Claire De Lune (22 page)

Claire ducked her head. “I didn’t know you had plans. You didn’t have to wait for me. I’m old enough to let myself in the house when I get home, you know.”

Lisbeth sighed. “That’s not the issue here. Now, I’m going to go see if there’s any news on that
monster
they caught last night, but I will be checking on you, Claire. And you had better be where I expect you to be, every second, do you understand?”

Lisbeth was usually so Zen about things, meditating on problems and coming up with what she liked to call “gentle solutions.” Claire opened her mouth, ready to apologize again, and stopped short. The smell that filled her nostrils was unmistakable. Underneath Lisbeth’s anger, she smelled of fear.

Claire’s mouth snapped shut when she took in the way Lisbeth was standing—arms crossed over her chest, fists clenched.
She really was freaked out about me being gone. Crap.

“I know I screwed up big time.” Claire automatically
twisted her head to one side, baring her neck a little. Lisbeth might not know the signs of submission the way another wolf would, but it couldn’t hurt. “I really am sorry, Lisbeth. If it’s okay with you, I’ll just go upstairs and eat in my room.”

“Fine.” Lisbeth uncrossed her arms. “But don’t get crumbs on the carpet. I just cleaned, and I’m not revacuuming that pigsty you call a room.” Claire could see her anger fading.

“I’ll be careful.”

All I have to do is wait. Just a day or two. Then I’ll go find Zahlia.

True to her word, Lisbeth checked on Claire every couple of hours, even setting her alarm clock so she could do a few middle-of-the-night bed checks. Claire tossed under her covers, feeling the frustration of being trapped, jailed.

Two worry-filled days later, Claire and Lisbeth ate a silent dinner together in the kitchen. Lisbeth sat glued to the news, which was nothing more than footage of Marie pacing in her cage, mixed in with statements by Dr. Engle about what “great progress” they were making and an occasional weather report, just so that they could mention the drought again. Claire couldn’t wait anymore. She had to go find Zahlia. The only good news was that with Dr. Engle announcing that the werewolf had been caught, there should be plenty of people out after dark, so no one would notice her on her bike.

When she finally heard snores coming from Lisbeth’s bedroom,
Claire snuck in and turned off Lisbeth’s alarm, and then slipped out of the house the same way she had almost every other night for the past several weeks. A loneliness that Claire wasn’t used to feeling sliced through her. She could feel a howl building inside her, the urge to voice her feelings almost too strong to push away.

Beatrice and Victoria—her own pack—had refused to help her find her mother. The thought filled Claire’s mouth with the bitter taste of bile. She stashed her bike behind some bushes a few blocks from the nearest bus stop and waited, struggling not to cry. When the bus finally arrived, Claire got in and sat on the edge of one of the hard plastic seats, watching the stops tick by, getting more furious by the block. By the time she reached Zahlia’s, she was glowing with rage.

Rusted wires hung out of the buzzer outside Zahlia’s apartment building. Claire tugged on the greasy handle of the lobby door. It swung open easily. Inside, the fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered overhead. She shivered. Beatrice and Victoria’s house hadn’t exactly been glamorous, but this was one step above condemned. She’d had no idea Zahlia lived somewhere like this.

Claire took the rickety stairs three at a time until she arrived at the fifth floor. She knocked on the door of Apartment 503 and waited. Down the hall, two people shouted at each other in a language Claire didn’t understand. When she heard the sound of glass breaking, she knocked again. The
current of danger, the coppery smells of fear and malice and desperation—it was too much to bear with her heightened senses. The next full moon was just over two weeks away, and with each night that passed, Claire could feel her transformation becoming more complete. Everything around her pressed in harder, filling her brain with so much information that it made her head ache.

Where was Zahlia? The hair on the back of Claire’s neck stood up. What if something had happened to her, too? She reached out and tried to open the door. Locked. But there was no deadbolt—it was only the flimsy push button lock keeping her out. Claire hesitated for only a second before she kicked hard at the door. It swung open with a satisfying pop, and Claire said a silent prayer of thanks.

The contrast from the dark, urine-scented hall made Claire do a double take. Inside, the apartment was immaculate. There was almost no furniture: one stiff-looking loveseat, a glass coffee table, and a small television. The walls were bare, and the only thing on the kitchen counter was an expensive-looking coffeepot. It looked unnatural, somehow. Like someone had put together the things they assumed people had in their houses, but with the details all wrong.

“Hello?” Claire called softly. “Zahlia? Is anyone here?”

There was no answer. Claire walked a little farther into the apartment. A small hallway opened off the kitchen/living room combo. Two doors stood open, the rooms behind them dark,
but at the end of the hall was one closed door. A strip of light shined out from underneath it. Claire’s heart stammered in her chest and she instinctively moved down into a half crouch. She slunk down the hall.

The first door she passed was a tiny bathroom. The shower curtain hung perfectly straight, towels neatly folded over the bar. In the next room were a small desk and a wooden chair. The only nongeneric stuff she’d seen in the entire apartment was in this room, but it was a strange mishmash of things. A wilted sunflower had been pinned to one wall, and a little garden gnome sat on the desk, his paint flaking and peeling like he’d been outside for years.

On the floor was a man’s briefcase with the initials DRM monogrammed on the edge. Three round stones sat on top of it in a neat row.

Claire walked down the hall and stood in front of the last door, working up the courage to open it.
Please let her be sleeping in there.

“Zahlia?” she whispered, cracking open the door. When no answer came, Claire pushed it open all the way. The overhead light shined down on a small bed with a faded quilt pulled up tight over the pillow. There was no headboard—in its place hung an enormous photograph. It was grainy from being blown up too big. The woman in the picture looked shockingly like Zahlia, except that her hair was gray and her cheeks were rounder.

Her mother.
The thought popped into Claire’s head automatically. Before she could process it, her nose twitched.

In the middle of the bed, a small white dog lay curled up, its eyes closed tight.

The dog was dead. Claire could smell it.

Without a backward glance, Claire bolted out of the apartment and tore down the stairs. Whatever was going on with Zahlia, it wasn’t good. Outside the building, she leaned against the grimy bricks and gulped deep breaths of the garbage-scented air, trying to calm herself. Across the street, a couple of guys dressed in dark clothes, their hats pulled low over their faces, watched her.

When the bus pulled up to the corner, Claire dumped in her change with even shakier hands than the strung out woman who climbed on behind her. When the bus made it back to the stop closest to Claire’s house, she practically crawled off. It was nearly one a.m. and she was exhausted.

No matter how badly she wanted to rescue her mother, there was nothing Claire could do until morning. The town may have relaxed with her mother’s capture, but Claire hadn’t. Somewhere, the
seule
was still out there, and Claire had no desire to run into her alone. Claire couldn’t shake the image of Zahlia’s apartment from her mind—she hoped the black wolf hadn’t gone looking for the strange wolf by herself.

Claire crept back into the house. Upstairs, Lisbeth’s snores echoed like a buzz saw. Claire’s shoulders slumped in relief.
At least I’m not in any more trouble
. With any luck, Lisbeth would think she’d just forgotten to turn her alarm on. Claire collapsed on her bed and fell asleep, wrapped in guilt because she lay in her comfortable bed while her mother was trapped in a cage somewhere. All night long, she dreamt of dead dogs, suspicious-looking men, and cages. Lots and lots of cages.

In spite of her exhaustion, the sun woke Claire shortly after dawn. She felt more rested than she’d expected to. Her mother never needed much sleep, always working late in her darkroom, and then getting up early to prep for a shoot or go to a meeting. Maybe it was part of the whole werewolf thing.
If I get her out—
Claire stopped herself.
No, when I get her out, I’ll ask her.

She slid out of bed, grabbed her phone, and wandered downstairs. Even now, walking into her mother’s darkroom uninvited made Claire’s palms sweat. The cool, dim air smelled of Marie. Claire slid onto one of the stools in front of the worktable and put her head in her hands.

Her cell rang and Claire jumped.

“Hello?”

“Hey.” Matthew’s voice was gravelly, but the excitement in it was clear. “I hope I’m not calling too early.”

Hearing his voice lightened the blackness in her chest, just a little bit
.

“No, I’m up,” she said, trying to keep her voice normal.
Part of her wanted to just go ahead and break down—tell him everything. But his dad actually
had
her mom. If Matthew panicked, he might go to his dad. And Claire couldn’t risk that.

“Cool. So, listen, since things are, you know, safe again, I was wondering if you wanted to go out tonight.”

Just the idea of seeing him made Claire feel calmer, made it easier to think. And if Matthew knew anything about where her mother was, then she needed to do everything possible to get that information.

“That’d be great. What do you want to do?”

“I was thinking we could go over to Greenway Park—maybe have a picnic?”

“That sounds fun. Can you pick me up?”

“Um, sure—is that okay with everyone there?”

Claire struggled to keep her voice level. “My mom’s not here today. It’ll be fine.”

And who cared, anyway? Her mom wasn’t around to punish her if she found out. And Lisbeth would probably let her go if she said that she was going out with Doug Kingman after all.

They sorted out times, and Claire got off the phone before her mask of I’m-just-a-normal-sixteen-year-old cracked.

“Since things are safe,”
he’d said.
That’s what he thinks. Things aren’t ever going to be safe for me, not with a monster like his father on the loose.

Claire took one last look around the darkroom before she went upstairs to see if Lisbeth was awake. Her gaze flicked over her mother’s computer desk and she stopped dead.

If Marie Benoit was anal about one thing, it was her photography equipment. Everything had a place in the darkroom, and if it wasn’t in her hand, it was in its assigned spot. In anyone else’s house, the two cameras sitting on the desk next to the computer would look innocent enough, but the sight made Claire shudder. One of the cameras was turned on its side, still plugged into the computer. Claire picked it up and flipped it on. The memory card was empty—whatever photos had been there, her mother had already uploaded and then deleted them from the camera.

Unable to believe what she was doing, Claire slid onto the chair in front of the monitor and jiggled the mouse.

On the screen, a gray box popped up.
THESE FILES ARE PASSWORD PROTECTED. PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD.
Claire bit her lip. Okay. She could figure this out. She started with the obvious words, like “password,” “pictures.” None of them worked. Claire had worked her way through her mother’s favorite artists, foods, and hotels before she sucked in her breath and tried the one thing that kept darting through the back of her mind—the one password no one would be likely to guess. With shaking hands, she typed it in:
loup-garou.

INVALID PASSWORD,
the computer announced.

Well, crap.
If that hadn’t worked, Claire couldn’t think what
else it could possibly be. With a heavy sigh, she snapped off the monitor and headed upstairs to sweet-talk Lisbeth into cooking her some breakfast.

Claire ate as slowly as she could, forcing herself not to check the time. When she’d meticulously rinsed her dish and put it in the dishwasher, making sure it faced the right direction, she finally glanced over at the clock. Her heart sank when she saw the numbers. How could it only be ten forty-five? Matthew wasn’t due to pick her up until eight! If she couldn’t find something to distract herself from the tension that knotted her shoulder blades together like wings, she’d be crazy long before he got to the door. She headed for the living room, hoping she could find something mind-numbing on television.

After forcing herself to sit through two bad movies and one infomercial, Claire trudged upstairs to her room and looked around. She picked up her phone and called Emily. Maybe there’d been more drama with the country boy that they could dissect, or mouse encounters Emily could tell her about. Any distraction would be a good distraction.

“I was just about to call you!” Emily started talking without even saying hello.

“Oh, yeah?” Claire shoved aside a pile of clothes and flopped into her armchair.

“I mean, can you believe it? It’s totally amazing news,
right? I haven’t been able to get a hold of Mom and Dad yet, but I’m demanding they come get me as soon as humanly possible.”

Claire’s mouth opened, but no words came out. Of course Emily would get to come home, now that everyone thought the werewolf situation was over. With everything else that was going on, Claire hadn’t really thought about it.

“That’s—that’s great, Em.”

“Well, don’t break a nail celebrating, or anything,” Emily huffed.

Claire closed her eyes. “Sorry, Em—it’s fantastic news, really!” She forced herself to sound enthusiastic.
It is fantastic news. Or at least, it should be. So why am I not excited?
If she was being completely honest, Claire sort of wished that Emily would stay at her aunt and uncle’s—at least until Claire had things with her mother sorted out.