was mumbling into the hand she’d clapped over her mouth. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
None of my shadowkind companions had joined us. Had they stuck to the shadows because of the additional witness? I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful for that discretion or not. Their presence would raise more questions, but it wasn’t as if there weren’t a whole heap of those already. And I might have felt steadier with at least one of those powerful companions by my side.
I wrenched my gaze away from the mutilated man to focus on my best friend. “What are you doing here, Vivi? How did you— Whose car is that?” It didn’t have rental plates, and she’d still been driving her long-time cherry-red Beamer when she’d picked me up for a trip out of town a couple months ago. Not that the car really mattered in the grand scheme of things, but it was the most concrete thing I had to latch onto in this crazy situation.
“My grandma’s,” Vivi said in a distant voice. “She let me borrow—I knew you’d recognize my regular one…” She yanked her eyes up to stare at me. “And you clearly didn’t want me around. What the hell have you gotten yourself mixed up in, Sorsha? It’s obviously incredibly fucking dangerous—why didn’t you ask for help?”
I had help, but I wasn’t going to mention that. “Because it’s incredibly fucking dangerous. Obviously.” I waved my hand at the body. “Do you think I want people who’d do that setting their sights on you?”
“But it’s okay that they might come after you? You should have told me—told the Fund, if this is something to do with the shadowkind… Are these the hunters who came after Luna? Was this Meriden guy part of that somehow?”
Right, I’d told her I was looking into something to do with Luna when I was diverting her before. But— I knit my brow. “How do you know anything about Meriden?”
Her lips twisted. “I got it out of Jade after you talked to her—made it sound like we were looking into it together. Which, you know, even she thought had to be the case. Although I didn’t realize it was Meriden like one word until I started asking around in his neighborhood—”
Her mouth snapped shut. She hugged herself, backing up a step from the body, but I was still staring at her. “His neighborhood?” She had been staked out there yesterday. “Just how much have you been spying on me, Vivi?”
“When I called you a couple days ago, I had one of the Fund’s usual guys tracing it,” she admitted. “And then I got him to poke around, and I did some asking—I went out there to scope it out and saw that car driving off to follow the van, and I figured it was you… Since you didn’t show up today, I just followed the van.”
“You realize how crazy that sounds, right? Like you’re a psycho stalker.”
“I just wanted to help you,” she burst out. “You were shutting me out, and I could tell you were working on something big, something that made you nervous. I know you’ve got things you keep to yourself, and that’s fine, but you don’t usually lie to me, Sorsh. I was really freaking worried about you, okay?” A quaver crept into her voice. “And it looks like I was right to be. What’s this all about? We’ll figure it out together. You’ve got to tell me now.”
“No, I don’t.” Another realization hit me, this one cold enough to freeze my gut. I’d never spoken Meriden’s name to anyone outside my shadowkind trio except Jade, and then as “Merry Den” and a place. We’d kept a careful distance and a low profile when checking out his home. But Vivi— “How many people did you talk to about Meriden? Did you go right up to his house?”
Her expression twitched. “I called a few people in the Fund, and asked the guy who traced your call to look into it—he got me the address. After I lost you yesterday, I went back and talked to a few of the neighbors about him. Nothing too obvious, of course.”
It didn’t have to be obvious to tip off the people he worked for. My jaw clenched. “It’s because of you poking around that they realized someone was onto him. That’s why they killed him. That’s the kind of people we’re dealing with here, Vivi, and you crashed right in with this