Page 79 of Bad Blood
Not us, I realized.It was never aboutus.
I went for my cell phone. It was dead. How long had it been since I charged it? How many phone calls had I missed?
“Cassie,” Agent Sterling said again. “The third victim—you know her.”
YOU
Too little, too late. If they’d discovered anyone’s identity but Nine’s, you could order the leak eliminated at the source—and, oh, how you’d like to see the old bastard bleed.
Tomakehim bleed.
But he commands the others’ respect—their reverence—and you’re the one who’s bleeding. You’re the one they chain, the one they purify with flame and blade and fingers wrapped around your throat.
They want you to pass judgment. They want you to say yes.
Lorelai would die to protect Cassie. Lorelai would never give them what they want. But you aren’t Lorelai.
When you say the words, they release you from the chains. Your body slumps to the floor. They leave you with nothing but a torch to light the tomb.
“Mommy?” The little voice echoes through this cavernous space as Laurel emerges from the shadows. You can see Lorelai in the child, see Cassie.
Lorelai tries to fight her way to the surface as Laurel comes closer, but you’re stronger than she is.
“Mommy?”
Your gaze locks onto hers. Laurel is silent and still, and then, looking more like a ghost than a child, her eyes harden.
“You’re not my mommy.”
You hum under your breath. “Mommy had to go away,” you tell her, stepping forward to caress her hair, a smile playing at the edges of your lips. “And Laurel? Mommy isn’t coming back.”
When my phone was charged, I saw that I had a half-dozen missed calls—all of them from my grandmother. Nonna had raised seven children. She had nearly two dozen grandchildren.
One less now. I’d spent five years living with my father’s family. Kate was the cousin closest to my own age, just three years my senior. And now, she was dead—strung up like a scarecrow and burned alive. Because of me.
You did this, I thought. I forced myself to repeat the words a second time, aiming them not at myself and not at the UNSUB.
Every instinct I had said that the person who’d marked my cousin for death was the one person I’d loved more than anything—forever and ever, no matter what.
You wanted me out of Gaither, didn’t you, Mom? You wanted me safe. You wouldn’t bat an eye at trading Kate’s life for mine. You’ve done it before.
My mother had left her little sister—the sister she’d protected foryears—with an abusive father as soon as she’d found out she was pregnant with me. She’d traded Lacey’s future, her safety, for mine.
You knew that if the ties to our previous cases didn’t work, if those didn’t get me out of Gaither—this would.
“What are you going to do?” Sloane asked me quietly. We were back at the hotel.
“Malcolm Lowell is in the wind. We solved the Kyle murders.” I paused, looking out the window at historic Main Street. “My mother knew exactly what I would do.” I swallowed hard. “I’m going to go home.”
I had one stop to make before leaving Gaither. I’d spent years not knowing if my mother was dead or alive. I’d lived that limbo, unable to mourn, unable to move on.
Ree Simon deserved to know what had happened to her daughter.
When we got to the diner, the others split off, giving me the space to do what needed to be done. As Michael, Dean, Lia, and Sloane slid into a booth, Agent Sterling came up beside me. “Are you sure you want to do this alone?”
I thought of my cousin Kate. We’d never been close. I’d neverlether get close. Because I’d been raised to keep people at a distance. Because I was my mother’s daughter.
“I’m sure,” I said.
