Carpe Corpus Page 0,89

all, but it will be done. In Sam's memory, I make it so."

She leaned over, and very gently, placed a kiss on Sam's lips, then closed the coffin. No one spoke as she walked away, down the steps and out through the side door. Oliver and a few of the other vampires exchanged silent looks, then moved to follow her.

Father Joe spoke over the rising tide of whispers. "Let us pray."

Claire clasped her hands and looked down. Next to her, Shane was doing the same, but he whispered, "Am I crazy, or did we just win?"

"No," Claire whispered back. "But I think we just got a chance to."

Four weeks later.

"Chaos, disorder, mayhem," Shane said. "Situation normal in Morganville." He took a drink of his coffee and pushed the other one across to Claire.

Common Grounds was holding a grand reopening, with half-priced coffee, and the place was packed. Everybody loved a bargain. It wasn't exactly normal for the two of them to be sitting in Oliver's territory like this; Claire never thought Shane would do it voluntarily, but the lure of cheap caffeine proved powerful.

He'd further surprised her by exchanging some semi-civil words with Oliver himself as he'd claimed the coffee. Speaking of which . . . "What did Oliver say to you?" Claire asked.

Shane shrugged.

"I asked Oliver if they'd found my father, but he was his usual douchey self. Told me to forget about my dad. I don't know if that means they found him, they killed him, or they just don't care. Dammit, I just want someone to tell me."

Claire looked up at him, struck into silence. I need to tell him, she thought. I really do.

She just couldn't quite think of the words.

Life was getting back to normal in Morganville. Amelie had declared an absolute ban on hunting. The blood banks had reopened, and the people of Morganville had been given a choice - start over, or start running. Plenty had taken the second option. Claire figured that half the town had decided to seize the chance to leave . . . but she also knew that some of them would come back. After all, some of their families had never been out of town at all. It was a whole new world out there. For some, it would be too much.

Common Grounds had renovated in record time, and was open to students once more. Oliver was behind the bar, wearing his nice-guy face and pulling espresso shots like nothing had ever changed.

The bronze statue of Bishop was gone from the university. In fact, all traces of Bishop were gone. Claire didn't know where Fran?ois and Ysandre had ended up, but Myrnin assured her, with a perfectly straight face, that she didn't want to know. Sometimes, she was content to be ignorant. Not often, true. But sometimes.

Shane, however, needed to know about his father. Frank Collins, as far as Claire knew, had just vanished into thin air. If Amelie knew, she wasn't saying.

This was a moment that Claire actually had wanted to avoid, in a way. She'd put it off as long as she could, but Shane was getting more aggressive about asking people if there was any sign of Frank Collins in Morganville, and she really couldn't put it off any longer.

"I have something to tell you about that," she said, and cleared her throat. "Your dad - I . . . I saw him."

He froze, coffee cup halfway to his lips. "When?"

"A while ago." She didn't want to be too specific. She hated that she'd hidden it from him for so long. "He . . . ah . . . he could have killed me, but he didn't. He said to tell you that . . . that he loved you. And he was sorry."

Shane blinked at her, as if he couldn't quite believe what she was saying. "Where did you see him?"

"In the cells where the sick vampires were being kept. He's not there anymore. I looked. He's just . . . gone." She swallowed hard. "I didn't want to tell you, but I think . . . I think he was going to kill himself, Shane."

Something changed inside of Shane for a long second - she didn't recognize the look in his eyes or on his face. And then she did. It was his dad's look, the one that came before he lashed out at someone.

Shane closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and bowed his head. She didn't dare move for a few