I turned to look just in time to see Mackinnon Wade climb out of his car and stride toward Cady. The pendant he had given me was in my pocket. My fingers closed around it as Cady turned toward him. I searched Mac’s face for some resemblance to Jude’s.

“What do you think they’re saying?” my foster brother asked. “Do you think it’s dramatic? I bet it’s dramatic.”

“Whatever the Gentle Giant is saying,” Free interjected, “Cady does not look happy about it.”

I could make out tension in Cady’s lips, an odd glint in her eyes.

“That’s not anger,” Jude said quietly. “It’s not sadness. It’s hope.”

Hope? Hope for what? I didn’t risk asking that question aloud, in case he was wrong.

Cady opened the driver’s side door. “Something’s come up. Pad”—the dog’s ears twitched forward—“you’re with me.” Cady snapped her fingers, and the golden leapt from the car to stand beside her. “As for the rest of you…” Cady tossed her car keys to Jude. “Head back to the house. Tell Ness and Bales that preliminary analysis suggests that all five bodies we recovered yesterday were adults.”

Adults. My heart slammed against my rib cage. As in, not Bella.

She’s alive.

“Mac and I are headed back to the site,” Cady continued, “and so help me, if you three even think about following, I will devote the time between now and your eighteenth birthdays to constructing new and inventive ways to make you rue your collective existence on this planet. Is that clear?”

“Crystal!” Jude chirped.

“Message received,” Free confirmed.

Cady turned to me. I said nothing, but I did reach forward to grip her hand. I thought she might push me away again. Instead, she squeezed back.

“No giving up this time,” she told me. “No running away.”

A ball of emotion rose in my throat, and a moment later, Cady was gone.

“Bella might still be out there,” I said. If I could say it, maybe I could believe it. “She might still be alive.”

I hadn’t promised Cady that I would stay out of this, because I wasn’t sure that I could—or should. We needed to do everything we could for a child people had given up on. For Bella.

For Girl.

I blinked, and suddenly, Jude was pulling the car onto the gravel drive leading up to the Bennett property. I’d lost time. Seconds? Minutes? I wasn’t sure. I focused on the here and now—and the fact that we weren’t alone.

“That’s the sheriff’s car,” Jude commented, pulling up beside it. “And that’s the sheriff. And that’s—”

“Gabriel.” I finished Jude’s sentence, my jaw clamping down as I registered the way the sheriff shoved Gabriel as he marched him toward the car.

As I registered the handcuffs on Gabriel’s wrists.