Chapter 2
two
The crowd scattered into the sticky Solace night, buzzing with a weird, nervous energy.
Naomi stood on the cracked asphalt, handing out flyers for all the missing girls, trying to slow her breathing.
Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. She hated that.
Hated that it still mattered what these people thought of her—or didn’t.
She’d made her case. Forced them to look at Leelee’s photo, to stare down the truth they’d been ignoring for years.
Half that room still saw her as a troublemaker—one more loud, angry Indian making them uncomfortable. The other half saw her as a traitor who’d gone off to work for the feds and forgotten where she came from.
Well, screw them both. She was here for Leelee. For Tariah, Richelle, and Danielle. For Mary Rose. For every Indigenous woman who’d vanished and been erased.
“I didn’t realize it was so bad,” Charlie Whiteclaw said as he passed, accepting the flyers. “I’ll see if the Tribal Police Chief can find a way to look into it.”
“Thank you.” As he walked away, she sucked in a lungful of air, expecting relief.
But nope. There was just pressure. Building and building behind her ribs, like she was going to fly apart if she didn’t find an outlet for it.
By rights, tonight should have felt like a win. She’d made them listen—really listen. Raised voices. Raised hackles. Planted the seed that maybe, just maybe, things weren’t as random as the town wanted to believe.
But all she felt was empty.
Maybe that was the real curse of this fight. Even on nights when she got what she wanted, it was never enough.
She watched the crowd split and swirl in the dim lot.
A handful of tribal elders hovered near the ramp, talking earnestly.
Two county officials grumbled by their car, ducking their heads as if the truth had personally attacked them.
Even the die-hards—her grandmother’s generation—looked tired, moved with a heaviness, like they’d already seen this ending before.
And then there was Owen Booker, doing exactly what she’d known he’d do—ghosting away.
That nickname of his sure was appropriate.
He moved through the shadows like he’d invented them. Jacket zipped to his chin, head bent, hands in pockets. Unremarkable except for the way he seemed to map every step three moves ahead. Not a wasted movement.
The others barely glanced his way, which meant he was doing his job—be forgettable. Untraceable.
Too bad she couldn’t forget him.
“Hey!” she called, marching after him. “That’s it? You’re just going to vanish?”
He stopped, but didn’t turn. For a second, she thought maybe he’d just keep walking. But then—
“That’s kind of my thing.” He said it like a dare. Like she was the idiot for expecting anything else.
Oh, hell no.
He didn’t move as she closed the distance, barely even acknowledging her approach. Classic. He’d probably calculated her trajectory before she’d made it two steps.
When she was close enough to see the hard line of his jaw in the parking lot glow, she slowed, stopping just out of reach.
“You know,” she said, folding her arms tight, “I appreciate the assist inside, but if you’re going to confirm my whole theory and then walk away, that makes you look like a coward.”
Now he turned. Not the whole way—just enough that she could see the edge of his profile, the way his lip curled at the word “coward.”
He didn’t take the bait.
“You shouldn’t have said my name,” he told her flatly. “You had them. Could have kept it on you. But you wanted backup, so you threw me under the bus in front of eighty people.”
That stopped her cold. “Excuse me?”
“You put me on a stage I didn’t ask for.”
Anger flared, bright and brittle. “Wait, so let me get this straight. You’re mad because yesterday I asked you to come to the meeting and back me up, and you came and… backed me up?”
Ghost exhaled slowly, like he was counting off the seconds. “I’m mad because you didn’t think.” At last, he faced her fully, and his expression might as well have been carved from stone.
“You know what it looks like, Naomi?” His voice stayed low, pitched for her ears alone. “An ex-con obsessed with missing women. Now I’m on every law enforcement radar within a hundred miles. So before you go grandstanding again? Maybe consider who’s going to eat the fallout.”
That got her.
Not enough to make her back down, but enough to crack the armor she wore everywhere but home.
She folded her arms. “The truth doesn’t mean much if nobody hears it. Staying invisible never solved anything.”
He took a step closer, crowding her space, and her nerves snapped taut. A weird fluttering started low in her belly and spread until her nipples pebbled against her bra.
No.
Oh, no.
She was not attracted to this man. She refused to be.
She crossed her arms, hiding the hard peaks from his gaze. Because, dammit, he was looking. And if she wasn’t mistaken, heat flared in those ice storm eyes before he viciously beat it down.
The tension between them stretched until it hummed in her bones.
She tried to hold her ground, but something about the way he stood there, silent and unflinching, made her want to…
what? Prove herself? Fling every frustration square into his implacable face?
Or close the last inches, grab him by the jacket, and—
Her breath caught, barely audible, but it was enough to draw his gaze to her mouth, and she swore her pulse tripped over itself.
Nope.
Absolutely not.
She was not here to get distracted by the guy whose whole deal was “don’t get attached.”
She broke the stare first, jaw clenched, furious at herself.
“Thanks for showing up,” she muttered, shoving her hands deep in her jacket pockets. “I won’t ask again.”
She pivoted, ready to storm off, but his hand shot out and caught her wrist, drawing her back so hard she had to catch herself against his chest to keep from losing her balance.
“Don’t twist it,” he said quietly, close enough that his breath stirred the stray bits of hair at her temple.
For a heartbeat, she couldn't move. His fingers were warm against her skin, his grip firm but not painful. Her palm was flat against his chest, and she could feel his heart hammering beneath layers of clothing, belying his outward calm.
“You needed backup. I gave it. Now leave my name out of it.”
“Fine. You’re out of it.”
He didn’t answer, but nor did he make a move to drop her hand. He just watched her, eyes narrowed, like she was a specimen he couldn’t figure out.
A beat passed.
She became excruciatingly aware of how close they were standing. If she leaned forward, just half a step, she’d be able to feel the warmth of his body, inhale the dark, spice scent of him. It was almost intoxicating, this strange, taut energy between them.
God, what was wrong with her?
A car door slammed nearby, jolting her back to reality. She took a deliberate step back, forcing air into her constricted lungs. “You should go, Ghost.”
“Yeah, I should.” But he still didn’t move.
“Then why aren’t you?”
He didn’t answer. Was it because he was just as puzzled by this weird electricity between them?
For an excruciating moment, they stood locked in silent challenge.
Then his fingers loosened from her wrist, sliding away with an intentional slowness that left a trail of heat on her skin.
She took several large steps back from him and turned, intending to walk away, needing to get away for her own sanity.
“You’re not what I expected,” he said.
That stopped her.
She glanced over her shoulder. “Meaning?”
He hesitated, and she saw a single flicker of uncertainty in that fortress of a face. “Never mind.”
It spiked her temper all over again. “Say what you’re going to say. I can take it. I don’t break.” She’d spent a lifetime proving that to everyone who thought she was a frighted, skittish little rabbit. The idea that Ghost might see her the same way made her flush with indignation.
He considered. “You push. You don’t give up, even when everyone else already has. Even when you’re outnumbered.”
"I learned a long time ago that the only way to make them see us is to be loud as hell. Uncomfortable. In their faces." Thankfully, her voice came out steadier than she felt. "So yeah, I push."
He shrugged, and she watched the movement ripple under his jacket. She’d spent most of her twenties training with men who thought brute force meant power, but Ghost was all economy. Not a single action wasted. Even the way he braced his feet on the pavement said “try me.”
“You’re all fury and no sense.” His gaze dropped and again lingered on her mouth for just a second too long. She felt an answering tug low in her belly.
“Why’d you come tonight?” she asked, low and rough.
A muscle in his cheek jumped. “I said I would.”
“Most people don’t keep promises to me.”
His gaze was impossible to read in the shadows, but his posture shifted minutely, shoulders tensing beneath the dark jacket. “I don't make promises I can't keep.”
The parking lot had nearly emptied now. Only a few stragglers remained, voices carrying in the cool night air. Behind them, the community center's lights began to switch off one by one.
She should go. Check on her grandmother. Help the Padillas. Do something productive instead of standing here arguing with a man who clearly wanted to disappear.
But, no, that wasn’t entirely accurate. She had a feeling if he actually wanted to disappear, he would’ve already.
But something kept her rooted to the spot, drawn to his intensity like a moth to flame.
"I think," she said carefully, "that you actually care about these women. More than you want to admit."
His jaw tightened, but he didnt reply. And, honestly, she hadn’t expected him to.
“You said you’ve been mapping the cases,” she pressed. “Do you have files? I need everything you’ve got. Dates, patterns, sightings. Witnesses.”
He nodded once. “It’s not safe to share here. I keep the hard copies at the ranch. Digital’s wiped after every session.”
Of course it was. “Old habits die hard?”
“You could say that.”
She weighed her options. “Does tomorrow work? I can come by Valor Ridge.”
His brow furrowed, and for a second she thought he’d refuse.
But he surprised her. “I have a window at 0600. After that, the ranch gets busy.”
“Six a.m.?” She let the skepticism show, mostly to see if she could get any reaction.
He just shrugged. “After that, the ranch gets busy. Take it or leave it.”
she wasn’t going to get a better offer, so she nodded. “I’ll be there. Where do I find you?”
“Main entrance. First cabin you come to on the left.”
Before she could say anything else, he was gone.
One blink and he’d melted into the shadow of the building, his long strides already carrying him to his truck at the far edge of the lot. He was all long lean muscle and those jeans…
God help her, there should’ve been a law against a guy like him owning denim that fit that well. For a man who claimed he didn’t want to be seen, he sure made it hard to look away.
Damn him.