Trail of Dead (Scarlett Bernard #2)(58)

“The stairs are in the kitchen,” I repeated. I felt like the animatronic guardian of a theme park ride. “Take a hard left at the bottom of the stairs. Skinny door painted to match the wall around it.”

Jesse paused, confused, but just shrugged and went into the house. He was in there for a long time. When he came back, he sat down on the stairs next to me, looking out at the neighborhood. It was midafternoon, and we watched a school bus deposit a dozen kids at a corner across the street. Their parents divided up the herd and split off in different directions. Jesse started to speak, but then he shook his head and remained silent. Finally, he said, “I think we should just stick together from here on out. This learning things separately business is obnoxious.”

I didn’t smile. After a few seconds, I felt Jesse staring at me, and finally looked over.

“What?”

“Olivia is not your fault, you know,” he said.

“I know.”

“No, you really don’t seem to.”

“Thanks, Robin Williams. I appreciate the after-school-special moment, but we both know that if I wasn’t around Olivia wouldn’t be on the rampage. Maybe it’s not my fault, exactly, but I’m still the cause.”

“We don’t know for sure what her agenda is,” he argued.

“You saw the pictures by the door?” I asked. He nodded. “She knows about you. She’s gonna come after all of you. It’s the same thing she did before; the exact same thing. Take away the people close to me. Take me.”

“You really think that’s her plan?” he asked, turning his body to study my face.

I nodded. “It makes sense. She’s not just an *; she’s completely boring. She’s the Elmer Fudd of trying to kill me.” I fought to keep my head from sinking onto my chest. I was so tired. In every possible way.

His voice was so dangerously soft that I barely heard it. “You’re not still thinking it’d be best to give yourself up?”

I managed to raise my head and look over at him. Jesse was watching me with his guarded cop face, but there was tension in his jaw and shoulders. “Um, I was threatened very specifically to think no such thing.”

“Just spit it out, Scarlett.”

“Fine.” I made a point to focus on the road in front of us. The kids had cleared away now, and it seemed surprisingly deserted. “I’m not a nutcase; I do have a reasonable line of thinking. She hasn’t taken a run at me yet, right?”

“Right.”

“And I haven’t exactly been hiding. I think she’s saving me for last, which means she’s going to do something else before she gets to me. Based on that room down there, I’d put good money on her trying to kill someone I love. If I surrender, I could cut out the middle part, the part where people I love die. Tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing, Detective.”

“That’s different. I took an oath to protect and serve, and if I could exchange my life for a citizen’s, I would. But I can’t just walk up to a gang leader and say, here, kill me so you can stop killing all these other people.”

“Why not?”

He made a frustrated sound. “Because who’s to guarantee that they really will stop? Not me, because I’d be dead. And because…you don’t just let the bad guy win.”

“You’re being theoretical. I’m being realistic. Olivia isn’t a gang leader, she’s a crazy evil vampire with a metaphorical hard-on for me. Besides, who’s to say I’m not one of the bad guys too?”

“I do.”

I snorted. “No, you just don’t want me to be. It’s not the same thing.”

“Just stop it,” he snapped. “Stop talking about killing yourself—no, letting yourself die, which is even worse because it requires nothing of you—in this reasonable tone, like it’s no big deal. It’s a big f*cking deal, Scarlett. And this everyone would be better off without me bullshit is tired.”

You will not cry. You will not cry. I started to shake with the effort, and he put his arm around me. “I’ll be fine, Scarlett,” he said softly. “We all will.” He smelled like Giorgio Armani aftershave and orange peel. We sat there like that for a long time, my thoughts drifting around like butterflies in a fog bank. I felt the house behind me like a presence, as though Olivia had marked it as her territory and some part of her had actually seeped into the walls. Jesse’s warm arm around my shoulders seemed like the only thing keeping it from swallowing me.

Finally, I sat upright and pushed loose strands of hair behind my ears. I turned to face him. He looked troubled. “I know you’re worried about me,” I said. “I know you don’t want to leave me. But there’s something else I have to do, and I can’t have you with me to do it. Do you understand?”

I could tell by his face that he was going to argue, so I cut him off before he got the chance. “I swear, Jesse, you can be around me every second if you want to, but there’s something I have to do first. I’m asking you to trust me. I need you to trust me.”

He searched my face for a long moment and sighed. “It’s three o’clock now. The sun sets around five. If I pick you up at four thirty, will that give you enough time?”

“Six.”

“Scarlett—”