Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

to speak to me, she smiled. She needed some dental work, but it was a good smile.
    “Sook, this here’s Jimmie Kearney from Clarice,” Terry said. “She raises Catahoulas, too.” Terry loved his dogs, and he seemed to have overcome his bad luck with them. His latest bitch, Annie, had had her second litter of puppies. This time they’d been purebred. I’d heard Terry talk about Jimmie when he’d found a match for Annie, but I’d assumed Jimmie was a guy. She very much wasn’t.
    “I’m pleased to meet you,” I said. Jimmie was younger than Terry. I put her at about forty. There were streaks of gray in her long brown hair, which hung nearly down to her waist. She wore baggy khaki shorts with a ruffled white peasant blouse and huaraches.
    “I heard a lot about you,” Jimmie said shyly. “You should come by Terry’s and see the puppies. My Tombo is the daddy. They’re just as cute as they can be. And we’ve got them all sold! We had to check out the homes they would go to, of course.”
    “Good job,” I said. I was getting the information from Jimmie’s head that she was over at Terry’s a lot of the time. A lot . Just in my little peek, Jimmie seemed like an okay person. Terry deserved someone really nice; he needed someone really, really stable. I hoped she was both. “Well, maybe I’ll get a chance to see those puppies before they go to their new homes. I’m glad I got to meet you, Jimmie. Terry, talk to you later.”
    Before I headed to the bar, I needed to check on Tara, who hadn’t returned my calls. Maybe she’d gone to work today, too? Sure enough, her car was parked beside Tara’s Togs.
    Inside, she was sitting at the wedding table, the one where brides sat to order their invitations and their napkins and anything else a bride could want.
    “Tara?” I said, because the expression on her face was very peculiar. “How come you didn’t call me back? What’s ‘effaced’ mean? Does that mean you’re gonna have the babies soon?”
    “Um-hum,” she said, but it was clear her attention was on something else entirely.
    “Where’s McKenna?” Tara’s assistant had been working more and more hours as Tara grew more and more great with child. Well, great with children.
    “She’s at home. She’s been run off her feet. I told her to stay home today, that I’d work. Today’s my last day.”
    “You don’t look like you can work a whole eight hours,” I said cautiously. Tara had gotten pretty snappish during her pregnancy, and the bigger she got, the more likely she’d become to give you her unvarnished opinion on almost anything—but especially if you said something about her stamina or appearance.
    “I can’t,” she said, and my mouth fell open.
    “How come?” I said.
    “I’m having the babies today.”
    I felt a thread of panic rise up out of my stomach. “Does … who all knows this, Tara?”
    “You.”
    “You haven’t called anyone else?”
    “No. I’m just trying to deal. Having a little moment, here.” She tried to smile. “But I guess you better call McKenna and tell her to come in to work, and you better call JB and tell him to get to the hospital in Clarice, and you could call his mama. Oh, and maybe the ambulance.”
    “Oh my God! You’re hurting?” Oh, Shepherd of Judea!
    She glared at me, but I don’t think she knew she was looking at me like she hoped I’d turn green. “It’s not too bad yet,” she said with an air of great restraint. “But my water broke just now, and since it’s twins …”
    I was already punching in 911. I described the situation to the dispatcher, and she said, “Sookie, we’ll be right over to get Tara. You tell her not to worry. Oh, and she can’t eat or drink anything, you hear?”
    “Yes,” I said. I hung up. “Tara, they’re coming. Nothing to eat or drink!”
    “You see any food around here?” she said. “Not a damn thing. I’ve been trying to keep my weight gain to a minimum, so Mr. Bare-Naked Booty will have something to keep him home when I get over having his children.”
    “He loves you! And I’m calling him right now!” Which I did.
    After a frozen moment, JB said, “I’m coming! Wait, if you called the ambulance, I’ll meet it at the hospital! Have you called the doctor?”
    “She didn’t put him on my list.” I was waving my hands in agitation. I’d made a mistake.
    “I’ll do it,” JB said, and I hung up.
    Since there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to help Tara (she was