“But what if she decides to close up shop? Cut her losses, take her goodies, and try to leave?” Eve said. “She could get killed. We have to warn her.”
“Warn her?” Claire felt short of breath, ready to burst out into wild laughter. “Eve, don’t you get it? She rigged our house. She was watching us. Watching everything, every private thing—”
“No,” Eve said. “No, she wouldn’t do that. You’re wrong.”
“I found cameras in the bedrooms!”
Eve’s mouth opened and closed, and Claire didn’t think she’d ever seen her look quite so devastated. She slumped down on the couch and covered her rice-powder-pale face with both hands.
Shane was staring at Claire with a frozen expression. “Which bedrooms?”
“Yours,” she said softly. “And Michael’s.”
For a second Shane didn’t move, and then he reached out, picked up the nearest thing—a DVD case—and hurled it across the room so hard that it dented the wall. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “That little—”
Michael’s face had gone completely still, and he wasn’t playing anymore. He held the guitar as if he’d forgotten he had it. “She was recording us. Her own little Big Brotherreality show, with vampires.”
Eve said nothing. Claire couldn’t even imagine what she was thinking, but she looked utterly miserable.
“We have to go,” Eve finally said. “We need to find where she keeps the recordings, and wipe them out. Every little bit. This can’t happen. She can’t do this.”
“I just hope she hasn’t alreadydone it,” Claire said. “She’s been putting this together for almost a month. She’s got to be almost done by now. If we’re right about her having some kind of sponsor outside of town . . .”
“Then we reallyhave to go. Now. Tonight.”
“No,” Michael said. “Not at night.”
“She’s going to get away with it!”
“That’s a chance we’re going to have to take,” Michael said. “Shane’s right. No charging off into the dark. It has to wait until morning.” He started playing again. His head was down, as if he were concentrating on his music, but Claire didn’t think he was. There was something a little wrong with the way he said it, the way he wouldn’t look at them. “How about more of those sandwiches?”
Eve raised her head and stared at him, tears smearing her mascara into clown makeup. “Unbelievable,” she said. “You know what’s on those recordings. You know, Michael. You’d let her take that and sell it?”
“We need to be smart about this. If we go running off without a plan—”
“Screw your plans!” she shouted, and jumped off the couch, then pounded up the stairs, chains jingling. “Screw you, too!”
Michael looked at Claire, then Shane.
“She’s not wrong,” Shane said. “Sorry, man.”
Michael had lied to them, and Claire caught him at it.
She was on her way to the bathroom with her tank top and pajama bottoms over one arm, thinking about curling up warm in Shane’s arms, when she heard Michael talking in his room. The door was open a crack. Shane and Eve were still downstairs, cleaning up the kitchen.
He was on his cell phone. “No,” he was saying. “No, I’m sure. I just need to go check it out, tonight. Make sure nobody is using the facility without—”
Claire pushed the door open, and Michael twisted around to look at her.
So busted.
He froze for a second, then said, “I’ll call you back,” and hung up.
“Let me guess,” she said. “Oliver. You’re telling him everything, aren’t you?”
“Claire—”
“We asked you. We asked you if you were with us, and you said you were. You promised.”
“Claire, please.”
“No.” She stepped back when he stretched out a hand. “Eve was right. You’re not Michael anymore. You’re Vampire Michael. It’s really us and them, and you’re with them.”
“Claire.”
“What?”
“That wasn’t Oliver.”
“Then who was it?”
“Detective Hess. He was going to meet me at the station and check it out, tonight. Eve was right. We really can’t wait, not even for morning.” Michael’s expression took on a dangerous edge. “Kim crossed the line. She tricked her way in here, and she screwed us over. I can forgive a lot of things, Claire, but I can’t forgive her for this.”
“So you were going to leave us behind.”
His eyes flared hot. “Because I care about you. Yes. Do you know how close Eve came to getting herself killed tonight? And Shane? No more. I’m not risking you guys, not for this. Not for her.”
“Hey! You’re not our father! You can’t just decide we need protecting—we’re all in this together!”
“No,” he said. “We’re not. Some of us get hurt a lot easier than others, and I love you guys. I’m not going to lose you. Not like this.”
He stripped off his ripped shirt and pulled on another one, grabbed his keys from the table, and very gently picked Claire up and moved her when she tried to block his path. “Don’t,” he said. “Claire, I mean it. Don’t tell them where I went. Let me handle this.”
She didn’t say anything.
She didn’t want to lie to him.
Michael stared at her for a few long seconds, long enough that she was almost sure he could read her mind, and then he shoved his keys in his pocket and moved off down the stairs.
She sat down on his bed, staring up at the vent where she’d found the camera. Claire didn’t actually know what she was going to do until she heard Michael’s new replacement car starting up outside, and then she stood, walked down to the kitchen, and interrupted an intense conversation between Shane and Eve at the sink to say, “Michael’s gone to get Kim, and we need to go, right now.”
They both stopped and looked over their shoulders at her. Eve had her arms elbow-deep in soapy water. Shane held a dish towel and a plate.
“Right now,” Claire repeated. “Please.”
Eve yanked the plug on the sink, grabbed the towel from Shane’s hands, and wiped her hands and arms. She three-pointed the towel onto the counter. “I’ll drive,” she said, and ran to grab her keys. Shane stayed where he was, still holding the plate in one hand, watching Claire. He opened his mouth.
“Don’t you dare tell me I can’t go,” she said. “Don’t even, Shane. I’m on those videos, too. You knowI am.”
He put the plate down. “Michael went alone?”
“Mr. Vampire Superhero doesn’t need backup.” Well, that wasn’t quite fair. “He’s meeting Detective Hess there. But still.”
The kitchen door swung open, and Eve blazed back in, vivid in black and white, a mime on a mission. She tossed her keys in a nervous jingle of metal and said, “Weapons.”
Nobody argued that it would only be Kim they were going up against. Shane grabbed a black nylon bag from under the counter—in other towns, people might keep emergency supplies of food and water, maybe a medical kit, but in Morganville, their emergency readiness kit consisted of stakes and silver-coated knives. “Got it,” he said, and tossed it over one shoulder. “Claire—”
“Don’t even!”
He grinned and tossed her a second bag. “Silver nitrate and water in a Super Soaker,” he told her. “My own invention. Ought to be good at twenty feet, kind of like wasp spray.”
Oh. “You get me the nicest things.”
“Anybody can get jewelry. Posers.”
Eve rolled her eyes. “Let’s go, comedian.”
As she tossed the keys again, Shane grabbed them in midair. “I may be a comedian, but you look like a mime, anybody ever tell you that?”
He dashed for the door. Eve followed. Claire shouldered the nylon bag and prepared to shut the door of the house; as she did, she felt a wave of emotion sweep through her. The house, Michael’s house, was worried. It was almostalive, some of the time. Like now.