Michele came to collect Jason in her SUV and Jason left me his beloved truck so I could go and pick up the first few pieces of my life.
First stop was the Savings & Loan Credit Union, Main Street, Bon Temps where they thankfully ID'd me by sight and allowed me to withdraw a few hundred dollars. I left with the cash stuffed in the front pocket of my jeans and my most recent bank statement in hand—my first measly form of identity—and I then drove into Shreveport. The next hour was spent standing in line waiting to get a replacement driver's license issued.
My limbs ached with fatigue and the fallout of a huge adrenaline dump, thanks to the fire… but as long as the sun continued to rise and set, then the world wouldn't be waiting for me to take a nap. My list of things to do was growing steadily by the minute.
Final stop was Walmart where I picked up a cheap cell phone and drove straight back to Merlotte's. I let myself into the back office and began the painful task of calling all the Dogwood staff to break the bad news. It was with Kennedy that I spoke first.
"Are we still getting our check at the end of the week?" she asked.
"Of course!" I wouldn't dream of not paying them. "Plus, I'm gonna try give y'all an extra two weeks' worth of pay."
"Oh, Sook, you really don't—"
"It's fine. You and the rest of the staff… we were all gettin' to be family." My voice wobbled and I paused to draw a ragged breath. "I feel responsible for y'all. It's not like you guys don't deserve it. The bar won't be rebuilt any time soon."
"Only if you're sure." The relief in her voice was palpable.
I looked at my crumpled bank statement spread out on the desk. The stress of it all was suffocating me like an anvil on my chest, but I had just enough in my business account to swing that amount for wages, especially with my monthly payments still coming from my fae-inheritance. "I can manage it," I said sounding surer than I felt. "And insurance will pay out soon enough."
Minden was a small city, so news of the fire had spread like, well, fire. All of the staff knew already, and all the staff wanted to hear the story, wanted find out exactly what had happened and check if I was okay. I was tapped out by the time I put the phone down for the last time.
I slumped at the bar, which was gearing up for a busy Wednesday night, and Josie poured me a gin. She slid it down the polished bar and I caught it with one hand.
"No tonic?" I asked, lifting the glass to take a sniff.
"You don't need it tonight," she said and turned to serve another customer. It was the closest thing to a kind gesture I think I'd ever gotten out of her. I sipped the gin and curled my nose. Well. She wasn't wrong. I did need it. I shot back the rest of the gin, chatted to Sam briefly to confirm our appointment with our insurance agent the next morning, and made my way back to the farmhouse.
There were multiple casserole dishes waiting for me on the porch steps, still warm, plus two bunches of flowers. I smiled, my first for the day, as I lifted a cheerful bouquet bursting with vibrant colors. 'From your family at the Dogwood' the card read. I brought everything in, refrigerating the casseroles and depositing the flowers into individual vases. I placed the colorful bunch from my staff on the kitchen table and the other on the hall stand. The other bunch was an enormous bouquet of white carnations with a strange, orangey-white blossom in the center. I'd never seen such a flower in my life. Something exotic, but not the lewd flora that would often appear in bouquets from Eric. This flower more rustic and homely, the petals broad and crinkly. They folded in on one another with a series of tiny white stamen only just visible deep inside the bloom. I brought it to my nose and inhaled. Pleasantly tart with a hint of sweetness.
Maybe it was Bill, or one of the kind townsfolk who had dropped off a casserole for me.
I slept like the dead that night, and when I woke the next morning, I felt a little better. Until the events of the previous day hit me like a freight train. My bar was gone. All that hard earned money I'd sunk into it and suffered for was gone too. God must really be laughing his ass off at me up there, because I was really struggling to make any sense of why my life had taken yet another disastrous turn. I thought back to the strange Tarot reading with the witch in Oklahoma City. She hadn't been wrong, no sirree.
But I was a Stackhouse. And the only thing stronger than our backbone was our stubborn streak. I wouldn't let myself mope. Oh no, I'd sort this mess out myself before I'd give myself a chance to mope.
I set a serve of chicken casserole into the microwave to reheat since that's all that was available for breakfast and got a pot of coffee brewing. While those were doing their thing, I went to my filing cabinet and gathered all my paperwork together.
Greg Aubert of Bayou State Insurance was the insurance broker for the bar; and he, for all his faults, was at least meticulous and organized as me. I knew he'd handle everything smoothly and once the investigation was over from the police's end; it would simply be a matter of signing the dotted line. Sam picked me up before ten and we got to Greg's office in good time. I had the window wound down the whole way. The sun was out, the previous day's gloomy skies had apparently rained themselves out the night before, and so today was humid and dead hot, quickly creeping over 80 and probably a lot higher as the day would wear on.
Greg was waiting for us by his receptionist's desk, his tie slightly skewed to the side and his foot nervously tapping the floor. When Sam and I were sitting across from him in the confines of Greg's office, his uncharacteristically off-kilter look and behavior suddenly made sense.
"What do you mean?" Sam asked him again, his tone low and dangerously close to a growl.
"Well, Sam," Greg said, clearing his voice uneasily. "I can't speak any plainer than I have already. No policy exists for the bar and it never has."
Sam twisted in his seat to look at me accusingly.
"That's not true," I cried and thrust my paperwork into Greg's hand. Greg adjusted his glasses and examined the paperwork I'd brought along with me. He shook his head slowly. My palms prickled, my head throbbed. This nightmare… It wasn't over, was it? "You can't deny that!" I said, standing up to point at his at the bottom of the policy under mine. "You and I sat across one another and signed off on it and your receptionist was the witness."
"You're mistaken," he said with a final shake of his head. "I have absolutely no record of this and, in fact, this date," he pointed to the bottom of the page. "Proves it can't possibly have happened. I was out of state with my wife on vacation that entire week. I closed the office and gave Jeannie the week off."
"No." I shook my head resolutely. "You've got it wrong. You've got it all wrong."
"I quite recall you coming in the week prior to discuss opening a policy with me, but as I remember it, when we left you were going to shop around a little before you decided." He looked to his computer screen and began scrolling. "Ah. Here it is. June 2nd, S. Stackhouse, initial meeting. Business and building cover required. Will request further appointment, if needed."
"No!" I slapped my hand down hard on the table. "That's wrong. You are wrong. You've got it wrong. Look in your computer! You'll see I came in the following week, and you signed off on it all."
He looked at Sam helplessly and back at me. "There's no hardcopies. No digital copy. I've checked with the policy provider and they have no records either. And I certainly don't remember meeting you again after that initial appointment."
It was as if the scuffed vinyl floors under my feet abruptly dropped away from under me. I grabbed onto the edge of his desk to steady myself. He didn't remember? I dropped my shields and dived straight into Greg's mind. I gasped and staggered backward. No. No, no, no, no, n—
"What the hell is going on? How is this possible?" Sam hissed at me.
The taste of acid in my mouth burned through my ability to say anything, I could only offer a desperate shake of my head.
"How?" Sam demanded.
"He's glamoured," I managed to croak.
Sam grabbed my arm and marched me furiously from the office to outdoors on the street.
"What the fuck, Sookie!?" he shouted once we got out onto the street. "What in the actual fuck!" He began pacing and waving his hands around. "Of course he was glamoured. Of-fucking-course. Why should I expect anything less? What kind of fucked up shit have you got yourself into this time?" He strode over and gave my arm a shake. "What did you do?"
I wrenched my arm out of his grasp. "You shut your damn mouth, Samuel Merlotte. I am your friend and your business partner, and this is no way to be speaking to me. None of this is my fault!" I waved the policy papers in his face. "I signed that paperwork. The bar is insured!"
"Do you not get it?" he said, suddenly right up in my face, his rusty brown hair shaking to and fro. He snatched the policy from my hand and tossed it to the pavement, sheets of white paper wind-milling around us. "It doesn't fucking matter. If vampires were the one to burn down your bar that policy never existed. Doesn't matter if you signed it or not."
He stepped back and scoffed, shaking his head slowly, ruefully. "Josie was right. I never should've gone into this with you."
"What do you mean?" I spat, crouching the pick up the papers off the pavement.
"I was just trying to throw you a bone, Sook. After all we've been through. And after I…" he shook his head again, this time slowly, but his thoughts finished what his mouth would not say: ...after I left you for Josie. "I was just tryin' to do right by you."
I snatched up the last of the paperwork and jumped to my feet.
"You invested in the Dogwood with me because you pitied me?" I cried. I was horrified. More than horrified. Mortified! I blinked back tears and fumbled as I tried to stuff the insurance papers back into their folder.
"And look where it got me?" He let out a bitter laugh. "You're bad news, Sookie. Doesn't matter how good your intentions are, or how hard you try to extricate yourself from vampires. Where you go, trouble follows. I'm not gonna see that investment money back, am I?"
"Of course you are!" I said. I stabbed at the return address on the envelope. "I'll go up to Baton Rouge and sort this out at the insurer's head office. I'll call a lawyer. Mr Cataliades. You'll get your money back and mine too! I did everything by the book. Everything."
"Everything by the book, except working with vampires…"
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me. I did what I had to us keep us afloat."
"No, Sookie," he snarled. "You've got to be kidding me. You are not a stupid woman, but I warned you against it." He threw his hands in the air in defeat. "This is it. I am done. And I am damned lucky my bar didn't burn down in the process. Consider my investment forfeited. I don't want my money back from The Dogwood. It's tainted as far as I'm concerned. My investment in The Dogwood hereby cancels out yours with Merlotte's."
My jaw dropped and my arms fell limply to my side. Sam left without further ado and I watched his truck disappear around the corner.
I sat on the curb and stared at the trembling paperwork in my hands. God, I never should have gone to Oklahoma, never should've accepted that dirty money from Freyda. It had been tainted and I had known it was wrong right from the beginning—morally, ethically, rationally. And this was my karma.
What had my life become? The tears, which were nowhere to be seen after the fire the day before, finally made themselves known.
• •
There was faint patch on the ceiling of my living room. An old watermark. Well, beer-mark to be precise. It had remained for over twenty years, despite both mine and Gran's attempts at scrubbing it out. Despite the coat of paint the ceiling received after the kitchen fire.
Back when he was in high shool, Jason had somehow snuck some beer into the house and spilled it on the floor of his bedroom. His room, which sat directly above the living area. He'd cleaned it up, but apparently not fast enough. The next morning I'd got up to see Gran atop a stepladder trying to wipe it away the stain with a cloth. I still remember the look on her face when she cautiously sniffed that rag and realized it wasn't a water leak, but rather booze.
It was the same look Sam had on his face when he realized vampires were responsible for burning down my bar.
My vision clouded with tears again and I closed my eyes, pressing the heel of my palms against them so I wouldn't have to look at the damned stain on the ceiling. Maybe I was the stain. Maybe no matter which path I took, this result would always been inevitable.
In the last week since the fire, life had been draining. Soul crushing.
After the disastrous meeting with Greg Aubert, I'd hired a car and driven straight to Baton Rouge to sit several meetings with the bar's insurance provider. The two days I was there, wasting precious money, sleeping in my clothes and in the car, I became strained to the point of breaking. I kicked up a bigger and bigger stink with each meeting where they rejected any knowledge or record of having any insurance policy for the bar. Eventually, I was escorted off the premises by security. Oh, I'd let them have a piece of their mind.
I'd then phoned Mr. Cataliades' office and requested an urgent call with him.
And he had listened with sympathy to my woeful story but even he was at a loss. He didn't doubt vampires were involved. But if they were as thorough as they seemed, he said, then there could be no recourse. The policy was worth naught. They'd simply erased its existence and the memory of it from everyone involved. Even a demon lawyer couldn't undo that.
He took the details of the lead police investigator handling the arson and promised to follow up on my behalf. But it was a hollow offer. There was nothing the lawyer could do for me now. I'd driven back to Bon Temps, crying and occasionally screaming with frustration. Road rage hit me with full force, and I flipped off drivers and cut in front of others. A flimsy attempt at regaining some modicum of control in my life.
And in the week since the fire, the official investigation had reached a standstill. Arson, as I already bitterly knew, was an extremely easy crime to commit if you didn't want to be found out. I'd told the investigator about the books of matches that had been found on the back door step, but again, that was neither here nor there. Fire burns away all the physical evidence. A book of matches hardly counted for much. I wondered about Chad the two-natured redhead, and his odd note, and how that might figure in to it all. Maybe he was tasked with the job? Maybe he wasn't flirting with me. Maybe he was scoping the bar for the best way to destroy it. Or the best time. The fire hadn't happened until I spent absolutely all the money I'd earned in Oklahoma.
But by some small mercy, and believe me, I was counting what precious few I had, the police cleared me of all wrongdoing. Of course, I was innocent. Why would the owner burn down her bar if she had no insurance policy in place to cash in on it? And they weren't making any headway with their investigation elsewhere. Vampires were nothing if not thorogh in their cold and calculating evilness. This wasn't an anger fueled burn, like the one started by foolish Charles Twining, who'd been stupid enough to appear in my yard at the scene of the crime while my kitchen was still going up in smoke.
This fire was planned and it was executed with care to do maximum damage.
The final nail on the proverbial coffin (if we're talking about how thoroughly my life had screwed over) was when I was contacted by the bank. It turns out that I was required to have insurance in order to hold a mortgage with them, and thanks to some obscure clause in my loan contract, either I had to arrange and fund to have the whole building rebuilt or pay up for the total mortgage amount immediately. I was in not fit state to even consider taking on a project as big as rebuilding the bar. And I'd barely made a dent in the mortgage repayments for it, too.
I knew what I had to do. It broke my heart to do it. But there was no way around it.
Hello rock, hello hard place. You might remember me, I'm Sookie Stackhouse.
My cell rang and on autopilot I got up off the couch and retrieved it from my purse.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Sookie. It's Amelia. Oh my God, I just heard about the bar. Are you okay? I am so, so sorry. I meant to call you back when you'd sent me that message and then I couldn't get a hold of you. I just can't believe—"
"It's fine, Amelia," I said cutting her off. I walked to the liquor cabinet and pulled out the bottle of whiskey. I half-filled my glass tumbler with the liquor and topped the rest up with my unfinished can of coke from my earlier drink. I cringed as I took the first mouthful. I hated whiskey. I hated most brown liquor. But it sure was good for dulling the senses. "It is what it is."
Amelia quietened. "Sam said it was vampires."
I sighed. So, they'd talked then. I plonked myself back down on the couch.
"Oh, hon."
"It's fine," I said. "I don't need your sympathy."
"What are you going to do?"
"What can I do?" I said bitterly.
"You hand them their ass, that's what you do! You get your money back."
"Who, Amelia? Which vampires? Because I know I have diddly-squat chance of pinning it on any one of them and even if I did find out who it was—Freyda, or her freaky vampire siblings, or some nasty passing vampire with a sick grudge against blonde telepaths—how on earth am I meant to get them to fix the mess they've made without making it worse or risking my neck?"
"What about Pam or Eric? Could they help?"
I quietened then and stared at my glass. "I've been burned too many times, Meels. I can't, I just—" My voice broke and I drew a deep breath, grasping for my vanishing composure. "Vampires have taken everything from me. Time and time again. All I have left is myself and my family. I don't even have a job anymore. I can't risk myself or Jason, Michele and Corbett. I can't stick my neck out anymore. I have to play it safe. I don't want to poke a stick at a sleepin' bear in order to find the culprits on a miniscule chance I can get money from them. I need to cut my losses and move on, or the next thing to happen will make arson seem like child's play."
I sat my glass down next to the fresh stack paperwork on the coffee table. A blue bic pen sat atop the signed papers.
She was silent for a while, absorbing my words. "This isn't like you. You can't just give up like that," she said finally.
"I'm selling the farmhouse, Amelia."
"Oh, Sookie… No."
"I'm financially screwed. Big time. I have no other option."
"Shit. So what are you going to do? Are you going to stay in Bon Temps?"
"And do what? I have no job. I have an absolutely enormous debt to pay back. I seriously doubt selling the house will cover it all. My investment in Merlotte's is null and void. I'm not even welcome there anymore."
I stood, finished my drink, and took my empty glass to the sink. On the way back, I lingered past the vase of white flowers. I thumbed a petal of the small, unusual orange blosson. The flowers were wilting now, and the petal separated without complaint from the flower.
"That is bullshit! Complete and utter bullshit," Amelia cried.
I laughed hoarsely. "You're telling me."
"Where is the Sookie Stackhouse I knew? The one who would kick ass and take names? Who would demand answers, demand retribution and raise the dead if that's what it took to get answers and justice?"
"Amelia." That Sookie still existed, well as much as that version of me ever did, but even she realized when it was time to fold.
"Then just come to New Orleans."
Her offer caught me off guard. When I didn't respond, she plowed on.
"Stay with me," she continued. "I want to pick up more hours; work is going really well right now. You can nanny for Felix. Bob is as deadbeat as they come, I can't rely on him to look after Felix when I need to work. I can barely scrape a child support payment from him. But I'll pay you fairly. I can afford it. I'll throw in room and board too."
New Orleans... It was so far. I'd never moved so far. In fact the only time I'd ever moved was from my childhood home to Gran's when I was seven. But to go to an entirely different city on the other side of the state? Enormous leap couldn't even adequately describe it. This was like that crazy space company that was talking about sending a human colony to Mars.
I stared at the orange petal between my fingers.
Did I have any choice? What other opportunities did I really have right now?
"Are you still there?" she asked.
"I'm here."
"It can just be until you get back up on your feet. After everything you did for me after Katrina… You can consider it your favor returned."
I had no answer. But "I'll think about it," was as close to an answer I could hope to give her.
No sooner was I off the phone before a knock sounded on the door, accompanied by a hovering void on the other side. I might not be able to clearly distinguish one void from another, but I knew exactly who it was from the sound of the gentle knock.
"Hi Bill," I said and opened the door wide, silently gesturing him to come in. This was one of two vampires I was reasonably sure wasn't out to get me.
"Good evening, Sookie," he said and ventured as far as the foyer before stopping. "I've heard about your bar. I wanted to check up on you and extend my apologies."
My brows shot up with surprise. "Well, news sure travels slow in your circles," I said. Pam and I had talked since the fire, but not since the insurance mess was revealed. Realistically, I knew I should approach it with her. But to what end?
The ghost of a smile passed across Bill's lips. "I've been out of state for some time now. Studying, in fact."
"Oh." I could hardly rouse the interest to keep the conversation going. I was being a lousy host, but most of my energy had been expended that day on getting out of bed and showering. I had little left over.
"Yes," he continued. "MIT. Software engineering. I am able to take many of the units online, but I have been flying back and forth to attend some classes."
I folded my hands patiently in front of me and nodded along, feigning interest. I just wanted to curl up in front of the TV and zone out. Dissociate.
"And how are you holding up? Can I assist in any way now I'm home?"
"I'm selling the house," I blurted out. "I'm leaving Bon Temps." The announcement came at the same time as my decision regarding Amelia's question. I said it and it was true. This was the way for me to move forward. At least temporarily.
His expression froze in surprise. It really was an odd look on a vampire. It made the undead part of his nature appear truly corpse like. "Really?"
"Would it be too much to ask of you, if I left a spare set of keys with you? If you could keep an eye on the house while it's on the market?"
"Of course, I'd be happy to help," he said with a slow, measured nod. His expression was carefully neutral. Maybe he was struggling to absorb the news. Or maybe he was trying to work out what it was that was chasing me away from the only town I'd known and loved. I walked to the hall stand by the front door and lifted off the extra set of keys from the hook.
"An interesting arrangement," he said, nodding to the flowers as he slipped the keys into the pocket of his chinos.
"I know," I said, adjusting some of the white carnations. Dead petals fell onto the mahogany stand. "Do you know what this orange flower is?"
"It's a pomegranate flower, if I'm correct."
This time it was my turn to freeze. I turned slowly to face him. "Come again?"
"A pomegranate flower. I quite like the way they appear when blooming on the tree, almost like a-"
I left him standing in the hall and rushed to the living room.
Do you ever get that feeling? The one where you remember something you know, but can't quite recall what? A little niggle of knowledge that teases you, leading you to some inane fact or piece of trivia. Maybe you read it off the lid of a bottle of Snapple, or heard it long ago on a gameshow and filed it alongside the rest of the useless trivia you've ever learned and never would think of again.
I knew I knew something, and I knew that it meant something. I couldn't think what.
I grabbed the visual encyclopedia of flowers from the bottom shelf of the bookcase. The book was so worn that pages were falling out and the spine was disintegrating, but Gran had only picked it up for a dollar from the rejected stock sale at the Bon Temps' library many, many years ago. I set the book down on the coffee table kneeled beside it. I quickly located the listing for the flower.
I traced my finger over the description of the flower. Its scientific name, its botanical significance, its cultural significance…
My finger hovered above the words. I didn't realize I'd even cursed until Bill asked what was wrong.
I looked up to him. He looked back at me expectantly. My ears were ringing and every sound and sensation felt hyper-amplified. Something inside me was building. Realization and… and…
Rage.
"Bill?" I spoke calmly, my voice sounding far too controlled when juxtaposed against the supernova expanding from inside my chest and gut. "If it is not too much trouble, may I please borrow your car? Just for a couple of hours?"
"Of course not." He fished keys from his pocket and passed them to me. I moved past him, jamming my feet into my tennis shoes and snatching up the bunch of flowers.
"What is it? What's going on?" Bill asked.
I let out an incredulous, heartbroken sound. A bark, a laugh, a sob, I didn't know. "Pomegranate blossoms. They're the national flower of Spain."
The meaning of it dawned across his features. "Sookie…?"
I paused over the threshold of my door.
"Are you okay?" Bill ventured.
Okay? That was the completely wrong type of term to be defining myself with now. Okay or not okay. That didn't matter. Because in the time it took to read one sentence I had transformed from a hollow shell to a person swelling, absolutely incandescent, with rage.
Okay? I wasn't even in the same realm as okay.
"I am pissed."
