Шарлин Харрис - Dead to the World

Alcide looked surprised. He hadn't thought this far, which wasn't too amazing. I hadn't known Adabelle when she was alive, and I hadn't stepped inside the bridal shop as he had. I hadn't sustained the worst shock. It was up to me to pick up the reins.

"It was my idea, Detective," I said instantly. "My grandmother, who died last year? She always told me, 'If you need a wedding dress, Sookie, you go to Verena Rose's for it.' I didn't think to call ahead and check to see if they were open today."

"So, you and Mr. Herveaux are going to be married?"

"Yes," said Alcide, pulling me against him and wrapping his arms around me. "We're headed for the altar."

I smiled, but in an appropriately subdued way.

"Well, congratulations." Detective Coughlin eyed us thoughtfully. "So, Miss Stackhouse, you hadn't ever met Adabelle Yancy face-to-face?"

"I may have met the older Mrs. Yancy when I was a little girl," I said cautiously. "But I don't remember her. Alcide's family knows the Yancys, of course. He's lived here all his life." Of course, they're also werewolves.

Coughlin was still focused on me. "And you didn't go in the shop none? Just Mr. Herveaux here?"

"Alcide just stepped in while I waited out here." I tried to look delicate, which is not easy for me. I am healthy and muscular, and while I am not Emme, I'm not Kate Moss either. "I'd seen the—the hand, so I stayed out."

"That was a good idea," Detective Coughlin said. "What's in there isn't fit for people to see." He looked about twenty years older as he said that. I felt sorry that his job was so tough. He was thinking that the savaged bodies in the house were a waste of two good lives and the work of someone he'd love to arrest. "Would either of you have any idea why anyone would want to rip up two ladies like this?"

"Two," Alcide said slowly, stunned.

"Two?" I said, less guardedly.

"Why, yes," the detective said heavily. He had aimed to get our reactions and now he had them; what he thought of them, I would find out.

"Poor things," I said, and I wasn't faking the tears that filled my eyes. It was kind of nice to have Alcide's chest to lean against, and as if he were reading my mind he unzipped his leather jacket so I'd be closer to him, wrapping the open sides around me to keep me warmer. "But if one of them is Adabelle Yancy, who is the other?"

"There's not much left of the other," Coughlin said, before he told himself to shut his mouth.

"They were kind of jumbled up," Alcide said quietly, close to my ear. He was sickened. "I didn't know . . . I guess if I'd analyzed what I was seeing . . ."

Though I couldn't read Alcide's thoughts clearly, I could understand that he was thinking that Adabelle had managed to take down one of her attackers. And when the rest of the group was getting away, they hadn't taken all the appropriate bits with them.

"And you're from Bon Temps, Miss Stackhouse," the detective said, almost idly.

"Yes, sir," I said, with a gasp. I was trying not to picture Adabelle Yancy's last moments.

"Where you work there?"

"Merlotte's Bar and Grill," I said. "I wait tables."

While he registered the difference in social status between me and Alcide, I closed my eyes and laid my head against Alcide's warm chest. Detective Coughlin was wondering if I was pregnant; if Alcide's dad, a well-known and well-to-do figure in Shreveport, would approve of such a marriage. He could see why I'd want an expensive wedding dress, if I were marrying a Herveaux.

"You don't have an engagement ring, Miss Stackhouse?"

"We don't plan on a long engagement," Alcide said. I could hear his voice rumbling in his chest. "She'll get her diamond the day we marry."

"You're so bad," I said fondly, punching him in the ribs as hard as I could without being obvious.

"Ouch," he said in protest.

Somehow this bit of byplay convinced Detective Coughlin that we were really engaged. He took down our phone numbers and addresses, then told us we could leave. Alcide was as relieved as I was.

We drove to the nearest place where we could pull over in privacy—a little park that was largely deserted in the cold weather—and Alcide called Colonel Flood again. I waited in the truck while Alcide, pacing in the dead grass, gesticulated and raised his voice, venting some of his horror and anger. I'd been able to feel it building up in him. Alcide had trouble articulating emotions, like lots of guys. It made him seem more familiar and dear.

Dear? I'd better stop thinking like that. The engagement had been drummed up strictly for Detective Coughlin's benefit. If Alcide was anyone's "dear," it was the perfidious Debbie's.

When Alcide climbed back into the pickup, he was scowling.

"I guess I better go back to the office and take you to your car," he said. "I'm sorry about all this."

"I guess I should be saying that."

"This is a situation neither of us created," he said firmly. "Neither of us would be involved if we could help it."

"That's the God's truth." After a minute of thinking of the complicated supernatural world, I asked Alcide what Colonel Flood's plan was.

"We'll take care of it," Alcide said. "I'm sorry, Sook, I can't tell you what we're going to do."

"Are you going to be in danger?" I asked, because I just couldn't help it.

We'd gotten to the Herveaux building by then, and Alcide parked his truck by my old car. He turned a little to face me, and he reached over to take my hand. "I'm gonna be fine. Don't worry," he said gently. "I'll call you."

"Don't forget to do that," I said. "And I have to tell you what the witches did about trying to find Eric." I hadn't told Alcide about the posted pictures, the reward. He frowned even harder when he thought about the cleverness of this ploy.

"Debbie was supposed to drive over this afternoon, get here about six," he said. He looked at his watch. "Too late to stop her coming."

"If you're planning a big raid, she could help," I said.

He gave me a sharp look. Like a pointed stick he wanted to poke in my eye. "She's a shifter, not a Were," he reminded me defensively.

Maybe she turned into a weasel or a rat.

"Of course," I said seriously. I literally bit my tongue so I wouldn't make any of the remarks that waited just inside my mouth, dying to be spoken. "Alcide, do you think the other body was Adabelle's girlfriend? Someone who just got caught at the shop with Adabelle when the witches came calling?"

"Since a lot of the second body was missing, I hope that the body was one of the witches. I hope Adabelle went down fighting."

"I hope so, too." I nodded, putting an end to that train of thought. "I'd better get back to Bon Temps. Eric will be waking up soon. Don't forget to tell your dad that we're engaged."

His expression provided the only fun I'd had all day.

I thought all the way home about my day in Shreveport. I'd asked Alcide to call the cops in Bon Temps from his cell phone, and he'd gotten another negative message. No, they hadn't heard any more on Jason, and no one had called to say they'd seen him. So I didn't stop by the police station on my way home, but I did have to go to the grocery to buy some margarine and bread, and I did have to go in the liquor store to pick up some blood.

The first thing I saw when I pushed open the door of Super Save-A-Bunch was a little display of bottled blood, which saved me a stop at the liquor store. The second thing I saw was the poster with the headshot of Eric. I assumed it was the photo Eric had had made when he opened Fangtasia, because it was a very nonthreatening picture. He was projecting winsome worldliness; any person in this universe would know that he'd never, ever bite. It was headed, "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS VAMPIRE?"

I read the text carefully. Everything Jason had said about it was true. Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money. That Hallow must be really nuts about Eric to pay that much, if all she wanted was a hump. It was hard to believe gaining control of Fangtasia (and having the bed services of Eric) would afford her a profit after paying out a reward that large. I was increasingly doubtful that I knew the whole story, and I was increasingly sure I was sticking my neck out and might get it bitten off.