A Touch of Dead

thing,” Amelia said. But we both believed that Greg had unwittingly tipped over a cosmic applecart.
    “There weren’t any nulls at any of the other agencies,” Amelia said. “It’s got to be John Robert or his clerk. I didn’t get to check either of them.”
    “He’ll be going to lunch any minute,” I said, glancing down at my watch. “Probably Sally will be, too. I’ll go to the back where they park and stall them. Do you just have to be close?”
    “If I have one of my spells, it’ll be better,” she said. She darted over to the car and unlocked it, pulling out her purse. I hurried around to the back of the building, just a block off the main street but surrounded by crepe myrtles.
    I managed to catch John Robert as he left his office to go to lunch. His car was dirty. His clothes were disheveled. He slumped. I knew him by sight, but we’d never had a conversation.
    “Mr. Briscoe,” I said, and his head swung up. He seemed confused. Then his face cleared, and he tried to smile.
    “Sookie Stackhouse, right? Girl, it’s been an age since I saw you.”
    “I guess you don’t come in Merlotte’s much.”

    “No, I pretty much go home to the wife and kids in the evening,” he said. “They’ve got a lot of activities.”
    “Do you ever go over to Greg Aubert’s office?” I asked, trying to sound gentle.
    He stared at me for a long moment. “No, why would I do that?”
    And I could tell, hear from his head directly, that he absolutely didn’t know what I was talking about. But there came Sally Lundy, steam practically coming out of her ears at the sight of me talking to her boss when she’d done her best to shield him.
    “Sally,” John Robert said, relieved to see his righthand woman, “this young woman wants to know if I’ve been to Greg’s office lately.”
    “I’ll just bet she does,” Sally said, and even John Robert blinked at the venom in her voice.
    And I got it then, the name I’d been waiting for.
    “It’s you,” I said. “You’re the one, Ms. Lundy. What are you doing that for?” If I hadn’t known I had backup, I would’ve been scared. Speaking of backup . . .
    “What am I doing it for?” she screeched. “You have the gall, the nerve, the . . . the balls to ask me that?”
    John Robert couldn’t have looked more horrified if she’d sprouted horns.

    “Sally,” he said, very anxiously. “Sally, maybe you need to sit down.”
    “You can’t see it!” she shrieked. “You can’t see it. That Greg Aubert, he’s dealing with the devil! Diane and Bailey are in the same boat we are, and it’s sinking! Do you know how many claims he had to handle last week? Three! Do you know how many new policies he wrote? Thirty!”
    John Robert literally staggered when he heard the numbers. He recovered enough to say, “Sally, we can’t make wild accusations against Greg. He’s a fine man. He’d never . . .”
    But Greg had, however blindly.
    Sally decided it would be a good time to kick me in the shins, and I was really glad I was wearing jeans instead of shorts that day. Okay, anytime now, Amelia, I thought. John Robert was windmilling his arms and yelling at Sally—though not moving to restrain her, I noticed—and Sally was yelling back at the top of her lungs and venting her feelings about Greg Aubert and that bitch Marge who worked for him. She had a lot to say about Marge. No love lost there.
    By that time I was holding Sally off at arm’s length,
and I was sure my legs would be black-and-blue the next day.
    Finally, finally , Amelia appeared, breathless and disarranged. “Sorry,” she panted, “you’re not going to believe this, but my foot got stuck between the car seat and the doorsill, then I fell, and my keys went under the car . . . anyway, Congelo! ”
    Sally’s foot stopped in midswing, so she was balancing on one skinny leg. Greg had both hands in the air in a gesture of despair. I touched his arm, and he felt as hard as the frozen vampire had the other night. At least he wasn’t holding me.
    “Now what?” I asked.
    “I thought you knew!” she said. “We’ve got to get them off thinking about Greg and his luck!”
    “The problem is, I think Greg’s used up all the luck going around,” I said. “Look at the problems you had just getting out of the car here.”
    She looked intensely thoughtful. “Yeah, we have to have a chat with Greg,” she said. “But first, we’ve got to get out of this situation.” Holding out her right hand