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I hesitated. I was more than happy to try and find her tomorrow, but there was no way I could do so without informing Aiden. “I can, but I’ll have to bring one of the rangers with me. There’ll be hell to pay if I don’t.”
“Is that really necessary? Larissa will just run the minute she spots one of them. She’s never trusted them.”
The feeling was completely mutual, I was sure. But all I said was, “People are dead, Meika. Lar
issa may well be innocent, but she needs to come forward and talk to the rangers to prove that. Until she does, she’ll remain their number-one suspect.”
“But if I could talk to her first, reassure her—”
“It’s better if it’s done this way, Meika,” Mike said gently. “People can see we’re doing the right thing, and have nothing to hide or fear.”
“The gossips don’t care about right and wrong—not as long as they’ve a juicy morsel to sink their teeth into.” She paused and took a deep, shuddery breath. “But okay, we’ll play it your way. Can you come to the reservation tomorrow morning? Around ten? The worst of the gossips will have moved into Maldoon for their morning tea bitch session by then.”
“Sure,” I said, barely restraining my grin.
“Good.” She thrust to her feet. “Are you sure you don’t want a cup of tea?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
She nodded and left. I deactivated the protection spell and carefully placed my stones back into their silk bag.
Mike stepped forward and helped me up. “Is she alive?” he asked softly. “I know you can sense things like that, and it looked to me like you were holding something back.”
I hesitated. “There was a pulse within the heart of the cross, which suggests life. But I can’t guarantee it, and I can’t tell you what state she’s in or where she might be, because the connection was so damn faint.”
He drew in a breath, and then released it slowly. “That’s at least something. To be honest, I’d actually thought she might have been dead.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“Because even at her wildest, she’d always come home.”
“Which suggests she has something to fear by doing so.”
“I know it looks that way, but I just won’t believe she’d kill Aron. They were longtime friends.” He ran a hand through his close-cropped hair. “And she certainly had no reason to drown Marlinda.”
“Maybe friendship became something more. Maybe she saw them out together and went after them in a fit of jealousy.”
He was shaking his head even before I finished. “It was Garrett she loved, not Aron. And Marlinda was a friend of them both—they went to school together.”
I frowned. “Marlinda was older than either of them, wasn’t she?”
“Only by six months or so.”
Meaning either her family was rich, or becoming Maelle’s blood supplier had been a very profitable deal for the young woman.
“Did they hang around together much?”
He shrugged. “That I couldn’t tell you, but I could ask Meika, if you want.”
I hesitated, and then nodded. Aiden had undoubtedly checked any connection between the three of them, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask anyway. It was always possible—though also very unlikely—that I’d nugget out something he’d missed.
I followed Mike back into the kitchen. “Sis, has Larissa been seeing much of Marlinda in recent weeks?”
Meika’s golden gaze immediately shot past him and hit mine. “My girl didn’t kill her. She wouldn’t. They were good friends.”
I held up my hands. “I’m not suggesting she did, but it’s possible there’s a connection between Larissa’s disappearance and the murder of her two friends. Maybe she is involved, but not the way everyone is thinking.”
Tears gleamed briefly in her eyes and she blinked rapidly. “You mean she could be another victim?”
