From Dead to Worse

handsome,” Amelia said.
    “Yeah, no doubt about it. I’ve met some toothsome guys. Remember Claude?” I’d shown Amelia the poster that had arrived in the mail two weeks before, a blowup of the romance novel cover for which Claude had posed. She’d been impressed— what woman wouldn’t be?
    “Ah, I went to watch Claude strip last week.” Amelia couldn’t meet my eyes.
    “And you didn’t take me!” Claude was a very disagreeable person, especially when contrasted with his sister, Claudine, but he was beyond gorgeous. He was in the Brad Pitt stratosphere of male beauty. Of course, he was gay. Wouldn’t you know it? “You went while I was at work?”
    “I thought you wouldn’t approve of my going,” she said, ducking her head. “I mean, since you’re friends with his sister. I went with Tara. JB was working. Are you mad?”
    “Nah. I don’t care.” My friend Tara owned a dress shop, and her new husband, JB, worked at a women’s exercise center. “I would like to see Claude trying to act like he was enjoying himself.”
    “I think he was having a good time,” she said. “There’s no one Claude loves better than Claude, right? So all these women looking at him and admiring him ... He’s not into women, but he’s sure into being admired.”
    “True. Let’s go see him together sometime.”
    “Okay,” she said, and I could tell she was quite cheerful again. “Now, tell me what you ordered at this new fancy restaurant.” So I told her. But all the while I was wishing I didn’t have to keep silent about my great-grandfather. I wanted so badly to tell Amelia about Niall: how he looked, what he’d said, that I had a whole history I hadn’t known. And it would take me a while to process what my grandmother had endured, to alter my picture of her in light of the facts I’d learned. And I had to rethink my unpleasant memories of my mother, too. She’d fallen for my dad like a ton of bricks, and she’d had his kids because she loved him ... only to find that she didn’t want to share him with them, especially with me, another female. At least, this was my new insight.
    “There was more stuff,” I said, a yawn splitting my jaw in two. It was very late. “But I’ve got to get to bed. I get any phone calls or anything?”
    “That Were from Shreveport called. He wanted to talk to you, and I told him you were out for the evening and he should call you on your cell. He asked if he could meet up with you, but I said I didn’t know where you were.”
    “Alcide,” I said. “I wonder what he wanted.” I figured I’d call him tomorrow.
    “And some girl called. Said she’d been a waitress at Merlotte’s before, and she’d seen you at the wedding last night.”
    “Tanya?”
    “Yeah, that was her name.”
    “What did she want?”
    “Don’t know. She said she’d call back tomorrow or see you at the bar.”
    “Crap. I hope Sam didn’t hire her to fill in or something.”
    “I thought I was the fill-in bargirl.”
    “Yeah, unless someone’s quit. I warn you, Sam likes her.”
    “You don’t?”
    “She’s a treacherous bitch.”
    “Gosh, tell me what you really think.”
    “No kidding, Amelia, she took a job at Merlotte’s so she could spy on me for the Pelts.”
    “Oh, that’s the one. Well, she won’t spy on you again. I’ll take steps.”
    That was a scarier thought than working with Tanya. Amelia was a strong and skillful witch, don’t get me wrong, but she was also prone to attempt things beyond her experience level. Hence Bob.
    “Check with me first, please,” I said, and Amelia looked surprised.
    “Well, sure,” she said. “Now, I’m off to bed.”
    She made her way up the steps with Bob in her arms, and I went to my small bathroom to remove my makeup and put on my own nightgown. Amelia hadn’t noticed the speckles of blood on the shirt, and I put it in the sink to soak.
    What a day it had been. I’d spent time with Eric, who always rattled my chain, and I’d found a living relative, though not a human one. I’d learned a lot of stuff about my family, most of it unpleasant. I’d eaten in a fancy restaurant, though I could hardly recall the food. And finally, I’d been shot at.
    When I crawled into bed, I said my prayers, trying to put Quinn at the top of the list. I thought the excitement of discovering a great-grandfather would keep me awake that night, but sleep claimed me right when I was in the middle of asking God to help me find my way through