Page 126 of Earning Her Trust

Ghost went very still. “Not Sampson Padilla.”

“No.” Brandt’s voice was flat. “Julius Charlo.”

Naomi’s cousin. The man who’d grown up with her, who she trusted implicitly. Who she’d mentioned was one of the only people who’d believed her about Mary Rose.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Walker demanded.

“No question,” Brandt said. “The sample from beneath her fingernails is a perfect match to Julius Charlo’s DNA on file from when he applied to Fish and Wildlife. And there’s more—they found trace evidence linking him to the barn where we found Naomi and the other girls.”

Ghost’s mind raced, connecting pieces that had seemed disparate before. Julius Charlo—the community pillar, the trusted tribal liaison. The man who had easy access to the reservation, to the casino where Leelee worked, to vulnerable women who might trust him based on his position alone.

“Does Goodwin know?” Boone asked, jerking his head back toward the station.

“Not yet,” Brandt said. “This came directly to me from the federal lab.”

Ghost’s phone suddenly vibrated in his pocket—a specific pattern, three short pulses, three long ones, three short.

SOS.

The fox pendant alert.

Time slowed, crystallized, shattered as he pulled out the phone, his fingers suddenly clumsy. The screen lit up, confirming what he already knew: Naomi had activated the emergency signal.

And then the fucking phone died.

forty-two

“I wasn’t supposedto know that detail, was I?”

The words froze Naomi to the spot, her back pressed against the wall as Julius’ face transformed before her eyes. The warmth drained away, leaving something cold and calculating where her cousin’s familiar smile had been. Ava made a small sound from her rocking chair—recognition, perhaps, or resignation—but Naomi couldn’t look away from Julius to check. His eyes held hers, patient and predatory, the way a wolf might watch a rabbit realize it was already caught.

“Strangled with her stockings,” he repeated softly. “That wasn’t in any report. That wasn’t on social media.”

Naomi’s hand crept to the fox pendant at her throat, pressing the hidden button with trembling fingers. A distress call into the darkness. A prayer that Owen would come for her like he promised.

“Julius,” she managed, her voice steadier than she felt. “What have you done?”

His laugh was soft and unfamiliar. “Nothing you haven’t suspected for years, cuz. You just asked the wrong questions.”

He moved with the fluid grace she’d always admired, crossing to the kitchen drawer where Ava kept her dish towels.When he turned back, he had a handful of cord in his hands—phone chargers, she realized, and the frayed extension cord Ava used for her ancient radio.

“Sit down,” he said pleasantly, as if inviting her to Sunday dinner.

“Julius, please?—”

“Sit. Down.” The veneer cracked slightly, a glimpse of something feral beneath his carefully cultivated charm. “Or I’ll make Grandmother watch what happens when you don’t.”

Naomi glanced at Ava, who sat unnaturally still in her rocking chair, eyes wide and unblinking. She looked impossibly small suddenly, shrunk by the enormity of the betrayal unfolding in her living room.

“Okay,” Naomi said, raising her hands in a placating gesture. “Okay. Let’s talk.”

She moved to the kitchen chair he indicated, body tense and ready to spring. But Julius was faster. Before she could react, he’d grabbed her wrist and twisted, driving her down into the chair with brutal efficiency. The cord bit into her flesh as he bound her hands behind her, tight enough that her fingers immediately began to tingle.

“Always trying to help, aren’t you?” he muttered as he worked. “Always sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Just like Mary Rose.”

The name sent a spike of ice through Naomi’s chest. “What about Mary Rose?”

Julius finished securing her to the chair and moved to Ava, who didn’t resist as he bound her as well. Only when both women were restrained did he step back, studying them with the detached interest of a scientist observing specimens.