She squinted, forced her focus through the haze of pain. Three stalls. Sturdy gates. Hay bales stacked along one wall, a pile of old horse blankets, and the oily sharpness of diesel and metal. No windows low enough to crawl through. A single bulb, protected by a wire cage, flicked yellow light across the dust. There were boards over every surface, some old, some new. Half the floor was dirt, the rest patched with warped plywood. She clocked two exits—the wide barn doors chained tight and a reinforced side door fitted with a deadbolt the size of a railroad spike.
She’d worked abduction cases. She’d seen women vanish into traps just like this, and she’d always wanted to believe that if it ever happened to her, she’d be the one who got out.
So she took inventory. Hands behind her back, wrists tied with what felt like paracord. Ankles taped. Her shoes were gone, but her socks were still on. She was freezing. Sweat had already dried cold along her spine. Another surge of nausea rolled through her, and she bit it down. There was no way she was giving her captors the satisfaction of watching her puke.
Metal scraped softly along the floor behind her, and she craned her neck, searching for the source of the sound. An Indigenous girl, maybe fifteen, was curled in a corner, hair falling loose from her braids, legs drawn up, silent tears streaking her face. Another girl, slightly older but still under eighteen, was slumped against a hay bale, eyes open but glassy, skin pale as raw dough.
Recognition jolted through Naomi. She’d seen this girl’s picture among the hundreds of Missing posters she’d plastered everywhere since coming back to Solace. “Tariah Clairmont?”
Tariah didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge Naomi in any way, but the other girl lifted her head from her knees. “They keep her drugged up.”
Naomi tried to sit up, but the room spun so hard she had to brace herself on her elbows. Her tongue tasted like battery acid and old blood. She ran her gaze over herself, taking stock. She still wore Ghost’s hoodie and her leggings, though they had ripped at the knees. Her shoes were gone, as was one sock. Her left shoulder ached like hell, probably from how they’d dragged her, and everything else from her ribcage down felt bruised and off-kilter. She flexed her wrists, testing the cord. Tight, but not impossible. Given enough time, she might be able to slip out.
She tried sitting up again, very carefully, praying the movement didn’t send her stomach roiling. So far, so good. She didn’t vomit, so she counted that as a small win and turned to face the younger girl. “But her name is Tariah, right?”
“Yes, but they call her Tina.”
“Okay. And what’s your name?”
The girl hesitated.
“Your real name,” Naomi clarified. “Not whatever they call you.” Whoevertheywere.
“I’m…” More hesitation. “Angel. Angel McClure.”
The name didn’t ring any bells, and it would if a missing persons report had been filed. Naomi checked for new reports every day, but nobody had filed one for Angel McClure this week, and the thought that nobody cared about this girl opened a pit in her stomach. “Hi, Angel. My name is Naomi Lefthand.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “I’ve heard Elders talking about you. They said you’re one of our success stories because you got away from the rez and joined the FBI. What are you doing here?”
That was a good question. One she didn’t have an answer for. “Well, I’ve been looking into all the missing indigenous girls around here, like you, Tariah, and a girl named Leelee. Was she ever here with you?”
Angel’s nose scrunched. “No. It’s just been me and Tina—Tariah. There was another woman here for a short time, but shewas older, like your age, and white. They called her Ashley. She didn’t talk.”
Ashley? She racked her memory for a missing person in their thirties by that name, but came up empty. “Do you know where we are?”
Angel shook her head and tightened her arms around her legs.
Dammit.“Okay. That’s okay.” Naomi kept her breathing slow and even. The urge to panic pressed up under her ribs, but she’d learned long ago how to starve that animal. Panic never saved anyone. She needed her head clear and her body working, even if it felt like her nerves had been sanded raw.
She refocused on the girl. “How long have you been here?”
“Not sure. A couple days? Maybe more. They keep the lights on all the time. I get dizzy and… sometimes I can’t remember things. I think they drugged me, too, but not like her.” She nodded toward Tariah.
“Who are they, Angel?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you tell me how you ended up here? What do you remember?”
Angel’s chin quivered. “I ran away from home. My mom is… not a good parent, and I just wanted to be anywhere but there. I was walking near the casino and a man in a truck offered me a ride. I’d seen him before with my mom’s friends, and he had Ashley with him, so I didn’t think anything bad would happen. But then I woke up here.”
A man who drove a truck and hung out on the reservation with a white woman named Ashley—this was the best description Naomi had ever gotten from a witness or victim, and adrenaline surged through her bloodstream. “Was it a black truck?”
“No, it was like gray or silver.”
Okay, that didn’t mean anything. Maybe the perpetrator had multiple trucks. Or, more likely, there were multiple perps. “The man you accepted a ride from? Was he Native American?”
“Yes.”
