"Charlaine Harris - Sookie Stackhouse 03 - Club Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harris Charlaine)

I nodded. He could see that from the back. I didn't trust my voice.

"If I'm not back, or if you don't get word from me, in say тАж eight weeksтАФyes, eight weeks, then
tell Eric everything I said to you today. And place yourself under his protection."

I didn't speak. I was too miserable to be furious, but it wouldn't be long before I reached
meltdown. I acknowledged his words with a jerk of my head. I could feel my ponytail switch against my
neck.
"I am going to тАж Seattle soon," Bill said. I could feel his cool lips touch the place my ponytail
had brushed.

He was lying.
"When I come back, we'll talk."
Somehow, that didn't sound like an entrancing prospect. Somehow, that sounded ominous.

Again I inclined my head, not risking speech because I was actually crying now. I would rather
have died than let him see the tears.

And that was how I left him, that cold December night.

***
The next day, on my way to work, I took an unwise detour. I was in that kind of mood where I
was rolling in how awful everything was. Despite a nearly sleepless night, something inside me told me I
could probably make my mood a little worse if I drove along Magnolia Creek Road: so sure enough,
that's what I did. The old Bellefleur mansion, Belle Rive, was a beehive of activity, even on a cold and
ugly day. There were vans from the pest control company, a kitchen design firm, and a siding contractor
parked at the kitchen entrance to the antebellum home. Life was just humming for Caroline Holliday
Bellefleur, the ancient lady who had ruled Belle Rive and (at least in part) Bon Temps for the past eighty
years. I wondered how Portia, a lawyer, and Andy, a detective, were enjoying all the changes at Belle
Rive. They had lived with their grandmother (as I had lived with mine) for all their adult lives. At the very
least, they had to be enjoying her pleasure in the mansion's renovation.
 My own grandmother had been murdered a few months ago.
The Bellefleurs hadn't had anything to do with it, of course. And there was no reason Portia and
Andy would share the pleasure of this new affluence with me. In fact, they both avoided me like the
plague. They owed me, and they couldn't stand it. They just didn't know how much they owed me.
The Bellefleurs had received a mysterious legacy from a relative who had "died mysteriously over
in Europe somewhere," I'd heard Andy tell a fellow cop while they were drinking at Merlotte's. When
she dropped off some raffle tickets for Gethsemane Baptist Church's Ladies' Quilt, Maxine Fortenberry
told me Miss Caroline had combed every family record she could unearth to identify their benefactor,
and she was still mystified at the family's good fortune.
She didn't seem to have any qualms about spending the money, though.

Even Terry Bellefleur, Portia and Andy's cousin, had a new pickup sitting in the packed dirt yard
of his double-wide. I liked Terry, a scarred Viet Nam vet who didn't have a lot of friends, and I didn't
grudge him a new set of wheels.

But I thought about the carburetor I'd just been forced to replace in my old car. I'd paid for the
work in full, though I'd considered asking Jim Downey if I could just pay half and get the rest together
over the next two months. But Jim had a wife and three kids. Just this morning I'd been thinking of asking
my boss, Sam Merlotte, if he could add to my hours at the bar. Especially with Bill gone to "Seattle," I