I laid her out beneath the tree where I’d slept my first night. I knelt down next to her. I told her, again and again, that she was brave, that she was good, that she was perfect.

You were mine.

I wanted Jude and Free, but most of all, I wanted Cady. I wanted someone who’d loved Silver as much as I had, who’d loved me as fiercely and as steadfastly as the faithful dog had—day after day, year after year, even when there was nothing in me to love.

“How old was she?” Gabriel knelt beside me, his eyes on Silver’s body, his voice gentler than I’d ever heard it.

“Twelve. Almost thirteen.”

Gabriel was quiet for almost a minute. “Doesn’t make it any easier,” he said.

I shook my head. Someday, it would be Saskia—and NATO and Duchess and every dog I loved, unless something killed me first.

“Do you want to bury her?” Gabriel asked me.

No. I didn’t want to put Silver in the ground. I didn’t want to pile dirt on top of her. I didn’t want to say good-bye.

I forced myself to nod. When Gabriel fetched a shovel, I took it from his hands, and I wouldn’t give it back—not even when my fingers began to blister from digging and my palms began to bleed.

Silver had spent most of her life taking care of me. I could do this—this one thing—for her.

As Gabriel and I lowered Silver’s body into the grave, Saskia found us. She stood silently beside me, and when I began shoveling dirt onto Silver, the husky threw back her head and howled.

Chapter 45

“The Andrés I knew wouldn’t have hurt anyone. He wouldn’t have taken that girl.” Gabriel gave me the answer I’d asked for earlier. I barely even heard it now. “But when we found Bella’s jacket in the cave…when we knew she wasn’t alone…”

“Do you know where he’d take her?” I asked dully. “If he was the one, do you—”

“I’d tell the FBI myself if I did.” Gabriel left it at that. He held my gaze for just a moment. I had the sense that if I’d been a normal person—if he had—he might have made physical contact. Instead, he inclined his head slightly.

And then he was gone.

Maybe he thought I wanted to be alone. Maybe this was what being given space felt like—space to mourn, to grieve.

I couldn’t stay here. Silver was in the ground. I’d pushed Jude and Free away. I needed out.

As I stared at the fresh dirt of Silver’s grave, I thought of the Circle for the Lost—halfway, the sheriff had said, between a grave marker and a prayer.