At home—meaning, at the Glass House; the last thing she wanted to do was put her parents in the middle of all this—Claire unloaded Kim’s laptop, set up the webcam, and started trying to access the data stream. That wasn’t especially hard, because she knew the IP address of the camera; Kim had helpfully put the info right on a label. The problem was that the other end was on a randomizer, a special program that shifted the signal and rerouted it across the Internet every few minutes. It was right in Morganville; it had to be, because of the packet times, but Claire had no real idea where to start looking. She wasn’t especially computer savvy, although she knew her way around; Kim obviously had taken some precautions.

But Claire wasn’t giving up that easily, either. She didn’t like Kim, but there was a lot at stake here: the vampires’ lives, including Michael’s; Kim’s life; maybe everything they’d built here, at whatever cost.

Michael was right: they couldn’t just let Kim sacrifice it all for her own ambition. The truth might come out, but it shouldn’t come out like this, as some kind of horrible exercise in voyeurism.

She finally reran the video of Kim they’d watched at her loft. I can’t believe it; I finally got to put some in the last Founder House. Connections look good; stream is starting up.

Claire went in search of cameras in the Glass House.

She found the first one in an air vent in Shane’s room, and had to sit down, hard, on his bed with her head in her hands. It was focused right on his bed.

Oh my God. Oh no. At first she was sick with the thought of Kim combing through hours of video of Shane, invading his privacy, watching him get undressed . . . and then she remembered.

We were in here. Together. And she saw it.

Claire lifted her head and looked right up at the camera. She had no idea what was on her face, but if it was any match for the rage burning inside her, the feeling of total betrayal and exposure, she couldn’t imagine Kim was having any fun seeing it. “I hope there’s sound on these,” she said. “You bitch. I officially hope you rot in hell, and I swear, if you post any of this online, I will find you.”

Then Claire dragged a chair over, stood on the seat, and yanked the vent screen out of the wall. Behind it, the little webcam blinked its light and stared at her with a glass eye every bit as emotionless as Bob the spider’s.