But he’d spent the last several years at Valor Ridge trying not to be that man anymore.
They approached the shop together. A bell jingled overhead as Naomi pushed open the door. The place had a lived-in look, tools hanging askew on pegboards, oil stains on the concrete apron, a child’s backpack forgotten on a bench. The kind of family business that survived on reputation and trust rather than slick marketing. It smelled of motor oil, dust, and a too-sweet air freshener that tried— and failed—to mask the grease.
Ghost hung back, letting Naomi take point.
A woman emerged from the back room, wiping her hands on a rag. She was small and wiry, with deep lines around her mouth and a silver streak in her dark hair. Her eyes were hollow, like she’d been carved from the inside out.
“Naomi?” she said, squinting. “I wasn’t expecting you until eight.”
“Hope you don’t mind us dropping by early,” Naomi said. “This is Owen Booker. He’s helping me look into Leelee’s case.”
Ghost nodded once, keeping his face neutral. He wasn’t here to make friends. He was here to read the room.
Carina Padilla’s gaze flicked to him, assessing, then settled back on Naomi. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said, gesturing to the back. “Thought I’d get some paperwork done before the afternoon shift at the clinic. Come in, please.”
“You’re still working both jobs?” Naomi asked as the woman led them through a narrow hallway cluttered with boxes of spare parts. The back office was barely larger than a closet, with a metal desk and three mismatched chairs. Photos covered one wall—Leelee and her sisters through the years, from gap-toothed kids to young women. Leelee’s high school graduation. A group shot of all three girls at a powwow in traditional dress. Leelee, with her arm around an older woman in a wheelchair, who had to be Carina’s mother or maybe grandmother.
“I have to keep busy. I just…” Carina dropped into the chair behind the desk and pressed her palms against her eyes.
For a second, Ghost thought she’d break. He braced for it, the way he would for incoming fire.
But Carina Padilla didn’t crack. She stayed silent, hands pressed flat, shoulders hunched and small. When she finally lifted her head, her eyes were dry. Worse than tears, somehow.
“I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and find her in the kitchen, raiding the fridge like always,” Carina said. “Or yelling at her sisters to get out of the bathroom. Every morning, I forget she’s gone for just a second. Then it hits all over again.”
Naomi lowered herself into the chair beside the desk, no hesitation. “Have you heard anything? From the sheriff, from anyone?”
A bitter laugh. “Sheriff sent some rookie to take my statement. Said Leelee probably took off with a boyfriend. Or had a bad night at work and needed space.” Carina’s jaw flexed, muscle tight as cable. “She’s not like that. She wouldn’t just leave. Not without telling me. And even if, for some reason, shefelt she couldn’t tell me, she would’ve told her sisters. But both Nina and Sierra swear she had no secrets.”
“How are they doing?” Noami asked softly.
Carina’s face changed. Just for a second. The lines around her mouth deepened, and her gaze went watery, glass-bright, but she didn’t look away.
“They’re…” Carina swallowed hard and looked past Naomi, her focus somewhere far beyond the tiny, oil-stained office. “Nina’s holding up. She’s always been strong, but she hasn’t slept since Leelee went missing. Keeps saying she’s going to find her sister herself, even if the sheriff won’t.” Her lips twisted in a humorless smile. “I caught her out in the yard at two a.m. last night, just… standing there. Like maybe if she stared at the horizon long enough, she’d see Leelee walking home.”
Painful. That was the word for the look on Carina Padilla’s face. Not the sharp, screaming kind, but the quiet, grinding ache that never goes away.
“And Sierra?” Naomi pressed, her tone gentle. “I know she was closest to Leelee.”
The woman’s hands curled into fists on the desk. “She’s angry. I mean, really angry. Says it’s everyone’s fault. The casino, the sheriff, the town. Hell, even me.” Carina’s voice went hoarse. “Keeps asking why I let Leelee work nights, why I didn’t keep her safe. Like I could stop her.” She shook her head, the movement brittle as dry grass. “She barely talks to me anymore. Just slams the door and… disappears.”
Ghost stood silent, watching the exchange. The question—the one Naomi had asked, about how the sisters were doing? It wouldn’t have crossed his mind. Hell, it didn’t even make tactical sense. The missing girl was all that mattered, not the collateral emotional fallout.
But Naomi let the question hang there, like it was the only thing that mattered. Like she was digging for clues not in the facts, but in the wounds left behind.
He watched Carina’s posture: the way her shoulders rounded, spine caved in, hands wrung raw. She was unraveling in real time, and Naomi just sat there, patient, no judgment, giving her the space to bleed out her grief.
Fascinating.
Ghost’s method had always been cold. Data, patterns, timelines. Never the mess of homespun sadness and loss. He catalogued the sisters as assets, potential sources, nothing more. Never once had it occurred to him to care about their feelings.
But here was Naomi, making the wound the point.
He stayed on his feet, arms folded, keeping his own discomfort locked down. He hated this part. Always had. The aftermath. The mess people left behind.
Carina pressed her fingers to her temples, eyes squeezed shut. “I just want my girls safe,” she whispered. “Is that so much to ask?”
Naomi reached out, just a touch to the woman’s elbow. “You did everything right, Carina. This isn’t on you or your girls. Whoever did this—they’re the ones to blame.”
