“Yeah, that tracks.” She let the sarcasm bleed through. “Mind if I take these?”
“Go ahead. I have digital back-ups.”
She did a quick scan of the other folders. Names: Chelsea Quequesah. Tara Rainwater. Jordann Pete.
Each face was familiar, too familiar. Each file was thick with printouts, phone records, post-its stuck at angles, the rawdesperation of people who wanted answers. She tried not to think about how many of these women she’d seen in happier photos, at powwows or school assemblies, when the world still felt fixable.
Then she flipped to the last file and froze at the name on the label. Mary Rose Charlo.
Naomi stared at the label, not quite trusting her own eyes. Mary Rose. Her cousin had disappeared seventeen years ago, and still the knot in her chest pulled so tight she almost didn’t breathe.
She looked up at Ghost.
“Why?” she whispered. “That case is cold. Most people don’t even remember it.”
He shrugged. “Pattern started long before Leelee.”
Just like that, all the heat and adrenaline from earlier was gone, replaced with a familiar chill in her bones. She flipped the file open. First page, the same faded photo used in the old news stories, Mary Rose with her hair in uneven braids, big front teeth, smiling uncertainly like she already knew the world could swallow her whole and nobody would notice.
Underneath, Ghost’s notes. Timelines. Names she recognized from her own memory, plus a few she didn’t. Annotations cross-referencing her cousin’s case with every other missing woman in this godforsaken county.
Her hands shook, so she kept them busy. “You think there’s a connection?”
Ghost didn’t answer right away. “I don’t believe in coincidence.” He reached across the table and pulled another file from the bottom of the stack, flipping it open. The name on it caught her by surprise, though she supposed it shouldn’t have.
He nodded toward it. “Alice Doughtry. That’s your friend’s sister? The one who disappeared about a year after your cousin.”
She nodded. Alice’s disappearance was what cemented her and Greta’s friendship. They had bonded in trauma.
“I think your cousin was first,” Ghost said. “And Alice was number two.”
“But Alice was white.” She finally tore her gaze from the file to look at him. “She doesn’t fit the victim profile.”
Ghost stared at her for a beat, then crossed to a cabinet and pulled open a drawer, fishing out another stack of folders. “Nor do any of these women. Black, White, Mexican, and even an Asian woman. Twenty-one women in total. They all disappeared along this stretch of highway between Missoula and the Bitterroot Valley.”
“Are you suggesting there’s a serial offender using this area as a hunting ground?”
“As I said before, I don’t like coincidences.”
Her heart sank. “You don’t think Leelee is alive.”
He didn’t blink. “Do you?”
She wanted to say yes. God, she wanted to.
But that would’ve made her a liar. And if there was one thing Naomi Lefthand did not do, it was lie to herself. Not about the odds. Not about the truth.
So she just stared at the folder, at the girl’s bright, slightly crooked smile, and let the silence fill the cracks in her. She felt Ghost watching her, but he didn’t rush her. Didn’t say a damn word.
Finally, she closed the file and slid it to the side. “No,” she said. “I don’t think Leelee’s alive.” She glanced up, catching his unreadable eyes. “But I have to act like she is, or nobody else will.”
He nodded, just once. Not approval. Not sympathy, either. More like… recognition.
She reached for her coffee and discovered her hand shook. She covered it by draining the mug, ignoring the fact that Cinder’s sharp amber stare tracked every movement.
The dog was a little too much like her owner. Quiet. Waiting. Ready to bite.
She cleared her throat. “You ever talk to any of the families? Or are you just gathering data?”
