Page 10 of Priest

He straightens, irritation finally cracking through his usual calm. “I mean you gave me nothing, Priest.”

My jaw tightens.

“She didn’t disappear into thin air,” I growl.

Ghost lets out a short, humorless laugh. “From where I’m standing? That’s exactly what she did.”

I turn away before my temper finds something else to break. The wall by my station still bears faint ink stains from years ago, mistakes covered up and worked around until they became part of the place. I stare at them like they might confess if I look long enough.

“You gave me a nickname,” he continues. “That’s it. No last name. No address. No job. No regular schedule. No family. No socials I can tie to her. Nothing. No regular place she went besides The Bar—and even that dried up.”

My head snaps toward him.

“The Bar was a dead end?”

“Cash,” he says. “Second time too. No card receipts. No tab. No signature. Nothing tied to a bank.”

I say nothing.

Ghost shifts the tablet under one arm, voice still level. “Cameras caught pieces. Half her face in bad lighting. Hair, profile, movement. Enough to know she was there. Not enough to run anything clean. When she left with her friends, she stayed in the group until she was outside the angle.”

“She drove sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” he agrees. “But she parked where the cameras didn’t reach. Far edge of the lot. Street parking. Once down by the bakery. Could’ve been hers, could’ve been borrowed, could’ve been a rental. DMV gave me nothing tied to the cars we saw,” he says. “And searching a first name without a plate or a last name is useless.”

“She took rideshares.”

“And got picked up just outside the clean angles. Not far. Just enough. I caught headlights. I caught doors opening. I caught shadows moving. No plates clear enough to pull from.”

Something cold moves through my chest.

Ghost sees it. His expression shifts, not pity. Something closer to respect.

“She’s careful,” he says.

I look at him.

He shrugs once, small. “Not paranoid. Not sloppy either. She moves like someone who knows people only find what you give them.”

“She didn’t know she’d need to hide from us.”

“No,” he says. “I don’t think she did.”

That lands worse.

He sets the tablet on the counter and folds his arms. “That’s the part that bothers me. This doesn’t feel like panic. It feels like habit. Cash. Camera blind spots. No unnecessary details. No overlap between the places you had access to and the life she kept separate.”

I drag a hand through my hair. “Her phone?”

“The number you had is dead. No fresh pings. No current billing I can touch without a legal name. If she swapped phones, which I think she did, that trail’s gone unless she makes a mistake.”

“She works somewhere.”

“Yeah,” Ghost says. “Long hours. Stressful. You said that much.”

“She stitched me once.”

“I remember.”