Morganville (Justin Bieber)

Chapter 39

In the end, they sat me down in a chair and had Gretchen hold me down with those strong, iron hard hands pressing on my shoulders. I continued to struggle, but fear and shock were winning out over anger. And Justin wasn't moving. He was watching me, but he couldn't say anything around the gag, and if Justin was struggling, maybe there wasn't anything to be gained from it.

Eve spun around and slapped Oliver. An open hand, hard smack that echoed like a gunshot off all the marble in the room. There was a collective intake of breath. "You son of a bitch!" She spit. "Let Justin go! He has nothing to do with this!"

"Really" a flat word, not even really a question. Oliver's face didn't show any sign of a handprint from the slap, and it had definitely been hard enough. He'd barely looked as if he'd felt it at all. "Sit down, Eve, while I tell you the facts of your rather pathetic life"

She didn't. Oliver put his hands flat on her chest, right at the notch of her collarbone, and shoved. Eve sprawled in the chair, glaring at him.

"Detective Hess" Oliver said. "I suggest you explain to my dear ex-employee exactly what she risks the next time she touches me in anger. Or, come to think of it, touches me at all"

Hess was already moving, sitting in the chair beside Eve and leaning towards her. He whispered to her, urgent words that I couldn't catch. Eve shook her head violently. A trickle of sweat ran from her messy hair down the side of her face, making a flesh coloured track through the white make up.

"Now" Oliver continued once Hess stopped, and Eve was sitting still. "We're not technological idiots, Eve. And we do own the telephone providers in this area, particularly the cell phone providers. Justin placed a call from your phone to a number that, much to our surprise, we found to be assigned to a device we located on his friend Mr Wallace" Oliver pointed to the biker. "GPS is a marvellous invention, by the way. We're quite grateful for all the hard work humanity has put into keeping track of itself. It makes finding people so much easier than it used to be in the old days"

"Justin didn't do anything" I said. "Please. You have to let him go"

"Justin was found at the crime scene" Oliver said. "With Brandon's body. And I hardly think we can say he wasn't involved, if he was friendly enough with Mr Wallace to be exchanging telephone calls"

"No, he didn't-!"

Oliver slapped me. I never saw it coming, just felt the impact and saw red for a second. My whole body shook with force with how much I wanted to hit back, and I felt the stinging imprint of his hand on my cheek like a brand.

"You see, Eve?" Oliver asked. "Eye for an eye. Of course, my interpretation is a bit free of the scriptures"

Justin was screaming around his gag, and now he was fighting, but the vampires were holding him down on his knees without breaking a sweat. Eve's eyes were huge and dark, and Hess was holding her down in the chair as she struggled to come after Oliver.

Don't, I thought wildly. Because my friends had just told Oliver exactly what he wanted to know: that hurting me would get something out of them.

"Oliver" Amelie said. Her voice was soft and gentle. "Is there a question you are posing to the children? Or are you merely indulging yourself? You say you already know the boy called this man. What more information do you need?"

"I want to know where his father has gone" Oliver said. "One of them knows"

"The girls?" Amelie shook her head. "It seems unlikely that someone like Mr Collins would trust either of them"

"The boy knows, then"

"Possibly" she tapped her lips with one pale finger. "Yet somehow, I doubt he will tell you. And there is no need for any cruelty to discover the truth, I believe.