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After I retrieved my things, I might have time to go see Calvin. I showered and dressed, and Crystal was sitting in the living room watching TV when I left. I assumed that was okay with Jason.

Terry was hard at work when I pulled into the clearing. I walked around back to check his progress, and I was delighted to see he’d done more than I’d have thought possible. He smiled when I said so, and paused in loading broken boards into his truck. “Tearing down is always easier than building up,” he said. This was no big philosophical statement, but a builder’s summary. “I should be done in two more days, if nothing happens to slow me down. There’s no rain in the forecast.”

“Great. How much will I owe you?”

“Oh,” he muttered, shrugging and looking embarrassed. “A hundred? Fifty?”

“No, not enough.” I ran a quick estimate of his hours in my head, multiplied. “More like three.”

“Sookie, I’m not charging you that much.” Terry got his stubborn face on. “I wouldn’t charge you anything, but I got to get a new dog.”

Terry bought a very expensive Catahoula hunting dog about every four years. He wasn’t turning in the old models for new ones. Something always seemed to happen to Terry’s dogs, though he took great care of them. After he’d had the first hound about three years, a truck had hit him. Someone had fed poisoned meat to the second. The third one, the one he’d named Molly, had gotten snake-bit, and the bite had turned septic. For months now, Terry had been on the list for one in the next litter born at the kennel in Clarice that bred Catahoulas.

“You bring that puppy around for me to hug,” I suggested, and he smiled. Terry was at his best in the outdoors, I realized for the first time. He always seemed more comfortable mentally and physically when he was not under a roof, and when he was outside with a dog, he seemed quite normal.

I unlocked the house and went in to gather what I might need. It was a sunny day, so the absence of electric light wasn’t a problem. I filled a big plastic laundry basket with two sets of sheets and an old chenille bedspread, some more clothes, and a few pots and pans. I would have to get a new coffeepot. My old one had melted.

And then, standing there looking out the window at the coffeemaker, which I’d pitched to the top of the trash heap, I understood how close I’d come to dying. The realization hit me broadside.

One minute I was standing at my bedroom window, looking out at the misshaped bit of plastic; the next I was sitting on the floor, staring at the painted boards and trying to breathe.

Why did it hit me now, after three days? I don’t know. Maybe there was something about the way the Mr. Coffee looked: cord charred, plastic warped with the heat. The plastic had literally bubbled. I looked at the skin of my hands and shuddered. I stayed on the floor, shivering and shaking, for an unmeasured bit of time. For the first minute or two after that, I had no thoughts at all. The closeness of my brush with death simply overwhelmed me.

Claudine had not only most probably saved my life; she had certainly saved me from pain so excruciating that I would have wanted to be dead. I owed her a debt I would never be able to repay.

Maybe she really was my fairy godmother.

I got up, shook myself. Grabbing up the plastic basket, I left to go move into my new home.

12

I LET MYSELF IN WITH THE KEY I’D GOTTEN FROM SAM. I was on the right side of a duplex, the mirror of the one next door presently occupied by Halleigh Robinson, the young schoolteacher dating Andy Bellefleur. I figured I was likely to have police protection at least part of the time, and Halleigh would be gone during most of the day, which was nice considering my late hours.

The living room was small and contained a flowered couch, a low coffee table, and an armchair. The next room was the kitchen, which was tiny, of course. But it had a stove, a refrigerator, and a microwave. No dishwasher, but I’d never had one.