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She held out the medicine bag.“Wear this.Keep it with you, especially at night.”

Kari looked at the pouch without taking it.“Shimásání—”

“Humor an old woman,” Ruth said sharply.“You’ve always had one foot in each world, Asdza´a´ K’os.Sometimes that’s a strength.Sometimes, it’s a blindness.”

The use of her Diné name created a familiar tug of conflicted identity.Kari took the medicine bag, running her fingers over the beaded patterns that felt like braille against her skin—a language she’d once known but had forgotten how to read.

“What do you think is happening?”she asked directly.

Ruth settled back into her chair, suddenly looking every one of her seventy-eight years.“The old stories talk about beings that hunger.That watch for weakness, for openings between worlds.”She gestured vaguely toward the dark window.“Your killer is creating those openings.Whether they know it or not.”

“Humans kill humans,” Kari said gently.“Not spirits or monsters.”

“Is that what they teach you at the academy?”Ruth asked, an unexpected edge in her voice.“That everything that walks has just two legs?That everything with power can be seen?”

Kari had no answer that wouldn’t deepen the divide between them.

“Keep the medicine bag,” Ruth said more gently.“And remember what your mother said.You have everything you need.The answers are there if you remember how to look with both eyes.”She tapped the side of her head.“Not just these eyes.The ones that see in darkness, too.”

Kari nodded, slipping the pouch into her jacket pocket.She didn’t believe in its protective powers, but she did believe in her grandmother’s concern.The weight of it against her side was comforting in a way that had nothing to do with supernatural forces and everything to do with family connection.

“I should get back,” she said, rising.“There’s still work to do at the scene.”

“The digging man,” Ruth said.“The one who takes what isn’t his.Was he placed facing east?”

Kari stilled.“How did you know that?How did you know who was murdered?”

Ruth shook her head, not answering the question.“East is for beginnings, for light entering the world.If your killer placed him facing east, they’re not just punishing.They’re opening something.”Her eyes found Kari’s, sharp as obsidian.“Be careful where you step, Asdza´a´ K’os.Not all boundaries are marked with signs.”

The warning settled in Kari’s chest like a stone.She didn’t believe in spirits or monsters, in beings that hungered from beyond some mystical boundary.But she believed in human monsters—in killers who constructed elaborate mythologies around their violence.

And perhaps that’s what Ruth was sensing in her own way—the escalation that any experienced investigator would recognize.The increasing confidence, the ritual elements becoming more elaborate rather than less.

“I’ll be careful,” she promised, leaning down to kiss her grandmother’s weathered cheek.“Lock your doors tonight.”

“Locks don’t keep out the things I’m worried about,” Ruth replied, but she nodded agreement nonetheless.“Go.Do your police work.But remember—sometimes the old ways see what your cameras and fingerprint dust cannot.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Kari was halfway back to the station when the need for perspective overwhelmed her.Without conscious decision, she found herself pulling onto the shoulder, putting the Jeep in park, and dialing a number she hadn’t called in weeks.

Maria Santos answered on the third ring.“Blackhorse?Is that really you?”Background noise filtered through the connection—street sounds, distant voices, the ambient hum of a city that never fully slept.

“It’s me.”Kari felt a smile form despite her exhaustion.“Bad time?”Maria had been her partner during her years at Phoenix PD, a decorated detective who had taken Kari under her wing and helped her achieve that remarkable 89% clearance rate.Their three years working homicide together had forged a bond that distance hadn’t managed to break.

“Are you kidding?I’m on hour four of a surveillance detail that’s going nowhere.My partner’s getting coffee, and I was about to lose my mind from boredom.You’re a gift from the detective gods.”Maria’s voice carried the familiar blend of irreverence and steely resolve that had made her such an effective homicide detective—and such a valuable mentor to Kari.“How’s life on the res treating you?”

“Three bodies in five days,” Kari said flatly.

A low whistle came through the speaker.“Damn.Serial?”

“Looks that way.Ritualistic elements, escalating pattern, specific victim selection.”Kari pinched the bridge of her nose, where tension had been building steadily.“I’ve got the FBI breathing down my neck, a profile that doesn’t fit the evidence, and a crime scene that keeps evolving.”

“Sounds like Tuesday at Phoenix PD,” Maria said with grim humor.“Except for the ritual part.That’s new.”

“That’s why I’m calling.I feel like I’m missing something obvious, something right in front of me.”

The line went quiet for a moment, just the ambient sounds of Phoenix in the background.“You remember what I told you your first year in Homicide?When you hit that wall on the Westwood case?”

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