Dead and Gone

Chapter 4

I spent a restless night. I would think of Eric and feel the warm rush of joy, and then think of Eric and want to punch him in the face. I thought of Bill, the first man I’d ever dated more than once, the first man I’d ever gone to bed with; when I remembered his cool voice and body, his contained calm, and contrasted it with Eric, I couldn’t believe I had fallen for two such different males, especially when my all-too-brief episode with Quinn was factored in. Quinn had been warm-blooded in every respect, and impulsive, and kind to me, and yet so scarred by his past, he hadn’t shared it with me—which, in my view, had led to our relationship being ruined. I’d dated Alcide Herveaux, pack leader, too, but it had never gone further.

Sookie Stackhouse’s All-Male Revue.

Don’t you just hate nights like that, when you think over every mistake you’ve made, every hurt you’ve received, every bit of meanness you’ve dealt out? There’s no profit in it, no point to it, and you need sleep. But that night, men were on my mind, and not in a happy way.

When I’d exhausted the topic of my problems with the male sex, I launched into worrying about the responsibility of the bar. I finally got three hours’ sleep after I made myself admit that there was no way I could run Sam’s business into the ground in a few days.

Sam called the next morning while I was still at home to tell me his mother was better and was definitely going to recover. His brother and sister were now dealing with the family revelations in a much calmer way. Don, of course, was still in jail.

“If she keeps improving, I may be able to start back in a couple of days,” he said. “Or even sooner. Of course, the doctors keep telling us they can’t believe how fast she’s healing.” He sighed. “At least we don’t have to conceal that now.”

“How’s your mom handling the emotional part?” I asked.

“She’s quit insisting they should release him. And since she had a frank talk with the three of us, she’s admitting she and Don might have to get a divorce,” he said. “She’s not happy about the idea, but I don’t know if you can completely reconcile with someone who’s shot you.”

Though I’d answered the phone by my bed and was still comfortably prone, I found it impossible to go back to sleep after we’d hung up. I’d hated to hear the pain in Sam’s voice. Sam had enough to fret about without troubling him with my problems, so I hadn’t even seriously considered bringing up the knife incident, though I would have been relieved to share my worries with Sam.

I was up and dressed by eight o’clock, early for me. Though I was moving and thinking, I felt as rumpled and wrinkled as my bedsheets. I wished someone could yank me smooth and orderly, the way I yanked the sheets. Amelia was home (I checked to see if her car was parked out back when I made the coffee) and I’d glimpsed Octavia shuffling into the hall bathroom, so it was shaping up to be a typical morning, as mornings went nowadays at my house.

The pattern was broken by a knocking at the front door. Usually I’m warned by the crunching of the gravel driveway, but in my heavier-than-usual morning fog, I’d missed it.

I looked through the peephole to see a man and a woman, both dressed in proper business suits. They didn’t look like Jehovah’s Witnesses or home invaders. I reached out to them mentally and found no hostility or anger, only curiosity.

I opened the door. I smiled brilliantly. “Can I help you?” I said. The cold air gusted around my bare feet.

The woman, who was probably in her early forties, smiled back. Her brown hair had a little gray in it and was cut in a simple chin-length style. She’d parted it very precisely. Her pantsuit was charcoal with a black sweater underneath, and her shoes were black. She carried a black bag, which wasn’t exactly like a purse, more like a laptop case.

She held out her hand to shake, and when I touched her, I knew more. It was hard to keep the shock off my face. “I’m from the New Orleans office of the FBI,” she said, which is a bombshell of an opener for your average conversation. “I’m Agent Sara Weiss. This is Special Agent Tom Lattesta from our Rhodes office.”

“You’re here about . . . ?” I kept my face pleasantly blank.

“May we come in? Tom’s come all the way from Rhodes to talk to you, and we’re letting all your warm air out.”

“Sure,” I said, though I was far from sure. I was trying hard to get a fix on their intent, but it wasn’t easy. I could only tell they weren’t there to arrest me or anything drastic like that.

“Is this a convenient time?” Agent Weiss asked. She implied she’d be delighted to come back later, though I knew that wasn’t true.

“This is as good as any,” I said. My grandmother would have given me a sharp look for my ungraciousness, but then, Gran had never been questioned by the FBI. This was not exactly a social call. “I do have to leave for work pretty soon,” I added to give myself an escape hatch.

“That’s bad news, about your boss’s mother,” Lattesta said. “Did the big announcement go well at your bar?” From his accent, I could tell he’d been born north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and from his knowledge of Sam’s whereabouts and identity, he’d done his homework, down to investigating the place I worked.

The sick feeling that had started up in my stomach intensified. I had a moment of wanting Eric there so badly it made me a little dizzy, and then I looked out the window at the sunshine and felt only anger at my own longing.This is what you get, I told myself.

“Having werewolves around makes the world more interesting, doesn’t it?” I said. The smile popped onto my face, the smile that said I was really strained. “I’ll take your coats. Please, have a seat.” I indicated the couch, and they settled on it. “Can I get you some coffee or some iced tea?” I said, thanking Gran’s training for keeping the words flowing.

“Oh,” Weiss said. “Some iced tea would be wonderful. I know it’s cold outside, but I drink it year-round. I’m a southern woman born and bred.”

And laying it on a little too thick, in my opinion. I didn’t think Weiss would become my best friend, and I didn’t plan to swap any recipes. “You?” I looked at Lattesta.

“Sure, great,” he said.

“Sweet or unsweet?” Lattesta thought it would be fun to have the famous southern sweet tea, and Weiss accepted sweet as a matter of bonding. “Let me tell my roommates we have company,” I said, and I called up the stairs, “Amelia! The FBI is here!”

“I’ll be down in a minute,” she called back, not sounding surprised at all. I knew she’d been standing at the top of the stairs listening to every word.

And here came Octavia in her favorite green pants and striped long-sleeved shirt, looking as dignified and sweet as an elderly white-haired black woman can look. Ruby Dee has nothing on Octavia.

“Hello,” she said, beaming. Though she looked like everyone’s favorite granny, Octavia was a powerful witch who could cast spells with almost surgical precision. She’d had a lifetime of practice in concealing her ability. “Sookie didn’t tell us she was expecting company, or we would have cleaned up the house.” Octavia beamed some more. She swept a hand to indicate the spotless living room. It would never be featured inSouthern Living , but it was clean, by golly.

“Looks great to me,” Weiss said respectfully. “I wish my house looked this neat.” She was telling the truth. Weiss had two teenagers and a husband and three dogs. I felt a lot of sympathy—and maybe some envy—for Agent Weiss.

“Sookie, I’ll bring tea for your guests while you talk,” Octavia said in her sweetest voice. “You just sit down and visit a spell.” The agents were settled on the couch and looking around the shabby living room with interest when she returned with napkins and two glasses of sweet tea, ice rattling in a pleasant way. I rose from the chair opposite the couch to put napkins in front of them, and Octavia placed the glasses on the napkins. Lattesta took a large swallow. The corner of Octavia’s mouth twitched just a little when he made a startled face and then did his best to amend his expression to pleased surprise.

“What did you-all want to ask me?” Time to get down to brass tacks. I smiled at them brightly, my hands folded in my lap, my feet parallel, and my knees clamped together.

Lattesta had brought in a briefcase, and now he put it on the coffee table and opened it. He extracted a picture and handed it to me. It had been taken in the middle of the afternoon in the city of Rhodes a few months before. The picture was clear enough, though the air around the people in it was blighted with the clouds of dust that had billowed up from the collapsed Pyramid of Gizeh.

I kept my eyes on the picture, I kept my face smiling, but I couldn’t stop my heart from sinking into my feet.

In the picture, Barry the Bellboy and I were standing together in the rubble of the Pyramid, the vampire hotel that a splinter Fellowship group had blown up the previous October. I was somewhat more recognizable than my companion, because Barry was standing in profile. I was facing the camera, unaware of it, my eyes on Barry’s face. We were both covered in dirt and blood, ash and dust.

“That’s you, Miss Stackhouse,” Lattesta said.

“Yes, it is.” Pointless to deny the woman in the picture was me, but I sure would have loved to have done so. Looking at the picture made me feel sick because it forced me to remember that day all too clearly.

“So you were staying at the Pyramid at the time of the explosion?”

“Yes, I was.”

“You were there in the employ of Sophie-Anne Leclerq, a vampire businesswoman. The so-called Queen of Louisiana.”

I started to tell him there had been no “so-called” about it, but discretion blocked those words. “I flew up there with her,” I said instead.

“And Sophie-Anne Leclerq sustained severe injuries in the blast?”

“I understand she did.”

“You didn’t see her after the explosion?”

“No.”

“Who is this man standing with you in the picture?”

Lattesta hadn’t identified Barry. I had to keep my shoulders stiff so they wouldn’t sag with relief. I shrugged. “He came up to me after the blast,” I said. “We were in better shape than most, so we helped search for survivors.” Truth, but not the whole truth. I’d known Barry for months before I’d encountered him at the convention at the Pyramid. He’d been there in the service of the King of Texas. I wondered how much about the vamp hierarchy the FBI actually knew.

“How did the two of you search for survivors?” Lattesta asked.

That was a very tricky question. At that time, Barry was the only other telepath I’d ever met. We’d experimented by holding hands to increase our “wattage,” and we’d looked for brain signatures in the piles of debris. I took a deep breath. “I’m good at finding things,” I said. “It seemed important to help. So many people hurt so bad.”

“The fire chief on-site said you seemed to have some psychic ability,” Lattesta said. Weiss looked down at her tea glass to hide her expression.

“I’m not a psychic,” I said truthfully, and Weiss immediately felt disappointed. She felt she could be in the presence of a poseur or a nut job, but she had hoped I’d admit I was the real thing.

“Chief Trochek said you told them where to find survivors. He said you actually steered the rescue crews to the living.”

Amelia came down the stairs then, looking very respectable in a bright red sweater and designer jeans. I met her eyes, hoping she’d see I was silently asking for help. I hadn’t been able to turn my back on a situation where I could actually save lives. When I’d realized I could find people—that teaming up with Barry would result in saving lives—I couldn’t turn away from the task, though I was scared of being exposed to the world as a freak.

It’s hard to explain what I see. I guess it’s like looking through infrared goggles or something. I see the heat of the brain; I can count the living people in a building, if I have time. Vampire brains leave a hole, a negative spot; I can usually count those, too. Plain old dead people don’t register with me at all. That day when Barry and I had held hands, the joining had magnified our abilities. We could find the living, and we could hear the last thoughts of the dying. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. And I didn’t want to experience it again, ever.

“We just had good luck,” I said. That wouldn’t convince a toad to hop.

Amelia came forward with her hand extended. “I’m Amelia Broadway,” she said, as if she expected them to know who she was.

They did.

“You’re Copley’s daughter, right?” Weiss asked. “I met him a couple of weeks ago in connection with a community program.”

“He’s so involved in the city,” Amelia said with a dazzling smile. “He’s got his fingers in a dozen pies, I guess. Dad’s real fond of the Sook, here.” Not so subtle, but hopefully effective.Leave my roommate alone. My father’s powerful .

Weiss nodded pleasantly. “How’d you end up here in Bon Temps, Ms. Broadway?” she asked. “It must seem real quiet here, after New Orleans.”What’s a rich bitch like you doing in this backwater? By the way, your dad’s not around to run interference for you .

“My house got damaged during Katrina,” Amelia said. She left it at that. She didn’t tell them that she’d been in Bon Temps already when Katrina happened.

“And you, Ms. Fant?” Lattesta asked. “Were you an evacuee also?” He’d by no means abandoned the subject of my ability, but he was willing to go along with the social flow.

“Yes,” Octavia said. “I was living with my niece under cramped circumstances, and Sookie very kindly offered me her spare bedroom.”

“How’d you know each other?” Weiss asked, as if she was expecting to hear a delightful story.

“Through Amelia,” I said, smiling just as happily back at her.

“And you and Amelia met—?”

“In New Orleans,” Amelia said, firmly cutting off that line of questioning.

“Did you want some more iced tea?” Octavia asked Lattesta.

“No, thank you,” he said, almost shuddering. It had been Octavia’s turn to make the tea, and she did have a heavy hand with the sugar. “Ms. Stackhouse, you don’t have any idea how to contact this young man?” He indicated the picture.

I shrugged. “We both helped to look for bodies,” I said. “It was a terrible day. I don’t remember what name he gave.”

“That seems strange,” Lattesta said, and I thought,Oh, shit . “Since someone answering your description and a young man answering his description checked into a motel some distance from the explosion that night and shared a room.”

“Well, you don’t have to know someone’s name to spend the night with them,” Amelia said reasonably.

I shrugged and tried to look embarrassed, which wasn’t too hard. I’d rather they think me sexually easy than decide I was worthy of more attention. “We’d shared a horrible, stressful event. Afterward, we felt really close. That’s the way we reacted.” Actually, Barry had collapsed in sleep almost instantly, and I had followed soon afterward. Hanky-panky had been the furthest thing from our minds.

The two agents stared at me doubtfully. Weiss was thinking I was lying for sure, and Lattesta suspected it. He thought I knew Barry very well.

The phone rang, and Amelia hurried to the kitchen to answer it. She came back looking green.

“Sookie, that was Antoine on his cell phone. They need you at the bar,” she said. And then she turned to the FBI agents. “Probably you should go with her.”

“Why?” Weiss asked. “What’s up?” She was already on her feet. Lattesta was stuffing the picture back into his briefcase.

“A body,” Amelia said. “A woman’s been crucified behind the bar.”