Chapter 10 #2
Atlas whined from under the table, nosing at her ankle. She reached down without looking and scratched behind his ear, feeling the solid warmth of him, the steady rhythm of his breathing. He pressed harder against her leg.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Naomi said.
“I’m thinking I need a drink.” She laughed, and it came out wrong—sharp and cracked, nothing like humor. “But I’m trying to cut back, so…”
“Greta.”
She looked up.
Naomi reached across the table and squeezed her hand. She was no longer the cop delivering bad news, but the best friend here to comfort. “Talk to me.”
She didn’t even know what she wanted to say. There was so much emotion bubbling inside her, and if she opened her mouth, she feared it’d all boil over.
“Greta.”
“I’ve been searching for fifteen years,” she blurted, and it struck right then her that Logan McKenna was as old as her search.
God. What different lives she and Bear had lived. When she was a sixteen-year-old with a missing twin, he’d been a married man with a baby.
She pressed her fingers into her eyes because, for some reason, that thought made them sting more than anything else.
“I know you have,” Naomi said softly. “And I know how that feels. I also know how sometimes getting answers is worse than wondering.”
Of course Naomi understood. Her cousin had gone missing the year before Alice. It was one of the things they’d bonded over.
But then Naomi got her answers, and it wasn’t the ending anyone wanted.
Greta pulled her hands from her eyes and looked at the photo again.
The woman’s hand on the bench. Those nails.
Alice had always loved long nails. She’d painted them herself, sitting cross-legged on their shared bedroom floor, the little bottles of polish lined up in rainbow order, humming to herself while Greta read adventure novels, pretending not to notice.
“Fifteen years of flyers and tips and dead ends and that woman at Glenhaven who wasn’t her.
I’ve driven myself into debt and ruined relationships and spent every waking minute thinking about where she might be, and the whole time—” She stopped.
Her voice had started to shake, and she hated that.
She swallowed hard and tried again. “The whole time, she could have been right there. In Spokane. At a bus station. Luring girls the same age she was when she disappeared.”
“Maybe,” Naomi said. “But we don’t know anything for sure yet.”
“You wouldn’t have brought this to me if you weren’t sure.”
“No. I wouldn’t have.”
The kitchen clock ticked. Somewhere down the street, a car started. Atlas shifted his weight, pressing harder against her shins.
Greta picked up the photo and turned it slightly, angling it toward the light from the window, as if a different angle might reveal something the first hadn’t. It didn’t. The woman remained a silhouette, a suggestion, a ghost made of pixels and possibility.
“What’s the next step?” she asked, and her voice came out steadier than she expected.
Naomi’s shoulders dropped a fraction—relief, maybe, that she hadn’t completely broken down at the news. “Brandt is still in Spokane. He’s working with local PD and the FBI’s human trafficking task force. If he can get a location, a pattern of movement, anything concrete—”
“I want to go. When you have a location, I want to be on the first flight.”
Naomi’s face went through a variety of expressions before locking down into a carefully neutral expression. “Greta—”
“Don’t. Don’t tell me it’s dangerous. Don’t tell me to let the professionals handle it. I’ve heard it all before, and I’ve never listened, and I’m not starting now.”
“I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say that if you go, I go. That’s non-negotiable.”
Hot tears flooded her eyes, but she blinked them back. “You don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t have to.”
“Your campaign—”
“Will survive me being gone a couple of days. I’m going to be there for you, no matter what we find.”
They looked at each other across the table.
“Okay,” Greta said, and a tear spilled over before she could stop it.
“Okay.” Naomi reached across and squeezed her hand once, hard, then let go. “I’ll call Brandt today. See what he’s got.”
Greta nodded. Set the photo down carefully, aligning it with the edge of the table, and picked up her coffee. It had gone lukewarm, but she drank it anyway, because it loosened the tightness in her throat.
Naomi stayed for another hour. They didn’t talk about Ashley or Alice or trafficking rings.
They talked about the shop—the insurance claim, the cleanup.
Naomi insisted that Ghost install one of his security systems and, hell, she wasn’t about to say no to that.
Ghost’s equipment was better than any of the commercially available systems she could afford.
They talked about Logan, about how Bear was doing with him.
They talked about Jax and Nessie’s upcoming wedding.
They talked about the new guy at the ranch—Hatch, a guy from Walker’s old unit, apparently.
Naomi hadn’t met him yet, and Ghost was suspicious of him, but that wasn’t saying much because Ghost was suspicious of everyone.
He hadn’t even liked Greta until he’d seen her take down a drunk tourist who’d gotten handsy with one of Nessie’s part-time workers.
After that, she’d apparently passed some kind of test.
They talked about everything except the thing sitting on the table between them, and Greta was grateful for the reprieve.
When Naomi finally stood to leave, she gathered the folder and tucked it under her arm. She paused at the door, one hand on the frame.
“You’re not alone in this,” she said.
“I know.”
“Say it back.”
Greta almost smiled. “I’m not alone in this.”
“Good.” Naomi nodded and stepped out into the morning light. The door closed behind her with a soft click.
Greta stood in the kitchen with her hand still on the back of the chair Naomi had pulled out.
Atlas leaned against her shins.
The folder was gone. Naomi had taken it with her. But the photo was still on the table where she had left it.
She sank back into her seat and picked it up.
The woman on the bench hadn’t changed. Same three-quarters turn, same strawberry blonde fall of hair, same hand resting on the bench beside the girl. She angled the photo toward the window again, but it still didn’t give her anything new.
“Alice,” she whispered. “Is that you?”