There was no way I could be useful here, and the glaring fluorescent lights and the gleaming linoleum made a harsh, unfriendly environment. I tried to read a magazine, and tossed it on the table after a couple of minutes. For the seventh or eighth time, I thought of skipping out. But there was a woman stationed at the night reception desk, and she was keeping a close eye on me. After a few more minutes, I decided to visit the women’s room to wash the blood off my hands. While I was in there, I took a few swipes at my coat with a wet paper towel, which was largely a wasted effort.
When I emerged from the women’s room, there were two cops waiting for me. They were big men, both of them. They rustled with their synthetic padded jackets, and they creaked with the leather of their belts and equipment. I couldn’t imagine them sneaking up on anyone.
The taller man was the older. His steel gray hair was clipped close to his scalp. His face was carved with a few deep wrinkles, like ravines. His gut overhung his belt. His partner was a younger man, maybe thirty, with light brown hair and light brown eyes and light brown skin—a curiously monochromatic guy. I gave them a quick but comprehensive scan with all my senses.
I could tell the two were both prepared to find out I’d had a hand in the injuries of the girl I’d brought in, or that I at least knew more than I was saying.
Of course, they were partially right.
“Miss Stackhouse? You brought in the young woman Dr. Skinner is treating?” the younger man said gently.
“Maria-Star,” I said. “Cooper.”
“Tell us how you came to do that,” the older cop said.
It was definitely an order, though his tone was moderate. Neither man knew me or knew of me, I “heard.” Good.
I took a deep breath and dove into the waters of mendacity. “I was driving home from work,” I said. “I work at Merlotte’s Bar—you know where that is?”
They both nodded. Of course, police would know the location of every bar in the parish.
“I saw a body lying by the side of the road, on the gravel of the shoulder,” I said carefully, thinking ahead so I wouldn’t say something I couldn’t take back. “So I stopped. There wasn’t anyone else in sight. When I found out she was still alive, I knew I had to get to help. It took me a long time to get her into the car by myself.” I was trying to account for the passage of time since I’d left work and the gravel from Bill’s driveway that I knew would be in her skin. I couldn’t gauge how much care I needed to tell in putting my story together, but more care was better than less.
“Did you notice any skid marks on the road?” The light brown policeman couldn’t go long without asking a question.
“No, I didn’t notice. They may have been there. I was just—after I saw her, all I thought about was her.”
“So?” the older man prompted.
“I could tell she was hurt real bad, so I got her here as fast as I could.” I shrugged. End of my story.
“You didn’t think about calling an ambulance?”
“I don’t have a cell phone.”
“Woman who comes home from work that late, by herself, really ought to have a cell phone, ma’am.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that if he felt like paying the bill, I’d be glad to have one, when I restrained myself. Yes, it
would
be handy to have a cell phone, but I could barely afford my regular phone. My only extravagance was cable TV, and I justified that by telling myself it was my only recreational spending. “I hear you,” I said briefly.
“And your full name is?” This from the younger man. I looked up, met his eyes.
“Sookie Stackhouse,” I said. He’d been thinking I seemed kind of shy and sweet.
“You the sister of the man who’s missing?” The gray-haired man bent down to look in my face.
“Yes, sir.” I looked down at my toes again.
“You’re sure having a streak of bad luck, Miss Stackhouse.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, my voice shaking with sincerity. “Have you ever seen this woman, the woman you brought in, before tonight?” The older officer was scribbling in a little notepad he’d produced from a pocket. His name was Curlew, the little pin on his pocket said.
I shook my head.
“You think your brother might have known her?”
I looked up, startled. I met the eyes of the brown man again. His name was Stans. “How the heck would I know?” I asked. I knew in the next second that he’d just wanted me to look up again. He didn’t know what to make of me. The monochromatic Stans thought I was pretty and seemed like a good little Samaritan. On the other hand, my job was one educated nice girls didn’t often take, and my brother was well known as a brawler, though many of the patrol officers liked him.
“How is she doing?” I asked.
They both glanced at the door behind which the struggle to save the young woman went on.
“She’s still alive,” Stans said.
“Poor thing,” I said. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I began fumbling in my pockets for a tissue.
“Did she say anything to you, Miss Stackhouse?”
I had to think about that. “Yes,” I said. “She did.” The truth was safe, in this instance.
They both brightened at the news.
“She told me her name. She said her legs hurt worst, when I asked her,” I said. “And she said that the car had hit her, but not run her over.”
The two men looked at each other.
“Did she describe the car?” Stans asked.
It was incredibly tempting to describe the witches’ car. But I mistrusted the glee that bubbled up inside me at the idea. And I was glad I had, the next second, when I realized that the trace evidence they’d get off the car would be wolf fur. Good thinking, Sook.
“No, she didn’t,” I said, trying to look as though I’d been groping through my memory. “She didn’t really talk much after that, just moaning. It was awful.” And the upholstery on my backseat was probably ruined, too. I immediately wished I hadn’t thought of something so selfish.
“And you didn’t see any other cars, trucks, any other vehicles on your way to your house from the bar, or even when you were coming back to town?”
That was a slightly different question. “Not on my road,” I said hesitantly. “I probably saw a few cars when I got closer to Bon Temps and went through town. And of course I saw more between Bon Temps and Clarice. But I don’t recall any in particular.”
“Can you take us to the spot where you picked her up? The exact place?”
“I doubt it. There wasn’t anything to mark it besides her,” I said. My coherence level was falling by the minute. “No big tree, or road, or mile marker. Maybe tomorrow? In the daytime?”
Stans patted me on the shoulder. “I know you’re shook up, miss,” he said consolingly. “You done the best you could for this girl. Now we gotta leave it up to the doctors and the Lord.”
I nodded emphatically, because I certainly agreed. The older Curlew still looked at me a little skeptically, but he thanked me as a matter of form, and they strode out of the hospital into the blackness. I stepped back a little, though I remained looking out into the parking lot. In a second or two, they reached my car and shone their big flashlights through the windows, checking out the interior. I keep the inside of my car spanky-clean, so they wouldn’t see a thing but bloodstains in the backseat. I noticed that they checked out the front grille, too, and I didn’t blame them one little bit.
They examined my car over and over, and finally they stood under one of the big lights, making notes on clipboards.
Not too long after that, the doctor came out to find me. She pulled her mask down and rubbed the back of her neck with a long, thin hand. “Miss Cooper is doing better. She’s stable,” she said.
I nodded, and then I closed my eyes for a moment with sheer relief. “Thank you,” I croaked.
“We’re going to airlift her to Schumpert in Shreveport. The helicopter’ll be here any second.”
I blinked, trying to decide if that were a good thing or a bad thing. No matter what my opinion was, the Were had to go to the best and closest hospital. When she became able to talk, she’d have to tell them something. How could I ensure that her story jibed with mine?
“Is she conscious?” I asked.
“Just barely,” the doctor said, almost angrily, as if such injuries were an insult to her personally. “You can speak to her briefly, but I can’t guarantee she’ll remember, or understand. I have to go talk to the cops.” The two officers were striding back into the hospital, I saw from my place at the window.
“Thank you,” I said, and followed her gesture to her left. I pushed open the door into the grim glaring room where they’d been working on the girl.
It was a mess. There were a couple of nurses in there even now, chatting about this or that and packing away some of the unused packages of bandages and tubes. A man with a bucket and mop stood waiting in a corner. He would clean the room when the Were—the girl—had been wheeled out to the helicopter. I went to the side of the narrow bed and took her hand.
I bent down close.
“Maria-Star, you know my voice?” I asked quietly. Her face was swollen from its impact with the ground, and it was covered with scratches and scrapes. These were the smallest of her injuries, but they looked very painful to me.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“I’m the one that found you by the
side of the road
,” I said. “On the way to my house, south of Bon Temps. You were lying by the parish road.”
“Understand,” she murmured.
“I guess,” I continued carefully, “that someone made you get out of his car, and that someone then hit you with the car. But you know how it is after a trauma, sometimes people don’t remember
anything
.” One of the nurses turned to me, her face curious. She’d caught the last part of my sentence. “So don’t worry if you don’t remember.”
“I’ll try,” she said ambiguously, still in that hushed, far-away voice.
There was nothing more I could do here, and a lot more that could go wrong, so I whispered “Good-bye,” told the nurses I appreciated them, and went out to my car. Thanks to the blankets (which I supposed I’d have to replace for Bill), my backseat wasn’t messed up too bad.
I was glad to find something to be pleased about.
I wondered about the blankets. Did the police have them? Would the hospital call me about them? Or had they been pitched in the garbage? I shrugged. There was no point worrying about two rectangles of material anymore, when I had so much else crammed on my worry list. For one thing, I didn’t like the Weres congregating at Merlotte’s. That pulled Sam way too far into Were concerns. He was a shifter, after all, and shifters were much more loosely involved with the supernatural world. Shifters tended to be more “every shifter for himself,” while the Weres were always organized. Now they were using Merlotte’s for a meeting place, after hours.
And then there was Eric. Oh, Lord, Eric would be waiting for me at the house.
I found myself wondering what time it was in Peru. Bill had to be having more fun than I was. It seemed like I’d gotten worn out on New Year’s Eve and never caught up; I’d never felt this exhausted.
I was just past the intersection where I’d turned left, the road that eventually passed Merlotte’s. The headlights illuminated flashes of trees and bushes. At least there were no more vampires running down the side . . .
“Wake up,” said the woman sitting by me on the front seat.
“What?” My eyelids popped open. The car swerved violently.
“You were falling asleep.”
By this time, I wouldn’t have been surprised if a beached whale had lain across the road.
“You’re who?” I asked, when I felt my voice might be under my control.
“Claudine.”
It was hard to recognize her in the dashboard light, but sure enough, it seemed to be the tall and beautiful woman who’d been in Merlotte’s New Year’s Eve, who’d been with Tara the previous morning. “How did you get in my car? Why are you here?”
“Because there’s been an unusual amount of supernatural activity in this area in the past week or two. I’m the go-between.”
“Go between what?”
“Between the two worlds. Or, more accurately, between the three worlds.”
Sometimes life just hands you more than you take. Then you just accept.
“So, you’re like an angel? That’s how come you woke me up when I was falling asleep at the wheel?”
“No, I haven’t gotten that far yet. You’re too tired to take this in. You have to ignore the mythology and just accept me for what I am.”
I felt a funny jolt in my chest.
“Look,” Claudine pointed out. “That man’s waving to you.”
Sure enough, in Merlotte’s parking lot there stood a semaphoring vampire. It was Chow.
“Oh, just great,” I said, in the grumpiest voice I could manage. “Well, I hope you don’t mind us stopping, Claudine. I need to go in.”
“Sure, I wouldn’t miss it.”
Chow waved me to the rear of the bar, and I was astonished to find the employee parking area jam-packed with cars that had been invisible from the road.
“Oh, boy!” Claudine said. “A party!” She got out of my car as if she could hardly restrain her glee, and I had the satisfaction of seeing that Chow was absolutely stupefied when he took in all six feet of her. It’s hard to surprise a vampire.
“Let’s go in,” Claudine said gaily, and took my hand.
9
E
VERY SUPE I’D EVER MET WAS IN MERLOTTE’S. OR maybe it just seemed like that, since I was dead tired and wanted to be by myself. The Were pack was there, all in human form and all more or less dressed, to my relief.
Alcide was in khakis and an unbuttoned shirt in green and blue plaid. It was hard to believe he could run on four legs. The Weres were drinking coffee or soft drinks, and Eric (looking happy and healthy) was having some TrueBlood. Pam was sitting on a barstool, wearing an ash green tracksuit, which she managed to make prim-but-sexy. She had a bow in her hair and beaded sneakers on her feet. She’d brought Gerald with her, a vampire I’d met once or twice at Fangtasia. Gerald looked about thirty, but I’d heard him refer to Prohibition once as if he’d lived through it. What little I knew of Gerald didn’t predispose me to getting closer to him.