Deadlocked (Sookie Stackhouse #12)(40)
Author: Charlaine Harris

The last time I’d fed something into the portal, it had been eaten. Granted, it had been a human body.

My first attempt had run on for five handwritten pages. It was now in the kitchen trash can. I had to condense what I needed to convey. Urgency! That was the message.

Dear Great-Grandfather, I began. I hesitated. And Claude, I added. Bellenos and Dermot are worried that the fae at Hooligans are getting too restless to stay confined to the building. They miss Claude and his leadership. We are all afraid something bad will happen if this situation doesn’t change soon. Please let us know what’s going on. Can you send a return letter through this portal? Or send Claude back? Love, Sookie

I read it over, decided it was as close as I was going to get to what I wanted to say (Claude, get your butt back here now!). I wrote both Niall’s and Claude’s names on the envelope, which was real pretty-cream with pink and red roses on the border. I almost put a stamp on the upper right corner before I realized it would be a ridiculous waste.

Between the heat, the bugs, and the burgeoning undergrowth, my jaunt into the woods to "mail" my letter was not as pleasant as my previous rambles had been. Sweat poured down my face, and my hair was sticking to my neck. A devil’s walking stick scratched me deeply enough to make me bleed. I paused by a big clump of the plumy bushes that only seem to grow big out in the sun-Gran would have had a name for them, but I didn’t-and I heard a deer moving around inside the dense growth. At least Bellenos left me one, I thought, and told myself I was being ridiculous. We had plenty of deer. Plenty.

To my relief, the portal was still in the little clearing where I’d last seen it, but it looked smaller. Not that it’s easy to define the size of a patch of shimmery air-but last time it had been large enough to admit a very small human body. Now, that wouldn’t be possible without taking a chainsaw to the body beforehand.

Either the portal was shrinking naturally, or Niall had decided a size reduction would prevent me from popping anything else unauthorized into Faery. I knelt before the patch of wavery air, which hovered about knee-high just above the blackberry vines and the grasses. I popped the letter into the quavering patch, and it vanished.

Though I held my breath in anticipation, nothing happened. I didn’t hear the snarling of last time, but I found the silence kind of depressing. I don’t know what I’d expected, but I’d half hoped I’d get some signal. Maybe a chime? Or the sound of a gong? A recording saying, We’ve received your message and will attempt to deliver it? That would have been nice.

I relaxed and smiled, amused at my own silliness. Hoisting myself up, I made my difficult way back through the woods. I could hardly wait to strip off my sweaty, dirty clothes and get into my shower. As I emerged from the shadow of the trees and into the waning afternoon, I saw that would have to be a pleasure delayed.

In my absence I’d acquired some visitors. Three people I didn’t know, all looking to be in their midforties, were standing by a car as if they’d been on the point of getting into it to drive away. If only I’d stayed by the portal a few more minutes! The little group was oddly assorted. The man standing by the driver’s door had coppery brown hair and a short beard, and he was wearing gold-rimmed glasses. He wore khakis and a pale blue oxford cloth shirt with the sleeves rolled up, practically a summertime white-collar work uniform. The other man was a real contrast. His jeans were stained, and his T-shirt said he liked pussies, with an oh-so-clever drawing of a Persian cat. Subtle, huh? I caught a whiff of otherness coming from him; he wasn’t really human, but I didn’t want to get any closer to investigate what his true nature might be.

His female companion was wearing a low-cut T shirt, dark green with gold studs as a decoration, and white shorts. Her bare legs were heavily tattooed.

"Afternoon," I said, not even trying to sound welcoming. I could hear trouble coming from their brains. Wait. Didn’t the sleazy couple look just a little familiar?

"Hello," said the woman, an olive-skinned brunette with raccoon eye makeup. She took a drag on her cigarette. "You Sookie Stackhouse?"

"I am. And you are?"

"We’re the Rowes. I’m Georgene and this is Oscar. This man," and she pointed at the driver, "is Harp Powell."

"I’m sorry?" I said. "Do I know you?"

"Kym’s parents," the woman said.

I was even sorrier I’d come back to the house.

Call me ungracious, but I wasn’t going to ask them in. They hadn’t called ahead, they had no reason to talk to me, and above all else- I had been down this road before with the Pelts.

"I’m sorry for your loss," I said. "But I’m not sure why you’ve come here."

"You talked to our girl before she died," Oscar Rowe said. "We just wanted to know what was on her mind."

Though they didn’t realize it, they’d come to the right place to find out. Knowing what was on people’s minds was my specialty. But I wasn’t getting good brain readings from either of them. Instead of grief and regret, I was getting avid curiosity … an emotion more suited to people who slow down to goggle at road accidents than to grieving parents.

I turned slightly to look at their companion. "And you, Mr. Powell? What’s your role here?" I’d been aware of his intense observation.

"I’m thinking of doing a book about Kym’s life," Harp Powell said. "And her death."

I could add that up in my head: lurid past, pretty girl, died outside a vampire’s house during a party with interesting guests. It wouldn’t be a biography of the desperate, emotionally disturbed Kym I’d met so briefly. Harp Powell was thinking of writing a true-crime novel with pictures in the middle: Kym as a cute youngster, Kym in high school, Kym as a stripper, and maybe Kym as a corpse. Bringing the Rowes with him was a smart move. Who could turn down distraught parents? But I knew Georgene and Oscar weren’t anywhere close to devastated. The Rowes were more curious than bereaved.

"How long had it been since you saw her?" I asked Kym’s mother.

"Well, she was a grown-up girl. She left home after she graduated from high school," Georgene said reasonably. She had stepped toward the house as if she were waiting for me to open the back door. She dropped her cigarette on the gravel and ground it out with her platform sandal.

"So, five years? Six?" I crossed my arms over my chest and looked at each of them in turn.

"It had been a while," conceded Oscar Rowe. "Kym had her own living to make; we couldn’t support her. She had to get out and hustle like the rest of us." He gave me a look that was supposed to say he knew I’d had to get out and hustle, too-we were all working people, here. All in the same boat.