“Jesse, I agreed to meet up at ten. You’ve got to—”
“Scarlett,” he interrupted. “Stop. It’s not about that.” I went silent. “Do the names Sara and Liam Reed mean anything to you?”
“Never met ’em.” I yawned hard enough to bring tears to my eyes.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’d remember ’cause Sara and Liam were my parents’ names.”
There was a terrible, pregnant silence. Goose bumps broke out on my biceps. “Jesse?” I said uncertainly. “Are you still there?”
When he spoke again, his voice had cop detachment. “A couple named Sara and Liam Reed were found dead in a stolen Jeep over by Laurel Canyon. It’ll be a while before they can do the autopsies, but the cause of death is probably cutting wounds to the wrists. Only there’s no blood in the car.”
When I remembered how to breathe I said, “Cuts, not bite marks? Is there a chance it’s not Olivia?”
His voice was steady, but the detachment was gone when he said, “I don’t think so. There was no blood inside the car, but she used some of it to write on the outside of the windshield.” His voice trailed off, and I had to work not to snap at him. He shouldn’t be sparing me. This was my fault.
“Just tell me,” I said through my teeth.
He sighed, long and sad. “It said Welcome home.”
Chapter 5
I tried to talk Jesse into letting me come to the crime scene, but he was adamant that I stay put. I told him that I had probably seen way more crime scenes than he had and would know how to spot anything out of the ordinary. He pointed out that Olivia might just be trying to lure me out into the open so she could kill me. The argument ended when Jesse said I’d be arrested if I got within fifty feet of the Jeep, and I tossed the phone on the bed next to me and stared at my bedroom ceiling.
I felt torn in half. A big part of me—hell, maybe the majority—wanted to just curl up in a ball and sob, for Liam and Sara Reed, for their families, for myself. Then there was the part of me that seethed with frustration. Why was she doing this? Was she trying to make me crazy too? And if so…was it working? Unable to hold still, I put on my running shoes and went into Molly’s room to pound away on her treadmill for a while. After only a few minutes, though, the adrenaline was burning its way out, and I could already feel the edges of the queasy emptiness that would replace it.
Over the hum of the treadmill, I thought I heard something chime. I climbed onto the side rails and pulled the emergency clip in one movement, freezing in place. The doorbell rang again. Scrambling off the machine, I raced back into my room and grabbed my Taser off the charging station, cursing myself for not carrying it with me in the first place. I sped down the stairs and paused a few feet from the door, panting. Should I look in the peephole? I’d seen a movie where a guy had gotten shot in the eye that way. But Olivia wouldn’t use a gun, would she? Then again, who knew what Olivia would do—
“Scarlett? It’s Eli.”
I mentally slapped myself in the head. You couldn’t just yell, “Who is it,” could you, Scarlett? I stepped close to the door and closed my eyes, concentrating on my radius. Yup, a werewolf, and no other supernatural creatures with him. I opened the door.
He was leaning into the doorway, arms on each side of the frame, wearing the same jeans and tank from the bar. Werewolves don’t really need jackets, even in December. He took one look at me and said, “Cruz didn’t tell you I was coming, did he?”
“Uh, no.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you planning to Tase me?”
“Oh.” I looked at the Taser in my hand and stuffed it into the pocket of my jacket, which I was still wearing for some reason. “Come on in.”
He stepped through the doorway, and I had a surreal moment of wishing I’d picked up the place. Molly and I aren’t particularly tidy, and rejected outfits were flipped over the back of most of the furniture. But it wasn’t really the time. “I don’t need protection,” I began automatically. “If Jesse told you to bodyguard me, I’m doing just fine by myself. It’s not like she can get near me, and—”
“Stop, stop.” He held up his hands. “Cut the crap, Scarlett. Olivia is crazy, and you don’t know what she might think to do to you. I’m staying until the morning.”
Now it was my turn to raise an eyebrow. He actually blushed. “On the couch. Or on the back porch, if you prefer.” He gave me a tentative grin. “If you really want to get rid of me you’ll have to have me arrested, and Cruz already said he’d bail me out.”
“No,” I said stubbornly. “I don’t need help. You’re not a werewolf around me, remember? You’re just a guy. What can you do that I can’t?”
His eyes hardened, but he didn’t rise to the bait. “If it helps, don’t think of it as me protecting you. Think of it as me helping you protect yourself.”
“I can handle it without you,” I said, looking away.
“But you don’t have to.”
I shook my head, unable to think of a thing to say.
“Scarlett,” he said softly, stepping closer. “What happened with us? You’ve barely looked at me since the basement.”
Ah, yes. The basement where a mass murderer had chained me to the floor and felt me up, until Eli had literally dropped into the room to rescue me. That basement. “I’ve looked at you,” I protested feebly. “We talk almost every day.”
“We talk about work stuff. But things aren’t the same between us. Even Caroline has noticed.” Will’s assistant, Caroline, had recently become a friend. She’s also a werewolf, and the pack’s sigma, its weakest member. I think that makes her sensitive to other people’s moods. Or maybe that’s just Caroline. “Is it Cruz? Are you guys together?”
“No.”
“Are you in love with him?”