Though I held my breath in anticipation, nothing happened. I didn’t hear the snarling of last time, but I found the silence kind of depressing. I don’t know what I’d expected, but I’d half hoped I’d get some signal. Maybe a chime? Or the sound of a gong? A recording saying, We’ve received your message and will attempt to deliver it? That would have been nice.
I relaxed and smiled, amused at my own sil iness. Hoisting myself up, I made my difficult way back through the woods. I could hardly wait to strip off my sweaty, dirty clothes and get into my shower. As I emerged from the shadow of the trees and into the waning afternoon, I saw that would have to be a pleasure delayed.
In my absence I’d acquired some visitors. Three people I didn’t know, al looking to be in their midforties, were standing by a car as if they’d been on the point of getting into it to drive away. If only I’d stayed by the portal a few more minutes! The little group was oddly assorted. The man standing by the driver’s door had coppery brown hair and a short beard, and he was wearing gold-rimmed glasses. He wore khakis and a pale blue oxford cloth shirt with the sleeves rol ed up, practical y a summertime white-col ar work uniform. The other man was a real contrast. His jeans were stained, and his T-shirt said he liked pussies, with an oh-so-clever drawing of a Persian cat. Subtle, huh? I caught a whiff of otherness coming from him; he wasn’t real y human, but I didn’t want to get any closer to investigate what his true nature might be.
His female companion was wearing a low-cut T shirt, dark green with gold studs as a decoration, and white shorts. Her bare legs were heavily tattooed.
“Afternoon,” I said, not even trying to sound welcoming. I could hear trouble coming from their brains. Wait. Didn’t the sleazy couple look just a little familiar?
“Hel o,” said the woman, an olive-skinned brunette with raccoon eye makeup. She took a drag on her cigarette. “You Sookie Stackhouse?”
“I am. And you are?”
“We’re the Rowes. I’m Georgene and this is Oscar. This man,” and she pointed at the driver, “is Harp Powel .”
“I’m sorry?” I said. “Do I know you?”
“Kym’s parents,” the woman said.
I was even sorrier I’d come back to the house.
Cal me ungracious, but I wasn’t going to ask them in. They hadn’t cal ed ahead, they had no reason to talk to me, and above al else— I had been down this road before with the Pelts.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. “But I’m not sure why you’ve come here.”
“You talked to our girl before she died,” Oscar Rowe said. “We just wanted to know what was on her mind.”
Though they didn’t realize it, they’d come to the right place to find out. Knowing what was on people’s minds was my specialty. But I wasn’t getting good brain readings from either of them. Instead of grief and regret, I was getting avid curiosity … an emotion more suited to people who slow down to goggle at road accidents than to grieving parents.
I turned slightly to look at their companion. “And you, Mr. Powel ? What’s your role here?” I’d been aware of his intense observation.
“I’m thinking of doing a book about Kym’s life,” Harp Powel said. “And her death.”
I could add that up in my head: lurid past, pretty girl, died outside a vampire’s house during a party with interesting guests. It wouldn’t be a biography of the desperate, emotional y disturbed Kym I’d met so briefly. Harp Powel was thinking of writing a true-crime novel with pictures in the middle: Kym as a cute youngster, Kym in high school, Kym as a stripper, and maybe Kym as a corpse. Bringing the Rowes with him was a smart move. Who could turn down distraught parents? But I knew Georgene and Oscar weren’t anywhere close to devastated. The Rowes were more curious than bereaved.
“How long had it been since you saw her?” I asked Kym’s mother.
“Wel , she was a grown-up girl. She left home after she graduated from high school,” Georgene said reasonably. She had stepped toward the house as if she were waiting for me to open the back door. She dropped her cigarette on the gravel and ground it out with her platform sandal.
“So, five years? Six?” I crossed my arms over my chest and looked at each of them in turn.
“It had been a while,” conceded Oscar Rowe. “Kym had her own living to make; we couldn’t support her. She had to get out and hustle like the rest of us.” He gave me a look that was supposed to say he knew I’d had to get out and hustle, too—we were al working people, here. Al in the same boat.
“I don’t have anything to say about your daughter. I didn’t even talk to her directly. I saw her for maybe five minutes.”
“Is it true your boyfriend was taking blood from her?” Harp Powel asked.
“You can ask him that. But you’l have to go after dark, and he may not be too glad to see you.” I smiled.
“Is it true that you live here with two male strippers?” Powel persisted. “Kym was a stripper,” he added, as if that would somehow soften me up.
“Who I live with is none of your business. You can leave now,” I said, stil smiling, I hoped very unpleasantly. “Or I’l cal the sheriff, and he’l be here pretty quick.” With that, I went inside and shut and locked the door. No point in standing out there listening to questions I wouldn’t answer.
The light on my phone was blinking. I turned the sound very low and pressed the button to play it. “Sister,” said Bel enos, “no one here wil admit to giving any blood to the girl who was kil ed, or giving blood to anyone at al . Either there’s another fairy somewhere, or someone here is lying. I don’t like either prospect.” I hit the Delete button.
I heard knocking at the back door, and I moved to where I couldn’t be seen.
Harp Powel knocked a few more times and slid his card under the porch door, but I didn’t answer.
They drove off after a couple of minutes. Though I was relieved to watch them go, the encounter left me depressed and shaken. Seen from the outside, did my life truly seem so tawdry?
I lived with one male stripper. I did date a vampire. He had taken blood from Kym Rowe, right in front of me.
Maybe Harp Powel had just wanted answers to his sensational questions. Maybe he would have reported my answers in a fair and balanced way. Maybe he had just been trying to get a rise out of me. And maybe I was feeling extra fragile. But his strategy worked, though not until too late to directly benefit him. I felt bad about myself. I felt like talking to someone about how my life looked—as opposed to how it felt to be inside it, living it. I wanted to justify my decisions.
But Tara had just had her babies, Amelia and I had some big issues to settle, and Pam knew more about what I faced than I myself knew. Jason loved me, but I had to admit my brother was not too swift mental y. Sam was probably preoccupied with his romance with Jannalynn. I didn’t think I knew anyone else wel enough to spil my inner fears.
I felt too restless to settle down to any pastime: too fidgety to read or watch TV, too impatient to do housework. After a quick shower, I climbed in the car and drove to Clarice. Though the day was ending, the hospital parking lot was unshaded. I knew the car would be an oven when I emerged.
I stopped at the little gift shop and bought some pink-and-blue carnations to give to the new mother. After I got off the elevator at the second floor (there were only two) I paused at the glass-fronted nursery to peer in at the newborns. There were seven infants rol ed up to the window. Two of the clear plastic bins, side by side, were labeled with cards reading “Baby du Rone.”