There was a terrible hunger in her lined face: an addict’s hunger. “I miss her, you know. Oh, God, I miss her! It’s not fair. It’s not fair that I should have become dependent on her to ease my misery, is it?”

“No.”

Emma knotted her hands together, shredding the tissue, a look of desperate cunning creeping into her eyes. “You could help me, couldn’t you?”

Stefan hesitated. “In the greater scheme of things, I would be doing you no favor, my lady.”

She made a cracked sound that was half laugh, half sob. “Do I look like someone with the luxury of thinking about the greater scheme of things in the years to come, Mr. Ludovic? Please. You would do me a kindness.”

He nodded. “So be it.”

Cody and I exchanged a quick, uncertain glance as Stefan rose and stooped on one knee to cradle Emma Sudbury’s head in his hands. His lips parted and his pupils waxed alarmingly as he drank in her fear and worry.

Her expression eased, her face softening. In a totally creepy way, it was sort of like she was receiving a benediction.

Stefan closed his eyes, hiding his own reaction. And yes, I was grateful for that. After a long moment, he released her and took a step backward, his hands loose and open at his sides. He opened his eyes, his pupils steady, dilated, and glistening. “You should embrace your freedom, my lady. Lay down your long burden. You belong to the world of the living. Return to it.”

“After so long?” Emma Sudbury murmured. “I’m not sure I know how.”

“You will find a way,” Stefan assured her. “I promise you.”

She gazed trustingly at him. “And Mary?”

His ice-blue eyes were grave. “There, I make no promises.”

Chapter Thirty

Thirty

It’s fair to say that at least two of us breathed a sigh of relief on the sidewalk outside Emma Sudbury’s cottage, free of its dark, frowsty confines and the weight of fifty-some years’ worth of accumulated suffering, misery, and guilt.

Cody shuddered and shook himself all over like a dog, his service pistol, flashlight, portable radio, and various other items on his officer’s utility belt rattling in their respective holsters. “Damn!” he said fervently. “It’s just so . . . awful.”

Stefan’s expression was indecipherable. “Yes.”

I might not be able to read his face, but there was something new in his voice. “You’re worried, aren’t you?”

He glanced at me. “I had not realized Mary Sudbury’s case would prove so . . . extreme. For an infanticide to be Outcast is rare.”

“Yeah, about that,” Cody said. “I’m a little hazy on how this whole business works. Mary Sudbury killed her child and committed suicide. So why does hell give her a pass? Not guilty by reason of insanity?”