Liz was drunk. Epically. From the sound of it, she was either at a bar, or a very noisy party. Claire couldn't get much out of her except that she wasn't planning on coming home soon, and yes, she'd take a cab.
'Everybody's having fun but me,' Claire muttered, and threw her cell onto the nightstand in annoyance as she wrapped the covers tight. She turned the lights off, and tossed and turned, unable to sleep for the unfamiliar creaks and pops of the old house.
She slid out of bed and padded downstairs to the kitchen without turning on the lights, opened the fridge and pulled out the carton of milk to pour herself a glass. She'd just put the milk back and shut the door when she heard the sound of the front door opening, and almost said, How drunk are you, anyway, but something stopped her.
Something subliminal that she didn't realise until a full ten seconds later: she hadn't heard a car, or Liz stumbling up the steps, which she assumed Liz would be doing.
This was utterly quiet.
Claire grabbed her milk glass and backed away into the narrow pantry closet, where she crouched down, bathed in the aroma of old spices; there were some big packs of toilet paper and paper towels in here, bought from some big-box outlet store, and she quickly moved them in front of her, just in case. She hadn't shut the pantry door completely, so she knew she'd see when the lights came on ...
But the lights didn't come on. Instead, she saw the glow of a flashlight sweep across the kitchen, and then the pantry door whipped open and the flashlight bored straight in. She ducked behind the wall of paper towels, and after a heart-stopping second, the flashlight moved away, and the pantry door swung shut.
It was all done so quietly.
Claire waited until she heard the stairs creaking, and then moved the paper wall out of the way to move to the doorway. She couldn't see much, but she thought the kitchen was empty. Whoever it was had gone upstairs; she heard footsteps overhead, so they'd gone into Liz's room.
Derrick?
The thought made her heart race, and she slid a butcher knife out of the block, just in case. Shane had taught her the right way to knife fight, but that didn't mean the idea didn't terrify her; if Derrick got his hands on her, she was done. He was too big, and too crazy.
Stay away, Liz. Just stay where you are.
Claire picked up the kitchen phone and got a blessedly clear dial tone. She dialled 911 with shaking fingers, and whispered the information to the operator that she was hiding in the kitchen with a knife, and there was someone in the house. The operator sounded unimpressed, but professional about it, and promised the police were on the way, and to hide until they arrived but keep the phone on.
Which Claire intended to do, but then she heard a man's voice from upstairs, and static, like there would be on a walkie-talkie. She edged to the kitchen door, looking up at the stairs, and saw a black-clothed man walk out of her room, and another come out of Liz's. She ducked back inside and flattened against the kitchen wall, but it didn't seem like either of them had spotted her.
One of them was talking. '-Nothing. Nobody home, and we didn't find anything. Looks like a normal college girl to me, sir. She's got Hunger Games on the wall and textbooks and clothes, not a lot else here. Bed was unmade but she's not here, we looked. Went through all the boxes, nothing ... no, sir, I'm sure. She's probably out with friends.'
He was talking about her. And this wasn't Derrick, not even if Derrick had brought a friend. This sounded calm and professional. The two men came down the steps and went out the front door without pausing, and closed it quietly behind them.
Then they locked it.
Claire rushed to the peephole and stared out. In the glow of the streetlights, she saw two completely normal-looking guys in dark shirts and pants heading down the steps. Athletic, mid-twenties to early thirties. Short haircuts. They could have been Jehovah's Witnesses or CIA, she had no idea.
But either way, they were able to enter and leave the house without leaving a mark.
Dr Anderson had been right to move the device to safekeeping, because Claire was almost sure that whoever these guys were, they were looking for evidence that the little student from Morganville was something else again.
And she knew, somehow, that it would mean a lot of trouble if they found out the truth.
The phone was still on, and the operator's voice buzzing like a bee. Claire held it up to her ear and said, 'Sorry, false alarm - it was my roommate. We're okay here.'
There was more to it, because the operator was worried Claire was under duress, and the police still showed up to check, but Claire assured them it was all okay.
It wasn't though.
It really wasn't.
And then Liz came home, too drunk to make it up the steps on her own, and vomited all over the bathroom, and Claire had to clean it up and put her to bed and deal with the pitiful hangover that came later ... but all the time, what she was really thinking was, who's after me? Why?
And, from time to time, why hasn't Shane called?
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHANE
Claire saw me.
For a split second, all I could think was there she is, and I froze, because I'd wanted so badly to catch another glimpse of her ... and then reality set in, because she was across the room from me, in Florey's, and she was staring right at me.
I didn't think about what I was going to do, I just did it: I moved, fast, and blocked her view with a bunch of noisy, clamouring patrons bellied up to the bar. Then I dumped the load of glasses on the ledge where the bartenders could easily grab them, and yelled in Jesse's ear, 'My girlfriend Claire is in the bar. Don't let on that I'm here, okay? I'm not supposed to be in Cambridge!'
She sent me a wide-eyed, disbelieving glance, but she hardly had time to argue; she was popping the top on a beer with one hand (without a bottle opener, she had some kind of crazy thumb technique that was much faster) and mixing a rum and Coke with the other. The two other servers behind the bar were equally busy. They'd go through the load of glasses I'd delivered in about an hour, and I already had two industrial-sized dishwashers running and was doing the overflow by hand. It was definitely the busiest day Florey's had seen since I'd arrived.
I grabbed the tub with the dirty glasses in it, hoisted it on my left shoulder, and used it to mask myself as I headed back into the kitchen. My arm - the one that had been bitten and healed up - twinged when I did that, but there was nothing wrong with it that a little exercise wouldn't cure. It still burned, from time to time. And yeah, it worried me. I'd been bitten by a devil dog, after all. There could be side effects. But I wasn't running a fever, or feeling sick or anything like that, and I knew that going to a traditional doctor wasn't going to reveal anything.
The last thing I wanted to be was at the mercy of the vampires, even their resident doc, who was a pretty good guy as bloodsuckers went. I shuddered at the thought.
Once I made it to the back, I dumped the bin on the counter and drew fresh hot water, and tried not to think about what the hell Claire, of all people, was doing at a bar on game night. She must have been with someone. Who? Friends, maybe. Yeah, it had to be friends. This wasn't her kind of scene, and I knew that. She wasn't just here on her own, and she wasn't here to make new drunk friends, either.
Then why did every bone in my body demand I walk out, take off the apron, grab her and march her out of there? She wasn't in any danger, except of being trampled in the crowd. Nobody would hurt her. Pete ran a tight ship, and anybody who got out of line answered to him. Nobody was eager to do that.
Why was she here?
She couldn't be looking for me. She couldn't.
I washed up ten glasses, then dried my hands, took out my new phone, dialled, and propped the thing up on the counter away from the dishwater, on speaker. It took three rings, but Michael finally answered. 'Hey,' I said. 'No time to talk, but did you tell Claire where I was?'
'What? No, man. You made me promise. I won't tell her. That's your business.'
'Eve? Would Eve tell her?'
'No. She wants to, but she won't.'
'Crap. Well, Claire's here.'
'Here, where?'
'In the bar. Where I'm working. Oh, and living. In the room upstairs. The job kinda comes with room and board. So it isn't like I can permanently duck her if she catches on.'
'Did you talk to her?'
'Hell no, I didn't talk to her! I'm washing dishes in the back!' That, and I was scared she'd hate me for following her. Scared she'd think I'd broken my promise, although I really hadn't - I was keeping away. Just ... within reach, if she needed me. 'Look, just - I don't know if she saw me or not, but if she asks to talk to me, just tell her I'm at work. It won't be a lie.'