“Was that a fox?”Astrial asked, pressing a rag to her bleeding head.
He stared out the open door, a heavy feeling growing in his chest.
“Why did she bolt like that?”
“I have no idea.”He ran a hand down his face.He didn’t want to think that Meredith was somehow helping Alex, but why would she run?Still, it was Meredith.There had to be an explanation.
When Grateful didn’t say anything, he turned to her.Shit, she was crying.He wiped a stray tear from the witch’s cheek.For the first time, it hit him that Soleil was really dead.Gone.
“I can’t believe this has happened,” Grateful whispered.“Soleil was a bridesmaid at my wedding.She gave me a hand-embroidered baby blanket at my baby shower not two weeks ago.She was one of my best friends.”The powerful witch rubbed circles over her belly, suddenly looking vulnerable and unbelievably sad.
“Mine too,” he said.“Mine too.”He pulled Grateful into a hug, then prepared himself to break the news to Astrial.
ChapterTwenty-Two
Silas braced himself as he met his captain for a debrief at the CCPD.He’d had a bad feeling ever since he left the bordello, and not just because the book was gone and Soleil was dead.Something was up with Meredith.Case in point, she wasn’t here.
“Soleil was murdered”—Captain Manahan kept his voice low, his eyes darting toward his office door—“by Meredith.”
“Meredith shot her, but she was defending me,” Silas insisted.There was no way the love of his life had murdered Soleil on purpose.
Manahan rubbed his head as if he was fighting an intense headache.“She didn’t just shoot her.Silas, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but she finished the job at Bojingles.”
“What?”Silas balked.“Impossible.She was in my room with me when Soleil died.”
“Officer Brighton said Meredith visited Soleil moments before she died, and he thinks he saw her put something into her IV.We’re pulling the video, but it tracks with the events leading to her death.”
Silas scrubbed his face with his hands.He’d been on so many painkillers everything was a blur.Had she done it while he was sleeping, before she’d come to see him?
“Don’t beat yourself up over it, Silas.You trusted her.I trusted her.Impeccable references.”Manahan frowned, looking like he’d been up all night, trying to process the news about the detective he’d hired.“Of course I’ve got my people on this.We’ll find her.”
“She might not have been acting of her own free will,” Silas said.It couldn’t be true.It just couldn’t.“Alex has ways of controlling people.”If it had been Meredith, he wanted to think she was under the influence of sulfralite, but she’d been in the room when Grateful had drawn the black powder out of Laina and Selene.As of then, she hadn’t been infected.And he’d spent most of the days since in her company.
“Yeah, well, we can figure that out when she’s behind bars.”
Silas rubbed his palms on his thighs.“I’ll need to search her place.”
“You still have a key?”
“Yeah.”
“No sense bothering with a warrant then.”
“Right.”
“What about the book?”
“Grateful Knight says she knows someone who’s seenThe Book of Flesh and Bonein person.He might remember something about the spell.She’s taking me to see him tonight.”
“A vampire.”Manahan spat out the word out like it tasted bad.
“How’d you guess?”
“Anyone who was alive long enough to read that book is either ancient or a friend of the last vampire who had it.Ancient or evil.Or both.”
“She’s worked with this guy before.He might be able to help.After seeing that vampire stake himself in the chest at ZeroHour, it’s time we spoke with someone from his coven anyway.”
Silas’s skin tingled with a sudden rush of air in the closed room.Manahan.He was on to something, his wide eyes and sparked intuition making the air vibrate.
