Dead to the World (Sookie Stackhouse #4)(68)
Author: Charlaine Harris

No, last night we cleaned up a body, I thought.

I was the only one who knew. And even I didn’t know where Debbie’s remains were buried, or what had happened to her car.

I sat down on the edge of my old narrow bed. Eric looked at me closely. "Something’s wrong, Sookie? What happened while I was – Why don’t I remember what happened?"

Least said, soonest mended.

All’s well that ends well.

Out of sight, out of mind. (Oh, I wished that were true.)

"I bet Pam will be here any minute," I said. "I think I’ll let her tell you all about it."

"And Chow?"

"No, he won’t be here. He died last night. Fangtasia seems to have a bad effect on bartenders."

"Who killed him? I’ll have vengeance."

"You’ve already had."

"Something more is wrong with you," Eric said. He’d always been astute.

"Yes, lots of stuff is wrong with me." I would’ve enjoyed hugging him right then, but it would just complicate everything. "And I think it’s going to snow."

"Snow, here?" Eric was as delighted as a child. "I love snow!"

Why was I not surprised?

"Maybe we will get snowed in together," he said suggestively, waggling his blond eyebrows.

I laughed. I just couldn’t help it. And it was a hell of a lot better than crying, which I’d done quite enough of lately. "As if you’d ever let the weather stop you from doing what you wanted to do," I said, and stood. "Come on, I’ll heat you up some blood."

Even a few nights of intimacy had softened me enough that I had to watch my actions. Once I almost stroked his hair as I passed him; and once I bent to give him a kiss, and had to pretend I’d dropped something on the floor.

When Pam knocked on my front door thirty minutes later, I was ready for work, and Eric was antsy as hell.

Pam was no sooner seated opposite him than he began bombarding her with questions. I told them quietly that I was leaving, and I don’t think they even noticed when I went out the kitchen door.

Merlotte’s wasn’t too busy that night, after we dealt with a rather large supper crowd. A few flakes of snow had convinced most of the regulars that going home sober might be a very good idea. There were enough customers left to keep Arlene and me moderately busy. Sam caught me as I was loading my tray with seven mugs of beer and wanted to be filled in on the night before.

"I’ll tell you later," I promised, thinking I’d have to edit my narrative pretty carefully.

"Any trace of Jason?" he asked.

"No," I said, and felt sadder than ever. The dispatcher at the law enforcement complex had sounded almost snappish when I’d called to ask if there was any news.

Kevin and Kenya came in that night after they’d gotten off duty. When I took their drinks to the table (a bourbon and Coke and a gin and tonic), Kenya said, "We’ve been looking for your brother, Sookie. I’m sorry."

"I know you all have been trying," I said. "I appreciate you all organizing the search party so much! I just wish…" And then I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Thanks to my disability, I knew something about each of them that the other didn’t know. They loved each other. But Kevin knew his mother would stick her head in the oven before she’d see him married to a black woman, and Kenya knew her brothers would rather ram Kevin through a wall than see him walk down the aisle with her.

And I knew this, despite the fact that neither of them did; and I hated having this personal knowledge, this intimate knowledge, that I just couldn’t help knowing.

Worse than knowing, even, was the temptation to interfere. I told myself very sternly that I had enough problems of my own without causing problems for other people. Luckily, I was busy enough the rest of the night to erase the temptation from my mind. Though I couldn’t reveal those kinds of secrets, I reminded myself that I owed the two officers, big-time. If I heard of something I could let them know, I would.

When the bar closed, I helped Sam put the chairs up on the tables so Terry Bellefleur could come in and mop and clean the toilets early in the morning. Arlene and Tack had left, singing "Let It Snow" while they went out the back door. Sure enough, the flakes were drifting down outside, though I didn’t think they’d stick past morning. I thought of the creatures out in the woods tonight, trying to keep warm and dry. I knew that in some spot in the forest, Debbie Pelt lay in a hole, cold forever.

I wondered how long I’d think of her like that, and I hoped very much I could remember just as clearly what an awful person she’d been, how vindictive and murderous.

In fact, I’d stood staring out the window for a couple of minutes when Sam came up behind me.

"What’s on your mind?" he asked. He gripped my elbow, and I could feel the strength in his fingers.

I sighed, not for the first time. "Just wondering about Jason," I said. That was close enough to the truth.

He patted me in a consoling way. "Tell me about last night," he said, and for one second I thought he was asking me about Debbie. Then, of course, I knew he referred to the battle with the witches, and I was able to give him an account.

"So Pam showed up tonight at your place." Sam sounded pleased about that. "She must have cracked Hallow, made her undo the spell. Eric was himself again?"

"As far as I could tell."

"What did he have to say about the experience?"

"He didn’t remember anything about it," I said slowly. "He didn’t seem to have a clue."

Sam looked away from me when he said, "How are you, with that?"

"I think it’s for the best," I told him. "Definitely." But I would be going home to an empty house again. The knowledge skittered at the edges of my awareness, but I wouldn’t look at it directly.

"Too bad you weren’t working the afternoon shift," he said, somehow following a similar train of thought. "Calvin Norris was in here."

"And?"

"I think he came in hopes of seeing you."

I looked at Sam skeptically. "Right."

"I think he’s serious, Sookie."

"Sam," I said, feeling unaccountably wounded, "I’m on my own, and sometimes that’s no fun, but I don’t have to take up with a werewolf just because he offers."

Sam looked mildly puzzled. "You wouldn’t have to. The people in Hotshot aren’t Weres."

"He said they were."

"No, not Weres with a capital W. They’re too proud to call themselves shifters, but that’s what they are. They’re were-panthers."

"What?" I swear I saw dots floating in the air around my eyes.