Trail of Dead

by Olson, Melissa F.

  Goddammit, Jesse thought. Cardinal vampire or not, why was he letting this guy fluster him? “Scarlett…explained it to me,” Jesse said finally.

  “Wonderful. I’ll be expecting your call, either way. I will also be expecting you and Scarlett at the mansion tomorrow evening at six. We’re all going to discuss what has been happening.” Jesse understood that “we” meant the Old World leaders: Kirsten, Dashiell, and Will.

  “I know Scarlett works for you, but I don’t,” Jesse said, trying to sound firm. “You can’t just summon me places.”

  Dashiell just arched an eyebrow, and Jesse had to look away from his eyes as quickly as he could. “Can’t I?”

  Jesse couldn’t think of a thing to say, so he just shoved the card in his jeans pocket. “Look, I’m on another case right now, anyway—”

  Dashiell’s voice hardened. “The witch in Studio City, yes, I know. This comes first.”

  Witch. Erin was a witch? But Jesse couldn’t follow that thought very far, because he was working to keep a grip on his temper. He reminded himself that without Scarlett here he was outclassed: Dashiell had just taken control of an LAPD-run murder scene with one text message. Disappearing a homicide detective would be child’s play. After a breath, Jesse said, “Why me? You must have tons of vampire…lackeys, who are more powerful than Olivia.”

  “Yes.” Dashiell’s voice darkened. “But one of my lackeys has already been compromised. I believe you met Albert?”

  “The guard?”

  “Yes. He disappeared nearly a month ago, and the two of them have been seen together. I do not know if anyone else is working with Olivia, but given your feelings for our Ms. Bernard, I trust you’ll be motivated to catch her.”

  “I’m also a cop, and Olivia is killing people,” Jesse pointed out, a little irritated. Had his feelings for Scarlett been that obvious?

  “Well, there you have it,” Dashiell said, smiling congenially. Avoiding his eyes, Jesse stared at the vampire’s teeth. The canines weren’t exactly fang material, but was it his imagination, or were they extra pointy? “Either way, the job is yours.”

  Dashiell gave a modest little bow and turned away. He was at the Bentley before Jesse could think of another thing to say.

  He was still standing there like an idiot when Glory made it back, without her clipboard now. “Doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for negotiation, does he?” she said quietly.

  “No, he doesn’t.” Jesse’s eyes fell on the Jeep again. “What’s going to happen to your evidence?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I’ll log it as usual, but this is an accident scene now.”

  “Did you find much?”

  “Not really. The usual LA litter, nothing that looked fresh. The ground’s too hard for footprints. There are fingerprints everywhere, but they won’t be processed now. Even if they were, unless this Olivia was arrested when she was alive, I don’t know that they’d do any good. Best case, they’d confirm that it was her.”

  He sighed. “Anything that would give me a location? Anything at all?”

  She frowned. “The only weird thing was a tiny bit of mud we found on the floor of the Jeep. It doesn’t look like it was on either of the Reeds’ shoes. But the Jeep was stolen from a rental lot, so who knows how well the rental company cleaned it.”

  Jesse felt like he’d just taken a shot of adrenaline. “Wait, what made it weird?”

  “Two things,” she replied. “First, there was a really distinctive smell to it. Like…a factory.” She shrugged.

  “And second?”

  “The color. Soil analysis isn’t my area of specialization, but I’ve never seen dirt that was so…gray.”

  “Get it analyzed, okay?”

  Glory squinted up at him, bemused. “Well, duh.”

  Jesse banged on Scarlett’s door at ten on the dot, half expecting her to answer the door in her pajamas. He felt a little guilty for pushing her so hard at Erin’s, especially in light of Olivia’s attack. But Erin’s death—and the swiftness with which the Old World had made it disappear—ate away at him. He resolved to be a little nicer anyway.

  To his surprise, though, the door was opened by Eli, wearing boxer shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt. “Oh…hey…” Jesse said lamely. Of course Eli had spent the night. Jesse tried to ignore a stab of jealousy. You have a girlfriend, he told himself. It’s none of your business.

  “Hey,” Eli said, yawning. “She’s in the shower.” He backed up, making room for Jesse to slip past him into the house. Guy was so damned tall. “Thanks for calling last night.”

  “No problem.” There was an awkward pause. Jesse and Eli had met during the La Brea Park investigation—when Scarlett had been in the hospital, unable to protect herself, the two of them had taken shifts to stay with her. Jesse was pretty sure that Eli was in love with her. Hell, maybe Scarlett was in love with him too. It irritated Jesse that this thought bothered him so much.

  “How is she doing?” he asked finally.

  Eli shrugged, closing the door. “Oh, you know,” he said with a small smile. “It’d take a direct hit.”

  “That’s kind of what I’m worried about.”

  Before Eli could respond, Scarlett trotted down the stairs, her feet bare and her hair pulled into a wet bun. She wore jeans and a green T-shirt that had damp spots where her hair had dripped, and was pulling on a jacket. “I’m ready, I’m ready,” she said breathlessly.

  “Shoes?” Jesse said, raising an eyebrow.

  “They’re right—oh, no, they’re not.” She scrambled back upstairs. Jesse shook his head, amused.

  “You really think Olivia will come after her?” Eli said quietly. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the stairs.

  “Seems like it. But I never met Olivia.”

  “I only saw her once or twice. She was…I don’t know. Regal. Commanding.”

  “Nuts?”

  “Well, yeah. But not so you’d notice right away.”

  Scarlett came running down the stairs, socks and boots in her hand. “I thought you’d be dragging ass. What’s the rush?” Jesse asked.

  “We’re meeting Kirsten,” she told him. “And you need to be on your best behavior.”

  Chapter 7

  We stepped out of Molly’s house into my favorite kind of LA weather: cool and sunny. Sometime during the night, the wind had blown off a layer of smog, so it was even clear outside. We walked down the block to Jesse’s parking spot, and I noticed one of Molly’s neighbors had recently gone with the ultimate tacky Christmas decoration: four inches of cotton laid down over the grass to serve as snow. The scene was complete with Styrofoam snowmen and a gaudily decorated Christmas tree. Molly would love it.

  On the way to the restaurant, Jesse told me about being approached by Dashiell and the meeting at his house that night, and I filled him in on what Kirsten had told me about Erin’s and Denise’s deaths: the frantic calls to Kirsten, the fact that both witches predicted the future. “So Kirsten and I think the two deaths have to be connected,” I finished.

  “It’s not two deaths anymore. Now it’s four,” Jesse said grimly.

  “Wait. What?”

  “I’m not sure, and I can’t prove it, but I think the Reed car accident is related to all this. Remember I told you about that weird dirt that forensics found at Erin’s? Well, I think I found the same kind of mud inside the car last night. My friend in forensics is analyzing it for me.”

  “But the car thing was Olivia. We still think that was Olivia, right?”

  “Yes.”

  I thought that over. “So you think Olivia killed the witches too?”

  He hesitated. I glanced over. “What?” I asked.

  “Is it possible that Olivia has…special powers? Like, since she was a null who turned, maybe she can go out in the sun or something?”

  “No,” I said. This was something I’d thought about a lot. “Other nulls feel…different. In my radius. Olivia used to feel like that, but that day that I saw her at the hospital, sh
e just felt like your garden-variety baby vampire.”

  “Okay,” Jesse said. “Then she couldn’t have killed the witches by herself. The sun was still up during Erin’s time of death.”

  It took a second for that to register with me. There was another possibility, besides Olivia working with a partner. Nulls, like me, were very rare—maybe six in the world, that we knew about. But I still wasn’t the only null in Los Angeles.

  “Oh, God.” I checked the mirror and cut off an Audi on my right, screeching across two lanes to make the next exit.

  “Scarlett,” Jesse yelped, reaching to grab what my older brother always called the “oh shit” handle. “What the hell?”

  “Gas station. I need a big gas station, maybe a convenience store…” I scanned the street, but the neighborhood seemed mostly residential.

  “Stop,” he ordered. “Pull over.” He used a very big cop voice, and I found myself wrenching the wheel to bring the van to a stop at the curb.

  Jesse leaned forward and flipped on my hazard lights. He looked at me. “What is it?” he asked softly.

  I met his eyes. Corry, I mouthed, and understanding struck his face. “I need a disposable cell phone,” I said, as calmly as I could manage. “Where can we get one?”

  During our last case together, Jesse and I had encountered another null living in LA—only she was fifteen and had been forced into several dangerous situations by a psychopathic serial killer. We had gotten her out of the mess, and since then I’d done everything I could think of to keep her away from the Old World. But if Olivia had found out about Corry…all bets were off.

  Jesse started to speak, and I shook my head. I knew I was being paranoid. The odds that anyone had bugged my phone or my van in hopes that I’d mention Corry were tiny. But my job—my life—is all about paranoia. Most of the crime scenes I clean up wouldn’t even appear suspicious to normal people, but there’s always the chance that somebody will be just bored or rich or angry enough to ask a lot of questions and make a lot of noise. I live on paranoia. And if there was even a tiny chance that being paranoid would keep Corry safe, well, sign me up for my tin hat.

  After a moment, Jesse nodded, and his face relaxed in understanding. He had met Corry, briefly, and knew how I felt about keeping her safe. He pointed left. “There’s a Target a couple of blocks that way.”

  I left everything in the van except my keys and some cash. Just in case.

  A few minutes later we sat down in the little café area with an instrumental version of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” pealing out over the loudspeakers. Jesse showed me how to get the phone working, and I dialed a number I knew by heart. It wasn’t until the phone was ringing that I realized she might be in school.

  But Corry answered. “Hello?”

  “Hey, it’s Scarlett,” I said.

  “Hi,” she said cautiously. “I, um, thought you weren’t going to be calling me.”

  The last time we’d spoken, I’d made it clear to Corry that she needed to stay away from me, for her own good. It had come out a lot harsher than I’d intended at the time, but she’d gotten the message. “There’s sort of a…situation…happening in my world right now. Is everything okay with you?”

  “Yeah, of course,” she replied. “We’re on holiday break, so my brother’s driving me nuts, but other than that I’m good. Why do you ask?”

  I relaxed and let out a breath. “She’s fine,” I whispered to Jesse. To Corry, I said, “Do you guys stay in town for the holidays?”

  “We have to. My dad’s a minister; he has services to conduct.”

  I thought that over. “Listen, I don’t think anyone will involve you, but just…keep an eye out, okay?” Then I added, “Especially for a female vampire with long, dark hair, looks to be in her forties.”

  “What do I do if I see her?”

  “Get your family, keep them inside your radius, and get into a private house. Stay away from the windows and doors. If she gets inside your radius, scream your head off and call me.”

  “Call you while screaming my head off?” she asked, amusement in her voice.

  I took a deep breath. “This particular vampire is extremely bad news, Corry. When I said I couldn’t see you anymore because it was too dangerous, this is one of the people I was talking about.”

  Sobered, Corry agreed. As we hung up, I felt guilty for scaring a teenager, especially one who had been through as much as Corry had already. But it was better to have her scared and alive than relaxed and dead.

  In the parking lot, Jesse said, “So if she’s not a part of this, then someone else must be helping Olivia.”

  “You think she’s working with a human?”

  “That’s my guess.”

  “Wow, I feel like we’re in a detective novel in the forties.” He gave me a puzzled look. “Oh, come on. The PI takes on two cases, and at the end it turns out that they’re the same case!”

  “Except that we’re not at the end, Scarlett. If she—they—really killed those witches to hide their actions, we’re just at the beginning of something.”

  Well, that was alarming. “Huh. But Kirsten said both Erin and Denise could only predict the futures of people they came into contact with. So does that mean they both knew Olivia?”

  “I don’t know.” He sounded tired. “Maybe they both knew the accomplice. But I’m officially assigned to investigate all of it.” His voice sounded a little bitter on the word officially, and I knew he was annoyed at the way Dashiell had pulled his strings. I could sympathize. “And I could really use your help.

  “Will your girlfriend be okay with that?” I sounded a little sour, even to me.

  “Will Eli?” he countered.

  I had nothing to say to that, so we drove the rest of the way in silence.

  Recipedia is a little place on La Cienega that started as an Internet café, back before everyone had their own laptops and smart phones. When people started carrying their own devices, the owner got rid of the computers and found a new gimmick: a different food special every day. There was always a full coffee menu, but each day just one food: a pastry, a sandwich, a soup—it could be anything, but it was always beyond delicious, thanks to a rotation of guest chefs wanting to show off their best items. You wouldn’t think a business could survive with only one menu item per day, but somehow Recipedia made it work. Maybe they had an underground casino in the back or something.

  The place was pretty packed, but I spotted Kirsten’s angelic blonde bun in a booth near the back window.

  “Listen,” I said to Jesse, “she’s nervous about meeting you. She thinks you’re going to try to bust her for…I don’t know, being a witch.”

  He gave me a skeptical look. “Come on. This isn’t the Dark Ages. Half this town goes to Kabbalah meetings.”

  “Whatever. Magical talent is hereditary in humans, and Kirsten’s from a long line. There’s history that you…that most people don’t know about.” I was skirting dangerously close to an outright lie here because there was a part of Old World history that I had personally chosen to keep from Jesse. There are things that are dangerous to know. “I’m not going to get into it, but believe me, it’s a sore spot for her. So try not to act like too much of a cop, okay?”

  Jesse rolled his eyes, but nodded at me. I turned and threaded us through the tables. “Hey, Kirsten. Sorry we’re late.” She looked up. Her eyes were clearer than they were last night, but she still looked tired.

  “Hello, Scarlett.”

  “Kirsten, this is Detective Jesse Cruz. Jesse, this is Kirsten.” They shook hands. Kirsten’s face remained cool, but she looked at me and widened her eyes just a little, the international girl code for whoa. Sometimes I forget how gorgeous Jesse is. I sent her back a look that said I know, right?

  “It’s very nice to meet you, ma’am,” Jesse said. I glared at him. “Can I call you Kirsten?” he added.

  She gave him a wary nod. She was too well-bred to be openly hostile, but I could feel tension coming
off her as she looked at Jesse.

  A waitress wearing one of those headbands with reindeer antlers hustled up to get our drink orders. I asked for two orders of onion rings, today’s food specialty. When she went to get them, both Kirsten and Jesse looked a little amused. “What?” I said. “I haven’t eaten since lunch in New York. Yesterday. And it’s entirely possible that I’ll share.”

  It took just a moment for Reindeer Headband to return with our drinks and my rings—this is one of the benefits of having only one menu item. While she walked out of earshot, I inhaled my first onion ring, “forgetting” to offer any to Jesse and Kirsten. When it was obvious they were both waiting for me to begin the conversation, I swallowed and said, “Okay. Kirsten, did you hear about a car accident last night? With a Jeep?”

  She looked from my face to Jesse’s and back. “No. Why?”

  Jesse spoke up. “Last night, Olivia killed a couple named Liam and Sara Reed. They were in a stolen Jeep.” Kirsten looked at me, reaching over to squeeze my hand. She’d remembered my parents’ names? Surprised, I squeezed back. “Some of the same physical evidence that was found at Erin’s apartment was found at the accident scene.” He told her about our suspicion that Olivia wanted to hide her plans by killing the witches. “Did either Erin or Denise know Olivia?”

  Kirsten was already shaking her head. “No. Not at all. Neither of them ever needed to call in a cleanup.” To me, she said, “They both dealt in the future. They didn’t do spells or charms, nothing that would leave evidence.”

  “Could they have called Olivia without you knowing about it?” Jesse asked.

  “That does sometimes happen, but no. Those two just weren’t capable of that kind of magic.” Her voice was firm.

  “What do you mean, not capable?”

  She sighed. “Witches aren’t turned into witches, like the vampires and werewolves. We’re just ordinary people who happen to be born with the ability to manipulate magic. And we have varying strength.” She thought for a moment. “It’s sort of like being able to sing. There’s a whole spectrum of talent, from not being able to carry a tune to being the world’s greatest opera singer. But at the same time, there’s a question of versatility.”