Kiss of Death

our playbook.” He nodded toward the ice cream parlor. “So? You want something?”

“Yes.” She made no move to get out of the car.

“Then what—oh.” He didn’t sound upset about it. He’d been telling the truth, Claire thought. He really didn’t have the ice cream gene.

But he did have the kissing gene and didn’t need that much of a hint to start using it to both their advantages. He leaned forward, and at first it was a light, teasing brush of their lips, then soft, damp pressure, then more. He had such wonderful lips. They made her ignite inside, and it felt like gravity increased, all on its own, dragging her back sideways on the big bench seat; pulling him with her.

Things might have really gone somewhere, except all of a sudden there was a loud metallic knock on the window, and a light shined in, focusing on the back of Shane’s head and in Claire’s eyes. She yelped and flailed, shoved Shane away, and he scrambled to get himself together, too.

Standing outside of the car was a man in a tan shirt, tan pants, a big Texas hat.... It took a second for Claire’s panicked brain to catch up as her eyes fastened on the shiny star pinned to his shirt front.

Oh. Oh, crap.

Local sheriff.

He tapped on the window again with the end of a big, intimidating flashlight, then blinded them again with the business end. Claire squinted and cranked down the window. She licked her lips nervously, and tasted Shane. Inappropriate!

“Let’s see some ID,” the man said. He didn’t sound like the Welcome Wagon. Claire searched around for her backpack and pulled out her wallet, handing it over with trembling hands. Shane passed over his own driver’s license. “You’re seventeen?” The sheriff focused the beam on Claire. She nodded. He shifted the light to Shane. “Eighteen?”

“Yes sir. Something wrong?”

“Don’t know, son. You think there’s something wrong about taking advantage of a girl who’s under eighteen on a public street?”

“He wasn’t—”

“Sure looked that way to me, miss. Out of the car, both of you. This your car?”

“No sir,” Shane said. He sounded subdued now. Reality was setting in. Claire realized they’d just made the same mistake that Michael had—they’d acted as if they were home in Morganville, where people knew them. Here, they were a couple of troublemaking teenagers—one underage—making out in the back of a car.

“You got any drugs?”

“No sir,” Shane repeated, and Claire echoed him. Her lips, which had felt so warm and lovely just a minute ago, now felt cold and numb. This can’t be happening. How could we be this stupid? She remembered Shane’s list of ways not to die. Maybe this ought to be number four.

“You mind if I search the car, then?”

“I—” Claire looked at Shane, and he looked back at her, his eyes suddenly very wide. Claire continued. “It’s not our car, sir. It’s our friend’s.”

“Well, where’s your friend?”

“In there.” Claire’s throat was tight and dry, and she was holding Shane’s hand now in a death grip. If he searches the car, he’ll open the coolers. If he opens the cooler and finds Michael’s blood ...

She pointed to the ice cream shop door. The sheriff looked at it, then back at her, then at Shane. He nodded, switched off his flashlight, and said, “Don’t you go nowhere.”

Through all of that, Claire had only a blurry impression of him as a person—not too young, not too old, not too fat or thin or tall or short—just average. But as he walked away, his belt jingling with handcuffs and keys and his gun strapped down at his side, she felt cold and short of breath, the way she had when she’d faced down Mr. Bishop, the scariest vampire of all.

They were in trouble—big trouble.

“Fast,” Shane said, as soon as the door started to close behind the sheriff. He yanked open the door, grabbed Michael’s cooler, and looked around wildly for someplace to put it. “Go to the door. Cover me.”

Claire nodded and walked up to the door, looking in the grimy glass, blocking any view past her of the street. She made little blinders out of her hands as if it were hard to see in. It wasn’t. The sheriff had walked straight up to Michael and Eve, who were still standing at the counter of the ice cream shop. Eve had an ice cream cone in her hand, fluorescent mint green, but from the look on her face, she’d forgotten all about it.

Claire glanced back. Shane was gone. When she looked back into the store, the sheriff was still talking to Michael, Michael was answering, and Eve had a terrified look in her eyes.

Claire nearly screamed when someone touched her shoulder, and jumped back. It was Shane, of course. “I put it in the alley, behind a trash can. Covered it with a stack of newspaper,” he said. “Best I could do.”

The sheriff had finished his conversation, and he, Eve, and Michael were heading for the door. Claire and Shane backed up to the car. Claire leaned against him and felt his heartbeat thudding hard. He looked calm. He wasn’t.

Eve didn’t even look calm. She looked, well, distressed. “But we didn’t do anything!” she was saying, as they came outside. “Sir, please—”

“Got a report of trouble up at the Quik-E-Stop,” the sheriff said. “People fitting your description threatening folks. And to be honest, you kind of stand out around here.”

“But we didn’t—” Eve bit her lip on blurting that out, because in fact they had. Michael had, for sure. “We didn’t mean anything. We just wanted to get some ice cream, that’s all.”

Hers was starting to leak in thin green streams. Eve, startled, looked down and licked the melted stuff off her fingers.

“Better eat that before it’s all over you,” the cop said, sounding relaxed and almost human this time. “Do I have your permission to search your vehicle, ma’am?”

“I—” Eve’s eyes fixed on Shane, behind the sheriff, who was giving a thumbs-up. “I guess so.”

He seemed surprised; maybe even a little disappointed. “Sit down over there, on the curb. All of you.”

They did. Eve had trouble doing it gracefully in the poofy black skirt she was wearing, but once she was down, she started wolfing down her ice cream. Halfway through, she stopped and pounded her forehead with an open palm. “Ow, ow, ow!”

“Ice cream headache?” Claire asked.

“No, I’m just wondering how the hell we could be so bad at this,” Eve said. “All we were supposed to do was drive to Dallas. It shouldn’t be this hard, right?”

“Oliver made us stop.”

“I know, but if we can’t stay out of trouble on our own—”

“That was an ice cream headache, right? Not an aneurysm?”

“That’s where things explode in your brain? Probably that last thing.” Eve sighed and bit into the cone part of her dessert. “I’m tired. Are you tired?”

Michael wasn’t saying anything. He was staring at the car, and the cop searching it—going through bags, purses, glove box, even under the seats. He finally glanced over at Shane. “What about the weapons?”

Shane’s mouth opened, then closed.

“Uh—”

Right at that moment, the cop opened Claire’s suitcase and pulled out a sharp silver stake. He held it up. “What’s this?”

None of them answered for a few seconds; then Eve said, “It’s for the costumes. See, we’re going to this convention? And I’m playing the vampire, and they’re playing the vampire hunters? It’s really cool.”

That almost sounded real.

“This thing’s sharp.”

“The rubber ones looked really fake. There’s a prize, you know? For authenticity?”

He gave her a long look, then dropped it back into Claire’s bag, rummaged around, then closed it. He left the suitcases and bags outside the car, scattered around, and after checking in the wheel wells and in the spare tire section, he finally shook his head. “All right,” he said. “I’m going to let you all go, but you need to go right now.”