Pam clearly had never had a Barbie before, and was making up for lost time. There were easily ten outfits hanging there—sundresses, jeans, shirts, even a fancy dress. I looked down on the floor—yup, shoes to go with each.

"I suppose I should be glad she's not dressing me personally," I muttered, before selecting a pair of jeans and a shirt.

It's really weird being in somebody else's house, I've got to say. I wasn't used to it; I didn't go away a lot as a little girl, for obvious reasons. (Sleep-overs were hell.) Plus, my awareness that Eric was snoozing/in state up in his room made me want to tip-toe around, as if I might wake him.

I decided to be active and not let the weirdness of the situation get to me. Besides, Eric and Pam had clearly gone of their way to make me comfortable. I wasn't going to spite their hospitality and feel awkward. As I got my breakfast together, I made a list of items I had to do:

1.) Call Sam. Eric had told me he had everything "under control," but that didn't excuse me from my responsibility for my job. I'd call Sam and make sure it was all okay.

2.) Clean the dishes and laundry. Eric's house looked pretty spic-and-span, so there wasn't much to do in the way of cleaning. Still, I could tidy up my dishes and I could see if he had a washer somewhere around. (With the requisite scarlet bottle of Tide. Although the vamps' coming-out had not gone smoothly at first, Tide and several other companies jumped on the bandwagon pretty quickly. Right after the Revelation, Tide had begun a series of ads targeted at the newest consumer demographic. A rather toothy, pale woman would hold up a brilliant red bottle of Tide, remaking on its powers to clean up "even the most vital of stains." Tide stock had shot through the roof and Tide had become the only detergent any vamp would use.)

3.) Look up Jerry. I knew Eric had a computer in his home office—he'd told me I could use it. I'd see if I could dig anything up on Jerry. I wasn't a computer whiz like Bill, or even as good as Amelia, but I could try.

4.) ?? I had no intention of sitting around, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for Eric to rise; I'd find a way to be useful.

First task up, then—Sam. I grabbed my cell and punched in the familiar number. (I know Merlotte's has that Caller ID, so Sam can call back any teenagers pulling pranks on the bar, and I didn't know if it'd be a good idea to show Eric's number on there. Then again, Eric's home number might have been 800-SXYVMP for all I knew.)

"Merlotte's Bar! Sure glad you called us! Can I help you?"

That wasn't Sam. I blinked at the headset. "Um, hello, who is this?"

"Mindy, ma'am! You've called Merlotte's Bar! How are you today?"

What the hell? "Mindy? From Fangtasia?"

"I'm at Merlotte's Bar! We're happy to have your service! Do you want our hours, ma'am?"

I gritted my teeth. "I'd like to speak with Sam, please."

"I don't know if Mr. Merlotte is available—"

"Mindy!" I hissed. God help me for being a bitch, but I had my limits. We were not going through this again. "It's Sookie. Remember, Sookie? Friend of Eric?" Yes, very friendly indeed. "I need to speak with Sam NOW."

"Oh, well." She huffed and presently I heard, with great relief, Sam's voice in the background, and then there he was.

"Sook? I thought you were taking the day off?"

He didn't sound all that mad, or even sarcastic. I know I'd have been, if I were in his shoes. "I wanted to talk to you—I'm so sorry about this, and if you want to let me go—"

"Sookie! You know I'm not doing that." His voice lowered. " 'Sides, I heard what happened. I'm just glad you are okay."

"Doing best as possible. Hey, what's going on with Mindy?"

"Your vamp sent her over to pitch in while you're out. So far, she's actually doing an okay job—friendly girl, gets along well. No pirate tendencies." I could hear the teasing lilt of Sam's voice.

Sam and I joked a bit about the late (and unmissed) Charles Twining before getting off the phone. (Unmissed by Sam, anyway; I'd always felt a bit of regret that Charles didn't take more after that cute Johnny Depp pirate in the movies. Eric had not been pleased when I told him that.)

So, step one accomplished. I ticked it off my list. Step two, was to be polite and clean up after myself and my host, as much as I could. The dishes were a two-minute process (during which I noticed the extreme deficiency of dishware in Eric's house—but then again, he didn't do a lot of human entertaining, I guessed.) I located the laundry and made my way back to the bathroom, scooping up our clothing and the wet towels Eric had left on the floor. There wasn't a hamper there (of course, or else he'd have figured out wet towels don't do well on the floor by now), so I headed back to the bedroom.

I flipped on the bedside light—Eric had said full light wouldn't bother him, but I still didn't want to turn his room into a Christmas tree when he was out. Now that I had more light, I could answer the burning questions of the day, like whether he normally bothered with his hamper or not. And the answer would be…not, I realized. I found a Fangtasia shirt behind his hamper, a pair of jeans that had fallen behind a chair, and a pair of boxers that were half-under the bed. (They scared me at first because they were glow-in-the dark. They apparently were a Halloween vintage, since they had "TRICK OR TREAT" scrawled across the front and back.)

"Well, you're not the worst slob I've seen, just a man," I told him, and patted his leg through the blankets.

Off to the wash, then. I hauled the hamper to the sparkling washer. (I'd have wondered if he ever used it, but he didn't have an obscene amount of clothing in his hamper, and the washer itself was one of those really fancy new kinds, the ones that promise to do pretty much everything for you.) It took me just a few more minutes to get that sorted out, including sorting out Eric's diverse range in undies and snickering all the way. I was a little leery, I admit, that I'd come across something disturbing (and not just that awful green hammock-type outfit that comedian wore in the magazines)—something like shirts with multiple shades of lipstick on it, bras and panties that weren't mine, etc. But no, no sign of Eric having any amusement when I wasn't around.

"Hmmm." Well, maybe I owed Mr. Northman a little thank-you at some point. It would just be good manners, I told myself. Even though I'm not sure Gran ever considered "adult activities" good manners, I'm sure she'd like me to show my appreciation of my host…

Something outside the window caught my eye—a woman sunbathing? Or at least that's what it looked like. She had on a bikini top and short-shorts that had the word Foxy scrawled across the butt. (I'd bought a similar pair once that said "Angel" and Gran had told me if the good Lord had wanted words on my butt, he'd have marked me so. Out went those shorts.)

I'd have turned away, but something felt off about the entire production she made—lavishing suntan oil on herself, directing her chair on the side lawn near Eric's, shooting constant looks in this direction.

And then it hit me. The skank is after Eric! I almost dropped the glass in my hands. It made sense; not all humans can spot a vamp and maybe all this woman saw was Eric's (very attractive) exterior. I wondered what she thought of him. Oh, hell, I was a straight female; I knew what she thought of him. I saw her stand up, bend over very obviously, so her boobs almost fell out of her little bikini top, all the while hopefully positioning herself for any peeping Vikings, and my sympathy ran out.

It was time, I decided, to take out the trash.

I grabbed an empty garbage bag, stuffed it with Pam's empty shopping bags, and hustled outside the house to drop off my clearly overflowing garbage.

"Oh, hi!" I waved to "Foxy"; she was, after all, almost on Eric's lawn. Whore. I tried to upbraid myself for the un-Christian thoughts, but the undone strings of her bikini weren't helping me.

She looked startled. "Good morning," she said politely, and I could see her eyes sweep the street for signs of a stranger's car. "You're visiting Leif? I didn't know there was company on the street." She smiled, but her teeth didn't show.

Gran would've boxed her ears for that kind of nosiness. My own response was much nastier. "Oh, I didn't drive." I pretended to be bashful, rubbing my neck and giggling just a little. "He brought me here." Let her chew on that. I rubbed my neck again, hoping for once Eric had left a hickey.

"Oh, how nice to meet you. Sure hope you come around a lot." She smiled and again I didn't see teeth. Either she had a real bad dentist or a real bad attitude. "He works so much, doesn't he? Not a lot of time for himself, best I can tell."

I could see what she was thinking: the house was dark all day and Eric only appeared at night, so presumably, he worked all day and, poor thing, came home at night to rest. It made sense, if you didn't know him at all, or if you had only met him once. I caught a memory from her head of Eric answering his door in his boxers, toweling water off, as the woman and a bunch of Girl Scouts solicited him for Girl Scout cookies.

She'd wanted to solicit him for something else. I snorted. I guess they don't have merit badges in that.

"Yes, he works so hard. I'm always encouraging him to take it easy." I sighed theatrically. "Well, let's hope I can keep him off his feet, eh?" I winked, just to make sure she understood the lines. She did; her mouth tightened and she smiled fakely again.

It was bitchy of me, but what could I do? I didn't want Miss Desperate Housewife coming around with her skanky undone top when I wasn't around.

As I marched back into the house, I decided not to tell Eric any of this. For all I knew, he'd start answering his door buck-naked, just to send the poor little Girl Scouts into early puberty (if the sight of him wet and half-dressed hadn't done it already).

'Course, I wouldn't be able to tell him any of this until he woke up for the night. Time for the last item on my list: to see if I could get some research on this Jerry. Amelia had said Bill overlooked the obvious Internet research last time, so maybe I could do it.

I found Eric's computer in his little office room. It had a big poster of an old sailing ship on one wall and a framed Fangtasia poster on the other wall. It was purely a work space, I could tell—a few papers, the computer, a locked filing cabinet, that was it.

I sat down. First step: to figure out the password. Eric had told me there'd be a hint. I glanced around and saw a post-it note with…I frowned. A hand-drawn set of boobs? I rolled my eyes and typed in "BOOBS."

No dice. I frowned. "TITS."

Nope.

"RACK."

Nada.

"HOOTERS." I wondered if Eric had ever gone there. It seemed like his kind of place.

No-go.

Ugh. I cringed. "JUGS."

The computer beeped at me in rejection again. And probably in outrage. "Sorry, sorry." That wasn't Eric's way of talking about women, anyway.

Oh! Maybe he was going for subtle and classy for once? "BREASTS."

Nope.

Maybe he was playing a joke? "CHICKEN."

Nope.

"What the hell?" I glared at the post-it.

"NIPPLES."

Nope. I swear, the computer was gleeful. The monitor seemed to glow more brightly as I grew madder.

"DD."

Nada. I leaned back and folded my arms against my own— "Oh, hell."

"SOOKIE."

The computer whirred happily and started up. (Just like its owner.) The desktop was the photo on Eric's desk, with Claude mostly cut out so that my chest and the side of my face were the majority of the desktop. I wondered if Pam had set that up, just to tease him.

I navigated easily to the Web browser. I'm not the most computer-savvy girl, but I've used Sam and Amelia's computers before, and of course having to sit there for hours watching Bill's back bent over his did teach me something.

Or more than one thing.

"Focus!" I ordered myself and pecked in "Gerald Bratt" into the search engine.

It took a few tries but I found that social networking place Langdon had been on. Surprise-surprise, one of his buddies was "Gerald." "Gerald" didn't have an image, but I figured it was a good enough lead for now. I poked into Gerald's page.

He apparently was on the computer a lot during the day—lots of personality quizzes, all telling him things like his Monster Name, Politician Name, and Vampire Name. (That made me raise my eyebrows, but I didn't see anything else indicating he was especially affiliated with vamps. In fact, the vamp quiz had a linking human-name quiz, and both seemed pretty popular time-wasters on this website.)

So he wasted a lot of time. Who didn't? I chewed my lip. He didn't have a lot of friends—I went to sort through them. One red-headed face stood out.

"Oh!" It was Quinn's secretary, listed simply as "Jay." I followed the link to "Jay" and discovered his full name….Jay Bratt.

"He's the brother? But he looks nothing like Jerry!" Yes, genes were a strange thing, even when Supes were involved, but still. This guy could've fallen out of Boston, with his translucent white skin, red hair, and blue eyes. I looked around to see if there was more I could find, but "Jay's" site was for his friends only and the computer told me I'd have to his friend to see more.

Well, no, I did most certainly not want to be Jay's friend, especially right now. I considered calling Quinn and warning him—of what? What if Jay were working for—but no, I discarded that. No matter what, Quinn would resort to that. I just knew it.

And that didn't mean Jay was necessarily guilty of anything, either. Siblings didn't always conspire. Look at Jason. If I were to be held responsible for everything he did—well, I shuddered to think of it.

I sobered up. I guess Jason didn't want to be held responsible for all of the stains on my hands, either.

"Okay, focus, focus, focus." I went back to Jerry. Beyond the quizzes, I found out, he liked to pick his favorite five things of the day. Again, just a time-waster. (Did he not have a job beyond attacking me, I wondered? Or were the Fangtasia vamps just really boring prey? Eric would not be happy to hear that.) No job listed—but then I guessed there wasn't a category for "assassin/arsonist."

I peeked into his photos. Yep, if there was ever a doubt, there was Jerry—he was even posing with Langdon in a few shots, holding beers up at Tracks. And Jay was in a few shots too, now that I knew to look for him. But what else could tell me more about him? I chewed my lip and clicked "next."

"Oh, hell!" It was a dark interior, but I knew instantly where it was. As horrified as I was to see Jay in Quinn's employ, this was something else entirely, something that made my very heart chill over. The red lighting, the glowing white skins—Jerry was at Fangtasia.

AN: Thanks for your reviews! :k, as Eric would write.