The first thing I noticed was my car, exactly where I'd left it yesterday when I'd climbed out of it and gotten shot. At least someone had shut the driver's door. My blood was still on the ground beside it. I tried not to look. Jason came around to open the truck door, and I slid out carefully. I could walk on my own, but I wasn't super-steady, and I appreciated the fact that he was there.

He walked me right through the kitchen and into my bedroom, only letting me pause long enough to thank An and Michele. After depositing me on my bed, he vanished to return to work. I promptly got off the bed and shuffled into my bathroom to clean up, an awkward process with my bandaged shoulder, which had to be kept dry. In the end, I was a bit cleaner than I had been, though I couldn't wash my hair. With some difficulty, I put on a clean nightgown. At that point, Michele came in to scold me and order me to get back on the bed. We compromised with the couch in the living room. She turned on the television, brought me the remote and a big glass of tea, and made me a sandwich for a belated lunch. I ate about half of it. I wasn't that hungry, though it had been a while since I had eaten a real meal. Maybe the painkillers were suppressing my appetite, maybe I was depressed that there was so much death around my house, or maybe I was worried about Bill's enigmatic note.

An and Michele finished about an hour after Jason left, and I insisted on getting up to admire the job they'd done. My kitchen shone like a showroom kitchen and smelled like pine-scented cleaner. That was a big improvement, An informed me. "My whole family hunts, and I know nothing smells up a place more than blood," she said.

"Thank you, An," I said. "And thanks, almost-sister-in-law. I sure appreciate you two doing this for me."

"No problem," An said.

"Just don't let it happen again. This is the one and only time I'm scrubbing blood out of your kitchen," Michele said. She was smiling. But she meant it.

"Oh, I can promise it will be," I said. "I'll call someone else next time." They laughed, and I smiled back. Ha effing ha.

An gathered up her cleaning supplies in a big red bucket.

"I'll give you some Pine-Sol for your birthday, An," I said.

"You betcha. There's nothing like it." She looked around at the sparkling surfaces with some satisfaction. "My daddy the preacher always said, 'By your works shall they know thee.' "

"Then you're an industrious and generous woman," I said, and she beamed. I hugged them both in a lopsided way. Before they left, Michele asked me if I wanted her to put the casserole in the microwave ready for me to heat for supper. "It might be too much for you to handle," she said. She was determined to feed me.

"I'm sure I can do it later," I said, and she had to be content with that. The house felt pleasantly peaceful after they'd left, until I drifted out from under the painkillers long enough to wonder where Mr. C and Diantha were. I hoped they were okay. And since it seemed apparent that soulless people could come through the wards, I got out my critter rifle. The shotgun would have been more effective, but I simply couldn't handle it in my weakened state. If Copley Carmichael came around to finish what his minion had started, I had to be armed and ready. I locked the house up tight, closed the curtains in the living room so he couldn't tell where I was, and tried to read. Finally, I gave it up. I watched something totally brainless on TV. Sadly, that wasn't hard to find.

I kept my cell phone by me, and I got a call from Kennedy Keyes. She was as happy as I'd ever heard her. "Me and Danny are going to rent one of Sam's little houses," she said. "Across from the duplexes. He said you'd know where."

"Sure," I said. "When are you moving in?"

"Right now!" She laughed. "Danny and one of his buddies from the lumberyard are carrying in the bed right at this moment!"

"Kennedy, that's wonderful. I hope you'll be real happy."

She talked for a while, giddy with her new situation. I had no idea if their love for each other would last, but I was glad they were giving it a chance, despite the very obvious differences in their upbringings. Kennedy's family, as she'd described them to me, had been determined social climbers, wondering where their next step upward would take them. Danny's family had worried more about their next meal.

"Good luck to both of you, and I'll get you a housewarming present," I said, when Kennedy began to wind down.

About an hour later, I heard a car park in the gravel area by the front door. After the engine cut off, footsteps and a gentle knock told me my caller had decided to carry through with the visit, though I was detecting a lot of hesitation.

I picked up the rifle. It was going to be hell to get a good shot with my weak shoulder, and it was going to be painful. "Who is it?" I called.

"Halleigh."

"You alone?" I knew she was, but with undetectable people around, I had to check. Her thoughts would tell me if someone was forcing her to knock on the door.

"I am. I don't blame you if you don't want to open up," she said.

I opened the door. Halleigh Bellefleur was younger than me, a nice-looking brown-haired schoolteacher who was really, really pregnant. Tara had not fared as well when she was expecting the twins; Halleigh was truly blooming.

"Come in," I said. "Does Andy know you're here?"

"I don't keep secrets from my husband," she said, and she came up to me and hugged me very gently. "Andy's not too happy right now, but that's too bad. I don't believe you killed that woman. And I'm really sorry that man went crazy and shot you. I know your friend must feel horrible, the one whose dad is missing. This guy worked for her dad?"

So we sat for a moment and talked a little, and then Halleigh stood to go. I understood that she'd visited to make her point, both with Andy and with me. She stood by who she liked, no matter what.

"I know Andy's grandmother was a trial," I said, surprising even myself, "but you're so much like Miss Caroline in so many ways."

Halleigh looked startled and then pleased. "You know, I'll take that as a compliment," she said.

We parted better friends than we'd ever been.

It was twilight when she left, and I began to think of eating supper. I heated part of Michele's enchilada casserole in a bowl and dumped salsa on top. It was good, and I ate the bowlful.

The minute it was full dark, Bill was at my back door. I was very tired by then, though I hadn't done a damn thing all day, and I shuffled slowly to the door toting the rifle with me, though I was sure from the - well, from the feeling of the hole a vampire's head left in my other sense - that this "hole" represented Bill.

"It's Bill," he called, to confirm his identity. I let him in, undoing the locks with one hand, and stood aside to let him pass. With this much traffic, I was going to need a schedule to keep up with all my callers. Bill stepped in and gave me a sharp once-over. "You're healing," he said. "Good."

I offered him a drink, but he looked at me and said, "I can get something myself, Sookie, if I need a drink. But I don't right now. Can I get you something?"

"Yeah, actually. If you wouldn't mind pouring me another glass of tea, I'd sure appreciate it." The pitcher was pretty heavy to deal with one-handed. Gripping anything with my left hand made the shoulder hurt in a most unpleasant way.

We sat in the living room, me curled up on the couch, Bill in the armchair opposite. He smiled at me.

"You're cheerful," I observed.

"I'm about to do something that gives me intense pleasure," he said.

Huh. "Okay, have at it," I said.

"Do you remember what Eric did to me in New Orleans?" he said, and nothing could have surprised me more.

"You mean, what Eric did to us? By telling me that instead of you being spontaneously smitten with me, you were ordered to seduce me?"

It had hurt then. It hurt now. Of course, not as badly.

"Yes, exactly," Bill said. "And I'm not ever going to explain again, since we've said all this out loud and in our heads so many times. Even though I can't read minds, like you can, I know that."

I nodded. "We'll take all that as done."

"That is why it gives me intense pleasure to tell you, now, what Eric has done to Sam."

All right! This was what I had waited to discover. I leaned forward. "Do tell," I said.

Chapter 18

When he had finished, he left, and I called Sam at the bar. "I need you to come out to the house," I said.

"Sookie?"

"You know it's me."

"Kennedy's not here, so I have to stay at the bar."

"No, you don't. You're not supposed to talk to me or come see me. But I'm telling you I want to talk to you now, and I expect someone to take care of the bar for you while you get yourself out here." I was very, very angry. And I did something so rude that Gran would have choked. I hung up.

In thirty minutes I heard Sam's truck. I was standing at the back porch door when he walked up. I could see the cloud of regret around him as clearly as if it had been a tangible thing.

"Don't you tell me how you're not supposed to be here and you can't come in," I said, though it took me a minute to stoke my fire back up after seeing his unhappiness. "We're going to talk." Sam hung back, and I reached out to take his hand the way he'd taken mine at the hospital. I pulled him closer, and he tried to stay away, he really did, but he couldn't bring himself to do anything rough. "Now, you come sit in the living room and you talk to me. And before you start making up a story, let me tell you . . . Bill came by and he had a very interesting tale to tell. So I know everything, though not all the details."

"I shouldn't. I promised not to."

"You don't have a choice, Sam. I'm not giving you one."

He took a deep breath. "None of us had enough money for your bail. I wasn't going to have you spend any more time in that place than you had to. I called the bank president at home to ask him about a loan on the bar, but I got turned down."

That, I hadn't known. I was horrified. "Oh, no, Sam . . ."

"So," he bulldozed over me, "I went to Eric the second it got dark. Of course, he'd heard you'd been arrested and he was totally pissed off. But he was mostly angry that I'd tried to bail you out on my own. That vampire, Freyda, she was sitting right by him." Remembering, Sam was so angry that his teeth were bared. "Finally, she told him he could go on and bail you out, but with conditions."

"With her conditions."

"Yeah. The first condition was that you never see Eric again. Or enter Oklahoma. On penalty of death. But Eric said no, he had a better idea. He was trying to let her think he was doing something bad to you, but he was really doing something bad to me. He agreed to the part about you not entering Oklahoma, and he agreed that he would never be alone with you again, but he tacked on another one she wouldn't have thought of. It was that I could never tell you I'd asked Eric to put up the bail. And I could never try to . . . court you."

"And you agreed." I was feeling about five different emotions at once.

"I agreed. It seemed to be the only way to get you out of that damn jail. I confess that I needed sleep bad and my thinking may not have been real clear."

"Okay. Let me tell you something right now. As of this morning, the assets of Claudine's bank are now unfrozen, and I can post my own bail. I don't exactly know how to do it, but we can go to the bondsman tomorrow, and tell him I want to give Eric's money back and put mine in its place. I'm not real sure how all that works, but I'll bet it can be done." Finally, I had a coherent picture. Eric had been angry at losing control of his own life. Further, Eric was convinced Sam was waiting in the wings to take his place in my bed. There were some implications that I'd store away to think about later.

"So, are you mad at me?" Sam asked. "Or do you think I'm wonderful for getting you out? Or a fool for making a deal with Eric? Or lucky that Bill told you the truth?" His head was full of optimism, pessimism, and apprehension. "I still don't know what to do about the promise I made Eric."

"I'm just relieved that you're okay now. You did the best you could when you thought of it, and your whole reason to agree to such a stupid thing was to get me out of a terrible situation. How can I not be grateful for that?"

"I don't want you grateful," he said. "I want you mine. Eric was right about that."

And my life turned upside down. Again. "Either there was just an earthquake in here, or you said . . . you wanted me to be yours?"

"Yeah. No earthquake."

"Okay. Well. I guess I have to ask, what changed? I was the last person you wanted to see while you were . . ."

"Getting over being dead."

"Yeah. That."

"Maybe I felt then like you're feeling now. Maybe I felt like I'd come so close to forever-death that I'd better step back and take a look at my life. Maybe I didn't like a lot of what I'd done with it so far."

This was a side of Sam I'd never seen. "What didn't you like?" I knew he wanted to move on to the issue that sat between us like an elephant, but I had to have some answers.

"I didn't like my choices in women," he said unexpectedly. "I'd been picking women who were on the far side of acceptable. That didn't even occur to me until I knew I didn't want to take Jannalynn home to meet my mother. I didn't want her to meet my sister and my brother. I was scared for her to play with my niece and nephew. And that made me ask myself - why was I dating her?"