“Find out how long he’s been missing,” Simonds said. “And make sure the other guards on the vampires at the mall are still safe. Go!”
Halling headed for the stairs, and Claire scrambled out of the way as the officer’s long legs pushed past. She felt sick and weight-less, as if she were falling into an endless black hole. What the hell was going on?
She took out her phone as Simonds moved to inspect the body, and quietly texted Shane not to come home. He sent back a ques- tion mark. She replied with an exclamation point, and then quickly put the phone away before Simonds caught sight of it.
“Do you know this man?” he asked her. She shook her head.
“I’ve seen him,” she said. “I saw him at the mall, where they were keeping the vampires. But I don’t know him.”
“Any explanation for why he’d be dead in your basement, Miss Danvers?”
She could only shake her head again. She didn’t have any idea what else to say. Simonds sighed, stood up, and took out his cell phone to make a call. He requested additional units, and a forensic kit— Morganville wasn’t big enough to have an actual forensic team— and then looked up at her. He seemed sorry, she thought.
But not very.
“Stand up,” he told her. “Come down to the floor.”
She did stand up, but in that moment she realized that if she let him arrest her, she’d have no chance at all to clear herself. Fallon might well have arranged this— a plot to put them all behind bars and get them out of his way.
She couldn’t take that chance.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She reached in her pocket and brought out the round shape in her pocket. She yanked the pull ring and tossed the thing down the stairs toward where he stood. “Gre- nade!”
Shane was right. Nobody waited to see what happened when they heard that word.
She dashed up the steps, and hit the door at the top just as there was a muffled whump below. She looked down to see a cloud of thick white powder spreading over everything, as if she’d thrown a giant bag of flour. Simonds, who’d taken cover at the far end of the basement in a crouch behind an old freezer, coughed and fanned the air as the stuff settled on him.
He was okay.
“Danvers!” he yelled, and drew his pistol from under his coat as he swiped at his face to clear his eyes. “Stop where you are!”
She was committed now, and she ran.
The house slammed and locked the basement door for her; she headed toward the front door, but heard footsteps ahead— one of the other cops. It didn’t really matter which anymore; either one would probably shoot her as a fleeing suspect.
She crashed through the kitchen door, heading straight for the back entrance; it flew open ahead of her, and she felt a giant shove at her back as if the house itself was pushing her out.
She felt the bullet pass by her before she actually heard the shot. It was a tiny shock wave beside her waist, close enough that it left her feeling scorched.
The door slammed behind her and locked tight before the officer— whichever one it was— could draw a bead for a second shot.
She tumbled down the steps and rolled to her feet, then ran for the back fence. She knew it was wobbly at the corner, and she shoved it out, then squeezed through into the narrow, dirty alley.
A lady watering plants in another yard gaped at her, and asked her something in a sharp, urgent voice, but Claire didn’t pause.
She just ran.
She made it as far as the end of the alley before a police cruiser blocked her off with a burst of flashing lights and a sharp blare of siren. Claire skidded to a halt, backpedaled, and turned to flee the other way, but it was cut off, too.
A dusty Detective Simonds was squeezing through the hole in the fence, and he had his gun aimed right at her. “Stop,” he said.
“Claire, don’t make this ugly. You’ve got nowhere to go.”
He was right. It could only go wrong now.
She put her hands up.
“Walk to the fence. Lean against it, hands above your head.”