"Nah. I don't care." My friend Tara owned a dress shop, and her new husband, JB, worked at a women's exercise center. "I would like to see Claude trying to act like he was enjoying himself."
"I think he was having a good time," she said. "There's no one Claude loves better than Claude, right? So all these women looking at him and admiring him ... He's not into women, but he's sure into being admired."
"True. Let's go see him together sometime."
"Okay," she said, and I could tell she was quite cheerful again. "Now, tell me what you ordered at this new fancy restaurant." So I told her. But all the while I was wishing I didn't have to keep silent about my great-grandfather. I wanted so badly to tell Amelia about Nialclass="underline" how he looked, what he'd said, that I had a whole history I hadn't known. And it would take me a while to process what my grandmother had endured, to alter my picture of her in light of the facts I'd learned. And I had to rethink my unpleasant memories of my mother, too. She'd fallen for my dad like a ton of bricks, and she'd had his kids because she loved him ... only to find that she didn't want to share him with them, especially with me, another female. At least, this was my new insight.
"There was more stuff," I said, a yawn splitting my jaw in two. It was very late. "But I've got to get to bed. I get any phone calls or anything?"
"That Were from Shreveport called. He wanted to talk to you, and I told him you were out for the evening and he should call you on your cell. He asked if he could meet up with you, but I said I didn't know where you were."
"Alcide," I said. "I wonder what he wanted." I figured I'd call him tomorrow.
"And some girl called. Said she'd been a waitress at Merlotte's before, and she'd seen you at the wedding last night."
"Tanya?"
"Yeah, that was her name."
"What did she want?"
"Don't know. She said she'd call back tomorrow or see you at the bar."
"Crap. I hope Sam didn't hire her to fill in or something."
"I thought I was the fill-in bargirl."
"Yeah, unless someone's quit. I warn you, Sam likes her."
"You don't?"
"She's a treacherous bitch."
"Gosh, tell me what you really think."
"No kidding, Amelia, she took a job at Merlotte's so she could spy on me for the Pelts."
"Oh,that's the one. Well, she won't spy on you again. I'll take steps."
That was a scarier thought than working with Tanya. Amelia was a strong and skillful witch, don't get me wrong, but she was also prone to attempt things beyond her experience level. Hence Bob.
"Check with me first, please," I said, and Amelia looked surprised.
"Well, sure," she said. "Now, I'm off to bed."
She made her way up the steps with Bob in her arms, and I went to my small bathroom to remove my makeup and put on my own nightgown. Amelia hadn't noticed the speckles of blood on the shirt, and I put it in the sink to soak.
What a day it had been. I'd spent time with Eric, who always rattled my chain, and I'd found a living relative, though not a human one. I'd learned a lot of stuff about my family, most of it unpleasant. I'd eaten in a fancy restaurant, though I could hardly recall the food. And finally, I'd been shot at.
When I crawled into bed, I said my prayers, trying to put Quinn at the top of the list. I thought the excitement of discovering a great-grandfather would keep me awake that night, but sleep claimed me right when I was in the middle of asking God to help me find my way through the moral morass of being party to a killing.
Chapter 6
There was a knock on the front door the next morning about an hour before I wanted to wake up. I heard it only because Bob had come into my room and jumped on my bed, where he wasn't supposed to be, settling into the space behind my knees while I lay on my side. He purred loudly, and I reached down to scratch behind his ears. I loved cats. That didn't stop me from liking dogs, too, and only the fact that I was gone so much kept me from getting a puppy. Terry Bellefleur had offered me one, but I'd wavered until his pups were gone. I wondered if Bob would mind a kitten companion. Would Amelia get jealous if I bought a female cat? I had to smile even as I snuggled deeper into the bed.
But I wasn't truly asleep, and I did hear the knock.
I muttered a few words about the person at the door, and I slid on my slippers and threw on my thin blue cotton bathrobe. The morning had a hint of chill, reminding me that despite the mild and sunny days, this was October. There were Halloweens when even a sweater was too warm, and there were Halloweens when you had to wear a light coat when you did your trick-or-treating.
I looked through the peephole and saw an elderly black woman with a halo of white hair. She was light-skinned and her features were narrow and sharp: nose, lips, eyes. She was wearing magenta lipstick and a yellow pantsuit. But she didn't seem armed or dangerous. This just goes to show how misleading first appearances can be. I opened the door.
"Young lady, I'm here to see Amelia Broadway," the woman informed me in very precisely pronounced English.
"Please come in," I said, because this was an older woman and I'd been brought up to revere old people. "Have a seat." I indicated the couch. "I'll go up and get Amelia."
I noticed she didn't apologize for getting me out of bed or for showing up unannounced. I climbed the stairs with a grim feeling that Amelia wasn't going to enjoy this message.
I so seldom went up to the second floor that it surprised me to see how nice Amelia had made it look. Since the upper bedrooms had only had basic furniture in them, she'd turned the one to the right, the larger one, into her bedroom. The one to the left was her sitting room. It held her television, an easy chair and ottoman, a small computer desk and her computer, and a plant or two. The bedroom, which I believed had been built for a generation of Stackhouses that had sired three boys in quick succession, had only a small closet, but Amelia had bought rolling clothes racks from somewhere on the Internet and assembled them handily. Then she'd bought a tri-fold screen at an auction and repainted it and arranged it in front of the racks to camouflage them. Her bright bedspread and the old table she'd repainted to serve as her makeup table added to the color that jumped out from the white-painted walls. Amid all this cheer was one dismal witch.
Amelia was sitting up in bed, her short hair mashed into strange shapes. "Who is that I hear downstairs?" she asked in a very hushed voice.
"Older black lady, light-skinned? Sharp way about her?"
"Omigod," Amelia breathed, and slumped back against her dozen or so pillows. "It's Octavia."
"Well, you come down and have a word with her. I can't entertain her."
Amelia snarled at me, but she accepted the inevitable. She got out of bed and pulled off her nightgown. She pulled on a bra and panties and some jeans, and she extracted a sweater from a drawer.
I went down to tell Octavia Fant that Amelia was coming. Amelia would have to walk right past her to get to the bathroom, since there was only the one staircase, but at least I could smooth the way.
"Can I get you some coffee?" I asked. The older woman was busy looking around the room with her bright brown eyes.
"If you have some tea, I'd like a cup," Octavia Fant said.
"Yes, ma'am, we have some," I said, relieved that Amelia had insisted on buying it. I had no idea what kind it was, and I hoped it was in a bag, because I'd never made hot tea in my life.
"Good," she said, and that was that.
"Amelia's on her way down," I said, trying to think of some graceful way to add, "And she's going to have to hurry through the room to pee and brush her teeth, so pretend you don't see her." I abandoned that lost cause and fled to the kitchen.