Dead Reckoning

morning I woke up worried.
    I’d been too sleepy the night before, when I finally got home, to think much about what had happened at the bar. But evidently my subconscious had been chewing it over while I slept. My eyes flew open, and though the room was quiet and sunny, I gasped.
    I had that panicky feeling; it hadn’t taken me over yet, but it was just around the corner, physically and mentally. You know the feeling? When you think any second your heart’s going to start pounding, that your breathing is picking up, that your palms will start sweating.
    Sandra Pelt was after me, and I didn’t know where she was or what she was plotting.
    Victor had it in for Eric and, by extension, me.
    I was sure I was the blonde the four thugs had been after, and I didn’t know who’d sent them or what they would have done when they got me, though I had a pretty bad feeling about that.
    Eric and Pam were on the outs, and I was sure that somehow I was involved in their dispute.
    And I had a list of questions. At the top of the list: How had Mr. Cataliades known that I would need help at that particular time in that particular place? And how had he known to send the private investigators from Little Rock? Of course, if he had been the Pelts’ lawyer, he might have known that they’d sent Lily and Jack Leeds to investigate their daughter Debbie’s disappearance. He wouldn’t have had to brief the Leeds as much, and he would have known they could handle themselves in a fight.
    Would the four thugs tell the police why they’d come to the bar, and who’d put them up to it? And where they’d gotten the vampire blood—that would be helpful knowledge, also.
    What would the things I’d gotten from the secret drawer tell me about my past?
    “This is a fine kettle of fish,” I said out loud. I pulled the sheet over my head and searched the house mentally. No one was here but me. Maybe Dermot and Claude were all talked out, after their big reveal. They seemed to have stayed in Monroe. Sighing, I sat up in bed, letting the sheet fall away. There was no hiding from my problems. The best I could do was to try to prioritize my crises and figure out what information I could gather about each one.
    The most important problem was the one closest to my heart. And its solution was right to hand.
    I gently extracted the pattern envelope and the worn velvet bag from the drawer of the bedside table. In addition to the practical contents (a flashlight, a candle, and matches), the drawer held the strange mementoes of my strange life. But I wasn’t interested in anything today but the two new precious items. I carried them into the kitchen and laid them carefully back on the counter well away from the sink as I made my coffee.
    While the coffeepot dripped, I almost pushed back the flap of the pattern envelope. But I pulled back my hand. I was scared. Instead I tracked down my address book. I’d charged my cell phone overnight, so I stowed the little cord away neatly—any delay would do—and at last, taking a deep breath, I punched in Mr. Cataliades’s number. It rang three times.
    “This is Desmond Cataliades,” his rich voice said. “I’m traveling and unavailable at the moment, but if you’d like to leave a message, I may call you back. Or not.”
    Well, hell. I made a face at the telephone, but at the sound of the tone I dutifully recorded a guarded message that I hoped would convey my urgent need to talk to the lawyer. I crossed Mr. Cataliades—Desmond!—off my mental list and moved on to my second method of approach to the problem of Sandra Pelt.
    Sandra was going to keep after me until either I was dead or she was. I had a real, true, personal enemy. It was hard to believe that every member of a family had turned out so rotten (especially since both Debbie and Sandra were adopted), but all the Pelts were selfish, strong willed, and hateful. The girls were fruits of the poisonous tree, I guess. I needed to know where Sandra was, and I knew someone who might be able to help me.
    “Hello?” Amelia said briskly.
    “How’s life in the Big Easy?” I asked.
    “Sookie! Gosh, it’s good to hear your voice! Things are going great for me, actually.”
    “Do tell?”
    “Bob showed up on my doorstep last week,” she said.
    After Amelia’s mentor, Octavia, had turned Bob back into his skinny Mormonish self, Bob had been so angry with Amelia that he’d taken off like—well, like a scalded cat. As soon as he’d reoriented to