It was a mystery Claire knew she was going to have to solve … but not tonight. It was dark, and the alley was creepy, and she suddenly wanted, very badly, to retreat to the safety of their little row house, lock the doors, and call Shane.

She needed to hear his voice.

Feeling safe, as it turned out, wasn’t in the cards for her, because when she got home there was an official-looking card stuck to the front door, and when Claire pulled it off she saw that it was from the police department. The note with it said that there had been an attempted break-in reported by a passer-by, and to double-check all interior spaces and locks to ensure that no one had entered.

Fabulous.

Derrick wasn’t at his usual post, which was nice, because the note made Claire feel even more paranoid, and she rushed in, locked the door, and yelled for Liz. Useless, because of course Liz wasn’t home; she would have gotten the note if she had been. It was still and dark inside, and Claire methodically made the rounds, checked all the windows, and finally ended up in her top-floor room with the door shut and all the lights burning brightly. She made an effort to unpack a few more boxes (she was rapidly running out of space for what she’d brought) and finally called it quits, fired up her laptop, and tried to reach Shane on Skype. No answer. After she’d tried his phone and gotten the same nonresponse, she instead tried Eve.

And Eve answered so quickly it was as if she’d been sitting there waiting. Her image came on the screen, face turned pale blue by the computer’s reflected glow, and the sight of her was enough to make Claire feel a rush of tears. ‘Hey,’ Claire managed to choke out. ‘Thought I’d check in and see how it was going.’

‘Claire Bear!’ Eve bounced up and down in her chair, twisted around, and yelled, ‘Michael! Get your undead ass in here, guess who’s calling?’

‘I don’t have to guess, and you don’t have to yell,’ Michael said. Claire hadn’t seen him approach, but all of a sudden he was there, leaning over Eve’s shoulder to give her a light, sweet kiss. ‘Hey, Claire, how’s your new place? Are you settling in?’

‘Not so much, and it’s—’ She couldn’t think how to describe it, so she picked up the computer and panned it around. ‘It’s like that.’

‘Yow,’ Eve said. ‘Who picked that paint, a drunk colour-blind frat boy? Because a drunk colour-blind sorority girl would have better sense.’

‘I know.’ Claire sighed. ‘This whole thing … it’s – a lot to take in. I started meeting with my new professor. I like her, I guess. But it looks like it’s going to be complicated.’