Dead Reckoning: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

Dermot went in the house and returned with a glass of peach tea with lots of ice in it. He handed it to me silently. I thanked him and stared dismally at all the old things someone had once treasured. “Okay, we’ll start a burn pile,” I said, bowing to common sense. “Round back, where I usually burn the leaves?”
    Dermot and Claude glared at me.
    “Okay, right here on the gravel is fine,” I said. The last time my driveway had been graveled, the parking area in front of the house, outlined with landscape timbers, had gotten a fresh load, too. “It’s not like I get a lot of visitors.”
    By the time Dermot and Claude knocked off to shower and change for work, the parking area contained a substantial mound of useless items waiting for the torch. Stackhouse wives had stored extra sheets and coverlets, and most of them were in the same ragged condition as the curtains. To my deeper regret, many of the books were mildewed and mouse-chewed. I sighed and added them to the pile, though the very idea of burning books made me queasy. But broken furniture, rotted umbrellas, spotted place mats, an ancient leather suitcase with big holes in it . . . no one would ever need these items again.
    The pictures we’d uncovered—framed, in albums, or loose—we placed in a box in the living room. Documents were sorted into another box. I’d found some old dolls, too. I knew from television that people collected dolls, and perhaps these were worth something. There were some old guns, too, and a sword. Where was Antiques Roadshow when you needed it?
    Later that evening at Merlotte’s, I told my boss Sam about my day. Sam, a compact man who was actually immensely strong, was dusting the bottles behind the bar. We weren’t very busy that night. In fact, business hadn’t been good for the past few weeks. I didn’t know if the slump was due to the chicken processing plant closing or the fact that some people objected to Sam being a shapeshifter. (The two-natured had tried to emulate the successful transition of the vampires, but it hadn’t gone so well.) And there was a new bar, Vic’s Redneck Roadhouse, about ten miles west off the interstate. I’d heard the Redneck Roadhouse held all kinds of wet T-shirt contests, beer pong tournaments, and a promotion called “Bring in a Bubba Night”—crap like that.
    Popular crap. Crap that raked in the customers.
    Whatever the reasons, Sam and I had time to talk about attics and antiques.
    “There’s a store called Splendide in Shreveport,” Sam said. “Both the owners are appraisers. You could give them a call.”
    “How’d you know that?” Okay, maybe that wasn’t so tactful.
    “Well, I do know a few things besides tending bar,” Sam said, giving me a sideways look.
    I had to refill a pitcher of beer for one of my tables. When I returned, I said, “Of course you know all kinds of stuff. I just didn’t know you were into antiques.”
    “I’m not. But Jannalynn is. Splendide’s her favorite place to shop.”
    I blinked, trying not to look as disconcerted as I felt. Jannalynn Hopper, who’d been dating Sam for a few weeks now, was so ferocious she’d been named the Long Tooth pack enforcer—though she was only twenty-one and about as big as a seventh grader. It was hard to imagine Jannalynn restoring a vintage picture frame or planning to fit a plantation sideboard into her place in Shreveport. (Come to think of it, I had no idea where she lived. Did Jannalynn actually have a house?)
    “I sure wouldn’t have guessed that,” I said, making myself smile at Sam. It was my personal opinion that Jannalynn was not good enough for Sam.
    Of course, I kept that to myself. Glass houses, stones, right? I was dating a vampire whose kill list would top Jannalynn’s for sure, since Eric was over a thousand years old. In one of those awful moments you have at random, I realized that everyone I’d ever dated—though, granted, that was a short list—was a killer.
    And so was I.
    I had to shake this off in a hurry, or I’d be in a melancholy funk all evening.
    “You have a name and phone number for this shop?” I hoped the antiques dealers would agree to come to Bon Temps. I’d have to rent a U-Haul to get all the attic contents to Shreveport.
    “Yeah, I got it in my office,” Sam said. “I was talking to Brenda, the female half of the partnership, about getting Jannalynn something special for her birthday. It’s coming right up. Brenda—Brenda Hesterman—called