Kiss of Death Page 0,40

The cinder blocks were painted a pale blue with dark red trim on the roof and windows, but the whole thing had faded to a kind of pale gray over time. As Linda stopped the truck with a squeal of brakes, the front door of the shack opened, and a young man stepped out and waved. "Oooh, cute," Eve whispered to Claire. Claire nodded. He was older, maybe twenty or so, but he had a nice face. And a great smile, like his grandma. "Oh, he is cute!" Shane said in a fake girly voice. "Gee, maybe we can ask him out!"

"Shut up, you weasel. Claire, hit him!"

"Pretend I did," Claire said. "Look, he's bleeding." Shane snorted. "Not. Okay, out of the truck before this gets silly." Linda, ignoring them, had already gotten out on the driver's side and was walking toward her grandson. As they hugged, Claire scrambled down from Shane's lap to the pavement. He hopped down beside her, and then Eve slithered out as well. "Wow," she said, surveying the cars on the lot. "This is just--"

"Sad."

"I was going more for horrifying, but yeah, that works, too. Okay, can we agree on nothing in a minivan, please?"

"Yep," Shane said. "I'm down with it." They wandered around the lot. It didn't take long before they'd looked at everything parked in front, and from Eve's expression, Claire could tell there wasn't a single thing she'd be caught dead driving--or, more accurately, caught with the dead, driving. "This sucks," Eve said. "The only thing that has decent trunk space is pink." And not just a little pink, either; it looked like a pink factory had thrown up all over it. Linda's grandson wandered over, trailed by her. He caught the last bit of Eve's complaint, and shook his head. "You don't want that thing, anyway," he said. "Used to belong to Janie Hearst. She drove it fifteen thousand miles without an oil change. She thinks she's the Paris Hilton of Durram. Hi, I'm Ernie Dawson. Heard you're looking for a car. Sorry about what happened to yours. Those fools are a menace--have been since I was a kid. Glad nobody was hurt."

"Yeah, well, we just want to get the heck out of town," Eve said. "It was my car. It was a really nice old classic Caddy, you know? Black, with fins? I was hoping maybe somebody could tow it in, fix it up, and I could pick it up later on, maybe in a couple of weeks?" Ernie nodded. He had greenish eyes, a color that stood out against his suntanned skin; his hair was brown, and wavy, and got in his face a lot. Claire liked him instinctively, but then she remembered the last cute stranger she'd liked. That hadn't turned out so well. In fact, that had turned out very, very badly, with her blood getting drained out of her body. So she didn't smile back at Ernie-much. "I think I can set that up," he said. "Earle Weeks down at the repair shop can probably work some magic on it, but you'd have to leave him a pretty good deposit. He'll have to order in parts."

"Hey, if you can make me a good deal on a decent car that isn't pink, I'm all good here."

"Well, what you see is pretty much what you get, except--" He gazed at Eve for a few long seconds, then shook his head. "Nah, you won't be interested in that."

"In what?"

"Something that I keep out back. Nobody around here will buy it. I've been trying to make a trade with a company out of Dallas to get it off my hands. But since you said big classic Caddy--" Eve jumped in place a little. "Sweet! Let's see it!"

"I'm just warning you, you won't like it."

"Is it pink?"

"No. Definitely not pink. But"--Ernie shrugged--"okay, sure. Follow me."

"This ought to be good," Shane said, and reached into his pocket for a cookie he'd hidden there. He broke it in half and offered it to Claire. "Can't wait," she said, and wolfed it down, because Linda was world-class with the cookies. "I can't believe I'm eating cookies for breakfast."

"I can't believe we're stuck in Durram, Texas, with a burned-out car, two vamps, and the cookies are this good. " And... he had a point.

Chapter Nine

Eve had a look on her face as if she'd just found the Holy Grail, or whatever the Gothic equivalent of that might be. She stared, eyes gone wide and