didn’t hear their conclusions. I fel asleep. When we arrived at Eric’s, Bil had to help me scramble out of the backseat. Palomino pul ed away the instant Bil slammed the door. Pam quickly got into her own car for the short drive to her house, casting an anxious glance at the sky as she backed out of the driveway.
If a crime-scene team had been at the house, its job was finished. We had to enter through the garage door, since there was tape around the place where Kym had lain. I trudged into the house, so groggy I was only partly aware of what was going on around me.
Bil didn’t have time to get back to Bon Temps, so he was going to take one of the fiberglass “guest” pods that Eric kept in the second upstairs bedroom. He headed toward the back of the house immediately, leaving Eric and me by ourselves. I looked around me in a dazed way. The kitchen had an array of dirty bottles and glasses by the sink, but I noticed that the garbage bag was gone. The police must have taken it.
I told Eric, “Mustapha had that door open when I came in,” and I pointed to the door onto the backyard patio. Without a word, Eric went over to the door. It was unlocked. He took care of that while I started across the living room. It wasn’t too disordered since Felipe, Horst, and Angie had neatened it, but stil its disheveled state disturbed me. I began straightening chairs and gathering up the few remaining bottles and glasses to take to the kitchen.
“Leave it be, Sookie,” Eric said.
I froze. “I know this isn’t my house,” I said, “but this mess just looks so nasty. I’d hate to get up to face this.”
“The issue is not ownership of the house. The issue is that you are exhausted and yet you feel compel ed to do the maids’ job. I hope you’re spending the rest of the night? I would feel uneasy if you drove back, as tired as you must be.”
“I guess I’l stay,” I said, though I was stil far from satisfied with the way things stood between us. If I’d been strong enough, I would have left. But it would be very foolish to start driving home and risk having a wreck.
Eric was suddenly right in front of me, and he put his arms around me. I started to pul away. “Sookie,” he said. “Let’s make this right. I have enemies on every side, and I don’t want to have one here at home.” I made myself hold stil . I reviewed everything I’d told myself while I’d been taking my time-out in the bathroom. That seemed to have been a week ago, instead of hours.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “Okay. I know that I should be total y al right with what you did with that woman. I know if people are wil ing, there’s no reason you shouldn’t take a sip from them, especial y since she was actual y booby-trapped. I think you could have held out if you’d real y wanted to. I know my reaction is emotional, not logical. But it’s the reaction I’m having. I also know, in my head, that I love you. I’m just not feeling it at this moment. Oh, by the way, I have something to confess to you, too, regarding another man.”
Ha! That sharpened him up. Eric’s eyebrows flew up and he stepped back a little, looking down at me and very nearly scowling. “What?” he said, biting the word out as if it tasted bad. I felt more cheerful.
“Remember, I told you I was going to Hooligans to see Claude strip?” I said. “There were other guys, too, mostly fae, who did, wel , almost the ful monty.” I raised one eyebrow and tried to look inscrutable.
Eric’s mouth quirked in what was very nearly a smile. “Claude is a beautiful man. How do I stack up against the fairy?” he asked.
“Hmmm. The fairy was stacked al right,” I said, looking off in another direction ostentatiously.
Eric squeezed me. “Sookie?”
“Eric! You know that you look pretty good naked.”
“That’s right, fish for compliments,” I said.
“That’s not al I’m fishing for,” he whispered. He picked me up by sliding his hands under my rear, and suddenly I was at just the right height to kiss him.
So an evening that had held so much that was bad ended in something good, after al , and for fifteen minutes I utterly forgot that I was in the same bed he’d sat on while he took blood from someone else … which may have been the target Eric was aiming for. He hit it, dead center.
He got downstairs in the nick of time.
Chapter 5
By the time I’d dropped my hairbrush, opened my purse, and groped inside to extricate the phone, my cal er had hung up. Frustrating. I checked the number, and to my astonishment I found that Mustapha Khan had been trying to get in touch with me. I cal ed the number back as quickly as I could press the right buttons, but no one answered.
Crap. Wel , if he wasn’t picking up, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. But I had other messages: one from Dermot, one from Alcide, and one from Tara.
Dermot’s voice said, “Sookie? Where are you? You didn’t come home last night. Everything okay?”
Alcide Herveaux said, “Sookie, we need to talk. Cal me when you can.”
Tara said, “Sookie, I think the babies are going to come pretty soon. I’m effacing and I’m starting to dilate. Get ready to become an aunt!” She sounded giddy with excitement.
I cal ed her back first, but she didn’t pick up.
Then I cal ed Dermot, who actual y answered. I gave him a condensed version of the night before. He asked me to come home immediately, but he didn’t offer an explanation. I told him I’d start back within the hour unless the police arrived to delay me. What if they wanted to come into Eric’s house? They couldn’t just come in, right? They had to have a warrant. But the house was a crime scene. I was worried about them trying to get into Eric’s downstairs bedroom, and I remembered that Bil was in the bedroom across the hal in a guest pod. What if the cops decided to open it? I needed a set of those “DO NOT ENTER VAMPIRE AT REST” coffin hangers I’d seen
