Ghost Town

“Call in where?”

“To my commanding officer.”

“Hannah, you’re not in the marines now! You don’t have a commanding officer!”

Hannah didn’t seem to hear her this time. “They’ll think I’m AWOL. I need to tell them what happened.” Then she looked around again, and the look in her face was a little desperate. “Except I don’t know what happened.”

“I just told you! Flashback!”

“This isn’t a combat flashback!”

“No, it’s . . .” Lying, Claire figured, was now the only way to go. “You’ve been drugged. You have to believe me. You live here, in Morganville. You’re the chief of police.”

Hannah was shaking her head—not as if she didn’t believe it, but as if she didn’t want to believe it. “I’m not going back to Morganville. No way in hell am I signing up for that.”

But you did, Claire started to say, then held it back. She didn’t know why Hannah had changed her mind; maybe something had happened to her while she was in Afghanistan, or since she came back from there. But whatever it was, in Hannah’s mind, it hadn’t happened yet.

“I know this is hard,” Claire said. “But we need your help. Really. All you have to do is call in permission for us to go into Founder’s Square. Would you do that?”

“I don’t know you people,” Hannah said. “And you’re driving around in a damn hearse. It doesn’t exactly make me want to trust you. . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she blinked as the hearse’s doors opened, and Michael and Eve got out. “You’re . . . you’re the Glass kid. The guitar player. I remember you. And—” Hannah did an absolute double take, the most surprised Claire had ever seen her. “Eve? What the hell did you do to yourself? Have your parents seen how you look?”

Claire exchanged a mute second of stares with her friends, and Eve finally said, “Ah, yeah, they’ve seen it. I’ve been dressing like this for about three years; don’t you remember?”

“No,” Hannah said, and suddenly sat down on the sidewalk. Just . . . sat. She put her head in her hands. “No, I don’t remember that. I remember . . . you were in school with my brother Reggie, before he . . . I saw you at the funeral. . . .”

Eve crouched down next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “I know,” she said. “But then you went to Afghanistan, and then you came back, and now you’re the head police chick. You have to remember that!”

“I don’t,” Hannah said, and Claire realized with a shock that she was crying silently, tears running down her face. “I don’t remember that at all.” She pulled in a deep breath, wiped her face, and let Eve help her to her feet. “All right. Let’s say all that’s true, even if I don’t believe it. What do you want?”

“Just . . . we need you to call in to the guard post at Founder’s Square and give us a pass to see Amelie,” Claire said. “Please. I’ve tried phoning. She’s not answering.” And Claire found that she was really, truly worried. Not that Amelie was a friend, exactly, but the idea of a Morganville without her was . . . unthinkable. She couldn’t get the image of Amelie lying limp on the floor in Oliver’s arms out of her head.

Hannah stared at her like she was even crazier than before. “We don’t ever call the Founder by name.”

“We do now,” Claire said. “I do. We all do. You have to believe me—things around here are different now. Please, Hannah. We really need this if we’re going to help people.”

Hannah took another look around at the town, at them, and finally nodded. “All right,” she said. “You tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Anything to make this all . . . stop.”

Claire got into the police car and found Hannah’s cell phone. Sure enough, it had all kinds of numbers plugged in, and one of them was to the guard station at the entrance to Founder’s Square. She dialed it for Hannah and held out the phone.

“Guard post?” Hannah said, and here, at least, she seemed to be on familiar ground. Marine training did that for you, Claire guessed. “This is Lieut—This is Hannah Moses. I’ve got four kids in a hearse who are cleared for admittance to Founder’s Square.” She covered the phone receiver and looked at Claire. “Anything else?”

“Um . . . they should let us in to see Amelie.”

Hannah took in a deep breath and nodded as she uncovered the receiver. “Yeah, and they’ll need unescorted access to the Founder’s office.” She listened, and her eyes widened a little. “Great. Thank you.” She passed the phone back to Claire, who hung it up and put it back in the car. “They said they’d put you on the list. Just like that.”

“Thanks, Hannah.” On impulse, Claire hugged her. Hannah was a solid block of muscle, but then she softened a little and hugged her back. “Go home. Don’t go out again until things stop feeling weird, okay?”

“Home?” Hannah echoed, and looked haunted again. “I’ve got no home here.”

Well, she probably did, but Claire didn’t know where it was. She thought for a second, then said, “Go to Gramma Day’s house. You used to live with her, right?”

“When I was a kid, yeah.”

“She’ll help you,” Claire said. “Tell her I said hello.”

“She’s a tough old lady,” Hannah said, but it sounded fond. “Yeah, I’ll go there. But you owe me explanations, Claire. Real ones.”

“If this goes right, I won’t owe them anymore,” Claire said. “Be careful, okay?”

Hannah smiled faintly. “I’m from Morganville,” she said. “I’m always careful.”

They left her behind, still standing beside her patrol car, and headed for Founder’s Square.

The guards looked inside the car, but didn’t search; Claire supposed they had no real reason to, with Hannah approving their visit. Eve looked nervous, but not too nervous, and having Michael with them guaranteed that the vamps would keep their hands off, anyway. The guards waved them on, and Eve, now driving, guided the big car down the ramp and into the underground parking area. “Damn,” she said. “I hope I can park this thing in here.”

In the end, she wedged it sideways in two spots, but since the garage was mostly deserted, Claire supposed nobody was going to complain. “Okay, we’re here,” Shane said. “What now?”

“Let’s do this smart,” Michael said. “Shane, you and Eve stay here with the weapons. I’ll go up with Claire. If we don’t come back in ten minutes, load up and come running.”

“You’re taking weapons,” Shane said.

“Just what we can conceal,” Michael said. “If we go in there with crossbows, Amelie will kill us all just for doing it. She’ll overlook personal defense. Not armed assault.”

Claire lifted her backpack. People were so used to seeing it on her that it didn’t matter what she carried inside. She knew Michael had stakes on him. It would have to be enough. “I’ll call you if it’s okay,” Claire promised, and kissed Shane quickly. He grabbed her hand when she tried to leave the car, and pulled her back for another kiss, a longer one. He didn’t want to let go, and neither did she, but he finally sighed and nodded, and she opened the back door.

“Hey, Mikey? You get her hurt and I’ll end you.”

“You let anything happen to Eve and I’ll do the same,” Michael said. He’d just finished kissing Eve, too. “While you’re at it, don’t get yourself killed, either, bro.”

“Ditto. And don’t kiss me.”

Claire cocked her head at him, exasperated. “Seriously, Shane? Ditto? That’s the best you can do?”

Shane and Michael exchanged identical looks and shrugs. Guys.

“Let me show you idiots how it’s done,” Eve said, and hugged Claire fiercely. She kissed her on the cheek. “I love you, CB. Please take care of yourself, okay?”

“I love you, too,” Claire said, and suddenly her throat felt tight and her eyes burned with tears. “I really do.”

Shane and Michael watched them with identical expressions of blank bemusement, and finally Shane said, “So basically, it’s what I said. Ditto.”

Michael grinned and headed for the elevator that would take them up to the Elders’ Council level. “Coming?”

Claire picked up her heavy backpack and ran to join him.