Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

Jannalynn.”
    He blinked at me. His reddish-blond hair was standing up like porcupine quills all over his head. He tilted his head to one side as if he wasn’t sure I was quite in focus.
    His mouth quirked up in an unwilling grin. I grinned back. Then we both laughed. Not a lot, but enough to clear the air.
    “Where is she?” I asked. “Do you know what happened night before last?”
    “Tell me,” he said, standing aside so I could come in.
    Sam had heard a sketchy version from a pack member who’d become a friend of his, a young man who worked for Jannalynn at Hair of the Dog. “You didn’t tell me what you suspected about her,” Sam said. He left that sitting there between us.
    “Sam, let me tell you about what’s happened the last couple of days, and you’ll understand, I promise,” I said, and with a certain amount of editing, I told him.
    “Good God, Sookie,” he said. “You really know how to have a birthday, huh?”
    “The best part of my birthday was my present from you,” I said, and I took his hand.
    Sam turned red. “Aw, Sook. You earned it. You deserve it. And look, I didn’t make you equal partner, did I?”
    “Trying to make your gift look like less won’t work for me,” I said. I kissed him on the cheek and got up, to make the moment lighten so Sam would be more comfortable. “I got to get home,” I said, though I couldn’t imagine what for.
    “See you tomorrow.”
    It would be a lot sooner than that.
    I felt curiously blank on the drive home to my empty house.
    For what seemed like forever, my spare time had been taken up by Eric. We were making plans to meet, or we were together, or we were talking on the telephone. Now that it seemed our relationship was unraveling, I had no idea what to expect from our next meeting. If wehad a next meeting. But I couldn’t imagine how I would fill the hole in my life left by his absence. Now that I knew who’d tried to get Eric into trouble, I knew that his involvement with me had led to this moment. He’d never have been targeted by Claude, by Jannalynn, if it hadn’t been for me, and that was such a reversal on the usual situation—I’d been the object of so many schemes because Eric was my lover—that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. I wondered how much Eric knew of what had transpired, but I couldn’t bring myself to call him to tell about it all.
    He had known I had the cluviel dor, and he had expected me to use it to get him out of the arrangement Appius had made with Freyda.
    And maybe I would have done that. Maybe I still would. It seemed the obvious choice, the most apparent thing to do with the magic. But it also seemed to me that Eric was expecting me to magically get him out of a situation that he should defeat by his own efforts. He should love me enough to simply refuse Freyda. It was like he wanted the decision out of his hands.
    That was an idea I didn’t want to have. But you can’t erase a thought; once you’ve had it, it’s there to stay.
    I would love to feel an absolute conviction that yanking that cluviel dor out of my pocket and wishing with all my heart that Eric would stay with me was the right thing to do.
    I poked at that thought. I prodded that thought. But it just didn’t feel right to me.
    I took a much-needed nap. When I got up, though I wasn’t really all that hungry, I microwaved a dish of lasagna and picked at it as I thought. No one at the bar had heard news of any more mysterious deer deaths, and now I was sure there never would be. I wondered about Hooligans, presumably now sitting empty, but it wasn’t anything to do with me anymore. Oh, gosh, the guys were sure to haveleft some stuff upstairs. Maybe this evening I’d pack it up. Not that there was any address to forward it to.
    Okay, maybe I’d take the clothes to Goodwill.
    I watched television for a while—an old black-and-white movie about a man and a woman who loved one another but had to overcome all sorts of things to be together, a cooking show, a couple of episodes of Jeopardy . (I couldn’t get any answers right.) My only phone call was from a fund-raising organization. I turned them down.
    They were disappointed in me, I could tell.
    When the phone rang again, I picked it up without bothering to turn down the sound on the TV.
    “Sookie?” said a familiar voice.
    I pressed the Off button on the remote. “Alcide, how is Warren?”
    “He’s much better. I think he’s gonna be fine. Listen, I need you and