Dead until Dark

The air grew hazy around the collie, seemed to hum and vibrate with energy, and then the form began to change within that electric concentration. When the haze cleared, there was Sam kneeling on the floor, buck-naked. Wow, what a bottom. I had to make myself close my eyes, tell myself repeatedly that I had not been unfaithful to Bill. Bill's butt, I told myself staunchly, was every bit as neat.

"I'm ready," Sam's voice said, so close behind me that I jumped. I stood up quickly and turned to face him, and found his face about six inches from mine.

"Sookie," he said hopefully, his hand landing on my shoul­der, rubbing and caressing it.

I was angry because half of me wanted to respond. "Listen here, buddy, you could have told me about your­self any time in the past few years. We've known each other what, four years? Or even more! And yet, Sam, despite the fact that I see you almost daily, you wait until Bill is inter­ested in me, before you even..." and unable to think how to finish, I threw my hands up in the air. Sam drew back, which was a good thing. "I didn't see what was in front of me until I thought it might be taken away," he said, his voice quiet.

I had nothing to say to that. 'Time to go home," I told him. "And we better get you there without anyone seeing you. I mean it."

This was chancy enough without some mischievous person like Rene seeing Sam in my car in the early morning and drawing wrong conclusions. And passing them on to Bill.

So off we went, Sam hunched down in the backseat. I pulled cautiously behind Merlotte's. There was a truck there; black, with pink and aqua flames down the sides. Jason's. "Uh-oh," I said.

"What?" Sam's voice was somewhat muffled by his po­sition.

"Let me go look," I said, begi

I opened my door. I waited for the sound to alert the figure in the truck. I watched for evidence of movement. When nothing happened, I began to walk across the gravel, as frightened as I'd ever been in the light of day.

When I got closer to the window, I could see that the figure inside was Jason. He was slumped behind the wheel. I could see that his shirt was stained, that his chin was resting on his chest, that his hands were limp on the seat on either side of him, that the mark on his handsome face was a long red scratch. I could see a videotape resting on the truck dash­board, unlabelled.

"Sam," I said, hating the fear in my voice. "Please come here."

Quicker than I could believe, Sam was beside me, then teaching past me to unlatch the truck door. Since the truck had apparently been sitting there for several hours—there was dew on its hood—with the windows closed, in the early summer, the smell that rolled out was pretty strong and com­pounded of at least three elements: blood, sex, and liquor.

"Call the ambulance!" I said urgently as Sam reached in to feel for Jason's pulse. Sam looked at me doubtfully. "Are you sure you want to do that?" he asked.

"Of course! He's unconscious!"

"Wait, Sookie. Think about this."

And I might have reconsidered m just a minute, but at that moment Arlene pulled up in her beat-up blue Ford, and Sam sighed and went into his trailer to phone.

I was so naive. That's what comes of being a law-abiding citizen for nearly every day of my life.

I rode with Jason to the tiny local hospital, oblivious to the police looking very carefully at Jason's truck, blind to the squad car following the ambulance, totally trusting when the emergency room doctor sent me home, telling me he'd call me when Jason regained consciousness. The doctor told me, eyeing me curiously, that Jason was apparently sleeping off the effects of alcohol or drugs. But Jason had never drunk that much before, and Jason didn't use drugs: our cousin Hadley's descent into the life of the streets had made a pro­found impression on both of us. I told the doctor all that, and he listened, and he shooed me off.

Not knowing what to think, I went home to find that Andy Bellefleur had been roused by his pager. He'd left me a note telling me that, and nothing else. Later on, I found that he'd actually been in the hospital while I was there, and waited until I was gone out of consideration for me before he'd handcuffed Jason to the bed.

Chapter 12

 SAM CAME TO give me the news about eleven o'clock. "They're going to arrest Jason as soon as he comes to, Sookie, which looks like being soon." Sam didn't tell me how he came to know this, and I didn't ask.

I stared at him, tears ru

"They think it looks like Amy Burley put up a fight. They think he got drunk after he killed her."

"Thanks, Sam, for warning me." My voice came from way faraway. "You better go to work, now."

After Sam had seen that I needed to be alone, I called information and got the number of Blood in the Quarter. I punched in the numbers, feeling somehow I was doing a bad thing, but I couldn't think how or why.

"Bloooooood ... in the Quarter," a

Geez. "Good morning. This is Sookie Stackhouse calling from Bon Temps," I said politely. "I need to leave a message for Bill Compton. He's a guest there."

"Fang or human?" "Ah ... fang." "Just one minute, please."

The deep voice came back on the line after a moment "What is the message, madam?" That gave me pause.

"Please tell Mr. Compton that... my brother has been ar­rested, and I would appreciate it if he could come home as soon as his business is completed."

"I have that down." The sound of scribbling. "And your name again?"

"Stackhouse. Sookie Stackhouse." "All right, miss. I'll see to it that he gets your message." "Thanks."

And that was the only action I could think of to take, until I realized it would be much more practical to call Sid Matt Lancaster. He did his best to sound appalled to hear Jason was going to be arrested, said he'd hurry over to the hospital as soon as he got out of court that afternoon, and that he'd report back to me.

I drove back to the hospital to see if they'd let me sit with Jason until he became conscious. They wouldn't. I wondered if he was already conscious, and they weren't telling me. I saw Andy Bellefleur at the other end of the hall, and he turned and walked the other way. Damn coward.

I went home because I couldn't think of anything to do. I realized it wasn't a workday for me anyway, and that was a good thing, though I didn't really care too much at that point. It occurred to me that I wasn't handling this as well as I ought, that I had been much steadier when Gran had died.

But that had been a finite situation. We would bury Gran, her killer would be arrested, we would go on. If the police seriously believed that Jason had killed Gran in addition to the other women, then the world was such a bad and chancy place that I wanted no part of it.

But I realized, as I sat and looked in front of me that long, long afternoon, that it was naivete like that that had led to Jason's arrest. If I'd just gotten him into Sam's trailer and cleaned him up, hidden the film until I found out what it contained, above all not called the ambulance ... that had been what Sam had been thinking when he'd looked at me so doubtfully. However, Arlene's arrival had kind of wiped out my options.

I thought the phone would start ringing as soon as people heard.