Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

them if they tried,” Alcide said, but I knew from the conflict flowing from his head that he wasn’t voicing his real concern.
    “You want to punish her,” I said, in as neutral a voice as I could manage.
    “Course he does,” Mustapha said. “She’s pack. She’s his to punish.”
    “I do want to ask her some questions,” I said. It seemed like the right time to get that out in the open. Otherwise, Jannalynn might end up dead before I’d had a chance to extract information.
    “What about Sam?” Bill said, out of the blue.
    “What about him?” Alcide asked after a moment.
    “He’s not gonna be happy,” I muttered. “They weren’t ever as close as she told you they were, but after all …”
    “She’s his woman,” Mustapha said, shrugging. He looked down at Warren. Just then Warren’s eyes fluttered open. He saw Mustapha and smiled. “I knew you’d find me,” he said. “I knew you’d come.”
    It was touching, it was awkward, and I was totally confused.
    “So it was Claude,” I said out loud. “I just can’t believe it. Why would he want Eric to drink from a borderline whore like Kym? Why would he give her his own blood to drink?” I was beyond mincing words, or being charitable.
    “Claude could tell you why,” Bill said grimly. “Where is he now?”
    “Niall came to get him. I haven’t seen Claude in days.”
    “And he left Dermot here?”
    “Yeah, he left Dermot in charge of all the stray supes at Hooligans,” I said.
    “I’d heard everyone there was some form of fae,” Bill said, confirming my belief that supes gossiped just like humans did. “Did Claude give you a time for his return?”
    “No. Niall took him to Faery to investigate who actually put a curse on Dermot. Claude said it was Murry, but Murry’s dead. I killed him, in my backyard.” I sure had everyone’s attention now. It seemed that all the separate parts of my life were finally colliding. My personal highway was jammed with fairies, werewolves, vampires, and humans.
    “So it was pretty convenient for Claude to name Murry as the bad guy,” Bill said, and that kind of hung in the air for a minute before everything came crashing down.
    “Claude,” I said. “It was Claude all along.” I felt numb.
    After a little while, we were all sorted out. Since no one knew where Jannalynn was, Mustapha and Warren were invited to spend the night at Alcide’s, and Mustapha accepted for them both since Warren was still not talking much. Apparently, he wasn’t going to go to the hospital, which I had to accept. At least he was getting a bottle of Gatorade. Mustapha let him have it in little sips.
    Bill and I got in his car, and Mustapha thanked Bill for coming to Warren’s aid. He didn’t like telling Bill he owed him a favor, but he did it.
    Alcide was already on the phone as we pulled out of the driveway, and I was sure he was checking on his pack members who’d locked up the rogues. I would put money on his main interest being Kandace. I didn’t know if she’d go into lockup with the rogues or if she’d abandon the pretense of being a rebel. At the moment, I could only be glad that wasn’t my problem.
    I was glad Bill was driving. I had too many thoughts crowding my head. I wished there were a way to warn Niall what a snake he was nurturing in his bosom. And as long as I was getting biblical, I’d never in my life been so glad I’d said no to someone when they’d wanted to have sex with me.
    “Why would Claude have done such a thing?”
    I didn’t realize I’d said it out loud until Bill answered.
    “Sookie, I don’t know. I can’t even guess. He doesn’t hate Eric, or at least I can’t think of any reason why he should. He might be envious you have such a handsome lover, but that’s hardly sufficient reason …”
    I wasn’t about to tell Bill that Claude had told me he occasionally bedded a real woman. Eric would surely have been more in Claude’s natural ballpark.
    “Okay, let’s think,” I said. “Why would he try to make trouble in such a devious way? He could have set fire to my house.” (Though that had already been done.) “He could try to shoot me.” (Ditto.) “He could abduct me and torture me.” (Likewise.) “If his goal was to make trouble for Eric, there were at least twenty more direct ways to cause it.”
    “Yes,” Bill said. “But a direct way would have led straight back to him. It’s the indirectness of it, the slyness of it, that convinces me that Claude