The entire house full of people are sure of the same facts here. They need to find clues to her remains.

Such a poetic sickness to the word.

Because she is gone and all that remains is the shell that once held the soul of a living breathing person inside.

My own body feels tight, the soul inside being ravaged to shreds as it fights against the truth and feels like it is struggling to break free from it's own confines.

I'm trying so hard to hold it all together but I can feel myself pulling apart at the seams. I don't know how much longer I can hold on before I inevitably lose control.

"We will do our best to make this quick." Mayfield says waving a group of officers on. Giving the official signal to them to start tearing the home apart. "You three just sit tight and we can try to wrap it up."

I can hear Taylor in the other room on the phone with someone, but the rest of the house is quiet.

No one speaks, no more loud shouting or chatter to drown out the buzzing in my ears.

Officers move all over the house, scrutinizing every inch. I can hear them checking every closet, every drawer, each of the cabinets, every single nook and cranny of the house is being inspected as the officers efficiently clear every room.

"How are you doing?" Kelsea whispers beside me and I lean my head onto her shoulder.

"I honestly don't know."

"At least it seems like they kind of believe you now." She whispers again.

"For now." I mutter back dryly. I keep waiting for someone to start screaming that they'd found something. I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Every place I turn I've gotten caught into the middle of this, so I have a hard time trying to believe it could be over for me yet.

For a long time Dallas paces back and forth in front of the coffee table. Over and over he turns, his teeth gnawing at his bottom lip as he makes his rotations.

I can't fathom what he's feeling right now.

He's tried so hard to keep himself separated from all of the darkness our shared past held and now because of me he's been thrust back into it.

He's no longer anonymous.

No longer missing.

He's painfully known now.

Despite how Detective Mayfield's attitude seems to have changed towards us, I know this town. I know this place.

Likely, word is already spreading that he's back. That he's alive. That he's right here.

I see the anxious tension in the stiffness of his shoulders.

It had always been so much harder for him. He went from being well liked and having a ton of friends and being on track for multiple college scholarships and in the blink of an eye that all changed. He became the son of a murderer. No one saw him as just Dallas anymore and that's something that twisted him up inside.

The fall from the top is brutal.

In that way, my dealings with the changed perception of me was easier to manage.

I don't know how long passes before he finally stops mid step.

He looks up, looking around the room as if he's just now realizing where he is. I watch him as his body goes rigid. With so much going on, even I hadn't taken notice of the fact that he's in the house. No longer hiding by the back door ready to run from the demons that haunt him.

His eyes lock on our father's recliner and I see his mouth go slack.

"Dal..." I whisper gently but he doesn't look at me. Just keeps staring at that chair.

He takes off so suddenly I jump.

He rushes out of the room, getting stopped by a couple of officers in the kitchen.

"You need to go wait in there." The first one to grab his shoulder says.

"Dallas!" I shout, jumping up as he shoves the officer aside, the man slamming up against the counter.

Gillians appears out of the bedroom and rushes over, trying to help the other officer who is still trying to hold Dallas back.

"I have to get out of this fucking house!" Dallas shouts at him, his voice cracking. "I want to go outside!"

Gillians stops, directing the other officer to do the same. "I'll go with him." He tells the officer, then points to the back door. "Come on."

Gillians and Dallas go out the door, slamming it behind them.

"I just want this to be over." I whimper wearily.

Taylor comes to me, placing a featherlight touch on my forearm to lead me back to sit down on the couch again.

"Let them do what they need to do, ok?" He says.

"When are they going to leave?" Kelsea asks, holding her arms tightly around herself. I know how hard being here is for her. I don't miss the looks officers give her as they pass her by and I am sure she doesn't either.

"They probably aren't." Taylor says, looking down at me. "We need to cooperate with them to clear you and help them bring Mr. Carter in."

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"They're going to set up a tap on your phone," he explains. "You'll need to give it to them. They believe strongly that Mr. Carter will try to contact you again. They want you to take the call."

"What?" I gasp. "No, I don't ever want to see or speak to him again."

"Missy," I jump at my name being said behind me and turn to watch Detective Mayfield come back into the room, standing over me with Taylor at his side. "You could be the key to catching him."

"I don't understand." I'm shaking my head. I can't talk to him again. I don't want to hear anymore of his lies. I've got a lifetime of them to keep me company.

"We don't know what he's going to do next." Mayfield says, sticking his thumbs into the belt loops on his pants. "We don't know what his original plan was or how long he planned on carrying it out."

A disgusting thought I hadn't had the time to conjure on my own.

What was his ultimate plan? How far was he planning to go? How did he see it ending? Framing me for the murders?

The John Jacobs playbook only went so far, so what was Aries planning to do when he ran out of material?

"From Mr. Jinks's accounts on what happened here today, it is entirely believable that Mr. Carter will either come back here to try to see you again, or he'll try to talk to you. Try to get you to meet him someplace so he can try to manipulate the situation back into his favor." Mayfield goes on. "He's desperate, Missy. We ended his game, and now he's going to be scrambling to try to find a way out of it. I think you can help us bring him down."

"Don't you think if I could do that I would have already?" I throw up my hands. "I have no clue why he's doing this or what he's going to do next. Anything I thought I knew about him was wrong."

"You are strongly connected to this though." Taylor chimes in. "Think of the way he behaved today. You mean something in all of this to him."

"I don't know what!" I yell again. "I didn't ask for any of this! I just want it to be over already!"

"And we are asking you to help us do that." Mayfield crosses his arms over his chest. "Help us catch him before he kills someone else."

I blink up at the two men, mind going a thousand miles a minute. "How?"

"When he calls," Mayfield says slowly. "Answer. We will be recording it. You need to try to get him to meet with you again. Tell him you want to understand what's happening."

"Hold up." Kelsea sits up, flipping her braids over her shoulder with one hand. "Am I hearing this right?" She snaps. "You wanted to lock her up yesterday, and now today you are asking her to be bait?"

"You want me to bait him?" I swallow hard, now following their plan.

"I think you're the only one he'd willingly come out of hiding for." Mayfield nods.

"What?" I push my hand into my chest, my heart hammering too painfully loud. "No, I can't trick him into meeting me. You want me to set him up?"

"He wanted to set you up." Taylor reminds me.

It's happening. Just like Taylor had said yesterday. They're pinning us against each other, trying to use one of us to break the other. They want me to be the one to break Aries.

I've done nothing but try to break through to him since the day I met him, and look how well that turned out? He won't even bend for me. He never has.

"So you want Missy to meet up with a man who has killed all of these girls?" Kelsea demands. "That's completely insane!"

"She is a part of this to him." He argues back with her. The both of them now speaking as if I'm not even still sitting right here. "He's had plenty of access to her this entire time and he hadn't hurt her."

"Yeah," she fires back. "And like you said, now he knows he's caught. He knows she doesn't believe him anymore. You have no idea what he would do now that his back is against the wall. It's too dangerous."

"It's equally dangerous to let him get away." Mayfield takes a deep breath, trying to keep his composure. "People like him don't just stop. They keep killing until someone stops them. We need to catch him before he slips through our fingers and can hurt anyone else."

"So do your job!" Kelsea laughs sardonically. "You're the one who is supposed to be catching him, not her! You're the one who is supposed to be serving and protecting, not throwing her at him like a toy to play with."

I drown them out as they continue to argue back and forth.

It's all too much.

So much pain and loss has already permeated this place, seeped into the soil beneath the foundation and taken its hold.

So many people have already lost so much.

Aries may be a man on the run with nothing left to lose, but this town, this world, still has so much it could lose. More girls can die at his hands if he isn't stopped. I couldn't stop my father, I didn't even see it in him. I'd let myself be blinded by my love for him and I'd done the same thing with Aries it seems.

There was nothing I could do in the past to stop the suffering, but maybe I can now in the present.

Aries has nothing else to lose.

But neither do I.

Everyone has already taken from me everything I have.

If I can help end this all, once and for all, then I can't bury my head in the sand again while people continue to bury their daughters.

After all of this time, I finally have the power to do something.

"Ok." I say, cutting off the arguing.

"What?" Kelsea whips her head around to stare at me. "No way."

"I'll do it." I tell Detective Mayfield. "Whatever it takes to stop him."

"Missy," Kelsea says my name, eyes wide. "It's too dangerous, you don't know what he's capable of doing."

"I know exactly what he's capable of." I reply. "He's guilty, and I know I can get him to talk to me again."

"We will be there, every step of the way." Detective Mayfield promises. "You won't be alone. We will listen in on any calls and when you get him to meet you, we will be right there to nab him. We can end this together."

"No way Dallas is going to be ok with this, Missy." Kelsea shakes her head. "You can't use yourself like this."

"He doesn't need to know." I tell her seriously, looking back at the others. "We keep him out of it. Out of everything. He's been through enough, so just leave him alone."

"We can do that." Mayfield promises. "We need your phone so we can get everything set up."

I get off of the couch and leave the room, ignoring Kelsea's pleas for me to think this through.

That's the thing though.

I have thought about it.

I don't see any other way here.

If I can be the key to this, then dammit all to hell, I will be.

I'm going to make Aries pay for everything he's done.

And I'm going to look him in the eyes as he finally falls.