Trail of Dead (Scarlett Bernard #2)(65)

Her shoulders hunched down, but she looked up to meet my eyes. “I wish I could. But that’s how it started. Then I—”

I held up a hand. “Stop. Spare me the then I fell in love with him crap. Of course you did, because he’s a good and honest man. And you’ve been lying to him this whole time.” Okay, I admit it. Part of me was rejoicing inside, because this meant Jesse wasn’t taken after all. He can be with me now, the voice said. But this wasn’t how I wanted to win him over. And I’d seen the goofy look on his face whenever he talked to this girl. I suddenly wanted very much to hurt her. “You know, you’re just proving everything he hates about the Old World,” I spat out. I was working hard to stay away from name-calling. “He doesn’t do this political crap, with the secrets and the backstabbing. He’s better than all of…this.” I’d almost said all of us.

“You don’t understand,” she burst out, her face hardening with passion. “Kirsten, she’s my cousin. She brought me to LA, let me live here for months while I figured things out. I owe her everything. I couldn’t just say no! And she was so worried, after you brought him into our affairs—”

“Wait, stop,” I interrupted. “She called you because of me? Because I brought him into the Old World?” I really, really wanted to be yelling at Kirsten. I’d known she was powerful, and I’d known she was capable of playing politics with Dashiell and Will. But I hadn’t expected something so underhanded. Not from her.

Then I thought of her and Jesse going off to San Diego that morning, and how her attitude seemed to have changed. “Wait,” I said. “What happened yesterday? Why did Kirsten suddenly want to work with him?”

“He passed a test,” Runa answered, her voice almost a whisper. “He erased my crime-scene photos from the car accident. Then we—then Kirsten knew he was for real.”

Of course he was for real. Kirsten just hadn’t been willing to take my word for it. I thought of how she’d guilt-tripped me into partnering up with Jesse for the investigation and felt my hands clenching together. I took a deep breath and tried to relax them.

“Why you?” I said. “You’re not powerful, so what’s your specialty? Seduction?” Believe it or not, that was the more polite version of that question.

Her lovely face soured. “Locator spells. I’m great with finding people or things. If I know the person or I’ve handled the object, I can even do it without a focus.” She straightened herself with pride. “Not even Kirsten can do that.”

“I get it. You’re human LoJack, which—wait, can you find Olivia?” I asked, momentarily distracted.

She shook her head. “Kirsten had me try months ago, when Olivia attacked you. But I’d never met her, so I needed a focus, and everything we could find of hers was from when she was human. The magic…stalled out at finding her as a vampire.”

I sighed. Of course it couldn’t just be that easy. “But you knew Jesse, so you could keep track of him. Which made you a great spy. Did you give any thought to how this might affect him?”

“More and more every day,” she said softly. Tears slipped down her cheeks, and all of a sudden the fight went out of me, and I couldn’t hate her anymore. I just felt tired. Dammit.

She bit her lip, and then asked, “You’re not going to tell him, are you?”

I smiled grimly. “Nope. But you are. Right now.” I stood up. “He’s parked in front of the house.”

‘I can’t!” she cried, wringing her hands. “I’m not ready.”

I sighed. That was the ironclad argument of every single person who’d ever done something bad and kept it a secret. I’m not ready. “When do you see yourself being ready, Runa? When he asks you to move in with him? When he proposes?”

The witch hung her head, suddenly silent. Dammit, Scarlett! Stop feeling sorry for this person, I thought. I couldn’t help it, though. I’m such a softie. I dropped back down onto the bench. “Could you…I don’t know, choose him somehow?” I asked gently. “Tell Kirsten you want to be with him?”

“If I went against Kirsten, I’d have to leave the society,” she said mournfully. “They’re, like, my home. Nobody leaves, once you’re in.”

I rolled my eyes at that particular Godfatheresque comment, but something about it made a little spark in my brain. Runa began to say something else, but I held up both hands like a traffic cop. “Wait. I may be having some kind of thought here.” Once you’re in…“I need to go,” I said suddenly. “I need to talk to your cousin.” I gritted my teeth. “About a couple of things.”

Before I could even step forward, my cell phone rang, the ordinary ring-ring sound again. I dug it out of my pocket, but it was already silent. Who calls and only lets it ring once? I checked the display.

Kevin.

“Oh, shit.” I broke into a sprint, Runa yelling a question behind me, but I hadn’t even made it around the corner of the house before I heard the screams.





Chapter 23


I had made it about six steps around the house when I pulled up short. Think it through, Scarlett. Jesse was out front; he would have heard the screaming. He was probably approaching the front of the house right now, gun in hand. If I burst into view, I was going to distract him, and if I wasn’t close enough to cancel out the witch’s magic right away, she’d have the perfect opportunity to hurt him. If she hadn’t done so already. Choking on my frustration, I reversed direction and raced back toward the sunroom door. If I could come up behind the witch, I could neutralize her, and Jesse could cover her with the gun. Simple.