Definitely Dead

yard: Clete and George, presumably. I should have gone to check, but I couldn’t muster up the energy.
    Back in the kitchen, the small dark man was stirring a little, his eyes opening and shutting and his mouth twitching. His hands were tied behind him. Sandra was bound with duct tape, which cheered me up quite a bit. It seemed a neat piece of poetic justice. She even had a neat rectangle squarely over her mouth, which I presumed was Eric’s work. Quinn had found a towel to secure around his waist, so he looked very . . . preppy.
    “Thanks, babe,” he said. He took his clothes and began squeezing them out over the sink. I dripped on the floor. “I wonder if there’s a dryer?” he asked, and I opened another door to find a little pantry/utility room with shelves on one wall and on the other a water heater and a tiny washer and dryer.
    “Pass ’em in here,” I called, and Quinn came in with his clothes. “Yours need to go in there, too, babe,” he said, and I noticed he sounded as tired as I felt. Changing into and out of tiger form without the full moon, in such a short space of time, must have been very difficult. “Maybe you can find me a towel?” I asked, pulling off the wet pants with great effort. Without a single joke or leer, he went to see what he could find. He returned with some clothes, I assumed from the small man’s bedroom: a T-shirt, shorts, socks. “This is the best I could do,” he said.
    “It’s better than I hoped for,” I said. After I’d used the towel and I had pulled on the clean, dry clothes, I almost wept with gratitude. I gave Quinn a hug and then went to find out what we were going to do with our hostages.
    The Pelts were sitting on the floor, securely handcuffed, in the living room, watched by Rasul. Barbara and Gordon had looked so mild when they’d come to Merlotte’s to meet with me in Sam’s office. They looked mild no longer. Rage and malice sat oddly on their suburban faces.
    Eric brought Sandra in, too, and dumped her by her parents. Eric stood in one doorway, Quinn in another (which a glance told me led into Small and Dark’s bedroom). Rasul, gun in hand, relaxed his vigilance a little now that he had such formidable backup. “Where’s the little guy?” he asked. “Sookie, I’m glad to see you looking so well, even though your ensemble falls below your usual standards.”
    The shorts were baggy cargo shorts, the shirt was big, and the white socks were the capper. “You really know how to make a girl feel beautiful, Rasul,” I said, scraping together maybe half a smile to offer him. I sat down in the straight-backed chair and I asked Barbara Pelt, “What were you going to do with me?”
    “Work on you until you told us the truth, and Sandra was satisfied,” she said. “Our family couldn’t be at peace until we knew the truth. And the truth lies in you, I just know it.”
    I was troubled. Well, beyond troubled. Because I didn’t know what to say to her just yet, I looked from Eric to Rasul. “Just the two of you?” I asked.
    “Any time two vampires can’t handle a handful of Weres is the day I become human again,” Rasul said, with an expression so snooty I was tempted to laugh. But he’d been exactly right (though of course he’d had a tiger who helped). Quinn was propped in the doorway looking picturesque, though just at the moment his great expanse of smooth skin didn’t interest me at all.
    “Eric,” I said, “what should I do?”
    I don’t think I’d ever asked Eric for advice before. He was surprised. But the secret wasn’t only mine.
    After a moment, he nodded.
    “I’ll tell you what happened to Debbie,” I said to the Pelts. I didn’t ask Rasul and Quinn to leave the room. I was getting rid of this right now, both the lingering guilt and the hold Eric had on me.
    I’d thought about that evening so often that my words came automatically. I didn’t cry, because all my tears had been shed months ago, in private.
    Once I’d finished the story, the Pelts sat and stared at me, and I stared back.
    “That sounds like our Debbie,” said Barbara Pelt. “This has the ring of truth.”
    “She did have a gun,” said Gordon Pelt. “I gave it to her for Christmas two years ago.” The two Weres looked at each other.
    “She was . . . proactive,” Barbara said, after a moment. She turned to Sandra. “Remember when we had to go to court, when she was in high school, because she put superglue in that cheerleader’s hairbrush?