Dead Ever After

fellas. And here’s some hot sauce, if you want to live dangerously. Eat and enjoy.”
    Right on the heels of that thought, Karin glided through the front door. She looked around her as if she were in the monkey house at the zoo. Her eyebrows elevated slightly. Then she locked in on me, and she made her way toward me with a smoothness and economy of movement I envied.
    “Sookie,” she said quietly, “Eric needs you to come to him now.” We were attracting no small amount of attention. Karin’s beauty, her pallor, and her creepy glide were a combo that added up to Watch me, I’m beautiful and lethal.
    “Karin, I’m working,” I said, in that sort of hiss that comes out when you’re pissed off but trying to keep your voice down. “See? Earning a living?”
    She looked around her. “Here? Truly?” Her tiny white nose wrinkled.
    I took hold of my temper with both hands. “Yes, here. This is my business.”
    Sam came up, trying hard to act casual. “Sookie, who’s your friend?”
    “Sam, this is Karin the—this is Karin Slaughter, my alibi for last night. She’s here to tell me Eric needs me in Shreveport. Now.”
    Sam was trying to look genial, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Karin, nice to meet you. We’re pretty busy. Can’t Eric wait for an hour?”
    “No.” Karin didn’t look stubborn or angry or impatient. She looked matter-of-fact.
    We stood silently regarding each other for a long moment.
    “All right, Sook, I’ll take your tables,” Sam said. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll manage.”
    “You’re the boss, Sam.” Karin’s arctic eyes gave my boss—my partner—a laserlike examination.
    “I’m the boss, Sam,” he said agreeably. “Sook, I’ll come if you need me . . .”
    “I’ll be fine,” I said, though I knew that wasn’t true. “Really, don’t worry.”
    Sam looked torn. A group of thirtyish women who were celebrating a divorce began hollering for a refill on their pitcher of beer. They were the deciding factor. “Will you be responsible for her safety?” Sam said to Karin.
    “With my existence,” Karin said calmly.
    “Let me get my purse,” I told Karin, and hurried to the lockers at the back of the storeroom. I whipped off my apron, dropped it in the “dirty” barrel, and changed into a clean T-shirt from my locker. I brushed my hair in the ladies’ room, though since it had a dent all around from the elastic band, I had to put it back up in its ponytail. At least it looked neater.
    No shower, no fresh dress, no nice shoes. At least I had lipstick.
    I stuck my tongue out at the mirror and slung my purse over my shoulder. Time to face the music, though I didn’t know what tune would be playing.
    I didn’t know how Karin had arrived at Merlotte’s; maybe she could fly, like Eric. She rode with me in my car to Shreveport. Eric’s oldest child wasn’t much of a talker. Her only question was, “How long did it take you to learn to drive a car?” She seemed mildly interested when I told her I’d taken driver’s education in high school. After that, she stared ahead of her. She might be thinking deep thoughts about the world economy, or she might be totally miffed that she’d gotten escort detail. I had no way of knowing.
    Finally, I said, “Karin, I guess you just got to Louisiana recently. How long had it been since you’d seen Eric?”
    “I arrived two days ago. It had been two hundred and fifty-three years since I saw my maker.”
    “I guess he hadn’t changed much,” I said, perhaps a bit sarcastically. Vampires never changed.
    “No,” she said, and fell silent again.
    She wasn’t going to give me a way to ease into the topic I had to broach. I simply had to take the plunge. “Karin, as I asked Mustapha to tell you, the police in Bon Temps may want to talk to you about when you saw me last night.”
    Karin did turn to look at me then. Though I was watching the road, I could see the movement of her head out of the corner of my eye.
    “Mustapha gave me your message, yes. What shall I say?” she asked.
    “That you saw me in my house about eleven thirty or midnight, whichever it was, and that you watched the house until daybreak, so you know I didn’t leave,” I said. “Isn’t that the truth?”
    Karin said, “It might be.” And then she didn’t say one more word.
    Karin was pretty fucking irritating. Excuse me.
    I was actually glad to get to Fangtasia. I was used to parking in the back with the staff. Just as I was about to