Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set (97 page)

“Get back in bed, Sis,” he said, shutting the door behind him carefully. I noticed he stood on the porch for a full minute, surveying all that premium gravel. Then he shook his head and got back into his pickup, always clean and gleaming, the pink and aqua flames startling against the black paint that covered the rest of the truck.

I watched a little television. I tried to eat, but my face hurt too much. I felt lucky when I discovered some yogurt in the refrigerator.

A big pickup pulled up to the front of the house about three o’clock. Alcide got out with my suitcase. He knocked softly.

He might be happier if I didn’t answer, but I figured I wasn’t in the business of making Alcide Herveaux happy, and I opened the door.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” he said, not irreverently, as he took me in.

“Come in,” I said, through jaws that were getting so sore I could barely part them. I knew I’d said I’ll call Jason if Alcide came by; but Alcide and I needed to talk.

He came in and stood looking at me. Finally, he put the suitcase back in my room, fixed me a big glass of iced tea with a straw in it, and put it on the table by the couch. My eyes filled with tears. Not everyone would have realized that a hot drink made my swollen face hurt.

“Tell me what happened, chere,” he said, sitting on the couch beside me. “Here, put your feet up while you do.” He helped me swivel sideways and lay my legs over his lap. I had plenty of pillows propped behind me, and I did feel comfortable, or as comfortable as I was going to feel for a couple of days.

I told him everything.

“So, you think they’ll come after me in Shreveport?” he asked. He didn’t seem to be blaming me for bringing all this on his head, which frankly I’d half expected.

I shook my head helplessly. “I just don’t know. I wish we knew what had really happened. That might get them off our backs.”

“Weres are nothing if not loyal,” Alcide said.

I took his hand. “I know that.”

Alcide’s green eyes regarded me steadily.

“Debbie asked me to kill you,” he said.

For a moment I felt cold down to my bones. “What did you tell her back?” I asked, through stiff lips.

“I told her she could go fuck herself, excuse my language.”

“And how do you feel now?”

“Numb. Isn’t that stupid? I’m pulling her out of me by the roots, though. I told you I would. I had to do it. It’s like being addicted to crack. She’s awful.”

I thought of Lorena. “Sometimes,” I said, and even to my own ears I sounded sad, “the bitch wins.” Lorena was far from dead between Bill and me. Speaking of Debbie raised yet another unpleasant memory. “Hey, you told her we had been to bed together, when you two were fighting!”

He looked profoundly embarrassed, his olive skin flushing. “I’m ashamed of that. I knew she’d been having a good time with her fiancé; she bragged about it. I sort of used your name in vain when I was really mad. I apologize.”

I could understand that, even though I didn’t like it. I raised my eyebrows to indicate that wasn’t quite enough.

“Okay, that was really low. A double apology and a promise to never do it again.”

I nodded. I would accept that.

“I hated to hustle you all out of the apartment like that, but I didn’t want her to see the three of you, in view of conclusions she might have drawn. Debbie can get really mad, and I thought if she saw you in conjunction with the vampires, she might hear a rumor that Russell was missing a prisoner and put two and two together. She might even be mad enough to call Russell.”

“So much for loyalty among Weres.”

“She’s a shifter, not a Were,” Alcide said instantly, and a suspicion of mine was confirmed. I was beginning to believe that Alcide, despite his stated conviction that he was determined to kept the Were gene to himself, would never be happy with anyone but another Were. I sighed: I tried to keep it a nice, quiet sigh. I might be wrong, after all.

“Debbie aside,” I said, waving my hand to show how completely Debbie was out of our conversational picture, “
someone
killed Jerry Falcon and put him in your closet. That’s caused me—and you—a lot more trouble that the original mission, which was searching for Bill. Who would do something like that? It would have to be someone really malicious.”

“Or someone really stupid,” Alcide said fairly.

“I know Bill didn’t do it, because he was a prisoner. And I’d swear Eric was telling the truth when he said he didn’t do it.” I hesitated, hating to bring a name back up. “But what about Debbie? She’s . . .” I stopped myself from saying “a real bitch,” because only Alcide should call her that. “She was angry with you for having a date,” I said mildly. “Maybe she would put Jerry Falcon in your closet to cause you trouble?”

“Debbie’s mean and she can cause trouble, but she’s never killed anyone,” Alcide said. “She doesn’t have the, the . . . grit for it, the sand. The will to kill.”

Okay. Just call me Sandy.

Alcide must have read my dismay on my face. “Hey, I’m a Were,” he said, shrugging. “I’d do it if I had to. Especially at the right time of the moon.”

“So maybe a fellow pack member did him in, for reasons we don’t know, and decided to lay the blame on you?” Another possible scenario.

“That doesn’t feel right. Another Were would have—well, the body would’ve looked different.” Alcide said, trying to spare my finer feelings. He meant the body would have been ripped to shreds. “And I think I would’ve smelled another Were on him. Not that I got that close.”

We just didn’t have any other ideas, though if I’d tape-recorded that conversation and played it back, I would have thought of another possible culprit easily enough.

Alcide said he had to get back to Shreveport, and I lifted my legs for him to rise. He got up, but went down on one knee by the head of the couch to tell me good-bye. I said the polite things, how nice it had been of him to give me a place to stay, how much I’d enjoyed meeting his sister, how much fun it had been to hide a body with him. No, I didn’t really say that, but it crossed my mind, as I was being Gran’s courteous product.

“I’m glad I met you,” he said. He was closer to me than I’d thought, and he gave me a peck on the lips in farewell. But after the peck, which was okay, he returned for a longer good-bye. His lips felt so warm; and after a second, his tongue felt even warmer. His head turned slightly to get a better angle, and then he went at it again. His right hand hovered above me, trying to find a place to settle that wouldn’t hurt me. Finally he covered my left hand with his. Oh boy, this was good. But only my mouth and my lower pelvis were happy. The rest of me hurt. His hand slid, in a questioning sort of way, up to my breast, and I gave a sharp gasp.

“Oh, God, I hurt you!” he said. His lips looked very full and red after the long kiss, and his eyes were brilliant.

I felt obliged to apologize. “I’m just so sore,” I said.

“What did they do to you?” he asked. “Not just a few slaps across the face?”

He had imagined my swollen face was my most serious problem.

“I wish that had been it,” I said, trying to smile.

He truly looked stricken. “And here I am, making a pass at you.”

“Well, I didn’t push you away,” I said mildly. (I was too sore to push.) “And I didn’t say, ‘No, sir, how dare you force your attentions on me!’ ”

Alcide looked somewhat startled. “I’ll come back by soon,” he promised. “If you need anything, you call me.” He fished a card out of his pocket and laid it on the table by the couch. “This has got my work number on it, and I’m writing my cell number on the back, and my home number. Give me yours.” Obediently, I recited the numbers to him, and he wrote them down in, no kidding, a little black book. I didn’t have the energy to make a joke.

When he was gone, the house felt extra empty. He was so big and so energetic—so alive—he filled large spaces with his personality and presence.

It was a day for me to sigh.

Having talked to Jason at Merlotte’s, Arlene came by at half past five. She surveyed me, looked as if she were suppressing a lot of comments she really wanted to make, and heated me up some Campbell’s. I let it cool before I ate it very carefully and slowly, and felt the better for it. She put the dishes in the dishwasher, and asked me if I needed any other help. I thought of her children waiting for her at home, and I said I was just fine. It did me good to see Arlene, and to know she was struggling with herself about speaking out of turn made me feel even better.

Physically, I was feeling more and more stiff. I made myself get up and walk a little (though it looked more like a hobble), but as my bruises became fully developed and the house grew colder, I began to feel much worse. This was when living alone really got to you, when you felt bad or sick and there was no one there.

You might feel a little sorry for yourself, too, if you weren’t careful.

To my surprise, the first vampire to arrive after dark was Pam. Tonight she was wearing a trailing black gown, so she was scheduled to work at Fangtasia. Ordinarily, Pam shunned black; she was a pastels kind of female. She yanked at the chiffon sleeves impatiently.

“Eric says you may need a female to help you,” she said impatiently. “Though why I am supposed to be your lady’s maid, I don’t know. Do you really need help, or is he just trying to curry favor with you? I like you well enough, but after all, I am vampire, and you are human.”

That Pam, what a sweetie.

“You could sit and visit with me for a minute,” I suggested, at a loss as to how to proceed. Actually, it would be nice to have help getting into and out of the bathtub, but I knew Pam would be offended to be asked to perform such a personal task. After all, she was vampire, I was human. . . .

Pam settled into the armchair facing the couch. “Eric says you can fire a shotgun,” she said, more conversationally. “Would you teach me?”

“I’d be real glad to, when I’m better.”

“Did you really stake Lorena?”

The shotgun lessons were more important than the death of Lorena, it seemed.

“Yes. She would’ve killed me.”

“How’d you do it?”

“I had the stake that had been used on me.”

Then Pam had to hear about that, and ask me how it felt, since I was the only person she knew who’d survived being staked, and then she asked me exactly how I’d killed Lorena, and there we were, back at my least favorite topic.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I admitted.

“Why not?” Pam was curious. “You say she was trying to kill you.”

“She was.”

“And after she had done that, she would have tortured Bill more, until he broke, and you would have been dead, and it all would have been for nothing.”

Pam had a point, a good one, and I tried to think about it as a practical step to have taken, rather than a desperate reflex.

“Bill and Eric will be here soon,” Pam said, looking at her watch.

“I wish you had told me that earlier,” I said, struggling to my feet.

“Got to brush your teeth and hair?” Pam was cheerfully sarcastic. “That’s why Eric thought you might need my help.”

“I think I can manage my own grooming, if you wouldn’t mind heating up some blood in the microwave—of course, for yourself as well. I’m sorry, I wasn’t being polite.”

Pam gave me a skeptical look, but trotted off to the kitchen without further comment. I listened for a minute to make sure she knew how to operate a microwave, and I heard reassuringly unhesitating beeps as she punched in the numbers and hit Start.

Slowly and painfully, I washed off in the sink, brushed my hair and teeth, and put on some silky pink pajamas and a matching robe and slippers. I wished I had the energy to dress, but I just couldn’t face underwear and socks and shoes.

There was no point putting on makeup over the bruises. There was no way I could cover them. In fact, I wondered why I’d gotten up from the couch to put myself through this much pain. I looked in the mirror and told myself I was an idiot to make any preparation for their arrival. I was just plain primping. Given my overall misery (mental and physical), my behavior was ridiculous. I was sorry I had felt the impulse, and even sorrier Pam had witnessed it.

But the first male caller I had was Bubba.

He was all decked out. The vampires of Jackson had enjoyed Bubba’s company, it was apparent. Bubba was wearing a red jumpsuit with rhinestones on it (I wasn’t too surprised one of the boy toys at the mansion had had one) complete with wide belt and half boots. Bubba looked good.

He didn’t seem pleased, though. He seemed apologetic. “Miss Sookie, I’m sorry I lost you last night,” he said right away. He brushed past Pam, who looked surprised. “I see something awful happened to you last night, and I wasn’t there to stop it like Eric told me to be. I was having a good time in Jackson, those guys there really know how to throw themselves a party.”

I had an idea, a blindingly simple idea. If I’d been in a comic strip, it would have shown itself as a lightning bolt over my head. “You’ve been watching me every night,” I said, as gently as I could, trying hard to keep all excitement out of my voice. “Right?”

“Yes’m, ever since Mr. Eric told me to.” He was standing straighter, his head full of carefully combed hair gelled into the familiar style. The guys at Russell’s mansion had really worked hard on him.

“So you were out there the night we came back from the club? The first night?”

“You bet, Miss Sookie.”

“Did you see anyone else outside the apartment?”

“I sure did.” He looked proud.

Oh, boy. “Was this a guy in gang leathers?”

He looked surprised. “Yes’m, it was that guy hurt you in the bar. I seen him when the doorman threw him out back. Some of his buddies came around back there, and they were talking about what had happened. So I knew he’d offended you. Mr. Eric said not to come up to you or him in public, so I didn’t. But I followed you back to the apartment, in that truck. Bet you didn’t even know I was in the back.”