Trail of Dead (Scarlett Bernard #2)(42)

“But it kind of was.” He sat back down, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. His head drooped like it was awaiting an executioner’s sword. “Dashiell, as you know, doesn’t exactly consult Kirsten or me before he does something,” he began. “Almost fifteen years ago now, he hired Olivia. He had heard of a cleanup crew in Europe that was run by a null and thought it seemed like a really practical idea.

“I believe he briefly checked her tax returns and didn’t find anything alarming, and she did very good work, so as far as Dashiell was concerned, that was that.” There was a skeptical tone in his voice.

“But you…didn’t like her?” I asked.

He sighed. “You have to understand, I was twenty-eight years old. I had been alpha for all of a year, and Dashiell and I had built this uneasy peace that was unheard-of in America. I wasn’t in any hurry to rock the boat.”

“But…” I prompted.

“But…yes, she gave me a really bad feeling, just as a person. There was something sort of…hungry about her. And empty. Dashiell didn’t pick up on it at all—vampires aren’t really intuitive. I tried to convince him to vet her better, but he blew me off. It’s funny; he’s usually very distrusting of humans, but it was like because she was a null, she was on the Old World side of his little us-them line.”

“What did you do?”

He spread his hands. “First I tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t just dismiss my instincts. So I went behind Dashiell’s back to check on her. My dad was in army intelligence. I pulled some strings, paid a little money, and had a background check done. Complete with psych evaluation from her graduate school program, which was not easy to get, believe me.” He reached into the messenger bag and pulled out a slightly rumpled manila folder. “This is it.”

I managed not to snatch it straight out of his hand, but it was a close thing. “Why didn’t you bring this out last night?”

He raised his eyebrows at me to say are you kidding? “You saw how tense everybody was last night. Dashiell was about ready to throw down for control of the city, for Pete’s sake. I didn’t think it was a good time to tell everyone that I’d gone behind his back fifteen years ago.” His face drooped. “Or that I could maybe have stopped all of this, back then.” Before I could address that, he added, “I tried to find you after the meeting, but you left pretty quickly, and then I had to deal with a fight at the bar.”

I wanted to ask him about the fight, but I was afraid if I started another line of questioning I’d stop getting answers, so I held my breath. Literally. I was afraid to move, or I might break the spell. I was finally getting answers.

“Do you know anything about her background?” he asked me. “Before she started working for us?”

“Not really. She did say that she’d once been married and the guy left her money.”

Will bobbed his head. “She grew up in Salt Lake City,” he said. “Her family was extremely poor. Olivia never knew her father, and her mother, when she wasn’t drinking, worked as a maid for a rich family in town.” He gave me a small smile. “Well, however rich they get in Salt Lake City, anyway.”

I looked down at the map I’d just found. Salt Lake City was a long way from any port cities. “Salt Lake City isn’t a vampire town,” I guessed.

He pointed at me. “No. Actually, it’s one of the few biggish cities in the US that’s more or less Old World–free. I’m guessing that’s why Dashiell was so willing to hire Olivia—he knew she couldn’t possibly have any loyalties within the Old World already. To him it was like…” He paused, looking for words. “It was like a carpenter coming out of his house one morning to find a brand-new power drill sitting on his front step, with nobody claiming it.”

“Go on.”

He nodded. “Olivia was dirt-poor, but smart—smart enough to leave home at fifteen and put herself through college, grad school, and a PhD program.”

I felt my heart sink, but I asked anyway. “What field?”

“Psychology,” Will said softly. He dropped the folder on the coffee table, opened it, and fanned the materials out so he could see them better. I was itching to comb through every page of the damned thing, but I held back—he’d tell me what was most important. Also, he was still my boss, and the idea of snatching up all the papers and locking myself in the bathroom to read them seemed slightly unprofessional.

Finally, Will pulled out a Xeroxed packet that had DO NOT COPY stamped all over it. He scanned the sheet. “She was asked to leave the program before she completed her doctorate—I guess there was an incident with some other students and a thesis experiment. It didn’t matter to Olivia, though, because by then she’d found what she was looking for.”

“New victims?”

He smiled sadly. “One new victim. A husband.” He turned the packet around, handing it to me. “According to the psych evaluation, which she took as part of her program, Olivia’s big dream was to have a family. A rich family, to be specific.”

I looked down the sheet, where the evaluator’s handwritten notes read subject feels an unnaturally strong drive to reproduce, possibly due to death of younger sister.

“She lost a sister?” I asked, temporarily distracted by pity. I don’t care who you are; nobody deserves that.