“Have you seen Graeson?” Hours had passed since I’d abandoned him to the clutches of his ex, and I hadn’t seen or heard from him. “I expected him to stop by with questions.” Eager for fresh leads, he would be curious about anything newsworthy I unearthed. “Dell?”

“He went home with Imogen.” She kept seesawing her front teeth over her bottom lip. “I saw him go inside her cabin on my way to Meemaw’s.”

“Oh.” A brittle thing fractured in my chest, and my voice came out broken. “I see.”

“They were probably talking,” she told her toes, unable to meet my eyes.

“You’re hardwired together,” I pointed out. “You know what he’s doing.” Which probably explained the guilt seeping from her pores. “It’s okay, Dell, really.”

But that crackle over my heart kept spreading as the ridiculous impulse to grab her hand, take her blood and see for myself how he was spending his afternoon shivered through me. Graeson wasn’t my mate or my boyfriend. Not really. To willfully believe in a lie is to welcome hurt. We were…friends. People who had bonded over shared pain. I liked him as often as I wanted to choke him. The ability to resist murdering one’s partner wasn’t a solid basis for a relationship. Even when I didn’t want to kill him, he frustrated me with his constant scheming and truth-twisting.

“I can feel him.” Her bottom lip reddened to the point of bleeding. “Right now he’s—”

“I don’t want to know.” I whapped the roll of paper across my palm for emphasis. “Let’s just forget I asked, okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed readily. “What’s with the map?”

I tapped her on the shoulder with it. “This is the most solid lead I’ve got.”

Cabin trysts forgotten, her eyes brightened. “That’s great.” She poked it with a finger. “What is it?”

“Blueprints for a mental institution in Kermit, Texas.” I elaborated as her eyes rounded. “One person was present when he—”

The tingle of magic suppressed what I had been about to say. I had made a blood oath to Thierry, and certain facts were off the table except where others who were already in on the secret were concerned.

“This person may have interacted with Charybdis prior to his killing spree,” I amended. “All attempts to question her failed because she fell off the grid that same day.”

“She got herself locked up.” Dell mulled over the implications. “Did she have a history of mental illness?”

“No. She was a highly decorated marshal who lived for her job.” I unrolled the printout for her inspection. “My source says her family is also free of mental illness, meaning there’s a possibility that whatever nudged her to commit herself two weeks later might be connected to that chance meeting.”

“Has your source spoken to her yet?” Dell frowned as she studied the layout.