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Goldie bit her bottom lip as she thought. “Are there specific dates, or are they all different?”

“Umm,” I sat up and grabbed one of the files off the ground, flipping through it briefly. “Looks like four were on the same day, but the rest weren’t.”

She slid her legs off the desk, leaning forward. “Let me guess: the first break in, second, nineteenth, and twentieth?”

I stared at her, surprised. “How did you know that?”

“It’s the lunar cycle, in a way.” She fell silent and stood up, wandering toward the bookshelves and stopping in the center of the room. She stood there, head tilted, her gaze sweeping over the rows of books. “The moon will be in the same stage of the cycle on the same day, nineteen years apart. It’s called the Metonic cycle. There it is!”

She hurried over to the bookcase and stretched onto her tiptoes, but her fingers brushed empty air. Muttering a curse, she gave a frustrated little hop toward the highest ledge. I chuckled quietly as I stood, walking up behind her to easily retrieve the book myself.

I hadn’t thought it through. I should have warned her I was coming. Instead, I was only a breath away from her, my arm reaching over her head, her back less than an inch from my chest. I had never been so close to her, not before. She smelled the way a rainy Saturday morning felt. Calming, inviting… safe. She looked up at me, over her shoulder. This close, I could see the faint specks of gold in her nearly black eyes, disrupting the darkness.

A soft clearing of her throat shattered the sudden silence, dragging me back to reality. I realized then just how close I was standing, close enough to catch the scent of her hair, close enough that her shoulder almost brushed my chest as she slowly lifted a hand to point.

"That one," she murmured. Her voice was barely a breath, hesitant and entirely too close.

I grabbed it as she extracted herself from my blockade and went back to her desk, climbing on top of it this time, her legs crossed underneath her. She pointed at the book now in my grasp. “If I’m right, the murders and abductions are all happening at the same stage of the lunar cycle. That should list them all.”

I rifled through the pages, finding the section on the cycles, and cross-referenced it to the dates in the files we were given. It took nearly five minutes to check every abduction, and double-check. I could feel Goldie’s gaze on me the entire time, and it took a considerable amount of strength not to look up and catch her eyes.

Damn, she was right. I looked at her, impressed. “They’ve all happened on the new moon. How did you know that?”

“My uncle. He was really tied into our cultural teachings and practices,” she explained. “He raised me for about nine years and taught me a lot over time. I don’t remember it all, but I remembered the moon. The Grandmother Moon.”

“Was he why you grew up on a reservation?”

Most of Goldie’s life was a complete mystery to me. All I did know was that she was living on a reservation when she met Oliver. That, and she was fifteen at the time.

She nodded. “He still lives there, in the same house.”

“Do you miss it?”

She shook her head, her eyes growing wistful as she thought back. “No, but I visit at least once a month to see my family. It’s not just my uncle who lives there, but grandparents, cousins, second cousins.” She laughed to herself. “I haven’t been away long enough to miss it.”

My brows furrowed in confusion. “I... no offense, boss, but I really thought you were entirely on your own.”

“I do have family. And I don’t,” she murmured, her gaze drifting to the floor. “I didn't even know they existed until I was about seven, and by fifteen, I was gone. We've only recently reconnected. For a long time, I was on my own.” She abruptly shook her head, as if catching herself sharing far too much, and tapped the files on the desk. “Anyway, back to the case. Are you telling me every single disappearance aligns with a new moon?”

I nodded, letting her change the subject. “Yeah, from the first ones—” I opened the file, flipping through the pages to the case in question “—the Taylors.” The name rang a bell in my mind, and I thought back to the deputy sheriff pictured on the wall back in Cherrytree Hills. “Do you think it has to do with a spiritual reason, or is it because it’s darker without the moon and easier to get in and out of the houses?”

Goldie’s gaze dropped to the floor for a moment, and she swallowed hard before standing and rounding her desk, retaking her seat. “I don’t think we can know, but we can at least call Detective Ransom and let him know when the next abduction will take place. What date will it be?”

I opened the book again, finding the date. “Five weeks from today: October 22nd.”

She nodded and picked up the phone, dialing who I presumed was Detective Ransom. I tuned out the call and looked around the office yet again. I hadn’t noticed the book on the moon in the past and was curious what else she had collected. Where the book I had taken came from, there were multiple about lunar cycles, witch practices, and quite a few on the Salem Witch Trials. She had quite the collection, ranging from her witchy books to ones about dinosaurs and even one about the most well-known cults. I checked the spine, realizing Jackie had written it, and laughed to myself.

There were a few knickknacks stuffed between the shelves: a harmonica, a traditionally painted Mexican bowl, a statue of a polar bear, and a fan with Mandarin written on it. I stopped at a small framed photo. It was no bigger than my hand, and tucked away behind larger books. I pulled it out to get a better look. There was a couple, both with black hair and dark eyes, the same as Goldie. The woman held a young girl, and I nearly gasped when I realized it was Goldie herself. The photo was blurry and worn with age; the faces were nearly unrecognizable from the damage, but I knew deep in my gut the little girl was Goldie herself.

It must have been her parents standing next to her. I had never heard of them, only knowing of her uncle, but she had to have had them. It wasn’t rare in my world for biological parents not to be involved; hell, I didn’t even know who Oliver’s biological father was.

I had never thought about Goldie’s parents, but staring at them, I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to them.

As I set the photo down, I caught the arm of another person in the photo, cut off or folded back into the frame to be erased.

I heard the phone hang up, and turned back to Goldie with a raised brow.

“He was shocked we figured out what day they would be taken. Well, have a theory about it,” she explained, “but now he can warn the town. Maybe we’ll be lucky and the town will be diligent this time around to catch whoever is doing this.”