Dead Ever After (Sookie Stackhouse #13)(36)
Author: Charlaine Harris

I put on makeup, because I needed to feel attractive. I put a ton of moisturizer on my newly shaved legs and sprayed on a little spritz of perfume. This was more like it. Every second I felt more like myself, Sookie Stackhouse, bar owner and telepath, and less like Sookie the Jailbird.

I pushed down the Play button on the answering machine.

Here are the people who didn’t believe I should have been arrested: Maxine; India; JB du Rone’s mom; Pastor Jimmy Fullenwilder; Calvin; Bethany Zanelli, coach of the high school softball team; and at least seven others. I had to feel touched that they’d bothered to call to express their feelings, even though I’d been in jail and it had been possible I’d never get to hear their encouraging messages. I wondered if I should write a thank-you note to each caller. My grandmother would have.

As I listened to Kennedy Keyes’s voice telling me Sam had said I shouldn’t come in today and I should rest, I could see by the counter that I had only one more message. A man’s voice came on. I didn’t recognize it. He said, "You had no right to take away my last chance. I’m going to make sure you pay for it." I looked at the number. I didn’t recognize it, either. Was I shocked at the determination in his voice? Yes. But I wasn’t surprised. I know how people really are. I can hear their thoughts. I couldn’t read the brain of someone who’d left a phone message, but I know intent when I hear it. My anonymous caller had meant every word he’d said.

Now it was my turn to make a phone call. "Andy, I need you to come out here and listen to something," I said when he picked up his cell. "You may not want to, but if I’m in danger, you gotta protect me, right? I didn’t lose that when I got arrested?"

"Sookie," Andy said. He sounded massively tired. "I’m on my way."

"And do me a favor, okay? This is weird, and I know you won’t want to do it, but you tell Alcee Beck to clean out his car. I’m pretty sure there’s something in his car that shouldn’t be there." I’d had so much time to think in jail that I’d remembered a little flash of memory: Alcee’s car parked by the woods. The odd flicker of movement I’d seen from the corner of my eye. The fact that Alcee was so insanely determined I be arrested and charged that I’d thought, It’s almost like he’s under a spell.

That seemed like such a good fit, I was sure it was true.

Chapter 10

Though Sam hadn’t wanted me to come in the day I was released from jail, I went in to work the next morning. On one level, it was such a normal thing to do that my preparations felt quite ordinary. On another level, since I’d spent part of my jail time thinking I might never get to walk back into Merlotte’s again, I was nervous about making a public appearance after facing such an ugly allegation.

Andy Bellefleur had listened to the threat on my answering machine and taken the little tape with him. I’d wished I’d been smart enough to make a copy before he drove off. I hadn’t needed to ask him if he’d conveyed my request to Alcee Beck. I heard from his thoughts that he hadn’t, that he was already in bad with Alcee because Andy’d maintained they shouldn’t arrest me, while Alcee had bulled ahead with the charges. So there was something I’d have to take care of myself.

After Jason’s account of Sam’s agitation at my arrest, I’d expected a big welcome back to the bar. In fact, I’d expected Sam would call me the night before, but he hadn’t. Now, seeing him behind the bar, I smiled and started over to give him a hug.

Sam looked at me for a long moment, and I felt the conflict rolling off him. If fireworks had been exploding out of his brain, he couldn’t have been more lit up. But then his whole face shut down, and he turned his back to me. He began polishing a glass furiously. I was surprised it didn’t shatter in his fingers.

To say I was hurt and bewildered would be understating by about a ton. I didn’t think Sam was exactly angry with me for being arrested, but he was angry about something. Though I got hugs from all the bar staff and at least six customers, Sam avoided me like I was Typhoid Mary.

"Jail isn’t catching," I said tartly, the third time I had to pass him to pick up plates from the serving hatch. He had turned away to examine the list of emergency phone numbers as if there were some new information on it that had to be memorized in the next five minutes.

"I . . . I know that," he said, biting off whatever he’d been about to say. "Good you’re back." An Norr came up to get a pitcher of beer, and that cut our conversation off at the knees . . . if you could call our exchange a conversation. I went about my business, but I was fuming. Not for the first time, I wanted to know what Sam was thinking, but since he was a shapeshifter, I could only feel that his thoughts were dark and frustrated.

That made two of us.

On the plus side, if any bar patrons were scared of being served by a woman who’d been arrested for murder, they didn’t act like it. Of course, they were used to Kennedy, who not only had been arrested for killing her abusive ex-boyfriend but had actually done both the killing and the time to pay for it.

Sam was practically running a work-release program.

Somehow, thinking about Kennedy made me feel better, especially since she’d been one of the kind people who’d come to court the previous morning. Speaking of Kennedy (if only to myself), a couple of hours later she came in with her honey, Danny Prideaux, in tow. As always, Kennedy looked as if she’d just arrived at a hotel to check in for a pageant weekend: groomed from head to toe, wearing a turquoise and brown tank top and brown shorts. Her turquoise sandals boosted her up another two inches. How did she do it? I marveled at her.

After pausing for a moment so her entrance would register (something she did quite by habit), Kennedy crossed the floor to wrap her arms around me in a ferocious hug, which was a first. Apparently, we were now sisters under the skin. Though the comparison made me uncomfortable, I could hardly be holier-than-thou – so I reciprocated the hug and thanked her for her concern.

Kennedy and Danny were there for a drink before Danny went to his second job as daytime guy for Bill Compton. Danny met with Bill every other night, he told me, to get his orders and report on the results of his previous days. Today, he’d be over at the house to let in some workmen.

"So Bill keeps you busy?" I said, trying to think what Bill would need Danny to do.

"Oh, it’s not bad," Danny said, his eyes fixed on Kennedy. "I wasn’t working at the builders’ supply today, so I’m meeting the security guys at the house to show them where Bill wants the sensors put. Then I’ll wait while they do the installing."

It struck me as funny that Bill was getting a security system. Surely humans needed intruder alerts more than vampires did? Actually, I might look into that when Claudine’s bank was cleared to resume business. Getting a security system wasn’t a bad idea.