Page 23 of Earning Her Trust

He ate standing at the counter, eyes scanning the room, watching the way the others interacted, the easy way they slid in and out of each other’s space. Found family, Walker called it, but even after three years, it still felt alien to him.

He was checking the feed logs when Walker Nash himself appeared in the Hub doorway. Most people didn’t notice the boss coming until he cleared his throat or called out a name, butGhost had already clocked him by the shift in Cinder’s posture and the nearly imperceptible change in the air.

“Got a minute?” Walker asked.

Ghost nodded, spun his chair around. “Something wrong?”

Walker shuffled inside, eyes scanning the screens out of old habit. The man had a worn look about him today, like he’d been in the saddle too long and didn’t trust the ground. “Not exactly. I wanted to check in about the Outreach meeting last night.”

Of course. Word traveled fast on the Ridge.

Ghost kept his face blank. “Went as expected. Lefthand made her case. I backed the pattern.”

Walker folded his arms, considering. “You believe her? About the hunting?”

He hesitated. “I believe the data. Four women gone in less than two years, all from the same area, all connected to the casino. Somebody’s taking them.”

Walker let out a long breath. “Sheriff’s office is pissed. Got a call from Hank Goodwin this morning. He says you’re stirring up trouble.”

Ghost didn’t care. “Hank’s not moving on the cases. Someone had to.”

A slow grin spread across Walker’s face, cracks in the stone. “I know. You did what you had to. Just… watch your back. Hank doesn’t forget slights.”

“I never give him the chance.”

Walker’s gaze softened just a hair. “And Booker? You don’t have to take it all on yourself. You got help here.”

Ghost looked away. The words hit somewhere he didn’t like, but he didn’t let it show. “That’s not how I work.”

Walker let it go. He always did. “Keep me posted. And let me know if you need support for the Padilla case.”

Ghost nodded, and just like that, Walker was gone—a shadow through the door, leaving only the faint trace of his aftershave and the warning about Hank echoing in the room.

He turned back to his screens, checked the time.

Almost 1500.

If he left now, he could set up cameras on Naomi’s road and still make the 1600 meet-up like he’d promised.

eight

Naomi hadevery intention of keeping her promise to Ghost, but as the day dragged on, her patience wore thin. Sitting still was never her specialty. Even less so when she had a missing woman’s case file staring her in the face and a dozen leads to chase.

She scrolled another page of casino payroll records, highlighting every shift Leelee had worked in the past six months. Cross-referenced the names of regulars who’d tipped her over twenty bucks. Most of them were locals, a handful from the reservation, a couple from out of state. She made notes, the same way she’d been trained, but none of it felt like progress.

Mostly, it just felt like she was treading water. Drowning, maybe, and too stubborn to admit it.

Fuck it.

She grabbed her jacket and keys, and twenty minutes later, pulled into the small parking space next to Taren Finch’s house. It was exactly what she expected: sad, tired, and looking like one good storm could blow its roof off. Beer cans littered the porch. A rusty Mustang hunched behind the fence, windows filmed with grime. The air smelled like old cigarettes and yesterday’s rain.

The background check she ran on him earlier told her he’d inherited the trailer from his mother after she died of a heart attack at the too-young age of forty-nine. Local rumor claimed she’d worked herself to death while her good-for-nothing son couldn’t even bother to hold down a job at the feed store. Taren Finch had never done a hard day’s work in his life, unless you counted drinking yourself unconscious or picking fistfights with guys who looked at him sideways at the Rusty Spur.

Naomi walked up the porch, boots crunching glass. Knocked hard enough to rattle the door in its frame.

Movement inside. A shuffle. The TV shut off.

“Taren Finch!” she called. “It’s Naomi Lefthand. Open up.”