For three full seconds nobody in the yard moved.
Then Cain's voice cut the silence like a blade. "Let her in. Hands where I can see them. Roan the gate."
The chain-link rolled back. Celeste walked her bike through it on foot, slow, helmet dangling from one shaking hand, and up close she looked nothing like the radiant girl in red who'd climbed the dais steps. She was grey-faced, hollow-eyed, one hand pressed protectively to the small swell of her belly. She'd ridden hard and she'd ridden scared.
She stopped six feet from me. Close enough that I could have hit her. We both knew it.
"Say it again," I told her. "All of it. Slowly."
Celeste's throat worked. "Your mother died this morning. Damien did it himself, in the holding cells, and told no one outside his inner circle." Her voice was
