for these two.’”
“Wait! I want to talk to Shane!’” Claire yelled. Gretchen propelled her toward the exit with a shove. It was move, or fall over the dead, bloody bodies.
Claire moved. Behind her, she heard Eve doing the same.
She blinked away tears, wiped angrily at her face and nose, and tried to think what to do next. Shane’s dad, she thought. Shane’s dad will save him. Although, of course, the dead guys she was stepping over indicated that rescue had already been attempted, and that hadn’t gone so well. Besides, Shane’s dad wasn’t here. He hadn’t stuck around when Shane got caught. Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe nobody cared but her.
“Easy,’” Detective Hess said, and stepped in beside her to take her by the elbow. He managed to make it feel like escorting, instead of arresting. “There’s still time. The law says that the convicts have to be displayed on the square for two nights so that everyone can see them. They’ll be in cages, so they’ll be safe enough. It’s not the Ritz, but it keeps Brandon’s friends from ripping them apart without due process.’”
“How—’” Claire’s throat closed up on her. She cleared it and tried again. “How are they going to—?’”
Hess patted her hand. He looked tired and worried and grim. “You won’t be here when it happens,’” he said. “So don’t think about it. If you want to talk to him, you can. They’re putting them in cages now, at the center of the park.’”
“Oliver said take them back,’” Gretchen said from behind them. Hess shrugged.
“Well, he didn’t say when, did he?’”
The Founder’s Park was a large circle, with walkways like spokes in a wheel, all leading to the center.
And at the center were two cages. Cells just big enough for a man to stand up, not wide enough to stretch out. Shane would have to sleep sitting up, if he slept, or curled in a fetal position.
He was sitting, knees up, head resting on his arms, when Eve and Claire arrived. The biker was yelling and rattling his bars. Not Shane. He was…quiet.
“Shane!’” Claire almost flew across the open space, grabbed the cold iron bars in both hands, and pressed her face between them. “Shane!’”
He looked up. His eyes were red, but he wasn’t crying. At least, not now. He managed to move around in the small, cramped cage until he was sitting closer to her, and reached through the bars to lay his hand against her cheek, stroking it with his thumb. It was the cheek that Oliver had slapped, she realized. She wondered if it was still red.
“I’m sorry,’” Shane said. “My dad—I had to go. I couldn’t let him do this. I had to try to stop it, Claire, I had to—’”
She was crying again, silently. With his thumb, he wiped away the tear that fell. She could feel his hand shaking. “You didn’t do anything, did you? To Brandon?’”
“I didn’t like the son of a bitch, but I didn’t hurt him, and I didn’t kill him. That was already done when I got there.’” Shane laughed, but it sounded forced. “Just my luck, huh? Charging off to be the hero, I get to be the villain instead.’”
“Your dad—’”
He nodded. “Dad’ll get us out. Don’t worry, Claire. It’ll be okay.’”
But the way he said it, she knew he didn’t believe it, either. She bit her lip to hold back a fresh wave of sobbing, and turned her head to kiss his palm.
“Hey,’” he said softly. He moved closer to the bars, pressing his face between them. “I always said you were jailbait, but this is ridiculous.’”
She tried to laugh. She really did.
His smile looked broken. “I’m going to consider this protective custody. At least this way, I can’t do anything that’d get me in real trouble, right?’”
She leaned forward to kiss him. His lips felt just the same, soft and warm and damp, and she didn’t want to move away. Not ever.
He sat back first, leaving her stranded there tingling and once again on the verge of tears. Dammit! Shane could not be blamed for this. It wasn’t fair!
“I’ll talk to Michael,’” she said.
“Yeah.’” Shane nodded. “Tell him—well, hell. Tell him I’m sorry, okay? And he can have the PlayStation.’”
“Stop it! Stop it—you’re not going to die, Shane!’”
He looked at her, and she saw the bright spark of fear in his eyes. “Yeah,’” he said softly. “Right.’”
Claire clenched her fists until they ached, and looked at Eve, who’d been standing quietly in the background. As Eve came toward the cage, Claire turned away and went to Detective Hess. “How?’” she asked again. “How are they going to kill him?’”
He looked deeply uncomfortable, but he looked down and said, “Fire. It’s always fire.’”
That nearly made her cry again. Nearly. Shane already knew, she thought, and so did Eve. They’d known all along. “You have to help him,’” she said. “You have to! He didn’t do anything!’”
“I can’t,’” he said. “I’m sorry.’”
“But—’”
“Claire.’” He put both hands on her shoulders and pulled her into a hug. She realized she was trembling, and then the tears came, a huge flood of them, and she held to the lapels on his coat and cried like her heart was breaking. Hess stroked her hair. “You bring me proof that he had nothing to do with Brandon’s death, and I swear to you, I’ll do everything I can. But until then, my hands are tied.’”
The idea of Shane burning in that cage was the most horrible thing she had ever imagined. Get hold of yourself, she thought furiously. You’re all he has! So she pulled in deep, shaking breaths and stepped back from Hess’s embrace, scrubbing the tears from her face with the sleeve of her T-shirt. Hess offered her a tissue. She took it and blew her nose, feeling stupid, and felt Eve’s hand on her shoulder before she even knew Eve was there behind her.
“Let’s go,’” Eve said. “We’ve got things to do.’”
It had been Michael in the doorway when they’d driven by on their way to Founder’s Square, and it was Michael in the doorway when the car pulled to a halt at 716 Lot Street. Gretchen opened the back door to allow Eve and Claire to scramble out. Claire looked back; Hess was still in the backseat, watching them go. He wasn’t making a move to get out with them. “Detective?’” she asked. Eve was already halfway up the walk, moving fast. Claire knew that the first rule of Morganville was “Never hang around out in the dark,’” but she did it anyway.
“I’m going back to the station,’” he said. “Hans and Gretchen will drop me off. It’s okay.’”
She didn’t like the idea of leaving anybody alone with Hans and Gretchen, but he was the adult, and he had to know what he was doing, right? She nodded, backed up, and then turned and ran the rest of the way up the steps and into the house.
Michael had pulled Eve inside, but not far in; she nearly ran into the two of them when she charged over the threshold. She slammed the door and locked it—Shane or Michael had replaced the locks again, and added more— and spun around to see that Michael had Eve in a bear hug, pressing her against him so tight that she nearly disappeared. He looked at Claire in total misery over Eve’s shoulder. “What the hell is going on? Where’s Shane?’”
Oh God, he didn’t know. Why didn’t he know? “What happened?’” she blurted. “Why did you let him leave?’”
“Shane? I didn’t let him do anything. Any more than I let you go running off unprotected in the middle of the day—his dad called. He just…left. It was still daylight. There wasn’t anything I could do.’” Michael pushed Eve back a little and looked at her. “What happened?’”
“Brandon’s dead,’” Eve said. She didn’t try to soften it, and her voice was as hard as an iron bar. “They’ve got Shane in a cage on Founder’s Square for his murder.’”
Michael sagged back against the wall as if she’d punched him in the stomach. “Oh,’” he whispered. “Oh my God.’”
“They’re going to kill him,’” Claire said. “They’re going to burn him alive.’”
Michael closed his eyes. “I know. I remember.’” Oh, crap, he’d seen it done before. So had Eve. She remembered them saying so before, though they’d spared her the details. Michael just breathed for a few seconds, and then said, “We have to get him out.’”
