Trail of Dead (Scarlett Bernard #2)(51)

Or like Barton needed to hear every word Albert said. Albert had found a specialist for Olivia and pressed his mind to get her the treatment. “What did Barton do for…my mom?”

Sadie shook her head sadly. “He gave her some new experimental drug…Domincydactl, I believe it was called. It was a Hail Mary pass, sugar, and it didn’t work. They’ve discontinued the drug since then. Didn’t work for anyone, I guess.”

“Why didn’t I know about this?”

“Your mom asked us to keep it private. She said she didn’t want you getting your hopes up about a one-in-a-million chance.”

Or she didn’t want me to know what she was planning. Had she suspected that I was on to her? Or was she just hedging her bets in case it really didn’t work? Whatever this drug was, it had either turned her or made it possible for Albert to turn her. It had honestly never occurred to me that nullness could be tempered chemically; I had assumed Olivia’s transformation had had something to do with magic. We all had.

“You okay, Scarlett?”

My attention had wandered. I worked to focus back on Sadie. “I think so.” I groped for something to say. “I’m…glad she found someone to be with, at the end.”

“So am I, sugar.” She patted my hand one more time and stood up. “Just remember, Miss Scarlett, your momma loved you. She was just devoted to you. I’m sure wherever she is now, she’s at peace.”

Not f*cking likely.





Chapter 18


When Scarlett hung up, Jesse had looked at the phone in confusion for a moment, until Kirsten said, “Well, that was abrupt.”

They had hit a patch of traffic on the way back to LA, and he didn’t feel comfortable using the siren this time, since they were sort of at a loss for their next step. “Yes. I hope she’s not in trouble.”

“Hayne will look after her,” Kirsten said, with perfect confidence. Jesse decided not to mention that Scarlett had escaped from Dashiell’s mansion. “Do you think Scarlett was right,” Kirsten asked, “about Olivia trying to distract us from something?”

“Probably,” Jesse said grimly. He was lost in thought, half hypnotized by the brake-gas-brake-gas repetition of the traffic. “I do think we’re missing something big. We’ve been running around trying so hard to catch up to Olivia, we haven’t stopped to think. Scarlett suggested as much last night, but I thought she was just being paranoid.”

“Well, let’s go over it all again,” Kirsten suggested.

They started with Denise’s death, what little they knew about it. “I read the police file,” Jesse said. “Witnesses saw her packing up her things on the Promenade just before one in the morning. We—the police, that is—didn’t find any of it on the Promenade or the pier, so she must have loaded it in her car.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Kirsten nodding. “She had a special permit to park at the mall off the Promenade, I think.”

“Right. Olivia—I’m assuming it was Olivia, because she would’ve had the strength—must have taken her at the car.”

“Wait,” Kirsten objected. “That doesn’t make sense. Olivia is a vampire; she wouldn’t have wasted good blood, not when she could make it look accidental.”

“Maybe she needed it to look like a suicide. She didn’t want to attract any attention yet.”

Kirsten was shaking her head emphatically. “No, there’s a method for that, which vampires just love. They put the victim in their bathtub, drink most of the blood, and let a little bit run into the water to turn it red. Hardly anyone who commits suicide that way is actually a suicide.”

Jesse was temporarily distracted. He glanced over at Kirsten. “Really? Wouldn’t the medical examiner realize a lot of blood was missing?”

She shrugged. “I’ve never heard of anyone catching it. They do this fairly often.” She wrinkled her nose. “Think about it. If you were going to commit suicide, wouldn’t you rather just shoot yourself, or take pills?

Jesse started to answer that, but remembered the actual point of the discussion. “Anyway,” he said, gesturing for them to get back on track.

“Right. You read the police report. Did Denise have any major cuts? Specifically at the arteries?”

Jesse thought back. Denise’s body had been nearly pristine, he remembered, except for some minor bites from fish. No major arteries. “No.”

“Then maybe it wasn’t Olivia,” Kirsten said. “Maybe it was the witch.”

“Denise weighed a hundred and fifty pounds,” Jesse said skeptically. He didn’t mention that that was her weight after the fish had nibbled on her—Kirsten didn’t need to know about that. “And she would have been fighting like crazy, and maybe screaming for help, and terrified of the pier. If we’re talking about one witch, a woman…I just can’t see her being able to get Denise that far. Could someone have…hypnotized her?”

“A reasonably powerful witch could,” she said thoughtfully. “But although we can technically perform spells on each other, we’re naturally a bit resistant to other witches’ magic. And Denise’s mind would have dug in its heels, metaphorically speaking, about going out over the water. Hypnosis is like that; it’s hard to make the subject do something that goes against her deepest feelings.”