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"Confessed how?" Richard asked. He sat down in the chair across from her in the lounge area, and Claire thought he looked tired. Older, too. She guessed it wasn't easy being the semi-sane one in the family. "What exactly did he tell you?"
"That he left one for us," she said, and glanced at Eve, who hadn't said a word. Hadn't, as far as Claire could tell, actually blinked. "He called them presents."
"Did he mention any of them by name?"
"No," she whispered. She felt very, very tired all of a sudden, as if she could sleep for a week. Cold, too. She was shivering. Richard noticed, got up, and came back with a big gray fleece blanket that he tucked around her. He'd brought a second one for Eve, who was still wrapped Shane's black coat.
"Is it possible that Jason just said that because he knew about the bodies being found near your house?" Richard asked. "Did he talk about anything more specific that wasn't in the papers?"
Claire almost said yes to that, but she stopped in time. The police didn't know about the girl being found in their basement. They thought she'd been taken to the church by her killer.
She had no choice. She just shook her head.
"It's possible Jason's all talk, then," Richard said. "We've been watching him. We haven't seen anything to prove that he's got any involvement with these dead girls." He hesitated, then said, very gently, "Look. I don't want to make this about Shane, but he did have a bat, right?"
Eve raised her head, very slowly. "What?"
"Shane had a bat."
"He took it from another guy," Claire said, nearly tripping over the words in her hurry to get them out. "A guy from Monica's party. Shane got jumped, he was just defending himself! And he was trying to get Jason to back off -- "
"We have witnesses who say that Shane swung the bat at Jason after Jason had put away his knife."
Claire couldn't find the words. She just sat there, lips parted, staring into Richard's weary, hard eyes.
"So that's it," Eve said. Her voice started out soft, but hardened quickly. "It's all going to be Shane's fault, because he's Shane. Never mind that some frat ass tried to knock his head off, or that Jason shot him. It's still Shane's fault!" She stood up, stripped away the blanket, and threw it at him. Richard grabbed it before it hit his face, but just barely. "Here, you'll need it for your cover-up!" She stalked away, slender and pale as a lily in all that black.
"Eve -- " Richard sighed. "Dammit. Look, Claire, I have to have the facts, okay? And the facts are that during the confrontation, Jason put his knife away, Shane had a bat, and Shane threatened him. Then Jason fired the gun. Is that right?"
She didn't answer. She sat for a few seconds, just staring at him, and then stood up, stripped off the blanket, and handed it to him.
"You're going to need a bigger cover-up," she said. "See if there's a circus in town. Maybe you can borrow a tent."
She walked down the hall to see if Shane was out of surgery.
He wasn't.
Eve was pacing the hallway, stiff with rage, hands clenched into fists barely visible as knots in the too-long sleeves of the coat. "Those sons of bitches," she said. "Those bastards! They're going to put Shane down, I can feel it."
"Put him down?" Claire repeated. "What do you mean, put him down? Like, a dog?"
Eve glared at her. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and wet with tears. "I mean even if he makes it through the surgery, they're not going to let him get out of this. Richard practically told us, don't you get it? It's the perfect frame. Shane took the swing, Jason fired in self-defense, and nobody's even going to look at Jason for these murders. They'll just bury it, like they bury the bodies."
She stopped talking, and her eyes refocused over Claire's shoulder. Claire turned.
Michael was striding toward them, lean and powerful and tall, and he headed straight for Eve. No hesitation, as if nothing had happened. As if they hadn't seen him bending over a dead girl at the party.
He stopped just inches away from Eve, and held out his hands.
"I went looking for you guys. I finally tracked you to Common Grounds. How is he?" he asked. His voice was hoarse.
"Not so good," Eve whispered, and flowed into his arms like water through a broken dam. "Oh God. Oh God, Michael, it all went wrong, it's all wrong -- "
He sighed and wrapped his arms around her, and rested his golden head next to her dark one. "I should have come with you. I should have made you get in the damn car. I was going to, but -- things happened, I had to take care of it at the party. I never thought you'd try to walk home." He paused, and when he finally went on, his voice was thick with pain. "It's my fault."
"It's nobody's fault," Claire said. "You know you can't make Shane do something he doesn't want to do. Or Eve, for that matter. Or me." She put a hand hesitantly Michael's arm. "You didn't kill that girl, did you?"
"No," he said. "I found her when I was searching for Jason. I was trying to find him and get him out of the party. He was probably already gone by then."
"Then who -- "
Michael looked up, and his blue eyes were fiercely bright. "That's what I had to take care of. There were vampires there, hunting. I had to stop it."
One of the nurses passing by slowed, watching Michael and Eve. Her eyes narrowed, and she stopped to stare. She muttered something, then walked on.
Michael turned to the nurse, who was already halfway down the hall. "Excuse me," he said. "What did you say?"
The nurse stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face him. "I didn't say anything. Sir." That last word sounded sharp enough to cut.
"I think you did," Michael said. "You called her a fang-banger."
The nurse smiled coldly. "If I muttered something under my breath, sir, that shouldn't concern you. You and your -- girlfriend -- ought to do your business in the waiting room. Or the blood bank."
Michael's hands curled into fists, and his face went tight with rage. "It's not like that."
The nurse -- her nametag said her name was Christine Fenton, R.N. --outright sneered at him. "Yeah, it never is. It's always different, right? You're just misunderstood. You want to hurt me, go ahead and try. I'm not afraid of you. Any of you."
"Good," Michael said. "You shouldn't be afraid of me because I'm a vampire. You ought to be scared because you just trash-talked my girlfriend to her face."
