"Sookie? What's wrong?"
"Panthers? Didn't you know that the print on Jason's dock was the print of a panther?"
"No, no one told me about any print! Are you sure?"
I gave him an exasperated look. "Of course, I'm sure. And he vanished the night Crystal Norris was waiting for him in his house. You're the only bartender in the world who doesn't know all the town gossip."
"Crystal - she's the Hotshot girl he was with New Year's Eve? The skinny black-headed girl at the search?"
I nodded.
"The one Felton loves so much?"
"He what?"
"Felton, you know, the one who came along on the search. She's been his big love his whole life."
"And you know this how?" Since I, the mind reader, didn't, I was distinctly piqued.
"He told me one night when he'd had too much to drink. These guys from Hotshot, they don't come in much, but when they do, they drink serious."
"So why would he join in the search?"
"I think maybe we'd better go ask a few questions."
"This late?"
"You got something better to do?"
He had a point, and I sure wanted to know if they had my brother or could tell me what had happened to him. But in a way, I was scared of finding out.
"That jacket's too light for this weather, Sookie," Sam said, as we bundled up.
"My coat is at the cleaner's," I said. Actually, I hadn't had a chance to put it in the dryer, or even to check to make sure all the blood had come out. And it had holes in it.
"Hmmm" was all Sam said, before he loaned me a green pullover sweater to wear under my jacket. We got in Sam's pickup because the snow was really coming down, and like all men, Sam was convinced he could drive in the snow, though he'd almost never done so.
The drive out to Hotshot seemed even longer in the dark night, with the snow swirling down in the headlights.
"I thank you for taking me out here, but I'm beginning to think we're crazy," I said, when we were halfway there.
"Is your seat belt on?" Sam asked.
"Sure."
"Good," he said, and we kept on our way.
Finally we reached the little community. There weren't any streetlights out here, of course, but a couple of the residents had paid to have security lights put up on the electric poles. Windows were glowing in some of the houses.
"Where do you think we should go?"
"Calvin's. He's the one with the power," Sam said, sounding certain.
I remembered how proud Calvin had been of his house, and I was a little curious to see the inside. His lights were on, and his pickup was parked in front of the house. Stepping out of the warm truck into the snowy night was like walking through a chilly wet curtain to reach the front door. I knocked, and after a long pause, the door came open. Calvin looked pleased until he saw Sam behind me.
"Come in," he said, not too warmly, and stood aside. We stamped our feet politely before we entered.
The house was plain and clean, decorated with inexpensive but carefully arranged furniture and pictures. None of the pictures had people in them, which I thought interesting. Landscapes. Wildlife.
"This is a bad night to be out driving around," Calvin observed.
I knew I'd have to tread carefully, as much as I wanted to grab the front of his flannel shirt and scream in his face. This man was a ruler. The size of the kingdom didn't really matter.
"Calvin," I said, as calmly as I could, "did you know that the police found a panther print on the dock, by Jason's bootprint?"
"No," he said, after a long moment. I could see the anger building behind his eyes. "We don't hear a lot of town gossip out here. I wondered why the search party had men with guns, but we make other people kind of nervous, and no one was talking to us much. Panther print. Huh."
"I didn't know that was your, um, other identity, until tonight."
He looked at me steadily. "You think that one of us made off with your brother."
I stood silent, not shifting my eyes from his. Sam was equally still beside me.
"You think Crystal got mad at your brother and did him harm?"
"No," I said. His golden eyes were getting wider and rounder as I spoke to him.
"Are you afraid of me?" he asked suddenly.
"No," I said. "I'm not."
"Felton," he said.
I nodded.
"Let's go see," he said.
Back out into the snow and darkness. I could feel the sting of the flakes on my cheeks, and I was glad my jacket had a hood. Sam's gloved hand took mine as I stumbled over some discarded tool or toy in the yard of the house next to Felton's. As we trailed up to the concrete slab that formed Felton's front porch, Calvin was already knocking at the door.
"Who is it?" Felton demanded.
"Open," said Calvin.
Recognizing his voice, Felton opened the door immediately. He didn't have the same cleanliness bug as Calvin, and his furniture was not so much arranged as shoved up against whatever wall was handiest. The way he moved was not human, and tonight that seemed even more pronounced than it had at the search. Felton, I thought, was closer to reverting to his animal nature. Inbreeding had definitely left its mark on him.
"Where is the man?" Calvin asked without preamble.
Felton's eyes flared wide, and he twitched, as if he was thinking about running. He didn't speak.
"Where?" Calvin demanded again, and then his hand changed into a paw and he swiped it across Felton's face. "Does he live?"
I clapped my hands across my mouth so I wouldn't scream. Felton sank to his knees, his face crossed with parallel slashes filling with blood.
"In the shed in back," he said indistinctly.
I went back out the front door so quickly that Sam barely caught up with me. Around the corner of the house I flew, and I fell full-length over a woodpile. Though I knew it would hurt later, I jumped up and found myself supported by Calvin Norris, who, as he had in the woods, lifted me over the pile before I knew what he intended. He vaulted it himself with easy grace, and then we were at the door of the shed, which was one of those you order from Sears or Penney's. You have your neighbors come help put it up, when the concrete truck comes to pour your slab.
The door was padlocked, but these sheds aren't meant to repel determined intruders, and Calvin was very strong. He broke the lock, and pushed back the door, and turned on the light. It was amazing to me that there was electricity out here, because that's certainly not the norm.
At first I wasn't sure I was looking at my brother, because this creature looked nothing like Jason. He was blond, sure, but he was so filthy and smelly that I flinched, even in the freezing air. And he was blue with the cold, since he had only pants on. He was lying on a single blanket on the concrete floor.