Book Six Chapter 5-8

Chapter 5
I was glad Jason was a little late. I'd finished the bacon and I was putting the hamburgers in the frying pan when he arrived. I had already opened the package of buns and put two on Jason's plate, and put a bag of potato chips on the table. I'd poured him a glass of tea and set it beside his place. Jason came in without knocking, as he always did. Jason hadn't changed that much, at least to the eyes, since he'd become a werepanther. He was still blond and attractive, and I mean attractive in the old way; he was good to look at, but he was also the kind of man that everyone looks at when he comes into a room. On top of that, he'd always had a mean streak. But since his change, he'd somehow been acting like a better person. I hadn't decided why that was. Maybe being a wild animal once a month satisfied some craving he hadn't known he had.
Since he'd been bitten, not born, he didn't change completely; he became a sort of hybrid. At first, he'd been disappointed about that. But he'd gotten over it. He'd been dating a full werepanther named Crystal for several months now. Crystal lived in a tiny community some miles out in the country—and let me tell you, out in the country from Bon Temps, Louisiana, is really out in the country.
We said a brief prayer and began eating. Jason didn't dig in with his usual gusto. Since the hamburger tasted good to me, I figured whatever was on his mind was important. I couldn't read it out of his brain. Since my brother had become a Were, his thoughts had not been as clear to me.
Mostly, that was a relief.
After two bites, Jason put down his hamburger, and his body posture changed. He was ready to talk. "I got something I got to tell you," he said. "Crystal doesn't want me to tell anyone, but I'm really worried about her. Yesterday, Crystal… she had a miscarriage."
I shut my eyes for a few seconds. I had about twenty thoughts in that brief time, and I couldn't complete a one of them. "I'm so sorry," I said. "I hope Crystal's all right?"
Jason looked at me over a plate of food he'd completely forgotten. "She won't go to the doctor."
I stared at him blankly. "But she has to," I said reasonably. "She needs a D & C." I wasn't sure what "D & C" stood for, but I knew after you'd miscarried, you went to a hospital and that's what they did there. My friend and co-worker Arlene had had a D & C after her
miscarriage, and she'd told me about it several times. Several times. "They go in and…" I began, but Jason cut me off in midstream.
"Hey, I don't need to know," he said, looking very uncomfortable. "I just know that since Crystal's a werepanther, she didn't want to go to the hospital. She had to go when she got gored by that razorback, just like Calvin had to go when he got shot, but they both got well so fast that there was some comment in the doctors' lounge, she heard. So she won't go now. She's at my house, but she's… she's not doing well. She's getting worse, not better."
"Uh-oh," I said. "So what's happening?"
"She's bleeding too heavy, and her legs don't work right." He swallowed. "She can hardly stand up, much less walk."
"Have you called Calvin?" I asked. Calvin Norris, Crystal's uncle, is the leader of the tiny Hotshot panther community.
"She don't want me to tell Calvin. She's scared Calvin'll kill me for knocking her up. Crystal didn't want me to tell you, either, but I got to have help."
Though her mom wasn't living, Crystal had female relatives galore in Hotshot. I'd never had a baby, I'd never even been pregnant, and I wasn't a shifter. Any one of them would know more about the situation than I did. I told Jason this.
"I don't want her to sit up long enough to go back to Hotshot, specially in my truck." My brother looked as stubborn as a mule.
For an awful minute, I thought that Jason's big concern was Crystal bleeding on his upholstery. I was about to hop down his throat, when he added, "The shocks need replacing, and I'm scared the bouncing of the truck on that bad road would make Crystal worse."
Then her kin could come to Crystal. But I knew before I spoke that Jason would find a reason to veto that, too. He had some kind of plan. "Okay. What can I do?"
"Didn't you tell me that time when you got hurt, there was a special kind of doctor the vamps called to look at your back?"
I didn't like to think about that night. My back still bore the scars of the attack. The poison on the maenad's claws had nearly killed me. "Yes," I said slowly, "Dr. Ludwig." Doctor to all that was weird and strange, Dr. Ludwig was herself an oddity. She was extremely short—very, very short.
And her features were not exactly regular, either. It would come as an extreme surprise to me if Dr. Ludwig were at all human. I'd seen her a second time at the contest for pack-master. Both times, I'd been in Shreveport; so the chances were good that Dr. Ludwig actually lived there.
Since I didn't want to overlook the obvious, I fished a Shreveport directory out of the drawer below the wall-mounted telephone. There was a listing for a Doctor Amy Ludwig. Amy? I bit back a burst of laughter.
I was very nervous about approaching Dr. Ludwig on my own, but when I saw how worried Jason was, I couldn't protest over making one lousy phone call.
It rang four times. A machine picked up. A mechanical voice said, "You have reached the telephone of Dr. Amy Ludwig. Dr. Ludwig is not accepting new patients, insured or uninsured. Dr. Ludwig does not want pharmaceutical samples, and she does not need insurance of any kind. She is not interested in investing her money, or giving to charities she hasn't personally selected." There was a long silence, during which time most callers presumably hung up. I didn't. After a moment, I heard another click on the line.
"Hello?" asked a gruff little voice.
"Dr. Ludwig?" I asked cautiously.
"Yes? I don't accept new patients, you know! Too busy!" She sounded both impatient and cautious.
"I'm Sookie Stackhouse. Is this the Dr. Ludwig who treated me in Eric's office at Fangtasia?"
"You are the young woman poisoned by the maenad's claws?"
"Yes. I saw you again a few weeks ago, remember?"
"And where was that?" She remembered quite well, but she wanted another proof of my identity.
"An empty building in an industrial park."
"And who was running the show there?"
"A big bald guy named Quinn."
"Oh, all right." She sighed. "What do you want? I'm rather busy."
"I have a patient for you. Please come to see her."
"Bring her to me."
"She's too sick to travel."
I heard the doctor muttering to herself, but I couldn't make out the words.
"Pooh," the doctor said. "Oh, very well, Miss Stackhouse. Tell me what the problem is."
I explained as best I could. Jason was moving around the kitchen, because he was too worried to sit still.
"Idiots. Fools," Dr. Ludwig said. "Tell me how to get to your house. Then you can take me where the girl is."
"I may have to leave for work before you can get here," I said, after glancing at the clock and calculating how long it would take the doctor to drive from Shreveport. "My brother will be here waiting."
"Is he the responsible party?"
I didn't know if she was talking about the bill for her services, or the pregnancy. Either way, I told her that Jason definitely was the responsible party.
"She's coming," I told my brother, after I'd given the doctor directions and hung up. "I don't know how much she charges, but I told her you'd pay."
"Sure, sure. How will I know her?"
"You can't mistake her for anyone you know. She said she'd have a driver. She wouldn't be tall enough to see over the steering wheel, so I should have figured on that."
I did the dishes while Jason fidgeted. He called Crystal to check on her, seemed okay with what he'd heard. Finally, I asked him to go outside and knock old dirt-dauber nests off the tool shed. He couldn't seem to settle down, so he might as well be useful.
I thought about the situation while I started a load of laundry and put on my barmaid outfit (black pants, white boat-neck tee with Merlotte's embroidered over the left breast, black Adidas). I was not a happy camper. I was worried about Crystal—and I didn't like her. I was sorry she'd lost the baby because I know that's a sad experience, but I was happy because I really didn't want Jason to marry the girl, and I was pretty sure he would have if the pregnancy had continued. I cast around for something to make me feel better. I
opened the closet to look at my new outfit, the one I'd bought at Tara's Togs to wear on my date. But I couldn't even get any enjoyment out of it.
Finally, I did what I'd planned on doing before I'd heard Jason's news: I got a book and settled in a chair on the front porch, reading a few sentences every now and then in between admiring the pear tree in the front yard, which was covered in white blossoms and humming with bees.
The sun was beaming, the daffodils were just past their prime, and I had a date for Friday. And I'd already done my good deed for the day, in calling Dr. Ludwig. The coil of worry in my stomach eased up a little.
From time to time, I could hear vague sounds traveling my way from the backyard; Jason had found something to keep him occupied after he'd dealt with the nests. Maybe he was pulling up weeds in the flower beds. I brightened. That would be nice, since I didn't have my grandmother's enthusiasm for gardening. I admired the results, but I didn't enjoy the whole process as she had.
After checking my watch repeatedly, I was relieved to see a rather grand pearl Cadillac pull into the front parking area. There was a tiny shape in the front passenger seat. The driver's door opened, and a Were named Amanda got out. She and I had had our differences, but we'd parted on fair terms. I was relieved to see someone I knew. Amanda, who looked exactly like a middle-class soccer mom, was in her thirties. Her red hair looked natural, quite unlike my friend Arlene's.
"Sookie, hey," she said. "When the doctor told me where we were going, I was relieved, since I knew how to get here already."
"You're not her usual driver? Hey, I like the haircut, by the way."
"Oh, thanks." Amanda's hair was newly short, cut in a careless, almost boyish style that oddly suited her. I say oddly, because Amanda's body was definitely womanly.
"Haven't got used to it yet," she admitted, running her hand over her neck. "Actually, it's usually my oldest boy that drives Dr. Ludwig, but he's in school today, of course. Is it your sister-in-law that's ailing?"
"My brother's fiancee," I said, trying to put a good face on it. "Crystal. She's a panther."
Amanda looked almost respectful. Weres often have only contempt for other shape-shifters, but something as formidable as a panther would get their attention. "I heard there was a cluster of panthers out here somewhere. Never met one before."
"I have to get to work, but my brother's going to lead you over to his place."
"So, you're not really close to your brother's fiancee?"
I was taken aback at the implication that I was less than concerned about Crystal's welfare. Maybe I should have hurried over to her bedside and left Jason here to guide the doctor? I suddenly saw my enjoyment of my moments of peace as a callous disregard for Crystal. But now was no time to wallow in guilt.
"Truthfully," I said, "no, I'm not that close to her. But Jason didn't seem to think there was anything I could do for her, and my presence wouldn't exactly be soothing since she's not any fonder of me than I am of her."
Amanda shrugged. "Okay, where is he?"
Jason came around the corner of the house just then, to my relief. "Oh, great," he said. "You're the doctor?"
"No," Amanda said. "The doctor's in the car. I'm the driver today."
"I'll lead you over there. I been on the phone with Crystal, and she's not getting any better."
I felt another wave of remorse. "Call me at work, Jason, and let me know how she's doing, okay? I can come over after work and spend the night, if you need me."
"Thanks, Sis." He gave me a quick hug and then looked awkward. "Uh, I'm glad I didn't keep it a secret like Crystal wanted me to. She didn't think you'd help her."
"I'd like to think I was at least a good enough person to help someone who needed it, no matter if we were close or not." Surely Crystal hadn't imagined that I'd be indifferent, or even pleased, that she was ailing?
Dismayed, I watched the two very different vehicles start down the driveway on their way back to Hummingbird Road. I locked up and got in my own car in no very happy mood.
Continuing the theme of an eventful day, when I walked through the back door of Merlotte's that afternoon, Sam called to me from his office.
I went in to see what he wanted, knowing ahead of time that a few other people were waiting in there. To my dismay, I found that Father Riordan had ambushed me.
There were four people in Sam's office, besides my boss. Sam was unhappy, but trying to keep a good face on. A little to my surprise, Father Riordan wasn't happy about the people
that had accompanied him, either. I suspected I knew who they were. Crap. Not only did Father Riordan have the Pelts in tow, but a young woman of about seventeen, who must be Debbie's sister, Sandra.
The three new people looked at me intently. The older Pelts were tall and slim. He wore glasses and was balding, with ears that stuck out of his head like jug handles. She was attractive, if a bit overly made up. She was wearing a Donna Karan pants set and carrying a bag with a famous logo on it. Heels, too. Sandra Pelt was more casual, her jeans and T-shirt fitting her narrow figure very tightly.
I hardly heard Father Riordan formally introduce the Pelts, I was so overwhelmed with irritation that they were intruding themselves into my life to such an extent. I'd told Father Riordan I didn't want to meet them, yet here they were. The older Pelts ate me up with their avid eyes. Savage, Maria-Star had termed them. Desperate was the word that came to my mind.
Sandra was a different kettle of fish altogether: since she was the second child, she wasn't—couldn't be—a shifter like her folks, but she wasn't altogether a regular human, either. But something caught at my brain, made me pause. Sandra Pelt was a shifter of some kind. I'd heard the Pelts described as much more involved with their second daughter than they'd been with Debbie. Now, getting bits of information from them, I saw why that might be. Sandra Pelt might be underage, but she was formidable. She was a full Were.
But that couldn't be, unless…
Okay. Debbie Pelt, werefox, had been adopted. I'd learned that the Weres were prone to fertility problems, and I assumed that the Pelts had given up on having their own little Were, and had adopted a baby that was at least some kind of shape-shifter, if not their own kind. Even a full-blooded fox must have seemed preferable to a plain human. Then the Pelts had adopted another daughter, a Were.
"Sookie," Father Riordan said, his Irish voice charming but unhappy, "Barbara and Gordon showed up on my doorstep today. When I told them you'd said all you wanted to say about Debbie's disappearance, they weren't content with that. They insisted I bring them here with me."
My intense anger at the priest receded a bit. But another emotion filled its place. I was anxious enough about the encounter to feel my nervous smile spread across my face. I beamed at the Pelts, caught the backwash of their disapproval.
"I'm sorry for your situation," I said. "I'm sorry you're left wondering what happened to Debbie. But I don't know what else I can tell you."
A tear ran down Barbara Pelt's face, and I opened my purse to remove a tissue. I handed it to the woman, who patted her face. "She thought you were stealing Alcide from her," Barbara said.
You're not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but in Debbie Pelt's case, that was just plain impossible. "Mrs. Pelt, I'm going to be frank," I told her. Just not too frank. "Debbie was engaged to someone else at the time of her disappearance, a man named Clausen, if I remember correctly." Barbara Pelt nodded, reluctantly. "That engagement left Alcide at perfect liberty to date anyone he liked, and we did spend time together briefly." No lies there. "We haven't seen each other in weeks, and he's dating someone else now. So Debbie really was mistaken in what she thought."
Sandra Pelt bit her lower lip. She was lean, with clear skin and dark brown hair. She wore little makeup, and her teeth were dazzlingly white and even. Her hoop earrings could provide a perch for a parakeet; they were that big. She had a narrow body and expensive clothes: top of the mall chain.
Her expression was angry. She didn't like what I was saying, not one little bit. She was an adolescent, and there were strong surges of emotion in the girl. I remembered what my life had been like when I'd been Sandra's age, and I pitied her.
"Since you knew both of them," Barbara Pelt said carefully, not acknowledging my words, "you must have known that they had—they have—a strong love-hate relationship, no matter what Debbie did."
"Oh, that's true," I said, and maybe I didn't sound respectful enough. If there was anyone I'd done a big favor to in killing Debbie Pelt, that person was Alcide Herveaux. Otherwise, he and la Pelt would have been tearing each other up for years, if not the rest of their lives.
Sam turned away when the phone rang, but I glimpsed a smile on his face.
"We just feel that there must be something you know, some tiny little thing, that would help us discover what happened to our daughter. If—if she's met her end, we want her killer to come to justice."
I looked at the Pelts for a long moment. I could hear Sam's voice in the background as he reacted with astonishment to something he was hearing over the telephone.
"Mr. and Mrs. Pelt, Sandra," I said. "I talked to the police when Debbie vanished. I cooperated with them fully. I talked to your private investigators when they came here, to my place of work, just like you've done. I let them come into my home. I answered their questions." Just not truthfully.
(I know, the whole edifice was a lie, but I was doing the best I could.)
"I am very sorry for your loss and I sympathize with your anxiety to discover what's happened to Debbie," I continued, speaking slowly so I could pick my words. I took a deep breath. "But this has got to end. Enough's enough. I can't tell you a thing other than what I've already told you."
To my surprise, Sam edged around me and went into the bar, moving fast. He didn't say a word to anyone in the room. Father Riordan glanced after him, startled. I became even more anxious for the Pelts to leave. Something was up.
"I understand what you're saying," Gordon Pelt said stiffly. It was the first time the man had spoken. He didn't sound happy to be where he was, or to be doing what he was doing. "I realize we haven't gone about this in the best way, but I'm sure you'll excuse us when you think about what we've been through."
"Oh, of course," I said, and if that wasn't a complete truth, it wasn't a complete lie, either. I shut my purse and stowed it in the drawer in Sam's desk where all the servers kept their purses, and I hurried out to the bar.
I felt the upheaval wash over me. Something was wrong; almost every brain in the bar was broadcasting a signal combining excitement with anxiety bordering on panic.
"What's up?" I asked Sam, sidling behind the bar.
"I just told Holly that the school called. Holly's little boy is missing."
I felt the chill start at the base of my spine and work up. "What happened?"
"Danielle's mom usually picks up Cody from school when she picks up Danielle's little girl, Ashley." Danielle Gray and Holly Cleary had been best friends all through high school and their friendship had continued through the failure of both their marriages. They liked to work the same shift. Danielle's mother, Mary Jane Jasper, had been a life-saver for Danielle, and from time to time her generosity had spilled over to include Holly. Ashley must be about eight, and Danielle's son, Mark Robert, should now be four. Holly's only child, Cody, was six. He was in the first grade.
"The school let someone else pick Cody up?" I'd heard that the teachers were on the alert for unauthorized spouses picking up their kids.
"No one knows what happened to the little guy. The teacher on duty, Halleigh Robinson, was standing outside watching the kids get in their cars. She says Cody suddenly remembered he'd left a picture for his mom on his desk, and he ran back into the school to get it. She doesn't remember seeing him come out, but she couldn't find him when she went in to check."
"So Mrs. Jasper was there waiting for Cody?"
"Yes, she was the only one left, sitting there in her car with her grandchildren."
"This is very scary. I don't suppose David knows anything?" David, Holly's ex, lived in Springhill and had remarried. I registered the departure of the Pelts: one less irritant.
"Apparently not. Holly called him at his job, and he was there and had been all afternoon, no doubt about it. He called his new wife, and she had just gotten back from picking up her own kids at the Springhill school. The local police went by their house and searched, just to be sure. Now David's on his way here."
Holly was sitting at one of the tables, and though her face was dry, her eyes had the look of someone who'd seen inside Hell. Danielle was crouched on the floor beside her, holding her hand and speaking to Holly urgently and quietly. Alcee Beck, one of the local detectives, was sitting at the same table. A pad and pen were in front of him, and he was talking on his cell phone.
"They've searched the school?"
"Yeah, that's where Andy is now. And Kevin and Kenya." Kevin and Kenya were two uniformed patrol officers. "Bud Dearborn is on the phone setting up an Amber Alert."
I spared a thought for how Halleigh must be feeling right now; she was only twenty-three or so, and this was her first teaching job. She hadn't done anything wrong, at least that I could tell—but when a kid goes missing, no one escapes blame.
I tried to think how I could help. This was a unique opportunity for my little disability to work for the greater good. I'd kept my mouth shut for years about all kinds of things. People didn't want to know what I knew. People didn't want to be around someone who could do what I could do. The way I survived was keeping my mouth shut, because it was easy for the humans around me to forget or disbelieve, when the evidence of my odd talent wasn't shoved in their face.
Would you want to be around a woman who knew you were cheating on your spouse, and with whom? If you were a guy, would you want to be around a woman who knew that you secretly wanted to wear lacy underwear? Would you want to hang with a gal who knew your most secret judgments on other people and all your hidden flaws?
No, I thought not.
But if a child was involved, how could I hold back?
I looked at Sam, and he looked back at me sadly. "It's hard, isn't it, cher?" he said. "What are you going to do?"
"Whatever I have to. But I have to do it now," I said.
He nodded. "Go on down to the school," he said, and I left.
* * * * *
Chapter 6
I didn't know how I was going to accomplish this. I didn't know who would acknowledge that I could help. There was a crowd at the elementary school, of course. A group of about thirty adults was standing on the grass on the street side of the sidewalk in front of the school, and Bud Dearborn, the sheriff, was talking to Andy on the front lawn. Betty Ford Elementary was the same school I'd attended. The building had been fairly new then, a straightforward single-level brick building with a main hall containing the offices, the kindergarten, the first-grade classrooms, and the cafeteria. There a wing to the right for the second grade, a wing to the left for the third. A small recreational building was behind the school in the large playground, attainable by a covered walkway. It was used for the children's bad-weather exercise sessions.
Of course there were flagpoles in front of the school, one for the American flag and one for the Louisiana flag. I loved driving by when they were snapping in the breeze on a day like today. I loved thinking of all the little children inside, busy being children. But the flags had been taken down for the day, and only the tied-down ropes moved in the stiff wind. The green lawn of the school was dotted with the occasional candy wrapper or crumpled notebook paper. The school custodian, Madelyn Pepper (always called "Miss Maddy"), was sitting on a plastic chair right outside the main school doors, her rolling cart beside her. Miss Maddy had been the custodian for many years. Miss Maddy was a very slow woman, mentally, but she was a hard worker, and absolutely reliable. She looked much the same as she had when I had gone to school there: tall, husky, and white, with a long fall of dyed platinum hair. She was smoking a cigarette. The principal, Mrs. Garfield, had had a running battle with Miss Maddy for years about her habit, a battle that Miss Maddy had always won. She smoked outside, but she smoked. Today, Mrs. Garfield was completely indifferent to Miss Maddy's bad habit. Mrs. Garfield, the wife of a Methodist-Episcopal minister, was dressed in a mustard-color business suit, plain hose, and black pumps. She was just as strained as Miss Maddy, and a lot less guarded about showing it.
I worked my way through the front of the little crowd, not certain how to go about doing what I had to do.
Andy saw me first, and touched Bud Dearborn on the shoulder. Bud had a cell phone to his ear. Bud turned to look at me. I nodded at them. Sheriff Dearborn was not my friend. He'd been a friend of my father's, but he'd never had the time of day for me. To the sheriff, people fell into two categories: people who broke the law and could be arrested, and people who did not break the law and could not be. And most of those were people
who just hadn't been caught breaking the law yet; that was what Bud believed. I fell somewhere in between. He felt sure I was guilty of something, but he couldn't figure out what it was.
Andy didn't like me much, either, but he was a believer. He jerked his head to the left, almost imperceptibly. I couldn't see Bud Dearborn's face clearly, but his shoulders stiffened in anger, and he leaned forward a little, his whole body posture saying that he was furious with his detective.
I worked my way out of the knot of anxious and curious citizens and slipped around the third-grade wing to the back of the school. The playground, about the size of half a football field, was fenced in, and the gate was ordinarily locked with a chain secured by a padlock. It had been opened, presumably for the convenience of the searchers. I saw Kevin Pryor, a thin young patrol officer who always won the 4K race at the Azalea Festival, bending over to peer into a culvert right across the street. The grass in the ditch was high, and his dark uniform pants were dusted with yellow. His partner, Kenya, who was as buxom as Kevin was thin, was across the street on the other side of the block, and I watched her head move from side to side as she scanned the surrounding yards.
The school took up a whole block in the middle of a residential area. All the houses around were modest homes on modest lots, the kind of neighborhood where there were basketball goals and bicycles, barking dogs, and driveways brightened with sidewalk chalk.
Today every surface was dusted in a light yellow powder; it was the very beginning of pollen time. If you rinsed off your car in town in your driveway, there would be a ring of yellow around the storm drain. Cats' bellies were tinged yellow, and tall dogs had yellow paws. Every other person you talked to had red eyes and carried a cache of tissues.
I noticed several thrown down around the playground. There were patches of new green grass and patches of hard-packed dirt, in areas where the children congregated the most. A big map of the United States had been painted on the concrete apron right outside the school doors. The name of each state was painted carefully and clearly. Louisiana was the only state colored bright red, and a pelican filled up its outline. The word Louisiana was too long to compete with the pelican, and it had been painted on the pavement right where the Gulf of Mexico would be.
Andy emerged from the rear door, his face set and hard. He looked ten years older.
"How's Halleigh?" I asked.
"She's in the school crying her eyes out," he said. "We have to find this boy."
"What did Bud say?" I asked. I stepped inside the gate.
"Don't ask," he said. "If there's anything you can do for us, we need all the help we can get."
"You're going out on a limb."
"So are you."
"Where are the people that were in the school when he ran back in?"
"They're all in here, except for the principal and the custodian."
"I saw them outside."
"I'll bring them in. All the teachers are in the cafeteria. It has that little stage at one end. Sit behind the curtain there. See if you can get anything."
"Okay." I didn't have a better idea.
Andy set off for the front of the school to gather up the principal and the custodian.
I stepped into the end of the third-grade corridor. There were bright pictures decorating the walls outside every classroom. I stared at the drawings of rudimentary people having picnics and fishing, and tears prickled my eyes. For the first time, I wished I were psychic instead of telepathic.
Then I could envision what had happened to Cody, instead of having to wait for someone to think about it. I'd never met a real psychic, but I understood that it was a very uncertain talent to have, one that was not specific enough at times, and too specific at others. My little quirk was much more reliable, and I made myself believe I could help this child.
As I made my way to the cafeteria, the smell of the school evoked a rush of memories. Most of them were painful; some were pleasant. When I'd been this small, I'd had no control over my telepathy and no idea what was wrong with me. My parents had put me through the mental health mill to try to find out, which had further set me off from my peers. But most of my teachers had been kind. They'd understood that I was doing my best to learn—that somehow I was constantly distracted, but it wasn't through my own choice. Inhaling the scent of chalk, cleaner, paper, and books brought it all back.
I remembered all the corridors and doorways as if I'd just left. The walls were a peach color now, instead of the off-white I remembered, and the carpet was a sort of speckled gray in place of brown linoleum; but the structure of the school was unchanged. Without hesitation, I slipped through a back door to the little stage, which was at one end of the
lunchroom. If I remembered correctly, the space was actually called the "multipurpose room." The serving area could be shut off with folding doors, and the picnic tables that lined the room could be folded and moved aside. Now they were taking up the floor in orderly rows, and the people sitting at them were all adults, with the exception of some teachers' children who'd been in the classrooms with their mothers when the alarm had been raised.
I found a tiny plastic chair and set it back behind the curtains on stage left. I closed my eyes and began to concentrate. I lost the awareness of my body as I shut out all stimuli and began to let my mind roam free.
It's my fault, my fault, my fault! Why didn't I notice he hadn't come back out? Or did he slip by me? Could he have gotten into a car without my noticing?
Poor Halleigh. She was sitting by herself, and the mound of tissues by her showed how she'd been spending her waiting time. She was completely innocent of anything, so I resumed my probing.
Oh my God, thank you God that it's not my son that's missing…
… go home and have some cookies…
Can't go to the store and pick up some hamburger meat, maybe I can call Ralph and he can go by Sonic… but we ate fast food last night, not good…
His mom's a barmaid, how many lowlifes does she know? Probably one of them.
It went on and on, a litany of harmless thoughts. The children were thinking about snacks and television, and they were also scared. The adults, for the most part, were very frightened for their own children and worried about the effect of Cody's disappearance on their own families and their own class.
Andy Bellefleur said, "In just a minute Sheriff Dearborn will be in here, and then we'll divide you into two groups."
The teachers relaxed. These were familiar instructions, as they themselves had often given.
"We'll ask questions of each of you in turn, and then you can go. I know you're all worried, and we have patrol officers searching the area, but maybe we can get some information that will help us find Cody."
Mrs. Garfield came in. I could feel her anxiety preceding her like a dark cloud, full of thunder. Miss Maddy was right behind her. I could hear the wheels of her cart, loaded with its lined garbage can and laden with cleaning supplies. All the scents surrounding her were familiar. Of course, she started cleaning right after school. She would have been in one of the classrooms, and she probably hadn't seen anything. Mrs. Garfield might have been in her office. The principal in my day, Mr. Heffernan, had stood outside with the teacher on duty until all the children were gone, so that parents would have a chance to talk to him if they had questions about their child's progress… or lack thereof.
I didn't lean out from behind the dusty curtain to look, but I could follow the progress of the two easily. Mrs. Garfield was a ball of tension so dense it charged the air around her, and Miss Maddy was equally surrounded by the smell of all the cleaning products and the sounds of her cart. She was miserable, too, and above all she wanted to get back to her routine. Maddy Pepper might be a woman of limited intelligence, but she loved her job because she was good at it.
I learned a lot while I was sitting there. I learned that one of the teachers was a lesbian, though she was married and had three children. I learned that another teacher was pregnant but hadn't told anyone yet. I learned that most of the women (there were no male teachers at the elementary school) were stressed out by multiple obligations to their families, their jobs, and their churches. Cody's teacher was very unhappy, because she liked the little boy, though she thought his mother was weird. She did believe Holly was trying hard to be a good mother, and that offset her distaste for Holly's goth trappings.
But nothing I learned helped me discover Cody's whereabouts until I ventured into Maddy Pepper's head.
When Kenya came up behind me, I was doubled over, my hand over my mouth, trying to cry silently. I was not capable of getting up to look for Andy or anyone else. I knew where the boy was.
"He sent me back here to find out what you know," Kenya whispered. She was massively unhappy about her errand, and though she'd always liked me okay, she didn't think I could do anything to help the police. She thought Andy was a fool for stalling his career by asking me to sit back there, concealed.
Then I caught something else, something faint and weak.
I jumped to my feet and grabbed Kenya by the shoulder. "Look in the garbage can, the one loaded on the cart, right now!" I said, my voice low but (I hoped) urgent enough to light a fire under Kenya. "He's in the can, he's still alive!"
Kenya wasn't rash enough to leap out from behind the curtain, jump down from the stage, and dash over to the custodian's cart. She gave me a hard, hard, look. I stepped out from behind the curtain to watch as Kenya made her way down the little stairs at the front of the stage, and went over to where Maddy Pepper was sitting, her fingers tapping against her legs. Miss Maddy wanted a cigarette. Then she realized that Kenya was approaching her, and a dull alarm sounded in her brain. When the custodian saw Kenya actually touch the edge of the large garbage can, she leaped to her feet and yelled, "I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to!"
Everyone in the room turned to the commotion, and everyone's face wore identical expressions of horror. Andy strode over, his face hard. Kenya was bent over the can, rummaging, tossing a snowstorm of used tissues over her shoulder. She froze for a second when she found what she'd been looking for. She bent over, almost in danger of falling into the can.
"He's alive," she called to Andy. "Call 911!"
* * * * *
"She was mopping when he ran back into the school to get the picture," Andy said. We were sitting in the cafeteria all by ourselves. "I don't know if you could hear all that, there was so much noise in the room."
I nodded. I'd been able to hear her thoughts as she'd spoken. All these years on her job, and she'd never had a problem with a student that wasn't easily resolved with a few strong words on her part. Then, today, Cody had come running into the classroom, pollen all over his shoes and pants cuffs, tracking up Maddy's freshly mopped floor. She'd yelled at him, and he'd been so startled that his feet had slipped on the wet floor. The little boy had gone over backward and hit his head on the floor. The corridor had indoor-outdoor carpeting to reduce the noise, but the classrooms did not, and his head had bounced on the linoleum.
Maddy had thought she'd killed him, and she'd hastily concealed his body in the nearest receptacle. She'd realized she'd lose her job if the child was dead, and on an impulse she'd tried to hide him. She had no plan and no idea of what would happen. She hadn't figured out how she'd dispose of his body, and she hadn't counted on how miserable she'd feel about the whole thing, how guilty.
To keep my part of it silent, which the police and I both agreed was absolutely the best idea, Andy suggested to Kenya that she'd suddenly realized the only receptacle in the school she hadn't searched was Maddy Pepper's trash can. "That's exactly what I
thought," Kenya said. "I should search it, at least poke around and see if an abductor had tossed something into it." Kenya's round face was unreadable. Kevin looked at her, his brows drawn together, sensing something beneath the surface of the conversation. Kevin was no fool, especially where Kenya was concerned.
Andy's thoughts were clear to me. "Don't ever ask me to do this again," I told him.
He nodded in acquiescence, but he was lying. He was seeing before him a vista of cleared cases, of malefactors locked up, of how clean Bon Temps would be when I'd told him who all the criminals were and he'd found a way to charge them with something.
"I'm not going to do it," I said. "I'm not going to help you all the time. You're a detective. You have to find things out in a legal way, so you can build a court case. If you use me all the time, you'll get sloppy. The cases will fall through. You'll get a bad reputation." I spoke desperately, helplessly. I didn't think my words would have any effect.
"She's not a Magic 8 Ball," Kevin said.
Kenya looked surprised, and Andy was more than surprised; he thought this was almost heresy. Kevin was a patrolman; Andy was a detective. And Kevin was a quiet man, listening to all his co-workers, but not often offering a comment of his own. He was notoriously mother-ridden; maybe he'd learned at his mother's knee not to offer opinions.
"You can't shake her and come up with the right answer," Kevin continued. "You have to find out the answer on your own. It's not right to take over Sookie's life so you can do your job better."
"Right," said Andy, unconvinced. "But I would think any citizen would want her town to be rid of thieves and rapists and murderers."
"What about adulterers and people who take extra papers out of the newspaper dispensers? Should I turn those in, too? What about kids who cheat on their exams?"
"Sookie, you know what I mean," he said, white-faced and furious.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Forget it. I helped you save that child's life. Don't make me even think about regretting it." I left the same way I'd come, out the back gate and down the side of the school property to where I'd left my car. I drove back to work very carefully, because I was still shaking with the intensity of the emotions that had flowed through the school this afternoon.
At the bar, I found that Holly and Danielle had left—Holly to the hospital to be with her son, and Danielle to drive her there because she was so shaky.
"The police would have taken Holly, gladly," Sam said. "But I knew Holly didn't have anyone but Danielle here, so I thought I might as well let Danielle go, too."
"Of course, that leaves me to serve by myself," I said tartly, thinking I was getting punished doubly for helping Holly out.
He smiled at me, and for a second I couldn't help but smile back. "I've called that Tanya Grissom. She said she'd like to help out, just on a fill-in basis."
Tanya Grissom had just moved to Bon Temps, and she'd come into Merlotte's right away to put in an application. She'd put herself through college waitressing, she'd told Sam. She'd pulled down over two hundred dollars a night in tips. That wasn't going to happen in Bon Temps, and I'd told her so frankly.
"Did you call Arlene and Charlsie first?" I realized I'd overstepped my bounds, because I was only a waitress/barmaid, not the owner. It wasn't for me to remind Sam he should call the women with longer time in before he called the newcomer. The newcomer was definitely a shape-shifter, and I was afraid Sam was prejudiced in her favor.
Sam didn't look irritated, just matter-of-fact. "Yeah, I called them first. Arlene said she had a date, and Charlsie was keeping her grandbaby. She's been hinting pretty heavily that she won't be working much longer. I think she's going to keep the baby full-time when her daughter-in-law goes back to work."
"Oh," I said, disconcerted. I'd have to get used to someone new. Of course, barmaids come and barmaids go, and I'd seen quite a few pass through the employee door of Merlotte's in my—gosh, now five—years of working for Sam. Merlotte's was open until midnight on weeknights and until one on Friday and Saturday. Sam had tried opening on Sunday for a while, but it didn't pay. So now Merlotte's was closed on Sunday, unless it had been rented for a private party.
Sam tried to rotate our times so everyone got a chance to work the more lucrative night shift, so some days I worked eleven to five (or six-thirty, if we became extra busy) and sometimes I worked five to closing. He'd experimented with times and days until we'd all agreed on what worked best. He expected a little flexibility from us, and in return he was good about letting us off for funerals and weddings and other milestones.
I'd had a couple of other jobs before I'd started working for Sam. He was the easiest person to work for, by far. He'd become more than my employer somewhere along the way; he was my friend. When I'd found out he was a shape-shifter, it hadn't bothered me a bit. I'd heard rumors in the shifting community that the Weres were thinking of going
public, the way the vampires had. I worried about Sam. I worried about people in Bon Temps accepting him. Would they feel he'd been deceiving them all these years, or would they take it in stride? Since the vampires had made their carefully orchestrated revelation, life as we knew it had changed, all over the world. Some countries, after the initial shock had worn off, had begun working to include vampires in the mainstream of life; others had pronounced vampires nonhuman and urged their citizens to kill vampires on sight (easier said than done).
"I'm sure Tanya will be fine," I said, but I sounded uncertain, even to my own ears. Acting on an impulse—and I can only suppose the tidal wave of emotions I'd experienced that day had something to do with this—I threw my arms around Sam and gave him a hug. I smelled clean skin and hair and the slight sweet smell of a light aftershave, an undertone of wine, a whiff of beer… the Sam smell. I drew it into my lungs like oxygen.
Surprised, Sam hugged me back, and for a second the warmth of his embrace made me feel almost light-headed with pleasure. Then we both backed off, because after all, this was our workplace and there were a few customers scattered around. Tanya came in, so it was good we were out of the clinch. I didn't want her to think this was routine.
Tanya was shorter than my five foot six, and she was a pleasant-looking woman in her late twenties. Her hair was short and straight and shiny, a medium brown that almost matched her eyes. She had a small mouth and a button nose and a nice figure. I had absolutely no reason to dislike her, but I wasn't happy to see her. I was ashamed of myself. I should give Tanya a fair chance to show her true character.
After all, I'd discover it sooner or later. You can't hide what you really are, not from me—not if you're a regular human person. I try not to listen in, but I can't block everything out. When I'd dated Bill, he'd helped me learn how to close my mind. Since then, life had been easier—more pleasant, more relaxed.
Tanya was a smiling woman, I'd give her that. She smiled at Sam, and she smiled at me, and she smiled at the customers. It wasn't a nervous smile, like mine, the grin that says "I'm hearing a clamor inside my head and I'm trying to look normal on the outside"; Tanya's smile was more of a "I'm really cute and perky and will endear myself to everyone" kind of smile. Before she picked up a tray and started working, Tanya asked a list of sensible questions, and I could tell she'd had experience.
"What's wrong?" Sam asked.
"Nothing," I said. "I just…"
"She seems nice enough," he said. "Do you think there's something wrong with her?"
"Nothing I know of," I said, trying to sound brisk and cheerful. I knew I was smiling that jittery smile. "Look, Jane Bodehouse is signaling for another round. We'll have to call her son again."
Tanya turned around and looked at me just then, as if she felt my eyes on her back. Her own smile was gone, replaced with a look so level that my estimate of her capacity for serious action instantly upgraded. We stood for a moment, regarding each other steadily, and then she beamed at me and continued to the next table, asking the man there if he was ready for another beer.
Suddenly I thought, I wonder if Tanya is interested in Sam. I didn't like the way I felt when I thought about that. I decided the day had been exhausting enough without creating a new worry. And no call from Jason.
After work, I went home with a lot on my mind: Father Riordan, the Pelts, Cody, Crystal's miscarriage.
I drove down my graveled driveway through the woods, and when I pulled into the clearing and drove behind the house to park at the back door, its isolation struck me all over again. Living in town for a few weeks had made the house seem even lonelier, and though I loved being back in the old place, it didn't feel the same as it had before the fire.
I'd seldom felt worried living by myself in this isolated spot, but over the past few months my vulnerability had been impressed on me. I'd had a few close calls, and twice there'd been intruders in my house waiting for me when I'd come in. Now I had installed some really good locks on my doors, I had peepholes front and back, and my brother had given me his Benelli shotgun to keep for good.
I had some big lights on the corners of the house, but I didn't like to leave them on all night. I was considering the purchase of one of those motion-detector lights. The drawback was, since I lived in a large clearing in the middle of the woods, critters often crossed my yard at night, and the light would come on when every little possum rambled across the grass.
The second point about a light coming on was… So what?
The kind of thing I was scared of wasn't going to be intimidated by a light. I'd just be able to see it better before it ate me. Furthermore, there were no neighbors that a light might startle or rouse. Strange, I reflected, that I'd seldom had a frightened moment when my grandmother had been alive. She'd been a tough little lady for a woman in her late
seventies, but she couldn't have defended me against a flea. Somehow, the simple fact of not being alone had made me feel safer.
After all this thinking about danger, I was in a tense state when I got out of my car. I'd passed a truck parked in front, and I unlocked the back and went through the house to open the front door with the miserable feeling that I was about to have to go through a scene. The quiet interlude on my front porch watching the bees in the pear tree seemed a week ago, instead of hours.
Calvin Norris, leader of the Hotshot werepanthers, got out of his truck and came up the steps. He was a bearded man in his early forties, and he was a serious man whose responsibilities sat squarely on his shoulders. Evidently Calvin had just gotten off work. He was wearing the blue shirt and blue jeans all the Norcross crew leaders wore.
"Sookie," he said, nodding to me.
"Please come in," I answered, though I was reluctant. However, Calvin had never been anything but civil to me, and he had helped me rescue my brother a couple of months ago, when Jason had been held hostage. At the least, I owed him civility.
"My niece called me when the danger had passed," he said heavily, taking a seat on the couch after I'd waved my hand to show he was welcome to stay. "I think you saved her life."
"I'm real glad to hear Crystal's better. All I did was make a phone call." I sat in my favorite old chair, and I noticed I was slumping with weariness. I forced my shoulders back. "Dr. Ludwig was able to stop her bleeding?"
Calvin nodded. He looked at me steadily, his strange eyes solemn. "She's going to be okay. Our women miscarry a lot. That's why we were hoping… Well."
I flinched, the weight of Calvin's hopes that I'd mate with him resting heavily on my shoulders. I'm not sure why I felt guilty; because of his disappointment, I guess. After all, it was hardly my fault that the idea had limited appeal for me.
"I guess Jason and Crystal will be getting hitched," Calvin said matter-of-factly. "I have to say, I'm not crazy about your brother, but then I'm not the one marrying him."
I was nonplussed. I didn't know if this wedding was Jason's idea, or Calvin's, or Crystal's. Jason certainly hadn't been thinking marriage this morning, unless it was something he'd neglected to mention in the turmoil of his worry about Crystal. I said, "Well, to be honest, I'm not crazy about Crystal. But I'm not the one marrying her." I took a deep breath. "I'll
do my best to help them out, if they decide to… do that. Jason's about all I've got, as you know."
"Sookie," he said, and his voice was suddenly far less certain, "I want to talk about something else, too."
Of course he did. No way was I going to dodge this bullet.
"I know that something you got told, when you came out to the house, put you off me. I'd like to know what it was. I can't fix it, if I don't know what's broken."
I took a deep breath, while I considered my next words very carefully. "Calvin, I know that Terry is your daughter." When I'd gone to see Calvin when he'd gotten out of the hospital after being shot, I'd met Terry and her mother Maryelizabeth at Calvin's house. Though they clearly didn't live there, it was equally clear that they treated the place as an extension of their own home. Then Terry had asked me if I was going to marry her father.
"Yes," Calvin said. "I would've told you if you'd asked me."
"Do you have other children?"
"Yes. I have three other children."
"By different mothers?"
"By three different mothers."
I'd been right. "Why is that?" I asked, to be sure.
"Because I'm pure-blooded," he said, as if it were self-evident. "Since only the first child of a pureblood couple turns out to be a full panther, we have to switch off."
I was profoundly glad I'd never seriously considered marrying Calvin, because if I had, I would have thrown up right then. What I'd suspected, after witnessing the succession-to-packmaster ritual, was true. "So it's not the woman's first child, period, that turns out to be a full-blooded shape-shifter… it's her first child with a specific man."
"Right." Calvin looked surprised that I hadn't known that. "The first child of any given pureblood couple is the real thing. So if our population gets too small, a pure-blooded male has to mate with as many pure-blooded women as he can, to increase the pack."
"Okay." I waited for a minute, to collect myself. "Did you think that I would be okay with you impregnating other women, if we got married?"
"No, I wouldn't expect that of an outsider," he answered, in that same matter-of-fact voice. "I think it's time I settled down with one woman. I've done my duty as leader."
I tried not to roll my eyes. If it had been anyone else I would have sniggered, but Calvin was an honorable man, and he didn't deserve that reaction.
"Now I want to mate for life, and it would be good for the pack if I could bring new blood into the community. You can tell that we've bred with each other for too long. My eyes can hardly pass for human, and Crystal takes forever to change. We have to add something new to our gene pool, as the scientists call it. If you and I had a baby, which was what I was hoping, that baby wouldn't ever be a full Were; but he or she might breed into the community, bring new blood and new skills."
"Why'd you pick me?"
He said, almost shyly. "I like you. And you're real pretty." He smiled at me then, a rare and sweet expression. "I've watched you at the bar for years. You're nice to everyone, and you're a hard worker, and you don't have no one to take care of you like you deserve. And you know about us; it wouldn't be any big shock."
"Do other kinds of shape-shifters do the same thing?" I asked this so quietly, I could hardly hear myself. I stared down at my hands, clenched together in my lap, and I could hardly breathe as I waited to hear his answer. Alcide's green eyes filled my thoughts.
"When the pack begins to grow too small, it's their duty to," he said slowly. "What's on your mind, Sookie?"
"When I went to the contest for the Shreveport packmaster, the one who won—Patrick Furnan—he had sex with a young Were girl, though he was married. I began to wonder."
"Did I ever stand a chance with you?" Calvin asked. He seemed to have drawn his own conclusions.
Calvin could not be blamed for wanting to preserve his way of life. If I found the means distasteful, that was my problem.
"You definitely interested me," I said. "But I'm just too human to think of having my husband's children all around me. I'd just be too… it would just throw me off all the time, knowing my husband had had sex with almost every woman I saw day-to-day." Come to think of it, Jason would fit right into the Hotshot community. I paused for a second, but he remained silent. "I hope that my brother will be welcomed into your community, regardless of my answer."
"I don't know if he understands what we do," Calvin said. "But Crystal's already miscarried once before, by a full-blood. Now she's miscarried this baby of your brother's. I'm thinking this means Crystal had better not try any more to have a panther. She may not be able to have a baby of your brother's. Do you feel obliged to talk to him about that?"
"It shouldn't be up to me to discuss that with Jason… it should be up to Crystal." I met Calvin's eyes. I opened my mouth to remark that if all Jason wanted was babies, he shouldn't get married; but then I recognized that was a sensitive subject, and I stopped while I was ahead.
Calvin shook my hand in an odd, formal way when he left. I believed that marked the end of his courtship. I had never been deeply attracted to Calvin Norris, and I'd never seriously thought about accepting his offer. But I'd be less than honest if I didn't admit that I'd fantasized about a steady husband with a good job and benefits, a husband who came straight home after his shift and fixed broken things on his days off. There were men who did that, men who didn't change into anything other than their own form, men who were alive twenty-four/seven. I knew that from reading so many minds at the bar.
I'm afraid that what really struck me about Calvin's confession—or explanation—is what it might reveal to me about Alcide.
Alcide had sparked my affection, and my lust. Thinking of him did make me wonder what marriage to him would be like, wonder in a very personal way, as opposed to my impersonal speculation about health insurance that Calvin had inspired. I'd pretty much abandoned the secret hope Alcide had inspired in me, after I'd been forced to shoot his former fiancee; but something in me had clung to the thought, something I'd kept secret even from myself, even after I'd found out he was dating Maria-Star. As recently as this day, I'd been stoutly denying to the Pelts that Alcide had any interest in me. But something lonely inside me had nursed a hope.
I got up slowly, feeling about twice my actual age, and went into the kitchen to get something out of the freezer for my supper. I wasn't hungry, but I'd eat unwisely later if I didn't fix something now, I told myself sternly.
But I never cooked a meal for myself that night.
Instead, I leaned against the refrigerator door and cried.
* * * * *
Chapter 7
The next day was Friday; not only was it my day off this week, but I had a date, so it was practically a red-letter day. I refused to ruin it by moping. Though it was still cool for such a pastime, I did one of my favorite things: I put on a bikini, greased myself up, and went to lie in the sun on the adjustable chaise lounge I'd gotten at Wal-Mart on sale at the end of the previous summer. I took a book, a radio, and a hat into the front yard, where there were fewer trees and flowering plants to encourage bugs that bit. I read, sang along with the tunes on the radio, and painted my toe-nails and fingernails. Though I was goose-pimply at first, I warmed up quickly along with the sun, and there was no breeze that day to chill me.
I know sunbathing is bad and evil, and I'll pay for it later, etc., etc., but it's one of the few free pleasures available to me.
No one came to visit, I couldn't hear the phone, and since the sun was out, the vampires weren't. I had a delightful time, all by myself. Around one o'clock, I decided to run into town for some groceries and a new bra, and I stopped at the mailbox out by Hummingbird Road to see if the mail carrier had run yet. Yes. My cable bill and my electric bill were in the mailbox, which was a downer. But lurking behind a Sears sales brochure was an invitation to a wedding shower for Halleigh. Well… gosh. I was surprised, but pleased. Of course, I'd lived next to Halleigh in one of Sam's duplexes for a few weeks while my house was being repaired after the fire, and we'd seen each at least once a day during that time. So it wasn't a complete stretch, her putting me on her list of invitees. Plus, maybe she was relieved that the Cody situation had been cleared up so quickly?
I didn't get many invitations, so receiving it added to my sense of well-being. Three other teachers were giving the shower, and the invitation designated kitchen gifts. How timely, since I was on my way to the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Clarice.
After a lot of thought, I bought a two-quart Corning Ware casserole dish. Those were always handy. (I also got fruit juice, sharp cheddar, bacon, gift paper, and a really pretty blue bra and matching panties, but that's beside the point.)
After I'd gotten home and unloaded my purchases, I wrapped the boxed casserole dish in some silvery paper and stuck a big white bow on it. I wrote the date and time of the shower on my calendar, and I put the invitation on top of the present. I was on top of the shower situation.
Riding high on a crest of virtue, I wiped down the inside and outside of my new refrigerator after I'd eaten lunch.
I washed a load of clothes in my new washer, wishing for the hundredth time that my cabinets were in place since I was tired of looking for things in the clutter on the floor.
I walked through the house to make sure it looked nice, since Quinn was picking me up. Not even letting myself think, I changed my sheets and cleaned my bathroom—not that I had any intention of falling into bed with Quinn, but it's better to be prepared than not, right? Besides, it just made me feel good, knowing that everything was clean and nice. Fresh towels in both bathrooms, a light dusting around the living room and bedroom, a quick circuit with the vacuum. Before I got in the shower, I even swept the porches, though I knew they would be covered again in a yellow haze before I got back from my date.
I let the sun dry my hair, probably getting it full of pollen, too. I put on my makeup carefully; I didn't wear a lot, but it was fun to apply it for something more interesting than work. A little eye shadow, a lot of mascara, some powder and lipstick. Then I put on my new date underwear. It made me feel special from the skin on out: midnight blue lace. I looked in the full-length mirror to check out the effect. I gave myself a thumbs-up. You have to cheer for yourself, right?
The outfit I'd bought from Tara's Togs was royal blue and made out of some heavy knit that hung beautifully. I zipped up the pants and put on the top. It was sleeveless and it wrapped across my breasts and tied. I experimented with the depth of cleavage, at last picking a degree of revelation I was sure toed the line between sexy and cheap.
I got my black wrap out of the closet, the one Alcide had given me to replace one Debbie Pelt had vandalized. I'd need it later in the evening. I slipped into my black sandals. I experimented with jewelry, finally settling on a plain gold chain (it had been my grandmother's) and plain ball earrings.
Hah!
There was a knock on the front door, and I glanced at the clock, a bit surprised that Quinn was fifteen minutes early. I hadn't heard his truck, either. I opened the door to find not Quinn, but Eric, standing there.
I am sure he enjoyed my gasp of surprise.
Never open your door without checking. Never assume you know who's on the other side. That's why I'd gotten the peepholes! Stupid me. Eric must have flown, since I couldn't see a car anywhere.
"May I come in?" Eric asked politely. He had looked me over. After appreciating the view, he realized it hadn't been designed with him in mind. He wasn't happy. "I suppose you're expecting company?"
"As a matter of fact I am, and actually, I'd rather you stayed on that side of the doorsill," I said. I stepped back so he couldn't reach me.
"You told Pam that you didn't want to come to Shreveport," he said. Oh yes, he was angry. "So here I am, to find out why you don't answer my call." Usually, his accent was very slight, but tonight I noticed that it was pronounced.
"I didn't have time," I said. "I'm going out tonight."
"So I see," he said, more quietly. "Who are you going out with?"
"Is that really any of your business?" I met his eyes, challengingly.
"Of course it is," he said.
I was disconcerted. "And that would be why?" I rallied a little.
"You should be mine. I have slept with you, I have cared for you, I have… assisted you financially."
"You paid me money you owed me, for services rendered," I answered. "You may have slept with me, but not recently, and you've shown no signs of wanting to do so again. If you care for me, you're showing it in a mighty strange way. I never heard that 'total avoidance aside from orders coming from flunkies' was a valid way to show caring." This was a jumbled sentence, okay, but I knew he got it.
"You're calling Pam a flunky?" He had a ghost of smile on his lips. Then he got back to being miffed. I could tell because he began dropping his contractions. "I do not have to hang around you to show you. I am sheriff. You… you are in my retinue."
I knew my mouth was hanging open, but I couldn't help it. "Catching flies," my grandmother had called that expression, and I felt like I was catching plenty of them. "Your retinue?" I managed to splutter. "Well, up you and your retinue. You don't tell me what to do!"
"You are obliged to go with me to the conference," Eric said, his mouth tense and his eyes blazing. "That was why I called you to Shreveport, to talk to you about travel time and arrangements."
"I'm not obliged to go anywhere with you. You got outranked, buddy."
"Buddy? Buddy!"
And it would have degenerated from there, if Quinn hadn't pulled up. Instead of arriving in his truck, Quinn was in a Lincoln Continental. I felt a moment of sheer snobbish pleasure at the thought of riding in it. I'd selected the pants outfit at least partly because I thought I'd be scrambling up into a pickup, but I was just as pleased to slither into a luxurious car. Quinn came across the lawn and mounted the porch with an understated speed. He didn't look as though he was hurrying, but suddenly he was there, and I was smiling at him, and he looked wonderful. He was wearing a dark gray suit, a dark purple shirt, and a tie that blended the two colors in a paisley pattern. He was wearing one earring, a simple gold hoop.
Eric had fang showing.
"Hello, Eric," Quinn said calmly. His deep voice rumbled along my spine. "Sookie, you look good enough to eat." He smiled at me, and the tremors along my spine spread into another area entirely. I would never have believed that in Eric's presence I could think another man was attractive. I'd have been wrong to think so.
"You look very nice, too," I said, trying not to beam like an idiot. It was not cool to drool.
Eric said, "What have you been telling Sookie, Quinn?"
The two tall men looked at each other. I didn't believe I was the source of their animosity. I was a symptom, not the disease. Something lay underneath this.
"I've been telling Sookie that the queen requires Sookie's presence at the conference as part of her party, and that the queen's summons supercedes yours," Quinn said flatly.
"Since when has the queen given orders through a shifter?" Eric said, contempt flattening his voice.
"Since this shifter performed a valuable service for her in the line of business," Quinn answered, with no hesitation. "Mr. Cataliades suggested to Her Majesty that I might be helpful in a diplomatic capacity, and my partners were glad to give me extra time to perform any duties she might give me."
I wasn't totally sure I was following this, but I got the gist of it.
Eric was incensed, to use a good entry from my Word of the Day calendar. In fact, his eyes were almost throwing sparks, he was so angry. "This woman has been mine, and she will be mine," he said, in tones so definite I thought about checking my rear end for a brand.
Quinn shifted his gaze to me. "Babe, are you his, or not?" he asked.
"Not," I said.
"Then let's go enjoy the show," Quinn said. He didn't seem frightened, or even concerned. Was this his true reaction, or was he presenting a façade? Either way, it was pretty impressive.
I had to pass by Eric on my way to Quinn's car. I looked up at him, because I couldn't help it. Being close to him while he was this angry was not a safe thing, and I needed to be on my guard. Eric was seldom crossed in serious matters, and my annexation by the Queen of Louisiana—his queen—was a serious matter. My date with Quinn was sticking in his throat, too. Eric was just going to have to swallow.
Then we were both in the car, belted in, and Quinn did an expert backing maneuver to point the Lincoln back to Hummingbird Road. I breathed out, slowly and carefully. It took a few quiet moments for me to feel calm again. Gradually my hands relaxed. I realized the silence had been building. I gave myself a mental shake. "Do you go to the theater often, as you're traveling around?" I asked socially.
He laughed, and the deep, rich sound of it filled up the car. "Yes,"' he said. "I go to the movies and the theater and any sporting event that's going on. I like to see people do things. I don't watch much television. I like to get out of my hotel room or my apartment and watch things happen or make them happen myself."
"So do you dance?"
He gave me a quick glance. "I do."
I smiled. "I like to dance." And I was actually pretty good at dancing, not that I got many chances to practice. "I'm no good at singing," I admitted, "but I really, really enjoy dancing."
"That sounds promising."
I thought we'd have to see how this evening went before we made any dancing dates, but at least we knew there was something we both liked to do. "I like movies," I said. "But I
don't think I've ever been to any live sports besides high school games. But those, I do attend. Football, basketball, baseball… I go to 'em all, when my job will let me."
"Did you play a sport in school?" Quinn asked. I confessed that I'd played softball, and he told me he'd played basketball, which, considering his height, was no surprise at all.
Quinn was easy to talk to. He listened when I spoke. He drove well; at least he didn't curse at the other drivers, like Jason did. My brother tended to be on the impatient side when he drove.
I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was waiting for that moment—you know the one I mean—the moment when your date suddenly confesses to something you just can't stomach: he reveals himself as a racist or homophobe, admits he'd never marry anyone but another Baptist (Southerner, brunette, marathon runner, whatever), tells you about his children by his first three wives, describes his fondness for being paddled, or relates his youthful experiences in blowing up frogs or torturing cats. After that moment, no matter how much fun you have, you know it's not going anywhere. And I didn't even have to wait for a guy to tell me this stuff verbally; I could read it right out of his head before we even dated.
Never popular with the regular guys, me. Whether they admitted it or not, they couldn't stand the idea of going out with a girl who knew exactly how often they jacked off, had a lusty thought about another woman, or wondered how their teacher looked with her clothes off.
Quinn came around and opened my door when we parked across the street from the Strand, and he took my hand as we crossed the street. I enjoyed the courtesy.
There were lots of people going into the theater, and they all seemed to look at Quinn. Of course, a bald guy as tall as Quinn is going to get some stares. I was trying not to think about his hand; it was very large and very warm and very dry.
"They're all looking at you," he said, as he pulled the tickets from his pocket, and I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing.
"Oh, I don't think so," I said.
"Why else would they be staring?"
"At you," I said, amazed.
He laughed out loud, that deep laugh that made me vibrate inside.
We had very good seats, right in the middle and toward the front of the theater. Quinn filled up his seat, no doubt about it, and I wondered if the people behind him could see. I looked at my program with some curiosity, found I didn't recognize the names of the any of the actors in the production, and decided I didn't care at all. I glanced up to find that Quinn was staring at me. I felt my face flood with color. I'd folded my black wrap and placed it in my lap, and I had the abrupt desire to pull my top higher to cover every inch of my cleavage.
"Definitely looking at you," he said, and smiled. I ducked my head, pleased but self-conscious.
Lots of people have seen The Producers. I don't need to describe the plot, except to say it's about gullible people and lovable rascals, and it's very funny. I enjoyed every minute. It was marvelous to watch people performing right in front of me on such a professional level. The guest star, the one whom the older people in the audience seemed to recognize, swashed through the lead role with this amazing assurance. Quinn laughed too, and after the intermission he took my hand again. My fingers closed around his quite naturally, and I didn't feel self-conscious about the contact.
Suddenly it was an hour later, and the play was over. We stood up along with everyone else, though we could tell it would take a while for the theater to clear out. Quinn took my wrap and held it for me, and I threw it around me. He was sorry I was covering myself up—I got that directly from his brain.
"Thank you," I said, tugging on his sleeve to make sure he was looking at me. I wanted him to know how much I meant it. "That was just great."
"I enjoyed it, too. You want to go get something to eat?"
"Okay," I said, after a moment.
"You had to think about it?"
I had actually sort of flash-thought about several different items. If I'd enumerated them, it'd have run something like, He must be having a good time or he wouldn't suggest more of the evening. I have to get up and go to work tomorrow but I don't want to miss this opportunity. If we go to eat I have to be careful not to spill anything on my new clothes. Will it be okay to spend even more of his money, since the tickets cost so much?
"Oh, I had to consider the calories," I said, patting my rear end.
"There's nothing wrong with you, front or back," Quinn said, and the warmth in his eyes made me feel like basking. I knew I was curvier than the ideal. I'd actually heard Holly tell Danielle that anything over a size eight was simply disgusting. Since a day I got into an eight was a happy day for me, I'd felt pretty forlorn for all of three minutes. I would have related this conversation to Quinn if I hadn't been sure it would sound like I was angling for a compliment.
"Let the restaurant be my treat," I said.
"With all due respect to your pride, no, I won't." Quinn looked me right in the eyes to make sure I knew he meant it.
We'd reached the sidewalk by that time. Surprised at his vehemence, I didn't know how to react. On one level, I was relieved, since I have to be careful with my money. On another level, I knew it was right for me to offer and I would have felt good if he'd said that would be fine.
"You know I'm not trying to insult you, right?" I said.
"I understand that you're being equal."
I looked up at him doubtfully, but he was serious.
Quinn said, "I believe you are absolutely as good as me in every way. But I asked you out, and I am providing the financial backup for our date."
"What if I asked you out?"
He looked grim. "Then I'd have to sit back and let you take care of the evening," he said. He said it reluctantly, but he said it. I looked away and smiled.
Cars were pulling out of the parking lot at a steady pace. Since we'd taken our time leaving the theater, Quinn's car was looking lonely in the second row. Suddenly, my mental alarm went off. Somewhere close, there was a lot of hostility and evil intent. We had left the sidewalk to cross the street to the parking lot. I gripped Quinn's arm and then let it go so we could clear for action.
"Something's wrong," I said.
Without replying, Quinn began scanning the area. He unbuttoned his suit coat with his left hand so he could move without hindrance. His fingers curled into fists. Since he was a man with a powerful protective urge, he stepped ahead of me, in front of me.
So of course, we were attacked from behind.
Chapter 8
In a blur or movement that couldn't be broken down into increments my eye could clearly recognize, a beast knocked me into Quinn, who stumbled forward a step. I was on the ground underneath the snarling half man, half wolf by the time Quinn wheeled, and as soon as he did, another Were appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, to leap on Quinn's back.
The creature on top of me was a brand-new fresh half Were, so young he could only have been bitten in the past three weeks. He was in such a frenzy that he had attacked before he had finished with the partial change that a bitten Were can achieve. His face was still elongating into a muzzle, even as he tried to choke me. He would never attain the beautiful wolf form of the full-blooded Were. He was "bitten, not blood," as the Weres put it. He still had arms, he still had legs, he had a body covered with hair, and he had a wolf's head. But he was just as savage as a full-blood.
I clawed at his hands, the hands that were gripping my neck with such ferocity. I wasn't wearing my silver chain tonight. I'd decided it would be tacky, since my date was himself a shifter. Being tacky might have saved my life, I thought in a flash, though it was the last coherent thought I had for a few moments.
The Were was straddling my body, and I brought my knees up sharply, trying to give him a big enough jolt that he'd loosen his hold. There were shrieks of alarm from the few remaining pedestrians, and a higher, more piercing shriek from Quinn's attacker, whom I saw flying through the air as if he'd been launched from a cannon. Then a big hand grasped my attacker by his own neck and lifted him. Unfortunately, the half beast who had his hands wrapped around my throat didn't let me go. I began to rise from the pavement, too, my throat becoming more and more pinched by the grip he had on me.
Quinn must have seen my desperate situation, because he struck the Were on top of me with his free hand, a slap that rocked the Were's head back and simply knocked him for a loop so thoroughly that he let go of my neck.
Then Quinn grabbed the young Were by the shoulders and tossed him aside. The boy landed on the pavement and didn't move.
"Sookie," Quinn said, hardly sounding out of breath. Out of breath is what I was, struggling to get my throat to open back up so I could gulp in some oxygen. I could hear a police siren, and I was profoundly thankful. Quinn slipped his arm under my shoulders and held
me up. Finally I breathed in, and the air was wonderful, blissful. "You're breathing okay?" he asked. I gathered myself enough to nod. "Any bones broken in your throat?" I tried to raise my hand to my neck, but my hand wasn't cooperating just at the moment.
His face filled my scope of vision, and in the dim light of the corner lamp I could see he was pumped. "I'll kill them if they hurt you," he growled, and just then, that was delightful news.
"Bitten," I wheezed, and he looked horrified, checking me over with hands and eyes for the bite mark. "Not me," I elaborated. "Them. Not born Weres." I sucked in a lot of air. "And maybe on drugs," I said. Awareness dawned in his eyes.
That was the only explanation for such insane behavior.
A heavyset black patrolman hurried up to me. "We need an ambulance at the Strand," he was saying to someone on his shoulder. No, it was a little radio set. I shook my head.
"You need an ambulance, ma'am," he insisted. "Girl over there says the man took you down and tried to choke you."
"I'm okay," I said, my voice raspy and my throat undeniably painful.
"Sir, you with this lady?" the patrolman asked Quinn. When he turned, the light flashed off his name pin; it said holing.
"Yes, I am."
"You… ah, you got these punks offa her?"
"Yes."
Boling's partner, a Caucasian version of Boling, came up to us then. He looked at Quinn with some reservation. He'd been examining our assailants, who had fully changed to human form before the police had arrived. Of course, they were naked.
"The one has a broken leg," he told us. "The other is claiming his shoulder's dislocated."
Boling shrugged. "Got what was coming to 'em." It might have been my imagination, but he, too, seemed a bit more cautious when he looked at my date.
"They got more than they expected," his partner said neutrally. "Sir, do you know either of these kids?" He tilted his head toward the teenagers, who were being examined by a patrolman from another car, a younger man with a more athletic build. The boys were leaning against each other, looking stunned.
"I've never seen them before," Quinn said. "You, babe?" He looked down at me questioningly. I shook my head. I was feeling better enough that I felt at a distinct disadvantage, being on the ground. I wanted to get up, and I said so to my date. Before the police officers could tell me once again to wait for an ambulance, Quinn managed to get me to my feet with as little pain as possible.
I looked down at my beautiful new outfit. It was really dirty. "How does the back look?" I asked Quinn, and even I could hear the fear in my voice. I turned my back to Quinn and looked at him anxiously over my shoulder. Quinn seemed a little startled, but he dutifully scanned my rear view.
"No tearing," he reported. "There may be a spot or two where the material got a little scraped across the pavement."
I burst into tears. I probably would have started crying no matter what, because I was feeling a powerful reaction to the adrenaline that had surged through my body when we'd been attacked, but the timing was perfect. The police got more avuncular the more I cried, and as an extra bonus, Quinn pulled me into his arms and I rested my cheek against his chest. I listened to his heartbeat when I quit sobbing. I'd gotten rid of my nervous reaction to the attack and disarmed the police at the same time, though I knew they'd still wonder about Quinn and his strength.
Another policeman called from his place by one of the assailants, the one Quinn had thrown. Our two patrolmen went to answer the summons, and we were briefly alone.
"Smart," Quinn murmured into my ear.
"Mmmm," I said, snuggling against him.
He tightened his arms around me. "You get any closer, we're going to have to excuse ourselves and get a room," he whispered.
"Sorry." I pulled back slightly and looked up at him. "Who you reckon hired them?"
He may have been surprised I'd figured that out, but you couldn't tell by his brain. The chemical reaction that had fueled my tears had made his mental snarl extra complicated. "I'm definitely going to find out," he said. "How's your throat?"
"Hurts," I admitted, my voice raspy. "But I know there's nothing really wrong with it. And I don't have health insurance. So I don't want to go to the hospital. It would be a waste of time and money."
"Then we won't go." He bent and kissed my cheek. I turned my face up to him, and his next kiss landed in exactly the right spot. After a gentle second, it flared into something more intense. We were both feeling the aftereffects of the adrenalin rush.
The sound of a throat clearing brought me back into my right mind as effectively as if Officer Boling had thrown a bucket of cold water on us. I disengaged and buried my face against Quinn's chest again. I knew I couldn't move away for a minute or two, since his excitement was pressed right up against me. Though these weren't the best circumstances for evaluation, I was pretty sure Quinn was proportional. I had to resist the urge to rub my body against his. I knew that would make things worse for him, from a public viewpoint—but I was in a much better mood than I had been, and I guess I was feeling mischievous. And frisky. Very frisky. Going through this ordeal together had probably accelerated our relationship the equivalent of four dates.
"Did you have other questions for us, Officer?" Quinn asked, in a voice that was not perfectly calm.
"Yes, sir, if you and the lady will come down to the station, we need to take your statements. Detective Coughlin will do that while we take the prisoners to the hospital."
"All right. Does that have to be tonight? My friend needs to rest. She's exhausted. This has been quite an ordeal for her."
"It won't take long," the officer said mendaciously. "You sure you've never seen these two punks before? Because this seems like a real personal attack, you don't mind me saying so."
"Neither of us knows them."
"And the lady still refuses medical attention?"
I nodded.
"Well, all right then, folks. Hope you don't have no more trouble."
"Thank you for coming so quickly," I said, and turned my head a little to meet Officer Boling's eyes. He looked at me in a troubled way, and I could hear in his head that he was worried about my safety with a violent man like Quinn, a man who could throw two boys several feet in the air. He didn't realize, and I hoped he never would, that the attack had been personal. It had been no random mugging.
We went to the station in a police car. I wasn't sure what their thinking was, but Boling's partner told us that we'd be returned to Quinn's vehicle, so we went along with the
program. Maybe they didn't want us to have a chance to talk to each other alone. I don't know why; I think the only thing that could have aroused their suspicion was Quinn's size and expertise in fighting off attackers.
In the brief seconds we had alone before an officer climbed into the driver's seat, I told Quinn, "If you think something at me, I'll be able to hear you—if you need me to know something urgently."
"Handy," he commented. The violence seemed to have relaxed something inside him. He rubbed his thumb across the palm of my hand. He was thinking he'd like to have thirty minutes in a bed with me, right now, or even fifteen; hell, even ten, even in the backseat of a car, would be fantastic. I tried not to laugh, but I couldn't help it, and when he realized that I'd read all that clearly, he shook his head with a rueful smile.
We have somewhere to go after this, he thought deliberately. I hoped he didn't mean he was going to rent a room or take me to his place for sex, because no matter how attractive I found him, I wasn't going to do that tonight. But his brain had mostly cleared of lust, and I perceived his purpose was something different. I nodded.
So don't get too tired, he said. I nodded again. How I was supposed to prevent exhaustion, I wasn't sure, but I'd try to hoard a little energy.
The police station was much like I expected it to be. Though there's a lot to be said for Shreveport, it has more than its fair share of crime. We didn't excite much attention at all, until officers who'd been on the scene put their heads together with police in the building, and then there were a few stolen glances at Quinn, some surreptitious evaluations. He was formidable-looking enough for them to credit ordinary strength as the source of his defeat of the two muggers. But there was just enough strangeness about the incident, enough peculiar touches in the eyewitness reports… and then my eye caught a familiar weathered face. Uh-oh.
"Detective Coughlin," I said, remembering now why the name had sounded familiar.
"Miss Stackhouse," he responded, with about as much enthusiasm as I had shown. "What you been up to?"
"We got mugged," I explained.
"Last time I saw you, you were engaged to Alcide Herveaux, and you'd just found one of the most sickening corpses I've ever seen," he said easily. His belly seemed to have gotten even bigger in the few months since I'd met him at a murder scene here in Shreveport. Like many men with a disproportionate belly, he wore his khaki pants buttoned
underneath the overhang, so to speak. Since his shirt had broad blue and white stripes, the effect was that of a tent overhanging packed dirt.
I just nodded. There was really nothing to say.
"Mr. Herveaux doing okay after the loss of his father?" Jackson Herveaux's body had been found half-in, half-out of a feed tank filled with water on an old farm belonging to the family. Though the newspaper had tap-danced around some of the injuries, it was clear wild animals had chewed at some of the bones. The theory was that the older Herveaux had fallen into the tank and broken his leg when he hit the bottom. He had managed to get to the edge and haul himself halfway out, but at that point he had passed out. Since no one knew he'd visited the farm, no one came to his rescue, the theory went, and he'd died all by himself.
Actually, a large crowd had witnessed Jackson's demise, among them the man beside me.
"I haven't talked to Alcide since his dad was found," I said truthfully.
"My goodness, I'm sure sorry that didn't work out," Detective Coughlin said, pretending he didn't see that I was standing with my date for the evening. "You two sure made a nice-looking couple."
"Sookie is pretty no matter who she's with," Quinn said.
I smiled up at him, and he smiled back. He was sure making all the right moves.
"So if you'll come with me for a minute, Miss Stackhouse, we'll get your story down on paper and you can leave."
Quinn's hand tightened on mine. He was warning me. Wait a minute, who was the mind reader around here? I squeezed right back. I was perfectly aware that Detective Coughlin thought I must be guilty of something, and he'd do his best to discover what. But in fact, I was not guilty.
We had been the targets, I'd picked that from the attackers' brains. But why?
Detective Coughlin led me to a desk in a roomful of desks, and he fished a form out of a drawer. The business of the room continued; some of the desks were unoccupied and had that "closed for the night" look, but others showed signs of work in progress. There were a few people coming in and out of the room, and two desks away, a younger detective with short white-blond hair was busily typing on his computer. I was being very careful, and I'd opened my mind, so I knew he was looking at me when I was looking in another direction,
and I knew he'd been positioned there by Detective Coughlin, or at least prodded to get a good hard look at me while I was in the room.
I met his eyes squarely. The shock of recognition was mutual. I'd seen him at the packmaster contest. He was a Were. He'd acted as Patrick Furnan's second in the duel. I'd caught him cheating. Maria-Star had told me his punishment had been having his head shaved. Though his candidate won, this punishment had been exacted, and his hair was just now growing in. He hated me with the passion of the guilty. He half rose from his chair, his first instinct being to come over to me and beat the crap out of me, but when he absorbed the fact that someone had already tried to do that, he smirked.
"Is that your partner?" I asked Detective Coughlin.
"What?" He'd been peering at the computer through reading glasses, and he glanced over at the younger man, then back at me. "Yeah, that's my new partner. The guy I was with at the last crime scene I saw you at, he retired last month."
"What's his name? Your new partner?"
"Why, you going after him next? You can't seem to settle on one man, can you, Miss Stackhouse?"
If I'd been a vampire, I could have made him answer me, and if I were really skilled, he wouldn't even know he'd done it.
"It's more like they can’t settle on me, Detective Coughlin," I said, and he gave me a curious look. He waved a finger toward the blond detective.
"That's Cal. Cal Myers." He seemed to have called up the right form, because he began to take me through the incident once again, and I answered his questions with genuine indifference. For once, I had very little to hide.
"I did wonder," I said, when we'd concluded, "if they'd taken drugs."
"You know much about drugs, Miss Stackhouse?" His little eyes went over me again.
"Not firsthand, but of course, from time to time someone comes into the bar who's taken something they shouldn't. These young men definitely seemed… influenced by something."
"Well, the hospital will take their blood, and we'll know."
"Will I have to come back?"
"To testify against them? Sure."
No way out of it. "Okay," I said, as firmly and neutrally as I could. "We through here?"
"I guess we are." He met my eyes, his own little brown eyes full of suspicion. There was no point in my resenting it; he was absolutely right, there was something fishy about me, something he didn't know. Coughlin was doing his best to be a good cop. I felt suddenly sorry for him, floundering through a world he only knew the half of.
"Don't trust your partner," I whispered, and I expected him to blow up and call Cal Myers over and ridicule me to him. But something in my eyes or my voice arrested that impulse. My words spoke to a warning that had been sounding surreptitiously in his brain, maybe from the moment he'd met the Were.
He didn't say anything, not one word. His mind was full of fear, fear and loathing… but he believed I was telling him the truth. After a second, I got up and left the squad room. To my utter relief, Quinn was waiting for me in the lobby.
A patrolman—not Boling—took us back to Quinn's car, and we were silent during the drive. Quinn's car was sitting in solitary splendor in the parking lot across from the Strand, which was closed and dark. He pulled out his keys and hit the keypad to open the doors, and we got in slowly and wearily.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"The Hair of the Dog," he said.
* * * * *