IMPORTANT: This story is PART 2 in a series that continues the tales of Sookie Stackhouse after the final novel in the official Southern Vampire Mysteries series.

Part 1 is: "All that Glitters is Dead" and is required reading before this one. Click through to my profile to access it.


Chapter 1

Out of everything I'd learned during the last twelve months as Desmond Cataliades' paralegal-in-training, it was touch typing that I was the proudest of. Eyes open, eyes closed, I could type consistently at over eighty words per minute. It certainly made my job easier, but I'd driven Amelia mad in the evenings with my constant tap, tap, tapping as I learned. Thankfully, in the new apartment, Diantha didn't seem to mind too much.

That evening, though, I was not at home. I sat typing in the little rental car with my laptop resting on my legs. I could barely see the screen as I had turned the brightness right down, but it didn't matter if I could or not. Other than the flurry of my fingers on my lap, any passerby would simply think I was having a nap.

I'd already typed out multiple, multiple pages that evening. It was a little like automatic writing. Instead of channeling ghosts, spirits, or whatever the heck automatic writers channeled, I was channeling the thoughts of one certain Walt Buhler. A man who was presently sitting on a couch inside Apartment 17 of Tulane University's Irving Residence Hall. Ninety nine percent of what I'd written would never see the light of day. And once I finished tailing him for the evening, I'd cull everything except the most relevant, and even then, I might delete that too if I was able to get the right photo. But I wasn't confident that tonight I'd get the money shot. Or the info I needed.

I was lousy with a camera, anyway.

I'd parked across the street under the branches of the large sycamore that towered over from the yard beside me. Bulging drops of rain gathered on leaf tips and fell in wet slaps intermittently against the car. I sighed, flexed my stiff fingers and took another sip of my tea. I was in for a long night. So far all I'd managed to catch from Walt's mind was a fairly boring recount of some crime procedural he was watching with his lady friend, and a running commentary as he intermittently checked his work email on his Blackberry.

C'mon… Where was the good stuff? Think about those secret accounts, mister.

An abrupt knock sounded at the passenger side window, and I yelped, leaping up in my seat like a startled cat. Diantha grinned at me through the window, her white teeth practically glowing from under the shadows cast by the streetlight.

"Cheese and rice," I muttered. I leaned over and unlocked the door for her. She slipped into the seat beside me with a Cheshire-cat grin. "How long had you been there gawking at me?"

"Notlong. Whatchyadrinking?" Diantha picked up my tea from where it sat in the cupholder. She drew a cautious sniff of the straw and pulled a face. She always talked so fast that one word blurred into the other, but you kinda got used to it.

"Not all of us can keep up on a steady diet of cokes , fries, jalapeno poppers and stay skinny." I took my cup back from her and took a long sip of my unsweetened tea. I didn't particularly like it unsweetened, but office work necessitated the change. If I hadn't cut back on sugar or taken up spin class then I would've been forced to buy a whole new, bigger, work wardrobe.

She shrugged and opened her shoulder bag pulling out a half-finished bottle of cola.

"I figured you'd be getting ready to hit the clubs soon," I said checking my watch.

"Don'tfeellikeittonight."

"Uh-huh," I said disbelievingly. If that were true then it would be a first. Chances were my boss, who incidentally happened be her uncle, Mr. Cataliades, had sent her to check up on me.

"Who ya tailing?" she asked.

"Some mid-life crisis millionaire. Hiding his money in some hidden accounts in Gibraltar."

Diantha snorted and rolled her seat back, propping her platform shoes onto dash.

"Don't do that." I tapped her thigh irritably. "This is a rental that work's paying for."

"This is where the millionaires live?" she asked instead, completely ignoring me. "That seems weird."

"No. Not here." The apartment building before us was garden variety red-brick student housing, and it bordered the campus of Tulane University. "His college-aged mistress lives here." I released my tight hold of Walt Buhler's mind and rubbed my eyes. It was impossible to carry a conversation and listen to him intently at the same time.

"Can't afford to put her up somewhere decent?" Diantha finally lifted her feet off the dash to lean forward in her seat and peer over the road toward the apartment complex.

"He's a cheapskate. And an asshole." I pulled a face. "He knows his wife knows he's cheating but doesn't think she's got the spine to leave him. Yet he's spineless enough to move his money into offshore accounts on the chance that she might."

"Gross."

"Right? She wants a divorce but not until she has proof of cheating and knows where the money is." And for the last week it had been my job to find that proof. That was me. Sookie Stackhouse, telepathic paralegal and part-time legal investigator for offices of Cataliades, Lucretius and Latour.

"He's toast if she's with the firm," Diantha replied, and pulled out a bag of spicy flavored Cajun chips from her patent leather messenger bag.

"Oh, you're killing me. You brought these on purpose, you know they're my favorite!" I complained. She grinned and waved the bag under my nose. I took a handful. "I've got a dress to fit into by Friday," I complained between bites. The dress was short, backless and white, and I got it on clearance a month back. It was also just that little bit too small.

"You'll be fine. You can borrow something of mine," she said. As if. Diantha was a good two sizes smaller than me. "I'm wearing my zip-up jumpsuit."

I coughed on my chip. I'd seen that thing. It was silver pleather, and so tight you could practically see what Diantha had eaten for breakfast.

"That might not exactly be appropriate attire for the restaurant I booked…" I tried to phrase it diplomatically. I didn't get the excuse to go out much, and so I'd picked somewhere a little fancier for my thirtieth birthday.

"I'll wear my diamond earrings, then. That make ya happy?" She said it with a disaffected shrug.

Oh, Lord… Oh no… Oh no… What's happened to her? My head turned sharply toward the apartment building. The woman's hysterical thoughts cut through the din of the rest of building's occupants.

"What's up?"

I shushed Diantha with a sharp wave of my hand and searched through the cacophony of voices emanating from the building's occupants. It wasn't Walt's ditzy girlfriend. It wasn't Walt himself. This voice had come from the other end of the apartment block. I recognized the current of fear that ran alongside the unknown woman's panicked stream of consciousness. I knew that brand of fear well. It was almost like…

I caught hold of the mental voice again and practically threw my laptop into Diantha's lap; I was out the car door and on the street, running.

"What's happening?" Diantha yelled, slamming the car door behind her and giving chase.

"There's been a murder!" I cried, but my voice was drowned out by a long, blood-curdling scream.

Residents were sticking their heads from open doorways as Diantha and I tore past and up the stairs. I yelled at one girl to call the police, though she seemed immobile in shock.

"What's going on?" another resident called.

"Callthefuckingpolice," Diana snarled, and the resident recoiled inside their doorway. We found a woman sobbing outside the entrance to apartment 213. She was short and middle-aged, the emblem on her uniform identifying her as staff from Fantastic Domestic Cleaning.

"Ma'am?" I asked. She looked up at me, her eyes wide and lips trembling.

"She's dead!" she cried hoarsely. I moved past her into the apartment. It was messy. Clothes strewn on the floor and draped over furniture. An old beat up guitar lay on the couch, a few empty beer bottles sitting around it on the floor. From the sitting area, I could see straight into the bedroom. A prone figure lay slumped on the bed.

I swore as I tripped over a plastic cleaning caddy on the floor. Cleaning supplies tumbled across the rug. I managed to right myself and entered the bedroom.

I didn't need to feel for a pulse to see the woman was dead. Her body was there but her mental signature ceased to exist. I cautiously took another step forward. The only light source in the room was the warm glow of a reading lamp on the nightstand. Her naked body was pale. Paler than a vampire's. Her eyes were closed, and shiny dark hair framed her face. She was almost like Snow White, if Snow White had cheek bones so sharp you could cut glass on them.

"Oh, shit," I hear Diantha say from the doorway behind me. I turned to see her holding her flip phone to her ear, and I heard the tinny voice the 911 responder through it: "What's your location, ma'am? What's your location?"

Diantha lowered the phone from her ear when she reached my side and looked from the body to me and back to the body. Her eyes were wide. "This is bad."

"You don't need to tell me." Two small puncture wounds stood out, red as rubies on the dead girl's neck.

"No. This is really bad."

Diantha grabbed my arm and dragged me with force back outside. The cleaner was still wailing in the walkway and curious residents had gathered.

"Get back to your rooms," Diantha half-growled, half-yelled, and I could've sworn I saw her eyes glow red with sheer fierceness. People scattered. Diantha turned her fearsome gaze my way. "Do you know her?"

"I've never seen her in my life." I hugged my arms around myself, thinking back to when I'd found Dawn lifeless in her bed those years ago. I couldn't seem to stop shivering.

"You don't recognize her?"

I shook my head. "No. Should I?"

"That's Lydia Ryker."

"Who?"

"The daughter of the President Alpha."

My heart skipped a beat and it was as if the entire night skipped a beat too. "Oh my God… Oh my God."

"And we just dragged our scents through America's biggest active crime scene," she said.

The significance hit me like a punch in the gut, I quickly backed away further, pulling the crying cleaning lady with me. Diantha had hung up on the dispatcher and was on the phone to someone else now. I heard the wail of approaching sirens. The cleaner clung to me, her wet cheeks pressing against my shoulder as she shook with tears. Her shock permeated my brain.

One year. I'd managed to stay out of supernatural trouble for only a single lousy year.