Dead Reckoning

tucked in the back of her jeans.
    “Uh-oh,” I said, very quietly.
    “What more do I have to do?” Sandra screamed.
    Conversations all over the bar dwindled to silence. From the corner of my eye, I saw Sam reach down under the bar. He wouldn’t make it in time.
    “I try to burn you up, and the fire goes out.” She was still at full volume. “I give those jerks free drugs and sex, and send them to grab you, and they bungle it. I try your house, and the magic won’t let me enter. I’ve tried to kill you over and over, and you just won’t die !”
    I almost felt like apologizing.
    At the same time, it was a good thing that Bud Dearborn had heard all this. But he was standing facing Sandra, his table between them, and I knew it would be much better if he were behind her. Sam began to move to his left, but the pass-through was to his right, and I didn’t see how he could get across the bar and behind her before she worked herself up to killing me. But that wasn’t Sam’s plan. While Sandra was focused on me, he passed the wooden bat to Terry Bellefleur, who’d been playing darts with another vet. Terry was a little crazy at times and awfully scarred, but I’d always liked him and gotten along with him well. Terry put his hand on the bat, and I was glad the jukebox was playing because it covered the little sounds.
    In fact, the jukebox was playing the old Whitney Houston ballad “I Will Always Love You,” which was kind of funny, actually.
    “Why are you always sending other people to do your jobs?” I asked, to cover the sound of Terry’s quiet advance. “You some kind of coward ? You think a woman can’t do the job right?”
    Maybe taunting Sandra hadn’t been such a good idea, because her hand darted to her back with shifter speed, and then the gun was out and pointing at me, and then I saw her finger begin to tighten in a moment that seemed to stretch forever. And then I saw the bat swing and connect, and Sandra went down like someone had cut her strings, and there was blood everywhere.
    And Terry went crazy. He crouched, screaming, and dropped the bat as if it had burned him. No matter what anyone said (the most popular thing was “SHUT UP, TERRY!”), he howled.
    I never thought I’d end up sitting on the floor cradling Terry Bellefleur in my arms, rocking him and murmuring to him. But that was where I was, since he seemed to get worse if anyone else approached him. Even the ambulance people got nervous when Terry shrieked at them. He was still crouched on the balls of his feet, speckled with blood, after Sandra Pelt had gone to the hospital in Clarice.
    I was beholden to Terry, who had always been kind to me even when he was having one of his bad spells. He’d come to clear away the debris when an arsonist had set fire to my kitchen. He’d offered me one of his puppies. Now he’d damaged his fragile mind to save my life. As I rocked him and patted him on the back while he wept, I listened to the steady stream of his words as the few people left in Merlotte’s did their best to stay a decent distance away.
    “I done what he told me,” Terry said, “the shining man, I kept track of Sookie and I tried to keep her from harm, no one should hurt Sookie, I tried to watch out for her, and then today that bitch come in here and I knew she was going to kill Sook, I knew it, I never wanted to take blood again in my life but I couldn’t let her hurt the gal, I couldn’t do it, and I never wanted to kill another person in my whole existence, I never did.”
    “She’s not dead, Terry,” I said, kissing him on the head. “You didn’t kill anyone.”
    “Sam passed me the bat,” Terry said, sounding a little more alert.
    “Sure, because he couldn’t get out from behind the bar in time. Thanks so much, Terry, you’ve been a friend to me always. God bless you for saving my life.”
    “Sookie? You knew they wanted me to watch out for you? They come to my trailer at night, for months, that big blond one and then the shining one. They always wanted to know about you.”
    “Sure,” I said, thinking, What?
    “They wanted to know how you were doing and who was you hanging with and who hated you and who loved you. . . .”
    “That’s okay,” I said. “It was okay to tell them.”
    Eric and my great-grandfather, I guessed. Picking the damaged one, the one easiest to persuade. I’d known Eric had had someone watching me while I dated Bill and while I was on my own later. I’d guessed that