Trail of Dead (Scarlett Bernard #2)(15)
Opening my eyes, I shrugged. “Null circles generally expand when we get really emotional or upset. I just learned how to do it without freaking out first. It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s totally a big deal,” he argued, and I felt a little pleased. It had taken me a while to learn it. Meditation techniques don’t exactly come easily to me. For some reason.
He came back to bed, wrapping me up in his arms and the covers. “Very cool,” he pronounced, and he kissed the top of my head. “Get some sleep.”
But I lay still for a few more minutes, listening to his heart and the way he breathed. “Eli?”
“Mm.”
“I don’t want to be a victim,” I whispered. “I don’t want to be her victim. Or her prize, or whatever. I don’t want to be a piece in a game.”
He loosened his arms, scooting his body down in the bed so his eyes could meet mine. He kissed me on the lips, but a warm, chaste kiss with no need to it. “You won’t be.”
Chapter 6
After he’d hung up with Scarlett, Jesse Cruz had turned back to face the bustling activity at the crime scene. The Jeep was an early 2000s model, painted an unfortunate dark red that set off the blood on the windshield. It was standing upright, but looked crumpled, as though it had been rolled like a boiled egg. Which was more or less what had happened. Inside the car, the Reeds still sat upright, pinned in place by their seat belts. Liam Reed was a middle-aged business type with a sharp salt-and-pepper haircut. Sara Reed was a decade younger, with tan skin and laugh lines around her mouth and eyes. She was wearing a navy cashmere sweater with a snowman stitched into the chest. The only visible blood on either of them was a small dark circle that turned the snowman red.
The driver and passenger doors had been opened and the crime-scene photographer, Runa, was snapping shots of the bodies, completely focused on the digital camera. The two uniformed cops who had responded to the call were interviewing, separately, the couple who had discovered the body. A forensic investigator named Walter Benson was crouched next to the Jeep, collecting a sample of leaked oil. The other forensic technician saw that Jesse was off the phone and trotted over, clipboard clutched to her chest.
Gloria “Glory” Sherman was one of the nighttime forensic pathology technicians and the only other human Jesse knew who was aware of the Old World. Generally, Glory was a lab rat, but budget cuts had forced more and more of the lab technicians to spend part of their time in the field. Which had worked out in his favor tonight, because she had placed the call to get him here.
“Sorry about that,” Jesse said. “What do we know?”
The night was fairly warm, but she hugged the clipboard against her body, shoulders clenched up to her ears with worry. The silver streaks in her short, ash-blonde hair seemed to stand out against the Jeep’s single remaining headlight. “Well, the physics guys will do a little calculating, but it looks like the car flipped off the embankment and landed upside down. Windows and one headlight were crushed. Then something”—she swallowed, and took a step closer, eyes darting—“flipped it back over sideways.” He followed her to the passenger side of the Jeep, where she pointed at two hand-sized dents at the bottom of the window, pinching closed the seam where the glass used to be. “The two driver’s-side wheels popped with the impact.”
Jesse glanced at Benson, a stocky black man in his midfifties with an unlit cigarette tucked behind one ear and an excited expression on his face, like he’d woken up to an early Christmas. He had torn Runa’s attention from the camera and was pointing at the marks on the victims’ wrists, gesturing wildly. “He knows about the bodies, I take it?” Jesse asked. “The lack of blood?”
Glory nodded. “He’s the one who told me. I…recognized the signs.” Glory had met Dashiell years earlier, when the master vampire had shown up to collect a newly turned vampire. Over the years he’d occasionally asked her to drop a beaker or lose a sample, always right after making polite inquiries about Glory’s two children. “Listen, Jesse, I did something—”
“Hey, guys.”
Jesse and Glory both jumped as the petite photographer appeared beside them. She had white-blonde hair tied in shoulder-length pigtails and three different cameras and bags strapped onto her slim shoulders. “Whoa,” Runa said, laughing a little at their shock. “Just wanted to see if you needed any other shots. Oh, hey, we haven’t actually met.” She held her hand out toward Glory, and Jesse remembered his manners.
“Oh, sorry. Glory Sherman, this is Runa Vore, the new night-shift photographer. Runa, this is Glory.” The two women shook hands, and Glory shot him an anxious look. Does she know? He shook his head imperceptibly.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Runa continued, “but I’ve got all the initial shots. Did you want anything from the surrounding area?”
“Uh, sure. Why don’t you do some perspective shots from the car to the witnesses’ house. And, um, whatever else you can think of. Go crazy.”
Runa gave him a funny look, but she turned back to the Jeep.
“Go crazy?” Glory said, the second Runa was out of earshot.
“Shut up.”
“That’s the girl you’re dating?” Glory’s eyebrows were raised to her hairline. “She’s pretty.”