Simple, but fun.
Eve hugged her, hard. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “What happened to the old frosting?”
Shane, sitting at the table, raised his hand. “Took one for the team.”
“Jesus, you ate it? All of it?”
“Nah.” He held up the bowl that was sitting in front of him. There was still about half a cup left. “Couldn’t finish it all.”
Eve blinked and looked at Claire, who shrugged and said, “I always thought he was sweet.”
The next day, they were all up early—hideously early, according to Eve, who looked hollow-eyed and desperate as she glugged down three cups of coffee before heading up to hog the bathroom for an hour and a half. Claire had wisely done all her showering and getting ready before Eve was even up.
She hadn’t seen Michael at all yet, but Shane was up, yawning and looking almost as out of it as Eve. “Why are we doing this again?” he asked. “And where are all those doughnut things I bought?”
“Eaten,” Claire said. “Besides, you ate about a pound of frosting last night. No sugar for you.”
This time she got the finger, which was amusing; he never, ever shot it at her. She gave it right back, which made him smile. “So wrong. So what’s Slave Driver Eve got us doing today?”
“We have to take the cake and flowers over to the ballroom,” Claire said, ticking it off on her fingers. “Decorate the tables. Put out the plates and forks. Get the punch ready and set up the plasma table . . .”
“You cannot be serious.”
“Relax—we’re not managing the plasma table. The blood bank is doing that.”
“Great. My two pints are going to be party food.”
“Stay on target, Shane. What are you wearing?”
“Relax, Fashion Police. I’m dressing up. I’ve got a tuxedo T-shirt and everything.” When her mouth opened in horror, he grinned. “Kidding. I’ll look okay. Oh, and I’m wearing a turtleneck, so don’t get on to me about the bruises not going with my shoes or anything.” The bruises were, Claire had to admit, spectacular today, though his voice sounded more normal. “I promise, no lime green suits.” He yawned. “I guess I’d better go bang on Michael’s door. Dude’s going to be late to his own party, and Eve would stake him right through the heart. Messy.”
He took his coffee and ambled away, and Claire found herself standing there smiling like an idiot. She didn’t know when it had happened, but something had changed in Shane—something important. It wasn’t a big shift, from most perspectives, but he seemed . . . more responsible now. Less the rebel slacker and more someone who liked being thought of that way.
Progress.
She sucked down the rest of her coffee, fast, and washed up the mugs in the sink. She was wrist-deep in warm, soapy water when Shane’s voice came from behind her, calling her name. She looked around, and saw him standing in the doorway, holding it open. He looked . . .
Odd was her first thought, but in the next second, she amended it to scared. She hadn’t seen him scared very often.
“Shane?” She left everything where it was and reached for a towel to wipe her hands.
“You’d better come out here,” he said. “We’ve got visitors.”
“Who . . . ?” It wasn’t even eight a.m. and someone had come calling? So not right.
“Sheriff Moses and Dick Morrell,” Shane said. “They’ve got Michael with him. He never came home last night.”
“Oh God,” Claire breathed. “Is he okay?”
“Depends,” he said. “Come on.”
She threw the towel at the counter and didn’t care where it landed as she followed him out, down the hall, and into the parlor room at the front, where Hannah Moses and Morganville’s mayor, Richard Morrell, were waiting. Hannah was dressed in her crisp blue police uniform, holding the peaked cap under her arm; she was a tall African-American woman with a scar on her face that she’d earned in Afghanistan combat, and she was one of the most capable and practical people Claire knew. Richard Morrell was wearing a suit and tie, but the tie was pulled loose and it seemed like yesterday’s clothing, from the wrinkles and the dark circles beneath his eyes. He and Hannah were both kind of young—under thirty, at least—and even though Shane had never gotten over Richard being Monica’s brother, Claire thought he was sort of all right.
They both nodded at Claire as she came into the room.
Michael didn’t. He was sitting down in one of the chairs, elbows on his knees, hunched over. Like Richard, he didn’t look like he’d changed out of the jeans and dark blue shirt he’d been wearing yesterday. He raised his head to glance at Claire, then returned to studying the carpet.
“What’s wrong?” she asked breathlessly. She’d expected it was something to do with Michael, but he didn’t seem to be in custody, exactly. Besides, handcuffs were more Shane’s style.
Eve came in right behind her, still in a black silk kimono robe embroidered with cranes; her hair was up under a towel turban. She went to Michael and touched him on the shoulder. He looked up and smiled wanly, put his paler hand over hers, and straightened up in the chair.
Hannah cleared her throat. “I need to ask you all some questions,” she said. “About a missing vampire.”
Claire saw Shane’s reaction, and imagined she’d made the same half-guilty start. Someone must have seen him snooping, or heard them talking . . . but they hadn’t gotten involved. They hadn’t! Great, now we’re guilty even when we didn’t do anything.
“We don’t know anything about it,” Claire said, before Hannah could continue. “We overheard it at the grocery store, that’s all. The only thing we know is that whoever the vampire is, he’s been missing for two weeks and the checks aren’t getting signed.”
Richard Morrell frowned at her. So did Hannah, just a little. “What grocery store?”
“The . . . Food King?” Too late, Claire realized that she’d gone entirely the wrong direction. “Oh. So . . . not him?”
“Separate case,” Hannah said, “but similar circumstances, as it happens. We’re looking into Mr. Barrett’s disappearance, but we have a more pressing issue now. He was the fourth vampire to go missing in the last three weeks, and now there’s a fifth.”
“It’s Naomi,” Michael said. “Nobody’s seen her since she visited us here. We’re the last people who saw her.” He didn’t say alive, but Claire understood what he meant. It was possible that Naomi, like the other four vampires, had been killed.
No wonder Hannah was tense, and Richard was losing sleep. Dead vampires in Morganville were a very, very serious problem—for humans.
“I need you each to tell me exactly where you’ve been since then,” Hannah said, and took out a pad and pen. “Eve. Go first.”
Eve clutched her robe closed, even though it was tightly tied, and her dark eyes widened. “You think I—”
“I don’t think anything, except that you need to establish your movements so I can eliminate you, fast. You know that if something is going on, Amelie will come down hard on whoever is responsible. Let’s make sure you’re not on that list.”
“But I didn’t—we wouldn’t—”
“Just tell her where you’ve been,” Michael said. “Eve. It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
But looking at him, at the tense set of his body and the worried look in his blue eyes . . . Claire wasn’t so sure.
SEVEN
CLAIRE
The interrogation—because that was what it was, no matter what anyone said—took about an hour. One by one, Eve, Claire, and Shane told Hannah where they’d been and what they’d done, hour by hour, since they’d last seen Naomi sitting here in the parlor.