Midnight Curse

I pushed out a breath of frustration and nodded at him. “Okay, fine. What do we do first?”

“Sleep,” he said firmly. “Go home and get a few hours.”

I blinked. I was already exhausted, but it wasn’t like we had time to burn. “Why not start now?”

“Because I think you’re right. Molly is the key to understanding this whole thing.” He dug into his pocket for a moment and held up a small, shiny object. The safety deposit box key. “Maybe literally.”

I groaned at the cheesy pun, but my spirits lifted a little. He could be right, and whatever was in that box could help us. “I thought about that, but are we going to be able to get in?” I asked. “I thought safety deposit boxes required like ID and a blood sample and a picture of yourself in a raincoat juggling avocados.”

“Your comprehension of the modern banking system is impressive,” Jesse said solemnly. “But didn’t you once tell me that vampires change identities a lot?”

“Yeah . . .”

“So they must have special rules for vampire clients. Maybe you only need a name or an account number or something.”

I tilted my head for a second, considering. “I can text Dashiell and ask him. If he doesn’t know personally, maybe he could sneak down and ask Molly.”

Jesse nodded. “Cool. What time is sunrise?”

Oh, right. We needed to go back after stupid Frederic had left for the night. “Uh, seven. Well, six fifty-eight.” In my line of business, it was important to know. I checked my watch. “But it’s almost three thirty already, Jesse. By the time I drive home to Marina del Rey and back to Thousand Oaks . . .”

“Good point.” He tilted his head for a second, considering. Then a slow smile spread over his face. “Okay, new plan.” He held up the teal credit card Dashiell had given him. “We’ll get rooms, grab four hours of sleep, and leave here at seven thirty.”

“We’ll hit rush hour,” I protested, but I was weakening. My arm hurt, and the prospect of getting some sleep was tempting as hell.

“We can take the carpool lanes,” Jesse wheedled. “Come on. We’re not going to be any good to Molly without at least a little sleep.”

I allowed him to pull me back toward the front desk to wake up the concierge. Even though we both knew there were no carpool lanes on the 101.

To the surprise of no one, the hotel still had rooms available. I texted Dashiell—I probably could have caught him in the parking lot, but I figured we needed a little break from each other—and arranged for him and Beatrice to go to Jesse’s apartment, get my van, and take it back to my place. Ordinarily Dashiell would have lackeys to do this kind of thing, but we weren’t sure who we could trust. I thought he was also trying to prove to Jesse, especially, that he wanted to be cooperative. I suspected the whole “boundary witch running amok in LA” thing had freaked him out a little. I couldn’t deny taking a little satisfaction from making him jump through hoops for me this time.

Dashiell even promised to bring my duffel bag back to the hotel and leave it at the front desk. In addition to supplies for a variety of crime scenes, the bag had a change of clothes and some deodorant in one of the side pockets. I felt vulnerable without the White Whale, but since it could be tracked by Dashiell’s security team, it would be better to use Jesse’s sedan.

The room was cheap and a little threadbare, but it seemed clean enough. Shadow did her customary security check, and when she was satisfied, I pulled back the bedspread and collapsed on top of the sheets. This was a mistake, because I bumped my stitches. I hissed with pain and squirmed around, trying to find a comfortable position. Eventually I realized that my problem wasn’t my achy body so much as my humming brain. I looked at Shadow, who was sitting neatly on the floor next to the bed, watching me. She would wait until it looked like I was drifting off, and then go sleep with her back against the door.

“I should just call him, huh?” I said to the bargest. She tilted her head at me, looking more pensive than confused. She glanced at the bed, then back at me, as if to say you won’t be able to sleep until you do. Sometimes Shadow’s sentience unnerves me a little.

I sighed. “Yeah, you’re right.” Sometimes you just have to go through with the fight ahead of you.

I dialed Eli’s cell phone. “Scarlett?” he said immediately.

I blinked. His caller ID wouldn’t have recognized the number. “Hi, sorry. Did I wake you?”

“I was waiting up. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Well, I got a cut on my arm, but I’m fine.” I felt a stab of guilt for not calling him earlier, then remembered my reasons. “You told Will about my job tonight.”

A pause. “Yeah, I did.”

I made sure my voice was very calm. “Why?”

“Because he’s my alpha.” There was genuine surprise in his voice. “And because the circumstances were weird, and I was worried about you. Besides, it’s not like you warned me not to tell anyone.”

Because then you would have known it was a big deal, and been in a really awkward position, and ended up telling him anyway. I didn’t say it. There was no point.

There was a long pause, and then Eli said angrily, “Is that why you haven’t called me? You’re punishing me because you think I tattled on you?”

“You’re supposed to be on my side,” I said, sounding stubborn even to myself. “You should have trusted me to handle it.”

“And what if you couldn’t?” he countered. “Admit it, Scar, you’ve got a track record of getting in over your head. How many times have you risked your life without a thought to your safety?”

I felt my jaw clench. Oh look, familiar territory. “My safety is fine. I can take care of myself.”

“With what? A couple of knives?” Real anguish was in his voice now. “Have you ever considered how hard it is for me to watch you dive into these jobs, knowing you’re so goddamned vulnerable? I can get hit by a subway train and walk away, Scarlett.”

“Maybe if it was going really slow. And you’d need recovery time.”

He sighed into the phone. “Stop deflecting. My point is that you’re just out there, and null or not, you are infinitely breakable. Calling Will was my best way to make sure you were okay. That you didn’t need my protection.”

“I never asked for your protection,” I said softly.

We always ended up back here, at this same old impasse. There was a long moment of silence, both of us aware that we were stuck. I was never going to stop fighting for independence, and Eli was never going to stop wanting to protect me. For a moment I felt a wave of despair. How could we ever make this thing work? We loved each other, but what if we were just wired wrong for a relationship?

“This is my job, Eli,” I tried again. “This is part of who I am.”

“Cleaning up crime scenes is your job,” Eli corrected. “Keeping secrets, charging into dangerous situations, putting yourself in harm’s way—that’s just shit you do. I thought you finally grew out of this adrenaline junkie bullshit, but here we are again.”

“That’s not fair,” I protested. “I’m not an adrenaline junkie, and I can’t control when crises come up in the Old World.”

“Maybe not. But you can control when you ask for help. Or when you let your boyfriend know you’re okay.”

I wanted to smack my head against the plywood-looking nightstand. How had this turned around on me so quickly? “This was a unique situation, Eli. Molly’s in trouble.”

Another long pause. “Is she okay?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. But I can’t tell you anything else on the phone.”

He took that in stride. Every Old World faction has been drilled on keeping important matters off telephone conversations. “When will you be home?”

“Not tonight. I’m crashing in a hotel so I can look into something with Jesse in the morning. It didn’t make sense to drive all the way back.”

“You’re . . . staying in a hotel with Jesse Cruz?” He sounded more surprised than outraged, and I couldn’t really blame him. Eli had never asked me to stop seeing Jesse, and if we’d been able to make a friendship work, Eli would have dealt with that. But he knew Jesse and I hadn’t spoken in years, and that had been a relief to him.