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"Give me your phone," Eve demanded and held out her hand. Shane looked at her with a frown. "Now, dumbass. Michael's not inside, and his car's gone."
"Michael's got a car? Since when?"
"Since the vampires issued him one. He didn't tell you?"
Shane just shook his head. A muscle jumped in his jaw. "He doesn't tell me shit, Eve. Not since -- "
"Not since you started treating him like the Evil Dead? Yeah. Imagine that."
He silently handed over his cell phone and looked away, staring at the street where Sam's body had been tossed. Claire wondered if he was thinking about his dad's crusade, about the only good vampire is a dead vampire.
Claire wondered if he really, deep down, still agreed.
Eve dialed and put the phone to her ear. For a tense few seconds nothing happened, and then Claire saw relief melt the tension out of Eve's face and body. "Michael! Where the hell are you?" Pause. "Where?" Pause. "Oh. Okay. I need to tell you -- " Pause. "You know." Pause. "Yeah, we'll -- talk later."
Eve folded the phone and handed it back. Shane slipped it in his pocket again, eyebrows up and signaling questions.
"He's okay," she said. Her eyes had gone dark and narrow.
"And?"
"And nothing. He's fine. End of story."
"Bullshit," Shane said, and tugged her down to sit next to him on the curb. "Spill it, Eve. Now."
Claire sat too, on Eve's other side. The curb felt cold and hard, but the good thing was that the patrol car blocked Fenton's view of them. He was talking to the occupants of another car, vampire-tinted, who had pulled up behind the cruiser.
"He was downtown," she said. "At the Elder's Council. They pulled him in there early this morning."
"Who did?"
"The Big Three." Oliver, Amelie and the mayor, Richard and Monica's dad. "Amelie just got word about Sam. But Michael's not hurt or anything." An unspoken for now was at the end of that. Eve was worried. She bent her head closer to Shane's, lowered her voice even further, and said, "You didn't have anything to do with what happened to Sam, right?"
"Jesus, Eve!"
"I'm only asking because -- "
"I know why you're asking," he whispered back fiercely. "Hell no. If was going to go after some vampire, it wouldn't have been Sam. I'd be staking somebody like Oliver, make it worth my time. Speaking of Oliver, he'd be my number one suspect."
"Vampires don't kill their own."
"He arranged for Brandon to die," Claire offered. "I think Oliver's capable of anything. And he'd love to see Amelie even more isolated." She swallowed hard. "She told me once that Sam was safer if she didn't keep him close. I guess she was right."
"Doesn't matter. Oliver keeps his hands clean, no matter what. Some broke-ass human is going to burn for this, and you know it," Shane said. "And it happened in front of our house, and nobody's forgotten what happened with my dad. You don't think we're being set up?"
Crap. Shane was right. The fact that Michael was safe was good, but it was also a double-edged sword; it meant that Michael had been gone when Sam had been attacked.
And Michael was the only one of them whose word might be worth anything to the vampires.
Sure enough, Fenton came back around the cruiser and stared at the three of them for a few seconds, then said, "You're being taken in for questioning. All three of you. Get in the back seat."
Shane didn't move. "I'm not going anywhere."
The policeman sighed and leaned against the quarter panel. "Son, you've got a lot of attitude, and I respect that. But you'd better catch a clue right now, because either you get in my car, or you get in their car." He pointed toward the silent dark sedan, the one with vampires inside. "And I promise you, that won't end so well. You get me?"
Shane nodded, stood, and gave Eve a hand up.
Claire stayed seated. She pulled up the sleeve on her left arm. The bracelet glittered and glimmered in the morning light, and she held it up for Fenton's clear view.
His eyes widened. "Is that ...?"
"I want to see my Patron," Claire said. "Please."
He went off to talk on his radio, then came back and jerked his head at Shane and Eve. "In the back seat," he said. "You're going to the station. You, kid ..." He nodded toward the other sedan. "They'll take you to Amelie."
Claire swallowed hard and exchanged a look with Shane, then Eve. That hadn't been her plan. She wanted them all to stay together. How could she keep them safe if they got separated?
"Don't," Shane said. "Come with us."
Truthfully, that was starting to sound like a better idea. The vampires weren't going to be happy, and her shiny gold bracelet didn't exempt her from suspicion. Amelie could still order her hurt, or killed.
"Okay," Claire said. Shane looked massively relieved as he ducked his head and entered the back seat of the cruiser. Eve followed him in.
The cop slammed the door after Eve, before Claire could get in the patrol car.
"Hey!" Shane yelled, and hit the car window. He and Eve were both trying to get out, but the doors weren't opening.
Fenton grabbed her by the arm and hustled her over to the other sedan, opened the door, and put her in the back seat before she could protest. Claire heard the faint click of locks engaging, and sat very still, trying to see through the gloom.
One of the vampires flicked on the overhead light. Oh crap. It was two of her not-favorite people. The woman was pale as snow, with white-blonde hair and eyes of palest silver. Gretchen. Her partner, Hans, was a hard man made of angles, with graying short hair, and a stony expression.
"I wish we'd gotten the boy instead," Gretchen said, clearly disappointed. Her voice was low-pitched, throaty, with a heavy foreign accent. Not quite German, but not quite anything else, either. An old accent, Claire thought. "He was so rude to us when last we spoke. And surely his father deserves a lesson, even if the boy does not."
"Amelie says just bring this one," Hans said, and put the car in gear. He looked at Claire in the rear view mirror. "Seatbelt, please."
She had trouble wrapping her head around that -- why did he care? -- but she clicked the safety restraint shut and sat back. Like the ride in Sam's car the day before, she couldn't see a thing outside the windows except a faint gray dot where the sun was rising.
"Where are you taking me?" she asked. Gretchen laughed. Claire caught the flash of fangs, but Gretchen didn't really need them to be scary. Not at all.
