Dead Reckoning (Sookie Stackhouse #11)(56)
Author: Charlaine Harris

While Kelvin was gone, Hod wandered to and fro, though he didn’t seem very purposeful to me.

"Right . . . there’s nobody here," Kelvin announced when he returned to the former kitchen. "Wonder why there’s a hot tub in the house?"

"There’s a car outside," Hod said thoughtfully. His voice was much closer, right outside the open pantry door. He was thinking about getting back to Shreveport and taking a hot shower, putting on dry clothes, maybe having sex with his wife. Ew. A few too many details along with that. Kelvin was more prosaic. He wanted to get paid, so he wanted to deliver me. To whom? Dammit, he wasn’t thinking about that. My heart sank, though I would have sworn it was already down to my toes. My bare toes. I was glad I’d painted my toenails recently. Irrelevant!

A bright line of light suddenly appeared in the thin, thin outline of the hatch or trapdoor or whatever Bill called it. The light had been switched on in the pantry. I held as still as a mouse, tried to breathe shallowly and silently. I thought how bad Bill would feel if they killed me right next to him. Irrelevant!

He would, though.

I heard a creak and realized one of the men was standing right above me. If I could have switched my mind off, I would have. I was so conscious of the life in other people’s minds that I had a hard time believing that anyone could ignore a conscious brain, especially one as jittery as mine.

"Just blood in here," Hod said, so close that I jerked in surprise. "The bottled kind. Hey, Kelvin, this house must belong to a vampire!"

"Don’t make no difference as long as he’s not awake. Or she. Hey, you ever had a female vampire?"

"No, and don’t want to. I don’t like to hump dead people. Course, some nights, Marge ain’t much better."

Kelvin laughed. "You better not let her hear you say that, bro."

Hod laughed, too. "No danger of that."

And he stepped out of the pantry. Didn’t switch off the light, wasteful ass**le! Evidently the fact that Bill would know someone had been here was not a concern of Hod’s. So he was really stupid.

And then Bill woke up. This time he was a little more alert, and the second I felt him move, I crouched on top of him and put my hand over his mouth. His muscles tensed, and I had time to think Oh, no! before he smelled me, knew me. "Sookie?" he said, but not at full volume.

"Did you hear something?" said Hod above me.

A long moment of a lively, listening silence. "Shh," I breathed, right into Bill’s ear.

A cold hand rose and ran down my leg. I could almost feel Bill’s surprise–again–as he realized I was naked . . . again. And I knew the second the fact that he’d heard a voice overhead penetrated his awareness.

Bill was putting it all together. I didn’t know what he was coming up with, but he knew that we were in trouble. He also knew there was a bare- naked woman on top of him, and something else twitched. Simultaneously exasperated and amused, I had to clamp my lips shut on a giggle. Irrelevant!

And then Bill went to sleep again.

Would the damn sun never set? His drifting in and out was making me nuts. It was like dating someone with short-term memory loss.

And I’d clean forgotten to listen and be terrified.

"Nah, I don’t hear nothing," Kelvin said.

Lying on top of my involuntary host was like lying on top of a cold, hard cushion with hair.

And an erection. For what seemed like the tenth time, Bill had wakened.

I blew out a silent breath. This time Bill was completely awake. He put his arms around me, but he was gentlemanly enough not to move or explore, at least for now. We were both listening; he’d heard Kelvin speak.

Finally, two sets of footsteps crossed the wooden floors, and we heard the front door open and close. I sagged in relief. Bill’s arms tightened and he rolled me over so he was on top.

"Is it Christmas?" he asked, pressed against me. "Are you an early present?"

I laughed, but I still kept it quiet. "I’m sorry to intrude, Bill," I said, very low. "But they were after me." I explained very briefly, being careful to tell him where my clothes were and why they were there. I could feel his chest heave a little, and I knew he was laughing silently. "I’m really worried about Dermot," I said. I’d been talking almost in a whisper, which made the darkness curiously intimate, to say nothing of the large area of skin we were sharing.

"You’ve been down here a while," he said, his voice at normal level. "Yes."

"I’m going out to make sure they’re gone, since you’re not going to let me `open’ early," Bill said, and it took me a minute to understand. I caught myself smiling in the darkness. Bill gently eased away from me, and I saw his whiteness moving silently through the gloom. After a second’s listening, he opened the hatch. Harsh electric light flooded down. It was such a contrast that I had to close my eyes to let them adjust. By the time they did, Bill had slithered out into the house.

I didn’t hear anything no matter how hard I listened. I got tired of waiting–I felt like I’d crouched on the bare ground forever–and I hauled myself out of the hatch with a lot less grace and a lot more noise than Bill. I turned off the lights Hod and Kelvin had left on, at least in part because the light made me feel about twice as naked. I peered cautiously out of a window in the dining room. In the dark it was hard to be sure, but I thought the trees weren’t tossing in the wind anymore. The rain continued unabated. I saw lightning off to the north. I didn’t see kidnappers or bodies or anything that didn’t belong in the soaked landscape.

Bill didn’t seem to be in any hurry to return to tell me what was happening. The old dining table was covered with a sort of shawl with fringe, and I pulled it off the table and wrapped myself in it. I hoped it wasn’t some kind of Compton heirloom. It had holes in it and a large flowery pattern, so I wasn’t too terribly concerned.

"Sookie," Bill said at my back, and I shrieked and jumped.

"Would you please not do that?" I said. "I’ve had enough bad surprises today."

"Sorry," he said. He had a kitchen towel in his hand and he was rubbing his hair. "I came in through the back door." He was still naked, but I felt ridiculous making any kind of thing out of it. I’d seen Bill naked many times before. He was looking me up and down, a sort of puzzled expression on his face. "Sookie, are you wearing my Aunt Edwina’s Spanish shawl?" he asked.

"Oh, I’m so sorry," I said. "Really, Bill. It was there, and I was cold and damp and feeling like I wanted to be covered. I do apologize." I thought of unwrapping it and handing it over, but I reconsidered in the same moment.