Living Dead in Dallas

crowd that night in Merlotte’s. My brother’s friend Hoyt Fortenberry was drinking with some of his cronies. Kevin Prior, whom I was more accustomed to seeing in uniform, was sitting with Hoyt, but Kevin was not having a happy evening. He looked as though he’d rather be in his patrol car with his partner, Kenya. My brother, Jason, came in with his more and more frequent arm decoration, Liz Barrett. Liz always acted glad to see me, but she never tried to ingratiate herself, which earned her high points in my book. My grandmother would have been glad to know Jason was dating Liz so often. Jason had played the scene for years, until the scene was pretty darned tired of Jason. After all, there is a finite pool of women in Bon Temps and its surrounding area, and Jason had fished that pool for years. He needed to restock.
    Besides, Liz seemed willing to ignore Jason’s little brushes with the law.
    “Baby sis!” he said in greeting. “Bring me and Liz a Seven-and-Seven apiece, would you?”
    “Glad to,” I said, smiling. Carried away on a wave of optimism, I listened in to Liz for a moment; she was hoping that very soon Jason would pop the question. The sooner the better, she thought, because she was pretty sure she was pregnant.
    Good thing I’ve had years of concealing what I was thinking. I brought them each a drink, carefully shieldingmyself from any other stray thoughts I might catch, and tried to think what I should do. That’s one of the worst things about being telepathic; things people are thinking, not talking about, are things other people (like me) really don’t want to know. Or shouldn’t want to know. I’ve heard enough secrets to choke a camel, and believe me, not a one of them was to my advantage in any way.
    If Liz was pregnant, the last thing she needed was a drink, no matter who the baby’s daddy was.
    I watched her carefully, and she took a tiny sip from her glass. She wrapped her hand around it to partially hide it from public view. She and Jason chatted for a minute, then Hoyt called out to him, and Jason swung around on the bar stool to face his high school buddy. Liz stared down at her drink, as if she’d really like to gulp it in one swallow. I handed her a similar glass of plain 7UP and whisked the mived drink away.
    Liz’s big round brown eyes gazed up at me in astonishment. “Not for you,” I said very quietly. Liz’s olive complexion turned as white as it could. “You have good sense,” I said. I was struggling to explain why I’d intervened, when it was against my personal policy to act on what I learned in such a surreptitious way. “You have good sense, you can do this right.”
    Jason turned back around then, and I got a call for another pitcher from one of my tables. As I moved out from behind the bar to answer the summons, I noticed Portia Bellefleur in the doorway. Portia peered around the dark bar as though she were searching for someone. To my astonishment, that someone turned out to be me.
    “Sookie, do you have a minute?” she asked.
    I could count the personal conversations I’d had with Portia on one hand, almost on one finger, and I couldn’t imagine what was on her mind.
    “Sit over there,” I said, nodding at an empty table in my area. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
    “Oh, all right. And I’d better order a glass of wine, I guess. Merlot.”
    “I’ll have it right there.” I poured her glass carefully, and put it on a tray. After checking visually to make sure all my customers looked content, I carried the tray over to Portia’s table and sat opposite her. I perched on the edge of the chair, so anyone who ran out of a drink could see I was fixing to hop up in just a second.
    “What can I do for you?” I reached up to check that my ponytail was secure and smiled at Portia.
    She seemed intent on her wineglass. She turned it with her fingers, took a sip, positioned it on the exact center of the coaster. “I have a favor to ask you,” she said.
    No shit, Sherlock. Since I’d never had a casual conversation with Portia longer than two sentences, it was obvious she needed something from me.
    “Let me guess. You were sent here by your brother to ask me to listen in on people’s thoughts when they’re in the bar, so I can find out about this orgy thing Lafayette went to.” Like I hadn’t seen that coming.
    Portia looked embarrassed, but determined. “He would never have asked you if he wasn’t in serious trouble, Sookie.”
    “He