Dead as a doornail - By Charlaine Harris Page 0,77

out my bedroom window at the identical duplex next door, wondering who my neighbor was, when I heard a sharp knock. Arlene was breathless from running through the first drops of rain. She had a bag from Wendy’s in her hand, and the smell of the food made my stomach wake up with a growl.

“I didn’t have time to cook you anything,” she said apologetically as I stood aside to let her in. “But I remembered you liked to get the double hamburger with bacon when you were feeling low, and I figured you’d be feeling pretty low.”

“You figured right,” I said, though I was discovering I was much better than I’d been that morning. I went to the kitchen to get a plate, and Arlene followed, her eyes going to every corner.

“Hey, this is nice!” she said. Though it looked barren to me, my temporary home must have looked wonderfully uncluttered to her.

“What was it like?” Arlene asked. I tried not to hear that she was thinking that I got into more trouble than anyone she knew. “You must have been so scared!”

“Yes.” I was serious, and my voice showed it. “I was very scared.”

“The whole town is talking about it,” Arlene said artlessly. That was just what I wanted to hear: that I was the subject of many conversations. “Hey, you remember that Dennis Pettibone?”

“The arson expert?” I said. “Sure.”

“We’ve got a date tomorrow night.”

“Way to go, Arlene. What are you all gonna do?”

“We’re taking the kids to the roller rink in Grainger. He’s got a girl, Katy. She’s thirteen.”

“Well, that sounds like fun.”

“He’s on stakeout tonight,” Arlene said importantly.

I blinked. “What’s he staking out?”

“They needed all the officers they could call in. They’re staking out different parking lots around town to see if they can catch this sniper in the act.”

I could see a flaw in their plan. “What if the sniper sees them first?”

“These are professionally trained men, Sookie. I think they know how to handle this.” Arlene looked, and sounded, quite huffy. All of a sudden, she was Ms. Law Enforcement.

“Chill,” I said. “I’m just concerned.” Besides, unless the lawmen were Weres, they weren’t in danger. Of course, the big flaw in that theory was that I had been shot. And I was no Were, no shifter. I still hadn’t figured out how to work that into my scenario.

“Where’s the mirror?” Arlene asked, and I looked around.

“I guess the only big one’s in the bathroom,” I said, and it felt strange to have to think about the location of an item in my own place. While Arlene fussed with her hair, I put my food on a plate, hoping I’d get to eat while it was still warm. I caught myself standing like a fool with the empty food bag in my hand, wondering where the garbage can was. Of course there wasn’t a garbage can until I went out to buy one. I’d never lived anywhere but my Gran’s house for the past nineteen years. I’d never had to start housekeeping from the ground up.

“Sam’s still not driving, so he can’t come to see you, but he’s thinking about you,” Arlene called. “You gonna be able to work tomorrow night?”

“I’m planning on it.”

“Good. I’m scheduled to be off, Charlsie’s granddaughter’s in the hospital with pneumonia, so she’s gone, and Holly doesn’t always show up when she’s scheduled. Danielle’s going to be out of town. That new girl, Jada—she’s better than Danielle, anyway.”

“You think?”

“Yeah.” Arlene snorted. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Danielle just doesn’t seem to care anymore. People can be wanting drinks and calling to her, and it doesn’t make a smidge of difference to her. She’ll just stand there talking to her boyfriend while people holler at her.”

It was true that Danielle had been less than scrupulous about her work habits since she’d started steady-dating a guy from Arcadia. “You think she’s gonna quit?” I asked, and that opened up another conversational pit we mined for about five minutes, though Arlene had said she was in a hurry. She’d ordered me to eat while the food was good, so I chewed and swallowed while she talked. We didn’t say anything startlingly new or original, but we had a good time. I could tell that Arlene (for once) was just enjoying sitting with me, being idle.

One of the many downsides to telepathy is the fact that you can tell the difference between when someone’s really listening to you, and when you’re talking