So he did, of course, the wrong thing, and said, “Look, it’s just a cake. I’m sure it’s still delicious.”
Eve glared at him. Claire walked over and put her arms around her friend, and sent Shane an irritated look.
“What did I do?” he croaked. His throat was turning a spectacular sunset purple now, with hints of blue. “Cake! It’s cake! Delicious cake!”
“Honey, it’s okay, really,” Claire said. “We can—fix it.”
“We can’t,” Eve managed to gasp out between sobs. “I shouldn’t have made the trim red—it’s all runny… .”
It did look a little bit slaughterrific, actually, but Claire put on a brave face. “So we scrape it all off, get some store-bought icing, and put it on,” she said. “Can’t be any worse, right? And we decorate it ourselves. It’ll be fun!”
“It’s
horrible
!” Eve cried, and buried her face in Claire’s puffy coat. “It looks like Dracula’s wedding cake!”
“Which should be a plus, shouldn’t it?” Shane asked. “I mean, thematically?”
“
Really
not helping, Shane!” Claire said.
“I am helping! I even carried it in!”
“Yeah, good job.” Claire sighed and shook her head. “Go upstairs or something. We’ll find a way to fix this. Eve—just calm down and relax, okay? Breathe. I’ll get the frosting and be back in a little while.”
She got Eve to sit on the couch. She’d stopped sobbing, which was good, but she was staring at the cake with a dead-eyed, horrified look. The sooner the icing was scraped and the whole cake redone, the better.
Shane said, “Want me to go with?”
Her first impulse was to say no … but he’d survived the morning running around with Eve, and Eve was more consumed with party planning than watching his back. Besides, it was still broad daylight. The safest he’d be, even from Amelie.
He gave her puppy-dog eyes and said, “Please?”
She could never resist the puppy-dog eyes, and he knew it. “All right,” she said. “But wear a scarf. Your throat makes you look like a zombie.”
“I hear zombies are hot right now,” Shane said, straight-faced. “They’ve got their own TV show and everything. Okay. Scarf.”
She supervised, making sure the scarf was looped high enough to cover up the worst of the bruising. “Just tell anyone who asks that you got a wicked new tattoo and you’re still healing up,” she said. She stopped and brushed her fingertips lightly over the discolored skin. “Does it hurt?”
He bent his head and lightly kissed her forehead. “Only when I laugh.”
“I’ll try not to be funny.”
“Epic fail, beautiful.” She tingled all over when he called her
beautiful
. He didn’t do it often, but when he did, he said it in this tone that was … just so incredibly intimate. “You know I need to watch your back, right?”
“I’m buying
icing
, Shane. I’m not going on safari. Besides, you’re the one with the target on his back, not me.”
“Then
you
can protect
me
.” He kissed her on the nose, lightly.
The idea of her—small, not-very-physical Claire—protecting big, strong,
very
physical Shane … Well, that was just funny, somehow, and she couldn’t help but laugh.
But he kept looking at her, very warm and very serious, and after her giggles faded, he said, “I mean it, Claire. I trust you.”
She put her hand on his cheek and, without speaking, led him out the door.
At the grocery store, the first thing Claire noticed was that there was some kind of a crisis … not a we’re-out-of-milk crisis, but something bigger. Management-style. As she and Shane walked in the door, they were almost knocked down by a very agitated man with that store-manager look about him. He was on his cell phone. His tie was pulled askew, and there were sweat stains under his arms. He was saying, “Yes, I
know
you need payment for deliveries, and I’m trying to reach our owner—I’ve been trying for days! … No, I don’t have another number. Look, I’m sure nothing’s wrong. I’m going over there myself to see. If you can just go ahead and make the scheduled delivery …” His voice faded out as he kept walking, heading for the office. Claire exchanged a look with Shane, who shrugged, and then they went in search of cake supplies.
Claire could tell that the shelves were badly in need of restocking… . Not that there was ever a huge selection in the store, but when the cake mixes were down to one or two boxes, and entirely out in most of the really good flavors … well, that didn’t bode well. No wonder the manager was freaking out.
Like in most businesses in town, Claire suspected the owner was a vampire…. They liked to keep a tight grip on the purse strings of their investments, too. So why was the manager having so much trouble getting money for his store? Not like vamps went broke, not in Morganville.
“Did he say he couldn’t get in touch with the owner?” Shane asked her, very quietly. “Because that’s weird.”
“Very,” she agreed. “You think he might have been part of Bishop’s, ah, support group?” Bishop, Amelie’s father, had gathered up a nice little cadre of backstabbing traitors to help him on his most recent bid for power; Amelie and Oliver had responded by basically making most of those people disappear. And Bishop had done his share of damage, too…. He’d grabbed some of Amelie’s supporters, and they hadn’t survived the experience.
Civil war among the vampires: not pretty.
“Possible,” Shane said. His voice sounded rougher than before, like he was starting to really hurt. “But that should have been taken care of weeks ago. Amelie doesn’t let things go like that.”
He was right. This sounded recent, and pretty dire. Amelie certainly wouldn’t want one of the town’s main grocery stores to crater; she’d fund it first. So this had to be something happening under her radar.
Claire shook her head and checked the frosting. There was enough white available, and she found some red candy flowers, too. The red decorator writing stuff looked doubtful, though Claire grabbed some of that. “Done,” she said, and turned around.
Shane was gone.
“Shane?” She clutched the stuff to her chest, suddenly feeling very cold, and turned in a circle. He wasn’t at either end of the aisle. In fact, he wasn’t anywhere in sight. Claire hurried up toward the registers, hoping to catch sight of him.
Nothing. Her heart sped up, painfully fast. She started walking, fast, pacing past aisle after aisle. There were a dozen or so shoppers, but no sign of her boyfriend.
And then, off to the side, she saw a flash of a blue scarf. She backed up, stared, and saw that Shane was standing close to the office door, head down, listening. He looked up and saw her, and her heartbeat slowly began to ease up. Sweet relief flooded through her.
God.
She’d thought … Well, she’d thought someone had taken him right behind her back. Which was ridiculous, now that she thought about it—he wasn’t some defenseless kid; he was a big guy, and he’d make noise, at the very least.
No, of
course
he’d gone off on his own. Jackass.
She got in line to pay for her stuff, and he came to join her by the time she reached the register. “Jerk,” she told him, without the usual lighter edge of humor. “You scared me to death!”
He helped her put her armload of supplies on the belt and nodded at the bored, overweight girl running things over the scanner. “Hey, Bettina.”
“Hey, Shane.” Bettina sighed.
“So, lot of drama today.”
“Haven’t had a delivery in two weeks,” she said. “I’ll be lucky if we’re not closed by tomorrow. It’s supposed to be payday. No sign of checks, either. This sucks.”
“Hang in there,” Shane said. He smiled at her, and she smiled back wearily. It occurred to Claire, with a bit of surprise, that he knew the girl, probably from his old neighborhood or school or something. “How’s your brother?”
“Same jerkwad as he ever was, only now he’s old enough to drink, all legal,” she said. “Pretty much sucks.”
“Tell me about it.”
Bettina’s eyes finally focused on Shane’s throat, and the scarf. “Hey, is that a bruise? What happened?”
“Tattoo,” he said, straight-faced. “It’s hard-core.”
She looked impressed. “I guess it must be.”
Bettina silently bagged the groceries and handed them over, and Claire thanked her—sincerely, because it was obvious Bettina and everybody else at the Food King was going to have a pretty miserable time today—and walked with Shane back out into the cold.
“So, superspy, what did you learn hanging around the office door?” she asked him. Shane was hunched over, hands in his pockets, looking thoughtful.
“The manager called the cops,” he said. “Filed a missing persons report. On a vampire.”
“Seriously?”
“That’s how desperate he is.” Shane raised his eyebrows. “He gave them an address, if you’re interested.”
“
That
is not a good idea. We’re supposed to stay quiet, remember?”
“We’re not talking. We’re just looking.”
“You’re going to get us killed,” Claire said. “Well, yourself, anyway. Which will kill me, too, Shane. Please, let’s
go home
, just this once! No poking around, no Scooby-Dooing, no taking crazy risks. I’m scared, and I think the less we have to do with whatever’s going on, the better.”
He shot a look over at her, a smile playing hide-and-seek with his lips. “Who are you, and what did you do with Claire?”
“I’m serious.”
“I can see that.” He sucked in a deep breath, as if playing for time, and after a moment, he said, “Claire, Myrnin’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but he’s got no reason to come after me. I could tell it wasn’t his idea. He actually apologized to me before he choked the crap out of me. So … who gives Myrnin orders?”
“Shane—”
“C’mon. Help me out.”
Claire sighed, and her breath puffed white in the fierce, cold wind that stung her skin. “Only one person.”
“Yeah. Her. And then Oliver comes racing to stop him. Again, who gives Oliver orders, when he bothers to listen?”
“Amelie.”
“And you think that by keeping our heads down, we’re really going to get out of this? You want to believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny while we’re at it?”
Claire jumped over a broken part of the sidewalk, which Shane’s longer legs carried him effortlessly over. “Hey, you’re the one who says the Easter Bunny is actually evil.”
“Granted, but you’re avoiding the point.”
“I’ve thought about it,” she said. “And I’m angry, Shane. I’m really angry. After everything we’ve done, everything we’ve risked, we’re
expendable
. And it hurts. Believe me.”
He stopped and looked at her for a moment, then put his arms around her. The street was empty except for a few passing cars, and it felt like they were all alone, against the world. That wasn’t true, but in that moment, Claire was feeling particularly vulnerable.
Shane kissed her on the top of the head and said, “Welcome to Morganville. We grew up knowing that. You’re just now realizing it.”
She hid her face in the warm, rough weave of his jacket. Her voice came out muffled. “How do you stand it?”
“We get mean,” Shane said. “And we get cynical. And we stick together. Always. Because first, last, and always, we rely on each other.”
They stood there together, holding each other, until finally the wind got so cold Claire shivered even in his embrace.
Shane put his arm around her and walked her the rest of the way home. She forced herself to forget all they’d seen and said, and throw herself into salvaging Eve’s engagement cake. It was actually fun, and three tubs of frosting later, they’d made it look, if not professional, presentable. The cakes were level, and the decoration was even; the red flowers looked sweet and just a bit in-your-face. Claire had decided to make the most of the amateurish clumsiness of the squeeze decorator stuff, so there was a funny lopsided heart with a childish arrow through it, and the initials MG and ER.
Simple, but fun.
Eve hugged her, hard. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “What happened to the old frosting?”
Shane, sitting at the table, raised his hand. “Took one for the team.”
“Jesus, you
ate it
? All of it?”
“Nah.” He held up the bowl that was sitting in front of him. There was still about half a cup left. “Couldn’t finish it all.”
Eve blinked and looked at Claire, who shrugged and said, “I always thought he was sweet.”
The next day, they were all up early—hideously early, according to Eve, who looked hollow-eyed and desperate as she glugged down three cups of coffee before heading up to hog the bathroom for an hour and a half. Claire had wisely done all her showering and getting ready before Eve was even up.
She hadn’t seen Michael at all yet, but Shane was up, yawning and looking almost as out of it as Eve. “Why are we doing this again?” he asked. “And where are all those doughnut things I bought?”
“Eaten,” Claire said. “Besides, you ate about a pound of frosting last night. No sugar for you.”
This time
she
got the finger, which was amusing; he never, ever shot it at her. She gave it right back, which made him smile. “So wrong. So what’s Slave Driver Eve got us doing today?”
“We have to take the cake and flowers over to the ballroom,” Claire said, ticking it off on her fingers. “Decorate the tables. Put out the plates and forks. Get the punch ready and set up the plasma table …”
“You cannot be serious.”
“Relax—we’re not
managing
the plasma table. The blood bank is doing that.”
“Great. My two pints are going to be party food.”
“Stay on target, Shane. What are you wearing?”
“Relax, Fashion Police. I’m dressing up. I’ve got a tuxedo T-shirt and everything.” When her mouth opened in horror, he grinned. “Kidding. I’ll look okay. Oh, and I’m wearing a turtleneck, so don’t get on to me about the bruises not going with my shoes or anything.” The bruises were, Claire had to admit, spectacular today, though his voice sounded more normal. “I promise, no lime green suits.” He yawned. “I guess I’d better go bang on Michael’s door. Dude’s going to be late to his own party, and Eve would stake him right through the heart. Messy.”