Dead and Gone

dad was immensely wealthy, even after Katrina. The hurricane had spared most of the materials at his contracting warehouse and provided him with enough work to last for decades.
    According to Amelia’s brain, tonight was the night—not the night Tray asked Amelia to marry him, but the night Tray came out. Tray’s dual nature was a plus to my roommate, who was attracted by the exotic.
    I went in the employee entrance and right to Sam’s office. “Hey, boss,” I said when I saw him behind his desk. Sam hated to work on the books, but that was what he was doing. Maybe it was providing a needed distraction. Sam looked worried. His hair was even more tangled than usual, its strawberry waves standing out in a halo around his narrow face.
    “Brace yourself. Tonight’s the night,” he said.
    I was so proud he’d told me, and he’d echoed my own thoughts so closely, I couldn’t help but smile. “I’m ready. I’ll be right here.” I dropped my purse in the deep drawer in his desk and went to tie on my apron. I was relieving Holly, but after I’d had a talk with her about the customers at our tables, I said, “You oughta stick around tonight.”
    She looked at me sharply. Holly had recently been letting her hair grow out, so the dyed black ends looked like they’d been dipped in tar. Her natural color, now showing about an inch at the roots, turned out to be a pleasant light brown. She’d colored it for so long that I’d clean forgotten. “This going to be good enough for me to keep Hoyt waiting?” she asked. “Him and Cody get along like a house on fire, but I am Cody’s mama.” Hoyt, my brother Jason’s best buddy, had been co-opted by Holly. Now he was her follower.
    “You should stay awhile.” I gave her a significant lift of my eyebrows.
    Holly said, “The Weres?” I nodded, and her face brightened with a grin. “Oh, boy! Arlene’s going to have a shit fit.”
    Arlene, our coworker and former friend, had become politically sensitized a few months before by one of her string of man friends. Now she was somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun, especially on vampire issues. She’d even joined the Fellowship of the Sun, a church in all but name. She was standing at one of her tables now, having a serious conversation with her man, Whit Spradlin, a FotS official of some sort who had a day job at one of the Shreveport Home Depots. He had a sizeable bald patch and a little paunch, but that didn’t make any nevermind to me. His politics did. He had a buddy with him, of course. The FotS people seemed to run in packs—just like another minority group they were about to meet.
    My brother, Jason, was at a table, too, with Mel Hart. Mel worked at Bon Temps Auto Parts, and he was about Jason’s age, maybe thirty-one. Slim and hard-bodied, Mel had longish light brown hair, a mustache and beard, and a pleasant face. I’d been seeing Jason with Mel a lot lately. Jason had had to fill the gap Hoyt had left, I assumed. Jason wasn’t happy without a sidekick. Tonight both men had dates. Mel was divorced, but Jason was still nominally married, so he had no business being out in public with another woman. Not that anyone here would blame him. Jason’s wife, Crystal, had been caught cheating with a local guy.
    I’d heard Crystal had moved her pregnant self back to the little community of Hotshot to stay with relatives. (She could find a room in any house in Hotshot and be with relatives. It’s that kind of place.) Mel Hart had been born in Hotshot, too, but he was the rare member of the tribe who’d chosen to live elsewhere.
    To my surprise Bill, my ex-boyfriend, was sitting with another vampire, named Clancy. Clancy wasn’t my favorite guy regardless of his nonliving status. They both had bottles of TrueBlood on the table in front of them. I didn’t think Clancy had ever dropped in to Merlotte’s for a casual drink before, and certainly never with Bill.
    “Hey, guys, need a refill?” I asked, smiling for all I was worth. I’m a little nervous around Bill.
    “Please,” Bill said politely, and Clancy shoved his empty bottle toward me.
    I stepped behind the bar to get two more TrueBloods out of the refrigerator, and I uncapped them and popped them in the microwave. (Fifteen seconds works best.) I shook the bottles gently and put the warm drinks on the tray with some fresh napkins. Bill’s cold hand touched mine as I placed his drink in front of him.
    He said, “If you need any help at your