I felt hostess guilt over not having a bed to offer him. I did tell him I'd be glad to pay for his hotel room, and he gave me a look that would've made paint peel.

The two part-demons returned after dark, while I was reading, and they didn't look happy. They said good night very politely and clattered up the stairs to their room. With everyone in for the night, I decided my day could officially come to a close. It had been a pretty damn long one.

It's always possible for human beings to spoil their own peace of mind, and I did a good job of it that night. Despite the friends who had shown up with no expectation of reward, the friends who'd come a long way to help me, I worried about the friend who hadn't tried. I just couldn't figure Sam out any more than I could figure out why Eric had posted my bail when I was no longer his wife, or even his girlfriend.

I was sure he'd had some reason for doing me that large good turn.

Does it sound like I was labeling Eric as ungenerous, uncaring? In some respects, and to some people, he was never those things. But he was a practical vampire, and he was a vampire about to become the consort of a true queen. Since dismissing me as his wife apparently was one of Freyda's conditions for marrying Eric (and frankly, I could sure understand that), I couldn't imagine her accepting Eric's decision to put up an awfully large amount of money to secure my freedom. Maybe that had been part of some negotiation? "If you'll let me bail out my former wife, I'll take a decreased allowance for a year," or something like that. (For all I knew, they negotiated how many times they would have sex.) And I had the most depressing mental image of the beautiful Freyda and my Eric . . . my former Eric.

Somewhere in the midst of wandering through a mental maze, I fell asleep.

I slept twenty minutes too late the next day and woke up to the awareness that my house was full of guests. I threw myself out of bed, aware of other brains firing into thought all over the house. I was showered and out in the kitchen quicker than greased lightning, and I fixed pancakes and bacon, put the coffeepot on, and got out the juice glasses. I listened to Amelia being sick in the hall bathroom and sent a groggy Diantha into mine to speed up the shower process.

As the pancakes came off the griddle, I slid them right onto plates so my guests could eat them while they were hot. I put out all the fruit I had, for the healthy minded.

Mr. Cataliades loved pancakes, and Diantha was not far behind him in pancake consumption. I had to make up some more batter in a hurry. Then there were dishes to wash (Bob helped) and my bed to make. So I had plenty to do, but throughout the busyness of my hands and thoughts, I was unhappily aware that I hadn't heard from Sam.

I e-mailed him.

I chose that format so I could say exactly what I wanted to say without having to restate it several times. I worked on my composition for a while.

Sam, I don't know why you don't want to talk to me, but I wanted you to know that I'm ready to come to work any day you need me. Please let me know how you're feeling.

I read this message over several times and decided it put the ball in Sam's court pretty firmly. It was perfect until I impulsively typed, "I miss you." And then I clicked Send.

After years of having what I considered a happy relationship with Sam - for the most part - with no effort at all, now that I'd actually made a sacrifice for him, we were down to e-mails and mysterious silences.

It was hard to understand.

I was trying to explain this to Amelia a few minutes later. She'd come upon me staring at the computer as if I were trying to will the screen to talk to me.

"What did you sacrifice?" she asked, her clear blue eyes intent on my face. When Amelia was in the right mood, she could be a good listener. I knew that Bob was shaving in the hall bathroom, Barry was out in the yard doing yoga stuff, and Mr. C and Diantha were having an earnest conversation at the edge of the woods. So it was safe to be frank.

"I sacrificed my chance to keep Eric," I said. "I gave it up to save Sam's life."

She bypassed the big important part of that to go straight to the painful questions. "If you have to use big magic to keep someone with you, was it really meant to be?"

"I never thought about it as an either/or," I said. "But Eric did. He's a proud guy, and his maker began the process of hitching him to Freyda without consulting Eric at all."

"And you know this how?"

"When he finally told me about it, he seemed . . . genuinely desperate."

Amelia looked at me like I was the world's biggest idiot. "Right, 'cause it's nobody's dream to go from managing a backwater area of Louisiana to being consort of a beautiful queen who's hot for you. And why did he end up telling you?"

"Well, Pam insisted," I admitted, feeling doubts overwhelm me. "But he hadn't told me because he was trying to think of a way to stay with me."

"I'm not saying anything different," she said. Amelia has never been tactful, and I could tell she was making a huge effort. "You're pretty great. But you know, honey . . . Eric is all about Eric. That's why I was so willing to encourage Alcide. I figured Eric would break your heart." She shrugged. "Or turn you," she added as an afterthought.

I jerked, involuntarily.

"He did mean to turn you! That asshole! He would have taken you away from us. I guess we're lucky all he did is break your heart!" She was absolutely furious.

"In all honesty, I don't know that my heart is broken," I said. "I'm depressed and sad. But I don't feel as bad as I did when I found out about Bill's big secret."

Amelia said, "With Bill - that was the first time, right? The first time you'd found out someone important to you had been deceiving you?"

"It was the first chance anyone had ever had to deceive me," I said, a new way to look at Bill's betrayal. "With humans I've always been able to tell, at least enough to be wary or mistrustful . . . not to buy into whatever line of bullshit they're handing out. Bill was the first sexual adventure for me, and he was the first man I ever said 'I love you' to."

"Maybe you're just getting used to being lied to," Amelia said bracingly, and that was so much like Amelia that I had to smile. She was self-aware enough to look a bit abashed, "Okay, that was awful. I'm sorry."

I mimed amazement, my eyes wide and my hands held open by my face.

"Bob told me that I needed to work on my people skills," Amelia said. "He said I was pretty blunt."

I tried not to smile too broadly. "Bob might be handy to have around after all."

"Now that I'm pregnant, especially." Amelia looked at me anxiously. "You sure we're having a baby? I mean, when I thought about it, I could kind of see that my body hadn't been working the way it was supposed to for a little while. And I feel thicker. But I'd never thought of having a baby. I just thought I was hormonal. I'm all weepy."

"Even witches sing the blues," I said, and she grinned at me.

"This is going to be one awesome baby," she said.

Chapter 14

Mr. Cataliades came in to tell us he'd been talking to Beth Osiecki by cell phone and that he had an appointment to meet her and review my situation. Diantha rode into town with him; I didn't ask what her part in this consultation was supposed to be, and she didn't volunteer. Barry decided to ride in with them, too, and see if there was another car to rent locally while he was in town. He'd called ahead to make sure Chessie Johnson would be at home and was willing to talk to him.

Barry was used to getting answers from people indirectly, by listening to their heads when they were in conversation with others. In other words, eavesdropping. Since he'd be the one asking the questions in this instance, he was a little anxious about the process. I briefed him as thoroughly as I could on the Johnsons and on Lisa and Coby. He had prepared a list of questions to which he needed answers: Whom had Arlene been planning to meet? Where had she been staying since she got released? Whom had she talked to? Who had paid for the new lawyer and her bail?

"If you can," I said quietly, "please find out what's going to happen to the kids. I feel bad for all they've been through." Barry could see what was in my head. He nodded, his face serious.

Bob got on the phone to a touch psychic, though since we didn't have possession of the scarf I couldn't see the point. Bob seemed sure we'd be able to lay hands on it. The touch psychic, a Baton Rouge woman named Delphine Oubre, would drive up to Bon Temps the next morning, he said.

"And do what?" I tried hard to sound grateful and appreciative, but I didn't think I managed. I had done the most accurate drawing of the scarf that I could, and I'd described the pattern and the colors to Diantha, since saying "teal green" and "peacock blue" to Mr. Cataliades had just resulted in a blank stare. Diantha had done a second version in color, and it had looked very like what I'd remembered.

"I wouldn't worry about that if I were you. Your demon buddies are pretty resourceful." Bob smiled mysteriously and glided out of the room. In some ways, Bob was still very catlike.

Amelia was researching spells to make Arlene's mysterious male friends talk, if we could find them. I had a moment of longing for Pam. She could make anybody talk, no spell involved, unless you considered vamp hypnosis a spell. Pam would rather beat it out of them, anyway. Maybe I'd give her a call.

No. I told myself this firmly, and frequently. At this point, it was better if I simply let all connection with the vampires drop. Sure, Bill still lived next door, and it was inevitable that I'd see him from time to time. Sure, Eric had left a couple of things in the hidey-hole in my guest bedroom. Sure, Quinn reported that he'd smelled two vamps (almost surely Bill and Karin) in the woods. But I'd decided I was going to pretend there was a wall between me and every vampire in Area Five. Between me and every vampire in the world!

I checked my e-mail. I'd gotten one from Sam. Full of anticipation, I clicked on it. "Come to work this morning," was all it said. Quinn had e-mailed me, too. "Saw a couple of people I thought I recognized in the motel bar last night," I read. "I'm going to follow them today."

Who on earth could it be? But at the idea that things were moving along, I felt a rush of optimism. I went into my room to shower and dress with a smile on my face.

When I emerged from my room ready to go to work, I found Bob and Amelia in the backyard. They'd built a little fire in a circle of old bricks, and they were scattering some herbs on it and chanting. They didn't invite me to join them; and truthfully, magic smelled weird and made me really nervous, so I wasn't eager to ask any questions.

I went into Merlotte's to find it was exactly as usual. No one blinked an eye at my presence or expressed surprise that I'd turned up. As it happened, we were extremely busy. Sam was there, but every time our eyes met he looked away, as if he were ashamed of something. But I swear he was glad to see me.

Finally, I trapped him in his office. I was blocking the only exit, unless he wanted to duck into his tiny bathroom and lock the door, and he wasn't craven enough to do that.

"Okay, spill," I said.

He seemed almost relieved, as if he'd hoped I'd demand an explanation. He looked directly at me, and if I could have climbed inside his brain and looked at it, I would have. Damn shifters.

"I can't," he said. "I swore not to."

I narrowed my eyes while I considered. It was a serious thing, swearing, and I could hardly threaten to tickle him until he talked, or tell him I was going to hold my breath until he spilled. But I had to know what had changed. I'd thought we were getting back to normal, that Sam had started to rebuild himself after his death experience, that we were on solid ground.

"Sooner or later you're going to have to tell me what's wrong," I said reasonably. "If you can think of any way to give me a hint, that would be a good thing."

"I better not."

"I wish you could have come out last night," I said, changing tack. "We had a good supper, and the house was full last night."

"Did Quinn stay?" Sam asked stiffly.

"No, too crowded for that. He's got a motel room out on the interstate. I wish you'd be friendly to him. And all my guests."

"Why do you want me to be friendly with Quinn?"

Yeah, some jealousy there. Good Lord. "Because all my company came from miles away, and they all came to help clear my name."

Sam froze for a minute. "Are you hinting that I'm not helping you like they are? That they care more about you than I do?" He was obviously angry.

"No," I said. "I don't think that." Wow, he was super-touchy. I said hesitantly, "I did kind of wonder why you didn't come to the court hearing?"

"You think I want to see you in handcuffs, robbed of your dignity?"

"I'd like to think I always have my dignity, Sam, cuffs or not." We glared at each other for a second or two. Then I said, "But it was pretty humiliating," and to my embarrassment, my eyes filled with tears.

He held out his arms to me and I hugged him, though I could feel the uneasiness in him. The oath he'd sworn had something in it about physical contact, I concluded. When the hug naturally ended, he kind of held me away. I let it be. I could see he thought I was going to ask him more questions. But I thought better of it.

Instead, I invited him out to the house for dinner the next night. I'd looked at the work schedule, and I'd seen that Kennedy would be behind the bar. He agreed to come, but he looked wary, as if he suspected I had a secret motive. Not at all! I just thought the more I was in his company, the more chances I'd have to find out what was going on.