Andy looked a little sick.
“I know,” I whispered.
“It seems to me,” Andy began again, “that somehow he decided he’d feel justified in doing that horrible thing if he convinced himself that everyone in his sister’s situation deserved to die. In fact, the murders here are very similar to two in Shreveport that haven’t been solved up until now, and we’re expecting Rene to touch on those while he’s rambling along. If he makes it.”
I could feel my lips pressing together in horrified sympathy for those other poor women.
“Can you tell me what happened to you?” Andy asked quietly. “Go slow, take your time, and keep your voice down to a whisper. Your throat is badly bruised.”
I had figured that out for myself, thanks very much. I murmured my account of the evening, and I didn’t leave anything out. Andy had switched on a little tape recorder after asking me if that was all right. He placed it on the pillow close to my mouth when I indicated the device was okay with me, so he’d have the whole story.
“Mr. Compton still out of town?” he asked me, after I’d finished.
“New Orleans,” I whispered, barely able to speak.
“We’ll look in Rene’s house for the rifle, now that we know it’s yours. It’ll be a nice piece of corroborative evidence.”
Then a gleaming young woman in white came into the room, looked at my face, and told Andy he’d have to come back some other time.
He nodded at me, gave me an awkward pat on the hand, and left. He gave the doctor a backward glance of admiration. She was sure worth admiring, but she was also wearing a wedding ring, so Andy was once again too late.
She thought he seemed too serious and grim.
I didn’t want to hear this.
But I didn’t have enough energy to keep everyone out of my head.
“Miss Stackhouse, how are you feeling?” the young woman asked a little too loudly. She was brunette and lean, with wide brown eyes and a full mouth.
“Like hell,” I whispered.
“I can imagine,” she said, nodding repeatedly while looking me over. I somehow didn’t think she could. I was willing to bet she’d never been beaten up by a multiple murderer in a graveyard.
“You just lost your grandmother, too, didn’t you?” she asked sympathetically. I nodded, just a fraction of an inch.
“My husband died about six months ago,” she said. “I know about grief. It’s tough being brave, isn’t it?”
Well, well, well. I let my expression ask a question.
“He had cancer,” she explained. I tried to look my condolences without moving anything, which was nearly impossible.
“Well,” she said, standing upright, returning to her brisk manner, “Miss Stackhouse, you’re sure gonna live. You have a broken collarbone, and two broken ribs, and a broken nose.”
Shepherd of Judea! No wonder I felt bad.
“Your face and neck are severely bruised. Of course, you could tell your throat was hurt.”
I was trying to imagine what I looked like. Good thing I didn’t have a mirror handy.
“And you have lots of relatively minor bruises and cuts on your legs and arms.” She smiled. “Your stomach is fine, and your feet!”
Hohoho. Very funny.
“I have prescribed pain medication for you, so when you start feeling bad, just ring for the nurse.”
A visitor stuck his head in the door behind her. She turned, blocking my view, and said, “Hello?”
“This Sookie’s room?”
“Yes, I was just finishing her examination. You can come in.” The doctor (whose name was Sonntag, by her nameplate) looked questioningly at me to get my permission, and I managed a tiny “Sure.”
JB du Rone drifted to my bedside, looking as lovely as the cover model on a romance novel. His tawny hair gleamed under the fluorescent lights, his eyes were just the same color, and his sleeveless shirt showed muscle definition that might have been chiseled with a—well, with a chisel. He was looking down at me, and Dr. Sonntag was drinking him in.
“Hey, Sookie, you feelin’ all right?” he asked. He lay a finger gently on my cheek. He kissed an unbruised spot on my forehead.
“Thanks,” I whispered. “I’ll be okay. Meet my doctor.”
JB turned his wide eyes on Dr. Sonntag, who practically tripped over her own feet to introduce herself.
“Doctors weren’t this pretty when I was getting my shots,” JB said sincerely and simply.
“You haven’t been to a doctor since you were a kid?” Dr. Sonntag said, amazed.
“I never get sick.” He beamed at her. “Strong as an ox.” And the brain of one. But Dr. Sonntag probably had smarts enough for two.
She couldn’t think of any reason for lingering, though she cast a wistful glance over her shoulder as she left.
JB bent down to me and said earnestly, “Can I bring you anything, Sookie? Nabs or something?”
The thought of trying to eat crackers made tears come to my eyes. “No thanks,” I breathed. “The doctor’s a widow.”
You could change subjects on JB without him wondering why.
“Wow,” he said, impressed. “She’s smart and single.”
I wiggled my eyebrows in a significant way.
“You think I oughtta ask her out?” JB looked as thoughtful as it was possible for him to be. “That might be a good idea.” He smiled down at me. “Long as you won’t date me, Sookie. You’re always number one to me. You just crook your little finger, and I’ll come running.”
What a sweet guy. I didn’t believe in his devotion for a minute, but I did believe he knew how to make a woman feel good, even if she was as sure as I was that I looked breathtakingly bad. I felt pretty bad, too. Where were those pain pills? I tried to smile at JB.
“You’re hurting,” he said. “I’ll send the nurse down here.”
Oh, good. The reach to the little button had seemed longer and longer as I tried to get my arm to move.
He kissed me again as he left and said, “I’ll go track that doctor of yours down, Sookie. I better ask her some more questions about your recovery.”
After the nurse injected some stuff into my IV drip, I was just looking forward to feeling no pain when the door opened again.
My brother came in. He stood by my bed for a long time, staring at my face. He said finally, heavily, “I talked to the doctor for a minute before she left for the cafeteria with JB. She told me what-all was wrong with you.” He walked away from me, took a turn around the room, came back. More staring. “You look like hell.”
“Thanks,” I whispered.
“Oh, yeah, your throat. I forgot.”
He started to pat me, thought the better of it.
“Listen, Sis, I gotta say thank you, but it’s got me down that you stood in for me when it came time to fight.”
If I could have, I’d have kicked him.
Stood in for him, hell.
“I owe you big, Sis. I was so dumb, thinking Rene was a good friend.”
Betrayed. He felt betrayed.
Then Arlene came in, to make things just peachy keen.
She was a mess. Her hair was in a red tangle, she had no makeup, and her clothes were chosen at random. I’d never seen Arlene without her hair curled and her makeup loud and bright.
She looked down at me—boy, would I be glad when I could stand up again—and for a second her face was hard as granite, but when she really took in my face, she began to crumble.
“I was so mad at you, I didn’t believe it, but now that I’m seeing you and what he did . . . oh, Sookie, can you ever forgive me?”
Geez, I wanted her out of here. I tried to telegraph this to Jason, and for once I got through, because he put an arm around her shoulders and led her out. Arlene was sobbing before she reached the door. “I didn’t know . . .” she said, barely coherent. “I just didn’t know!”
“Hell, neither did I,” Jason said heavily.
I took a nap after trying to ingest
some delicious green gelatin.
My big excitement of the afternoon was walking to the bathroom, more or less by myself. I sat in the chair for ten minutes, after which I was more than ready to get back in bed. I looked in the mirror concealed in the rolling table and was very sorry I had.
I was running a little temperature, just enough to make me shivery and tender-skinned. My face was blue and gray and my nose was swollen double. My right eye was puffy and almost closed. I shuddered, and even that hurt. My legs . . . oh, hell, I didn’t even want to check. I lay back very carefully and wanted this day to be over. Probably four days from now I’d feel just great. Work! When could I go back to work?
A little knock at the door distracted me. Another damn visitor. Well, this was someone I didn’t know. An older lady with blue hair and red-framed glasses wheeled in a cart. She was wearing the yellow smock the hospital volunteers called Sunshine Ladies had to don when they were working.
The cart was covered with flowers for the patients in this wing.
“I’m delivering you a load of best wishes!” the lady said cheerfully.
I smiled, but the effect must have been ghastly because her own cheer wavered a little.
“These are for you,” she said, lifting a potted plant decorated with a red ribbon. “Here’s the card, honey. Let’s see, these are for you, too . . .” This was an arrangement of cut flowers, featuring pink rosebuds and pink carnations and white baby’s breath. She plucked the card from that bowl, too. Surveying the cart, she said, “Now, aren’t you the lucky one! Here are some more for you!!”
The focus of the third floral tribute was a bizarre red flower I’d never seen before, surrounded by a host of other, more familiar blooms. I looked at this one doubtfully. The Sunshine Lady dutifully presented me with the card from the plastic prongs.
After she’d smiled her way out of the room, I opened the little envelopes. It was easier to move when I was in a better mood, I noticed wryly.
The potted plant was from Sam and “all your coworkers at Merlotte’s” read the card, but it was written in Sam’s handwriting. I touched the glossy leaves and wondered where I’d put it when I took it home. The cut flowers were from Sid Matt Lancaster and Elva Deene Lancaster—pooey. The arrangement centered with the peculiar red blossom (I decided that somehow the flower looked almost obscene, like a lady’s private part) was definitely the most interesting of the three. I opened the card with some curiosity. It bore only a signature, “Eric.”
That was all I needed. How the hell had he heard I was in the hospital? Why hadn’t I heard from Bill?
After some delicious red gelatin for supper, I focused on the television for a couple of hours, since I hadn’t anything to read, even if my eyes had been up to it. My bruises grew more charming every hour, and I felt weary to my bones, despite the fact that I’d only walked once to the bathroom and twice around my room. I switched off the television and turned onto my side. I fell asleep, and in my dreams the pain from my body seeped in and made me have nightmares. I ran in my dreams, ran through the cemetery, afraid for my life, falling over stones, into open graves, encountering all the people I knew who lay there: my father and mother, my grandmother, Maudette Pickens, Dawn Green, even a childhood friend who’d been killed in a hunting accident. I was looking for a particular headstone; if I found it, I was home free. They would all go back into their graves and leave me alone. I ran from this one to that one, putting my hand on each one, hoping it would be the right stone. I whimpered.
“Sweetheart, you’re safe,” came a familiar cool voice.
“Bill,” I muttered. I turned to face a stone I hadn’t yet touched. When I lay my fingers on it, they traced the letters “William Erasmus Compton.” As if I’d been dashed with cold water, my eyes flew open, I drew in a breath to scream, and my throat gave a great throb of pain. I choked on the extra air, and the pain of the coughing, which pretty much hurt every single thing I’d broken, completed my awakening. A hand slipped under my cheek, the cool fingers feeling wonderfully good against my hot skin. I tried not to whimper, but a little noise made its way through my teeth.
“Turn to the light, darling,” Bill said, his voice very light and casual.
I’be been sleeping with my back to the light the nurse had left on, the one in the bathroom. Now I rolled obediently to my back and looked up at my vampire.
Bill hissed.
“I’ll kill him,” he said, with a simple certainty that chilled me to the bone.
There was enough tension in the room to send a fleet of the nervous running for their tranquilizers.
“Hi, Bill,” I croaked. “Glad to see you, too. Where you been so long? Thanks for returning all my calls.”
That brought him up short. He blinked. I could feel him making an effort to calm himself.
“Sookie,” he said. “I didn’t call because I wanted to tell you in person what has happened.” I couldn’t read the expression on his face. If I’d had to take a shot, I would’ve said he looked proud of himself.
He paused, scanned all visible portions of me.
“This doesn’t hurt,” I croaked obligingly, extending my hand to him. He kissed that, lingered over it in a way that sent a faint tingle through my body. Believe me, a faint tingle was more than I’d thought I was capable of.
“Tell me what has been done to you,” he commanded.
“Then lean down so I can whisper. This really hurts.”
He pulled a chair close to the bed, lowered the bed rail, and lay his chin on his folded arms. His face was maybe four inches from mine.
“Your nose is broken,” he observed.
I rolled my eyes. “Glad you spotted that,” I whispered. “I’ll tell the doctor when she comes in.”
His gaze narrowed. “Stop trying to deflect me.”
“Okay. Nose broken, two ribs, a collarbone.”
But Bill wanted to examine me all over, and he pulled the sheet down. My mortification was complete. Of course, I was wearing an awful hospital gown, in itself a downer, and I hadn’t bathed properly, and my face was several different shades, and my hair hadn’t been brushed.
“I want to take you home,” he announced, after he’d run his hands all over and minutely examined each scrape and cut. The Vampire Physician.
I motioned with my hand to make him bend down. “No,” I breathed. I pointed to the drip bag. He eyed it with some suspicion, but of course he had to know what one was.
“I can take it out,” he said.
I shook my head vehemently.
“You don’t want me to take care of you?”
I puffed out my breath in exasperation, which hurt like hell.
I made a writing motion with my hand, and Bill searched the drawers until he found a notepad. Oddly enough, he had a pen. I wrote, “They’ll let me out of the hospital tomorrow if my fever doesn’t go high.”
“Who’ll take you home?” he asked. He was standing by the bed again, and looking down at me with stern disapproval, like a teacher whose best pupil happens to be chronically tardy.
“I’ll get them to call Jason, or Charlsie Tooten,” I wrote. If things had been different, I would have written Arlene’s name automatically.
“I’ll be there at dark,” he said.
I looked up into his pale face, the clear whites of his eyes almost shining in the gloomy room.
“I’ll heal you,” he offered. “Let me give you some blood.”
I remembered the way my hair had lightened, remembered that I was almost twice as strong as I’d ever been. I shook my head.
“Why not?” he said, as if he’d offered me a drink of water when I was thirsty and I’d said no. I thought maybe I’d hurt his feelings.
I took his hand and guided it to my mouth. I kissed the palm gently. I held the hand to my better cheek.
“People notice I am changing,” I wrote, after a moment. “I notice I am changing.”
He bowed his head for a moment, and then looked at me sadly.
“You know what happened?” I wrote.
“Bubba told me part of it,” he said, and his face grew scary as he mentioned the half-witted vampire. “Sam told me the rest, and I went to the police department and read the police reports.”
“Andy let you do that?” I scribbled.
“No one knew I was there,” he said carelessly.
I tried to imagine that, and it gave me the creeps.
I gave him a disapproving look.
“Tell me what happened in New Orleans,” I wrote. I was beginning to feel sleepy again.
“You will have to know a little about us,” he said hesitantly.
“Woo woo, secret vampire stuff!!” I croaked.
It was his turn to give me disapproving.
“We’re a little organized,” he told me. “I was trying to think of ways to keep us safe from Eric.” Involuntarily, I looked at the red flower arrangement.
“I knew if I were an official, like Eric, it would be much more difficult for him to interfere with my private life.”
I looked encouraging, or at least I tried to.
“So I attended the regional meeting, and though I have never been involved in our politics, I ran for an office. And, through some concentrated lobbying, I won!”
This was absolutely amazing. Bill was a union rep? I wondered about the concentrated lobbying, too. Did that mean Bill had killed all the opposition? Or that he’d bought the voters a bottle of A positive apiece?
“What is your job?” I wrote slowly, imagining Bill sitting in a meeting. I tried to look proud, which seemed to be what Bill was looking for.
“I’m the Fifth Area investigator,” he said. “I’ll tell you what that means when you’re home. I don’t want to wear you out.”
I nodded, beaming at him. I sure hoped he didn’t take it into his head to ask me who all the flowers were from. I wondered if I had to write Eric a thank-you note. I wondered why my mind was going off on all these tangents. Must be the pain medication.
I gestured to Bill to draw close. He did, his face resting on the bed next to mine. “Don’t kill Rene,” I whispered.
He looked cold, colder, coldest.
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