“Well, you know she’s at work now,” said the medium man. “So I think right now would be a good time to go there. And in case her house is warded, carry this.” He handed her a strange old coin. At least, it looked old, and it was surprisingly heavy for its size. “Keep it in your pocket at all times,” he said.
Arlene was startled. She looked down at the small object dubiously before she put it in her pocket. “Well, okay. I’ll go to Sookie’s now. Then I got to go look at rental places. When will that money be in my account?”
“Tomorrow,” the tall man assured her. “And you’ll find your own place, and your kids will be able to move back in with you.”
“And this is all you want me to do? I asked her for a job, and in a little bit I go get a scarf from her drawer? With this thing in my pocket?”
“Well, you’ll have to meet us and give us the scarf and coin,” the tall man said, shrugging. “That’s no big deal.”
“Okay,” said Arlene. “If my old car will make it there. It isn’t doing too good after being parked in Chessie’s backyard since I been in jail.”
“Here’s some gas money,” the tall man said, pulling out his wallet and handing Arlene some cash. “We wouldn’t want you running out of gas.”
“No,” said the medium man. “We wouldn’t want that.”
“I’ll call you on that cell phone you gave me, when I got the scarf,” Arlene said. “We can meet tonight.”
The two men looked at each other silently. “Tonight will be great,” the tall man said after a second or two. “Just great.”
Chapter 5
I saw Terry Bellefleur for the second time that day while I was putting gas in my car at the Grabbit Kwik. He was filling up his pickup. Terry’s Catahoula, Annie, was in the back of the truck. She was interested in everything that was going on at the gas station, though she was panting heavily in the heat.
I knew just how she felt. I was glad I’d waited until evening to take care of this task. At least the pavement didn’t look like it was rippling, and I didn’t have to let my tongue hang out.
After Terry pulled his charge slip from the pump, I called to him. He turned and brightened. “Hey, Sook. How’s Sam doing? I was glad to see you today. I wish I’d sat at your tables instead of that An’s. She talks the hind leg off a donkey.”
He was the only guy I knew who didn’t want to howl at the moon when he saw An Norr. “Sam may be back on the job tomorrow,” I said.
“Crazy, you both getting sick at the same time.”
He was also the only person in Bon Temps who would say that without leering. I’d “overheard” several comments in the bar today about Sam and me both being AWOL for four days. “So, how’s Jimmie?” I asked. Jimmie was his girlfriend; at least I thought that was their relationship. I was pleased to see that Terry’s hair had been cut and combed, and that he’d shaved in the past couple of days. Jimmie was a good influence.
“She’s real good,” he said. “I asked her dad if I could marry her.” Terry looked down a little nervously as he told me this important fact. Terry had had a rough time as a POW in Vietnam. He’d come away with a multitude of physical and mental problems. I was so happy he’d found someone, and proud of his determination to do the right thing.
“What did her dad say?” I was genuinely curious. Though Jimmie was a little younger than Terry, I was a little surprised to hear she still had her father.
“He said if Jimmie’s kids didn’t mind, it was okay with him.”
“Kids,” I said, scrambling to get a foothold on the slippery slope of the conversation.
“She got two sons and a daughter, nineteen, twenty, and twenty-two,” Terry said, and to give him credit, he seemed happy about that. “They all got children. I now have me some grandkids.”
“So her children were happy about the idea of a stepfather?” I smiled broadly.
“Yeah,” he said, turning red. “They were real pleased. Their dad passed away ten years ago, and he was a mean bastard, anyway. Things ain’t been easy for Jimmie.”
I gave him a hug. “I’m so happy for you,” I said. “When’s the wedding?”
“Well.” He turned even redder. “It was yesterday. We went across the state line to Magnolia and got married.”
I had to exclaim a little and pat him on the back a few times, but people were waiting for us to move so they could pull up to the pumps. I couldn’t leave without patting Annie, too, and congratulating her also on gaining a spouse. (Her last litter had been sired by Jimmie’s Catahoula, and surely her next one would be, too.) Annie seemed as pleased as Terry.
I was still smiling to myself as I stopped at the end of my driveway to check my mailbox. I told myself this was the last time I’d be out in the heat until tomorrow. I almost dreaded getting out of the airconditioned car again. In July, at seven o’clock, the sun was still up and would be for more than an hour. Though the temperature was no longer approaching one hundred, it was plenty hot. I still had sweat trickling down my back from pumping my gas. All I could think about was getting in my shower.
I didn’t even look through my little pile of mail. I tossed it on the kitchen counter and made a beeline for my bathroom, stripping off my sweaty clothes as I walked. A few seconds later, I was under a stream of water and blissfully happy. My cell phone rang while I was rinsing off, but I decided not to hurry. I was enjoying the shower too much. I toweled off and turned on my hair dryer. The whir of the warm air seemed to echo through the rooms.
I cast the chest of drawers a proud glance when I went in the bedroom. I knew everything in it was organized, as was everything in the night table and everything in the vanity. I didn’t have control over much in my life, but by golly, my drawers were tidy. I noticed one was pulled out, just a little. I frowned. I habitually pushed drawers all the way in. That was one of my mom’s rules, and though I’d lost her when I was only seven, it had stuck with me. Even Jason was careful to close drawers all the way.
I pulled it open and looked inside. My odds-and-ends drawer (stockings, scarves, evening purses, and belts) was still orderly, though the scarves didn’t seem to be lined up quite like I’d left them, and one of the brown belts was mixed in with the black belts. Huh. After staring at the drawer’s contents for a long moment, wishing I could get the items to talk, I pushed the drawer shut, this time making sure it closed properly. The sound of wood meeting wood was loud in the quiet house.
The big old place, which had sheltered Stackhouses for more than a hundred and fifty years, had never seemed particularly empty until I’d had long-term houseguests. After Amelia had left to go back to New Orleans to pay her debt to the coven, I’d felt like my home was a lonely place. But I’d readjusted. Then Claude and Dermot had moved in . . . and left for good. Now I felt like a small bee bumbling around inside an empty hive.
Just at this moment, I found it was actually comforting to think that across the cemetery, Bill would rise; but he was dead until dark.
I felt a touch of melancholy when I thought of Bill’s dark eyes, and slapped myself on the cheek. Okay, now I was just being silly. I wasn’t going to let sheer loneliness drive me back to my ex. I reminded myself I was still Eric Northman’s wife under vampire custom, though he wasn’t talking to me right now.
Though I was reluctant to attempt to approach Eric again for several reasons (I have my pride and it was hurt), I was sick of waiting and wondering what was happening in the closed society of the vampires.
Oh, sure, I reflected, they’re glad to see me when I have a good plan for killing someone, but when I want a relationship update, I’m not hearing from a single soul.