"Okay," he said. "Well, I think you're wrong. You're still very upset and you're--"
"Overreacting?"
His gaze met mine. "No, I think you have every reason to be upset. You feel responsible for what happened--even if you aren't--and this is your way of punishing yourself." He lifted his hands against my protest. "But there's an easy way to settle it. You said you offered the bargain to set Paula free. So, let's go back to Columbus and see what's happened."
Columbus, Washington, is about an hour over the border from Portland, the city we call home. My bosses--former guardians--Paige Winterbourne and Lucas Cortez were on vacation in Hawaii, and Adam had been away at a conference, so I'd gone to Columbus alone to investigate the murder of three young women, and had left five dead bodies in my wake. None of them died at my hands, but with the exception of Tiffany Radu--a witch killed by the hunter--all would still be alive if I had never set foot in Columbus.
It had been a setup. Leah O'Donnell, a half-demon from my past, had escaped her hell dimension and convinced a necromancer to zap her into the body of a young PI our firm had worked with before. She'd killed the third victim, Claire Kennedy, and staged it to look like the work of the same person who'd murdered Ginny Thompson and Brandi Degas months earlier. Then she'd added occult overtones to bring me to Columbus to investigate.
Leah hadn't even wanted me. She'd only wanted to get close enough to lower my defenses, and poison me, then call my mother. My dead mother. Who somehow had the power to keep Leah out of hell. I had no idea how, just as I had no idea how Leah managed to escape. It's like Adam said about my "bargain"--even in our supernatural world, stuff like that doesn't happen. But it had.
When I'd arrived in Columbus a week ago, I'd written it off as a zombie town--dead but still functioning. With the sawmill closed, it was dying. There was no doubt of that. But it was still a town and the people there had become real to me.
I'd wreaked havoc here. I hadn't meant to. But I hadn't seen through Leah's ploy until she'd killed the others. I hadn't solved the case fast enough to stop her before she could send proof of Paula's guilt to the police. Then Paula was arrested and her granddaughter, Kayla, was shuttled off by social services.
So as Adam drove us into town, I sunk into my seat. The real Savannah Levine seemed to have fled with my powers, leaving a shell as nervous and fretful as any Coven witch. When he tapped the brakes, my arms flew out, as if bracing for a high-speed collision.
"Isn't that Paula?" he said.
"Wh-what?" I twisted to look up and down Main Street.
He backed up the Jeep and pointed. "There."
I followed his finger to the diner. Through the window, I could see the server, Lorraine, at the counter, filling coffee for two of the regulars. It was as if the past week never happened and I was right back where I'd started, waltzing in, cocky as ever, thinking I'd trick the ignorant locals into sharing a few tips about the murders.
"That is them, isn't it?" Adam said.
My gaze tripped across the diner patrons and stopped on two at a corner table. A tiny nine-year-old girl with a blond ponytail and her forty-year-old doppelganger shared a Belgian waffle dripping with strawberry sauce.
"Oh, my God," I whispered.
The last time I'd seen Kayla--was it only yesterday?--she'd been getting into a social worker's car, refusing to look at me, being trucked off to a foster home while her grandmother sat in a jail cell.
"This doesn't mean you really cut a deal with the Fates," Adam said.
"What?" I blinked at him, and it took a moment to realize what he was saying. "Bail," I whispered.
"No, I don't mean--"
"But that would make sense, wouldn't it?" A lot more sense than giving up my powers so she could be home with her granddaughter.
"I think it's too soon for bail. My guess is that they realized it was an accident and dropped the charges--without any divine intervention." He parked and swung open the door. "One way to find out."
I let him get to the diner, then thought of Kayla and Paula glancing out to see me hiding in the Jeep. I owed them an explanation--or the best I could manage under the circumstances.
Adam heard the clunk of my door opening and waited for me. As we walked into the diner together, Lorraine called out a hearty "Hello!" Paula turned first. Her gaze met mine and my heart stopped.
Paula said something to Kayla. The little girl glanced over her shoulder. I braced myself. She saw me and her thin face broke into a grin. She leapt up as if she was going to hug me, catching herself at the last moment, to stand there, staring up at me with her solemn blue eyes.
"I'm sorry I was mean to you yesterday," she said. "I made a mistake."
I stared at her, thinking, It's real. This is real. Paula isn't just out on bail. She's free.
The smile disappeared from Kayla's face and her eyes clouded. Worried that her apology hadn't been accepted.
I quickly bent and gave her a hug. "We all made mistakes," I whispered. "I'm just happy this one has been fixed."
Kayla slid into the booth. She looked at the spot next to her, then at me. Any other child would have patted the seat and urged me in. Kayla wasn't any other child.