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Claude hadn&039;t coht before His car wasn&039;t by the back door I was glad sootten lucky Then I toldokay," I said, looking in the mirror so I&039;d believe it "Look at you! Great tan, Sook!" I had to be in for the lunch shift, so I got dressed right after I&039;d eaten breakfast I retrieved the purloined CD from under the towels I&039;d either pay Bill for it or return it, I told myself virtuously I hadn&039;t really stolen it if I planned to pay for it Someday I looked at the clear plastic case in my hands I wondered how much the FBI would pay for it Despite all Bill&039;s atteht the CD, it would be truly a if no one else had it

So I opened it and popped it into my computer After a preliminary whir, the screen popped up "The Va, red on a black screen Stereotype, anyone?

"Enter your code number," prompted the screen

Uh-oh

Then I remembered there&039;d been a little Post-it on top of the case, and I dug it out of the wastebasket Yep, this was surely a code Bill would never have attached the code to the box if he hadn&039;t believed his house was secure, and I felt a pang of guilt I didn&039;t knohat procedure he&039;d established, but I assumed he put the code in a directory when he mailed out the disc to a happy customer Or maybe he&039;d put a "destruct" code on the paper for fools like lad no one else was in the house after I typed in the code and hit Enter, because I dropped tohappened, except soured I was safe I scra me my options I could search by country of residence, country of origin, na I clicked on "Residence," and I was prompted: "Which country?" I could pick froot another prompt: "What state?" And another list I clicked on "Louisiana" and then on "Compton" There he was, in a nized the paint color Bill was s stiffly, and he didn&039;t look like a party animal, that&039;s for sure I wondered how he&039;d fare with a dating service I began to read his biography And sure enough, there at the bottom, I read, "Sired by Lorena Ball of Louisiana, 1870"

But there was no listing for "brothers" or "sisters"

Okay, it wasn&039;t going to be that easy I clicked on the boldfaced name of Bill&039;s sire, the late, unlamented Lorena I was curious as to what her entry would say, since Lorena had met the ultimate death, at least until they learned how to resuscitate ashes

"Lorena Ball," her entry read, with only a drawing It was a pretty good likeness, I thought, cocking my head as I looked it over Turned in 1788 in New Orleanslived all across the South but returned to Louisiana after the Civil Warhad "met the sun," murder by person or persons "unknown" Huh Bill knew perfectly ho&039;d killed Lorena, and I could only be glad he hadn&039;t put my name in the directory I wondered ould have happened to h to worry about, but then you think of a possibility you&039;d never iined and you realize you have even o"Sired Bill Compton (1870) and Judith Vardamon (1902)"

Judith So this was Bill&039;s "sister"

After so, I discovered that Judith Vardamon was still "alive," or at least she had been when Bill had been co his database She lived in Little Rock

I further discovered I could send her an e-ed to answer it

I stared down at ht about hoful Bill looked I thought about his pride, and the fact that he hadn&039;t yet contacted this Judith, though he suspected her blood would cure hiood reason he hadn&039;t called this other child of Lorena I just didn&039;t know that reason But if Bill had decided she shouldn&039;t be contacted, he knehat he was doing, right? Oh, to hell with it

I typed in her e-mail address And moved the cursor down to the topic Typed "Bill&039;s ill" Thought that looked aled it, but didn&039;t Moved the cursor down to the body of the e-ain Hesitated Then I typed, "I&039; it&039;s been since you heard from him, but he lives at his old hoot silver poisoning He can&039;t heal without your blood He doesn&039;t know I&039; this We used to date, and we&039;re still friends I want hined it, because anonyether I clicked on Send

As h it, my little code of honor toldit, because I hadn&039;t paid So I got Bill&039;s key and put the disc back in its plastic case and started across the cemetery

I slowed as I drew near to the Bellefleur plot The floere still piled on Miss Caroline&039;s grave Andy was standing there, staring at a cross ht it was pretty awful, but this was definitely an occasion for the thought to countas right in front of hih "Thief" were burned onto my forehead I knew Andy wouldn&039;t care if I backed up a truck to Bill&039;s house and loaded up all the furniture and drove off with it It wasme

"Sookie," Andy said I hadn&039;t realized he&039;d noticed me

"Andy," I said cautiously I wasn&039;t sure where this conversation would go, and I had to leave for work soon "You still have relatives in town? Or have they left?"

"They&039;re leaving after lunch," he said "Halleigh had to work on so, and Glen had to run into his office to catch up on paperwork This has been hardest on Portia"

"I guess she&039;ll be glad when things get back to norot a law practice to run"

"Did the lady as taking care of Miss Caroline have another job to go to?" Reliable caregivers were as scarce as hens&039; teeth and far arden to Mr DeWitt&039;s" After an uncoht, after you-all left I knoasn&039;t polite toBill"

"It&039;s been a hard tietting charity"

"You weren&039;t, Andy Bill is your family I know it must feel weird, and I know you don&039;t think reat-grandfather, and he wanted to help out his people It wouldn&039;t make you feel funny if he&039;d left you round, would it? It&039;s just that Bill&039;s still walking around"

Andy shook his head, as if flies were buzzing around it His hair was thinning, I noticed "You knohat randine "No," I said

"She left her chocolate cake recipe to the town," he said, and he smiled "A damn recipe And you knohat, they were as excited at the newspaper when I took that recipe in as if it were Christht the to be in the paper?" I sounded as thrilled as I felt I bet there would be at least a hundred chocolate cakes in the oven the day the paper came out

"See, you&039;re all excited, too," Andy said, sounding five years younger

"Andy, that&039;s big news," I assured hio return soh the rest of the cemetery to Bill&039;s house I put the CD, complete with its little sticky note, on top of the pile frouessed uessed, too At Merlotte&039;s I worked in a kind of haze, concentrating fiercely on getting lunch orders right, being quick, and responding instantly to any request My other sense told lad to see , and really I couldn&039;t blaive inefficiency, as long as you smiled while you were sloppy They didn&039;t like the uns, quick-handed ht it so often) that Saht that I was having my period

And Antoine was an informant

Our cook had been lost in his own broody mood I realized how resistant he norot to be I aiting on an order to be up at the hatch, and I was looking at Antoine while he flipped a burger, and I heard directly froain, he can just stuff it up his butt I&039; else Then Antoine, whoer onto its waiting bun and turned to the hatch with the plate in his hand He ht

"Let ," he said, and I knew for sure that he was a traitor

"No," I said, and turned away, going right to Salasses "Saovernment," I said, very quietly

Sam didn&039;t ask me how I knew, and he didn&039;t question my statement His mouth pressed into a hard line "We&039;ll talk to hiretted now that I hadn&039;t told Sam about the Were buried on my land I was always sorry when I didn&039;t tell Saot the plate and took it to the right table withoutAntoine&039;s eyes

Some days I hated my ability more than others Today was one of those days I had been h in retrospect, it had been a foolish happiness) when I&039;d assumed Antoine was a new friend I wondered if any of the stories he&039;d told about going through Katrina in the Superdome had been true, or if those had been lies, too I&039;d felt such sympathy for him And I&039;d never had a hint until now that his persona was false How could that be?

First, I don&039;t ht of every person I block a lot of it out, in general, and I try especially hard to stay out of the heads of my co-workers Second, people don&039;t always think about critical stuff in explicit teret the pistol from under the seat ofet an ier, with overtones of violence Or even a projection of how it ht not have reached the specific planning stage at the mohts

And mostly people didn&039;t act on their violent i I didn&039;t learn until after sorew up