"And how do you feel now?"
"Numb. Isn't that stupid? I'm pulling her out of me by the roots, though. I told you I would. I had to do it. It's like being addicted to crack. She's awful."
I thought of Lorena. "Sometimes," I said, and even to my own ears I sounded sad, "the bitch wins." Lorena was far from dead between Bill and me. Speaking of Debbie raised yet another unpleasant memory. "Hey, you told her we had been to bed together, when you two were fighting!"
He looked profoundly embarrassed, his olive skin flushing. "I'm ashamed of that. I knew she'd been having a good time with her fiance; she bragged about it. I sort of used your name in vain when I was really mad. I apologize."
I could understand that, even though I didn't like it. I raised my eyebrows to indicate that wasn't quite enough.
"Okay, that was really low. A double apology and a promise to never do it again."
I nodded. I would accept that.
"I hated to hustle you all out of the apartment like that, but I didn't want her to see the three of you, in view of conclusions she might have drawn. Debbie can get really mad, and I thought if she saw you in conjunction with the vampires, she might hear a rumor that Russell was missing a prisoner and put two and two together. She might even be mad enough to call Russell."
"So much for loyalty among Weres."
"She's a shifter, not a Were," Alcide said instantly, and a suspicion of mine was confirmed. I was beginning to believe that Alcide, despite his stated conviction that he was determined to kept the Were gene to himself, would never be happy with anyone but another Were. I sighed: I tried to keep it a nice, quiet sigh. I might be wrong, after all.
"Debbie aside," I said, waving my hand to show how completely Debbie was out of our conversational picture, "someone killed Jerry Falcon and put him in your closet. That's caused me - and you - a lot more trouble that the original mission, which was searching for Bill. Who would do something like that? It would have to be someone really malicious."
"Or someone really stupid," Alcide said fairly.
"I know Bill didn't do it, because he was a prisoner. And I'd swear Eric was telling the truth when he said he didn't do it." I hesitated, hating to bring a name back up. "But what about Debbie? She's ..." I stopped myself from saying "a real bitch," because only Alcide should call her that. "She was angry with you for having a date," I said mildly. "Maybe she would put Jerry Falcon in your closet to cause you trouble?"
"Debbie's mean and she can cause trouble, but she's never killed anyone," Alcide said. "She doesn't have the, the ... grit for it, the sand. The will to kill."
Okay. Just call me Sandy.
Alcide must have read my dismay on my face. "Hey, I'm a Were," he said, shrugging. "I'd do it if I had to. Especially at the right time of the moon."
"So maybe a fellow pack member did him in, for reasons we don't know, and decided to lay the blame on you?" Another possible scenario.
"That doesn't feel right. Another Were would have - well, the body would've looked different." Alcide said, trying to spare my finer feelings. He meant the body would have been ripped to shreds. "And I think I would've smelled another Were on him. Not that I got that close."
We just didn't have any other ideas, though if I'd tape-recorded that conversation and played it back, I would have thought of another possible culprit easily enough.
Alcide said he had to get back to Shreveport, and I lifted my legs for him to rise. He got up, but went down on one knee by the head of the couch to tell me goodbye. I said the polite things, how nice it had been of him to give me a place to stay, how much I'd enjoyed meeting his sister, how much fun it had been to hide a body with him. No, I didn't really say that, but it crossed my mind, as I was being Gran's courteous product.
"I'm glad I met you," he said. He was closer to me than I'd thought, and he gave me a peck on the lips in farewell. But after the peck, which was okay, he returned for a longer good-bye. His lips felt so warm; and after a second, his tongue felt even warmer. His head turned slightly to get a better angle, and then he went at it again. His right hand hovered above me, trying to find a place to settle that wouldn't hurt me. Finally he covered my left hand with his. Oh boy, this was good. But only my mouth and my lower pelvis were happy. The rest of me hurt. His hand slid, in a questioning sort of way, up to my breast, and I gave a sharp gasp.
"Oh, God, I hurt you!" he said. His lips looked very full and red after the long kiss, and his eyes were brilliant.
I felt obliged to apologize. "I'm just so sore," I said.
"What did they do to you?" he asked. "Not just a few slaps across the face?"
He had imagined my swollen face was my most serious problem.
"I wish that had been it," I said, trying to smile.
He truly looked stricken. "And here I am, making a pass at you."
"Well, I didn't push you away," I said mildly. (I was too sore to push.) "And I didn't say, 'No, sir, how dare you force your attentions on me!'"
Alcide looked somewhat startled. "I'll come back by soon," he promised. "If you need anything, you call me." He fished a card out of his pocket and laid it on the table by the couch. "This has got my work number on it, and I'm writing my cell number on the back, and my home number. Give me yours." Obediently, I recited the numbers to him, and he wrote them down in, no kidding, a little black book. I didn't have the energy to make a joke.
When he was gone, the house felt extra empty. He was so big and so energetic - so alive - he filled large spaces with his personality and presence.
It was a day for me to sigh.
Having talked to Jason at Merlotte's, Arlene came by at half past five. She surveyed me, looked as if she were suppressing a lot of comments she really wanted to make, and heated me up some Campbell's. I let it cool before I ate it very carefully and slowly, and felt the better for it. She put the dishes in the dishwasher, and asked me if I needed any other help. I thought of her children waiting for her at home, and I said I was just fine. It did me good to see Arlene, and to know she was struggling with herself about speaking out of turn made me feel even better.
Physically, I was feeling more and more stiff. I made myself get up and walk a little (though it looked more like a hobble), but as my bruises became fully developed and the house grew colder, I began to feel much worse. This was when living alone really got to you, when you felt bad or sick and there was no one there.