"Tell me who killed that girl!" If I could have yanked the answer out of him with tweezers, I would have.

"You'd just be in more danger than you are now," he said, and then he was out of the room and onto his bike, and then he was gone.

This had all occurred with such speed that I felt as though the room were shivering after he left. Dermot and I stared at each other.

"I have no idea why he was here instead of in Shreveport where he belongs. I could have held him," Dermot said. "I was just waiting for a signal from you, Great-Niece."

"I appreciate that, Great-Uncle. I guess I felt like that just wasn't the right thing to do," I muttered.

We sat there in silence for a moment. But I had to explain to Dermot about the night before.

"You want to know why Mustapha showed up here?" I asked, and he nodded, looking much more cheerful now that he was going to get some background. I launched into my narrative.

"No one knew her, and she hadn't come with anyone?" He looked thoughtful.

"That's what they all said."

"Then someone sent her, someone who knew there would be a party at Eric's. Someone ensured she could walk in and not be challenged because there were strangers at the house. How did she get past the guard at the gate?"

These were all pertinent questions, and I added another one. "How could anyone know in advance that Eric wouldn't be able to resist taking blood from her?" I sounded forlorn, and I could only hope I didn't come across as self-pitying. Unhappiness will do that to you.

"Obviously she was selected because she had two-natured blood of some variety, and then she enhanced that with the smell of fairy. We know too well it's enticing to the deaders. Since Mustapha's phone call made you late and, therefore, Eric was more willing to yield to temptation," Dermot said, "Mustapha must have had some hand in what happened."

"Yeah. I figured that out." I wasn't happy about this conclusion, but it fit the evidence.

"He may not have known what would happen as a result, but he must have gotten instructions from someone to make you late."

"But who? He's a lone wolf. He doesn't answer to Alcide."

"Someone has power over him," Dermot said reasonably. "Only someone with power over him could make a man like Mustapha betray Eric's trust. He's looking for his friend Warren. Would Warren have some reason to want Eric behind bars?"

Dermot was really operating on fully charged batteries today. I was having a hard time flogging my tired brain into keeping up with him.

"That's the key, of course," I said. "His friend Warren. Warren himself would have no reason I can think of to want to harm Eric, who, after all, provides Mustapha's livelihood. But I think Warren's being used as a lever. Someone's taken Warren, I think. They're holding him to ensure they have Mustapha's cooperation. I need to think about all this," I said, yawning with a jaw-cracking noise. "But right now I just have to sleep some more. You going over to Hooligans?"

"Later," he said.

I looked at him, thinking of all the questions he'd never answered about the strange accumulation of the fae at a remote strip club in Louisiana. Claude had always told me it was because they'd all been left out when Niall closed the portals. But how had they known where to come, and what was their purpose in remaining in Monroe? Now was not the time to ask, since I was too exhausted to process his answers-if he would give me any. "Okay then, I'm taking a nap," I said. It was Sunday, and Merlotte's was closed. "Just let the answering machine take the calls, if you don't mind." I switched the ringer volume down even further on the kitchen phone and would do the same in the bedroom.

I took my cell phone into my bedroom and called Alcide. He didn't answer, but I left him a message. Then I plugged in my cell phone to charge. I dragged my weary body into my bedroom. I didn't even take off my clothes. I fell over the bed and fell asleep.

I woke two hours later feeling like something a cat spit up. I rolled onto my side to look out the window. The light had changed. The air conditioner was fighting the afternoon's worst heat, which shimmered in the air outside. I sat up to look out the window at the dry grass. We needed rain.

More random thoughts floated through my muzzy head. I wondered how Tara was doing. I didn't know what "effaced" meant. I wondered what had happened to Mr. Cataliades. He was my "sponsor," apparently the otherworldly equivalent of a godparent. I'd last seen the (mostly) demon lawyer running through my yard being chased by gray streaks from Hell.

Had Amelia gotten back from France yet? What were Claude and Niall up to in Faery? What did it look like there? Maybe the trees looked like peacock feathers and everyone wore sequins.

I checked my phone. I hadn't heard from Alcide. I called again, but it went right to voice mail. I left a message on Bill's cell to tell him that Mustapha had made an appearance. After all, he was the Area Five investigator.

Though I'd showered at Eric's that morning, that seemed like a week ago, so I got under the water again. Then I pulled on old denim shorts and a white T-shirt and flip-flops and went out in the yard with my wet hair hanging down my back. I positioned the chaise perfectly to keep my body in the shadow of the house while my hair was trailing over the end in the light because I liked the way it smelled when I let it dry in the sun. Dermot's car was gone. The yard and house were empty. The only background noises were the ever-present sounds of nature going about its business: birds, bugs, and an occasional breeze fluttering the leaves in a lazy way.

It was peaceful.

I tried to think of mundane things: a possible date for Jason and Michele's wedding, what I needed to do at Merlotte's tomorrow, how low on propane my tank might be. Things I could actually solve with a phone call or a pad and pencil. Since my car was in my line of sight, I noticed that one of my tires looked a little soft. I should get Wardell at the tire place to check my pressure. It had been wonderful to shower without worrying about having enough hot water; that was the upside to Claude's absence.

It was good to think about things that weren't supernatural.

In fact, it was blissful.

Chapter 6.

When it was dark, my phone rang. Of course, that wasn't until after eight, this far into the summer. I'd had a very pleasant few hours all by myself. "Pleasant" didn't mean a positive good to me anymore: It meant an absence of bad. I had done a little straightening in the kitchen, read a little, turned on the television just to have voices in the background. Nice. Not exciting. I'd had enough exciting.

I hadn't checked my e-mail all day, and I'd considered giving it a pass for a couple more days. I found I didn't really want to answer the phone, either. But I'd left messages for both Alcide and Bill. On the third ring, I yielded to habit and picked it up. "Yes?" I said.

"Sookie, I'm on my way over to see you," Eric said.

See, I knew there'd been a good reason for not answering. "No," I said. "I don't think so." There was a little silence. Eric was as surprised as I was.

"Is this a punishment for last night?" he asked.

"For drinking from another woman when I was present? No, I think I have that issue squared away."

"Then ... what? You really don't want to see me?"

"Not tonight. I do want to say a couple of things to you, though."

"By all means." He sounded stiff and offended, which wasn't any surprise. He could deal with it.

"If Bill is still the Area Five investigator ..."

"He is." Cautious.

"Then he needs to get to work, don't you think? He could take Heidi with him, since she's supposed to be such a great tracker. How did Kym Rowe get past the guard? Unless someone bribed the guard-and it was a guy I didn't know-it's possible Kym came up from the gate at the back of your yard, right? Maybe Bill and Heidi could discover how she got there. Plus, I need to talk to Bill about something."

"That's a good idea." He was thawing out. Or at least he wasn't dwelling on the offense he'd taken.

"I'm full of 'em," I said, feeling anything but clever. "Also. How did Felipe know all about the death of Victor?"

"None of my vampires would say a word," Eric said with absolute certainty. "Colton is still in the area, but Immanuel has gone to the West Coast. You would not tell anyone. Mustapha's friend Warren, who acted as our cleanup man ..."

"None of them would speak. Warren wouldn't say boo to a goose if Mustapha didn't tell him to." I thought so, anyway. I didn't really know much about Warren, who wasn't big on talking. I was just about to tell Eric that Mustapha had appeared in my kitchen when he continued, "We should have taken care of Colton and Immanuel."

Did Eric mean the vampires should have killed the human survivors of that vicious brawl, even if they'd fought on Eric's side? Or was he simply implying he should have done a preemptive glamour, erasing their memories? I closed my eyes. I thought of my own humanity and vulnerability, though glamouring had never worked on me.

Time to move on to another subject before I lost my temper. "Do you know why Felipe is really here? Cause you know it's not because of Victor, or at least only partly because of Victor."

"Don't discount his need to discipline me for Victor's death," Eric said. "But you're right, he's got another agenda. I realized that last night." Eric grew more guarded. "Or at least, I became surer of it."

"So you already know this secret agenda, and you're not telling me."

"We'll talk about it later."

Of course I should have told him about Mustapha's visit, but I lost my remaining patience. "Uh-huh. Right." I hung up. I looked down at my hand, a bit stunned at my own action.

I spotted the little bundle of mail and the newspaper on the counter. Earlier in the day, I had walked down the driveway in the bright sunshine to retrieve the previous day's mail and the daily Shreveport newspaper from their respective boxes on Hummingbird Road. Now I sat down to read the paper. On the front page I discovered that Kym Rowe had been twenty-four, she had been from Minden, and (after looking at the picture of her accompanying the main article) I wasn't surprised to read she'd recently been fired from her job as an exotic dancer for assaulting a customer.

That must have been a hell of a night at that strip club.

The cause of Kym's death, according to the paper, had been a broken neck. Quick, quiet, requiring only strength and the element of surprise. That was why, even in that quiet neighborhood, no one had heard her scream ... not even Bill, with his vampire hearing. Or so he said. Kym Rowe, I discovered, had good reason to have a short temper.

"Rowe was desperate for money. 'She was behind on her car payments, and her landlord was about to evict her,' Oscar Rowe, the victim's father, said. 'She was doing crazy things to earn money.'" That was the short and sad story of the life of Kym Rowe. One thing stood out: She'd had nothing to lose.

Of course, much was made of the fact that she'd been found on the lawn of a "prominent vampire businessman and his party guests." Eric and his uninvited company were in for a hard time with the publicity machine. There was at least one picture of T-Rex in his wrestling costume. The words "bulging" and "manic" came to mind. I turned to the inside page where the article continued. Kym's grieving parents were posed clutching a Bible and a bouquet of daisies, which they said had been Kym's favorite flower. Though I chided myself for my snobbishness, they didn't look like much.

Before I could finish the article, the phone rang. I jumped about a foot. I'd been wondering if Eric would call back after he'd had enough time to get really angry with me, but the caller ID let me know my caller was Sam.

"Hey," I said.

"What happened last night?" he asked. "I just watched the Shreveport news."

"I went over to Eric's because of the out-of-town vamp visitors," I said, condensing. "This Kym Rowe left the house right after I got there. Eric had taken blood from her." I had to pause to collect myself. "Then Bill found her dead on the lawn. They might have hushed it up.... Oh, hell, of course they'd have hushed it up. Moved her body, or something. But the police had gotten an anonymous call that there was a body at Eric's, so the police were there before he even knew her body was on the lawn."

"Do you know who did it?"

"No," I said. "If I knew who'd killed her, I'd have told the cops last night."

"Even if the killer was Eric?"

That stopped me dead. "It would depend on the circumstances. Would you turn in Jannalynn?"

There was a long silence. "It would depend on the circumstances," he said.

"Sam, sometimes I think we're just dumb," I said, and then I heard myself. "Wait, not speaking for you! Just for me!"

"But I agree," he said. "Jannalynn ... she's great, but I feel like I've bitten off more than I can chew some days."

"Do you tell her everything, Sam?" How much did other couples share? I needed some feedback. I'd had so few relationships.

He hesitated. "No," he said, finally. "I don't. We haven't gotten to the 'I love you' stage yet, but even if we had ... no."

My mental focus took a U-turn. Wait a minute. According to Alcide, Jannalynn had told him she was going to propose. Sure didn't sound like Sam was ready for that, if they hadn't even told each other they loved each other. That couldn't be right. Someone was lying or deluded. Then Sam said, "Sookie?" and I knew I'd been letting silence fill the air while I thought all this.

"So it's not just me and Eric," I said hastily. "Between us, Sam, I feel like Eric's not telling me some pretty important stuff."

"What about the things you aren't telling him? Are those things important?"

"Yeah, they are. Important, but not ... personal." I hadn't told Eric about Hunter, my little second cousin, being telepathic like me. I hadn't told Eric how worried I was about the concentration of the fae in Monroe. I'd tried filling Eric in on the fae situation, but it had been easy to tell that the politics of his own kind were at the top of his list these days. I couldn't blame him for that.

"Sookie, you're okay, right? I don't know what you mean by 'not personal.' Everything that happens to you is personal."

"By personal stuff ... things that are only about me and him. Like if I wasn't happy with the way he treated me, or if I thought he needed to be around more, or if he'd go with me to Jason and Michele's wedding. If I needed to talk about any of those things, I would. But I know pieces of information that affect other people, and I don't always tell him those things, because he has such a different perspective."

"You know you can tell me, if you need to talk about something. You know I'll listen and I won't tell anyone."

"I know that, Sam. You're the best friend I've got. And I hope you know I'm always ready to listen to anything you need to talk about. I'm sure Eric and I will get back to normal when Felipe leaves ... when the boat stops rocking."

"Maybe you will," he said. "But you know that if you get nervous out there, I got an extra bedroom here."

"Jannalynn would kill me," I said. I'd spoken the first thought that went through my head, and I could have slapped myself. I'd spoken the truth-but I was talking about Sam's girlfriend. "Sorry, Sam! I'm afraid Jannalynn believes you and I have a-a lurid past. I guess she's not there tonight?"

"She's working tonight, at Hair of the Dog. She's watching the phones and the bar traffic while Alcide's having meetings in the back room. You're right, she's a little possessive," he admitted. "It was kind of flattering at first, you know? But then I began to wonder if that means she doesn't have any faith in my integrity."

"Sam, if she has a grain of sense she can't possibly doubt you." (I was pretty sure Jannalynn blamed it all on me.) "You're an honest guy."

"Thanks," he said gruffly. "Well ... I've kept you talking long enough. Call me if you need me. By the way, as long as we're talking about relationship stuff, do you know why Kennedy's mad at Danny? She's been snapping at everyone."

"Danny's keeping some kind of secret from her, and she's afraid it's about another woman."

"It's not?" Sam knew all about my telepathic ability.

"No, it isn't. I don't know what it is. At least he isn't stripping at Hooligans." One of us had talked, which was inevitable, and the story of JB's second job had gotten a lot of comment in Bon Temps.

"She didn't think about just asking Danny what he was doing?"

"I don't think so."

"Children, children," Sam said, as if he were in his sixties instead of in his thirties.

I laughed. I was in a better mood when we hung up.

Dermot came in about half an hour later. Normally, my great-uncle was at least content in a low-keyed way. Tonight he wasn't even approaching happiness; he was actively worried.

"What's up?"

"Claude's absence is making them restless."

"Because he has such charisma that he keeps them all in line." Claude had as much personality as a turnip.

"Yes," Dermot said simply. "I know you don't feel Claude's charm. But when he's among his own people, they can see his strength and purpose."

"We're talking about the guy who chose to stay among humans rather than go into Faery when it was closing." I just didn't get it.