“Sorry?” As usual, Emily was going so fast that Claire couldn’t keep up right away.
“Well, you should be. I’ve been stuck out here for almost a freaking week and you haven’t called me once! What kind of best friend is that?”
Claire winced. “Sorry. The time just got away from me, I guess. Things have been pretty crazy around here.”
“Thanks for rubbing it in. You’re right there in the middle of all the excitement, and I’m stuck out in cow-pie central with no Internet connection.”
Right in the middle of all the excitement. Man, she has no idea how close she is to the truth.
“It’s pretty bad, huh?” Claire asked.
“Oh, my God, they have the Farmers’ Almanac on the coffee table, like it’s the damn Bible or something. My aunt cooks stuff in lard, Claire. Lard. Do you know what that is? And this morning,” she sniffled, “there was a mouse in the bathroom.”
Emily sounded so pathetic, but Claire couldn’t help but think how minor her best friend’s problems really were. Emily hadn’t turned into an animal. No one was hunting her. And the biggest secret she had to keep was the fact that she had a pack of cigarettes hiding in the pocket of an old bathrobe.
It didn’t matter how much Claire wanted to feel sorry for Emily—jealousy gnawed on her insides, eating up any room she might have had for sympathy.
“Claire? Hello? Are you there? Damn it!”
“No—I mean—yeah, I’m here. You’ve still got a signal.”
“Thank God. I have to sit on top of the kitchen table and lean toward the window to get two stupid bars. I’ll probably have to go a freaking chiropractor if my parents ever decide to let me come home.”
“Any chance of that happening?” Claire asked.
“I don’t think so,” Emily moaned. “Not until they catch the werewolf, anyway. I swear, I hate that stupid thing more than Dr. Engle does.”
Claire sagged against the bedpost. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. If she knew, she wouldn’t feel that way at all. Claire struggled against the urge to tell Emily what was going on. The only thing that stopped her was the memory of last year, when Emily ruined two separate surprise parties because she couldn’t stand to keep a secret.
“So, is there anything at all about being at your aunt and uncle’s that doesn’t suck?” Claire asked, anxious to get away from the subject.
“Well,” Emily hedged, “there might be one tiny thing.”
“Might that thing have two legs and a dimple?”
“Yes on the legs, no on the dimple,” Emily admitted. “His name’s Dan … I dunno, Claire, he’s so … wholesome. He’s gorgeous and funny and we met because he actually opened the door for me, but … it’s weird. I mean, when we went out to dinner last night, he had milk with his meal. Whole milk. And he calls my uncle ‘sir.’ I just don’t know if he’s really my type.”
“But you like him?” Claire asked.
“Yeah, I like him,” Emily sighed.
Even though it had been days since she’d talked to Emily, the next twenty minutes crawled by. Listening to her friend debate the pros and cons of getting involved with a guy who didn’t know who Chagall was and had never had anything pierced was so far from everything that was going on with Claire that she couldn’t think of anything to say. Which was especially strange, since the two of them had had this same conversation every time Emily liked a new guy. Claire hadn’t felt this abnormal since the first night she’d transformed, and she paced around the room, trying to get away from the feeling.
“Claire, I’ve gotta go. My aunt wants to set the table, and I’m sitting on it.”
Claire closed her eyes in silent thanks. “Sorry, Em. Keep me updated, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Emily hung up and Claire flopped back on the bed, the tension draining out of her body. She sighed and sat back up to finish sorting her dirty clothes. No matter how badly she wished things were normal again, it just wasn’t going to happen.
Almost a week went by, and Hanover Falls breathed a collective sigh of relief. No one else had been killed. It had been nearly a month since the editor’s death, and on the evening news they spent as much time talking about the unprecedented heat wave as they did covering the unsolved murders.
Ever since their discussion about Zahlia, Claire had been avoiding her mother as much as possible, pretending things were fine, but later that afternoon, while Lisbeth was at the grocery store, Marie stopped her in the kitchen.
“We need to talk again, chérie.”
“Hey, it’s been ages since I even left the stupid house, much less seen someone you don’t want me to. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I did not say that you had, Claire. There’s no reason to jump to conclusions.”
“So, what’s up?” Claire asked. She was anxious to get out of the kitchen and away from her mother’s probing gaze.
Her mother sat down at the island.
“You know what night next Tuesday is, yes?”