“Don’t,” he cut her off, and his voice wasn’t so kind this time. “Why else would you be here today, when you know Brandon is likely to show up any time after dark? You want to make a deal with him to save Shane. That much is obvious.”

Well, it wasn’t why she was here, but still, she tried to look guilty about that, too. Just in case. It must have worked, because Oliver sat back in his chair, looking more relaxed.

“You’re clever,” he said. “So is Shane. But don’t let it go to your heads. Let me help.”

She nodded, not trusting her voice not to quiver or break or—worse—betray how relieved she was.

“That’s settled, then,” Oliver said. “Let me talk to Brandon and a few others, and see what I can do to make this problem go away.”

“Thanks,” she said faintly. Oliver got up and left, looking like any skinny ex-hippie who hadn’t quite let go of the good old days. Inoffensive. Ineffective, maybe.

She couldn’t rely on adults. Not for this. Not in Morganville.

She opened up the laptop, maximized the browser window, and went back to work.

Like always, time slipped away; when she looked up next, it was night outside the windows, and the crowd in the coffee shop had switched over from studious to chatty. Eve was busy at the bar, talking and smiling and generally being about as cheerful as a Goth chick could be.

She went quiet, though, when Brandon slouched in from the back room and took his accustomed seat at the table in the darkest corner. Oliver brought him some kind of drink—God, she hoped it wasn’t blood or anything!—and sat down to have some intense and quiet conversation. Claire tried to look like she wasn’t there. She and Eve exchanged a few glances between customers at the bar.

Putting together the book, Claire had learned during the long research marathon, was work for experts, not sixteen-year-old (nearly seventeen) wannabes. She could put something together, but—to her vast disappointment—anybody with an eye for rare books could spot a fake pretty easily, unless it was expertly done. She suspected that her leatherworking and bookbinding skills needed work.

All of which brought her back to square one, Shane Gets Bitten. Not acceptable.

A line in one of the dozens of windows she’d opened caught her eye. Nearly anything can be created for the movies, including reproductions of ancient books, because the reproduction only has to fool one of the senses: vision….

She didn’t have time—or cash—to get some Hollywood prop house to make a book for her, but it gave her an idea.

A really good idea.

Or a really bad one, if it didn’t work.

Nearly anything can be created for the movies.

She didn’t need the book. She just needed a picture.