‘Trying,’ he said. ‘But funnily enough, all I can think about is pizza. You ever have days like that? Pizza days?’
‘Pizza days, ice cream days, hamburger days … why don’t we ever crave things that are good for us?’
‘Nobody sane has broccoli days. That’s crazy talk.’
They chatted for a while, awkwardly but calmly, and then a third person arrived to break the tension, and her friendly banter made things seem okay. Before too long, two more people arrived, and it was a group, and the group was just … fun.
Before she realised it, they’d ordered pizza (for Pizza Day) and had debated the merits of nerd favourite films, and discussed what kind of roof and tunnel hacks were being planned for the semester in their various dorms, and a ton of other things that just made her feel … at home.
Until the phone rang.
She didn’t even really pay attention to the caller ID, she just answered it, still laughing over something that the black-haired girl Jacqui had said, and then had to block her ear from Simon laughing about it to say, ‘Hello?’
‘Claire?’ It was Eve, and she sounded stressed. ‘Hey, uh, sorry to bother you, but I’m just giving you a quick heads-up …’
‘About?’
‘Um, things are kind of a little bit crazy here right now. So, apparently Myrnin sort of disappeared? And he might possibly be heading toward you. Just so you know.’
Claire sat up straight, then picked up her backpack and took the phone away from the still-laughing table full of people to a quieter corner. ‘What happened?’
‘All I know is that Myrnin got pissed off and left, and Amelie’s not in a real good mood. She’s scary when she’s angry. So, she wants Michael to go after and make sure Myrnin comes home fast, and safe. And of course be sure that he doesn’t do something crazy enough to make the wrong people pay attention. And I guess I’m going with Michael? Because why not. You have any guest beds?’
‘I’ve got floor space,’ Claire said. She felt a completely conflicting mixture of elation and terror … Myrnin, on his own, wandering in the world? And why was he heading toward
her
? But it meant she’d see Michael and Eve again, and that could only be a good thing. ‘When are you coming?’
‘Uh, we’re actually in the car right now. It’s a road trip, because, y’know, vampires don’t do really well with the flying, surprisingly. I guess it’s the fear of people opening up the window shades and all the frying and screaming. Plus, it seems like a lot of them have a fear of heights.’ Claire heard Michael’s indistinct voice in the background, and Eve added, ‘Not him, though. He says.’
‘Tell him I said hi.’
‘He’s blowing you a kiss. Okay, actually, he isn’t, but he ought to, so I’m saying he did. But the point is, we’ll be there in a couple of days, since Michael says he doesn’t plan to sleep. If Myrnin pokes his crazy head up before then, call me and try to keep him, you know, stable.’
‘Is he
un
stable?’
‘I don’t know, how can I tell? You’re the crazy whisperer!’
She had a point. Claire couldn’t help but smile about that. ‘So, Shane’s coming with you?’
There was a long moment of silence on the other end. Too long. And then Eve said, ‘He – he’s working, sweetie. I’m sorry, it’s just going to be us … Um, Michael, honey, is that a cop car? … Oh shit. Okay, gotta go, love you, ’bye!’
Before Claire could say anything else, Eve was gone into the wireless void.
Working
? Shane was working, and he wasn’t coming with them? That didn’t make any sense. He’d have blown off any job to get a ride out of town with his two best friends. Especially if they were heading toward her.
It was upsetting. And worrying.
Claire put her phone away and hitched her backpack to her shoulder. She cast a wistful look back over at the table. They were all talking animatedly, unaware she’d even stepped away. It had been kind of a false friendship, she thought; she’d felt like she was one of them, but really, she wasn’t. They wouldn’t miss her.
Nick did. He was watching her, and he raised his eyebrows and mouthed,
you okay?
She nodded and pointed a thumb toward the exit.
Gotta go
.
He looked as if he might get up, but then Jacqui said something to him, and he answered her, still watching Claire, and settled back down in his chair.
She walked away. That was a good thing, she was thinking; it was a good thing that he didn’t feel like he had to follow her. She wasn’t interested.
Dammit
, she missed Shane. Why wasn’t he coming?
What was it they weren’t telling her?
The next couple of days passed in a blur, because Claire kept trying to get Michael or Eve or Shane on the phone, and none of them answered. It was like they were ducking her. She didn’t even have work to keep her occupied; Dr Anderson called her to tell her, in a calm but firm way, that she needed some time alone to complete a special project, so she’d assigned Claire some online reading to catch up on. It was complicated stuff, and it was the only thing Claire could really be grateful for; she’d rarely been challenged before by a professor, but this was definitely next difficulty level. Dr Anderson was
not
underestimating her.
Liz finally emerged from her room, and – of course – demanded a girls’ night in with pizza and a romantic movie. Claire countered by suggesting
Kill Bill
, because that probably would make her feel better in the end. Liz agreed. She wasn’t tearful any more; she’d gone past shock to anger, and anger was a good thing, in Claire’s opinion. Liz being angry meant she wasn’t going to make a similar mistake anytime soon. It also, oddly, made her more likeable. And more like the girl Claire remembered from school.
Claire went out for the pizza. Boston was ripe with excellent pizza choices, and there was one only a couple of blocks from the house; she reflexively looked around for Derrick, and spotted him in his usual spot across the street. He was sitting down on a bus stop bench, reading a book. Or pretending to. When he saw Claire, he waved.
She flipped him off. It seemed to amuse him, which was too bad; she’d been hoping to really make him angry enough to do something he could get arrested for.
She picked up the hot pie and was walking back with it when she spotted the creepy Professor Davis sitting at an outdoor café, enjoying a coffee with a girl young enough – again – to be his daughter. She looked captivated, too. Starry-eyed and naïve, and willing to believe that Professor Davis was that missing daddy figure in her life that would solve all her problems.
Claire couldn’t resist.
She changed course.
Dr Davis and his new conquest were so into each other – or at least, she was breathlessly into him, and he was enjoying it – that it took at least a full minute for either of them to notice Claire when she paused at their table. Dr Davis even pushed his coffee cup toward her, as if she was the waiter, before looking up in annoyance, then confusion, and then – gratifyingly – worry. He straightened up in his chair, and she smiled at him.
What would Eve do?
It was easy enough to channel her best friend’s talent for snarky destruction.
‘You’re not returning my calls, Patrick,’ Claire said, in her best injured, pouting voice. ‘I thought you were going to come by to talk about our problems.’
‘Claire,’ he said, which was an obvious and rookie mistake; it meant he knew who she was, and she saw the chagrin settle over his face as he realised it. He turned toward the girl he was with, no doubt to protest his innocence.
Claire didn’t give him the chance. ‘I ran into your wife at the mall and she says she is
not
going to give you a divorce, so what am I supposed to do about the babies? Just you wait. I’m going to make sure you step up and be a good father to our twins! You promised!’
She didn’t wait to see the results of the bomb she’d thrown; she just held her head high and walked on with the pizza and didn’t look back. She didn’t have to. The scrape of the girl’s wrought-iron chair legs on pavement, and Patrick’s injured, wounded protests were as good as any picture. It might not matter, and probably wouldn’t; she’d torpedoed one date, but he’d have another one tomorrow, or the next day.
Still. It felt good to have a little payback for Liz.
Claire was humming under her breath as she jogged up the steps, reaching for her keys … but she stopped dead when she saw that the door was already open. Not just open … left open by inches, and swinging gently in the breeze.
‘Liz?’ Claire stepped inside, heart pounding, and dumped the pizza box on the floor as she turned on the overhead light in the entry hall. The cheap yellow bulb flooded it with harsh light, but what it told Claire was that nobody had broken in here … instead, all the locks had been neatly clicked back, including the deadbolt. Liz had opened the door. ‘Liz!’
She burst into the kitchen, but there was nothing strange there. Liz must have washed the dishes, because they were sitting neatly in the drain board, and the counters had been cleaned.
Claire ran up the steps, but she slowed as she approached the landing to Liz’s room. The bedroom door was open, and the square of darkness seemed oppressive and scary to her. She reached around the facing of the door, found the light switch, and flipped it on.
Liz’s unmade bed. Clothes strewn on the chair in the corner. Make-up toppled randomly on top of the dressing table. An electric candle burning on the nightstand.
And on the floor a foot inside the door, blood, still fresh. It wasn’t just a drop. It was splashes and smears, indistinct shapes printed into the stains. Blood on the wall next to the light switch, too.
Claire stepped over it carefully and checked under the bed, then the closet. There was no sign of her friend. She backed out onto the landing, took her cell phone out with shaking hands, and forced herself to look around with fresh eyes. There were smears of blood out here, too – not as many, but now that she was looking for them, she saw where Liz had been taken out of the room. They disappeared in a few feet, as if she’d been wrapped in something, or picked up and carried.
Claire raced upstairs and checked her own room, just to be sure, but it seemed undisturbed. While she was doing that, she dialled the number that had sent her the text message earlier in the day.
‘Holla,’ said a warm, smoky voice on the other end. There was a rustle of cloth, and then the lazy tone went away as Jesse said, ‘Claire?’
‘Somebody took my roommate,’ Claire said. ‘Was it you?’
‘I – what?’
‘You’re a vampire.
Did you take her
?’
‘Hell no, I didn’t take her.’ Jesse’s voice had gone tight now, and Claire could almost picture her standing up and pacing in that fluid, predatory way vampires had. ‘What do you mean, someone took her?’
‘I mean she’s gone, the door’s hanging open, and I think there’s blood in her room,’ Claire said. She was starting to shake now, a delayed reaction that meant it was hard to hold on to the phone. She gripped it tighter. ‘I’m calling the police.’
‘Dammit. No, don’t do that, not yet. Stay there.’ There was a murmured voice off the phone, and Claire suddenly realised that Jesse might have a visitor, a personal kind of visitor. ‘Tell me exactly what happened, Claire.’
‘I went out for a pizza. My roommate was here by herself, as far as I know, but when I came back the door was open and there’s blood in her room. She was hurt. And she’s not here.’
‘Is there a sign of a break-in?’
‘No,’ Claire said. ‘It was unlocked, and—’ In a flash, she remembered the black-clothed men entering the house the other night. Unlocking the doors. ‘Oh, God. Did Dr Anderson tell you about the men who broke in the other night?’
‘Yes. Claire, is there any possibility they might have mistaken your roommate for you?’
She honestly hadn’t thought about it until Jesse said it, but her stomach knotted up, and she let out a trembling breath. ‘Maybe.’
‘Okay. Here’s the deal: stay right where you are. Don’t touch anything, don’t shut the door, don’t try to solve the mystery yourself. I need to see it just as it is. I’m three minutes out. I’ll alert Irene.’
She hung up, and Claire hesitated a few seconds before sitting down on the steps. She shivered. The house felt cold and empty, and she hated leaving the front door open like that; she half expected to see the creepy face of Derrick, Liz’s stalker, peering in.
No Derrick, though. That was strange. Wasn’t he almost always hanging around waiting for Liz to come and go? And he’d been up on the steps before, Claire had seen him.
Could
this be Derrick, finally working up his courage to hurt Liz? But would she have ever let him in? Claire’s instincts said no, but maybe there had been some kind of faked emergency, or Derrick had used some other way to gain entrance … Claire’s mind was whirling, and her finger hovered over the emergency call button on her phone while the seconds crawled by with torturous intensity.
If she’s more than three minutes, I’ll call the cops
, she promised herself. And what if it really had been Jesse, after all? And Jesse was just coming by to clean up the mess and make Claire herself disappear, too?
She was on the verge of pressing the 911 button when suddenly, there was a shape standing in the doorway. Not coming in – just waiting.
Oh, God
, Claire thought in alarm, and bolted to her feet … and then realised it was Jesse. She had on a hoodie that she’d pulled up over her head, and a baseball cap under the hood that shaded her pale face, and she had her hands in her pockets; it was a normal look for a town like this, nothing that would get a second glance. A lot less obvious a sun-cover than the extravagant leather coats and big hats that Morganville vampires seemed to favour.
A second later, though Jesse didn’t speak, Claire realised what she was waiting for, and said, ‘Come in.’
Jesse didn’t reply, just stepped into the entry hall. She glided with the eerie, silent speed that Claire was accustomed to, but never okay with, and she pushed the hood back, took off the hat, and looked around the entry hall with methodical calm. Her eyes – a muddy, dim red now – swept over Claire, but didn’t pause. She made a fast walking circuit of the limited area, then crossed to the stairs and knelt down to put her face close to one of the steps. Then she came up a few stairs and did it again. Jesse worked her way quickly up to the second-floor landing, examined the blood there, and then went into Liz’s room.