Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [475]
The phone rang. “Hello,” I said, not expecting anything good.
“Sookie, hi, it’s Alcide.”
I found myself smiling. Alcide Herveaux, who worked in his father’s surveying business in Shreveport, was one of my favorite people. He was a Were, he was both sexy and hardworking, and I liked him very much. He’d also been Debbie Pelt’s fiancé. But Alcide had abjured her before she vanished, in a rite that made her invisible and inaudible to him—not literally, but in effect.
“Sookie, I’m at Merlotte’s. I’d thought you might be working tonight, so I drove over. Can I come to the house? I need to talk to you.”
“You know you’re in danger, coming to Bon Temps.”
“No, why?”
“Because of the sniper.” I could hear the bar sounds in the background. There was no mistaking Arlene’s laugh. I was betting the new bartender was charming one and all.
“Why would I worry about that?” Alcide hadn’t been thinking about the news too hard, I decided.
“All the people who got shot? They were two-natured,” I said. “Now they’re saying on the news there’ve been a lot more across the south. Random shootings in small towns. Bullets that match the one recovered from Heather Kinman here. And I’m betting all the other victims were shape-shifters, too.”
There was a thoughtful silence on the end of the line, if silence can be characterized.
“I hadn’t realized,” Alcide said. His deep, rumbly voice was even more deliberate than normal.
“Oh, and have you talked to the private detectives?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“If they see us talking together, it’ll look very suspicious to Debbie’s family.”
“Debbie’s family has hired private eyes to look for her?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Listen, I’m coming to your house.” He hung up the phone.
I didn’t know why on earth the detectives would be watching my house, or where they’d watch it from, but if they saw Debbie’s former fiancé tootling down my driveway, it would be easy to connect the dots and come up with a totally erroneous picture. They’d think Alcide killed Debbie to clear the way for me, and nothing could be more wrong. I hoped like hell that Jack Leeds and Lily Bard Leeds were sound asleep rather than staked out in the woods somewhere with a pair of binoculars.
Alcide hugged me. He always did. And once again I was overwhelmed by the size of him, the masculinity, the familiar smell. Despite the warning bell ringing in my head, I hugged him back.
We sat on the couch and half turned to face each other. Alcide was wearing work clothes, which in this weather consisted of a flannel shirt worn open over a T-shirt, heavy jeans, and thick socks under his work boots. His tangle of black hair had a crease in it from his hard hat, and he was beginning to look a little bristly.
“Tell me about the detectives,” he said, and I described the couple and told him what they’d said.
“Debbie’s family didn’t say anything to me about it,” Alcide said. He turned it over in his head for a minute. I could follow his thinking. “I think that means they’re sure I made her vanish.”
“Maybe not. Maybe they just think you’re so grieved they don’t want to bring it up.”
“Grieved.” Alcide mulled that over for a minute. “No. I spent all the . . .” He paused, grappling for words. “I used up all the energy I had to spare for her,” he said finally. “I was so blind, I almost think she used some kind of magic on me. Her mother’s a spellcaster and half shifter. Her dad’s a full-blooded shifter.”
“You think that’s possible? Magic?” I wasn’t questioning that magic existed, but that Debbie had used it.
“Why else would I stick with her for so long? Ever since she’s gone missing, it’s been like someone took a pair of dark glasses off my eyes. I was willing to forgive her so much, like when she pushed you into the trunk.”
Debbie