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Maybe my father had given it to Tyler.

That made even less sense.

And even if, through some sequence of events I couldn’t begin to imagine, it had come into Tyler’s possession innocently, why had he kept it? Why hadn’t he told me? Why had it been mixed in with his things as if it meant nothing?

As I continued staring at the ring, pieces clicked into place. Tyler’s desperation to retrieve the rest of his possessions. His willingness to come here despite having every reason to avoid another encounter with Caligo. The calls I hadn’t answered. The messages that had arrived daily. I’d assumed he just wanted to be an asshole. What if there had been another reason for his persistence? What if he’d been terrified that I might find the very thing now resting in my palm?

A shadow fell across the floor beside me.

Caligo crouched, his huge form compressing itself awkwardly into the narrow hallway. “Why are you on the floor?”

I still couldn’t speak.

His gaze moved over me, searching for an injury. “Are you hurt?”

I shook my head, although something inside me felt as though it had split wide open.

Caligo followed my gaze to the ring in my palm. “Is that—?”

My mouth moved. Nothing came out.

He reached toward me, then stopped before touching the ring, as though he understood that taking it from me would only make things worse.

“Rowan.”

The softness of my name in that smoky voice finally broke through.

“This is what I was looking for at Donald Wentworth’s house,” I said, my voice distant and disconnected. “It’s my mother’s wedding ring. The last time I saw her, she was wearing it. But when they found her body, it was gone.”

“You had it all along?”

I shook my head, the movement sharp and jerky.

“Tyler,” I said, hoping a weak gesture toward the pile of his belongings would do the rest.

The shadows around Caligo went perfectly still.

I curled my fingers around the ring, gripping it until the diamonds bit into my palm. My thoughts kept trying to scatter, but one question dragged them back every time.

How?

How had Tyler ended up with something my mother had been wearing when she disappeared?

I didn’t want the answer forming in my head. I fought it, throwing every unlikely explanation I could find in its path, but it came anyway.

Either Tyler knew the person who had taken the ring from her… or he’d taken it himself.

My stomach lurched.

Caligo’s hand closed gently around my wrist. “Tell me.”

“I don’t know.” The words escaped on a broken breath. “I don’t know what this means.”

I pushed myself to my feet, my legs feeling like they’d forgotten how to support me. Cold clarity settled over me like a heavy shroud. “I have to talk to him. I have to make him tell me why he has this.”

Chapter Thirty-four

Rowan