Trail of Dead

“Scarlett, darling,” Olivia’s voice cooed. “Did you get the cookies I sent?”

Now I did sit, my body dropping into the office chair without me really noticing. “Where are you?”

“Oh, come on, baby, where are your manners? Didn’t I teach you anything?”

I felt a familiar little sting for the briefest moment—I had disappointed her! I hadn’t followed directions! As soon as I registered that thought, however, it made me even angrier. I was not a little girl. I was not her Barbie doll. And I didn’t have to play her games. “Where are you?” I repeated, through gritted teeth. Then I remembered the psych report and the background we’d collected: Olivia wanted a family. She wanted me with her. “I—I really want to see you,” I added, letting my voice break with emotion. “I don’t know what else to do.” Well, that was honest.

There was a pause. “I’m afraid tonight’s not a good night, darling. Plans, you know. But we’ll get together soon,” she said coyly. “You can count on it.”

I moved the receiver away from my mouth so she wouldn’t hear me taking a deep breath. That was bullshit. She’d called me, she wanted me to see her fingerprints all over the wolfberry. She wanted me to know she was still in control, still the puppet master—and she wanted me to see her finest hour. Whatever she was planning with Mallory, she wanted to show it off, or she wouldn’t have called tonight.

She wanted me to beg for her. Fine. I could beg. “Please, Livvie?” I pleaded. In a very small voice, I said, “I don’t know where else to go anymore.” Thanks to you, you deranged harpy.

Another long pause. I was still calming down from my earlier crying jag, and I made no attempt to hide my jagged breathing.

“Well…maybe it’s a good night after all,” Olivia said, her voice a little smug. She had won, and she knew it. “Things are going to change now, Scarlett. The way this whole city works is going to change. Would you like to see it happen?”

I waited a beat, and simply said, “Yes.”

“Everything’s going to be better now, Scarlett,” she said soothingly. “We’ll be together again. I have so many new things to teach you.” She rattled off an address. “But you must come alone,” she added.

“I will.”

Olivia hung up without another word. I set the phone down on Will’s desk. She didn’t actually care if I brought backup or not—in her mind, there was nothing that could stop her and Mallory now. Kirsten would have been the biggest problem, and Kirsten had been shot. But it didn’t matter—I wasn’t going to bring anyone with me. Olivia was not going to hurt anyone else.

I was going to stop her first. Or die trying.

I looked around the office, and spotted Eli’s jacket hanging on the back of Caroline’s chair. I dug in his pockets until I found his keys. He wasn’t going to need his pickup anytime soon, and I was guessing that Jesse’s car had the GPS-LoJack thingy. And apparently it was my day for cruising around in half-borrowed, half-stolen vehicles. After a long moment of indecision, I picked up the handset of Will’s office phone and dialed Jesse’s cell phone number. He didn’t pick up, which was a relief, really. I waited for the voice mail tone.

“Hey, it’s Scarlett,” I began. “Listen, I know where she is, and I’m going after her. By myself. Nobody else is going to die because Olivia wants me, and I’m not going to spend one more day as a bargaining chip, or a toy, or bait.” I paused. “I know you think I’m just going to surrender and let her kill me, Jesse, but I promise, I’ll fight. You…you make me want to fight. So thank you for that, I guess. I…I’m sorry it didn’t work out between us.” I rubbed my eyes, thinking about the broken werewolf in the other room. “I’m sorry about a lot of things. But not about this. Good-bye, Jesse.”

I picked up Eli’s keys and my wallet, started for the office door, and stopped again. I turned in a circle. The safe was in the janitorial room with Ana and her girlfriend, but Will had only been in and out for a second, and he wouldn’t have wanted to be puttering with the safe while he was trying to give the women privacy. I went back to his desk and started opening drawers. I found the big revolver in the right middle drawer, next to a bottle of very expensive whiskey. Will must have been planning to put the gun away later. I picked up the gun and clumsily popped out the thingy that stored the bullets. I hadn’t handled a gun like this before, but I’d seen plenty of Westerns with my grandfather when I was little. I counted two bright silver shells and snapped the thing shut again. I checked all the drawers one more time, but the extra bullets, if there were any, must have been locked in the safe. It was better than nothing.

My only real play here was to go the simplest route: get the bad guys in my radius and kill them. Mallory, whoever she was, couldn’t use any kind of spell on me, including her big clay toy, so the greatest danger was that one of them would be carrying a gun. I didn’t have my vest anymore, but I was guessing—well, betting my life, actually—that nobody was going to shoot me on sight. Olivia would try to convert me first, to get me on Team Evil. I just had to play along long enough to get close to both of them, shoot them, and be done. I took a deep breath. Piece of cake.

I looked down at myself, in the boots, T-shirt, and boxers. Where the hell was I going to put it? The boxers were too loose to hold the massive gun up, and my boots were too tight for it to fit inside. I sighed, wishing I’d kept the holster Jesse had given me. Out of ideas, I finally got a roll of duct tape from the desk and taped the gun to my lower back with a big X of tape. It hurt to bend my arms that way, and pulling the gun and tape off of my back would require an even more awkward position, but you couldn’t see the gun while I was moving around in the T-shirt.