Dead and Gone

about Arlene and her arrest.
    There was too much happening.
    I had another moment of sickening dizziness, but it passed quickly, as it had before. Sam didn’t even notice. He was lost in gloomy reflection, at least as far as I could read his twisty shapeshifter mind.
    “Walk me to my car,” I said impulsively. I needed to get home and get some sleep, and I had no idea if Eric would show up tonight or not. I didn’t want anyone else to pop up and surprise me, as Murry had done. I didn’t want anyone trying to lure me to my doom or shooting guns in my vicinity. No more betrayal by people I cared for, either.
    I had a long list of requirements, and I knew that wasn’t a good thing.
    As I pulled my purse out of the drawer in Sam’s office and called good night to Antoine, who was still cleaning in the kitchen, I realized that the height of my ambition was to get home and go to bed without talking to anyone else, and to sleep undisturbed all night.
    I wondered if that was possible.
    Sam didn’t say anything else about Eric, and he seemed to attribute my asking him to escort me as an attack of nerves after the incident at the trailer. I could have stood just inside the bar door and looked out with my other sense, but it was best to be double careful; my telepathy and Sam’s nose made a good combination. He was eager to check the parking lot. In fact, he sounded almost disappointed when he announced there was nothing out there but us.
    As I drove away, in my rearview mirror I saw Sam leaning on the hood of his truck, which was parked in front of his trailer. He had his hands in his pockets, and he was glaring at the gravel on the ground as if he hated the sight of it. Just as I pulled around the corner of the bar, Sam patted the truck’s hood in an absentminded way and walked back into the bar, his shoulders bowed.

Chapter 13
    “Amelia, what works against fairies?” I asked. I’d gotten a full night’s sleep, and I was feeling much better in consequence. Amelia’s boss was out of town, so she had the afternoon off.
    “You mean something that’ll act as a fairy repellent?” she asked.
    “Yeah, or cause fairy death even,” I said. “That’s preferable to me getting killed. I need to defend myself.”
    “I don’t know too much about fairies, since they’re so rare and secretive,” she said. “I wasn’t sure they still existed until I heard about your great-grandfather. You need something like Mace for fairies, huh?”
    I had a sudden idea. “I’ve already got some, Amelia,” I said, feeling happier than I had in days. I looked in the racks on the door of the refrigerator. Sure enough, there was a bottle of ReaLemon. “Now all I got to do is buy a water pistol at Wal-Mart,” I said. “It’s not summer, but surely they’ve got some over in the toy department.”
    “That works?”
    “Yeah, a little-known supernatural fact. Just contact with it is fatal. I understand if it’s ingested, the result’s even quicker. If you could squirt it in a fairy’s open mouth, that would be one dead fairy.”
    “Sounds like you’re in big trouble, Sookie.” Amelia had been reading, but now she laid her book on the table.
    “Yeah, I am.”
    “You want to talk about it?”
    “It’s complicated. Hard to explain.”
    “I understand the definition of ‘complicated.’”
    “Sorry. Well, it might not be safe for you to learn the ins and outs of it. Can you help? Will your wards work against fairies?”
    “I’ll check my sources,” Amelia said in that wise way she had when she didn’t have a clue. “I’ll call Octavia if I have to.”
    “I’d appreciate it. And if you need some kind of spell-casting ingredients, money is no object.” I’d gotten a check in the mail that very morning from Sophie-Anne’s estate. Mr. Cataliades had come through with the money she’d owed me. I was going to run it to the bank this afternoon, since the drive-through would be open.
    Amelia took a deep breath, stalled. I waited. Since she’s an exceptionally clear broadcaster, I knew what she wanted to talk about, but to keep our relationship on an even keel, I simply held out until she spoke out loud.
    “I heard from Tray, who’s got a couple friends on the police force—though not many—that Whit and Arlene are denying up and down that they killed Crystal. They . . . Arlene says they planned on making you an example of what happens to people who hang around with the supernatural; that it was Crystal’s