I managed to raise my head and look over at him. Jesse was watching me with his guarded cop face, but there was tension in his jaw and shoulders. “Um, I was threatened very specifically to think no such thing.”

“Just spit it out, Scarlett.”

“Fine.” I made a point to focus on the road in front of us. The kids had cleared away now, and it seemed surprisingly deserted. “I’m not a nutcase; I do have a reasonable line of thinking. She hasn’t taken a run at me yet, right?”

“Right.”

“And I haven’t exactly been hiding. I think she’s saving me for last, which means she’s going to do something else before she gets to me. Based on that room down there, I’d put good money on her trying to kill someone I love. If I surrender, I could cut out the middle part, the part where people I love die. Tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing, Detective.”

“That’s different. I took an oath to protect and serve, and if I could exchange my life for a citizen’s, I would. But I can’t just walk up to a gang leader and say, here, kill me so you can stop killing all these other people.”

“Why not?”

He made a frustrated sound. “Because who’s to guarantee that they really will stop? Not me, because I’d be dead. And because…you don’t just let the bad guy win.”

“You’re being theoretical. I’m being realistic. Olivia isn’t a gang leader, she’s a crazy evil vampire with a metaphorical hard-on for me. Besides, who’s to say I’m not one of the bad guys too?”

“I do.”

I snorted. “No, you just don’t want me to be. It’s not the same thing.”

“Just stop it,” he snapped. “Stop talking about killing yourself—no, letting yourself die, which is even worse because it requires nothing of you—in this reasonable tone, like it’s no big deal. It’s a big fucking deal, Scarlett. And this everyone would be better off without me bullshit is tired.”

You will not cry. You will not cry. I started to shake with the effort, and he put his arm around me. “I’ll be fine, Scarlett,” he said softly. “We all will.” He smelled like Giorgio Armani aftershave and orange peel. We sat there like that for a long time, my thoughts drifting around like butterflies in a fog bank. I felt the house behind me like a presence, as though Olivia had marked it as her territory and some part of her had actually seeped into the walls. Jesse’s warm arm around my shoulders seemed like the only thing keeping it from swallowing me.

Finally, I sat upright and pushed loose strands of hair behind my ears. I turned to face him. He looked troubled. “I know you’re worried about me,” I said. “I know you don’t want to leave me. But there’s something else I have to do, and I can’t have you with me to do it. Do you understand?”

I could tell by his face that he was going to argue, so I cut him off before he got the chance. “I swear, Jesse, you can be around me every second if you want to, but there’s something I have to do first. I’m asking you to trust me. I need you to trust me.”

He searched my face for a long moment and sighed. “It’s three o’clock now. The sun sets around five. If I pick you up at four thirty, will that give you enough time?”

“Six.”

“Scarlett—”

“I’m not going to be home; she won’t be able to find me. And I need the sunset. Please, Jesse.”

The “please” did it. “Okay, okay,” he said reluctantly. “What about that?” he asked, nodding back toward the little cottage. “What do you want to do?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“I could help you—”

“I will take care of it.”

He looked at me for a long moment, and I saw him understand. Then I saw him resign himself. “There’s something else you need to know,” he said. He told me about Kirsten’s party and what they wanted me to do.

“The party’s at seven,” he finished. “Can you do it?”

I was beyond decision making, so I just nodded. I ignored the deeply concerned expression on his face. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but after a moment of hesitation he just stood up.

“I’ll pick you up at six,” he said, and left.

I waited until the Corolla had turned the corner, and then I counted to a hundred. I got a few things from the toolbox in the back of Will’s truck and headed back into the basement.

Then I burned the goddamned house down.

Chapter 21

“Molly. Molly!” I shook her shoulder gently. Then a little harder. Finally, her eyes opened.

“Whaaat?” she said irritably.

“Wake up. I need you.”

She looked at me for the first time and sat up, swinging her long legs over the side of the bed. She wore pink flannel boxer shorts and a Hello Kitty shirt, with Hello Kitty dressed as a goth punk. Vampire or not, her blonde hair seemed to rumple adorably. “What happened?”

As quickly as I could, I told her about the house in Silver Lake—the photos of me, the pictures of her, Eli, Jesse, and my brother.

“You have a brother?” she asked incredulously.

I sighed. Whoops. Molly was a decent friend to me, but anything I did or said could easily end up getting back to Dashiell, so I’d never told her about Jack. But that horse was already out of the barn—Dashiell had given Jack a job specifically to remind me that he could fuck with my last remaining family member anytime he wanted to—and I had bigger problems right now, anyway. “Yes. We’re not really…close. But I need your help with something. I’ll explain on the way.” I hopped off the bed and turned toward the door.