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He shook his head. “I know you can do that, but I’m always taken by surprise.” I could hear that he was disconcerted. “I’ll pick you up at eleven thirty,” he said.

“Let me see about swapping shifts.”

I called Holly and found it suited her to switch shifts with me. “I can just drive over there and meet you,” I offered.

“No,” he said. “I’ll come get you and bring you back.”

Okay, if he wanted to go to the trouble of fetching me, I could live with it. I’d save mileage on my car, I figured. My old Nova was none too reliable.

“All right. I’ll be ready.”

“I better go,” he said. The silence drew out. I knew Alcide was thinking of kissing me. He leaned over and kissed me lightly on the lips. We regarded each other from a few inches apart.

“Well, I have some things I need to be doing, and you should be going back to Shreveport. I’ll be ready at eleven thirty tomorrow.”

After Alcide left, I got my library book, Carolyn Haines’s latest, and tried to forget my worries. But for once, a book just couldn’t do the trick. I tried a hot soak in the bathtub, and I shaved my legs until they were perfectly smooth. I painted my toenails and fingernails a deep pink and then I plucked my eyebrows. Finally, I felt relaxed, and when I crawled into my bed I had achieved peace through pampering. Sleep came upon me in such a rush that I didn’t finish my prayers.

6

YOU HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO WEAR TO A FUNERAL, just like any other social occasion, even if it seems your clothes should be the last thing on your mind. I had liked and admired Colonel Flood during our brief acquaintance, so I wanted to look appropriate at his burial service, especially after Alcide’s comments.

I just couldn’t find anything in my closet that seemed right. About eight the next morning, I phoned Tara, who told me where her emergency key was. “Get whatever you need out of my closet,” Tara said. “Just be sure you don’t go into any other rooms, okay? Go straight from the back door to my room and back out again.”

“That’s what I’d be doing anyway,” I said, trying not to sound offended. Did Tara think I’d rummage around her house just to pry?

“Of course you would, but I just feel responsible.”

Suddenly, I understood that Tara was telling me that there was a vampire sleeping in her house. Maybe it was the bodyguard Mickey, maybe Franklin Mott. After Eric’s warning, I wanted to stay far away from Mickey. Only the very oldest vampires could rise before dark, but coming across a sleeping vampire would give me a nasty start in and of itself.

“Okay, I get you,” I said hastily. The idea of being alone with Mickey made me shiver, and not with happy anticipation. “Straight in, straight out.” Since I didn’t have any time to waste, I jumped in my car and drove into town to Tara’s little house. It was a modest place in a modest part of town, but Tara’s owning her own home was a miracle, when I recalled the place where she’d grown up.

Some people should never breed; if their children have the misfortune to be born, those children should be taken away immediately. That’s not allowed in our country, or any country that I know of, and I’m sure in my brainier moments that’s a good thing. But the Thorntons, both alcoholics, had been vicious people who should have died years earlier than they did. (I forget my religion when I think of them.) I remember Myrna Thornton tearing my grandmother’s house up looking for Tara, ignoring my grandmother’s protests, until Gran had to call the sheriff’s department to come drag Myrna out. Tara had run out our back door to hide in the woods behind our house when she had seen the set of her mother’s shoulders as Mrs. Thornton staggered to our door, thank God. Tara and I had been thirteen at the time.

I can still see the look on my grandmother’s face while she talked to the deputy who’d just put Myrna Thornton in the back of the patrol car, handcuffed and screaming.

“Too bad I can’t drop her off in the bayou on the way back to town,” the deputy had said. I couldn’t recall his name, but his words had impressed