Scarlett was toying with the cover of the top copy. “I hate this picture,” she commented.
“Me too.”
“Why the hell would they put crime scene tape on a long brick wall?”
He smiled briefly, but he didn’t like the way she was looking at the book. “Did you read it?” he asked. She hesitated, which pretty much answered the question. “You read it.”
“Dashiell asked me to make sure you stuck with the official story. He got me a copy before it went to print.”
Jesse nodded, the small candle of warmth and hospitality in his chest flickering out. He should have expected that. He hadn’t heard anything from Scarlett, or anyone else from the Old World, so the book must have been acceptable. “Don’t tell me what you thought,” he said tiredly. “I don’t want to know.”
She hesitated again, looking exactly as though he’d demanded to know her opinion and she was trying to dredge up a compliment. He didn’t want to hear whatever she scraped up, so he changed the subject. “Why are you here?” he asked, motioning to the only kitchen chair that wasn’t covered in stacks of junk or boxes. He was still moving things back here from the condo.
Scarlett sat down, tucking her feet close to the chair so she wouldn’t kick Shadow. “Have you seen the news tonight?”
He gestured to the state of the apartment. “Does it look like I’m keeping up with the news?” His voice came out sharper than he’d intended, and Shadow lifted her head from her front paws to eye him.
“Jesse . . .” Scarlett looked pained. “Maybe this was a bad idea.” She stood up again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize things were . . .” She gestured helplessly around the apartment, and he let her flail. He found that he was now perversely interested in how she’d sugarcoat it. “It seems like you’re having a tough time,” she said eventually. “I didn’t mean to add to it.”
“My hard time has nothing to do with you,” he said, annoyed now. Did she think he was still pining over her? That had been a long time ago. “It’s been three years. You have no idea what’s going on in my life.”
That got her attention. “Of course I do,” she replied, a little heat in her voice. “You quit the consultant business because you couldn’t stand trading on your reputation as a cop. But you ran out of money, and then a publisher offered you a truckload of cash for a book. You figured, hey, tons of books are published every day, you’d take the advance and the book would pretty much vanish. Am I close?”
He didn’t answer her, but he dropped into the chair she’d vacated, suddenly too tired to stand. But Scarlett wasn’t done. “Then you fell for your ghostwriter and did the whole quickie Vegas marriage. And I bet you were more surprised than anyone when the book was a huge hit,” she continued. “I don’t know why you’re getting divorced, that’s true, but you can’t say I haven’t paid attention.”
“Because your boss made you,” he countered.
“Jesse.” It was her turn to sound tired. “Do you know how many humans in this county know about the Old World, but aren’t a part of it in some way? There are like six of you. Of course we have to keep tabs.”
We. She had never talked like that before, as though she were on the side of the Old World authorities. The cop part of his brain wanted to ask what exactly “keep tabs” meant. Surveillance? Bugs?
Really, though, did it matter? He sat around in gym shorts watching television. What would they find? “Why are you here, Scarlett?” he asked again. An embarrassing new thought occurred to him. “Did my family call you to do an intervention? Because I’m gonna—”
“No, nothing like that,” she interrupted. “I came to ask for your help.”
He laughed, a full-throated sound that came out more broken than jovial. “Of course you did. You’ve got some nasty case you can’t solve, and you thought you’d crook your finger and poor stupid Jesse would come running in to throw himself in front of it. Am I close?”
She just glared at him, turning on her heel to stalk toward the front door. Shadow was suddenly next to her, though Jesse hadn’t heard the bargest move from under the table. Jesse thought about calling them back, but before he could open his mouth, Scarlett paused with her back to him. She muttered something under her breath and then turned around again.
“It sucks that you think I’d treat you like that,” she said matter-of-factly.
“So this is like a pity thing, then?” Jesse countered, suddenly wondering again if Noah had contacted Scarlett. “Throw me a bone?”
“Why would I pity you,” she snapped, “when you’ve so obviously got that covered?”
He started to argue, but she lifted a hand. “Just . . . stop. I’m not here for me, or for the Old World leaders, and I’m definitely not here to fight. It’s Molly.”
His brow furrowed. “Molly the vampire? Your old roommate?” He’d met her a few times, and actually kind of liked her. He didn’t know many vampires, but Molly had struck him as . . . good. She had an edge of intensity, sure, but she’d always seemed kind and interested, and she’d clearly loved Scarlett. Jesse had been there when Molly asked her to move out, and he’d seen how it had hurt both of them. “What happened?”
“She’s being set up. I’ve got about”—she checked her watch—“nineteen hours to figure out what happened, and then they’re going to kill her.”
He stared, but she didn’t laugh, or take it back. “I guess we’d better sit down,” Jesse said at last.
Chapter 8
Jesse managed to pull together a pot of coffee from the ruins of his kitchen, and I started relating the events of the evening. It took me the better part of an hour to explain everything: the Trials, the bloody note, Molly, the murders. Jesse was as surprised as I had been about Molly’s living situation before the murders, though he had a theory about why she’d arranged her life that way.
“She missed you,” he said, in a tone that suggested it was completely obvious. “She had to kick you out so she could feel safe, but she missed the camaraderie. So she set herself up with twelve little replacement Scarletts.”
My jaw dropped open.
“Think about it,” he went on. “College kids have tons of spare time, weird schedules, and they love to sit around drinking coffee and analyzing movies. Who does that remind you of?”
“Me,” I admitted.
“How old were you when you moved in with Molly?”
“Twenty, twenty-one.”
He nodded. “Same as those girls, I bet. But their lives are—were—simpler than yours. I can see Molly feeling at home with them.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I picked up the story again. I kept my description of the crime scene straightforward, but it was hard to make it sound anything but grisly. Jesse was taken aback, but he’d seen worse things when he was a cop.
To my surprise, he readily agreed that Molly wouldn’t have killed those girls. I had thought I would need to talk him into it.
“If you told me she’d killed some guy who tried to attack her, I would believe it,” he said. “But she wouldn’t hurt those girls any more than she’d hurt you.”
I felt a weight lift from my chest. Someone else believed Molly. I wasn’t alone anymore.
He tilted his head, considering. “But just to play devil’s advocate, what if she slipped and killed one of them, maybe by overfeeding, and then had to kill the rest because they’d witnessed it?”
“She’d just press them to forget, Jesse.” I said. “Besides, there were too many of them. That scenario relies on the girls stumbling in at intervals to witness the crime scene and then get murdered. This isn’t a British farce.”
He bobbed his head, conceding the point. “Besides,” I went on, “if Molly absolutely had to kill them, she would have done it fast and painlessly. Probably snapped their necks.” I swallowed hard, thinking of the girl wearing the same T-shirt I owned. “Those girls suffered. Vampires don’t do that.”