Trail of Dead (Scarlett Bernard #2)(26)
Dashiell was sitting erect in a poufy tan armchair, managing to make the whole thing look dignified as hell. Will and Eli, who was there as the pack’s beta, were on opposite ends of a long matching sofa. They were both leaning back into the couch, attempting to look relaxed, but both of their bodies were tight with tension. You could practically see their hackles up, although they both relaxed a centimeter when I got close enough to put them in my radius. Will shot me an appreciative smile, but Eli’s gaze was thoughtful, traveling back and forth between me and Jesse. I remembered the feeling of sleeping with him the night before, and then the feeling of Jesse’s arms around me at the shooting range, and blushed.
Jesse and I took two of the well-padded upright chairs that had been scattered around the couch set. I waited for a cue from Dashiell or maybe Will, but they were silent, clearly waiting for something. Or for someone. After about two minutes I heard the front door open and close and the sound of high, clunky heels striking the marble hallway floor. Jesse raised his eyebrows at me. “Kirsten,” I said quietly. He nodded.
She came in behind Laurence, looking even paler than usual, if that were possible, and weary. Her eyes were clear, but there was a rigidity to her posture that seemed out of character. She looked reluctant to sit, but finally dropped onto another padded seat near the door.
Dashiell allowed Laurence to offer all of us beverages (which we all declined, because there’s just something creepy about accepting drinks from the undead), and then waved him away. “Let’s begin,” he announced.
“Beatrice?” I asked.
“My wife is visiting some acquaintances in Seattle,” Dashiell said, and I felt something small and tight release in my chest. One less friend to worry about. At the same time, though, it showed how serious Dashiell was taking Olivia—it’s very expensive and complicated for a vampire to travel without a null along. With all the different things that can go wrong or cause delays, they can’t exactly fly commercial.
“Thank you for coming,” Dashiell continued, courteously implying that any of us had an actual choice when he summoned us. “Recent affairs have now escalated to a point where I thought it important for us to meet. To summarize, based on information gathered by Kirsten and our young police officer, Detective Cruz”—he paused and looked toward Jesse, who did kind of an awkward duck-head-and-wave maneuver—“we now suspect that Olivia has killed, or conspired to kill, at least two witches and two humans in the city in the last week. When I rose this evening I was also informed that she is likely working with a witch.” Now Kirsten nodded, still staring stonily at the table in front of her. “Have you figured out whom?” Dashiell asked her.
“No, I haven’t,” she growled, and Dashiell’s eyebrows rose. “As I told Scarlett and the detective, I know all of the witches that used Olivia’s services, one way or another, but none of them have the…audacity for this kind of thing.” She folded her arms defiantly.
“Well, Olivia can be quite persuasive,” Will said mildly. “Vampire or not, if she really set her mind to controlling someone, she’d find a way.” His face flushed the moment he’d finished, and I didn’t need my null superpowers to feel everyone at the table suddenly not looking at me. I tried not to squirm.
“It’s not about audacity, or controllability,” Kirsten said. “Most of my witches were extremely nervous around Olivia when she was alive.” Probably because she was psychotic. “At the time, I thought it was almost helpful, because if they didn’t want to have to call her in, they wouldn’t risk dangerous spells.” She reached up to run a hand over her blonde ponytail, smoothing back nonexistent stray hairs. “But if Olivia approached any of them now, as a vampire, they’d turn and run the other way.”
“Could that have been what happened to these two witches?” Will wondered aloud. “Maybe she just approached them, and they started to run, so she killed them?”
Kirsten shook his head. “Erin was killed before sunset, and Denise was somewhere she’d never be on her own.”
“Someone had to know Olivia,” Eli said quietly, causing heads to turn with surprise. He’d been so silent until then that everyone but me seemed to have forgotten his presence. “One of them wanted something enough to work with her to get it.”
Kirsten’s jaw set, but Dashiell waved a hand dismissively. “Trying to figure out what all of Kirsten’s witches might want that badly isn’t going to get us anywhere; let’s table this line of discussion for the moment.”
Jesse jumped in, sounding businesslike. “What about this other vampire she ran off with? Albert? Do we know anything about his relationship with her?”
“I might be able to help with that,” Dashiell said. He picked up the telephone that was sitting on a table next to the big armchair. I hadn’t even noticed it. “Laurence, please come in here for a moment.”
The rest of us exchanged glances. My radar or whatever felt awfully crowded, with a vampire, a witch, and two werewolves, all quite powerful, more or less within my radius. But I still felt it when Laurence crossed the invisible line and became human too. “Yes, sir?”
“You were close to Albert, correct?”
Laurence glanced at the rest of us in turn, looking a little worried. “Yes, sir.”