All Together Dead (Sookie Stackhouse #7)(63)
Author: Charlaine Harris

"Well, crap," I said out loud. And then I thought, Thank God I can get the hell out of here. One thing about the security tapes having been burned: any record of our earlier visit was gone, too.

On my way, I pressed the panic button with my elbow. I hoped it was ringing somewhere at a police station, and that they’d get here soon.

Barry was waiting for me outside, as I’d been 99 percent sure he would be. Though I confess I wouldn’t have been completely surprised if he’d left. "Let’s book! I set off the alarm," I said, and we jumped into the car and got the hell out of there.

I was driving, because Barry was looking green. We had to pull over once (and in Rhodes traffic that wasn’t easy) for him to be sick. I didn’t blame him one little bit. What we’d seen was awful. But I’ve been blessed with a strong stomach, and I’d seen worse.

We got back to the hotel in time for the judicial session. Barry looked at me with gaping astonishment when I commented that I’d better get ready for it. He hadn’t had an inkling what I’d been thinking, so I knew he was really feeling bad.

"How can you think of going?" he said. "We have to tell someone what happened."

"I called the police, or at least a security company who’ll report it," I said. "What else can we do?" We were in the elevator rising from the parking garage to the lobby.

"We have to talk to them."

"Why?" The doors opened and we stepped out into the hotel lobby.

"To tell them."

"What?"

"That someone tried to kill you last night here by…okay, throwing an arrow at you." He fell silent.

"Right. See?" I was getting his thoughts now, and he’d come to the correct conclusion. "Would it help solve her murder? Probably not, because the guy is dead and the tapes are destroyed. And they’d come here asking questions of the master vampires of a third of the United States. Who would thank me for that? No one, that’s who."

"We can’t stand by and do nothing."

"This isn’t perfect. I know that. But it’s realistic. And practical."

"Oh, so now you’re practical?" Barry was getting shrieky.

"And you’re yelling at my – at Sookie," said Eric, earning another shriek (this one wordless) from Barry. By that time, Barry didn’t care if he ever saw me again in his life. Though I didn’t feel quite that drastic, I didn’t think we were going to become pen pals, either.

If Eric didn’t know how to pick a term for what I was to him, I was equally stumped. "Do you need something?" I asked him in a voice that warned him I wasn’t in the mood for any double entendres.

"What did you find out today?" he asked, all business, and the starch ran out of me in a stream.

"You go on," I told Barry, who didn’t need telling twice.

Eric looked around for a safe place to talk, didn’t see one. The lobby was busy with vampires who were going to the judicial proceedings, or chatting, or flirting. "Come," he said, not as rudely as it sounds, and we went to the elevators and up to his room. Eric was on the ninth floor, which covered a much larger area than the queen’s. There were twenty rooms on nine, at least. There was a lot more traffic, too; we passed quite a few vamps on the way to Eric’s room, which he told me he was sharing with Pam.

I was a little curious about seeing a regular vampire room, since I’d seen only the living room of the queen’s suite. I was disappointed to find that aside from the traveling coffins, it looked quite ordinary. Of course, that was kind of a big "aside." Pam’s and Eric’s coffins were resting on fancy trestles covered with fake hieroglyphics in gilt on black-painted wood, which gave them a neat atmospheric touch. There were two double beds, too, and a very compact bathroom. Both towels were hung up, which I could see because the door was open. Eric had never hung up his towels when he lived with me, so I was willing to bet that Pam had folded them and hung them on the rack. It seemed oddly domestic. Pam had probably picked up for Eric for over a century. Good God. I hadn’t even managed two weeks.

What with the coffins and the beds, the room was a bit crowded, and I wondered what the lower echelon vamps had to put up with, say, on floor twelve. Could you arrange coffins in a bunk configuration? But I was just waffling, trying not to think about being alone with Eric. We sat down, Eric on one bed and I on another, and he leaned forward. "Tell me," he said.

"Well, it’s not good," I said, just to put him on the right track.

His face darkened, the blond brows drawing in to meet, his mouth turning down.

"We did find an archery range that Kyle Perkins visited. You were right about that. Barry went with me to be nice, and I really appreciated it," I said, getting my opening credits in. "To condense the whole afternoon, we found the right range at our third stop, and the gal behind the counter said we could look at the security tape from the night Kyle visited. I thought we might see someone we knew coming in with him. But she wanted us to come back at the end of her shift, seven o’clock." I paused to take a deep breath. Eric’s face didn’t change at all. "We came back at the appointed time, and she was dead, murdered, in the store. I went past her to look in the office, and the tapes had been burned."

"Killed how?"

"She’d been stabbed, and the knife was left in her chest, and the killer or someone with him had thrown up food. Also, a guy who worked at the store was killed, but I didn’t check him out to see how."

"Ah." Eric considered this. "Anything else?"

"No," I said, and got to my feet to leave.

"Barry was angry with you," he observed.

"Yeah, he was, but he’ll get over it."

"What’s his problem?"

"He doesn’t think I handled the…He doesn’t think we should’ve left. Or…I don’t know. He thinks I was unfeeling."

"I think you did exceptionally well."

"Well, great!" Then I clamped down on myself. "Sorry," I said. "I know you meant to compliment me. I’m not feeling all that good about her dying. Or leaving her. Even if it was the practical thing to do."

"You’re second-guessing yourself."

"Yes."

A knock at the door. Since Eric didn’t shift himself, I got up to answer it. I didn’t think it was a sexist thing; it was a status thing. I was definitely the lower dog in the room.

Completely and totally not to my surprise, the knocker was Bill. That just made my day complete. I stood aside to let him enter. Darn if I was going to ask Eric if I should let him in.

Bill looked me up and down, I guess to check that my clothes were in order, then strode by me without a word. I rolled my eyes at his back. Then I had a brilliant idea: instead of turning back into the room for further discussion, I stepped out of the open door and shut it behind me. I marched off quite briskly and grabbed the elevator with hardly any wait. In two minutes, I was unlocking my door.