Dead Spots (Scarlett Bernard #1)(17)

Cruz smiled and glanced around, but shook his head. “No.”

“Damn. It would have been nice if it were just that easy.”

“Do you come here a lot?”

“I try not to. My being here, it messes with people. Some of them don’t mind—hell, a lot of them like it—but I try not to interfere.” Also, I tend to do stupid things like get drunk and go home with bartenders when I’m not really supposed to be drinking at all, since I’m continuously on call for crime scene cleanup. Sometimes, though, I get sick of being around normal people, who have absolutely no concept of my life.

Cruz just nodded, and I looked over at him, suddenly feeling a little girly rush of something like shyness. He was so good-looking—that perfect skin, warm eyes, full lips, muscle tone—I just kind of had to marvel at it. He looked a little flushed and excited but seemed to be handling all of this pretty well, all things considered.

“Don’t you have people you should be reporting to right now?” I asked him. “Aren’t you on the park case?”

“Technically, I was off duty at eight p.m., and I’m not due in again until eight a.m. I’m on my own time right now.”

Damn. So much for sending him off to his boss. “What kind of things are you guys investigating?”

He stared at me for a moment, then shrugged, probably figuring the same thing I had: we were in this together. “Today we were mostly trying to identify the victims, see what they had in common. That kind of thing can lead to a common link.” He hesitated. “Before, you mentioned the possibility that this wasn’t related to the Old World at all. Do you really think that could be true? Honestly.”

If I lied and said it looked human, would he leave me alone? But before I could respond, the bartender called my name and tilted her head toward Will’s office. I nodded my thanks. Before I could think about it too carefully, I said, “It’s possible, but I doubt it. The wolves run in that park, and there was so much blood everywhere, and it looked so ritualistic...It looked like a lot of other supernatural crime scenes I’ve seen.”

He stared at me, and I realized my mistake.

“You’ve seen a lot of crime scenes?”

Aw, crap. The thing is, I’m not all that great with subterfuge or politics—I’m not really a five-moves-ahead kind of girl. I caught the bartender’s eye again and held up one finger, rolling my eyes a little to suggest that the delay was Cruz’s fault.

“Okay. I need to explain what I do for a living,” I began.

As I talked, his face got more and more stormy. When I finished, Cruz was quiet for a long moment, digesting. “Let me see if I understand this,” he said at last. “You destroy evidence for a living.”

“That’s one way to see it, I guess.”

“But don’t you know how much damage you’re doing?” he protested, sounding heated. “These people belong in jail. You’re not only destroying any chance for the justice system to work, you’re actively incriminating yourself.”

“Keep your voice down,” I warned, and he took a breath, looking around. “We sort of have our own justice system. And in that system, everyone can tell if you’re lying, and smell where you’ve been, or do a spell that recreates the whole scene. Physical evidence just isn’t important. For that, the only thing that matters is getting rid of it before it draws attention in your world.”

He rolled his eyes. “Do you hear yourself? ‘My world’ and ‘your world’? What is that? You’re a human, too.”

I shrugged. “Not exactly. Besides, think about the practicalities. How is the modern justice system going to contain someone who turns furry for three days a month? Or who needs blood to survive? Where’s the prison cell that can hold a powerful witch? If regular humans decided to try to police the Old World...A lot of people would die.” I didn’t mention that I’d also be out of a job.

He thought about that for a long moment. “They still have to come out,” he decided. “That’s the only way to make sure everyone is held accountable for their actions. There will be a panic for a while, but then the government will change, and the laws, and the system will adapt.”

The first time I’d been taken to meet Dashiell, I’d been too young and stupid to be properly afraid of him, and we’d had practically this same conversation. Confident in the soundness of my argument, and with all the wisdom of my eighteen years, I had told the cardinal vampire of the city that surely the vampires’ exposure had to be inevitable as technology advanced; cell phone cameras, CCTV, ATM videos, and so on had to make it tough to stay under the radar. Wouldn’t it be easier to just come out, get in front of the story?

He’d allowed me to blather on about it for a while, then held up a patient hand. “Miss Bernard,” he’d asked calmly, “have you ever heard of the lions of Tsavo?”

“Uh, no.”

“In 1898, the British Empire was trying to build a simple railway bridge over a river in Kenya,” he began. “But in March, two lions began attacking the camp, eating the workers. They’d developed a taste for human flesh, you see, and for nine months, those two lions terrorized the region. There is some disagreement on the numbers, but they killed and ate at least forty, and possibly closer to a hundred and fifty people in that time.”