Dead in the Family

in the hall on, and his door was ajar an inch or two.
    I found I was exhausted and in no mood to puzzle over Heidi’s revelation. I wasn’t used to tending to a child, though Hunter had been easy to care for, especially for a little guy who was staying with a woman he didn’t know well. I hoped he’d enjoyed talking to me brain-to-brain. I also hoped Heidi hadn’t spooked him too much.
    I hadn’t let myself focus on her macabre little biography, but now that Hunter was asleep, I found myself thinking about her story. It was an awful pity that she’d had to return to Nevada during her son’s lifetime. In fact, she now probably looked the same age as her son, Charlie. What had happened to the boy’s father? Why had her maker required her return? When she’d first been turned, vampires hadn’t yet shown themselves to America and the rest of the world. Secrecy had been paramount. I had to agree with Heidi. Coming out of the coffin hadn’t solved all the vamps’ problems, and it had created quite a few new ones.
    I would almost rather not have known about the sadness Heidi carried around with her. Naturally, since I was my grandmother’s product, such a wish made me feel guilty. Shouldn’t we always be ready to listen to the sad stories of others? If they want to tell them, aren’t we obliged to listen? Now I felt I had a relationship with Heidi, based on her misery. Is that a real relationship? Was there something sympathetic about me that she liked, something that called this story forth? Or did she routinely tell new acquaintances about her son, Charlie? I could hardly believe that. I figured Hunter’s presence had triggered her confidences.
    I knew (though I didn’t want to admit it to myself) that if Heidi remained so distracted by the issue of her junkie son, one night he’d get a visit from someone ruthless. After that, she’d be able to focus her whole attention on the wishes of her employer. I shivered.
    Though I didn’t think Victor would hesitate a second to do such a thing, I wondered, Would—or could —Eric?
    If I could even ask myself that, I knew the answer was yes.
    On the other hand, Charlie made a great hostage to ensure Heidi’s good behavior. As in: “If you don’t spy on Eric, we’ll pay Charlie a visit.” But if that ever changed . . .
    All this Heidi meditation was by way of dodging the more immediate issue. Who was the fresh corpse in my woods, and who had planted it there?
    If Hunter hadn’t been there, I would’ve picked up the phone to call Eric. I would’ve asked him to bring a shovel and come to help me dig a body up. That was what a boyfriend should do, right? But I couldn’t leave Hunter alone in the house, and I would’ve felt terrible if I’d asked Eric to go out in the woods by himself, even though I knew he wouldn’t think anything about it. In fact, probably he’d have sent Pam. I sighed. I couldn’t seem to get rid of one problem without acquiring another.

Chapter 6
    At six in the morning, Hunter climbed onto my bed. “Aunt Sookie!” he said, in what he probably thought was a whisper. Just this once, his using our mind-to-mind communication would have been better. But naturally, he decided to talk out loud.
    “Uh-huh?” This had to be a bad dream.
    “I had a funny dream last night,” Hunter told me.
    “Uh?” Maybe a dream within a dream.
    “This tall man came in my room.”
    “Did?”
    “He had long hair like a lady.”
    I pushed up on my elbows and looked at Hunter, who didn’t seem frightened. “Yeah?” I said, which was at least borderline coherent. “What color?”
    “Yellow,” Hunter said, after a little thought. I suddenly realized that most five-year-olds might be a little shaky on the identification of colors.
    Uh-oh. “So what did he do?” I asked. I struggled to sit all the way up. The sky outside was just getting lighter.
    “He just looked at me, and he smiled,” Hunter said. “Then he went in the closet.”
    “Wow,” I said inadequately. I couldn’t be sure (until dark, that is), but it sounded very much as though Eric was in the secret hiding place in my closet and dead for the day.
    “I gotta go pee,” Hunter said, and slid off my bed to scamper into my bathroom. I heard him flush a minute later, and then he washed his hands—or at least, he turned on the water for a second. I collapsed back onto my pillows, thinking sadly of the hours of sleep I was doomed to lose. By sheer force of will, I got out of bed