Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [152]
I caught the eyes of the Hispanic vampire, and indicated a chair on my side of the long table. He eased the girl into it. I looked down at her, preparing to slide into her thoughts. Her mind had no protection whatsoever. I closed my eyes.
Her name was Bethany. She was twenty-one, and she had thought of herself as a wild child, a real bad girl. She had had no idea what trouble that could get her into, until now. Getting a job at the Bat’s Wing had been the rebellious gesture of her life, and it might just turn out to be fatal.
I turned my eyes back to Stan Davis. “You understand,” I said, taking a great risk, “that if she yields the information you want, she goes free, unharmed.” He’d said he understood the terms, but I had to be sure.
Bill heaved a sigh behind me. Not a happy camper. Stan Davis’s eyes actually glowed for a second, so angry was he. “Yes,” he said, biting out the words, his fangs half out, “I agreed.” We met each other’s eyes for a second. We both knew that even two years ago, the vampires of Dallas would have kidnapped Bethany and tortured her until they had every scrap of information she had stored in her brain, and some she’d made up.
Mainstreaming, going public with the fact of their existence, had many benefits—but it also had its price. In this instance, the price was my service.
“What does Farrell look like?”
“Like a cowboy.” Stan said this without a trace of humor. “He wears one of those string ties, jeans, and shirts with fake pearl snaps.”
The Dallas vampires didn’t seem to be into haute couture. Maybe I could have worn my barmaid outfit after all. “What color hair and eyes?”
“Brown hair going gray. Brown eyes. A big jaw. About . . . five feet, eleven inches.” Stan was translating from some other method of measurement. “He would look about thirty-eight, to you,” Stan said. “He’s clean-shaven, and thin.”
“Would you like me to take Bethany somewhere else? You got a smaller room, less crowded?” I tried to look agreeable, because it seemed like such a good idea.
Stan made a movement with his hand, almost too fast for me to detect, and in a second—literally—every vampire, except Stan himself and Bill, had left the kitchen. Without looking, I knew that Bill was standing against the wall, ready for anything. I took a deep breath. Time to start this venture.
“Bethany, how are you?” I said, making my voice gentle.
“How’d you know my name?” she asked, slumping down in her seat. It was a breakfast nook chair on wheels, and I rolled it out from the table and turned it to face the one I now settled in. Stan was still sitting at the head of the table, behind me, slightly to my left.
“I can tell lots of things about you,” I said, trying to look warm and omniscient. I began picking thoughts out of the air, like apples from a laden tree. “You had a dog named Woof when you were little, and your mother makes the best coconut cake in the world. Your dad lost too much money at a card game one time, and you had to hock your VCR to help him pay up, so your mom wouldn’t find out.”
Her mouth was hanging open. As much as it was possible, she had forgotten the fact that she was in terrible danger. “That’s amazing, you’re as good as the psychic on TV, the one in the ads!”
“Well, Bethany, I’m not a psychic,” I said, a little too sharply. “I’m a telepath, and what I do is read your thoughts, even some you maybe didn’t know you had. I’m going to relax you, first, and then we’re going to remember the evening you worked at the bar—not tonight, but five nights ago.” I glanced back at Stan, who nodded.
“But I wasn’t thinking about my mother’s cake!” Bethany said, stuck on what had struck her.
I tried to suppress my sigh.
“You weren’t aware of it, but you did. It slid across your mind when you looked