Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [39]
“I don’t know why,” I said, maybe a tad sullenly. “I never hung around with Dawn. What happened to her, did they tell you?”
“Someone strangled her after beating on her a little,” Sam said. “But she had some old tooth marks, too. Like Maudette.”
“There are lots of vampires, Sam,” I said, answering his unspoken comment.
“Sookie.” His voice was so serious and quiet. It made me remember how he’d held my hand at Dawn’s house, and then I remembered how he’d shut me out of his mind, known I was probing, known how to keep me out. “Honey, Bill is a good guy, for a vampire, but he’s just not human.”
“Honey, neither are you,” I said, very quietly but very sharply. And I turned my back on Sam, not exactly wanting to admit why I was so angry with him, but wanting him to know it nonetheless.
I worked like a demon. Whatever her faults, Dawn had been efficient, and Charlsie just couldn’t keep up with the pace. She was willing, and I was sure she’d catch up with the rhythm of the bar, but for tonight, Arlene and I had to take up the slack.
I earned a ton of money in tips that evening and on into the night when people found out I’d actually discovered the body. I just kept my face solemn and got through it, not wanting to offend customers who just wanted to know what everyone else in town wanted to know.
On my way home, I allowed myself to relax a little. I was exhausted. The last thing I expected to see, after I turned into the little drive through the woods that led to our house, was Bill Compton. He was leaning against a pine tree waiting for me. I drove past him a little, almost deciding to ignore him. But then I stopped.
He opened my door. Without looking him in the eyes, I got out. He seemed comfortable in the night, in a way I never could be. There were too many childhood taboos about the night and the darkness and things that went bump.
Come to think of it, Bill was one of those things. No wonder he felt at ease.
“Are you going to look at your feet all night, or are you going to talk to me?” he asked in a voice that was just above a whisper.
“Something happened you should know about.”
“Tell me.” He was trying to do something to me: I could feel his power hovering around me, but I batted it away. He sighed.
“I can’t stand up,” I said wearily. “Let’s sit on the ground or something. My feet are tired.”
In answer, he picked me up and set me on the hood of the car. Then he stood in front of me, his arms crossed, very obviously waiting.
“Tell me.”
“Dawn was murdered. Just like Maudette Pickens.”
“Dawn?”
Suddenly I felt a little better. “The other waitress at the bar.”
“The redheaded one, the one who’s been married so often?”
I felt a lot better. “No, the dark-haired one, the one who kept bumping into your chair with her hips to get you to notice her.”
“Oh, that one. She came to my house.”
“Dawn? When?”
“After you left the other night. The night the other vampires were there. She’s lucky she missed them. She was very confident of her ability to handle anything.”
I looked up at him. “Why is she so lucky? Wouldn’t you have protected her?”
Bill’s eyes were totally dark in the moonlight. “I don’t think so,” he said.
“You are . . .”
“I’m a vampire, Sookie. I don’t think like you. I don’t care about people automatically.”
“You protected me.”
“You’re different.”
“Yeah? I’m a waitress, like Dawn. I come from a plain family, like Maudette. What’s so different?”
I was in a sudden rage. I knew what was coming.
His cool finger touched the middle of my forehead. “Different,” he said. “You’re not like us. But you’re not like them, either.”
I felt a flare of rage so intense it was almost divine. I hauled off and hit him, an insane thing to do. It was like hitting a Brink’s armored truck. In a flash, he had me off the car and pinned to him, my arms bound to my sides by one of his arms.
“No!” I screamed. I kicked and fought, but I might as well have saved the energy. Finally I