“Oh, he’s not home, dear. Are you calling about his classroom presentations?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jesse responded. “My daughter goes to”—what was the name of that school?—“Roosevelt Elementary, and she’s been raving about Henry’s performance. I just wanted to thank him.”
“Why, that is so nice!” the woman exclaimed, sounding relieved. “Unfortunately, Henry is camping right now. But he checks in with me every week, and I’ll be sure and let him know you called.”
“When are you expecting him back?” Jesse inquired, trying to sound polite.
The woman’s voice changed again, picking up a stronger note of nervous energy. “Oh, we never quite know about Henry’s comings and goings,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. “But—”
“Jesse!” Scarlett yelped, and he looked up. She was pointing frantically at the windshield. “Look!”
He hung up the phone and peered into the darkness of Will’s yard. There was a beat of stillness, and then he saw it: past Will’s house, at the edge of the woods, some of the bushes were moving. Then a man emerged, staggering, with a weight on each of his shoulders. Whatever they were kept getting caught on tree branches, and as Jesse watched, the man had to repeatedly pause to tug them free.
Bodies. They were bodies.
“Shit,” Jesse breathed. “That’s why nobody ever saw him. He came through the woods.” He reached for the door handle, but Scarlett grabbed his arm. “Hold on,” she hissed. “You’ll never catch him if he runs now. Let him get closer, and be ready. I’m gonna try something.”
Jesse clenched his teeth, but he nodded, trusting her. Scarlett closed her eyes, brow furrowing. After a moment her expression smoothed out, and a look of calm replaced it. Jesse glanced back toward the trees. The nova was moving easily across the lawn now, free of the branches. They didn’t have much time. Whatever Scarlett was going to do needed to happen now.
When the nova was halfway to the house, though, he suddenly collapsed under the weight of the bundles, and Jesse realized that Scarlett had expanded her radius. “Go now,” she whispered without opening her eyes. Jesse threw open his door and bolted.
He was running as silently as he could, but the man clearly knew something was wrong. He frantically tried to get out from under the bodies he’d been carrying, which were pinning him to the lawn. The nova managed to push one of them off and was wiggling away from the second. Jesse was going to lose him. Hoping to distract the guy, he shouted, “Stop! LAPD!”
For a second the nova looked like every criminal Jesse had ever encountered—he jerked upright, a look of fear and horror plastered across his face. The guy wasn’t much to look at, really—just a skinny, narrow-shouldered punk with bulging eyes, buzzed hair, and horizontal Slavic cheekbones. Then, with a burst of energy he finally wriggled free of the second body, stumbled toward his feet, and darted for the woods.
Jesse raced after him. He ran three times a week, and boxed and lifted weights on alternate days. As a human, this guy didn’t look like he’d ever heard of exercise, and Jesse was gaining fast. The guy was almost to the trees, but Jesse was just twenty feet away—and then Scarlett’s radius ran out.
The guy stumbled as he left it but regained his footing with unnatural grace, and Jesse knew he was about to lose him. Trying to throw him off, he screamed, “Henry Remus!”
The guy paused, just like Jesse had hoped, but only for a moment. He shot Jesse a toothy smirk, looking feral. Then he turned back toward the woods and vanished.
Jesse kept running, hit the trees, and immediately snagged on a branch that carved a long scratch across his left cheek. Realizing the branch could have hit his eye, he cursed in Spanish and froze, listening. He could hear movement ahead and to the left of him. Why hadn’t he grabbed a flashlight?
Furious, Jesse knew he had to give up. He turned in a slow circle until he saw the lights from the house. Panting, he trudged back toward the bodies. A car door slammed, and he saw Scarlett hobbling toward him with her cane, a heavy-duty flashlight in her free hand.
“Why didn’t you tell me you could extend it?” he yelled to her.
That brought her up short for a moment. Then she started moving forward again, and Jesse waited for her, still catching his breath from the sprint.
“It was . . . fuzzy, after the thing with Olivia,” she said, when they were close enough to hear each other without shouting. “I wasn’t sure if I could do it.”
“You should have gotten out and walked toward us. I almost had him!” Jesse snarled, unable to stop himself.
“I couldn’t concentrate on my radius and walk at the same time,” she explained. “I’m sorry, Jesse.”
“Give me the flashlight,” he snapped. He knew it wasn’t her fault, but he was shaking with adrenaline and rage. They had been so close. The guy had been right there.
Scarlett’s eyes widened, but she obliged, handing over the light. Jesse pointed it at the bodies in front of him. Both women were obviously dead.
“Only two,” she said quietly.
“Maybe he didn’t have time to go back for the third,” Jesse muttered.