It wasn't like Rachel to leave the laundry unfolded in a basket in the middle of the sitting room. I wanted to ask the other man staying at the inn if he'd seen anything suspicious or knew where Rachel went, but he kept to himself. I never knew where he was.

I had a few extra minutes before Hazel expected me at the stables, so I did what any good samaritan would do.

I folded Rachel's sheets.

I matched each sheet with a pillowcase so that the guests who wanted could replace theirs. Surely that creepy guy with the eyepatch down the hall would need fresh sheets at some point, not that what he was up to was any of my business. I was already wrapped up in the Ghost King and Blackjack. I didn't need an elusive one-eyed neighbor to worry about on top of everything else.

"Huh," I said to myself, holding up the last pillowcase. Did I miss a sheet? I looked beneath the furniture. No. I had folded all of the sheets. There was simply one more pillowcase than there were sheets.

It wouldn't have surprised me if Rachel had more sheets than pillowcases, but these came off the guest beds, even the ones that hadn't been slept in. Every bed had a sheet. Even if a guest had only soiled their pillowcase, Rachel would have washed the sheet too.

Somebody knocked on the door, so I put the last pillowcase on the table next to the basket and answered.

"Sheriff Chase," I said. "I was just on my way to the stables-"

"I'm not here to talk about Blackjack," she said, "but I am here on business. May I come in?"

"Of course," I said.

She took her hat off and searched around the sitting room. "So I suppose you know by now what happened late last night?"

"Er," I said, "no. I was at the saloon playing cards with Leo Valdez, and then I came back here."

"Would Mr. Valdez agree with that statement?" the sheriff asked.

I furrowed my brow. "Sheriff Chase, what is the meaning of this?"

She sighed. "Miss Rachel Elizabeth Dare hasn't been seen since last night and neither has Ethan Nakumara."

I frowned. "Who..."

"The other guest," she said.

So the creepy guy with the eyepatch had a name.

"Where all have you looked so far?" I asked.

"Percy, it's important that I look around the inn. Miss Dare isn't a missing person yet, but she could be if she isn't here," Sheriff Chase said.

I gulped. "Rachel wasn't here this morning," I said. "She usually makes eggs for breakfast. Maybe bacon if we're lucky."

"Were those sheets folded when you came down?" Sheriff Chase asked, jotting down what I'd just said on a piece of paper.

I shook my head. "No, I found the basket on the table. It's not like her to leave the laundry out and unfolded like that, so I folded them for her."

Instead of commending me for helping a friend, the sheriff said, "Don't touch anything else. This could be a crime scene. Where is Miss Dare's room?"

I pointed upstairs, and Sheriff Chase ran to look in the rooms.

Part of me wanted to sit down, but I wasn't sure if that counted as tampering with potential evidence.

Sheriff Chase raced back down the stairs. "She's not up there. Bed is perfectly made..." She frowned and scribbled away with her pencil. Finally, she looked up. "Mr. Jackson, I'll need you to tell me everything you know from last night to this morning."

I rubbed my temples. "Well, after we finished our walk, I met with Piper and Leo at the bar," I said. "Then, I came back here and went straight to bed."

"No Rachel?"

"No Rachel, but her bedroom door was closed, so I figured she was in there and didn't want to be disturbed."

"Hmm," the sheriff wrote that down. "And then what?"

"I went to bed," I explained. "When I woke up, the laundry was on the table; Rachel must have taken it off the line after I went to bed."

"It wasn't there before you went to bed?"

"No, but Rachel can be a little scatterbrained. She could have forgotten." I knew this was a missing persons case, but I felt the need still to defend my friend's behavior. She wasn't reckless! She was a little odd, but she was careful and made good choices. Sometimes, people just forget to bring the laundry in before the sun goes down.

"I woke up, and Rachel's bedroom door was open," I continued, "and then I came downstairs and found the sheets."

She nodded. "Thank you."

"Sheriff," I said, "do you think this Nakumara character has anything to do with Rachel's disappearance?"

"I don't know yet," she admitted. "As long as everyone cooperates and gives me the information I need, we'll be able to find Rachel and bring her to justice."

That word again. Justice. Despite Sheriff Chase's strong moral compass and Hazel's do-good attitude, I still felt like there was something incredibly unjust about Olympus. Where there was gold, there was corruption.

That, and some maniac vigilante who called himself the Ghost King had shot the deputy sheriff, a literal symbol of justice, and then abandoned his moody horse for me to deal with. Nothing felt fair about that.

"What if..." I trailed off. No, that was stupid. It didn't make any sense.

"Percy," Sheriff Chase said. "No ideas are bad ideas. Some of the toughest cases are solved with a little bit of imagination."

"Okay," I said. "I was thinking... What if the Ghost King is somehow involved in all of this?"

"You think the Ghost King took Rachel and Mr. Nakumara?" the sheriff asked.

I pursed my lips. "Not exactly." I didn't want to jump to any conclusions just because someone was shy and looked a little creepy, but it didn't feel like a far-fetched assumption.

Sheriff Chase's eyes widened. "Why didn't I think of it? Of course, the Ghost King would hide in plain sight." She pocketed her pencil and put her hat back on. "C'mon, Percy. We're going to the sheriff's office and then you need to take Blackjack for a walk."

I grabbed my jacket from the coat tree and rushed to catch up. "Alright! Wait up!"

***

I followed the sheriff up the steps and onto the porch. I hadn't stepped foot here since my first day in Olympus, but everything was more or less how I had found it, except for the messy desk.

There weren't any drunks in the jail cell, which made sense. They were probably picked up this morning.

A lanky cat slept beneath the desk, and per usual, Thalia Grace kept her feet on top. Her hat was pulled below her eyes. She snored.

"Does she work here?" I asked.

"Thalia," Sheriff Chase said, whacking her friend's boots. "Get up."

"I don't wanna," Thalia groaned.

Sheriff Chase grabbed Thalia's feet and dropped them on the floor.

"Hey!" she shouted in protest.

"I need to get to the notes on the Ghost King," the sheriff mumbled, opening a drawer. She gasped.

"They're gone!"

"What?" Thalia asked, wiping some drool from her chin.

Sheriff Chase disappeared into another room.

I followed and watched as she opened a safe. "Shit," she said. "It's gone. Everything's gone."

Surely, not everything was gone, I thought to myself.

Thalia stumbled behind me. "What's gone?"

"Everything," the sheriff said. "My notes. The evidence from the crime scene. My sketches. My transcripts from interviews. Every single clue from the Ghost King investigation is gone."

Thalia's jaw dropped. "No. No, no, no."

"The bullet from the crime scene... I was going to have that looked at. I was going to identify the gun." Sheriff Chase covered her mouth and I couldn't decide if I needed to look away or comfort her while she cried.

"That motherfucker," Thalia said.

"Where were you?" Sheriff Chase demanded. "Did you just sit there and do nothing while all the clues were stolen?"

"No!" she said. "Jason was my baby brother. Annabeth, I wanna find him justice more than you do."

"We'll find the Ghost King," I said, hoping my voice was even. "We still have everything from this morning. We'll get justice for Deputy Grace and bring Rachel back safe and sound."

Thalia raised an eyebrow. "The innkeeper? She's missing?"

I nodded. "Sometime last night."

"No!" Sheriff Chase shrieked. "Percy, we don't even know where she could have gone! I've barely finished asking around Olympus. If Rachel isn't in town, she's long gone."

"But-"

"And the evidence from this morning isn't going to help!"

I interjected. "It did! We know who the Ghost King is!"

Thalia snapped her head toward me. "You know who the Ghost King is?"

I nodded. "The other man who was staying at the inn. Ethan Nakamura."

"We don't even know that the evidence from this morning has anything to do with the Ghost King!" the sheriff said. "Percy, that's a serious accusation. You can't just go around pointing fingers!"

Thalia's eyes bounced back and forth between us. "Y'all need to cool off. Annabeth, let me get you some paper. Let's see what you can remember from the case. You stare at your notes every night; there ain't no way the evidence isn't burned into your memory."

"Yeah," I said.

"You," Thalia said, narrowing her eyes. "Bring us some water, and then I don't want to see you for the rest of the day. You're getting paid to work with that horse. Do your damn job."

She might as well have slapped me, but she wasn't wrong. My friendship with Sheriff Chase could wait. She had Thalia Grace to support her, after all.

Rachel Elizabeth Dare, on the other hand, may not have had much time. I gulped. I should have stopped back at the inn before going to the saloon last night. I would have been able to remind Rachel to take the laundry down from the line and fold it. She would have been safe in the inn by night.

I shuddered, thinking of what monster could have taken her.

I stepped off the side of the porch and said hello to Porkpie, who was tied to a post outside the sheriff's office.

Sheriff Chase probably wouldn't be thrilled if I went back into the office to ask if I could ride Porkpie, so I prepared to trek to the stables. For the first time today, I would see Blackjack.

I moved back out of the street as the clopping of hooves, and the turning wheels of a wagon came into my ears. Things were certainly bad, but I wasn't looking to get trampled.

"Need a lift?" a smooth voice asked.

Porkpie flinched and whinnied when he saw Mayor Luke Castellan, whom I hadn't seen in a while. The mayor stuck his head out the window of his European carriage. The sun bounced off his close-cropped blonde hair, and his scar contorted when he smiled.

"Are the stables too far out of the way?" I asked.

"Not at all, Mr. Jackson!"

As he opened the door, I reminded him, "Just Percy is fine."

"So tell me, Mr. Jackson," Mayor Castellan said, ignoring my request, "How is the Ghost King's horse doing?"

"That's actually something I'd like to talk to you about," I said. "I've managed to gain some trust, but he still won't let me ride him. His leg is healing well-"

"That's great and all, but I'd like to know what you've learned about the Ghost King from her."

"Him."

"What was that?"

"Nothing," I said. "Blackjack was clearly taken care of with the Ghost King. You can tell a lot about a person by the way he treats his horse. Blackjack seems to have placed so much trust in the Ghost King that it's difficult for him to trust other people, but we're making progress."

"I hope that's not all you've managed to learn," said the mayor.

I shook my head. "He has some aggressive tendencies, so it's important to take things slow. After this morning... Well, I might try to push him a little further."

The carriage rolled to a stop in front of Hazel and Frank's house.

"See that you do," Mayor Castellan said.

Before I climbed out, I asked, "When did you get back?"

"Hm? Oh, I got in early from Mount Tam this morning. I haven't even seen Sheriff Chase yet!"

"You should stop by the office," I said.

"I did!" he said. "Thalia was out cold, so I didn't say hello. I doubt she even remembers me going in. Oh, well, if you say Sheriff Chase is back there now, I'd better head over."

I nodded in agreement. "Thank you for the ride."

"Anytime, Mr. Jackson."

The carriage rolled away and I muttered, "It's just Percy."

The door to the house swung open. "Percy!" Frank said. "Come on in! I'm making beans for lunch!"

My stomach growled in reply. Was it lunchtime already? I hadn't even eaten breakfast! "Sounds fantastic."

I sat at the kitchen table and Frank assumed his spot at the head.

"So," I said. "Find any gold lately?"

He shook his head and kept his mouth shut.

Ah, a man of many words, I thought to myself.

"Is Hazel with the horses? Maybe I should go help her," I suggested.

"She's almost done," Frank said. "Sit."

I sat back down and enjoyed silently staring at Frank while his brown eyes bore into my soul.

"So," I said, again trying to start a conversation. "How has Blackjack been?"

"Fine," said Frank.

The back door burst open and Hazel gasped for air. "He's gone!"

"Who?" Frank asked.

"Blackjack! He's missing!"

"What?" I exclaimed.

Frank said, "That's impossible!"

"It should be!" said Hazel. "I fed him this morning, and I went to check on them all just now, and he's gone. The stall door is ruined and the other horses are all out of sorts!"

"Do you need help?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I got them settled. We need to go lookin' for Blackjack! He could be hurt!"

I thought back to this morning when Sheriff Chase came to the inn and suggested that Rachel might be missing, and then when we were in the office the evidence was missing... and now Blackjack.

"A missing horse, missing investigation notes, missing evidence, and a missing person," I said. "This can't be a coincidence."

"You think Blackjack was stolen?" Frank asked.

"I think a lot of things were stolen," I said.

"Get your things," Frank said to me. "We've got a missing horse to find."

"I'm coming too," said Hazel.

"No," I said. "You need to calm down the other horses. We can't have them getting hurt." And Frank will kill me if you get hurt, I wanted to add.

She nodded and then kissed Frank on the cheek. "Be careful. Come back alive."

And the two of us set out on our quest to find Blackjack.