As much easier as that made things for me, I couldn’t keep from turning the last thing Bella had said over and over in my mind. Bella’s kidnapper had told her about Cady. That was disconcerting enough, but the way Bella had phrased it—the angel said that Cady saves people—made me think that the kidnapper hadn’t just expected the girl to be found.

He wanted Cady to find her.

Somehow, I doubted the he in question was Andrés Cortez. Andrés had never met Cady. He’d have no way of knowing what she did for a living. The person who’d taken Bella had led us on an elaborate chase. Every time we’d lost the trail, we’d found it again, farther on. The strip of cloth telling us that Bella made it out of the river. The smear of blood at Sorrow’s Point. The windbreaker the kidnapper left in the cave. The spotting in Alden.

And now I’d found Bella, less than two miles from where she’d been taken.

Why?

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up a second before I heard a twig break in the distance. The sound of footsteps followed, and I immediately put my body in front of Bella’s. My senses alive, every muscle on high alert, I tracked the footfalls coming closer.

Why leave Bella so close to where she was taken? The question morphed in my mind. Why set her out like bait in a trap?

I bent and picked up a rock. As weapons went, it was unimpressive, but if I’d been caught in a hunter’s snare, I wasn’t going down without a fight.

A flash of motion was the only warning I got before an animal barreled out of the forest. Canine. Dog. My brain cycled through a start-stop chain of recognition before focusing on the animal’s familiar lines. Pad.

Cady followed a moment later, and on her heels, there were others—Mac and his dog, a handful of rangers.

I forced my fingers to loose the rock in my hand. As it thudded to the ground, I met Cady’s eyes. “You got my message?”

“Message?” Cady stared at me for a moment before shifting her gaze to Bella. “Oh.” That sound was gut-wrenching, like Cady hadn’t let herself believe that this story could have a happy ending—like she’d needed one, even more than I had. She dropped to her knees in front of Bella. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Are you hurt?”

Bella didn’t answer the questions. Instead, she stared intently at my foster mother. “Are you Cady?”

With a glance at me, Cady nodded. I expected Bella to leave me and go to my foster mother, but she didn’t. Instead, the little girl pushed close to my side.

Too many people, I thought, staring up at the rangers. Too much noise.