Dead and Gone

by Charlaine Harris

Chapter 16

  As I served beers and daiquiris and vodka collinses to the people stopping by on their way home from work, I stood back and eyed myself in amazement. I'd worked for hours, serving and smiling and hustling, and I'd never broken down at all. Sure, I'd had to ask four people to repeat their orders. And I'd walked past Sam twice, and he'd said something to me to which I hadn't responded - I knew this because he'd stopped me to tell me so. But I'd gotten the right plates and drinks to the right tables, and my tips were running about average, which meant I'd been agreeable and hadn't forgotten anything crucial.

  You're doing so good,I told myself. I'm so proud of you. You just have to get through this. You can go home in fifteen minutes .

  I wondered how many women had given themselves the same lecture: the girl who'd held her head up at a dance where her date was paying attention to another classmate; the woman who'd been passed by for promotion at her job; the woman who had listened to a dire diagnosis and yet kept her face together. I knew men must have days like this, too.

  Well, maybe not too many people had days exactly like this.

  Naturally, I'd been turning over in my head Mel's strange insistence that he was not responsible for Crystal's crucifixion, during which she'd actually died. His thoughts had had the ring of truth. And really, there was no reason why he would've balked at confessing everything when he'd already confessed so much, found peace doing so. Why would someone steal the half-dead Crystal and the wood, and do a deed so disgusting? It would've had to have been someone who'd hated Crystal an awful lot, or maybe someone who had hated Mel or Jason. It was an inhuman act, yet I found myself believing in Mel's dying assertion that he had not done it.

  I was so glad to leave work that I began driving home on automatic pilot. When I'd gotten almost to the turn off into my driveway, I remembered that I'd told Amelia hours before that I'd meet her at Tray's house.

  I'd completely forgotten.

  I could forgive myself, considering the day I'd had - if Amelia was okay. But when I remembered Tray's mean state and his ingestion of vampire blood, I felt a jolt of panic.

  I looked at my watch and saw I was more than forty-five minutes late. Turning around in the next driveway, I drove back to town like a bat out of hell. I was trying to pretend to myself I wasn't scared. I wasn't doing a very good job.

  There weren't any cars in front of the small house. Its windows were dark. I could see the bumper of Tray's truck peering out from the carport behind the house.

  I drove right by and turned around on a county road about half a mile farther out. Confused and worried, I returned to park outside Tray's. His house and the adjacent workshop were outside the Bon Temps city limits but not isolated. Tray had maybe a half-acre lot; his little home and the large metal building housing his repair business were right next to a similar setup owned by Brock and Chessie Johnson, who had an upholstery shop. Obviously, Brock and Chessie had retreated to their house for the night. The living room lights were on; as I watched, Chessie pulled the curtains shut, which most people out here didn't bother to do.

  The night was dark and quiet; the Johnsons' dog was barking, but that was the only sound. It was too cold for the chorus of bugs that often made the night come alive.

  I thought of several scenarios that could explain the dead look of the house.

  One. The vampire blood still had hold over Tray, and he'd killed Amelia. Right now, he was in his house, in the dark, thinking of ways to kill himself. Or maybe he was waiting for me to come, so he could kill me, too.

  Two. Tray had recovered from his ingestion of vamp blood, and when Amelia had appeared on his doorstep, they'd decided to treat their free afternoon as a honeymoon. They wouldn't be at all happy if I interrupted them.

  Three. Amelia had come by, found no one at home, and was now back at the house cooking supper for herself and me, because she expected me to drive up at any moment. At least that explanation accounted for the absence of Amelia's car.

  I tried to think of an even better series of events, but I couldn't. I pulled out my cell phone and tried my home number. I heard my own voice on the answering machine. Next, I tried Amelia's cell. It went to voice mail after three rings. I was running out of happy options. Figuring that a phone call would be less intrusive than a knock at the door, I tried Tray's number next. I could hear the faint ring of the phone inside . . . but no one answered it.

  I called Bill. I didn't think about it for more than a second. I just did it.

  "Bill Compton," said the familiar cool voice.

  "Bill," I said, and then couldn't finish.

  "Where are you?"

  "I'm sitting in my car outside of Tray Dawson's house. "

  "The Were who owns the motorcycle repair shop. "

  "Right. "

  "I'm coming. "

  He was there in less than ten minutes. His car pulled up behind mine. I was pulled over on the shoulder, because I hadn't wanted to drive up onto the gravel in front of the house.

  "I'm weak," I said, when he got in beside me. "I shouldn't have called you. But I swear to God, I didn't know what else to do. "

  "You didn't call Eric. " It was a simple observation.

  "Take too long," I said. I told him what I'd done. "I can't believe I forgot Amelia," I said, stricken by my self-centeredness.

  "I think forgetting one thing after such a day is actually permissible, Sookie," Bill said.

  "No, it isn't," I said. "It's just that . . . I can't go in there and find them dead. I just can't do it. My courage has just collapsed. "

  He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. "What's one more dead person to me?" he said. And then he was out of the car and moving silently in the faint light peeking around the curtains of the house next door. He got to the front door, listened intently. He didn't hear anything, I knew, because he opened the door and stepped inside.

  Just as he vanished, my cell phone rang. I jumped so hard I almost hit my head on the roof. I dropped the phone and had to grope for it.

  "Hello?" I said, full of fear.

  "Hey, did you call? I was in the shower," Amelia said, and I collapsed over the steering wheel, thinking,Thank you God thank you God thank you thank you .

  "You okay?" Amelia asked.

  "Yes," I said. "I'm okay. Where is Tray? Is he there with you?"

  "Nope. I went to his house, but he wasn't there. I waited a while for you, but you didn't show, so I figured he'd gone to the doctor, and I decided you must have been held up at work or something. I went back to the insurance agency, and I just got home about thirty minutes ago. What's up?"

  "I'll be there soon," I said. "Lock the doors and don't let anyone in. "

  "Doors are locked; no one's knocking," she said.

  "Don't let me in," I said, "unless I give you the password. "

  "Sure, Sookie," she said, and I could tell she thought I'd gone over the edge. "What's the password?"

  "Fairypants," I said, and how I came up with that I have no idea. It simply seemed super unlikely that anyone else in the world would say it.

  "I got it," Amelia said. "Fairypants. "

  Bill was back at the car. "I've got to go," I said, and hung up. When he opened the door, the dome light showed his face. It looked grim.

  "He's not there," he said immediately. "But there's been a fight. "

  "Blood?"

  "Yes. "

  "Lots?"

  "He could still be alive. From the way it smelled, I don't think it was all his. "

  My shoulders slumped. "I don't know what to do," I confessed, and it felt almost good to say it out loud. "I don't know where to go to find him or how to help him. He's supposed to be working as my bodyguard. But he went out in the woods last night and met up with a woman who said she was your new girlfriend. She gave him a drink. It was bad vampire blood,
and it made him sick as the flu. " I looked over at Bill. "Maybe she got it from Bubba. I haven't seen him to ask. I'm kind of worried about him. " I knew Bill could see me far more clearly than I could see him. I spread my hands in query. Did he know this woman?

  Bill looked at me. His mouth curved up in a rather bitter little smile. "I'm not dating anyone," he said.

  I decided to completely ignore the emotional slant. I didn't have the time or the energy tonight. I'd been right when I'd discounted the mysterious woman's identity. "So this was someone who could pretend to be a fangbanger, someone convincing enough to overcome Tray's good sense, someone who could put him under a spell so he'd drink the blood. "

  "Bubba doesn't have much good sense at all," Bill said. "Even though some fairy magic doesn't work on vampires, I don't think he'd be hard to be spelt. "

  "Have you seen him tonight?"

  "He came over to my place to put drinks in his cooler, but he seemed weak and disoriented. After he drank a couple of bottles of TrueBlood, he seemed to be better. The last I saw of him, he was walking across the cemetery toward your house. "

  "I guess we better go there next. "

  "I'll follow you. " Bill went to his own car, and we set off to drive the short distance to my place. But Bill caught the light at the intersection of the highway and Hummingbird Road, and I was ahead of him by quite a few seconds. I pulled up in back of the house, which was well-lit. Amelia had never worried about an electric bill in her life; it just made me want to cry sometimes when I followed her around turning off switch after switch.

  I got out of the car and hurried for the back steps, all ready to say, "Fairypants!" when Amelia came to the door. Bill would be there in less than a minute, and we could make a plan on how to find Tray. When Bill got there, he'd check on Bubba; I couldn't go out in the woods. I was proud of myself for not rushing into the trees to find the vampire.

  I had so much to think about that I didn't think about the most obvious danger.

  There's no excuse for my lack of attention to detail.

  A woman by herself always has to be alert, and a woman who's had the experiences I've had has extra cause for alarm when blips are on her radar. The security light was still on at the house and and the backyard looked normal, it was true. I had even glimpsed Amelia in the kitchen through a window. I hurried to the back steps, my purse slung over my shoulder, my trowel and water guns inside it, my keys in my hand.

  But anything can be hiding in the shadows, and it takes only a moment's inattention for a trap to spring.

  I heard a few words in a language I didn't recognize, but for a second I thought, He's mumbling , and I couldn't imagine what a man behind me would be mumbling, and I was about to put my foot on the first step to the back porch.

  And then I didn't know a thing.