Malediction: An Old World Story Read Free Page A

request, asking any number of follow-up questions. Does the weapon have to be automatic? Is he right-handed or left-handed? Does he have access to illegal stuff? Does it have to be American-made? But that tactic seemed to just confuse and irritate the producers, and by the second month, Jesse had finally realized that they didn’t actually care if the answer was right , or even all that plausible. They just wanted to be able to say, “Oh, we asked the consultant, and this is what he approved.” Then if the fan message boards complained about authenticity, some PA could go on and write, “The hero cop of Los Angeles signed off on this, so pipe down and go back to jacking off in your mom’s basement. Oh, and please keep watching the show!”
    Now he just gave them his best guess, and they ran with it like it was scripture.
    Jesse arrived at the studio at 9:30 feeling tired and irritable, not to mention frustrated by the way his cell phone wouldn’t stop ringing. If it wasn’t the producers on the Vancouver team, it was yet another junior agent asking for a lunch meeting. Right after the Henry Remus case, Jesse had gotten calls from all the heavy-hitters, wanting to buy the rights to the life story of the young cop who’d caught two serial killers in less than two years. The big fish finally petered off after six months of no’s , but the baby agents were still circling him like hyperactive puppies. He’d changed his cell phone number twice, but somehow they kept finding it.
    When he’d seen Miranda’s name on the caller ID, Jesse had been relieved: here at last was someone he enjoyed talking to, and who wouldn’t want anything from him. Except as it turned out, she did sort of want something from him, and now all of Jesse’s best efforts to avoid talking about the Henry Remus case were blowing up in his face.
    Tell me how my sister really died. If Allison Luther only knew how impossible that was. While he groped for an answer, Jesse closed his eyes, trying to picture her face: youthful, sort of innocent-looking, but with a hardness born of experience. She could play an angel in a movie, if not for her nose, which had been broken at least once. The nose, along with her broad shoulders and tightly muscled limbs, gave the impression of serious strength. He’d only met her briefly, but her features were seared into his memory: the cleft chin, the little widow’s peak on her forehead. Those bright blue eyes. He had nightmares about those eyes, only in the dreams they were open and staring, covered in a white film. Lex wasn’t an exact copy of her fraternal twin sister—the woman whose body Jesse had disposed of—but their eyes were the same.
    The images unnerved him, and he opened his own eyes and said carefully, “Ma’am—sorry, Lex—do you have some reason to believe there’s new information about your sister’s murder?”
    “Yes, I do.”
    “May I ask what that is?”
    There was a brief pause. “Let’s call it an anonymous tip.”
    Her voice was certain, confident, and it puzzled Jesse. What the hell could that mean? Someone had called her and told her there was more to Samantha Wheaton’s death? Jesse quickly ran through the short list of the people who knew about the cover up. He trusted his brother, of course, and Scarlett. Dashiell and Will would sooner kill the entire LAPD than release secrets about Old World crimes. Who else was there? Lizzy Thompkins? Last time he’d talked to Scarlett, she’d said Lizzy was guarded by other werewolves around the clock, but maybe it was possible.
    Still, it wasn’t like he could talk about it. “I’m sorry, Lex, but I can assure you that we got the right man. And the right woman.”
    “Maybe you did,” she said, her voice cooling. “But I didn’t get the full story. And I think I deserve it.”
    Did she? He thought of all his nightmares, and decided that even if he had been allowed to say anything about the Old World, it was better for Lex’s mental