stop: the Internet. "Worst inventionever ," Claire muttered. Myrnin was already talking about how to disable the features on all cell phones inside of Morganville. At times such as this, she kind of saw his point.
Hannah Moses was second to arrive on the scene, looking crisp and starched in her police uniform; she'd tucked her corn-rowed hair up under her cap, and apart from the gold bar on the lapel of her blue shirt, she looked exactly like the other police, who got busy cordoning off the scene. Two other men got out of a plain gray car that pulled up behind hers. Claire recognized the men with a little start, because she hadn't seen them in a while.
"Hey," said Detective Travis Lowe, nodding to her. He'd lost weight, she thought, and he looked a little bit grayer than before. Detective Joe Hess hadn't changed at all, except that his smile was more guarded as he nodded, too. "I heard you found yourself a genuine dead person."
"Travis," Hannah said, frowning at him. "Go easy on the kid."
"Her? Listen, I know her. She's tough. She can take it. Right, Claire?"
She nodded, because what else did you do when someone said something like that? But she didn't feel tough. Not right at this moment. As if he sensed that, Detective Hess cut in front of his partner and came to talk to her. He had a soothing sort of manner, and the gentle tone of voice he used made her feel a little less...lost.
"Someone you knew, right?" Hess said. "Can you tell me what happened?"
"I--" Claire suddenly realized that she had a decision to make: tell about the whole reason she and Eve and Michael had come over, or lie and pretend like it was just another of those wacky Morganville coincidences. She didn't feel like lying, though. Not to Detective Hess. "It's Doug--Doug Legrande. He was my lab partner in Professor Larkin's class. He took something he shouldn't have, and I came to ask him to give it back."
Detective Hess was a hell of a lot sharper than most people in Morganville, and he gave her a sideways look as he said very casually, "Would that thing be something that some people in town wouldn't want to get out?"
"Blood," she said, keeping her voice in a whisper. "You know what kind of blood."
"I do. So, tell me what happened when you got here." And he slowly walked her through it, step by step, from the beginning. He'd also walked her off a little from her friends, and Claire saw that Detective Lowe was talking to Eve, while Michael had Hannah as a conversational partner. Double-checking facts, Claire guessed. The low-key way it was done made her feel a lot less nervous. By the time she was finished, Detective Lowe had finished up with Eve and was sitting on the back bumper of the gray car, making notes with a pad and pen as he talked to Chief Moses. Hannah had notes, too.
"Did we do anything wrong?" Claire finally asked, as Hess jotted down something, as well. "I mean, we tried to do the right thing. For Doug."
"You probably would have been better off reporting it immediately," Hess said. That was one thing she liked a lot about him: he was kind about it, but he told her the truth, no matter how difficult it was to hear it. "I can't say this wouldn't have still happened, because we can't jump to the conclusion that his theft had anything to do with his murder, but you need to understand that if it did, Doug didn't have to die. He might have been in jail, but he would have been safer. Understand?"
She did, and she felt miserable...but, oddly, also more centered. It was what she'd been thinking, anyway. Hearing him say it didn't make her feel any worse; it made it real enough that she could move on, accept it as a mistake, and plan to never let it happen again.
"I'm sorry," she said. She wasn't sure if Hess understood, but she thought he probably did.
"You're learning," he said. "Sometimes those lessons come harder than others. I'm glad you're all right."
"Thank you." She cleared her throat. "Um, how have you been? I haven't seen you since, you know..." She didn't know how to put it. They all avoided talking about Mr. Bishop, definitely the coldest vampire she'd ever met; he'd been cruel, calculating, and way too powerful. The fact that they'd survived his