Something snapped inside me. Finding Bella hadn’t changed anything. It hadn’t changed me, but I didn’t have to pretend that this was okay, that I was okay.

“You need to leave,” I said, my voice low, my body remembering what it had felt like to lunge for his throat. I forced my gaze to Cady’s. “He called me an animal.” The words cost me. They hurt me. “A dirty little animal.”

“What are you talking about?” Cady rounded on the sheriff. “What is she talking about?”

“He had my file,” I said quietly. “I have it now.”

The FBI chose—wisely—to escort the sheriff elsewhere and give Cady a moment alone with me.

“Kira.” My name caught in Cady’s throat. “Baby, I am so sorry.”

“Sorry that he told me?” I asked, the question physically painful. “Or sorry that you didn’t?”

I never got an answer to that question.

“Excuse me?” Bella’s mother interrupted the two of us. “You’re the one who found her?” she asked me.

I nodded, and a moment later, the woman’s arms were wrapped around me. I breathed through the bone-crushing hug. She touched me, and I let her.

After a small eternity, Mrs. Anthony gathered herself together and pulled back. She pressed something into my hand. “Bella asked me to give this to you. I have no idea where she got it, but…” The woman bowed her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. “If you ever need anything…”

I didn’t reply. One hundred percent of my attention was focused on the item that Bella’s mother had placed in my hand. It was a medallion, silver and tarnished, with two figures engraved on its surface. There was writing etched around the edge, but I couldn’t read it.

It’s a saint, I thought, a chill crawling down my spine. A pendant, like the one Mac gave me. I knew, in the pit of my stomach, where Bella had gotten it. Her angel had given it to her.

The same angel that had erected the Circle for the Lost. The one who’d told Bella that Cady would come.

There are five founding families, I thought, my racing mind going back to the town history. Turner. Ferris. Ashby. Rawlins. Wade.

“What do you have there?” Mac’s voice was as low and soothing as ever when he leaned over to see the medallion I held in my hand. My fingers closed over it. I surged forward, catching Bella and her family as the FBI was guiding them toward a private room.

“Bella,” I called.

The little girl turned to look at me. I knelt down to her level and held out the medallion. “Who did the angel need to save?” I repeated the question that the child advocate had asked Bella.

Bella crooked a finger at me, indicating that I should bend down. And then she finally gave me an answer. “Someone she loves.”