Dead Reckoning (Sookie Stackhouse #11)(29)
Author: Charlaine Harris

Lily looked as if I’d suggested she eat breaded worms, though Jack looked a bit regretful. He wouldn’t have minded the pickles, I could tell.

"A hamburger Lafayette for me, I guess," Lily said unenthusiastically. As she turned to her companion, her T-shirt shifted and I caught a glimpse of a set of old scars that rivaled my own new ones.

Well, we had always had things in common.

"The hamburger for me, too," Jack said. "And if you have a moment to spare, we’d like to talk to you." He smiled at me, and the long, thin scar on his face flexed as his eyebrows rose. Was this personal-mutilation evening? I wondered if his light jacket, unnecessary on so warm a day, covered something even worse.

"We can have a talk. I figured you didn’t come back to Merlotte’s because of the great cuisine," I said, and took their drink order before I went over to the window to hand the slip to Antoine.

With their iced teas and a dish of lemon, I returned to the table. I looked around to make sure no one needed me before I sat down opposite Jack with Lily to my left. She was pretty to look at, but so controlled and muscular I felt like I could bounce a dime off her. Even her mind was sort of tidy and strict.

"What shall we talk about?" I asked, and opened up my mind to them. Jack was thinking about Lily, some concern about her health, no, her mother’s health–a recurrence of breast cancer. Lily was thinking about me, puzzling over me, suspecting I was a killer.

That hurt.

But it was true.

"Sandra Pelt is out of jail," Jack Leeds said, and though I heard the words in his brain before he spoke them, I didn’t have to fake a shocked face.

"She was in jail? So that’s why I haven’t seen her since her folks died." The older Pelts had promised to keep Sandra in check. After I’d heard about their deaths, I’d wondered when she’d show up. When I hadn’t seen her right away, I’d relaxed. "You’re telling me this because?" I managed to say.

"Because she hates your guts," Lily said calmly. "And you were never found guilty by any court of the disappearance of her sister. You weren’t even arrested. I don’t think you ever will be. You might even be innocent, though I don’t think so. Sandra Pelt is simply crazy. And she’s obsessed with you. I think you need to be careful. Real careful."

"Why was she in jail?"

"Assault and battery on one of her cousins. This cousin had gotten a cut of the money in Sandra’s parents’ will, and apparently Sandra took issue with that."

I was very, very worried. Sandra Pelt was a vicious and amoral young woman. I was sure she hadn’t hit twenty yet, and she’d made a determined attempt to kill me more than once. There was no one now to call her to heel, and her mental status was therefore even more suspect, according to the private detectives.

"But why did you make a trip down here to tell me?" I said. "I mean, I do appreciate it, but you weren’t obliged . . . and you could have picked up the phone. Private eyes work for money, last I heard. Is someone paying you to warn me?"

"The Pelt estate," Lily said, after a pause. "Their lawyer, who lives in New Orleans, is the court-appointed guardian for Sandra until she reaches twenty-one."

"His name?"

She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket. "It’s a sort of Baltic name," she said. "And I may not pronounce it correctly."

"Cataliades," I said, putting the emphasis on the second syllable where it belonged.

"Yes," said Jack, surprised. "That’s him. Big guy."

I nodded. Mr. Cataliades and I were friendly. He was mostly a demon, but the Leedses didn’t seem to know that. In fact, they didn’t seem to know much of anything about the other world, the one that lay beneath the human one. "So Mr. Cataliades sent you two down here to warn me? He’s the executor?" "Yeah. He was going to be away from his desk for some time, and he wanted to be sure you knew the girl was on the loose. He seemed to feel some obligation to you."

I pondered that. I only knew of one time I’d done the lawyer a good turn. I had helped him get out of the collapsing hotel in Rhodes. Nice to know that at least one person was serious when he said, "I owe you." It seemed pretty ironic that the Pelt estate was paying the Leedses to come warn me against the last living Pelt; not ironic as in "ha!" but ironic as in bitter.

"If you don’t mind me asking, how come he contacted you two? I mean, I’m sure there are lots of private eyes in New Orleans, for example. You all are still based in the Little Rock area, right?"

Lily shrugged. "He called us; he asked if we were free; he sent the check. His instructions were very specific. Both of us, to the bar, today. In fact . . ." She glanced down at her watch. "To the minute."

They looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to explain this oddity on the part of the lawyer.

I was thinking furiously. If Mr. Cataliades had sent two tough people to the bar, instructing them to arrive at a given time, it must be because he knew they were going to be needed. For some reason, their presence was necessary and desirable. When would you need capable hardbodies?

When trouble was on its way.

Before I knew I was going to do it, I stood and turned toward the entrance. Naturally, the Leedses looked where I was looking, so we were all watching the door when trouble opened it.

Four tough guys came in. My grandmother would have said they were loaded for bear. They might as well have stenciled "Badass and Proud of It" on their foreheads. They were definitely high on something, full of themselves, brimming with aggression. And armed.

After a second’s peek in their heads, I knew they’d taken vampire blood. That was the most unpredictable drug on the market–also the most expensive, because harvesting it was so dangerous. People who drank vampire blood were–for a length of time impossible to predict–incredibly strong and incredibly reckless . . . and sometimes batshit crazy.

Though her back was to the newcomers, Jannalynn seemed to smell them. She swung around on her stool and focused, just like someone had drawn a bow and aimed the arrow. I could feel the animal wafting off her. Something wild and savage filled the air, and I realized the smell was coming from Sam, too. Jack and Lily Leeds were on their feet. Jack had his hand under his jacket, and I knew he had a gun. Lily’s hands were poised in a strange way, as if she were about to gesture and had frozen in midmove.

"Hidee-ho, jerkoffs!" said the tallest one, addressing the bar in general. He had a heavy beard and thick dark hair, but underneath it I saw how young he was. I thought he couldn’t be more than nineteen. "We come to have some fun with you lizards."