No vehicles visible. No signs of recent activity around the perimeter. But someone had been here—a set of boot prints led from a narrow dirt track up to the barn’s remaining door, the mud still showing clear impressions.
Ghost signaled Bear to circle right while he approached from the left. Greta and Atlas took the center, the woman’s hand resting on her own sidearm.
The air smelled wrong—damp earth and rotting wood, but underneath it, something sharper. Something chemical. Ghost’s stomach knotted as he recognized it. Bleach. The universal cleaner for those who didn’t want to leave evidence behind.
He reached the barn’s side entrance first, pressing his back against the weathered boards. The door hung partially open, darkness beyond. He counted down silently—three, two, one—then swung inside, weapon raised.
The interior was cavernous, mostly empty except for rusted farm equipment and rotting hay bales. Shafts of sunlight speared through holes in the roof, illuminating dust motes that danced in the still air. Bear entered from the far side, his large frame silhouetted against the light from the collapsed wall.
Nothing moved. No sound except their own breathing and the distant call of a crow.
Ghost lowered his weapon slightly, eyes adjusting to the dimness. The floor was dirt, packed hard by years of use. In one corner, a pile of fresh straw caught his attention—too new compared to everything else in the place.
He crossed to it, boots silent on the earth floor. As he got closer, he saw dark stains in the dirt beside the straw. Blood. Not much, but enough to make his heart stutter.
“Over here,” he called, voice tight.
Greta joined him, crouching to examine the stains. “Recent,” she confirmed. “Within the last day or two.”
Bear’s voice came from the other side of the barn. “Got something.” His tone made both of them turn.
The big man stood near what must have been the attached cabin—now just a blackened foundation with a few charred beams still reaching toward the sky. He pointed to a shallow depression in the earth, rectangular, about six feet long.
A grave.
Ghost’s blood turned to ice. He crossed the distance in seconds, boots skidding in the loose dirt as he dropped to his knees beside the hole. It was empty—freshly dug but unused.
“They were going to bury someone here,” Bear said, the words falling like stones.
Ghost couldn’t speak. His throat had closed up, lungs refusing to work properly. The empty grave yawned before him, a promise of what might have been—what might still be. His hands curled into fists in the dirt.
Atlas’s bark cut through the silence, followed by the radio crackling to life on Greta’s hip.
“Search Team Alpha to Dougherty, come in.”
She grabbed the radio. “Dougherty here. Go ahead.”
“We’ve got a body. Female. Blacktail Creek, quarter mile south of Highway 93.”
Ghost’s head snapped up, eyes locking with Bear’s. The big man’s face had gone blank.
“Is it Naomi?” Greta demanded, her voice professional despite the tremor in her hand.
“I don’t think so. She’s...” The voice hesitated. “She’s wearing a yellow plaid skirt and blazer.”
Leelee Padilla.
Not Naomi.
The relief hit Ghost so hard he nearly collapsed, followed immediately by a wave of self-loathing. Someone else’s daughter was dead, and here he was, grateful it wasn’t the woman he?—
He cut the thought off before it could fully form.
“Understood,” Greta replied. “Secure the scene and call the police. We’re on our way.” She clicked off and looked at Ghost. “It’s not Naomi.”
“I know.” He pushed himself to his feet, dirt cascading from his jeans. “But Leelee’s dead, and whoever killed her was planning to put someone else in that grave.”
Bear’s jaw tightened as he looked down at the empty hole. “We need to find Naomi. Fast.”
