Dead Ever After ss-13

by Charlaine Harris

  “If you could find out who killed Arlene, it would really help.” I may have sounded a little sarcastic. “It was my scarf around her neck, Bill.”

  “How did you get out, accused of such a crime?”

  “Not only was there no absolutely damning evidence tying me to the murder, Eric sent Mustapha to bail me out, which I can’t figure. We’re not married anymore and he’s leaving with Freyda. Why does he care? I mean, I don’t think he hates me, but putting up bail money . . .”

  Bill said, “Of course he doesn’t hate you,” but he said it a little abstractedly, as if he’d had a sudden thought. “Though I’m in communication with others at Fangtasia, I’m surprised he hasn’t summoned me. It seems I should pay my sheriff a visit . . . and find out when he’s leaving us.” Bill sat sunk in thought for a long moment. “Who will be the next sheriff?” he said, and his whole body was tense.

  Understandably, I hadn’t gotten that far in my thinking. What with the losing-my-boyfriend heartache and the murder charge.

  “That’s a good question,” I said, without much interest. “Be sure and let me know when you find out. I guess Felipe will bring in one of his people.” I’d worry about that later, when I had the energy. A henchperson of Felipe’s could sure make my life more difficult, but I couldn’t think about it now.

  “Good night, sweetheart,” Bill said, to my surprise. “I’m glad to see Karin is earning her keep, though I didn’t expect Eric would put her outside your house perpetually.”

  “Neither did I, but I think it’s wonderful.”

  “I thought Harp was a gentleman. I was wrong.”

  “Think nothing of it.” My eyelids were sagging shut.

  He kissed me on the lips. My eyelids were suddenly wide apart. He stepped back, and I caught my breath. Bill had always kissed like a champion. If there’d been a kissing Olympics, he’d have advanced to the finals. But I wasn’t starting anything up. I stepped back, too, and let the screen door close between us.

  “Sleep well.” And Bill was gone, across the yard and into the woods, moving so swiftly and silently that I expected to see “zoom” marks behind him.

  But he stopped dead just inside the tree line.

  Someone had stepped out in front of him.

  I caught the flowing movement of long pale hair. Karin and Bill were in conversation. I hoped Harp Powell didn’t try to return to my woods and “interview” Karin. The last human male I’d known who’d been hooked on a vampire female had had a sad end.

  And then I yawned and forgot all about the reporter. I locked every lock on every door and window, and crawled into bed.

  Chapter 11

  When I got up the next morning, it was pouring rain again—yay, no watering!—and I was still tired. I discovered that I didn’t know when I’d scheduled myself to work, I didn’t have any clean uniforms, and I was almost out of coffee. Also, I stubbed my toe on the kitchen table. All of it was annoying, for sure, but still better than being arrested for murder or waking up in jail.

  I decided to pluck my eyebrows while the uniforms were tumbling in the dryer. One of the hairs was suspiciously light. I yanked it out and examined it. Was it gray?

  I put on extra makeup, and when I thought I could sound calm, I called my co-boss.

  “Sam,” I said, when he answered the phone. “I can’t remember when I need to be there.”

  “Sookie,” he said, sounding simply weird. “Listen, you stay home today. You were a real trooper yesterday, but give yourself a break.”

  “But I want to work,” I said, speaking very slowly, while I scrambled to figure out what was happening with my friend.

  “Sook . . . today, no, don’t come in.” And he hung up.

  Had the whole world gone crazy? Or was it just me? While I stood there holding my phone, doubtless looking like an idiot (which was okay, since there was no one to see me), the phone vibrated in my hand. I shrieked and almost threw it across the room, then gathered myself together and held it to my ear.

  “Sookie,” said Amelia Broadway, “we’ll be there in a little over an hour. Mr. C said I should call you. Don’t worry about breakfast, we’ve already eaten.”

  It was a measure of how busy my head was that I’d completely forgotten that my New Orleans company was arriving this morning. “Who all’s with you?”

  “It’s me, Bob, Diantha, Mr. C, and an old buddy of yours. You’ll be so surprised!” And Amelia hung up.

  I hate surprises. But at least I had something to do. Upstairs, the bed in Claude’s former room was made up with clean sheets, and I hauled an air mattress I’d gotten for Dermot into the former attic, now a large, empty room with a very large closet. The cot Dermot had used until I’d gotten the air mattress was easy to set up in the second-floor sitting room. After everything was ready upstairs, I made sure the downstairs hall bathroom was still clean, the bedroom across the hall from mine was ready, and the kitchen was orderly. Since I wasn’t going to work, I put on some civilian shorts, black with white polka dots, and a white shirt.

  Clean enough. Oh, food! I tried to figure out a menu, but I didn’t know how long they’d be staying. And Mr. Cataliades was quite an eater.

  By the time I heard a car on the gravel driveway, I was more or less ready for company, though I have to admit I wasn’t too excited about having more visitors. Amelia and I hadn’t parted on good terms in our last face-to-face discussion, though we’d been extending hands to each other across the Internet. Mr. Cataliades always had something interesting to say, but it was seldom news I wanted to hear. Diantha was a mother lode of unexpected talents and very handy to have around. And then there was the mystery guest.

  Amelia dashed in first, rain spots all over her blouse, and her boyfriend, Bob, was right on her heels. Bob particularly hated getting wet. I didn’t know if that was because he’d spent time as a cat, or if it was because he simply liked dryness. Diantha danced inside, her small bony figure outlined with tight clothes in bright colors. Mr. Cataliades, in his usual black suit, pounded up the steps after her, moving swiftly despite his bulk.

  The last person into the house was Barry Bellboy, formerly known as Barry Horowitz.

  Years younger than me, Barry was the first telepath I met. Mr. Cataliades was Barry’s great-great-grandfather, though I didn’t know if Barry had been made aware of that or not.

  Like Amelia and me, Barry and I hadn’t parted on perfect terms. But we’d gone through a great ordeal together, and that made a bond between us that nothing could break, especially considering the fact that we shared the same disability. The last I’d heard, he’d been working for Stan, the King of Texas . . . though since Stan had been badly injured in the explosion in Rhodes, I had figured Barry’d really been working for Stan’s lieutenant, Joseph Velasquez, since then.

  Since I’d last seen Barry at a hotel in Rhodes, he had aged and his body had matured. He’d completely lost his endearing gawkiness. Now he seemed more . . . intense and spidery. I handed him a towel to dry his face, which he did with vigor.

  How are you? I asked him.

  It’s a long story, he said. Later.

  “Okay,” I said out loud. I turned away to greet my other guests. Amelia and I hugged rather awkwardly, inevitably reminded of our final quarrel the last time she’d been here, when she’d totally crossed the line into my personal life. Amelia had rounded out.

  “Okay,” she began. “Listen, just getting this out of the way. I’ve said this before, but I want to say it again. I’m sorry. Being such a good witch gave me inflated ideas of running your life, and I’m aware I overshot my boundaries. I won’t do it again. I’ve been trying to mend my fences everywhere. I’ve been trying to create a relationship with my father, though he turned out to be nothing like I thought he was, and I’m learning some impulse control.”

  I looked at her carefully, a little confused about the reading I was getting. Amelia had always been an exceptional broadcaster, and she still was. She was sending off waves of sincerit
y and fear that I’d reject her apology. (However, she still thought very highly of herself, with some justification.) But there was an extra vibe from her. “We’ll give starting over a shot,” I said, and we smiled at each other in a tentative way. “Bob, how you doing?” I turned to her companion. Bob was not a big man. If I had to pick two adjectives for Bob, they would be “dark” and “nerdy.” But I could see that Bob, like Barry, had changed. He was carrying more weight, which looked good. Gauntness had not become him. And Amelia had been smartening up his wardrobe, including his glasses, which now looked sort of European and sophisticated.

  “Dang, Bob, you clean up good,” I told him, and his thin lips parted in a surprisingly charming smile.

  “Thanks, Sookie, you’re looking good yourself.” He glanced down at his clothes. “Amelia thought I ought to update.”

  I still couldn’t imagine how Bob had forgiven Amelia for turning him into a cat when she didn’t know how to turn him back, but after his initial spasm of loathing sent him running to find his remaining family when he’d been returned to human form, he’d come back to her.

  “Dear Sookie,” said the nearly-all-demon Desmond Cataliades, and I embraced him. It was an effort, but that was what you did with friends. He didn’t feel human to the touch, though he looked human enough, with his circular body and scanty dark hair, his dark eyes and jowly face. But there was a certain rubbery feel to his flesh that was not standard. He inhaled deeply while his arms were around me, and I had to fight to keep myself from flinching. Of course, he knew that. He was very skilled at keeping it secret that he could read minds like I could—but he was the one who’d made me what I was, and Barry, too.

  “HeySookie,” Diantha said. “Igottapee. Bathroom?”

  “Of course, down the hall,” I said, and off she sped, her hair and clothes dark with rain.

  I made sure everyone had a towel, and there was a lot of milling around as I assigned rooms: Bob and Amelia downstairs across from me, Mr. C and Diantha in Claude’s bedroom and sitting room upstairs, and Barry got the air mattress in the former attic/unfinished bedroom. My house was full of voices and activity. Feet went up and down the stairs, the bathroom door opened and shut repeatedly, and there was life around me. It felt good. Though Claude and Dermot had been less-than-stellar houseguests (especially the traitorous Claude), I’d missed the sound of them in the house, and most of all I’d missed Dermot’s smile and willingness to help. I hadn’t admitted that to myself until now.

  “You could have put us upstairs, put the lawyer down here,” Amelia protested.

  “Yeah, but you need to save all of your energy for the baby.”

  “What?”

  “The baby,” I said impatiently. “I thought you might not like to hike up and down those stairs several times a day, plus you need to be close to a bathroom at night. At least, that’s the way Tara was.”

  When she didn’t reply, I turned away from the coffeepot to see that Amelia was staring at me very oddly. Bob, too.

  “Are you telling me,” Amelia said very quietly, “that I’m pregnant?”

  I’d stepped right in it and gotten stuck. “Yeah,” I said weakly. “I can feel the brain waves. You got a little one on board. I’ve never sensed a baby before. Maybe I was wrong? Barry?” He’d come in to hear the last part of our exchange.

  “Sure. I thought you knew,” he told Bob, who looked pretty much as if someone had socked him in the stomach. “I mean . . .” He looked from Bob to Amelia. “I thought you both knew. You’re witches, right? I figured that was why we could sense the baby early. I thought you just didn’t want to talk about it yet. Not publicly. I was trying to be tactful.”

  “Come on, Barry,” I said. “I think we need to give them the room.” I’d always wanted to say that. I took his hand and pulled him out to the living room, giving the parents-to-be the kitchen. I could hear the rumble of my godfather talking to his niece upstairs. For the moment, it was just me and Barry.

  “What have you been doing?” I asked my fellow telepath. “Last time I saw you, you were pretty unhappy with me. But now you’re here.”

  He looked unhappy and a little embarrassed. “I went back to Texas,” he said. “Stan was pretty slow recovering, so I was under Joseph Velasquez. Joseph was struggling to keep control, threatening everyone with what would happen when Stan was back at full strength. Like a mom threatening her kids that their dad’s going to come home and whip their butts. Finally, a vamp named Brady Burke sneaked into the recovery crypt—don’t ask—and staked Stan. Brady’s people came after Joseph, too, but Joseph beat them down and put Brady and his vamps out in the sun, and then killed Brady’s human buddies.”

  “Joseph thought you should have warned him.”

  Barry nodded. “Of course, and he was right. I knew something was up, but I didn’t know what. I was friends with a gal named Erica, one of Brady’s donors.”

  “Friends with?”

  “Okay, I was sleeping with Erica. So Joseph felt I should have known.”

  “And?”

  He sighed and didn’t look at me. “And yes, I knew they were planning something, but since I didn’t know what it was, I didn’t tell Joseph. I knew he’d come down on Erica like a ton of bricks to get it out of her, and I just couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe it was anything as drastic as a change of regimes.”

  “And what happened to Erica?”

  “She was dead before I even knew about the coup.”

  There was a depth of self-loathing in his voice.

  “We have limitations,” I said. “We can’t get accurate readings of every thought in every brain every minute. You know people don’t think in whole sentences, like, ‘I’m going to the First National Bank today at ten o’clock, and when I get there, I’m getting in line at Judy Murello’s window. Then I’m pulling out my .357 Magnum and robbing the bank.’ ”

  “I know that.” The storm in his head subsided a little bit. “But Joseph decided I didn’t tell him because of my relationship with Erica. Mr. Cataliades showed up out of nowhere. I don’t know why. Next thing I knew, I was leaving with him. I don’t know why he rescued me. Joseph made it pretty clear I would never work for vampires again; he was putting the word out.”

  Yep, Mr. C had definitely not told Barry about their blood relationship. “You think Erica knew about Brady’s plan?”

  “Yeah,” Barry said, sounding tired and sad. “I’m sure she knew enough to warn me, and she didn’t. I just never picked up the plan from her. I’m sure she was sorry she hadn’t told me, before she died. But she died, anyway.”

  “Tough,” I said. Inadequate, but sincere.

  “Speaking of tough, I hear your vamp’s going to get hitched to someone else.” Barry was all too quick to change the subject.

  “It’s all over vampireland, I guess,” I said.

  “Sure. Freyda is outstanding. Plenty of guys have been trying to get in line to get a piece of Freyda since it went around that she was looking for a consort. Power plus looks plus money, and plenty of room for expansion in Oklahoma. Casinos and oil wells. With an ass-kicker like Eric behind her, she’ll build an empire.”

  “That’ll be just lovely,” I said, sounding as tired and sad as he had. Barry seemed much more plugged into the gossip in the vampire world than I’d ever been. Maybe I’d been “among but not of” more than I’d needed to be. Maybe there was more truth to Eric’s accusations about my prejudice against vampire culture than I’d believed. But vampires were users of humans, so I was mostly simply glad I’d never told Eric about my cousin Hadley’s son, Hunter.

  “So, there’s another one of us?” Barry asked, and the question hit me hard. I was so damn used to being the only mind-reader around. In a second I was about an inch from his face, and my hand was gripping the front of his T-shirt.

  “You say anything about Hunter to anyone, and I’ll bet you have a really bad visitor some night,” I said, meaning it with every atom in my body. My cousin Hunter was going to stay s
afe if I had to be the bad visitor myself. Hunter was only five, and I wasn’t having him kidnapped and trained to serve some vampire king or queen. It was hard enough to reach adulthood if you were telepathic. Having people wanting to snatch you for the advantage you could give them? That would be a million times worse.

  “Hey, back off!” Barry said angrily. “I came here to help you, not to make things worse. Cataliades must know.”

  “Just keep your mouth shut about Hunter,” I said, and stepped away. “You know what a difference that will make. I’m not worried about Mr. Cataliades telling anyone.”

  “All right,” Barry said, relaxing a fraction. “You can be sure I’ll keep my mouth shut. I know how hard it is when you’re a kid. I swear I won’t tell.” He expelled a deep breath to let out all the agitation. I did, too.

  “You know who I saw ten days ago in New Orleans?” Barry said, his voice so hushed I had to lean forward to hear. I raised my eyebrows to let him know to get on with it. Johan Glassport, he said silently, and I felt a shiver run down my spine.

  Johan Glassport was a lawyer. I’ve known many nice people who were lawyers, so I’m not going to make a lawyer joke out of this; Johan Glassport was also a sadist and a murderer. Evidently, when you’re a brilliant lawyer, you can get away with a lot of stuff. He had. I’d last seen Glassport in Rhodes. I’d understood he’d gone to Mexico to hide out after the terrible explosion at the hotel. He’d been on television then, part of the bedraggled and injured cluster of survivors, and I had always thought he feared he might be recognized by someone. There had to be plenty of people who dreaded the sight of him. Did he see you? I asked.

  “I don’t think so.” He was on a streetcar, and I was on the sidewalk.

  “It’s never good to see Johan,” I muttered. “Why is he back in the States?”

  “I hope we never find out. And I’ll tell you something strange. Glassport’s brain was opaque.”