All Together Dead

heritage counted against him, and he’d have to bust his tail to earn points. But Jake didn’t have that fire in him. He was looking to the past, to his life as a Were. He had a backlog of bitterness.
    Sophie’s suite had been cleaned; all the vampire suites had to be cleaned at night, of course, while the vamps were out of them. Christian Baruch started telling us about the extra help he’d had to take on to cope with the summit crowd and how nervous some of them were about cleaning rooms occupied by vampires. I could tell Sophie-Anne was not impressed by Baruch’s assumption of superiority. He was so much younger than her, he must seem like a swaggering teenager to the centuries-old queen.
    Jake came in just then, and after paying his respects to the queen and meeting Dahlia, he came to sit by me. I was slumping in an uncomfortable straight chair, and he pulled a matching one over.
    “What’s up, Jake?”
    “Not much. I’ve been getting the queen and Andre tickets to a show for tomorrow night. It’s an all-vampire production of Hello, Dolly! ”
    I tried to imagine that, found I couldn’t. “What are you going to be doing? It’s marked as free time on the schedule.”
    “I don’t know,” he said, a curiously remote tone in his voice. “My life has changed so much I just can’t predict what will happen. Are you going out tomorrow in the day, Sookie? Shopping, maybe? There are some wonderful stores on Widewater Drive. That’s down by the lake.”
    Even I had heard of Widewater Drive, and I said, “I guess it’s possible. I’m not much of a shopper.”
    “You really should go. There’re some great shoe stores, and a big Macy’s—you’d love Macy’s. Make a day of it. Get away from this place while you can.”
    “I’ll sure think about it,” I said, a little puzzled. “Um, have you seen Quinn today?”
    “Glimpsed him. And I talked to Frannie for a minute. They’ve been busy getting props ready for the closing ceremonies.”
    “Oh,” I said. Right. Sure. That took loads of time.
    “Call him, ask him to take you out tomorrow,” Jake said.
    I tried to picture me asking Quinn to take me shopping. Well, it wasn’t totally out of the question, but it wasn’t likely, either. I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll get out some.”
    He looked pleased.
    “Sookie, you can go,” Andre said. I was so tired I hadn’t even noticed him glide up.
    “Okay. Good night, you two,” I said, and stood to stretch. I noticed the blue suitcase was still where I’d dropped it two nights ago. “Oh, Jake, you need to take that suitcase back down to the basement. They called me and told me to bring it up here, but no one’s claimed it.”
    “I’ll ask around,” he said vaguely, and took off for his own room. Andre’s attention had already returned to the queen, who was laughing at the description of some wedding Dahlia had attended.
    “Andre,” I said in a very low voice, “I gotta tell you, I think Mr. Baruch had something to do with that bomb outside the queen’s door.”
    Andre looked as if someone had stuck a nail up his fundament. “What?”
    “I’m thinking that he wanted Sophie-Anne scared,” I said. “I’m thinking that he thought she’d be vulnerable and need a strong male protector if she felt threatened.”
    Andre was not Mr. Expressive, but I saw incredulity, disgust, and belief cross his face in quick order.
    “And I’m also thinking maybe he told Henrik Feith that Sophie-Anne was going to kill him. Because he’s the hotel owner, right? And he’d have a key to get into the queen’s room, where we thought Henrik was safe, right? So Henrik would continue the queen’s trial, because he’d been persuaded she would do him in. Again, Christian Baruch would be there, to be her big savior. Maybe he had Henrik killed, after he’d set him up, so he could do a tah- dah reveal and dazzle Sophie-Anne with his wonderful care of her.”
    Andre had the strangest expression on his face, as if he was having trouble following me. “Is there proof?” he asked.
    “Not a smidge. But when I talked to Mr. Donati in the lobby this morning, he hinted that there was a security tape I might want to watch.”
    “Go see,” Andre said.
    “If I go ask for it, he’ll get fired. You need to get the queen to ask Mr. Baruch point-blank if she can see the security tape for the lobby outside during the time the bomb was planted. Gum on the camera or not, that tape will show something.”
    “Leave first,