Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(98)

She ignored him, except to say, “Do you want some coffee?”

“Why? Has all the Coke run out?” He veered off to open the fridge and pulled out a frosty can. “Thank God. You had me scared.” Shane popped the can’s top and slid into the third rickety chair at the table, and ran a hand through his bedhead-messy hair. He gave Hannah a charming smile. “I’m going to be happy you’re here, and not get all paranoid about why you’re here.”

His eyes met Claire’s, and held, and so did his smile. She returned it, dimples and all, and reached over to take his hand. “She’s asking me to look at something.”

“Smart-girl stuff, got it. What’s the deal?”

Claire’s smile dimmed. “A girl got hurt today. It’s her blood tests. Hannah thinks that it might have had something to do with why she was attacked.”

“Attacked? Is that 1950s code for . . .”

“She wasn’t raped,” Hannah said. “She was hit in the back of the head with a blunt object and left to die.”

“Oh.” Shane sipped cola and fidgeted slightly in the chair, gaze fixed in the middle distance. He seemed to be debating something, and finally he shifted and looked Hannah in the eye. “Look, you’re Captain Obvious, and encouraging vampire resistance is kind of your deal with that, so I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know, but . . . was she one of the guinea pigs?”

“One of the what?”

“Oh, man. You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?” When Shane wasn’t immediately spilling it, Hannah leaned forward, and he leaned back. “Tell me what you know. Now.”

He looked torn, and miserable, but he shrugged. He didn’t look at Claire, although she was staring directly at him, eyes wide. “I only heard it through the grapevine. I thought for sure you’d already be all into it.”

“Shane.” She put her impatience and implied threat into it, and he looked away again, focused now on the sweating can of Coke in his hands. “Now.”

“Some older guy thought he’d mastered some kind of treatment that was supposed to make blood less tasty to vamps. He was dealing it under the table at a couple of clubs. All I know is it made some people sick, word got around, and he quit selling it. Said he was going to test it out more first.”

“Who was it?”

Shane shrugged again, still not willing to risk direct eye contact. “Never met him, Hannah. Sorry.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I know. It’s complicated. He’s a friend of a friend of a friend. You know how it is.”

“A girl is lying in a hospital bed with her skull crushed,” Hannah said, and stood up. Shane, startled, did look this time. “I don’t know if you’ve lost your courage, or your humanity, but either way, if you find it, give me a call.”

Claire took in a deep, startled breath, but said nothing. Shane slowly stood up. It was hard not to be aware of how tall he was, how broad-shouldered, and how still and hard his face had gotten.

“Don’t go there,” Shane said. His voice had gone deceptively soft. “This isn’t my fault.”

“It is if you know something that could be vital to finding this son of a bitch.”

“Maybe it’s a vampire who did it. You going to go arrest him, Chief? How do you think that’ll go? Slap on the wrist. Hell, if she’s in the hospital, she didn’t even die. Amelie probably won’t even make him pay a damn fine!”

“Are you done? Because I can promise you, not every crime in Morganville is caused by vampires,” Hannah said. “And I will bring this man—or woman—to justice. You have my word.”

“I don’t think we’ve got that in Morganville. Justice.”

“We won’t if we don’t fight for it.”

The silence stretched. Claire reached out and put a hand on Shane’s arm, and he almost flinched at the contact, so intensely was he concentrating on Hannah. “Shane,” she said, in a steady, quiet voice. “Tell her. It’s important. Don’t make this some us-versus-them issue if it isn’t.”

“And if it is?” he said, but then shook his head. “You’re right. Okay. The word is that the older guy selling the stuff was named Matt. That’s all I heard. I didn’t ask for details because I didn’t want to know. Don’t know if that even helps anyway.”

Matt. Matt.

For a second, it didn’t connect, and then it did.

Then it all made a horrible kind of sense.

? ? ?

Matt Ramson wasn’t at the hospital when she stopped there; his mother was, still sitting silently at the bedside of her pale, bandaged daughter. Hannah waited a moment, out of respect, until the haunted woman’s eyes rose to meet hers. “I’m sorry, ma’am. How is she?”

“No different,” Mrs. Ramson said. Her voice sounded as if it came from far away. “They’re saying it’ll be a good sign if she wakes up soon. But it’ll be a miracle if she’s the same girl she was before.”

“Miracles happen,” Hannah said. “You hold on to that.”

Mrs. Ramson nodded slowly. “Father Joe was here. He told me the same thing.”

“He ought to know, don’t you think?”