the two neutral cops here with you so your guys could beat the information out of Shane?’”
Richard smiled slowly. “You know, that’s not a bad idea, but no. I honestly thought you guys would have a place for us to start looking. We can go with that plan B if you come up empty, though. I never liked that kid anyway.’”
Michael’s eyes were narrowing, and Claire felt the whole barely reasonable alliance starting to come apart. “Wait!’” she said. “Um, I think I have something. Maybe.’”
“Maybe?’” Richard turned to her. “Better be good. It’s your boyfriend on the line, and if anything happens to my sister, I swear I’ll torch him myself.’”
Claire looked at Michael, then Eve. “I saw him,’” she said. “Shane’s dad. He was in Common Grounds.’”
“He was what?’”
“In Common Grounds. It was the same day I met Sam for the first time. I wondered what he was doing there, but—’”
Richard interrupted her, grabbing the neck of her T-shirt and hauling her forward. “Who was he talking to? Who?’” He shook her.
“Hey!’” She smacked at his hand, and to her surprise, he let go. “He was talking to Oliver.’”
Silence. They all stared at her, and then Hess put a hand to his forehead. Lowe said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a second. Why would the Fearless Vampire Killer be talking to Oliver? He knows, right? Who Oliver is? What Oliver is?’”
Claire nodded. “Shane must have told him. He knows.’”
“And Oliver knows who Frank Collins is,’” Hess said. “He’d know him on sight. So we’ve got two mortal enemies sitting down together, and we don’t know why. When was it, Claire?’”
“Right before Brandon was killed.’”
Another silence, and this one was deep. Lowe and Hess were staring at each other. Richard was frowning. After a long moment, Lowe said slowly, “Anybody want to take a bet?’”
“Spit it out, Detective,’” Richard said. “If you know something, say so.’”
“I’m not saying I know. I’m saying I’ve got a hundred dollars that says Oliver knew all about Frank Collins rolling back into town, and he used Frank to get rid of a troublemaking child-molesting bastard who’d outlived his usefulness.’”
Claire asked, “Why didn’t he just kill him, if he wanted him dead?’”
“Vampires do not kill each other. They just don’t. So this way, he and Frank both get what they want. Oliver gets Morganville in chaos, Amelie losing control—and I heard about the attack on her downtown. Maybe Oliver was hoping they’d take her out, leave him in charge. Brandon was probably a small price to pay.’” He paused for thought. “I’m guessing here, but I’ll bet Oliver made Frank a whole lot of promises he never intended to keep. Brandon was a sign of good faith, to get Frank to commit. And holding on to Shane was insurance. No way would Oliver have let Frank keep on killing, though. Chaos is one thing. A bloodbath is another.’”
“How does this help?’” Michael asked. “We still don’t know where they are.’”
Hess reached in his pocket and pulled out a folding pocket map—a Morganville map. It was marked in grids, color-coded: yellow for the university, pale red for the human enclaves, blue for the vampires. The center of town, Founder’s Square, was black. “Here,’” he said, and walked to the dining room table. Michael moved his guitar case out of the way, and Hess spread the map out. “Travis, you know who owns what near the square, right?’”
“Yeah.’” Lowe leaned forward, fished some reading glasses out of his coat pocket, and looked closer. “Okay, these are warehouses here. Vallery Kosomov owns some of them. Most of these belong to Josefina Lowell.’”
“Anything owned by Oliver down there?’”
“Why down there?’” Lowe asked.
“You want to answer that one, Officer Morrell?’” Hess asked. Richard edged in to consider the map, and marked out something with his finger.
“Underground runs right through here,’” he said. “This is the only area of the Underground where we didn’t see the van come and go.’”
“Which tells you what?’” Hess asked.
“Crap. They were faking the video. Showing us where they weren’t, sending us all over town. And hiding where they were.’” Richard looked up at Hess, then Lowe. “Oliver’s warehouses are off of Bond Street. It’s mostly storage.’”
“Gentlemen, we have exactly’”—Hess consulted his watch—“fifty-two minutes. Let’s get moving.’”
They all moved to the door, and it was going fine until Richard Morrell glanced at Claire and Eve, put his arm up like a barricade, and said, “Oh, I don’t think so, kids.’”
“We’ve got a right to—’”
“Yeah, I’m getting all choked up about your rights, Eve. You stay here.’”
“Michael’s going!’” Claire said, and winced, because she sounded like a disappointed little kid instead of the responsible, trustworthy adult she’d intended.
Richard rolled his eyes nearly as well as Eve. “You sound like my sister,’” he said. “That’s really not attractive. And it’s not going to work. Michael can take care of himself on a whole bunch of levels you can’t, kid, so you. Stay. Here.’”
And Hess and Lowe backed him up.
Michael just looked vaguely sorry to be in the middle of it, but relieved all the same that they weren’t going. It was Michael who took Eve’s car keys from the tray on the hall table, where she always left them. “Just in case,’” he said, and dropped them in his pocket. “Not that I don’t trust you or anything, just that I know you never listen to me.’”
He slammed the door on Eve’s frustrated cry.
And that, Claire thought, was that.
“I can’t believe they left us,’” Claire said numbly, staring at the door. Eve kicked it hard enough to leave a black mark on the wood and stalked away, into the living room. She stood at the window until the police cruiser pulled away from the curb and glided off into the night. Then she turned and looked at Claire.
She was smiling.
“What?’” Claire asked, confused, as Eve grinned wider. “Are we happy about getting left behind?’”
“Yes, we’re happy. Because now I know where they’re going,’” Eve said, and reached in her pocket. She pulled out a second key ring and shook it with a merry, metallic jingle. “And I’ve got a spare set of keys. Let’s go save their asses.’”
It was a good thing the Morganville police force was otherwise occupied, because Claire thought that Eve probably broke every traffic law that was on the books. Twice. She couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes very often—just peeks every other block or so—but it seemed like they were going very, very fast, and taking corners at speeds that would have given a driver’s-ed instructor a heart attack. Not much traffic, at least, in this predawn darkness. That was something, Claire supposed. She clung to the stiff aftermarket shoulder belt as Eve screeched the big black Cadillac through a hairpin right-hand turn, then another, and into one of the storm-drain tunnels.
“Oh God,’” Claire whispered. If she’d been in danger of motion sickness before, it was ten times worse in the tunnel. She squeezed her eyes tight shut and tried to breathe. Between the dark, the panic, and the closed-in spaces, it wasn’t exactly her best rescue attempt ever.
“Almost there,’” Eve said, but Claire thought she said it to herself. Eve wasn’t calm, either. That was…not comforting. “Left turn up ahead…’”
“That’s not a turn!’” Claire yelped, and braced herself against the dashboard as Eve slammed on the brakes and the big car shimmied and sprayed shallow water as it skidded. “That’s a dead end!’”
“Nope, that’s a turn,’” Eve panted, fought the wheel, and somehow—Claire had no idea how—got the car to make the impossible corner with only a little bang and scrape up against the concrete wall. “Ouch. That’s gonna leave a mark.’” And she laughed, high and wild, and hit the gas again. “Hold on, Claire Bear! Next stop, Crazytown!’”
Claire thought they were already there, actually.
She lost track of the nauseatingly twisty course they were following. In fact, she started to think that Eve didn’t know where she was going at all, and was just making random turns hoping to find an exit, when suddenly the tunnel ended, and the car hit an upslope, and they rocketed out into the open darkness again.
“Bond Street,’” Eve said. “Home of upscale vampire shopping, fine restaurants, and…oh shit.’”
