Hunter's Trail (A Scarlett Bernard Novel)

by Melissa F. Olson

  She must have seen the doubt on his face, because her enthusiasm waned suddenly and she said in a more desperate tone, “Look, Jesse, I know it’s kind of crazy, but it’s our best shot.”

  Jesse thought it over once more, and had to admit that she was right. The bargest was their best option. “Even so,” he said slowly, “we have no idea where the scout is. Will and Kirsten haven’t been able to find him, and they know way more than we do about the Luparii.”

  Scarlett clapped her hands together, enthusiasm back. “Ah, yes. But you and I have been so busy working on finding the nova, we haven’t tried finding the scout until now.” She leaned forward and held out the pad of paper she’d been writing on.

  Jesse crossed the space between them to take it from her. “Beverly Hills Hotel, the Four Seasons . . . what is this?”

  “A list of places where the scout might be staying. The Luparii are rich, and a lot of the really swanky LA places let rich people bring their pets into the hotel . . .” She shrugged. “It’s a work in progress.”

  “It’s a good idea,” Jesse mused, “but the problem is that they could also be in a rental house, or an unoccupied private home, or somewhere out of town.” He put the list down. “This is a good plan B, but there’s gotta be another way to find the Luparii.”

  “Yeah?” Scarlett said. She grinned at him, a look full of such excitement and hope that it pierced his chest, hollowing out the spot where doubts about her had begun to collect. “What do you got?”

  Jesse sat down and leaned back and thought it over for a moment. The Old World leaders had been trying to find the guy using their own channels. But Scarlett was right; no one had tried coming at the problem the way the police would. If he was at work on a regular investigation, what would he have done?

  “Start at the beginning,” Jesse said. He stood up and paced the living room again. “Henry Remus goes to the place where the wolves run between moons. Ana was there, and she knew Remus might show up. She changed him and then abandoned him. Then she told her good buddy Terrence, who had connections in Europe, possibly from his time in London. He called the Luparii and told them about the nova wolf. The Luparii got interested and sent someone to LA to hunt him down.”

  Scarlett shrugged. “That’s the working theory, yes.”

  “But then the scout killed Terrence and his sidekick, Riddell. Why?”

  Scarlett’s brow furrowed. “Maybe he found out that Terrence and Ana don’t really know who or where the nova is.”

  “But then why bring the Luparii to LA to begin with?” Jesse ground out, frustrated. He looked at Scarlett. “Ana is the last link in the chain. We need to talk to her right away.”

  To his surprise, Scarlett paled, unmoving. “What?” Jesse asked.

  Her lower lip trembled for a second, but then she lifted her chin and met his eyes. “Ana’s dead,” she told him. “She came after me two nights ago, upstairs in my room, and I killed her with the boot knife you gave me.”

  Jesse sank down in the nearest chair, flummoxed. “Scarlett . . .”

  “That’s why Molly is evicting me. And I didn’t tell you, because I didn’t want you to know that I murdered someone,” she rushed on. “And I didn’t want you to look at me the way you are right now.”

  He stared at her. “Anastasia’s really dead?”

  “Yes,” she said in a small voice.

  Sighing, he leaned back in the chair, taking that in. “You’re not a murderer,” he said, toward the ceiling. Deciding that was unfair, he sat up and looked at Scarlett. “I know I’ve been hard on you,” he said quietly. “And I know we haven’t been on the same page on this case. I should never have taken Dashiell’s deal; it’s knocked everything out of whack. But I also know you well enough to know that you wouldn’t have killed Anastasia if you’d had any other choice.”

  Scarlett visibly relaxed in her seat on the couch. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “You’re welcome.” He absently rubbed his arm, which still hurt where Anastasia had wrenched it. “I just don’t know where that leaves us, as far as the investigation goes.”

  Scarlett looked at him thoughtfully, her fingers fidgeting in her lap. “You said Ana was the last link in the chain. Ana and Terrence made the nova and brought the Luparii.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “But we’ve been assuming that they brought the Luparii here to go after the nova,” she pointed out. “What if they made the nova in order to bring the Luparii here?”

  He stared at her. “Why?”

  “What do the Luparii do?”

  “Kill werewolves,” Jesse said promptly.

  She sat up, swinging her legs to the floor and leaning forward. Despite wincing a tiny bit at the movement, Scarlett plowed on. “Ana’s upset about Lydia. So she comes after me, for the cure. And maybe she goes after Will, for not protecting her girlfriend from Eli in the first place. She’s not strong enough to kill him herself, and her pal Terrence is too crazy to do it. So she gets the Luparii to send a scout here who can take care of Will. But the scout doesn’t appreciate being used as someone else’s tool, so he kills Terrence and his henchman.”

  Jesse considered Scarlett’s explanation. It made sense. It would have been much easier for Anastasia to just shoot Will with a silver bullet, but even that might not necessarily kill him unless the circumstances were perfect. And then Ana would have had to face the rest of the pack for killing their alpha.

  Instead, Ana had managed to arrange for someone else to do all her dirty work, without even paying them. It wasn’t a bad plan, except for the part where the Luparii aren’t anybody’s puppet. “Why go after Will, though?” he asked Scarlett. “Why not go after Eli?”

  “For one thing, she couldn’t find him,” she pointed out. “But more importantly, everything that happens in a wolf pack is the alpha’s fault, good or bad. To Ana, part of Will’s job was to keep Eli and Caroline from attacking humans. He failed at that.”

  “So she and Terrence found a bigger, badder asshole to go after Will,” Jesse said slowly, shaking his head a little in amazement. “If it’s true, I don’t think Terrence even knew the whole plan. I could see him calling the Luparii, but when I suggested he made the nova, he flipped out on me. I don’t think it was faked.”

  “Ana used him,” Scarlett said simply. “I don’t know how much of it was always the plan, or how much of it was her taking advantage of a moment, but Lydia’s change was ripping her apart. It was destroying their relationship. Add that kind of stress to the regular tension and discomfort that the werewolves have to deal with every day . . .” She shrugged helplessly, looking a little sad. “It’s kind of tragic. Ana and Terrence were both miserable, but they were too weak to get what they wanted. They found someone stronger to do it for them, but then they were too weak to survive the help.”

  “And now we have to clean up their mess,” Jesse grumbled. “Okay. I think we’re right about what’s happening—”

  “Jesse,” Scarlett broke in, fear in her voice. “If we’re right, then the Luparii scout knows who Will is. And tonight’s the full moon. There’s no guarantee that he’ll go after the nova when he could go after the pack.”

  That chilled him. “Remember, if we can take away the bargest, the Luparii isn’t going after anybody, not today,” he said to Scarlett. She nodded resolutely, and he went on, “But how do we find the scout?”

  “You’re asking me?” Scarlett asked, wide-eyed.

  “Shh. I’m thinking aloud.”

  “Oh.”

  Jesse snapped his fingers. “Phone records.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket again and began scrolling numbers.

  “Who are you calling?” Scarlett asked.

  Listening to the phone ring, Jesse said quickly, “If Terrence called the Luparii in France, maybe he and the scout talked once the scout was here.”

  “Unless they set up their meeting before the guy left France,” Scarlett pointed out.

  “Shh. Be hopeful,” Jesse told
her. She gave him a tiny smile, and motioned that she was going to the downstairs bathroom. He nodded and she hobbled away.

  After five rings, Glory finally answered her phone. “Sherman.”

  “Glory, it’s me. Has Bine identified the two bodies yet?” he asked. No point in tiptoeing around it.

  “Well, hello to you too. Yes, they got the IDs in this morning. Terrence Whittaker and Drew Riddell. But you already knew that,” Glory said angrily.

  Jesse blinked. “You know why I couldn’t tell her,” he said, and then winced at his own voice. He sounded just like Scarlett when she talked to him.

  “Yeah, but you left Runa and me holding the bag. Bine really tore into us.”

  “What’d you say?”

  Glory sighed into the phone, a heavy static sound. “I don’t know; Runa made something up.”

  “Good, good,” Jesse said distractedly. “Listen, I need to get Terrence Whittaker’s phone records. Just for the last week.”

  There was a long, pregnant silence. “I can’t just drop everything to chase some hunch for you, Jesse,” Glory said. “I have my own work to do.”

  Jesse pressed on. “I know, Glory, but it’s important. I need to know if he called a number in France, and any calls he made here in the city.”

  There was a pause. “Is this coming from you or Dashiell?” she asked icily.

  He swallowed. Dashiell was using Glory’s kids as leverage. Jesse would never do that . . . but at the same time, there was too much at stake to dick around with a distinction that didn’t really matter. He was working for Dashiell now, after all. “Both, I guess.”

  “Then I’ll see what I can do,” Glory said shortly, and hung up the phone. Jesse stared at it, feeling about two inches tall. He already regretted lumping himself in with Dashiell. He hoped she wasn’t thinking that he was on Dashiell’s side now instead of hers.

  With an acidic burn in his stomach, Jesse tried to ignore the thought that if she was, she might be right.

  Chapter 40

  While we waited for Jesse’s friend to call back, I sat back down on the couch, stretching both legs out on the carpet in front of me. After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Jesse said uneasily, “How are you doing over there?’

  I had been half dozing, but I jerked awake at his voice. “I’m okay,” I said automatically.

  Jesse came over and sat down next to me, our elbows touching. His legs were stretched out next to mine. “Listen, while we’re waiting . . . I think maybe we should talk.” He turned his head to look at me, direct and frank. “About us.”

  “Is this really the best time?” I said tentatively. Because I am a coward.

  He gave me wry smile. “I don’t think you and I are going to get a best time.”

  That was fair. When I didn’t say anything more, Jesse began, “Scarlett, listen.” I was expecting the “let’s just be friends” talk, considering the way things had been between us for the last couple of days. But to my surprise, he said firmly, “I want us to be together.”

  My astonishment must have shown on my face because he added, “I know things have been weird lately. I agreed to take this position because you were hurt and you needed help. But we’ve been arguing a lot, and I know I haven’t been much use.”

  “You left me,” I reminded him, the hurt like an itch in my chest. “You left me with two bodies to move by myself.”

  He nodded. “And I’m sorry I left you after I promised to help. But this whole thing . . . it’s just really made me see how toxic your life is right now.”

  I blinked, taken aback. “What?”

  He leaned forward. “Hear me out, Scar,” he continued. “Everything you do—hiding bodies, erasing all the violence and bloodshed—it all has ripples. It affects people, and eventually that’s gonna catch up with you. I know Dashiell and those guys want to keep things quiet, and I don’t necessarily disagree. But it doesn’t have to be you.”

  Blanching, I said quietly, “Someone has to do it. And I have a unique skill set. Because it’s me, there’s a lot less risk, less violence.”

  Jesse waved a hand. “That doesn’t mean it’s not corrupting. I worry that every time you do this stuff, you’re giving up a piece of yourself. This isn’t good for your soul, Scarlett.”

  I winced. “You might be right, Jesse,” I said, keeping my voice very calm, “but then again, it’s my soul. What makes you think you can tell me what to do with it?”

  “Grow up, Scarlett,” he said, not unkindly. “You know this isn’t some misogynistic dominance thing. That’s not who I am, or who we are. I love you, and I don’t want to watch you giving up yourself.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t just quit,” I said weakly. “Even if I wanted to, there are other factors . . .”

  “I know Dashiell is holding your brother over your head,” he interrupted. “To keep you in line.”

  That surprised me. “How did you . . .”

  Jesse rolled his eyes. “I’m a trained detective, remember?”

  I smiled. “Right, sorry.”

  “Anyway. I know you can’t just quit without Jack getting blowback from Dashiell. But maybe we could work something out with him, or get Jack out of town. Or we could just leave—you could make a deal with the Old World somewhere else; offer your null services in exchange for getting Dashiell to back down. You said that LA wasn’t very notable in the supernatural world. There have to be a lot bigger fish than Dashiell.”

  I thought about that. I do make a little money from freelance jobs doing the kind of stuff Jesse was talking about—escorting vampires to daytime meetings, guiding werewolves through stressful occasions, that kind of thing. Certainly nothing that involved throwing murdered women into furnaces. But it had never occurred to me to try to start over with that stuff somewhere else. I felt dread sloshing in the bottom of my stomach. True, I had always kind of viewed my job as a temporary thing, something I’d do out of necessity for a few years and then get out. But when I did, it wouldn’t be to jump right back into bed with the supernatural. “I don’t want to work for the Old World somewhere else,” I said quietly. “I just want a normal life, like I used to have.”

  Jesse snorted, which took me by surprise again. He was just full of surprises today. “No, you don’t.”

  “There you go again,” I said irritably, “telling me about my feelings.”

  “You think you want normalcy,” Jesse retorted. “But you’ve been special for too long. What you want is control over your life.” He spread out his hands. “I’m saying, let’s find a way to make that happen, together.”

  I stared at him. Was he expecting an answer right this second?

  Did I have one?

  “You don’t have to answer right now,” Jesse said, grinning. He’d read my mind. “I know you have to sort some stuff out. But after we catch this guy, I am going to ask you again.”

  His phone buzzed loudly, but he didn’t so much as look at it. Instead, he held my eyes, quirking one eyebrow up, waiting for my response. “Okay?” he said, still smiling devilishly.

  “Okay, okay!” I answered hurriedly, smiling back despite myself. That face was impossible to resist. “Answer the phone!”

  Jesse answered the phone without looking. “This is Cruz,” he said, eyes never leaving mine. “Yeah . . . okay . . . sure.” He glanced around the room and crossed quickly to my abandoned pen and notepad, scribbling something in a margin. “Go ahead . . . okay, got it. Thanks, Glo—” He stopped and held the phone away from his ear, peering at the screen. “She hung up,” he said to himself.

  “What’d you find out?” I asked impatiently.

  He grinned. “We got an address.”

  Chapter 41

  The Luparii scout, Jesse told me, was staying at a rental condo in Huntington Park, not far from Evergreen Cemetery. According to Jesse’s friend Glory, Terrence Whittaker hadn’t made many phone calls. Shortly after the run-in with Molly and me at Will’s house, however, he had called a handful of
numbers in Europe. The last had an area code for Versailles, France, when he must have gotten in touch with the Luparii. After that conversation, all of Terrence’s subsequent calls were to one of three phone numbers. Since there were so few, and she figured Jesse would ask, Glory had tracked down addresses for all three numbers. One was Anastasia’s cell phone, one was Drew Riddell’s cell phone, and the last was a rental property in Huntington Park.

  Now that the LAPD had the number it wouldn’t be long before they pursued the lead too, so Jesse spent a few minutes on the phone with someone named Bine, explaining that he was going to check out Terrence Whittaker’s cell phone info himself. The conversation went on for a while, and when he hung up Jesse was shaking his head a little. “She said I’ve got twenty-four hours before she puts someone else on it,” he told me. “I got the sense that she wants to kick me off the case, but whatever Dashiell did to make me a floater is apparently working.”

  Next Jesse tried calling the property’s owner to find out who was renting the condo, but the guy didn’t answer his phone. We still had the address, though. I was ready to pretty much get my jacket and go kick in the guy’s door—well, okay, supervise Jesse as he kicked in the door—but Jesse pointed out that we needed, you know, a plan. He went upstairs to retrieve my laptop from my bedroom and sat down next to me on the couch. I entered my password, and he opened a browser and typed in the address for something called Google Maps.

  “You’ve never heard of this?” Jesse said disbelievingly, fingers flying on my computer’s keyboard. “What do you even use this thing for?”

  “Oh, you know. E-mail. Wikipedia. Looking up movie times.”

  Jesse snorted and pulled up a satellite image of the address in question. The rental condo was one of four rectangular buildings clustered around a few green blotches. “Cooooool,” I breathed. “What’s with the giant spears of broccoli?”