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I ran my hand through my now-much-shorter hair, pushing it out of my face and wondering if Elliot had another bandana I could borrow to keep it back.

Whoever was at the door almost certainly wasn’t here for me, though, so I decided to keep working until someone came to get me.

Which happened about fifteen minutes later.

A soft knock came on the office door.

“Yeah?” I called out, flipping through a book to see if there was anything stuck in its pages.

“Elliot wants you,” came Taavi’s voice.

I put the book back, spine down to mark where I was on the shelf, then walked over to the door. Taavi was standing on the other side, his head cocked. “What’s up?” I asked him, closing the door behind me as he turned and started walking back toward the main room.

“Not sure,” came the answer. “I was in the kitchen putting together snacks, and when I carried them out, he asked me to get you.”

I followed Taavi into the main room, where an Indigenous woman who looked to be somewhere in her mid-forties was sitting with Elliot on the couch.

Elliot turned to me. “Val, you remember Cammie Redsky?”

I wouldnothave recognized the skinny, tiny thing I remembered from school with this woman, who looked like she’d actually grown into her personality. Cammie Redsky had always been one of the loudest and funniest members of our grade- and high school classes. She was Mamaceqtaw and lived on the Menominee Reservation most of the time with her mom, but her dad—her parents were divorced—lived in Shawano, and her parents had wanted her to go to public school instead of the reservation school.

“Cammie. It’s been a long time.”

Her eyes—a rich, dark brown surrounded by laugh-lines—were wide. “Oh my God, Val Hart? It’s been… forever.”

“I, uh, know I look a bit different these days.” I offered her a quick smile.

“You and me both,” she replied, meeting my smile with one of her own. She’d grown taller at some point that I didn’t remember—late bloomer, I guess—and developed some curves. She looked… well, she looked like most of the time she was probably happy. I was glad of that for her.

“I think I might win, there,” I remarked with another flash of a smile.

She let out a soft chuckle. “You definitely win,” she replied, but then her expression sobered. “But that’s not why I came over.”

“Val, her sister—” Elliot broke off.

“My sister died last year,” she said softly. Tara Redsky was a few years older than us—she’d worked at the casino on the reservation as a dealer, if I remembered right, straight out of high school.

“I’m so sorry,” I responded automatically.

“Thank you. They… they called it a suicide,” she continued. “But… I just don’t see it.”

I tried to balance the cop with the former classmate. “No signs of depression or any major life-problems?”

“None,” Cammie confirmed. “She was married. They couldn’t have kids, but Tara didn’t really want any—she had three dogs, and she adored them. Randal—her husband—had just gotten a promotion, and she was excited about the vacation they were going to take out to Arizona.”

It wasn’t uncommon for family members to not see signs of depression—but I wasn’t about to say that here and now. Especially because we knew Gregory had been murdered.

“Val—Tara was a shifter,” Elliot told me, and I felt my blood run cold.

I took a breath, then let it out. “This is… not going to be an easy question,” I started. “But do you know how she…”

Cammie’s eyes swam with tears, bright and full. “Randal found her… hanging from a beam in the basement.”

“Do you know what… was used?”

Cammie nodded, then wiped at her eyes. “A belt.”

I drew in a long breath. “Cammie, can I ask you to talk to someone for me?”