She searched for the mage energy all around, driving aimlessly after she’d left the scene, but saw nothing.

In the end, nearly on autopilot, she’d gotten on the freeway and headed south. She couldn’t inform Kathy of her child’s death by phone, and she sure as hell didn’t trust Dexter to send anyone over there who’d gently break the news.

So she’d gone straight to Kathy’s once she’d gotten off the freeway. Luckily Allie’s aunt had been there, but still, she’d had to tell a mother that her child was dead. Even with a judicious removal of detail, it was hard to say and even harder for Kathy to hear.

They’d all cried for what seemed like hours, and still, she’d held back a great deal of her grief because she didn’t want any more of a burden on Kathy. Allie’s aunt was able to get Kathy to rest, and though she’d offered a place for Michelle to stay, she’d refused and driven around town for some time before she’d ended up home.

Her phone rang and she saw Josh’s number. Immediately she felt better.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself, beautiful. Where are you?”

She’d called him halfway to Roseburg to let him know what she was doing. He’d been angry that she’d gone without him, but she’d simply explained Kathy had a right to know as soon as possible and she needed to hear it directly from someone who loved Allie too.

And she needed that time in the car, all by herself, to process—or try to process—all she’d been through in the last week. The time to feel whatever the hell she wanted to without worrying over how anyone else would react.

“I’m getting out of my car now. I’m at my apartment. I’ve been at Kathy’s for the last four hours.” Exhaustion dogged her steps as she headed down the path to her place. The air was clean and crisp. She should have been cold but she just didn’t feel much of anything.

“I’ll be back up soon. Kathy has to make funeral arrangements. They’ll release the body in a day or two.” Not like it wasn’t clear Allie had been torn to pieces, but she understood the authorities wanted to get as many details as they could before they let the family have the body for burial.

“I won’t ask how you are. I can hear it. Damn it, Michelle, I wish you hadn’t gone down without me.”

She unlocked her door and turned off her alarm. She might have been tired, but not too tired to use her othersight to be sure no one else had been in her place or was there now. Relieved that she was alone and everything was undisturbed, she locked up and slumped down the hall. Noting her bed was still messy from where she’d jumped up just a week earlier when Kathy had called to say Allie was missing.

Had it only been seven days?

Josh was speaking and she realized she hadn’t heard a word.

“I’m sorry. I was using my othersight, I didn’t hear you.”

He sighed and she knew he worried. She knew he ached to help and make her better. It meant something. Everything really. No one had been that to her before. Not in the way he was. “Everything is safe? You’re safe?”

Physically? Sure. It was emotionally and mentally she wasn’t so sure of. “Yes. No one’s been here.”

“Give me your address, just so I have it, and go to sleep if you can.”

She did. And then she hesitated and realized she needed to say something before she lost her nerve. “Josh?”

“Yes, beautiful?”

“I love you.”

His breath caught. “Sweetheart.” So much emotion in one word. It had to be hard for him, the protective alpha wolf that he was, to be away from her. All of that longing rang in his tone. “I love you too. Lock your doors. Get some rest. I’ll talk with you soon.”

She managed to stumble into the shower to wash the stink of death off. But it wasn’t gone from her heart. Now that no one depended on her, she let it go. Let the walls holding back all the emotion fall. The tears came in hot, gut-wrenching sobs as she shook so hard she could barely keep her feet.

She’d failed. The most important task she’d ever had and she’d failed. And the cost was higher than she could bear. She’d never hear Allie laugh again. Never go bowling with her or innertube down the river. They’d never again go shoe shopping and bitch about men together. Michelle would never be able to tell her about Josh coming back into her life in such an improbable way.

Her best friend had died alone and terrified. And for what? In truth, Allie hadn’t even been that gifted a witch! A little bit of power, most of it for healing and nurturing. And now she’d never get married and have babies. She’d never finish another one of Michelle’s sentences.

There were no words to describe how bereft Michelle was left after that loss. It seemed unbelievable that Allie simply did not exist anywhere in the world anymore. Last weekend they’d gone to the outlet malls and goofed around looking for handbags, and now she was dead.

Stupid. Horrible.

Senseless. Damn it.

The water had long since run cold and shivers wracked her body when she finally came back to herself. There were no tears left.

She got out, not bothering with anything more than a cursory rub with a towel, and then fell into bed.

If she hadn’t been so damned drained from all the grief and guilt, she might have been kept up, tormented by the images of that day. Instead she fell hard and fast into the kind of sleep blessedly free of dreams. But she was dimly aware, as she slipped into sleep, that Josh wasn’t next to her and she’d gotten used to him so fast.

Josh had called her as he left Portland, but once he’d heard her voice he knew she needed sleep more than he needed to see her. He could wait.

A few hours at least.

After he got to Roseburg, he allowed himself a cruise down the street he’d grown up on. Where he’d ridden his bike and his skateboard. His parents had moved to Colorado a few years before. He’d never visited, though his mother had issued a few halfhearted invitations.

He wished he had feelings about it. But all he had was ambivalence. In the ten years since he’d gone off to college, he’d seen them twice. Once at a funeral of one of his paternal grandparents. He’d had cake and drank bad coffee from a church urn and had left after an hour at the wake. And then once before they’d gone to Colorado. He’d met them at the airport, and they’d had lunch at a crappy hotel diner while they waited for their flight.

He didn’t miss them. Didn’t think to call them when something good happened in his life. Didn’t give much thought to them one way or the other. And he didn’t think they did of him really either.

He had a family. Not one he was born to. But one he’d made. A group of people who’d proven to him over and over that they would always have his back. And now he had Michelle.

He drove to her apartment complex and parked, taking a walk through the grounds as the sun rose. Making sure she was safe. Giving himself something to do instead of going to her door.

He’d left her the day before at the scene of that horrible murder. It had been hard to do, though he understood the reasons for it. He’d had to walk away and trust Pam to take care of her in his absence. Yes, yes, Michelle was a cop, she saw rough things, but none of the victims had been her best friend before.

And she’d been there hours. Helping with the canvass of the neighborhood, Pam had said. And then she’d gotten in her car and headed to Roseburg. Without him.

She’d called him to let him know and he’d been so angry. Hurt. But then he’d let it go because he understood it. Understood that she needed him, but was giving that up so she could go be there for Kathy, not trusting anyone else to tell her about Allie with as much kindness and compassion as Michelle could. Needing to grieve with someone who loved Allie too.

So he’d tied up his loose ends and had packed a bag and headed to her. The longer they were separated, the more antsy he was.