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sex with her, that if I did, she'd tell them at Hotshot and I'd be able to go back to live there, and Jason could come live with me. She said, 'His baby's inside me; doesn't that get you all hot?' And it got worse and worse. The bed of the truck was down because the wood I'd bought was sticking out, and she kind of backed up to it and lay down, and I could see her. It was ... she was ... she kept telling me what a pussy I was and that Jason would never care about me ... and I slapped her as hard as I could."

Dawn Norris turned to one side as though she was going to throw up. But she pressed her lips together in a hard line and straightened up. Jacky wasn't that tough.

"She wasn't dead, though." My brother forced the words between his clenched teeth. "She bled all down the cross. She lost the baby after she'd been hung up."

"I'm sorry about that," Mel said. His gaze returned from the pond and the trees and focused on my brother. "I thought the blow had killed her - I really did. I would never have left her to go in the house if I'd thought she was still alive. I would never have let someone else get her. What I did was bad enough, because I intended for her to die. But I didn't crucify her. Please believe me. No matter what you think of me for hurting her, I would never have done that. I thought if I took her somewhere else, no one would think you did it. I knew you were going out that night, and I figured if I put her somewhere else, you'd have an alibi. I figured you'd end up spending the night with Michele." Mel smiled at Jason, and it was such a tender look that my heart ached. "So I left her in the back of the truck, and I came in the house to have a drink. And when I came back out, she was gone. I couldn't believe it. I thought she'd gotten up and walked away. But there wasn't any blood, and the wood was gone, too."

"Why Merlotte's?" Calvin said, and his voice came out like a growl.

"I don't know, Calvin," Mel said. His face was almost sublime with his relief from the load of his guilt, with the release of confessing his crime and his love for my brother. "Calvin, I know I'm about to die, and I swear to you that I have no idea what happened to Crystal after I went into the house. I did not do that horrible thing to her."

"I don't know what to make of that," Calvin said. "But we have your confession, and we'll have to proceed."

"I accept that," Mel said. "Jason, I love you."

Dawn turned her head just a fraction so her eyes could meet mine. "You better go," she said. "We got things to do."

I walked off with the rifle, and I didn't turn to look even when the other panthers began to tear Mel apart. I could hear it, though.

He didn't scream after a second.

I left Jason's rifle on his back porch, and I drove to work. Somehow having a bodyguard didn't seem important anymore.

Chapter 16

As I served beers and daiquiris and vodka collinses to the people stopping by on their way home from work, I stood back and eyed myself in amazement. I'd worked for hours, serving and smiling and hustling, and I'd never broken down at all. Sure, I'd had to ask four people to repeat their orders. And I'd walked past Sam twice, and he'd said something to me to which I hadn't responded - I knew this because he'd stopped me to tell me so. But I'd gotten the right plates and drinks to the right tables, and my tips were running about average, which meant I'd been agreeable and hadn't forgotten anything crucial.

You're doing so good,I told myself. I'm so proud of you. You just have to get through this. You can go home in fifteen minutes .

I wondered how many women had given themselves the same lecture: the girl who'd held her head up at a dance where her date was paying attention to another classmate; the woman who'd been passed by for promotion at her job; the woman who had listened to a dire diagnosis and yet kept her face together. I knew