Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

by Charlaine Harris

  “I can’t,” she said, and my mouth fell open.

  “How come?” I said.

  “I’m having the babies today.”

  I felt a thread of panic rise up out of my stomach. “Does … who all knows this, Tara?”

  “You.”

  “You haven’t called anyone else?”

  “No. I’m just trying to deal. Having a little moment, here.” She tried to smile. “But I guess you better call McKenna and tell her to come in to work, and you better call JB and tell him to get to the hospital in Clarice, and you could call his mama. Oh, and maybe the ambulance.”

  “Oh my God! You’re hurting?” Oh, Shepherd of Judea!

  She glared at me, but I don’t think she knew she was looking at me like she hoped I’d turn green. “It’s not too bad yet,” she said with an air of great restraint. “But my water broke just now, and since it’s twins …”

  I was already punching in 911. I described the situation to the dispatcher, and she said, “Sookie, we’ll be right over to get Tara. You tell her not to worry. Oh, and she can’t eat or drink anything, you hear?”

  “Yes,” I said. I hung up. “Tara, they’re coming. Nothing to eat or drink!”

  “You see any food around here?” she said. “Not a damn thing. I’ve been trying to keep my weight gain to a minimum, so Mr. Bare-Naked Booty will have something to keep him home when I get over having his children.”

  “He loves you! And I’m calling him right now!” Which I did.

  After a frozen moment, JB said, “I’m coming! Wait, if you called the ambulance, I’ll meet it at the hospital! Have you called the doctor?”

  “She didn’t put him on my list.” I was waving my hands in agitation. I’d made a mistake.

  “I’ll do it,” JB said, and I hung up.

  Since there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to help Tara (she was sitting absolutely still with an expression of great concentration on her face), I called Mrs. du Rone. Who said very calmly, “All right, if you’re going to stay there with Tara, I’ll drive straight to the hospital. Thank you, Sookie.” Then, without hanging up, she shrieked, “Donnell! Go start the car! It’s time!”

  I hung up. I called McKenna, who said, “Oh my God! I just got out of bed! Lock up and I’ll get there within an hour. Tell her I said good luck!”

  Not knowing what else to do, I went to stand by Tara, who said, “Give me your hand.” I took her hand, and she got a death grip on mine. She began to pant in a rhythm, and her face turned red. Her whole body tensed. This close to her, I could smell something unusual. It wasn’t exactly a bad smell, but it was certainly one I’d never associated with Tara.

  Amniotic fluid, I guessed.

  I thought all the bones in my hand would snap before Tara finished puffing. We rested a moment, Tara and I, and her eyes remained fixed on some far-distant shore. After a short time, she said, “Okay,” as if I’d know what that signaled. I figured it out when we started again with the huffing and puffing. This time Tara turned white. I was incredibly relieved to hear the ambulance approaching, though Tara didn’t seem to notice.

  I recognized the two EMTs, though I couldn’t recall their names. They’d graduated with Jason, or maybe a year ahead of him. As far as I was concerned, they had haloes.

  “Hey, lady,” the taller woman said to Tara. “You ready to take a ride with us?”

  Tara nodded without losing her focus on that invisible spot.

  “How close are the contractions, darlin’?” asked the second, a small, stocky woman with wire-rimmed glasses. She was asking me, but I just gaped at her.

  “Three or four minutes,” Tara said in a monotone, as if she thought she’d pop if she spoke emphatically.

  “Well, I guess we better hustle, then,” the taller woman said calmly. While she took Tara’s blood pressure, Wire Rims set up the gurney, and then they helped Tara up from the chair (which was soaking wet), and they got Tara onto the gurney and into the ambulance very quickly, without seeming to hurry in the least.

  I was left standing in the middle of the store. I stared at the wet chair. Finally I wrote a note to McKenna. “You will need to clean the chair,” it said. I stuck it to the back door, where McKenna would enter. I locked up and departed.

  It was one of those days I regretted having a job. I could have gone to Clarice and waited for the birth of the babies, sitting in the waiting room with the other people Tara cared for.

  I went into Merlotte’s feeling ridiculously happy. I just had time to put the mail on Sam’s desk when Kennedy came in the employee door, and India was hard on her heels. Both of them looked pretty down in the mouth, but I wasn’t having any of that. “Ladies,” I said. “We are gonna have us a good day here.”

  “Sookie, I’d like to oblige, but my heart is breaking,” Kennedy said pathetically.

  “Oh, bullshit, Kennedy! It is not. You just ask Danny to share with you, you tell him what a man he is and how you love his hot body, and he’ll tell his heap big secret. You got no reason to be insecure. He thinks you’re fabulous. He likes you more than his LeBaron.”

  Kennedy looked stunned, but after a moment a small smile flickered across her face.

  “India, you’ll meet a woman who’s worthy of you any day now, I just know it,” I told India, who said, “Sookie, you are as full of bullshit as a cow is of milk.”

  “Speaking of milk,” I said, “we’re going to hold hands and say a prayer for Tara, cause she’s having her babies right now.”

  And that was what we did.

  It wasn’t until I was halfway through my shift that I realized how much more enjoyable work was when you had a light heart. How long had it been since I’d let go of my worries and simply allowed myself to enjoy the happiness of another person?

  It had been way too long.

  Today, everything seemed easy. Kennedy was pouring beers and tea and water with lemon, and all the food was ready on time. Antoine was singing in the kitchen. He had a fine voice, so we all enjoyed that. The customers tipped well, and everyone had a good word for me. Danny Prideaux came in to moon longingly at Kennedy, and his face when she gave him a smile—well, it was all lit up.

  Just when I was thinking I might glide through this day with happiness all around, Alcide came in. He’d clearly been working; there was a hard hat impression in his thick black hair, and he was sweaty and dirty like most of the men who came in at midday in the summer. Another Were was with him, a man who was just as glad to be in the air-conditioning. They breathed simultaneous sighs of relief when they sank into the chairs at a table in my section.

  Truthfully, I was surprised to see Alcide in Merlotte’s. There were plenty of places to eat in the area besides our bar. Our last conversation hadn’t been exactly pleasant, and he’d never responded to the message I’d left on his cell phone.

  Maybe his presence constituted an olive branch. I went over with menus and a tentative smile. “You must have a job close to here,” I said, by way of greeting. Alcide had been a partner in his dad’s surveying company, and now he owned the whole thing. He was running it well, I heard. I’d also heard there’d been big personnel changes.

  “We’re getting ready for the new high school gym in Clarice,” Alcide said. “We just finished. Sookie, this is Roy Hornby.”

  I nodded politely. “Roy, nice to meet you. What can I get for you-all to drink?”

  “Could we have a whole pitcher of sweet tea?” Roy asked. He gave off the strong mental signature of a werewolf.

  I said, “Sure, I’ll just go get that.” While I carried a cold pitcher and two glasses filled with ice over to the table, I wondered if the new people at AAA Accurate Surveys were all two-natured. I poured the first round of tea. It was gone in a few seconds. I refilled.

  “Damn, it’s hot out there,” Roy said. “You saved my life.” Roy was medium: hair a medium brown, eyes a medium blue, height a moderate five foot ten, slim build. He did have great teeth and a winning smile, which he flashed a
t me now. “I think you know my girlfriend, Ms. Stackhouse.”

  “Who would that be? Call me Sookie, by the way.”

  “I date Palomino.”

  I was so startled that I couldn’t think of what to say. Then I had to scramble to get some words out. “She’s sure a pretty young woman. I haven’t gotten to know her real well, but I see her around.”

  “Yeah, she works for your boyfriend, and she moonlights at the Trifecta.”

  For a vampire and a Were to date was very unusual, practically a Romeo and Juliet situation. Roy must be a tolerant kind of guy. Funny, that wasn’t the vibe he was giving off. Roy seemed like a conventional Were to me: tough, macho, strong-willed.

  There weren’t many “granola” Weres. But Alcide, though not exactly beaming at Roy, wasn’t scowling, either.

  I wondered what Roy thought of Palomino’s nestmates, Rubio and Parker. I wondered if Roy knew Palomino had been part of the massacre at Fangtasia. Since Roy was a bit clearer to read than some Weres, I could tell he was thinking of Palomino going to a bar with him. Something clicked inside me, and I knew I’d gotten an idea, but I wasn’t sure what it was. There was a connection I should be drawing, but I’d have to wait for it to pop to the top of my brain. Isn’t that the most irritating feeling in the world?

  The next time I passed Alcide’s table, Roy had gone to the men’s room. Alcide reached out to ask me to pause. “Sookie,” he said quietly, “I got your message. Nobody’s seen Mustapha yet, and nobody’s heard from him. Or his buddy Warren. What did he say to you?”

  “He gave me a message for you,” I said. “You want to come outside for a second?”

  “Well, all right.” Alcide rose and walked to the door, and I trailed after him. There was no one lingering in the parking lot on a day this hot.

  “I know you won’t want to hear this, but he said Jannalynn was out to get me, and not to trust her,” I said.

  Alcide’s green eyes widened. “Jannalynn. He says she’s untrustworthy.”

  I raised my shoulders, let them drop.

  “I don’t know how to take that, Sookie. Though she hasn’t been herself for a few weeks, she’s more than proved herself as my enforcer.” Alcide looked both bewildered and irritated. “I’ll think on what you’ve told me. In the meantime, I’m keeping my eyes and ears open, and you’ll hear soon’s I know something.”

  “He wants you to call him,” I said. “When you’re alone. He put a lot of weight on that.”

  “Thanks for passing along the message.”

  Though that wasn’t the same thing as telling me he’d place the call, I made myself smile at him as we went back inside. He resumed his seat as Roy returned to the table. “And now, what can I get you hungry guys for lunch?”

  Alcide and Roy ordered a basket of fried pickles and two hamburgers apiece. I turned in their order and made the rounds of my other tables. I had my cell phone in my pocket, and I checked it from time to time. I was very anxious to hear about Tara, but I wasn’t going to bug JB. I figured he was nervous enough as it was, and there was a good chance he’d have turned off his cell phone since he was in the hospital.

  I was more worried about JB than I was Tara. For the past two weeks, he’d been coming in to parade his worries to me. He hadn’t been sure he could handle being in the delivery room, especially if Tara had to have a C-section. He hadn’t been sure he could remember his coaching lessons. I figured it was good he was presenting a strong face to his wife and saving the worries for a friend, but maybe he should have been sharing his qualms with Tara or her doctor.

  Maybe he was passed out on the hospital floor. Tara … she was made of stronger stuff.

  Alcide and Roy ate with the hearty appetites of men who’ve been working outside all morning—men who also happen to be werewolves—and they drank the whole pitcher of tea. They both looked happier when they were full, and Alcide made a big effort to catch my eye. I dodged it as long as I could, but he nailed me fair and square, so I went over, smiling. “Can I get you-all anything else? Some dessert today?” I said.

  “I’m tight as a tick,” Roy said. “Those were great hamburgers.”

  “I’ll tell Antoine you said so,” I assured him.

  “Sam not here today?” Alcide said.

  I almost asked him if he saw Sam anywhere in the room, but I realized that would just be rude. It was not a real question. He was trying to segue into another topic.

  “No, Kennedy is on the bar today.”

  “I bet Sam’s with Jannalynn,” Roy said, grinning significantly at me.

  I shrugged, tried to look politely indifferent.

  Alcide was looking off into the distance as if he were thinking about something else, but I knew he was thinking about me. Alcide was feeling kind of lucky that he’d never managed to clinch our relationship, because he figured there was something fishy going on between Jannalynn and me. Alcide didn’t consider that he himself could be the bone of contention, since Jannalynn had told him she was going to propose to Sam, and I was Eric’s girlfriend. But we two women clearly had issues, and he had to wonder how that would affect the pack, which had become the most important thing in the world to Alcide.

  He was thinking this all so clearly that I wondered if he was trying to let me know his concerns, projecting them on purpose.

  “Apparently we do have issues,” I told him. “At least, she does.” Alcide looked startled, and half turned. Before Roy could begin asking questions I said, “How’s the bar doing?” Hair of the Dog, the only Were bar in Shreveport, wasn’t a tourist bar like Fangtasia. It was not exclusively for Weres, but for all the twoeys in the Shreveport area. “We seem to be pulling out of our slump, here.”

  “It’s doing good. Jannalynn is doing a great job of managing it,” Alcide said. He hesitated for a moment. “I heard that those new bars were falling off some, the ones the new guy opened.”

  “Yeah, I heard that, too,” I said, trying not to sound too smug.

  “Whatever happened to that new guy?” Alcide said, keeping his words guarded. “That Victor?” Though the world knew about the existence of vampires and the two-natured, their infrastructure was not common knowledge. It would remain a secret if the supes had their way. Alcide took an elaborately casual sip of the remaining tea. “I haven’t seen him around.”

  “Me, either, for weeks,” I said. I gave Alcide a very direct look. “Maybe he went back to Nevada.” Roy’s mind was empty of Victor-thoughts, and I was glad that Palomino had kept her mouth shut. Palomino … who hung out in a Were bar. Now I made the connection. That was why the distributor was leaving TrueBlood at Hair of the Dog … it was for Palomino. Just Palomino? Was another vamp visiting the Were bar, too?

  “Your boyfriend doing well?” Alcide asked.

  I came back to the here and now. “Eric’s always well.”

  “Find out how that girl got into the house? The gal that got killed?”

  “You-all don’t want any dessert? Let me get your check.” Of course I had it ready, but I needed to create a little bustle in the air, get them moving. Sure enough, Alcide had pulled his wallet out of his pocket by the time I got back. Roy had gone to the bar to talk to one of the men who worked at the lumber mill. Apparently they’d gone to high school together.

  When I bent over to put the check by Alcide, I inhaled his scent. It was a little sad to remember how attractive I’d found him when I first met him, how I’d allowed myself to daydream that this handsome and hardworking man might be my soul mate.

  But it hadn’t worked out then, and now it never would. Too much water had passed under that particular bridge. Alcide was getting deeper and deeper into his Were culture, and further and further away from the fairly normal human life he’d managed to live until his father’s disastrous attempt to become packmaster.

  He was scenting me, too. Our eyes met. We both looked a little sad.

  I wanted to say something to him, something sincere and meaningful, but under the circumstances I real
ly couldn’t imagine what to say.

  And the moment slid by. He handed me some bills and told me he didn’t need any change, and Roy slapped his buddy on the back and returned to the table, and they prepared to go back out into the heat of the day to drive to another job in Minden on their way back to the home office in Shreveport.

  After they left, I began to bus their table because I didn’t have anything else to do. There were hardly any customers, and I figured D’Eriq was taking the opportunity to slip out back to have a smoke or listen to his iPod.

  My cell phone vibrated in my apron pocket, and I whipped it out, hoping that it was news about Tara. But it was Sam, calling from his cell.

  “What’s up, boss?” I asked. “Everything’s fine, here.”

  “Good to know, but not why I called,” he said. “Sookie, this morning Jannalynn and I went down to Splendide to make a payment on a table she’s buying.” Sam had been the one who’d recommended Splendide to me when I’d cleaned out the attic. It still seemed strange to me that the young Jannalynn was an antiques fan.

  “Okay,” I said when Sam paused. “So, what’s going on at Splendide?” That I need to know?

  “It got broken into last night,” he said, sounding oddly hesitant.

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said, still not getting the importance to me of this situation. “Ah … her table okay?”

  “The things you sold to Brenda and Donald … those things were dismantled on the spot, or taken.”

  I pulled out a chair and sat down in it abruptly.

  It was lucky no one was waiting for service for the next few minutes while Sam told me everything he knew about the break-in. Nothing he told me was illuminating. A few little items that had been in the display cases had been grabbed, too. “I don’t know if you sold them anything small or not,” Sam said.

  “Was other stuff taken? Or just mine?”

  “I think enough else was gone to kind of camouflage that the targeted stuff had come from your attic,” he said, very quietly. I knew other people were around him. “I just noticed because Brenda and Donald pointed out your pieces to show me how they’d cleaned them.”