Dead to the World Page 0,116

looked from Jason to me, clearly getting angrier and angrier. "I just can't understand you two," he said. His voice was almost a growl. "Sookie, I know you worried about him. I'm not making that up, am I?"

"No, I am so glad to have him back." I patted my brother's foot under the blanket.

"And you, you didn't want to be wherever you were, right? You missed work, you cost the parish thousands of dollars from our budget to search for you, and you disrupted the lives of hundreds of people. And you're sitting here lying to us!" Andy's voice was almost a shout as he finished. "Now, the same night you show up, this missing vampire on all the posters called the police in Shreveport to say he's recovering from memory loss, too! And there's a strange fire in Shreveport with all kinds of bodies recovered! And you're trying to tell me there's no connection!"

Jason and I gaped at each other. Actually, there was no connection between Jason and Eric. It just hadn't occurred to me how strange that would look.

"What vampire?" Jason asked. It was so good, I almost believed him myself.

"Let's leave, Alcee," Andy said. He slapped his notebook shut. He put his pen back in his shirt pocket with such an emphatic thrust that I was surprised he had a pocket left. "This bastard won't even tell us the truth."

"Don't you think I'd tell you if I could?" Jason said. "Don't you think I'd like to lay hands on whoever did this to me?" He sounded absolutely, one hundred percent sincere, because he was. The two detectives were shaken in their disbelief, especially Alcee Beck. But they still left unhappy with the two of us. I felt sorry for it, but there was nothing I could do.

Later that day, Arlene picked me up so I could fetch my car from Merlotte's. She was happy to see Jason, and she gave him a big hug. "You had your sister some kind of worried, you rascal," she said, with mock ferocity. "Don't you ever scare Sookie like that again."

"I'll do my best," Jason said, with a good approximation of his old roguish smile. "She's been a good sister to me."

"Now, that's God's truth," I said, a little sourly. "When I bring my car back, I think I might just run you home, big brother."

Jason looked scared for a minute. Being alone had never been his favorite thing, and after hours by himself in the cold of the shed, it might be even harder.

"I bet girls all over Bon Temps are making food to bring to your place now that they heard you're back," Arlene said, and Jason brightened perceptibly. "'Specially since I've been telling everyone what an invalid you are."

"Thanks, Arlene," Jason said, looking much more like himself.

I echoed that on the way into town. "I really appreciate you cheering him up. I don't know what all he went through, but he's going to have a rough time getting over it, I think."

"Honey, you don't need to worry about Jason. He's the original survivor. I don't know why he didn't try out for the show."

We laughed all the way into town at the idea of staging a Survivor episode in Bon Temps.

"What with the razorbacks in the woods, and that panther print, they might have an exciting time of it if we had Survivor: Bon Temps," Arlene said. "Tack and me would just sit back and laugh at them."

That gave me a nice opening to tease her about Tack, which she enjoyed, and altogether she cheered up me just as much as Jason. Arlene was good about stuff like that. I had a brief conversation with Sam in the storeroom of Merlotte's, and he told me Andy and Alcee had already been by to see if his story meshed with mine.

He hushed me before I could thank him again.

I took Jason home, though he hinted broadly he'd like to stay with me one more night. I took the Benelli with us, and I told him to clean it that evening. He promised he would, and when he looked at me, I could tell he wanted to ask me again why I'd had to use it. But he didn't. Jason had learned some things in the past few days, himself.

I was working the late shift again, so I would have a little time on my hands when I got home before I had to go in to work. The prospect