“Hmmm. So he brings home the more presentable date, leaving the skinny . . . and very weirdly dressed . . . one at home. And then she shows up. And you think she’s his real girlfriend? You are having a hell of a day, Sookie.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not only me who’s having it. It’s Sam and his mom, too.” I scanned the crowd. “Well, at least I only see one or two more humans.” Sam’s friend Sister was still partying, and I glimpsed Jared Lisle talking to one of the Biker Babes. They were flirting in a major way.
“So, you know, I just thought I’d tell you,” Luna said offhand, “I went through the hedge into the yard next door to make out with that cute guy in the camo pants, the Chinese guy? He’s a Were cop from Fort Worth, on the tactical response team.” She paused for my reaction.
“A hunk,” I said. “Way to go, Luna.” Lots of pairing off going on at this after-the-reception reception.
She looked pleased. “Anyway, while we were locking lips right on the other side of the hedge there, I smelled something funky in the house next to this.”
I closed my eyes for a long moment. Then I told Luna the history of the past two days with Jim. “Can you get more specific than ‘funky’?” I asked.
“Funky, as in dead meat. So someone’s killed that guy, maybe.” Luna’s chirpy voice didn’t sound especially dismayed. “He doesn’t sound like a great loss, but you know the twoeys are going to get the blame.”
“I guess I better go check it out,” I said, and I can’t tell you how reluctant I was. If Jannalynn hadn’t shown up, I would’ve asked Sam to go with me. But that was out of the question at the moment.
I didn’t want to try entering the Collins house through the front door. Who knew who might still be watching Bernie’s house, maybe taking pictures? I didn’t know if the TV stations had gone home or not. Probably yes, but there might be a few die-hards out there with their own cameras. But if I went out the back door, I’d run into Jannalynn—and although that was going to happen sooner or later, the longer I could postpone it, the better. I was trying not to watch her. She was working the party—shaking hands, laughing, with a beer she took long swallows from every few seconds.
“Fuck,” I said.
“She’s looking good,” Luna admitted. “I bet Sam comes inside to get her a jacket within the next three minutes.”
I admitted to myself that I didn’t like Jannalynn because I thought Sam deserved someone much better, someone with some impulse control. Here I was, peering out the window like a criminal trying to make my escape, just so this girl wouldn’t get her panties in a twist.
“She’s hungry,” Luna said. “She’ll go for the food in a minute.”
Sure enough, Jannalynn completely turned her back to the house so she could bend over the table, putting condiments on her hamburger bun. I slid out of the house and across the lawn going west at a smooth, fast clip . . . and Luna was right on my heels as I went through the gap in the overgrown hedge.
“You didn’t have to come,” I muttered. With a yard full of shifters, I had to take care to keep my voice down.
“I was getting bored anyway,” she said. “I mean, I get to make out with gorgeous Chinese guys all the time.”
I smiled in the darkness. There weren’t any lights on in the Collins backyard or in the Collins house, which was odd because it was getting dark now.
There was a living brain in the house. I told Luna that, and she rolled her eyes at me. “Big whoop,” she said. “So what?”
“That’s my specialty,” I said.
“But I can smell something dead,” she told me. “Hasn’t been dead long, but it’s dead. That’s my specialty. I know a dog or a Were would be better at this, but any twoey nose is better than a oney nose.”
I shrugged. I’d have to concede that one. To knock or not to knock? As I stood flattened against the wall by the back door, debating furiously with myself, I heard a little whimper from inside. Luna stiffened beside me. I crouched and pulled open the screen door. It made the wheezy noise so common to screen doors, and I sighed.
“Who’s here?” I said, keeping my voice hushed.
A sob answered me. I felt Luna come in, and she crouched beside me. Neither of us wanted to present a target against the faint light from the Merlotte backyard.
“I’m turning on the light,” I told Luna in a tiny whisper. I patted the wall where the switch should be, and sure enough it was there. There were two. One would control the outside lights, and one the kitchen light. Was there a rule? If so, I didn’t know it. I flicked the one on the left.
I couldn’t have been more shocked by what I saw.
Jim Collins was absolutely, messily dead. He lay sprawled across the low kitchen counter, gun resting loosely in his right hand. Closer to the doorway into the interior of the house, Sarah Newlin sat on the floor. She was hurt somehow, because there was blood on her arm and more on her stomach. Her legs were extended in front of her. She was crying almost silently. There was a gun lying by her side, though I couldn’t see what make.
“Call the police from his phone,” I said instantly.
“No,” Sarah said. “Don’t!”
Luna punched in numbers so fast that I thought the phone was going to break.
With convincing hysteria, Luna said, “Oh my God! Bring an ambulance to Jim Collins’s house! Some woman has shot him; he’s dead and she’s bleeding out!” She hung up and snickered.
Sarah Newlin made a halfhearted attempt to climb to her feet. I went over to her and put my foot on her gun. I didn’t think she had enough sand in her to grab it, but better to be sure.
“You’re not going to get away,” I said dispassionately. “They’ll be here in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. You’re hurt too bad to escape. If you don’t go to the hospital, you’ll die.”
“I might as well,” she said drearily. “I’ve killed a man now.”
“You’re counting this as the first?” I was shocked. “You’ve been responsible for so many deaths, but this is the one that matters?” Of course, this one counted to Sarah because Collins had been human and on her side, and the others who’d died had been vampires and weres and humans who didn’t believe what the Fellowship of the Sun advocated.
“Why’d you shoot your disciple here?” I asked, since Sarah seemed to be in confession mode.
“Steve and I knew Collins from his website,” she said weakly. “He had all the right ideas, and he was full of the fire of God. But the plans we had for today failed. God must have changed his mind, turned his face from us. Collins never came to the church. I came here to ask him why, but he was angry, angry with me, with himself. I think he may have been drinking. He challenged me to go with him, to shoot you-all next door. He said we could kill most of you, just like he killed the dogs.”
“You weren’t up for that?” Luna asked bitterly. “You sure missed an opportunity to get a bunch of us at once.”
“Couldn’t risk myself,” Sarah whispered. “I’m too important to the cause. He even thrust a gun in my hand. But God didn’t want me to sacrifice myself. When I told Collins that, he went nuts.”
“He was already nuts,” I said, but she wasn’t listening.
“Then he said I was a hypocrite, and he shot me.”
“Looks like you shot him back.”
“Yes,” Sarah whispered. “Yes, I shot him back.”
A police car pulled up in front of the Collins house, the flickering light visible from the kitchen. Someone called from the front door, “Police! We’re coming in!”
“Hurry with the ambulance,” I called back. “There are two of us who came and discovered the situation. We’re unarmed.”
“Stand with your hands against the wall!” the officer’s voice called back, and it sure as hell sounded like Porter Carpenter.