Someone else was coming in the back door very quietly.
"Detective Beck will kill you for hurting his wife," I said very loudly. And I said it with absolute certainty. "Kiss your ass good-bye."
"I don't know who that is and I don't care," the tall man said.
"You better care, muthafucker," said Alcee Beck, who'd stepped up behind him silently. He put his gun to the man's head. "Now, you let go of my wife and you drop that knife."
But Sharp Teeth wasn't about to do that. He spun, pushed Barbara at Alcee, and ran right toward me, knife raised.
I threw a Nora Roberts hardback at him, whacking him upside his head. I extended my foot. Blinded by the impact of the book, Sharp Teeth tripped over the foot, just as I'd hoped.
He fell on his own knife, which I hadn't planned.
The library fell abruptly silent except for Barbara's gasping breath. Alcee Beck and I stared down at the creeping pool of blood coming out from under the man.
"Ah-oh," I said.
"Welllllll... shit," said Alcee Beck. "Where'd you learn to throw like that, Sookie Stackhouse?"
"Softball," I said, which was the literal truth.
As you can imagine, I was late to work that afternoon. I was even more tired than I had been to start with, but I was thinking that I might live through the day. So far, two times in a row, fate had intervened to prevent my assassination. I had to assume that Sharp Teeth had been sent to kill me and had botched it, just as the fake highway patrolman had done. Maybe my luck wouldn't hold a third time; but there was a chance it would. What were the odds that another vampire would take a bullet for me, or that, by sheer accident, Alcee Beck would drop off his wife's lunch that she'd left at home on the kitchen counter? Slim, right? But I'd beaten those odds twice.
No matter what the police were officially assuming (since I didn't know the guy and no one could say I did - and he'd seized Barbara, not me), Alcee Beck now had me in his sights. He was really good at reading situations, and he had seen that Sharp Teeth was focused on me. Barbara had been a means to get my attention. Alcee would never forgive me for that, even if it hadn't been my fault. Plus, I'd thrown that book with suspicious force and accuracy.
In his place, I would probably feel the same way.
So now I was at Merlotte's, going through the motions in a weary way, wondering where to go and what to do and why Patrick Furnan had gone nuts. And where had all these strangers come from? I hadn't known the Were who'd broken down Maria-Star's door. Eric had been shot by a guy who'd worked at Patrick Furnan's dealership only a few days. I'd never seen Sharp Teeth before, and he was an unforgettable kind of guy.
The whole situation made no sense at all.
Suddenly I had an idea. I asked Sam if I could make a phone call since my tables were quiet, and he nodded. He'd been giving me those narrow looks all evening, looks that meant he was going to pin me down and talk to me soon, but for now I had a breather. So I went into Sam's office, looked in his Shreveport phone book to get the listing for Patrick Furnan's home, and I called him.
"Hello?"
I recognized the voice.
"Patrick Furnan?" I said, just to be sure.
"Speaking."
"Why are you trying to kill me?"
"What? Who is this?"
"Oh, come on. It's Sookie Stackhouse. Why are you doing this?"
There was a long pause.
"Are you trying to trap me?" he asked.
"How? You think I got the phone tapped? I want to know why. I never did anything to you. I'm not even dating Alcide. But you're trying to off me like I am powerful. You killed poor Maria-Star. You killed Christine Larrabee. What's with this? I'm not important."
Patrick Furnan said slowly, "You really believe it's me doing this? Killing female pack members? Trying to kill you?"
"Sure I do."
"It's not me. I read about Maria-Star. Christine Larrabee is dead?" He sounded almost frightened.
"Yes," I said, and my voice was as uncertain as his. "And someone's tried to kill me twice. I'm afraid some totally innocent person is going to get caught in the cross fire. And of course, I don't want to die."
Furnan said, "My wife disappeared yesterday." His voice was ragged with grief and fear. And anger. "Alcide's got her, and that f**ker is going to pay."
"Alcide wouldn't do that," I said. (Well, I was pretty sure Alcide wouldn't do that.) "You're saying you didn't order the hits on Maria-Star and Christine? And me?"
"No, why would I go for the women? We never want to kill pure-blooded female Weres. Except maybe Amanda," Furnan added tactlessly. "If we're going to kill someone, it'd be the men."
"I think you and Alcide need to have a sit-down. He doesn't have your wife. He thinks you've gone crazy, attacking women."
There was a long silence. Furnan said, "I think you're right about that sit-down, unless you made up this whole thing to get me into a position where Alcide can kill me."
"I just want to live to see the next week myself."
"I'll agree to meet with Alcide if you'll be there and if you'll swear to tell each of us what the other is thinking. You're a friend of the pack, all the pack. You can help us now."
Patrick Furnan was so anxious to find his wife he was even willing to believe in me.
I thought of the deaths that had already taken place. I thought of the deaths that were to come, perhaps including my own. I wondered what the hell was going on. "I'll do it if you and Alcide will sit down unarmed," I said. "If what I suspect is true, you have a common enemy who's trying to get you two to kill each other off."
"If that black-haired bastard will agree to it, I'll give it a shot," said Furnan. "If Alcide has my wife, not a hair on her body better be disturbed, and he better bring her with him. Or I swear to God I'll dismember him."
"I understand. I'll make sure he understands, too. We'll be getting back with you," I promised, and I hoped with all my heart that I was telling the truth.
Chapter 9
It was the middle of the same night and I was about to walk into danger. It was my own damn fault. Through a swift series of phone calls, Alcide and Furnan had worked out where to meet. I'd envisioned them sitting down across a table, their lieutenants right behind them, and working this whole situation out. Mrs. Furnan would appear and the couple would reunite. Everyone would be content, or at least less hostile. I would be nowhere around.
Yet here I was at an abandoned office center in Shreveport, the same one where the contest for packmaster had taken place. At least Sam was with me. It was dark and cool and the wind was lifting my hair from my shoulders. I shifted from foot to foot, anxious to get this over with. Though he was not as fidgety as I was, I could tell Sam felt the same way.