CHAPTER TWELVE
Emma Talayesva had always felt safest at home.
Her house was small but comfortable—a two-bedroom dwelling on the quieter edge of the village, surrounded by a garden she'd spent years cultivating.
The walls held photographs of family gatherings, certificates from social work conferences, and a framed letter from a family thanking her for helping them connect with relatives they hadn't known existed.
It was a life built on helping people, on bridging gaps, on bringing light to hidden histories.
Tonight, though, the comfort felt thin.
She sat at her kitchen table, a cup of chamomile tea cooling beside her laptop, staring at the encrypted files Patricia had given her for safekeeping. The files she'd refused to share with Detective Blackhorse that afternoon. The files the tribal council had explicitly forbidden her from releasing.
The decision still sat heavy in her chest. Two people were dead—good people, people she'd worked with, people who'd trusted her coordination of the genealogical project. And now a detective was trying to find their killer, and Emma had information that might help, and she'd said no.
Because the council had told her to say no. Because privacy mattered. Because the potential harm to families who'd participated in good faith had to be weighed against the need for justice.
But was that true? Or was she just telling herself comfortable lies because following orders was easier than making the hard choice?
Emma took a sip of her tea—still hot enough to sting her tongue—and closed the laptop. She wished she didn't have access to Patricia's files, wished she could have avoided this moral quandary entirely. She felt helpless, caught between competing obligations with no good path forward.
Outside, the April night was cool and clear. Through her kitchen window, she could see the stars beginning to emerge, that vast canopy that had watched over her people for thousands of years.
The same stars that had watched Patricia die. That had watched Robert die. That would watch whoever was next if this killer wasn't stopped.
Emma shook off the morbid thought. Restless, she rose and leaned against the sink, unsure what to do with herself.
The kitchen was warm from the small space heater she kept running in the evenings.
Beyond the window, her modest backyard was dark, the garden beds just visible shadows in the starlight. Everything was quiet, normal, peaceful.
Then the dog started barking.
Her neighbor two houses down—the Talahytewa family—had a large German Shepherd that spent most evenings in their backyard. It barked sometimes at passing wildlife, at cars on the distant road, at the wind when it carried unfamiliar scents.
Emma moved to the back door, peering out through the small window. She couldn't see the Talahytewa property from here—it was blocked by her storage shed—but she could hear the dog clearly. The barking continued, a steady alarm that made her skin prickle with unease.
Just a coyote, probably. Or a stray cat. Nothing to worry about.
But she found herself moving through her house anyway, checking the front door—locked—and the windows—all closed and latched.
She told herself she was being silly, letting the stress of the past few days make her paranoid.
But her grandmother's voice echoed in her memory, words from childhood: When the dogs warn you, listen.
They know things we've forgotten how to see.
The barking stopped abruptly.
Emma stood in her living room, straining to hear anything else. The silence felt heavier than the noise had been, pressing in from all sides. She reached for her phone on the coffee table, not sure who she would call or what she would say, just knowing she wanted the device in her hand.
That's when she heard it. A soft sound from the back of her house. Wood creaking. The subtle protest of a window being opened.
Someone was breaking into her house.
The realization hit her like ice water, shocking and clarifying. This wasn't paranoia. This wasn't stress. Someone was sneaking into her home, and the only reason someone would break in at night while she was here was because they wanted her, not her possessions.
Emma's first instinct was to run for the front door, to get outside where she could scream for help. But to get there, she'd have to pass the hallway that led to her bedroom—where the sound had come from.
She was trapped in her own living room.
Her phone. She still had her phone. She could call 911, get help coming, but how long would it take them to arrive? Five minutes? Ten? Too long if the intruder was already inside.
She started to dial, her hands shaking so badly she almost dropped the phone. But before she could hit the final digit, a sound made her freeze.
Breathing.
Someone was in her hallway. She couldn't see them—the hallway was dark, and the living room lamp was behind her, making her clearly visible while leaving them in shadow. But she could hear them breathing.
Fast, rapid breaths. Excited or nervous. Or both.
"I've called the police," Emma said, her voice coming out higher and thinner than she'd intended. "They're on their way. You should leave."
It was a lie, and probably an obvious one, but it was all she had. For a moment, nothing happened. The breathing continued, that strange, rapid sound in the darkness. Then a figure moved into the light.
Emma's first coherent thought was that it wasn't who she'd expected. She'd been imagining some large, threatening man, someone obviously dangerous. But the figure in her hallway was medium-height, wearing dark clothing and a mask that covered most of their face. Only their eyes were visible.
"The files," the figure said. The voice was muffled by the mask. "Where are Patricia's files?"
"I don't have them," Emma said automatically. "They're encrypted. I can't access them."
"You're lying." The figure took a step closer. "Patricia gave them to you. Everyone knows that. You have the backup files."
"I have files I can't open! They're password-protected. I don't know the password." Emma's hands tightened on her phone. "Even if I wanted to give them to you, I couldn't."
Another step closer. The breathing was louder now, that rapid, wheezing quality more pronounced. Whoever this was, they were worked up, agitated. That made them more dangerous, more unpredictable.
"Then you're no use to me," the figure said.
Emma saw the knife then. It had been held low, hidden in the shadow of the intruder's body. Now it caught the light—a hunting knife with a blade that looked at least five inches long.
Time seemed to slow. Emma saw the figure shift their weight, preparing to lunge.
She saw her own death in that movement, the inevitable conclusion of a pattern that had already claimed two lives.
There was nowhere to run. Nothing between her and the attacker except empty air and her grandmother's old coffee table.
The coffee table. And on it, her abandoned cup of tea.
Emma didn't think. She just moved. Her hand shot out and grabbed the ceramic cup, still three-quarters full of hot liquid. As the figure lunged toward her, knife raised, Emma threw the contents directly at his face.
The attacker recoiled with a strangled cry, hands flying up to his face. The knife clattered to the floor. Emma didn't wait to see if the scalding tea had done real damage. She just ran.
She made it to the front door, her fingers fumbling with the deadbolt. Behind her, she could hear the attacker recovering, cursing, stumbling.
The lock wouldn't turn. Her hands were shaking too badly, sweat making her fingers slip on the metal. She could hear footsteps now, heavy and uneven, coming down the hallway toward her.
"No, no, no," Emma whispered, trying again. The deadbolt was stuck, or she was turning it the wrong way, or her panic was making her clumsy. She couldn't tell which. She just knew she had seconds at most before the attacker reached her.
The footsteps were closer now. She could hear that labored breathing right behind her, could almost feel the presence at her back.
Emma's fingers found the lock mechanism one more time. She twisted, pulled, desperate—
And heard the attacker's hand slam against the door beside her head.