The next morning has the audacity to start out looking pretty.

Among all of the ugliness I stand at my bedroom window and look out over the front yard. The tree limbs sag under the blanket of thick snow. The sky is light today, the first time I've seen the sun peak through the thick white grey clouds in days. It illuminates the yard, making the snow glitter and sparkle on the ground.

It only takes a moment longer to be reminded of the situation taking place in the middle of this otherwise winter wonderland.

An unmarked police cruiser sits to the side of the yard, getting pelted with large hunks of snow that fall from the tree above it.

My car and Kelsea's truck are parked right out front, but the police staying here now, are an unwelcome sight.

A new day, but the same drama.

I'd woken before Kelsea for once, just laying in bed looking at the ceiling. I felt strangely good. Emotionally I'm still split into a million different pieces, but physically, I feel human.

The shakes are gone.

My body, while still weak, feels like my own again. I don't feel the weight of it crushing my insides anymore. I feel light and clear headed for the first time in a very long time.

It makes me a little sad to know how long I've lived that other life. The one of escape and hiding. Part of me feels very visible now, which I don't love, but it feels better than being nothing.

I'd laid in bed for a long time, just taking count of all of the ways I felt weirdly different today.

It was a strange sort of hopefulness.

A beautiful new day, but awful tasks waiting ahead of me.

Today starts laying the trap for Aries.

I still don't think I hold much weight to him. Not like the detectives seem to believe. If he'd ever cared about me at all in any sort of real way, he'd never have done this to me.

It's a sobering thought.

Letting go of all of my misconceptions about who he was. It hurts to think I have spent so much time caring about him, carrying the hurt, and now realizing I never knew him at all.

Maybe his walls weren't the romanticized blocker between me and his heart that I'd always made them out to be. Now I wonder if those walls are just the casing holding together a man with demons I could have never put in the same thought as him before.

I try to keep my mind from straying from the convictions I need to keep to steady myself through this. I don't like to think of the way he begged me to speak to him, or the hurt in his eyes when I'd said no.

Instead I try to focus on the thought of that locket.

Amie Farmer didn't deserve this.

None of the girls did.

And as long as he's out there, everyone is still in danger.

He's already broken me so many times. The only way he could hurt me worse is to actually kill me this time.

The smallest part of me hopes he won't call. That they'll be wrong. That he won't want to see me after the incident in the kitchen. That I won't have to be the one who leads to his ultimate downfall.

Every time I hear one of the officers on the phone or their radio going off, I hope like hell I will hear them say they got him.

Tell me I don't have to do this.

That it's already over and I can move on.

But so far, he's still missing.

"Missy!" Kelsea calls from downstairs. She'd gone down about an hour ago while I stayed here with my thoughts, not ready to face what's waiting below. "Can you come down?"

I want to say no.

But I've hidden as long as I will be allowed to today.

I take one more look out the window, the clouds moving in. The light from the sun slowly being overtaken as the storm Dallas had predicted begins its decent down the mountains.

"Dallas wants to talk to you." Kelsea tells me when I make my way into the kitchen.

"Good for Dallas." I huff, going to the cabinet to get out a glass and pouring myself some water from the tap.

"You have to talk to him eventually." Kelsea sighs, wrapping her jacket around herself. Even with the fire going, the house is freezing. The temperature outside dropping by the hour.

I give her an annoyed look. "When he comes in, I'll talk to him." I tell her and she rolls her eyes.

"I'm not getting in the middle of this." She says, passing me and going back upstairs. She's tried to keep herself scarce with the two detectives staying here.

"So don't." I say under my breath, even though she's already gone.

Last night when I'd given the police my phone to set up the tap on the line, they'd found that Aries's contact was blocked.

So apparently, what he'd said about calling and texting was likely the truth.

I know I didn't do that, and I know Kelsea wouldn't have either, which left one option.

A soft knock on the back door has me slamming my glass down.

"When are you going to get over this?" I snap at the door. "The house isn't going to hurt you, Dallas. They're dead."

Angrily, Dallas pushes the door open and steps into the kitchen, dusting snow off of his shoulders and toboggan. "You know that isn't the point." He snaps.

"Whatever, Dallas."

The two of us have rarely fought, but whenever we did, we'd usually taken the very mature route of the silent treatment until one or both of us just got over it and moved on.

Conflict between us has never been something we are good at.

"I did it for you." He says, closing the door with a soft click behind him.

"You should have told me."

"Why?" He frowns deeply. "So you could tell me no?"

"It wasn't your choice to make."

He rubs a hand over his beard and shakes his head with annoyance. "It's the one you wouldn't make on your own." He says. "You and I both know if he called you would have answered. I don't trust you when it comes to him. He's dangerous, Missy, and you don't care."

"I don't care?" I throw up my hands and glare at him. "He's killed people, Dallas! You think I don't care about that?"

"You want the truth?" he levels me with a hard glance. "I don't know if there is anything he could do that would make you stop caring. You fell apart when he left and you fell right into his trap when he came back. When it comes to that guy you're blind."

I flinch at his words. "Fuck you, Dallas." I whisper, turning to walk away.

"Don't just walk off." He calls back.

I glare over my shoulder. "Come get me then, Dallas." I seethe.

I go into the living room and listen as he goes back outside again. Back into hiding from his reality. He wants to call me on my shit? Two can play that game.

"Anything?" I huff, sitting down on the couch.

Detective Mayfield looks up from his laptop in his lap from the recliner. "Not yet." He sighs. "I'm hoping this storm will flush him out."

The entire town is on high alert looking for Aries. The patrols to leave town are still set up and they have officers posted at his house too in case he tries to go back there.

He'd be stupid to do that though. And stupid to try to leave. Stupid to go anywhere. Which means he's just out there somewhere. If they don't catch him, this snow storm might kill him before they even get the chance to make him explain.

I need to know why.

I need to make him face me and explain to me how he could do all of this.

I'm not going to be like my mother who drowned her soul with the love she had for my father. I can't just let myself slip away like she did. I need the answers to this one to be able to ever have any hope at moving on.

"Do we just wait, or should I try to contact him?" I ask, the thought making me shiver.

"For now we wait." Mayfield says. "We don't want to cause suspicion. If he has any idea you're working with us, he's not gonna show his face."

I hate waiting.

I've been waiting my entire life, and I'm so sick of it. Waiting for the pain to stop, waiting to feel something, waiting to be someone. Always waiting. Always stuck.

"We are having to hold the press back." The other detective, Davenport I think, comes into the room, standing behind the recliner.

"When the storm hits they'll back off." Mayfield tells him. "Just makes sure our guys keep them off of the property."

They'd found nothing in yesterdays search. They'd scoured the backyard, down to the bluff, but still nothing. Winter isn't helping anything. With all of the snow we've been getting this year, anything they might have been able to find has been covered and lost. I overheard a conversation last night about how it may be spring when everything begins to thaw out that they can find anything.

Like Amie's body.

This property is likely to be a crime scene for months.

Part of me wonders if I should just have them bulldoze the whole lot when this is done. Screw the money. Who in their right mind would ever buy this place now?

I leave the detectives to their small talk and go back upstairs.

"Hey." I cross the bedroom and sit on my bed beside Kelsea where she's sitting up with her legs crossed at the ankles in front of her while she watches the news coverage on her phone.

"Square everything away with big bro?" She asks, laying the phone in her lap.

I let out a small laugh. "Nope."

She sighs. "He was trying to help."

I lean my head to the side to look at her. "Don't tell me you're on his side."

"No." She says seriously. "He should have asked you first, but I think his heart was in the right place."

I don't want to think about that. Right now I'd rather stay mad. Being mad at my brother is easier than focusing on all of the other emotions waiting in the background.

"You don't have to stay, you know?" I tell her, changing the subject.

"I know." She looks over at me. "You're the only friend I have. I don't want to turn my back when things get hard. That's what everyone did to me when I decided to be who I am. Closest people to me pretended to be there for me until I actually went through with it. Then it got too hard for them and they slowly pulled back. I want to be better than that."

"Fuck them." I tell her. "You're the best person I know. Who you are doesn't matter to me."

"Right?" She laughs a little. "I'm a much hotter girl." She winks. "You're the only person who has genuinely acted cool with everything. Maybe it's easier because you didn't know me before. It's like I've said before though, we all need someone."

"I'm really glad you're here." I tell her truthfully, reaching over to squeeze her hand. "Anything new?" I tilt my head to her phone where the news is still playing with the volume down low.

"Just a bunch of stuff on the hunt for Aries." She shrugs. "They aren't mentioning you as much which is good. I'm sure the rumor mill is still in full swing though."

"It's Faulkner." I laugh. "It's always going."

"Was it this bad when it was your dad?"

I think about it for a second and then shrug. "Different kind of bad I guess." I decide on. "With him I was so young it was just a whirlwind of everything happening so fast. One night he was here for dinner, the next night the police were pounding on the door and dragging him out. Few days later he had confessed and denied a trial, pled guilty, and was gone. It all happened fast. This is slow. This is drawn out and more scary than before because I didn't have a clue when it happened the first time."

"I can't imagine." She says. "What this is all like for you."

"It's hell." I laugh. "It still feels like this is all just one cosmic joke."

"What are you going to say to him when he calls?"

I chew at my cheek and pick at my fingernails. "They want me to tell him I need to see him. Say something that would make him trust me."

"I know I don't always have the right thing to say." She says. "But I can imagine that's a hard ask for you. I still don't like it and I get why you want to help, but to trick him...I know you don't want to."

"I don't." I admit. "I want to believe there is something he actually could say to make me believe he didn't do any of this." I cover my mouth with my hand when I realize what I've said. "I guess Dallas is right, huh?"

"I get it, Missy." She pats my knee. "Of course you don't want to believe he's capable of all of this. It makes sense to be conflicted when it's someone you care for."

"But I should hate him."

"You can hate what someone does, and still love the person."

I turn to look her in the eyes and she gives a small smile.

"I guess so." I say after a long moment.

Do I hate my father? I'd always felt like I should. Felt like it was my duty after what he'd done to hate him as much as everyone else in the world did. But did I? Or did I just push my true feelings away?

Of course I was and am angry at what he did and how he ruined so many lives. He was a good father to me though. He never was cruel to us or showed any signs of being able to hurt anyone. I'd admired the way he loved my mother and he was always so involved with Dallas and I.

"What really sucks is that all anyone remembers him for is the bad things he did, you know?" I say quietly. "I never felt like I could stand up and say how great of a father he was after what he did. Like everyone would hate me more if I said anything good about him."

"I'm sure you feel that way about Aries too." She nods. "But you don't have to worry about that with me. I know you cared about him and he was always kind to me too. You don't have to deny any good a person had in them just because there was evil there too, you know?"

I guess she's right.

Even the worst people in the world have people who loved them. It's not right to crucify those people like everyone did to me. I was his daughter, not an accomplice, but my whole family got lumped into the bad pile with him.

I let my eyes drift down to the phone and when I do, my thoughts stall.

"Wait." I say, reaching out to pick up her phone. "What is this?"

Kelsea leans over to look at the screen. "The video of Amie leaving her lunch shift." She tells me, looking away again. "They have been playing it non stop forever." She tells me like she's bored.

But it's the first time I'm seeing it.

I've heard the scene play out, listened to the reporters recount it all out, heard the interview with the friend she was supposed to be meeting.

But I've not seen the actual footage until now.

I bring the phone closer to my face as the video replays.

It starts from an inside camera, showing her wave goodbye to a coworker and then take out her phone. She sends a message and then walks out to her car.

It's a small blue Kia.

She unlocks her door and slides into the driver's seat, cranking the car and then backing out of her space by the sidewalk and turns up the road to leave town.

Just before the video ends, in the parking lot on the other side of the road, a beaten up white pickup truck slowly pulls out into the road and turns the same direction.

I stare at the grainy video, straining my eyes to see as the back end of the truck passes by the camera...

No license plate.

The video cuts off right as both vehicles are out of the frame and it returns to two news anchor's sitting behind a large desk.

"Kelsea." I say, turning to stare at her. "I've seen that truck before."