Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [778]
“I expect I’ll get fired over it, especially after the murders,” the security chief said. His voice was calm, but his thoughts were bitter. He needed the health insurance.
Andre gave the security chief one of his long, blue gazes. “And how did the can come to be on the queen’s floor, in that area?” Andre couldn’t have cared less about Todd Donati’s job situation. Donati glared back, but it was a weary kind of glare.
“Why on earth would you be fired, just because someone was able to bring a bomb in and plant it? Maybe because you are in charge of the safety of everyone in the hotel?” Gervaise asked, definitely on the cruel side. I didn’t know Gervaise very well, and I was beginning to feel that was just fine with me. Cleo slapped him on the arm hard enough to make Gervaise wince.
Donati said, “That’s it in a nutshell. Obviously someone brought that bomb up and put it on the potted plant by the elevator door. It might have been meant for the queen, since it was closest to her door. Almost equally, it might have been meant for anyone else on the floor, or it might have been planted at random. So I think the bomb and the murder of the Arkansas vampires are two different cases. In our questioning, we’re finding Jennifer Cater didn’t have a lot of friends. Your queen isn’t the only one with a grudge against her, though your queen’s is the most serious. Possibly Jennifer planted the bomb, or arranged to have someone else do it, before she was murdered.” I saw Henrik Feith sitting in a corner of the suite, his beard quivering with the shaking of his head. I tried to picture the one remaining member of the Arkansas contingent creeping around with a bomb, and I just couldn’t feature it. The small vampire seemed convinced that he was in a nest of vipers. I was sure he was regretting his acceptance of the queen’s protection, because right now that was looking like it wasn’t a very reliable prospect.
“There is much to do here and now,” Andre said. He sounded just a shade concerned, and he was riding his own conversational train. “It was rash of Christian Baruch to threaten to fire you now, when he needs your loyalty the most.”
“The guy’s got a temper on him,” Todd Donati said, and I knew without a doubt that he wasn’t a native of Rhodes. The more stressed he got, the more he sounded like home; not Louisiana, maybe, but northern Tennessee. “The ax hasn’t fallen yet. And if we can get to the bottom of what’s happening, maybe I’ll get reinstated. Not too many people would cotton to this job. Lots of security people don’t like—”
Working with the damn vampires, Donati completed his sentence silently to everyone but me and him. He reminded himself harshly to stick to the immediate present. “Don’t like the hours it takes to run security in a big place like this,” he finished out loud, for the vampires’ benefit. “But I enjoy the work.” My kids will need the benefits when I die. Just two more months and coverage will stay with them after I pass.
He’d come to the queen’s suite to talk to me about the Dr Pepper incident (as had the police, and the ever-present Christian Baruch), but he was staying to chat. Though the vampires didn’t seem to notice, Donati was so chatty because he had taken some heavy pain medication. I felt sorry for him, and at the same time I realized that someone with so many distractions wasn’t likely to be doing a good job. What had gotten by Donati in the past couple of months, since his illness had begun affecting his daily life?
Maybe he’d hired the wrong people. Maybe he’d omitted some vital step in protecting the guests of the hotel. Maybe—I was distracted by a wave of warmth.
Eric was coming.
I’d never had such a clear sense of his presence, and my heart sank as I knew the blood exchange had been an important one.