“What do you smell?”
“She was here.”
Grateful raised her sword higher.
“She’s not here now. Hours ago. Maybe yesterday. Her scent has faded. But she fed Maggie. She left the kibble out.”
“Why would she come here to feed your dog?”
“I have no idea.” He moved deeper into the room. “The door to my bedroom is closed. I know I left it open.”
“What if it’s a trap? There could be a bomb under the house for all we know, just waiting to be tripped by opening the door.”
“Wouldn’t Nightshade alert you if there was?”
“Nightshade detects supernatural threats, not physical ones.”
“I don’t think there’s a bomb. Why would she feed Maggie and then blow her up?”
“Why would she call an ambulance for Soleil and then inject her with something to kill her?”
“Touché.”
Grateful crowded up behind him with her sword, her pregnant belly bumping into his back. She murmured something and a wave of purple wrapped around both of them. “Protection spell. Stay close to me.”
“What about Maggie?”
She called the dog and Silas lifted the mutt into his arms. “She’s covered.”
“Okay, I’m going in.” He turned the knob and slowly opened the door. What he saw inside made his chest feel heavy. A wave of exhaustion overcame him. The horizon had flipped upside down. Nothing made sense anymore.
“It’s not a bomb,” he said.
Grateful peered around him toward the bed. “Holy crow! That is the one thing I did not expect to see here.”
There, on top of his comforter, was Nickelova’s heart.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“If Meredith is helping Alex, why would she return the heart?” Silas lifted the fist-sized ruby from the bed, staring at the throbbing internal glow with stark curiosity.
“If she’snothelping Alex, why would she kill Soleil?”
Silas glanced at Grateful. “I have no idea.” He turned the events over in his head, but none of it made sense.
“Maybe she was magically compelled to do what she did, but then when the spell wore off, she returned this to me. Or she returned this to me before she was compelled, but that would mean Meredith purposefully shot Soleil.”
Grateful snorted. “Alex isn’t stupid. If he had Meredith in his employ for five minutes, he’d be sure to get that heart in four.”
Silas sighed. He didn’t like that he couldn’t draw a line from point A to point B. What did this mean? And how should he proceed with the case?
Grateful groaned and sheathed her sword. “I just thought of a reason.”
“Hit me.”
“She returned the heart to you because she wants you to use it.”
“Huh?”
