Page 184 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

“Back up,” Sullivan orders.

Roman appears behind him without a sound.

She stops fighting Sullivan and lets her weight sag. He adjusts his grip. Roman drives his shoulder into Sullivan’s knees, and the pistol fires into the trees.

I pull Scarlet free.

Tom and two deputies take Sullivan down in the mud. He keeps fighting until a knee pins his arm, and the weapon disappears beneath an evidence bag.

Scarlet clings to me for one breath. Then she twists toward the basin. “The Love Stone.”

The liquid is draining through the opening Roman created in the thread circle. The carved tooth rests against the rim, half submerged in cloudy water.

Myrtle reaches for it.

Scarlet catches her wrist. “Don’t.”

Myrtle looks up at her. Tears cut through the dirt on her face. “I was trying to save them.”

“You were trying to keep bonds from breaking. That’s not the same thing.”

Myrtle’s gaze lowers to Maribel, who is sobbing in Ellis’s arms now that the deputies have cut her free.

“She felt better,” Myrtle says. “Lenora did too. For a few hours, after everything got bad, she came back to me. She could eat. She could sleep. She could say my name without crying.”

Scarlet’s grip softens without releasing her. “The drug relieved her pain. That doesn’t mean it repaired the bond.”

Myrtle looks toward Maribel. “If we could stop the recognition loss, no one would have to go through what Lenora did.”

“So you tried to make the bond hold no matter what the person inside it needed.”

Myrtle flinches. “The stone was supposed to make it safe.”

“The Love Stone was never meant to force people to stay connected.”

Myrtle looks toward the carved tooth.

Scarlet follows her gaze. “My grandmother restored the release path because protection without choice becomes a cage.”

The wind changes. The last of the mist pulls through the opened thread and disperses across the moving water.

Maribel looks at Ellis and says his name. Recognition holds as the dose disappears.

Scarlet’s theory works in the simplest, ugliest way possible. The forced protection failed. Opening the circle and removing the compound allowed Maribel’s mind to return.

Tom secures Myrtle while the evidence team approaches.

I lift Scarlet away from the basin. Her legs give out as soon as the danger passes. Roman catches her with me.

She shakes between us. “I thought he shot you.”

“He did.”

Her hands fly to my chest.

“The vest caught it.”

Roman checks the plate while I hold her. “No penetration,” he says. “He is going to bruise like hell.”