Dead Ever After (Sookie Stackhouse #13)(76)
Author: Charlaine Harris

He shook his head feebly. "Got no family," he whispered. "And I couldn’t stand being with another telepath all the time."

I looked through the open door at Mr. Cataliades, who was Barry’s relative for sure. He was standing out in the hall, looking pained. He met my eyes and shook his head from side to side, to tell me that Barry couldn’t come with him. He’d tracked Barry and saved his life, and that was all he could do. For whatever reason.

Barry really needed someone to convalesce with, someone who would let him be, let him heal, but be there to give him a hand. I had a sudden inspiration. I picked up my phone and found Bernadette Merlotte’s number. "Bernadette," I said, when we’d done a polite greeting exchange, "you said you owed me a life. I don’t want a life, but a friend of mine is hurt bad and he needs a hospital and a place to stay while he recovers. He’s not a lot of trouble, I promise, and he’s a good guy."

I told Barry five minutes later that he was going to Wright, Texas.

"Texas isn’t safe for me," he protested.

"You’re not going to a major urban center," I said. "You’re going to Wright, and there’s not a single vampire there. You’re going to stay with Sam’s mom, and she’s nice, and you won’t be able to read her mind clearly because she’s a shapeshifter. Don’t go out at night and you won’t see any vampires. I told her your name was Rick."

"Okay," he said weakly.

Within an hour, Mr. Cataliades was driving Barry to the hospital in Shreveport. He told me solemnly that he would take Barry to Wright when he was discharged.

Barry e-mailed me three days later. He was safely ensconced in Wright in Sam’s old room. He was getting better. He liked Bernie. He had no idea what he would do next. But he was alive and healing, and he was thinking of his future.

Slowly, I began to relax. I heard from Amelia about every third day. Bob had been transferred to New Orleans, finally. Her father was missing; his secretary had filed a missing-person report. Amelia didn’t seem too concerned about his whereabouts. She was all about Bob and the baby. She’d seen Mr. C, she said. He was trying to find out what witch might have made the charm that had enabled Arlene to enter my house, but Amelia was of the opinion that Claude had made it. I was sure the part-demons would get to the bottom of that question.

Less than two weeks later, I walked down the "aisle," actually a narrow grass path through a happy crowd of people. The folding chairs were already set up at the tables scattered around the lawn, so the guests would stand for the short service. I went slowly, to keep time with the fiddlers playing "Simple Gifts." I was carrying a bouquet of sunflowers, wearing my beautiful yellow dress. Michele’s minister was standing under a flowery archway in Jason’s backyard (I’d been more than glad to supply the greenery), and Michele’s parents were smiling as they stood waiting by the archway. There was no family to stand on our side, but at least Jason and I had each other. Michele looked beautiful as she walked up to meet Jason, and Hoyt didn’t lose the ring.

After the wedding party – all four of us – had our pictures made together and separately, Michele and Jason took their places behind the meat table with aprons on over their wedding clothes, and they served ribs or sliced pork to the guests, who then descended on the tables full of vegetables and breads and desserts, all brought by the guests. The cake, contributed by a church friend of Michele’s mom, stood in lonely splendor under a tent.

Everybody ate and drank and made lots of toasts.

Sam had saved me a seat by his, at the newlywed couples’ table, marked off with a white ribbon. Jason and Michele would join us after they’d served the first wave of guests.

"You look real pretty," he said. "And the arm looks fine, too." I’d been able to leave the bandage off today.

"Thanks, Sam." We hadn’t seen each other (except at work) since the night at Stompin’ Sally’s. He’d given me the slow time I’d asked for. We had signed on to help JB and Tara in their little home-improvement plan, and we’d decided to go to a movie in Shreveport in a week or two on a night we both had off.

I had my own ideas about how our relationship was going to progress, but I know that nothing is worse than assuming.

Late that evening, after we’d helped my brother and his bride fold up all the chairs and tables and load them on a trailer to take back to the church, Sam helped me into his truck. As we drove to my house, he said, "Little lady, I got a question." (He’d picked that up the night of the cornfield, and he wasn’t letting it go.)

"Yes, what?" I said, with elaborate patience.

"How did Claude get out of Faery? You said it was sealed up. The portal in your woods was closed."

"You know what I found blooming in my yard yesterday?" I said.

"I don’t know where you’re going with this, but okay, I’ll bite. What did you find growing in your yard?"

"A letter."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. Seriously. A letter on a plant. It was one of the roses on my rosebush, you know the big red one by the garage?"

"And you spotted it?"

"It was white. The rosebush is red and green. I park right by it."

"Okay. Who was the letter from?"

"Niall, of course."

"And what did Niall have to say?"

"That he had purposely created the opportunity for someone to break Claude out of fairy jail, because he was sure he hadn’t caught all the traitors yet. When his suspect made the attempt, Niall would nab the traitor, and Claude would have to languish – that was the word he used, ‘languish’ – in the lands of the humans forever, robbed of his beauty." After a short silence, Sam growled, "I don’t believe Niall thought about how unhappy Claude would be when he found himself back in the USA without a job, money, or looks. Or who he’d blame for all that."

"Putting himself in someone else’s shoes is not the Niall way," I said. "Apparently, the traitor did break Claude out, and Claude decided vengeance was first on his list. Also, he must have had a bank account that Niall didn’t know about. Claude contacted Johan Glassport, who’d acted as his lawyer before, because Glassport was the most ruthless human he knew. He bribed Glassport to take part in phase one of the ‘get Sookie’ project, which apparently was to ensure I went to jail for my whole life so I’d see just how Claude would have had to live. They needed someone else motivated by Sookie-hate to help them out, someone who would be tempted by the unusual bribe – money and a little telepath. Glassport tracked down Steve Newlin. Then they needed the perfect victim, so Glassport argued Arlene out of prison."