‘Yeah, of course I do. He’s the dishwasher at Florey’s.’

Claire’s mouth opened and closed, but she couldn’t sort out the whirl of words flying around in her mind. I wasn’t wrong. I did see him there.

That meant that Shane had been here for days. Maybe longer.

Long enough that he’d lied to her about it, and so had Michael. So had Eve.

‘Oh, we’re going to talk,’ she said then, and the chill in her voice surprised her. ‘But for right now, you’d better tell me what you think you know about this.’

‘Outside,’ Shane said. ‘We need to get moving. Now.’

‘Why?’ Jesse asked.

‘Because the people who took Claire’s friend might come back.’

CHAPTER NINE

SHANE

Of all the ways I wanted to come face-to-face with Claire again … this wasn’t the one I’d preferred. I knew that there was a slim chance we might accidentally meet, but this wasn’t any accident; I was showing up on purpose on her doorstep, and there was no way to pretend that I hadn’t been here, hadn’t been interfering in her life, hadn’t been keeping eyes on her.

Because I was about to confess all that.

Jesse’s anti-sun disguise was pretty good; once her oversized sunglasses were on and her hands were in her pockets, most of her pale skin was protected from accidental sun exposure. It helped that today was cloudy and a little rainy. Claire locked the house’s front door and followed Jesse into the street, where I was waiting for them under a tree (that was polite of me, I thought, look at me being all vampire-sensitive). I nodded to both of them and led the way at a brisk walk a couple of blocks, then turned the corner. There was a café there with an awning. I sat down at one of the fragile-looking tables, and Claire and Jesse took seats on the other side of me. Jesse didn’t look pleased.

Claire – actually, I was too scared to look at her directly to tell what she might be feeling. She hadn’t jumped into my arms and declared her eternal love, so I was going to assume that I was in trouble. Big trouble.

Didn’t matter right now, given the situation.

Jesse’s gaze flicked from me to Claire, then back again, and I saw her making the connections. ‘Shane, just to be sure I’ve got this all right: you followed her from Morganville, but didn’t tell her about it. And you, Claire, you didn’t know he was here.’

‘That’s right,’ Claire said. I didn’t say anything, but then again, I didn’t have to; just being here was silent agreement. ‘I didn’t know he was coming.’

‘That’s on me. I didn’t want you to know.’