Hunter's Trail (A Scarlett Bernard Novel) (12 page)

Tommy led Jesse toward a door behind the counter and into a long back room that was lined on either wall with cheap metal shelving. She had managed to make the narrow room seem even smaller by adding an additional row of shelves going down the middle. Jesse had to turn slightly sideways to make it through the aisle comfortably, and his brother would have had to crab-walk just to get in the room, but Tommy glided through the narrow space easily. The merchandise piled on these shelves was mostly grimy, broken, or extremely expensive—too nice to keep out front, in case of a robbery. There was a whole stack of video game consoles in perfect-looking condition, and one shelf filled with nothing but small boxes with the Rolex logo on them. “Those fall off a truck?” Jesse asked sarcastically, but Tommy didn’t bother to answer. She just stopped in the back left corner of the room. The three-level shelf on this wall was full of weapons.

“Those are all from prop houses,” Tommy said immediately, pointing to the bottom shelf, which was piled haphazardly with guns. “The firing pins have been disabled.”

Jesse shrugged. “Don’t care.” There were knives on the middle shelf, at waist height. Some were encased in leather or vinyl sheaths, and some were bare, but they were all spread out on a clean gray cloth, arranged in order of blade length. The shortest blade was fixed to a set of brass knuckles. The longest was a samurai sword that looked authentic to Jesse, though he didn’t know anything about them.

He picked up a couple of knives, choosing one in a leather sheath, asking, “Do you have any silver knives?”

She shook her head. “It’s not a real practical metal, you know.”

“So I’ve heard,” he said wryly. “Do you have
anything
made out of silver?”

Tommy chewed on the inside of her cheek for a second, eyeing the shelf of knives, and then went up on tiptoes to pick up a small, unlabeled box the size of her hand from the top shelf. “You could say that.”

Jesse opened the box. “You’re kidding.” Tommy just shook her head. Not kidding.

The box held homemade silver-plated bullets for a nine-millimeter pistol. “Where did you get these?” he asked Tommy in amazement.

“I’ve got a dealer in the Valley who makes them. He’s a friend, so I always keep one box here. They sell okay, actually, especially in the last few months.” She shrugged one tattooed shoulder. “Kitsch value is alive and well in LA.”

Jesse almost chortled. Kitsch value. There were probably a couple of customers who liked the novelty of owning actual silver bullets, but he was betting that someone from the Old World had found a place to buy them after Jesse and Scarlett had stopped Jared Hess. Tommy, the girl who liked to flirt with danger, had no idea what she had.

“I’ll take them,” he told her. Jesse carried a .45-caliber Beretta for work, but like most cops he kept a spare gun at home, and that one was a nine-millimeter. They went back up to the cash register, where Jesse paid cash for the bullets and a knife. Tommy didn’t speak during the transaction. Noah didn’t say anything either, but he scrutinized both their faces, trying to figure out what had just happened. As Tommy handed Jesse the bag, she spoke to Noah. “Don’t call me again.”

Noah’s eyebrows went up. “Even to apologize for my brother?” he asked, not bothering to keep his voice down.

Tommy started to shake her head, but then shrugged defensively. “I’d give it some time.”

Noah didn’t speak to him for a long time after they left. After a few miles of freeway, Jesse suddenly found the silence suffocating. “What?” he asked.

“You used me,” Noah said wonderingly. Jesse glanced over. Noah was looking at him with a mixture of curiosity and disbelief. “You wer
e . . .
a
cop
. With me.”

“I’m always a cop,” Jesse said flatly.

“You’re always my brother,” Noah reminded him.

Jesse didn’t answer. Minutes ticked by, and finally Noah said cautiously, “Jess, if you’re over it—if you want to be done being a cop—nobody would blame you. Hell,
Mamá
would be thrilled to have you off the force. She never understood this urge to serve and protect, anyway.”

Jesse’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel, and he fought to keep his voice low. “I do not,” he said through clenched teeth, “arrange my life to thrill
Mamá
.”

“Whatever, man.” Noah shook his head. “What do I know? Maybe you’re just having a rough day. But that wasn’t you back there, man.” His voice hardened. “And if I ever hear you talking like that to
Mamá
or Dad, I will put your goddamned forehead through a wall.”

Jesse felt a flood of shame. Noah commanded, “Tell me what’s going on with you.”

Noah waited patiently as Jesse didn’t speak for a long moment. Then he said, very quietly, “I agreed to do something I’m not proud of.”

His brother answered almost immediately. “So don’t do it.”

“If I don’t, more people could get hurt than if I do.”

“What—”

Jesse shook his head. “I can’t give you details, Noah. I really can’t.”

Noah looked like he wanted to argue with that, but after a beat he just nodded. “People have to do things they’re not proud of sometimes, Jesse. But that doesn’t mean this one decision has to change who you are.”

“Doesn’t it?”

Noah sighed. “You’re such a goddamned perfectionist sometimes. The real world’s not always black and white, little brother.”

“Do you know how many people I’ve arrested who said some variation of that same thing?” Jesse asked sourly. “That’s a criminal’s perspective.”

Noah let out a snort. “Now you’re just being a drama queen. Nobody forced you to join the LAPD, Ugly. You’re the one who signed up to teeter on the moral high ground.”

Jesse smacked the steering wheel in frustration. “I did
not
sign up for this,” he shot back. That was what was bothering him, wasn’t it?

“And yet here you are,” his brother said, not unkindly. “So stop feeling sorry for yourself, do what you have to do, and live with the consequences. That’s being a grown-up.”

“I don’t need you to tell me how to live with consequences,” Jesse snapped. “You don’t know what the last few months have been like for me.”

“Maybe not,” Noah said quietly. Unlike Jesse, his brother was one of the rare people who got quieter when he got upset. “But I do know that you could have gone to the pawnshop by yourself tonight. Instead, you called me.”

The thick bubble of anger in Jesse’s chest began to deflate. “Fuck you,” Jesse said, but without heat. They rode in silence for a few more minutes, until finally he added, “Thanks.”

Chapter 16

I told Corry I needed to think about what she’d said—what else could I do? She was right, but then, so was I. After everything Corry had already gone through because of being a null, she had earned a place in the Old World. But that place was also incredibly dangerous, and if she became part of the supernatural community, it couldn’t be undone. How was I supposed to make that kind of decision on her behalf? I couldn’t even decide when it was time to water a houseplant. They all died on me.

In true Scarlett fashion, I pushed the problem aside for the moment and went to bed.

When pain from my knee woke me up around eight on Thursday morning, there was a note on my bedside table.
Gotta call biz manager today. Please wake me up during biz hours. M.
I yawned, picked up my cane from the floor, and shuffled off toward Molly’s room, my stiff, swollen knee protesting with each movement. I didn’t know how long I’d be interviewing victims’ families, so I figured I might as well get Molly up now.

She made her call from right outside the bathroom door while I was in the shower. Molly’s pretty private about her finances, but I know that she has a business manager who handles all her payments, because I send my comically small rent checks to his office. Like most vampires who’ve lived long enough to make extremely long-term investments (and press the minds of a lot of bankers), Molly never seems to worry about money, or even give it much thought. I suppose the whole point of a business manager is to have somebody else worry about it for you.

After I had completed the arduous procedure of getting dressed while Molly waited just outside my door, she came downstairs to have coffee with me at the kitchen counter. We were sitting there with our mugs, talking about the midnight movie Molly had seen the night before, when the doorbell rang. She slowly walked over to open it, with me following just close enough to keep her in my radius. We had a lot of practice moving around the house during the day like this, and had gotten even better at knowing the exact boundaries of my radius since my injury.

I was far enough back in the living room that I couldn’t see who was behind the door when Molly opened it, but then she yelled over her shoulder, much louder than necessary, “Scarlett! It’s the fuzz!”

“Oh,
man
!” I complained loudly. “She said she was eighteen!”

“You guys are hilarious,” Jesse said drily, following Molly into the house and toward the kitchen. He was carrying a small paper gift bag and a to-go cup of coffee. I stumped back to my stool and picked up my mug again, raising my bad leg to rest on the only empty stool. Jesse could stand, as far as I was concerned.

Molly sat back down too and looked at me, silently asking if we needed to be alone. I shrugged noncommittally. If he wanted Molly to leave, he could ask her himself.

But Jesse ignored Molly entirely, coming right over to stand at my elbow. He was wearing jeans that somehow looked both comfortable and very expensive, a simple blue button-down, and a dark-brown leather jacket that made his eyes pop, dammit. “Sorry I was a dick last night,” Jesse said contritely. He gave me a look that was so sincere and apologetic that I started to blush.
Damn
his hotness powers.

“But I got you something,” he continued. He put the gift bag on the table in front of me. There was red glitter on the paper bag and matching red tissue paper sticking out of it. “Late Christmas present.”

“Yo
u . . .
shouldn’t have?” I said uncertainly.

He nudged the bag toward me. “Open it.”

I picked up the gift bag, which was a lot heavier than its size suggested, and pulled away the tissue paper. Inside was a long piece of black leather the size of my hand. It had sort of a loop on one end, right next to a handle. “Jess
e . . . 
,” I said uncertainly, and pulled on the handle. A long stainless-steel blade slid silently out of the holster. “It’s a knife,” I said blankly. “You got me a knife.” Jesse knew I disliked violence—when we were hunting Olivia, I had refused to carry a gun even after we learned that, unlike most Old World creatures, she was willing to use to them. I’d taken a pretty firm line on not trying to kill people, and Jesse was now trying to work around it.

“It’s a boot knife,” Jesse replied. No one should ever be that cheerful before 10:00 a.m. “To go in your leather boots. I already sharpened it. If you won’t carry a gun, at least you’ll have something to protect yourself with if the werewolves come after you agai
n . . .
what?”

Happily, I had a great excuse for rejecting his newest attempt at arming me. “It’s a really nice knife, Jesse,” I said, putting it back in the holster. “But my boots were destroyed the night of the solstice.” It’s pretty hard to shred leather boots, which is why I wear them whenever the weather’s cool enough. But I’d had to crawl around in a great big mess of broken glass and blood when Eli had lost control of his wolf, and even if the boots had survived the glass, there was way too much DNA embedded in them. They’d gone into Artie’s furnace.

“Oh.” Jesse’s face fell.

But just then, Molly jumped up and grabbed my hand. “Come to the bottom of the stairs a sec?” she coaxed, tugging.

“Uh, okay.” I grabbed my cane and hobbled to the bottom of the staircase. Molly zipped up to her bedroom and back down, just barely managing to stay in my radius the whole time. When she trotted down the stairs, she was carrying a huge cardboard box with
FRYE
printed on the side.

“Back to the kitchen,” Molly sang. I let her lead me back to my chair at the counter. She placed the box in front of me ceremoniously. “I was saving this for your birthday,” she explained happily, “but I think you should open it now.”

I lifted the lid obediently. “Oh,” I breathed. Inside the box lay a pair of black calf-high boots, with a sturdy two-inch rubber heel and small silver buckles at the ankle and calf. They smelled of leather and polish, and were simultaneously simple, functional, and gorgeous. And my size. “They’re
beautiful
, Molly,” I whispered.

“Nice,” Jesse said smugly. “Those are totally you.”

Damn if he wasn’t right. I had figured that if I gave Molly money and asked her to buy new boots for me, she would come back with the kind of boots she’d wear—something thigh-high and bad-girl sexy with a five-inch heel. But she’d surprised me. These were exactly the boots I’d choose for mysel
f . . .
if I had four or five hundred dollars to spare.

“They’re too much, though,” I said sadly. “Way too much.” Molly and I do exchange gifts on special occasions, but I think the Sandra Bullock Blu-ray I’d gotten her for Christmas cost, like, twenty bucks. I pushed the big cardboard box toward her. “I can’t accept them.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Her smile was predatory. “I got
quite
the sale price.”

Jesse shot her his Suspicious Cop eyes. “You didn’t steal them, did you?”

Molly regarded him disdainfully.
“
Please
,”
she sniffed. “I pressed a personal shopper at Nordstrom
years
ago. She gave me her discount. And a sale price.” She pursed her lips in thought, then added, “And a coupon.”

“Oh. U
h . . .
good,” Jesse said uncertainly. He turned back to me. “Anyway, now you can carry the knife.”

“I still don’t think it’s necessary,” I protested, but more feebly. “I have a Taser, Jesse.” A really, really good one that I thought was still illegal for civilians, but I wasn’t going to mention that part. “It has all the stopping power I need.”

He reached over and pulled out the left boot, picking up the knife holster and hooking it on the leather so the handle would be just visible on the inside of my leg. “It’s not about stopping power,” he said patiently. “If you tase one of the werewolves and run, he’ll heal as soon as you’re a few feet away and come after you again. And again. Which gives him time to get more werewolves together.” I bit my lip. He was right, but I didn’t want to admit it.

Jesse reached across the counter to touch my hand. “I know you’re not comfortable, Scarlett, but you need to be able to kill one of them if you absolutely have to. I’m not saying don’t use the Taser; I just think you should have a backup plan. Just in case.”

He looked at me, waiting for a response, and after a moment I nodded reluctantly. I didn’t have to use it, right?

He circled the counter to stand over the stool that I was still using as a footrest and held out the boot. I slid my left foot into it. Perfect fit. “I put it inside left so you can draw the knife with either hand. Do you know anything about knives?”

“No,” I said absently. I was drunk on the scent of boot leather and barely listening. I carefully pulled the right boot on too. It came to just below the swollen area of my knee, so the calf was a bit tight, but wearable. With both my legs propped on the extra stool, I pointed my toes slightly to admire the boots. So pretty. I felt like the underworld Cinderella.

“I’ll show you a couple of things when your knee gets better,” Jesse was saying. “For now, though, you just need to know how to angle for the heart. Be careful—I sharpened it.” He drew the knife easily and put it in my hands, holding it there with both of his.

I finally tore my eyes away from the boots so I could study the wickedly sharp blade that I was now holding. “Jess
e . . .
”

“It’s okay,” he reassured me, gently guiding the blade toward himself. “The heart is here, as you probably know,” he said, tapping the blade
very
lightly against his chest, just right of his breastbone as I was facing him. “But to stab someone in the heart, it’s best to go between the ribs, from here, at an angle.” He took my right hand off the knife and pressed it to his chest under the knife, guiding my fingers down to touch his rib cage. I smelled coffee on his breath. “You feel that?” he asked, his eyes searching mine.

“Honey,
I
feel that,” Molly murmured, and I shot her a glare.

“Don’t look at her, look at me,” Jesse said calmly. I met his eyes again. “This is important. Do you feel the space between the ribs?” I nodded. He moved my left hand down and tilted it so the knife blade would travel up through his ribs if I added any pressure. “Like that. Okay?”

His hands were warm, and I could feel his chest rising and falling under my hand. He trusted me with a knife to his heart. “Okay,” I said finally.

“Good.” Jesse dropped his hands and backed up a few steps.

“Thank you for the knife,” I said to him. “And for the boots,” I added to Molly. “I will wear them with pride and lethality.”

Molly put one hand over her heart and pretended to wipe tears from her eyes with the other. “That’s all I ever wanted,” she said dramatically.

“You’re welcome,” Jesse added, his voice turning sober. “Molly, could you excuse us for a bit?”

I got Molly back to her room, where she would “sleep” for the day. To anyone but me, she would actually appear to be dead—minus the decay—but we liked to pretend she was simply nocturnal. It was just easier to deal with, emotionally. I got dressed while I was upstairs too, and by the time I made it back down, Jesse had taken Molly’s seat and refilled his coffee.

When I was settled back on my stool, he passed me a small stack of index cards. “The bottom card has the name and address for Leah’s roommate, and Kathryn’s boyfriend and her parents. The other cards are questions you should definitely ask,” he explained.

Right. I had forgotten for a moment that I was supposed to go play detective today. “Don’t take the cards with you when you go in, though,” Jesse added. “It doesn’t look natural.”

I glanced through the cards. “Who do I say I am?”

He reached into a jacket pocket and dug out a laminated card on one of those little claw clips. “This is totally unofficial, so if someone pushes you, get out of there. I made it on my mother’s laminator.” I took the ID card, which had my driver’s license picture, the LAPD shield, and a title: Civilian Consultant. “Laverne Halliday?” I asked, wrinkling my nose. “Do I look like a Laverne to you?”

“There really
is
a Laverne Halliday, and she really
does
consult for the department,” he countered. “That way if someone calls to just verify that you exist, it’ll pass through.”

“Oh.” I looked down at my outfit. I had changed into a pair of wide-legged, dressy khakis over the new boots, a lightweight cowl-neck sweater that matched my green eyes, and a black blazer that belonged to Molly and probably cost almost as much as the boots. After a moment of consideration, I clipped the badge onto the hem of my sweater, so it wouldn’t leave any marks on Molly’s expensive blazer.

Jesse eyed me up and down, but in a professionally appreciative manner, if that’s a thing. “You look perfect,” he concluded.

“But what am I supposed to be consulting on?” I asked dubiously. My areas of expertise, after all, were stain removal, body part disposal, and the primetime television schedules of the greater LA area.

“You’re part of a new missing persons support program,” Jesse said promptly. “Checking to see if they need anything, finding out more about the victim—the missing person, I mean. That way you don’t have to try to sound like a cop; you can just talk to them. The most important thing is to look for connections between Leah and Kathryn. I looked around this morning, but I couldn’t find anything on the Internet.”

It was weird to me, how he kept referring to the victims by name. I hadn’t dealt with many dead bodies, but when I had to, I always thought of them as “the body” or “the victim.” I wondered if Jesse was trying to humanize them on purpose, to remind me. Or maybe that was just really how he thought of them.

Either way, I couldn’t really blame him.

“You seem nervous,” Jesse observed. “Don’t worry, you’re going to be great.”

I blew out a breath. “I just wish you were going with me.”

“I wish I was too, but we don’t have that much time before this guy can change again. Splitting up makes the most sense.”

He was right, I knew. “Okay,” I said finally. “I’m ready.”