Sookie 10 Dead in the Family (14 page)

“You’d use a kid,” he said. “That’s low.”

I looked at him sharply for a minute. Then I said, “You’re worried that your little boy, who’s Hunter’s age, has autism. You’re scared this hearing you came to attend will go badly for you and maybe for Agent Weiss. You’re scared because you reacted to Claude. You’re thinking of asking to transfer into the BVA in Louisiana. You’re mad that I know people who can make you back off.”

If Lattesta could have pressed himself into the metal of the car, he would’ve. I’d been a fool because I’d been proud. I should have let him go without a word.

“I wish I could tell you who it was who put me off-limits to the FBI,” I said. “It would scare your pants off.” In for a penny, in for a pound, right? I turned and went back up the front steps and into the house. A moment later, I heard his car tear down my driveway, probably scattering my beautiful gravel as it went.

Hunter and Claude were laughing in the kitchen, and I found them blowing with straws into the dishwashing water in the sink, which still had some soap bubbles. Hunter was standing on a stool I used to reach the top shelves of the cabinets. It was an unexpectedly happy picture.

“So, Cousin, he’s gone?” Claude asked. “Good job, Hunter. I think there’s a lake monster under that water!”

Hunter blew even harder, and water drops spattered the curtains. He laughed a little too wildly.

“Okay, kids, enough,” I said. This was getting out of hand. Leave a fairy alone with a child for a few minutes, and this was what happened. I glanced at the clock. Thanks to Hunter’s early wake-up call, it was only nine. I didn’t expect Remy to come to collect Hunter until late afternoon.

“Let’s go to the park, Hunter.”

Claude looked disappointed that I’d stopped their fun, but Hunter was game to go somewhere. I grabbed my softball mitt and a ball and retied Hunter’s sneakers.

“Am I invited, too?” Claude said, sounding a little miffed.

I was taken by surprise. “Sure, you can come,” I said. “That would be great. Maybe you should take your own car, since I don’t know what we’ll be doing afterward.” My self-absorbed cousin genuinely enjoyed being with Hunter. I would never have anticipated this reaction—and truthfully, I don’t think he had anticipated it, either. Claude followed me in his Impala as I drove to the park.

I went to Magnolia Creek Park, which stretched on either side of the creek. It was prettier than the little park close to the elementary school. The park wasn’t much, of course, since Bon Temps is not exactly a wealthy little town, but it had the standard playground equipment, a quarter-mile walking track, and plenty of open area, picnic tables, and trees. Hunter attacked the jungle gym as if he’d never seen one before, and maybe he hadn’t. Red Ditch is smaller and poorer than Bon Temps.

I found that Hunter could climb like a monkey. Claude was ready to steady him at every move. Hunter would’ve found that annoying if I’d done it. I wasn’t sure why that should be, but I knew it to be true.

A car pulled up as I enticed Hunter down from the jungle gym to play ball. Tara got out and came over to see what we were doing.

“Who’s your friend, Sookie?” she called.

The tight top she was wearing made Tara look a little bigger than she had when she’d come into the bar to eat lunch. She was wearing some pre-pregnancy shorts scooted down under her belly. I knew extra money wasn’t plentiful in the du Rone/Thornton household these days, but I hoped Tara could find money in the budget to get some real maternity clothes before too long. Unfortunately, her clothing store, Tara’s Togs, didn’t carry maternity stuff.

“This is my cousin Hunter,” I said. “Hunter, this is my friend Tara.” Claude, who had been swinging on the swing set, chose that moment to leap off and bound over to where we stood. “Tara, this is my cousin Claude.”

Now, Tara had known me all her life, and she knew all the members of my family. I gave her high points for absorbing this introduction and giving Hunter a friendly smile, which she then extended to Claude. She must have recognized him—she’d seen him in action. But she never blinked an eye.

“How many months are you?” Claude asked.

“A little more than three months away from delivery,” Tara said, and sighed. I guess Tara had gotten used to relative strangers asking her personal questions. She’d told me before that all conversational bars were removed when you were pregnant. “People will ask you anything,” she’d said. “And the women’ll tell you labor and delivery stories that make your hair curl.”

“Do you want to know what you’re having?” Claude asked.

That was way out of bounds. “Claude,” I said reprovingly. “That’s too personal.” Fairies just didn’t have the same concept of personal information
or
personal space that humans did.

“I apologize,” my cousin said, very insincerely. “I thought you might enjoy knowing before you buy their clothes. You color-code babies, I believe.”

“Sure,” Tara said abruptly. “What sex is the baby?”

“Both,” he said with a smile. “You’re having twins, a boy and a girl.”

“My doctor’s heard only one heartbeat,” she said, trying to be gentle about telling him he was wrong.

“Then your doctor is an idiot,” Claude said cheerfully. “You have two babies, alive and well.”

Tara obviously didn’t know what to make of this. “I’ll get him to look harder next time I go in,” she said. “And I’ll tell Sookie to let you know what he says.”

Fortunately, Hunter had mostly ignored this conversation. He had just learned how to throw the softball up in the air and catch it, and he was distracted by the effort to put my mitt on his little hand. “Did you play baseball, Aunt Sookie?” he asked.

“Softball,” I said. “You bet I did. I played right field. That means I stood way out in the field and waited to see if the girl batting would hit the ball out my way. Then I’d catch it, and I’d throw it in to the pitcher, or whichever player needed it most.”

“Your aunt Sookie was the best right fielder in the history of the Lady Falcons,” Tara said, squatting down to talk to Hunter eye to eye.

“Well, I had a good time,” I said.

“Did you play softball?” Hunter asked Tara.

“No, I came and cheered for Sookie,” Tara said, which was the absolute truth, God bless her.

“Here, Hunter,” Claude said, and gave the softball an easy toss. “Go get it and throw it back to me.”

The unlikely twosome wandered around the park, throwing the ball to each other with very little accuracy. They were having a great time.

“Well, well, well,” Tara said. “You have a habit of picking up family in funny places. A cousin? Where’d you get a cousin? He’s not a secret by-blow of Jason’s, right?”

“He’s Hadley’s son.”

“Oh. oh my God.” Tara’s eyes widened. She looked at Hunter, trying to pick out a likeness to Hadley in his features. “That’s not the dad? Impossible.”

“No,” I said. “That’s Claude Crane, and he’s my cousin, too.”

“He’s sure not Hadley’s kid,” Tara said, laughing. “And Hadley’s the only cousin you had that I ever heard of.”

“Ah. sort of wrong-side-of-the-blanket stuff,” I said. It was impossible to explain without casting Gran’s integrity into question.

Tara saw how uncomfortable I was with the subject of Claude.

“How are you and the tall blond getting along?”

“We’re getting along okay,” I said cautiously. “I’m not looking elsewhere.”

“I should say not! No woman in her right mind would go out with anyone else if she could have Eric. Beautiful
and
smart.” Tara sounded a bit wistful. Well, at least JB was beautiful.

“Eric can be a pain when he wants to be. And talk about baggage!” I tried to picture stepping out on Eric. “If I tried to see someone else, he might. ”

“Kill that someone else?”

“He sure wouldn’t be happy,” I said, in a massive understatement.

“So, you want to tell me what’s wrong?” Tara put her hand on mine. She’s not a toucher, so that meant a lot.

“Truth be told, Tara, I’m not sure.” I had an overwhelming feeling that something was askew, something important. But I couldn’t put my finger on what that might be.

“Supes?” she said.

I shrugged.

“Well, I got to go into the shop,” she said. “McKenna opened for me today, but I can’t ask her to do that for me all the time.” We said good-bye, happier with each other than we’d been in a long time. I realized that I needed to throw Tara a baby shower, and I couldn’t imagine why it hadn’t occurred to me before now. I needed to get cracking on the planning. If I made it a surprise shower, and did all the food myself. Oh, and I’d have to tell people Tara and JB were expecting twins. I didn’t doubt Claude’s accuracy for a second.

I thought I would go out into the woods myself, maybe tomorrow. I’d be alone then. I knew that Heidi’s nose and eyes—and Basim’s, for that matter—were far more acute than mine, but I had an overwhelming impulse to see what I could see. Once again, something stirred in the back of my head, a memory that wasn’t a memory. Something to do with the woods. with a hurt man in the woods. I shook my head to rid myself of the haziness, and I realized I couldn’t hear any voices.

“Claude,” I called.

“Here!”

I walked around a clump of bushes and saw the fairy and the little boy enjoying the whirligig. That’s what I’d always called it, anyway. It’s circular, several kids can stand on it, a few others run around the edges pushing, and then it whirls in a circle until the impetus is gone. Claude was pushing it way too fast, and though Hunter was enjoying it, his grin was looking a little tense, too. I could see the fear in his brain, seeping through the pleasure.

“Whoa, Claude,” I said, keeping my voice level. “That’s enough speed for a kid.” Claude stopped pushing, though he was reluctant. He’d been having a great time himself.

Though Hunter pooh-poohed my warning, I could tell he was relieved. He hugged Claude when Claude told him he had to go to Monroe to open up his club. “What kind of club?” Hunter asked, and I had to give Claude a significant look and keep my head blank.

“See you later, sport,” the fairy told the child, and hugged him back.

It was time for an early lunch, so I took Hunter to McDonald’s as a big treat. His dad hadn’t mentioned any ban on fast food, and I figured one trip was okay.

Hunter loved his Happy Meal, ran the toy car from the container over the tabletop until I was absolutely tired of it, and then wanted to go into the play area. I was sitting on a bench watching him, hoping the joys of the tunnels and the slide would hold him for at least ten more minutes, when another woman came out the door into the fenced area, with a boy about Hunter’s age in tow. Though I practically heard the ominous thud of bass drums, I kept a smile pasted on my face and hoped for the best.

After a few seconds of regarding each other warily, the two boys began shouting and running around the small play area together, and I relaxed, but cautiously. I ventured a smile at Mom, but she was brooding off into the distance, and I didn’t have to read her mind to see she’d had a bad morning. (I discovered that her dryer had broken down, and she couldn’t afford another one for at least two months.)

“Is this your youngest?” I asked, trying to look cheerful and interested.

“Yes, youngest of four,” she said, which explained her desperation about the dryer. “All the rest of ’em are at Little League baseball practice. It’ll be summer vacation soon, and they’ll be home for three months.”

Oh. I was out of things to say.

My unwilling companion sank back into her own grim thoughts, and I did my best to stay out. It was a struggle, because she was like a black hole of unhappy thoughts, kind of sucking me in with her.

Hunter came to stand in front of her, regarding her with open-mouthed fascination.

“Hello,” the woman said, making a great effort.

“Do you really want to run away?” he asked.

This was definitely an “oh shit” moment. “Hunter, we need to be going,” I said quickly. “Come on, now. We’re late, late!” And I picked Hunter up and carried him away, though he was squirming and wiggling in protest (and also much heavier than he looked). He actually landed a kick on my thigh, and I almost dropped him.

The mother in the play area was staring after us, her mouth agape, and her little boy had come to stand in front of her, puzzled at his playmate’s abrupt departure.

“I was having a good time!” Hunter yelled. “Why do we have to go?”

I looked him straight in the eyes. “Hunter, you be quiet until we’re in the car,” I said, and I meant every word. Carrying him through the restaurant while he was yelling had focused every eye on us, and I hadn’t enjoyed the attention. I’d noticed a couple of people I knew, and there would be questions to answer later. This wasn’t Hunter’s fault, but it didn’t make me feel any kinder.

As I buckled his seat belt, I realized I’d let Hunter get too tired and overexcited, and I made a mental note not to do that again. I could feel his little brain practically jiggling up and down.

Hunter was looking at me as though his heart were broken. “I was having a good time,” he said again. “That boy was my friend.”

I turned sideways to look him in the face. “Hunter, you said something to his mom that let her know you’re different.”

He was realistic enough to admit the truth of what I was saying. “She was really mad,” he muttered. “Moms leave their kids.”

His own mother had left him.

I thought for a second about what I could say. I decided to ignore the darker theme here. Hadley had left Remy and Hunter, and now she was dead and would never return. Those were facts. There was nothing I could do to change them. What Remy wanted me to do was to help Hunter live the rest of his life.

“Hunter, this is hard. I know it. I went through the same thing. You could hear what that mom was thinking, and then you said it out loud.”

“But she
was
saying it! In her head!”

“But not out loud.”

“That was what she was
saying
.”

“In her head.”
He was just being stubborn now. “Hunter, you’re a very young man. But to make your own life easier, you have to start thinking before you talk.”