Chapter 7
seven
For a second, she looked like she might argue. Maybe even stomp back to the truck and throw it in his face. He braced for it, already winding up a list of counterpoints in his head.
She flipped him off as she yanked open her car door. It slammed hard enough that Cinder’s ears perked up, and a second later, she peeled out.
She was going to do something stupid. He could feel it in his bones.
No. Not stupid. Brave.
She was going to do something brave, which was worse. Brave got you killed just as fast as reckless ever did.
He should’ve said more, explained why it mattered so damn much that she wasn’t alone when she talked to Finch. But he’d seen the set of her jaw, the spark in her eyes. She’d die before she ever admitted fear. He respected that more than he’d ever say out loud.
And, fuck, he hated that she was going back to that cabin on Cedar Street alone.
He knew exactly the one she’d rented—no external lights, no security, nothing but darkness and a cemetery for neighbors.
If Finch or anyone else wanted to catch her off guard out there, they’d have all night and no witnesses.
He growled at the thought and climbed out of the truck. The sun was barely cresting the ridge, painting everything in bloody stripes, and he could see each exhale. There’d be frost on the grass soon if the temperature continued to drop.
Cinder jumped out after him and circled the truck, nose skimming for threats.
He stood in the cold for a moment and watched her, but his mind was back in the auto shop, replaying the moment Carina Padilla’s face had crumpled with grief and how Naomi had touched the woman’s arm to comfort her. Not a big gesture, but real. Human.
He didn’t do that.
Couldn’t.
He was good with facts, with patterns. Not people. Never people.
So why was he getting involved in this?
It was the job, he told himself. Nothing more. He was wired for threat assessment, and right now, she was a prime target. Not just because she was pushing every local cop’s buttons, but because someone out there was hunting women like her. Smart, determined, inconvenient women.
Except he didn’t believe that lie—not for one second. It wasn’t just the job.
It was her.
He’d spent years cultivating detachment, but there was something about her that crawled under his skin and wouldn’t shake loose.
Ghost scrubbed a hand over his face, irritation prickling at his skin as he left the dog to her own security sweep and ducked inside the Hub.
Door shut. Deadbolt engaged. Just him and the wall of screens, showing every inch of the perimeter.
Just how he liked it.
Except he didn’t like it. Not really.
He should check the logs. Rerun the overnight feeds, maybe scope for out-of-place vehicles on the main road. Instead, he poured coffee into his chipped blue mug, sat in the swivel chair, and stared at nothing.
He couldn’t focus on the feeds. Not even close.
He couldn’t stop picturing Naomi. The stubborn tilt of her chin. The fire in her eyes. The way she looked at him, not scared or pitying, but like he was a puzzle she actually wanted to solve. The way his body reacted every time she glanced his way.
Annoying.
He set down the mug and spun in his chair.
Pulled a battered folder from the locked drawer of his file cabinet and thumbed through his own notes.
Timeline for Leelee’s disappearance, color-coded by sighting.
Maps with routes highlighted, pins marking the location of every missing woman.
The pattern stared him straight in the face, obvious and ugly.
He’d said it last night, in front of the whole Outreach crowd: someone was hunting these women.
But nobody wanted to hear it. Not until Naomi forced them to. Just like she’d forced him out of the shadows and into the crosshairs.
He should be pissed. Should want nothing more than to fade right back into the background, let her take the fallout.
But he wasn’t.
She was reckless, yeah, but she was also right. And he couldn’t shake the feeling that if he didn’t watch her six, nobody would.
The urge to go back, to see if her lights were on or if she’d already thrown herself into something dangerous, gnawed at him. He’d threatened to show up at sixteen hundred, but if he knew her at all, she wasn’t going to wait for him.
She’d say she would, just to annoy him, and then turn around and do exactly what she damn well pleased.
Ghost scrubbed a hand over his face, irritation prickling at his skin.
Hell, what was he even doing here? He’d been trained to let people hang themselves with their own rope and pretend he didn’t care when they went down.
But the thought of her showing up at Finch’s place alone, stubborn and unprotected, made every nerve in his body snap tight.
The world outside was waking up, but inside the Hub, time crawled. The dog came back, paws thumping up the porch, and flopped down just outside his door. Loyal little shadow.
He flicked through the overnight feeds, not really seeing them.
A battered pickup circled the Ridge entrance, headlights off, but it was just Cody Sims dropping off feed for the horses.
Nothing out of place. He triple-checked anyway.
Anything to keep his hands busy until he had to report for chores.
At 0730 sharp, Ghost left the Hub and stepped straight into the crisp bite of daybreak.
The valley was gray and glimmering, the air wet with dew and the promise of early fall.
Cinder ranged ahead, black fur vanishing into the mist, running perimeter like she was the only one who could be trusted to do it right.
If he’d had a choice, he’d have stayed in that dim little office for the next twelve hours, hunched over his files and his screens. But Valor Ridge didn’t run itself, and there were routines here even he wasn’t allowed to ignore.
Jonah was already in the main barn, shoveling muck with the relentless cheer of a man who actually liked starting his day ankle-deep in manure. He greeted Ghost with a nod and a half smile, then hiked his chin toward the second pitchfork.
“Did you sleep in the bunker again?”
Ghost grabbed the fork and waded into the nearest stall. “It’s not a bunker.”
“Could’ve fooled me. You got more cameras in there than the damn casino.”
“Necessary,” Ghost grunted, tossing a sodden mat of straw into the wheelbarrow. “Last week, somebody cut the fence at the north end.”
Jonah’s brows shot up. “You tell Walker?”
“I dealt with it.”
“How?”
He just grunted in reply, not inclined to elaborate. The north fence was his own domain, and if Walker knew about the breach, he hadn’t mentioned it. That was fine by Ghost. The fewer people who knew which direction trouble might come from, the better.
They worked in silence, the scrape and thunk of forks and boots and horses blowing in their stalls.
At the far end, Coyote stamped and tossed his head, impatient for his hay.
Ghost shot the horse a look, and the gelding eyed him right back, ears pinned flat.
They understood each other. Both had a mean streak a mile wide, especially at dawn.
Before long, X and River strolled in, both talking at top speed about some disaster with the new fencing wire. Bear poked his head in to yell at them about the grain bins, something about somebody screwing up the measurements, and Jonah yelled right back. It was the usual chaos.
Ghost watched it all from the corner of his eye and kept working. He liked the physical rhythm—the scrape, heft, dump, repeat. Honest work. No mess you couldn’t solve with effort and muscle.
He didn’t need more than that. Not the jokes, not the stories that flew back and forth across the barn like happy shrapnel. He’d learned a long time ago that belonging cost more than it paid out.
River broke off his running commentary and leaned on the stall door. “Hey, Ghost. You do that thing where you sleep standing up, or do you just not sleep at all?”
He didn’t answer. He never did, which only encouraged River.
Jonah snorted, flicked a straw at River’s head. “Dude, leave him alone. You know he’s powered by spite and black coffee.”
“Explains the mug,” X said, voice low and amused.
River grinned. “I was gonna say! I found a mug in the kitchen yesterday that wasn’t chipped at all, and I offered to swap it out for Ghost’s, but he acted like I’d suggested burning down the barn. Is it a family heirloom? Or is he just into the vintage-prison cafeteria vibe?”
Ghost kept his jaw tight and his hands moving. It didn’t matter if the mug was ugly. It was his.
But River wasn’t finished. “I mean, I get it. Some people get attached to their stuff. I had a GI Joe action figure as a kid, I used to sleep with it under my pillow. Until my mom gave it away to the Salvation Army. Still not over it, honestly.”
X, deadpan: “That explains your issues.”
“Hey. We can’t all be perfectly adjusted like our friend Casper the Broody Ghost here.”
Ghost ignored the laughter, finished his half of the stalls, and wheeled the barrow outside.
He liked River better when the man wasn’t trying so hard.
There were flashes of something real in him, under all the noise, but Ghost had never figured out how to draw it out on purpose. Or if he even wanted to.
He dumped the muck and went back inside. The smell of oats and horse and the faint tang of bleach was weirdly comforting. Predictable. He went to Coyote’s stall and grabbed the brush and hoof pick, preparing for the daily battle.
The horse watched him like he was plotting escape. Ghost slipped the halter over his head, murmured low and steady, then braced for the first rear. He wasn’t disappointed. Coyote always had to make his displeasure with grooming known, but he never did any real damage.
“That’s right, bastard,” Ghost muttered, holding his halter and meeting his eye. “You try it and see what happens.”