Page 74 of The Stone Curse
“No, I’d altered them to calm her, made her believe she was on a retreat and that we were taking care of her, that it was all willing.”
“But then you killed her,” Derek said flatly.
Carter let out a sob. “It was supposed to make her forget. I didn’t like the idea, but…but we agreed to do it. To end the threats.”
“But it was a lie,” Travani said. “The tincture killed her.”
The room fell into silence as we all absorbed this. I could empathize with their fear. Their desire to protect each other, to be safe, but I couldn’t justify the cost. “Melanie paid the price for your safety with her life, and what if this blackmailer had come back and asked you to do more nefarious stuff?”
“He didn’t,” Travani said. “He or she kept their word.”
“But they could have,” Carter said. “We always knew it was a possibility, but we took the risk anyway. Remi, we were selfish.”
“Maybe,” Travani said. “But I would do it all again to save you. To keep this. Us. I regret Melanie’s death, but I do not regret saving our lives.”
“And the baby?” Yarrow asked. “Did you not want to know what happened to her? Why this nameless, faceless, blackmailer wanted it?”
“No.” Travani lifted her chin. “I did what was needed to keep the woman I love safe, and if you want to punish me for that, then so be it. I don’t care, just leave Regina be. Please.”
“And the filing room? Why did you attack Flora?”
Travani sighed. “When I stumbled upon Melanie in the filing room, I panicked. She was going through Romi’s file, and the information in there was classified, so I wiped her mind, but to do that, I needed to show my true face.” She looked to Flora. “You happened along at that moment and saw it, and if I hadn’t wiped it from your mind, it would have driven you insane. My kind can manipulate memories, but wiping them is much harder, and we don’t do it often because it can render the subject insane, but with a specter…”
“You broke her.” How could she think that was okay? “You messed with her memories, you killed her, then you broke what was left of her mind over a fucking file. You make me sick.” My lip curled. “How do you sleep at night?”
“I don’t…not well,” Travani said. “I went back to the church that same night to look for the baby, but it was gone, and not a day has passed when I haven’t wondered what happened to her.”
“What are you going to do now?” Carter asked. “Now that you know what we did.”
Yarrow met my gaze with bright golden eyes and gave me a nod, leaving the decision to me. “We’re not going to do anything. You are. You’re going to make amends with Melanie. You’re going to tell her the truth, and then you’re going to do everything in your power to find that baby.”
“Don’t you think we’ve tried?” Travani said. “It’s been decades; the baby could be anywhere.”
“Do you have the blackmail letters?” Flora asked.
“Yes, why?”
Once again, she and Yarrow exchanged glances.
“Give them to us. We might be able to use them to locate this blackmailer.”
“There are no postmarks, no blood, nothing. Not even fingerprints,” Carter said. “We checked.”
“We don’t need any of those things,” Flora said. “Just the whiff of an essence.”
“Give us the letters,” Yarrow said. “And if there’s anything to find, we will find it.”
We’d solved one mystery only to be saddled with another, but my gut told me that the identity of the baby and its father were vital, and I had faith that Yarrow and Flora would succeed in finding her and reuniting her with her mother.
I had an elite trial to mentally prepare for, and that required some serious decompression time and maybe a caramel latte or two with my buddies.
CHAPTER 32
After we’d filled the others in on the revelations from Carter’s office, we decided the best way to spend the rest of our day would be to order pizza and watch movies. Curi and Levi went to get the pizza, while Ginia and Palia argued over which movie to start with. Derek and Touron prepared snacks, and Taz claimed a spot in the cushy armchair, but Orix remained slightly apart, merely watching us. It hit me that his team, his friends were gone, about to be replaced by a bunch of newbies with their own strong dynamic. Was he wondering how he’d fit in? He was probably grieving the loss of his team, but he’d been here for us. Mentoring, supporting. He’d been our rock, and we wouldn’t be able to do this without him. He needed to know that.
I sidled up to him and leaned back against the counter. “You all right?”
He threw me a quick smile. “I’m good.”
