From Dead to Worse (Sookie Stackhouse #8)(61)
Author: Charlaine Harris

I understood what he was saying. When I’d learned he’d been ordered to ingratiate himself with me, I’d felt it was the telepath in me that had gotten his attention, not the woman who was the telepath. "What goes around, comes around," I said.

"I never cared about her," he said. "Or very little." He shrugged. "There’ve been so many like her."

"I’m not sure how you think this is going to make me feel."

"I’m only telling you the truth. There has been only one you." And then he got up and walked back into the woods, human slow, letting me watch him leave.

Apparently Bill was conducting a kind of stealth campaign to win back my regard. I wondered if he dreamed I could love him again. I still felt pain when I thought of the night I’d learned the truth. I figured my regard would be the outer limits of what he could hope to earn. Trust, love? I couldn’t see that happening.

I sat outside for a few more minutes, thinking about the evening I’d just had. One enemy agent down. The enemy herself to go. Then I thought of the police search for the missing people, all Weres, in Shreveport. I wondered when they’d give up.

Surely I wouldn’t have to deal with Were politics again any time soon; the survivors would be absorbed in setting their house in order.

I hoped Alcide was enjoying being the leader, and I wondered if he’d succeeded in creating yet another little purebred Were the night of the takeover. I wondered who had taken the Furnan children.

As long as I was speculating, I wondered where Felipe de Castro had established his headquarters in Louisiana or if he’d stayed in Vegas. I wondered if anyone had told Bubba that Louisiana was under a new regime, and I wondered if I’d ever see him again. He had one of the most famous faces in the world, but his head had been sadly addled by being brought over at the last possible second by a vampire working in the morgue in Memphis. Bubba had not weathered Katrina well; he’d gotten cut off from the other New Orleans vampires and had had to subsist on rats and small animals (left-behind pet cats, I suspected) until he’d been rescued one night by a search party of Baton Rouge vamps. The last I’d heard, they’d had to send him out of state for rest and recuperation. Maybe he’d wind up in Vegas. He’d always done well in Vegas, when he was alive.

Suddenly, I realized I was stiff with sitting so long, and the night had grown uncomfortably cold. My jacket wasn’t doing the job. It was time to go inside and go to bed. The rest of the house was dark, and I figured Octavia and Amelia were exhausted by their witch work.

I heaved myself up from the chair, let the umbrella down, and opened the toolshed door, leaning the umbrella against a bench where the man I’d thought was my grandfather had made repairs. I shut the toolshed door, feeling I was shutting summer inside.

Chapter 18

After a quiet and peaceful Monday off, I went in Tuesday to work the lunch shift. When I’d left home, Amelia had been painting a chest of drawers she’d found at the local junk store. Octavia had been trimming the dead heads off the roses. She’d said they needed pruning back for the winter, and I’d told her to have at it. My grandmother had been the rose person in our household, and she hadn’t let me lay a finger on them unless they needed spraying for aphids. That had been one of my jobs.

Jason came into Merlotte’s for lunch with a bunch of his coworkers. They put two tables together and formed a cluster of happy men. Cooler weather and no big storms made for happy parish road crews. Jason seemed almost overly animated, his brain a jumble of leaping thoughts. Maybe having the pernicious influence of Tanya erased had already made a difference. But I made a real effort to stay out of his head, because after all, he was my brother.

When I carried a big tray of Cokes and tea over to the table, Jason said, "Crystal says hey."

"How’s she feeling today?" I asked, to show proper concern, and Jason made a circle of his forefinger and thumb. I served the last mug of tea, careful to put it down evenly so it wouldn’t spill, and I asked Dove Beck, a cousin of Alcee’s, if he wanted any extra lemon.

"No, thanks," he said politely. Dove, who’d gotten married the day after graduation, was a whole different kettle of fish from Alcee. At thirty, he was younger, and as far as I could tell – and I could tell pretty far – he didn’t have that inner core of anger that the detective did. I’d gone to school with one of Dove’s sisters.

"How’s Angela?" I asked him, and he smiled.

"She married Maurice Kershaw," he said. "They got a little boy, cutest kid in the world. Angela’s a new woman – she don’t smoke or drink, and she’s in church when the doors open."

"I’m glad to hear that. Tell her I asked," I said, and began taking orders. I heard Jason telling his buddies about a fence he was going to build, but I didn’t have time to pay attention.

Jason lingered after the other men were going out to their vehicles. "Sook, would you run by and check on Crystal when you get off?"

"Sure, but won’t you be leaving work then?"

"I got to go over to Clarice and pick up some chain-link. Crystal wants us to fence in some of the backyard for the baby. So it’ll have a safe place to play."

I was surprised that Crystal was showing that much foresight and maternal instinct. Maybe having the baby would change her. I thought about Angela Kershaw and her little boy.

I didn’t want to count up how many girls younger than me had been married for years and had babies – or just had the babies. I told myself envy was a sin, and I worked hard, smiling and nodding to everyone. Luckily, it was a busy day. During the afternoon lull, Sam asked me to help him take inventory in the storeroom while Holly covered the bar and the floor. We only had our two resident alcoholics to serve, so Holly was not going to have to work very hard. Since I was very nervous with Sam’s Blackberry, he entered the totals while I counted, and I had to climb up on a stepladder and then back down about fifty times, counting and dusting. We bought our cleaning supplies in bulk. We counted all those, too. Sam was just a counting fool today.

The storeroom doesn’t have any windows, so it got pretty warm in there while we were working. I was glad to get out of its stuffy confines when Sam was finally satisfied. I pulled a spiderweb out of his hair as I went by on my way to the bathroom, where I scrubbed my hands and carefully wiped my face, checking my ponytail (as best I could) for any spiderwebs I might have picked up myself.

As I left the bar, I was so looking forward to getting in the shower that I almost turned left to go home. Just in time, I remembered I’d promised to look in on Crystal, so I turned right instead.

Jason lived in my parents’ house, and he’d kept it up very nicely. My brother was a house-proud kind of guy. He didn’t mind spending his free time on painting, mowing, and basic repairs, a side of him I always found a bit surprising. He’d recently painted the outside a buff color and the trim a glowing white, and the little house looked very spruce. There was a driveway that made a U shape in front. He’d added a branch that led to the porte cochere in back of the house, but I pulled up to the front steps. I stuffed my car keys in my pocket and crossed the porch. I turned the knob because I planned on sticking my head in the door and calling to Crystal, since I was family. The front door was unlocked, as most front doors were during the daytime. The family room was empty.