Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

stood out: She’d had nothing to lose.
    Of course, much was made of the fact that she’d been found on the lawn of a “prominent vampire businessman and his party guests.” Eric and his uninvited company were in for a hard time with the publicity machine. There was at least one picture of T-Rex in his wrestling costume. The words “bulging” and “manic” came to mind. I turned to the inside page where the article continued. Kym’s grieving parents were posed clutching a Bible and a bouquet of daisies, which they said had been Kym’s favorite flower. Though I chided myself for my snobbishness, they didn’t look like much.
    Before I could finish the article, the phone rang. I jumped about a foot. I’d been wondering if Eric would call back after he’d had enough time to get really angry with me, but the caller ID let me know my caller was Sam.
    “Hey,” I said.
    “What happened last night?” he asked. “I just watched the Shreveport news.”
    “I went over to Eric’s because of the out-of-town vamp visitors,” I said, condensing. “This Kym Rowe left the house right after I got there. Eric had taken blood from her.” I had to pause to collect myself.“Then Bill found her dead on the lawn. They might have hushed it up…. Oh, hell, of course they’d have hushed it up. Moved her body, or something. But the police had gotten an anonymous call that there was a body at Eric’s, so the police were there before he even knew her body was on the lawn.”
    “Do you know who did it?”
    “No,” I said. “If I knew who’d killed her, I’d have told the cops last night.”
    “Even if the killer was Eric?”
    That stopped me dead. “It would depend on the circumstances. Would you turn in Jannalynn?”
    There was a long silence. “It would depend on the circumstances,” he said.
    “Sam, sometimes I think we’re just dumb,” I said, and then I heard myself. “Wait, not speaking for you! Just for me!”
    “But I agree,” he said. “Jannalynn … she’s great, but I feel like I’ve bitten off more than I can chew some days.”
    “Do you tell her everything, Sam?” How much did other couples share? I needed some feedback. I’d had so few relationships.
    He hesitated. “No,” he said, finally. “I don’t. We haven’t gotten to the ‘I love you’ stage yet, but even if we had … no.”
    My mental focus took a U-turn. Wait a minute. According to Alcide, Jannalynn had told him she was going to propose. Sure didn’t sound like Sam was ready for that, if they hadn’t even told each other they loved each other. That couldn’t be right. Someone was lying or deluded. Then Sam said, “Sookie?” and I knew I’d been letting silence fill the air while I thought all this.
    “So it’s not just me and Eric,” I said hastily. “Between us, Sam, I feel like Eric’s not telling me some pretty important stuff.”
    “What about the things you aren’t telling him? Are those things important?”
    “Yeah, they are. Important, but not … personal.” I hadn’t told Eric about Hunter, my little second cousin, being telepathic like me. I hadn’t told Eric how worried I was about the concentration of the fae in Monroe. I’d tried filling Eric in on the fae situation, but it had been easy to tell that the politics of his own kind were at the top of his list these days. I couldn’t blame him for that.
    “Sookie, you’re okay, right? I don’t know what you mean by ‘not personal.’ Everything that happens to you is personal.”
    “By personal stuff … things that are only about me and him. Like if I wasn’t happy with the way he treated me, or if I thought he needed to be around more, or if he’d go with me to Jason and Michele’s wedding. If I needed to talk about any of those things, I would. But I know pieces of information that affect other people, and I don’t always tell him those things, because he has such a different perspective.”
    “You know you can tell me, if you need to talk about something. You know I’ll listen and I won’t tell anyone.”
    “I know that, Sam. You’re the best friend I’ve got. And I hope you know I’m always ready to listen to anything you need to talk about. I’m sure Eric and I will get back to normal when Felipe leaves … when the boat stops rocking.”
    “Maybe you will,” he said. “But you know that if you get nervous out there, I got an extra bedroom here.”
    “Jannalynn would kill me,” I said. I’d spoken the first thought