Jesse let me borrow his phone so I could call Abby as we walked out to the parking lot where he’d left the White Whale. She crabbed at me for making her work on Sunday, but she promised to messenger over a new phone. In the meantime, she checked on my old phone and managed to retrieve a voice mail that had come in just before sunrise. She sent it right to Jesse’s phone with her technical wizardry, and I plugged one ear so I could listen.
The message was from Silvio, the head vampire in Las Vegas. Apparently, the Venetian wasn’t Dashiell and Wyatt’s only stop after they were finished at the boardinghouse. They had also made a quick visit to the penthouse suite at the Mandarin Oriental.
I didn’t know what Dashiell had said or done to Las Vegas’s leading vampire, but in the voice mail Silvio promised that by the time we landed in LA all footage from the hospital shooting would have gone missing, including everything from the waiting room. He ended by apologizing for any trouble I might have found in Las Vegas, and assured me that I was welcome back anytime. He sounded nervous as hell, which made me smile. Scary encounter with Dashiell aside, Silvio’s backers were dead, and now he was going to have to try to hold Las Vegas all by himself. I gave it maybe three months before some enterprising newcomer showed up to take him out. Served him right.
I couldn’t reach my injury very well, so after we got home Corry helped me Saran Wrap and tape my stitches, then stood next to the shower to help me wash off the blood. To her credit, she didn’t say anything about all the bruises that decorated my body—several of which I didn’t even remember getting. Behind her, Shadow kept ducking in and out of the bathroom to check on us.
“You’re a lifesaver,” I told Corry.
She smiled. “Which is a nice change of pace. Usually you’re the one saving me.”
With her help, I got dressed in some loose-fitting sweatpants and a soft bra that was designed for yoga, but which I saved for when I was lying around the house and couldn’t be bothered with underwire. I put a plain tee shirt on over that and Corry helped me into my favorite jacket, the one Jesse had bought me a few months earlier. He was waiting for us out front, swinging his keys around his finger. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he said, looking me over. “You still look like shit, no offense, and that bruise on your cheek makes you look like you were pistol-whipped.”
“That is only because I was, in fact, pistol-whipped.” I had told Jesse most of the story, leaving out my feelings for Jameson. Jesse and I weren’t romantic or anything; I just wasn’t ready to talk about that yet. Then again, Jesse used to be a detective with the LAPD. He probably figured it out by himself.
“Do you even have a story prepared?” Jesse asked.
“Nope.” I started shuffling out to the car with Shadow right beside me. “Are you coming or not? Because I could totally drive myself. Concussion be damned, you know?”
Jesse sighed and followed me to the van.
It had only been—what, a week?—since I’d been to Jack and Juliet’s place, but it felt like years. Or like a dream. Or maybe I was still kind of in shock. At any rate, when Jesse knocked on the door of their condo, I felt like a total stranger.
The door popped open. “Scarlett!” Juliet rushed forward to hug me, moving fast enough to make Shadow twitch a little. I squeaked with pain. She pulled back, taking in my bruised face and the butterfly bandages on my forehead. “Oh my God! What happened?”
“You really shouldn’t drive when you’re upset,” Jesse said with a smile, holding out his hand. “Hi, I’m Jesse Cruz.”
Juliet automatically took his hand, blinking as she looked up at him. “Oh, okay. Wow. Um, hi, I’m Scarlett’s sister-in-law, Juliet.” She stepped to the side. “Come in, come in. Jack’s on the couch. Jack, honey,” she called. “Your sister’s here, and she looks like she has a better story than you.”
I shuffled inside, with Jesse’s hand subtly resting on my back for support. Jack was sitting on one half of their L-shaped couch, holding an icepack to his head. A football game was playing on the flatscreen. When he turned his head to look I saw a bruised lump on his forehead that matched mine pretty well. We should take our Christmas card photos early.
Jack sat up as he saw us walk in, picking up a remote to flick off the television. “Holy shhhh-crap,” he blurted, and I heard Jesse snicker. I glared at him.
“Sorry, you sound just like your sister. Hi, I’m Scarlett’s friend Jesse,” he said again, stepping forward to shake Jack’s hand, too.
“I’ve mentioned him before,” I put in.
“Yeah, but you didn’t say he looked like that,” Juliet said under her breath, so only I could hear her. “The kids are in their rooms,” she added. “I can get them, but . . . um . . .” She looked from Jack to me, totally uncertain. Would I want the kids to see me in this condition? We were a little bit beyond normal social protocol here.
“Why don’t we sit down?” Jesse suggested. He led me toward the open half of the couch, while Juliet sank into the corresponding armchair.
Jack watched as I lowered myself gingerly to the cushions. I’d taken a bunch of ibuprofen, but the bruised tailbone still hurt like a bitch. “Scarbo? What happened?”
“I rented a car to come back this morning,” I said, using the story that Jesse had come up with on the way. He was really coming along nicely in the “make up lies” department. “I was worried about you, and excited, and I guess I drove too fast. I got into an accident getting off the freeway. Hit the steering wheel, and I fell on my tailbone climbing out of the car.”
I had told Jesse that using a car accident story twice in two days was ridiculous, but he’d argued that that was exactly why it would work. It was too lame to be a lie.
And he was right. Jack and Juliet made the appropriate exclamations of sympathy, and I assured them that I’d be fine.
“You know, in like, a month, we’re going to be laughing about this,” my brother said, shaking his head ruefully. “I can’t believe we both had a crash in the same weekend!”
“Yeah. It’s weird. How are you?” I asked, looking him over. My stomach twisted with guilt. I’d wanted him to walk away without a scratch, but Molly had insisted we needed a bump on the head to sell it. The bump seemed huge, but he didn’t look like he was in terrible pain . . . right?
He gestured toward his forehead. “It’s nothing, honestly. Barely more than a fender bender. And insurance will take care of everything.” He glanced at his wife. “I’m just sorry there was a mix-up at the nurse’s station and they made my situation sound way worse than it was.”
Juliet was wringing her hands in her lap. “And then I made it sound terrible to you, and look what happened.” She shook her head. “I should never have left you there to drive yourself back, knowing how upset you were. I just didn’t think—”
“It’s not your fault, Jules,” I said, carefully leaning over to pat her hand. See, I could do casual touching if I had to. “Besides, I wasn’t just worried about Jack. I was excited. I’ve got some other news.”
Jack instantly looked between me and Jesse, so I rushed to add, “I, um, won some money at the roulette table. And I want you to use it for Logan’s bills.”
They started to protest, so I picked up the purse and upended it on the coffee table. The money from Wyatt fell out.
As Jesse had pointed out in the car, stacks of falling cash was a pretty attention-grabbing visual aid. Both Jack and Juliet went totally silent.
“It’s about a hundred grand,” I added. “I won ninety, after taxes, and there’s a check on the bottom with what I’ve been saving up from freelance jobs for the last couple of months. I want you to have it for Logan,” I said again, because they both looked so stunned, I wasn’t sure how much was getting through to them. “Are, um, you guys okay?”
Jesse, for his part, was grinning.
There were tears, and denials, but eventually I convinced them to keep the damned money. I didn’t say it out loud, but if they’d refused it I would have made Jesse drive me to the nearest homeless shelter and pushed it through the mail slot. I didn’t want to have anything to do with that money, not after losing Jameson. His death hurt, and it was going to hurt for a long time, especially because I couldn’t help but agonize over whether I’d been responsible. Would he still have died if I hadn’t investigated the vampire disappearances? If I hadn’t pushed him so hard? Why hadn’t I understood Lucy’s warning just a little faster? Or driven faster, or tried to find a phone number for Cliff to warn him while I was driving . . . the list of my own bad choices went on and on. At any rate, I couldn’t look at that money without seeing the gaping holes in Jameson’s chest. It was hard enough trying to deal with the sight of Jack’s giant head bump.