What I didn’t say was that there was a part of me—hidden and wild and free—that was better than fine. There was a part of me that had enjoyed it.

Saskia let out a sound—half growl, half whine—and I realized I hadn’t dropped the order to stay yet. When I did so, she bolted for me. The second she reached us, she turned around, snarling.

Another predator would approach her human over her dead and rotting corpse.

“Now was that so hard?” Jude called out to Gabriel. “See what I mean about letting go?”

“You get all the fun,” Free told me.

“I understand now,” Gabriel said thoughtfully. “The three of you share a single iota of common sense. I’m just a little unclear on which one of you has custody of it now.”

“I’m not positive,” Jude told Free. “But I think that’s a compliment.”

“No,” Gabriel replied. “No, it is not.”

A sound from the truck reminded me of why I’d followed Gabriel off the ledge in the first place. “Gabriel was just about to get over himself and tell us why he has a police scanner.”

“Gabriel,” Jude declared, “is my favorite.”

Chapter 36

According to what Gabriel had told us, he’d acquired the police scanner for the same reason Jude, Free, and I had wanted to get our hands on the missing persons reports. He wanted to know when someone in Hunter’s Point went missing.

He was looking for a pattern.

“Anything else you feel like sharing?” Free asked him, her tone casual, but her eyes intensely focused on his face. In her free time at school, Free played poker. That never turned out well for her opponents. She was an expert at finding tells.

“The police found something in Alden.” Gabriel addressed the answer to me, not Free. “Town about an hour from here. Witness thinks she saw the missing girl. Sounds like the FBI is canvassing the streets.” He gave us exactly two seconds to process that. “I’m going.”

This wasn’t just about Bella, not for him. The maps on his walls, every piece of research he’d done—none of that was for Bella.

Not knowing. There should have been a word to describe the emotion that went along with that. It wasn’t a longing or a need or a fear, not exactly.

“I can drop you off back at the house, or you can walk.” Gabriel didn’t wait for a response before he climbed into the truck and jammed the key into the ignition.

I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Cady wouldn’t want me sticking my nose into this, but when she’d kicked me off the search, I’d let her. I’d sat back, and I’d done nothing, and look where that had gotten us.

Nowhere.