“You tell me that?” he said sharply. “You get at truth any way you have to. Isn’t that so?”

“Yes,” she admitted reluctantly. “But . . . it isn’t right when I do it either.”

“‘Right,’” Chance repeated flatly. “I don’t think you know enough about anything to be able to talk about ‘right’ just yet.”

“I want to come with you,” she said, raising her voice.

“What?” said the Trickster, startled at last.

Miranda raised her hands to Chance. “I saw him. When you walked the labyrinth, Ajit showed me what you were seeing.”

Chance gave his brother a startled look, surprised on two counts: that Miranda had experienced the memory, and that the Trickster had given Miranda his human name.

“I hated myself,” she continued. “I tried so hard not to see that boy’s face when I was working on the case, and then when I actually saw him die, I couldn’t even . . . I didn’t feel the way I thought I would, the way I should have. I hated him. I hated his foolish attitude and his foolish choices, and I wanted him to hurry up and die since it was going to happen anyway. And I hated myself for feeling that way. He was just a boy. I thought I’d cry if I saw what he looked like. I thought I’d care.”

Tears ran down her face. She lifted her chin and steadied her voice as she raised the file in her hand. “I’ve been reading, trying to find connections. There are three other victims who might have known the old woman . . .”

“Go on,” Chance said.

“Xandre knew Niko Tsavian, Lukas’s father, and he mentioned that the murderer had killed people who’d helped him. I think he meant Danil Skalnis, the man who died just before Tsavian, and Galina Arnaud, who was the next to be attacked after the Mermaid and the first one to die. Skalnis and Arnaud were known to volunteer occasionally at the shelter Xandre visited.”

She took a breath. “And at some point you’re going to have to tell me the other names in your significant seven. There’s Galina’s baby, but he’s listed as missing. No body was found. And that still only makes six.”

Chance nodded absently, ignoring her concluding words. “That makes sense. We’ll look for where their threads intersect and see who else is there.”

“First we’ll use Lukas again,” the Trickster said. “He’ll be able to lead us straight to his father.”

“So you’ll let me come with you?” she asked.

“Why would you want to?” the Trickster asked in genuine astonishment. “Are you hoping to force yourself to care?”

Miranda shook her head and confessed, “I don’t know.”