Dead Spots (Scarlett Bernard #1)(71)

He held up a hand, glaring at me, and my mouth snapped shut by itself. “You still do not understand, do you, Scarlett? I don’t care a thing for Jared Hess. If I simply kill you, I will remove the only power he has over me, will I not? After all, you still haven’t found this so-called second null, have you?”

I swallowed again. Corry couldn’t be part of this. She still had a chance. “No.”

“So you are still the best suspect, at least from my point of view. I kill you, and even if Hess comes for me, he will not make it so far as the front door before we kill him. And my reputation, as it were, will be restored.”

As he spoke, he looked more and more thoughtful, and my legs started to go all rubbery with fear. I let the silence linger for a moment, then blurted, “But you’re not going to do that, right?”

His attention returned to me, and he tapped his fingers along the antique blotter on his desk. “Not yet. You may thank Beatrice for that; she seems unusually fond of you. I have promised her that I would let you be until our deadline. In, what? Ten hours.”


As I left Dashiell’s and hurried for my van, I worked to push aside my panic and concentrate. What had I learned? Jesse’s theory was probably correct—Jared Hess had to be the killer. But so what? How did that help me? I glanced at my watch: 10:00. I still had an hour and a half to go before the meeting with Jay at Corry’s place. I tried Jesse’s phone again, but this time it didn’t even ring, which probably meant that the phone was off. So now what was I supposed to do?

I needed Jesse, I decided. If he wouldn’t answer his phone, then I would just have to go get him. I would go to the precinct. Just as I started the van, though, my cell phone began to howl “Black Magic Woman.” Kirsten. I answered, because even in the middle of the most frightening crisis of my life, Olivia’s training still stuck, damn her.

“Hey, Kirsten—”

“Is this Scarlett Bernard?”

I blinked in surprise. The voice was panicked, frightened—and unquestionably male.

“Uh, yeah. I’m sorry, who is this?”

“My name is Paul Dickerson. Kirsten is my wife.”

My heart sank through the floor of the van and into the freeway. “Tell me what’s happening, Mr. Dickerson.”

His voice raised an octave, hysterical. “He took her. He had a thing, a...a stun gun, and he took her. I found your number in her phone. It said, Emergencies. This is a f*cking emergency. Can you come?”

I suddenly understood. Jared Hess didn’t just hate Joanna or the vampires, he hated the Old World. That was why he’d killed Ronnie, who really hadn’t seen anything in the clearing. The vampires, the werewolf...And now he had Kirsten. God.

But then I remembered how Hess had used Ronnie’s cell phone to text Will, and I hesitated. “Mr. Dickerson, what does Kirsten keep on her kitchen counter? The big granite counter by the sink?”

“What?”

“Please, just answer.”

“It’s a...What do you call it? A pestle and mortar. She has two.”

“I’m on my way.”


For the first time since I’d started my new life in the Old World, I was shattering my speeding rule.

As I raced toward Kirsten’s, I tried calling Corry’s cell, but the recorded operator’s voice informed me that the voice mailbox was unavailable. I tried Eli, who was working and must not have heard his cell, and Jesse, who still didn’t answer. He couldn’t be that mad at me, could he? With our lives on the line? I pounded the steering wheel in frustration. Where the hell was my backup, dammit! I was not a detective! I did not carry a gun! This was bullshit!

I sped on.

At ten fifteen, nearly all of the lights were off in the houses on Kirsten’s street. A single lamp was lit in Kirsten’s front window, and I felt a chill as I pulled the van into the driveway. If Paul Dickerson was freaking out, why weren’t all the lights blazing? As a matter of fact, why hadn’t he called the rest of Kirsten’s coven? I would think they’d be in full witch mode, working tracking spells. Unless he didn’t know about the coven? I switched off the engine nervously and sat for a moment peering at the house. Then I looked at the clock and shrugged. Fuck it. I did not have time to play Suzy armchair detective. I stepped out of the van, strode up the driveway, and rang the doorbell. Kirsten’s door has a little window at eye level in lieu of a peephole, and I saw the curtain behind it move. A man’s eye looked me over, and then the eye disappeared and I heard the doorknob turn. As the door opened, I peered into the dark house.

“Mr. Dickerson?”

“Not exactly.”

The voice was wrong. I knew right away and took an instinctual step back, turning to run. But before I’d even shifted my weight, a hand shot up and I smelled a harsh chemical like burned cinnamon, and suddenly, I was in terrible, agonizing pain. I gasped, and my overloaded senses put it together—mace.

My eyes were instantly streaming, and I let out a wail of pain, which was the man’s cue to seize my arm, dragging me into the house. I kicked wildly in his direction, but it was like fighting in the dark, and he easily evaded me. Amid the burning pain, I felt another—a sharp prick in my arm. By the time I was able to assemble my thoughts around the word needle, I was out.





Chapter 28