From Dead to Worse (Sookie Stackhouse #8)(55)
Author: Charlaine Harris

"You’re the woman Sookie," she said.

I didn’t see any need to affirm what she was so sure of. I waited.

"A glass of TrueBlood, please," she said. "Quite warm. And I’d like to meet your boss, if you would fetch him."

Like Sam was a bone. Nonetheless, she was a customer and I was a barmaid. So I heated a TrueBlood for her and told Sam he was wanted.

"I’ll be there in a minute," he said, because he was getting a tray of drinks ready for Arlene.

I nodded and took the blood over to the vampire.

"Thank you," she said civilly. "I’m Sandy Sechrest, the new area rep for the King of Louisiana."

I had no idea where Sandy had grown up, but it had been in the United States and had not been in the south. "Pleased to meet you," I said, but not with a whole lot of enthusiasm. Area rep? Wasn’t that what sheriffs were, among their other functions? What did that mean for Eric?

At that moment Sam came to the table, and I left because I didn’t want to look inquisitive. Besides, I could probably pick it up from his brain later if Sam chose not to tell me what the new vampire wanted. He was good at blocking, but he had to make a special effort to do it.

The three engaged in a conversation for a couple of minutes, then Sam excused himself to get back behind the bar.

I glanced at the vampire and the mogul from time to time in case they needed something more to drink, but neither of them indicated a thirst. They were talking very seriously, and both of them were adept at maintaining a poker face. I didn’t care enough to try to latch onto Mr. Carmichael’s thoughts, and of course Sandy Sechrest was a blank to me.

The rest of the night was the usual stuff. I didn’t even notice when the new king’s rep and Mr. Carmichael left. Then it was time to close everything out and get my tables ready for Terry Bellefleur to come in and clean early in the morning. By the time I really looked around me, everyone was gone but Sam and me.

"Hey, you through?" he said.

"Yeah," I said after another look around.

"You got a minute?"

I always had a minute for Sam.

Chapter 16

He sat in the chair behind his desk and tilted it back at the usual dangerous angle. I sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk, the one with the most padding in the seat. Most of the lights in the building were out except the one that stayed on over the bar area and the one in Sam’s office. The building rang with silence after the cacophony of voices rising over the jukebox and the sounds of cooking, washing, footsteps.

"That Sandy Sechrest," he said. "She’s got a whole new job."

"Yeah? What the king’s rep supposed to do?"

"Well, as far as I can tell, she’ll travel the state pretty much constantly, seeing if the citizens have problems with any vampires, seeing if the sheriffs have everything in order and under control in their own fiefs, and reporting in to the king. She’s like an undead troubleshooter."

"Oh." I thought that over. I couldn’t see that the job would detract from Eric’s. If Eric was okay, his crew would be okay. Other than that, I didn’t care what the vampires did. "So, she decided to meet you because…?"

"She understood I had associations in the regional supernatural community," Sam said dryly. "She wanted me to know she was available to consult in the event ‘problems arose.’ I have her business card." He held it up. I don’t know if I expected it to drip with blood or what, but it was only a regular business card.

"Okay." I shrugged.

"What did Claudine and her brother want?" Sam asked.

I was feeling very bad about concealing my new great-grandfather from Sam, but Niall had told me to keep him a secret. "She hadn’t heard from me since the fight in Shreveport," I said. "She just wanted to check up, and she got Claude to come with her."

Sam looked at me a little sharply but he didn’t comment. "Maybe," he said after a minute, "this will be a long era of peace.

Maybe we can just work in the bar and nothing will happen in the supe community. I’m hoping so, because the time is coming closer and closer when the Weres are going to go public."

"You think it’s soon?" I had no idea how America would react to the news that vampires were not the only things out there in the night. "You think all the other shifters will announce the same night?"

"We’ll have to," Sam said. "We’re talking on our website about it."

Sam did have a life that was unknown to me. That sparked a thought. I hesitated, then plowed ahead. There were too many questions in my own life. I wanted to get at least some of them answered.

"How’d you come to settle here?" I asked.

"I’d passed through the area," he said. "I was in the army for four years."

"You were?" I couldn’t believe I hadn’t known that.

"Yeah," he said. "I didn’t know what I wanted to do in my life, so I joined when I was eighteen. My mom cried and my dad swore since I’d been accepted to a college, but I’d made up my mind. I was about the stubbornest teenager on the planet."

"Where’d you grow up?"

"At least partly in Wright, Texas," he said. "Outside of Fort Worth. Way outside of Fort Worth. It wasn’t any bigger than Bon Temps. We moved around all during my childhood, though, because my dad was in the service himself. He got out when I was about fourteen, and my mom’s family was in Wright, so that’s where we went."

"Was it hard settling down after moving so much?" I’d never lived anywhere but Bon Temps.

"It was great," he said. "I was so ready to stay in one place. I hadn’t realized how hard it would be to find my own niche in a group of kids who’d grown up together, but I was able to take care of myself. I played baseball and basketball, so I found my place. Then I joined the army. Go figure."

I was fascinated. "Are your mom and dad still in Wright?" I asked. "It must have been hard for him in the military, with him being a shifter." Since Sam was a shapeshifter, I knew without him having to tell me that he was the first-born child of pure-blooded shapeshifters.

"Yeah, the full moons were a bitch. There was an herbal drink his Irish grandmother used to make. He learned how to make it himself. It was foul beyond belief, but he drank it on full moons when he had to be on duty and had to be seen all night, and that helped him maintain… But you didn’t want to be around him the next day. Dad passed away about six years ago, left me a chunk of money. I’d always liked this area, and this bar was up for sale. It seemed like a good way to invest the money."