“Adelaide Mooney,” she answered.
Fury whipped through me; unexpectedly, I felt pelt abrading my skin. “Primo,” I spat, trying to keep the threat out of my voice. “Tell me about Shiloh Everhart Stone.”
Adelaide huffed a breath. “What are you? Psychic? I just put it together. We had her as Shiloh E. Stone. She wasn’t one of Leo’s scions, but just another rescued scion from a failed blood family.”
All the domino/puzzle pieces shifted again and even before I asked, I saw the picture they all made, and I knew the answers. “It’s all my fault,” I said.
I settled slowly to the floor, cradling the landline receiver to my cheek. Idiot, idiot, idiot. I should have put it together the moment Leo said Shoffru had come for the diamond.
“The party at Guilbeau’s was hosted by one Bancym M’lareil,” Del said, “but we believe that being was an agent of, or an alias of, Jack Shoffru. We think he was after a lot of things, the Damours’ estate and real properties, the Damours’ scions, and when he tracked down the scions, that meant that he also had info on Shiloh. And who she was before she was turned.
“And he brought, to the party at Guilbeau’s, Molly Everhart, as his guest. I just discovered that from one of the attendees.”
My heart plummeted and thumped painfully before settling into a fast, irregular beat.
“I’m. . . I’m so sorry, Jane. I should have looked into it earlier.”
It all made sense. I closed my eyes. And it was all about the Damours’ estate—the most important and powerful part of the estate—the blood diamond. Except that Jack thought Molly had the black magic jewel because she had been there, on camera when Evangelina died. It never occurred to him that I had it until much later, after he had Molly, and had drunk from her often enough to learn most of her secrets. And because Jack hadn’t come directly for me already, Molly had somehow kept that from him for a long while.
Earlier, I had considered the possibility that Shoffru had hired someone to search out something. There had been plenty of time for a good detective to put together the events the night the Damours died. A good investigator—maybe like Reach—would come up with my name in about two seconds of research. Was Reach working for someone else and giving them info on Molly? On me? I could end up hating Reach, if he was involved with this in any way.
I loathed that gem. It was cursed.
Almost as bad, there were other magical toys from the time of the Damours and the blood magic they practiced on Saint Domingue, and later in Louisiana, like the charms used on the two humans who attacked my house. And maybe someone had even more of them and was using them, just as the vamps had used them in Natchez. Maybe they were using something that helped mask the killer inside vamp HQ when he killed Hawk Head.
It all made sense if Molly knew that Shiloh was alive—undead—when . . . What? Jack, maybe, called her in Asheville, and told her, and maybe told her he already had the girl, even though he didn’t. Yeah. It all made sense if Molly had come to save her niece from him. And with Molly his captive, Jack had gotten Shiloh, taken her—after the party.
“Talk to me, Del,” I said. “I think Shiloh and Molly and Bliss and Rachael may all be in Shoffru’s hands.”
Adelaide hesitated for a moment as if weighing the wisdom of giving me more info, and then she swore softly. “I got most of this secondhand. But after the Damours were brought to the sun,” which was vamp for killed true-dead, and this by my hand, “Leo found the Damours’ lairs and confiscated all their chained scions. The long-chained ones were taken care of by Gee DiMercy.” Which meant the ones who had been insane for more than twenty years had been killed. I thrust out my jaw, trying to decide if the Mercy Blade was really merciful or just another killer like me.
“The others, well, when you finished with the problems and the hoopla in Asheville, Lincoln sent a first-generation Shaddock Mithran home with Leo. They’ve been using that Mithran’s blood to bring some of the witches caught in the devoveo to health and sanity. Leo wanted to make sure it worked before he announced it, and then he wanted to make a big production of it as a way to impress the European Council,” she said. “As a way to keep them from coming. But the timing didn’t work.”
“Holy crap,” I breathed. “The night of the Guilbeau’s party, Shoffru already had Molly under his control. He was tailing Molly’s niece, the blood-child of the Damours, who, according to vamp law, was part of their estate, and who he probably knew was a witch, and who shouldn’t be sane yet because of that. If he was in with, or at least talking to, the Damours before I killed them true-dead, he probably also knew her history and her full name. But either way, he knew who she was—he had to—and therefore who she was related to—Molly.”