"Dead things," Alcide said, his face raised to the cold breeze, his eyes shut to help him concentrate. "Dead things inside and out."

I took hold of the curved ironwork handrail with my left hand and went up one step. I glanced around. My eyes came to rest on something in the flowerbed under the bay window, something pale that stood out against the pine bark mulch. I nudged Alcide, and I pointed silently with my free right hand.

Lying by a pruned-back azalea, there was another hand—an unattached extra. I felt a shudder run through Alcide's body as he comprehended what he saw. There was that moment when you tried to recognize it as anything but what it was.

"Wait here," Alcide said, his voice thick and hoarse.

That was just fine with me.

But when he opened the unlocked front door to enter the shop, I saw what lay on the floor just beyond. I had to swallow a scream.

It was lucky Alcide had his cell phone. He called Colonel Flood, told him what had happened, and asked him to go over to Mrs. Yancy's house. Then he called the police. There was just no way around it. This was a busy area, and there was a good chance someone had noticed us going to the front door.

It was surely a day for finding bodies—for me, and for the Shreveport police department. I knew there were some vampire cops on the force, but of course the vamps had to work the night shift, so we spoke to regular old human cops. There wasn't a Were or a shifter among 'em, not even a telepathic human. All these police officers were regular people who thought we were borderline suspicious.

"Why did you stop by here, buddy?" asked Detective Coughlin, who had brown hair, a weathered face, and a beer belly one of the Clydesdales would've been proud of.

Alcide looked surprised. He hadn't thought this far, which wasn't too amazing. I hadn't known Adabelle when she was alive, and I hadn't stepped inside the bridal shop as he had. I hadn't sustained the worst shock. It was up to me to pick up the reins.

"It was my idea, Detective," I said instantly. "My grandmother, who died last year? She always told me, 'If you need a wedding dress, Sookie, you go to Verena Rose's for it.' I didn't think to call ahead and check to see if they were open today."

"So, you and Mr. Herveaux are going to be married?"

"Yes," said Alcide, pulling me against him and wrapping his arms around me. "We're headed for the altar."

I smiled, but in an appropriately subdued way.

"Well, congratulations." Detective Coughlin eyed us thoughtfully. "So, Miss Stackhouse, you hadn't ever met Adabelle Yancy face-to-face?"

"I may have met the older Mrs. Yancy when I was a little girl," I said cautiously. "But I don't remember her. Alcide's family knows the Yancys, of course. He's lived here all his life." Of course, they're also werewolves.

Coughlin was still focused on me. "And you didn't go in the shop none? Just Mr. Herveaux here?"

"Alcide just stepped in while I waited out here." I tried to look delicate, which is not easy for me. I am healthy and muscular, and while I am not Emme, I'm not Kate Moss either. "I'd seen the—the hand, so I stayed out."

"That was a good idea," Detective Coughlin said. "What's in there isn't fit for people to see." He looked about twenty years older as he said that. I felt sorry that his job was so tough. He was thinking that the savaged bodies in the house were a waste of two good lives and the work of someone he'd love to arrest. "Would either of you have any idea why anyone would want to rip up two ladies like this?"

"Two," Alcide said slowly, stunned.

"Two?" I said, less guardedly.

"Why, yes," the detective said heavily. He had aimed to get our reactions and now he had them; what he thought of them, I would find out.

"Poor things," I said, and I wasn't faking the tears that filled my eyes. It was kind of nice to have Alcide's chest to lean against, and as if he were reading my mind he unzipped his leather jacket so I'd be closer to him, wrapping the open sides around me to keep me warmer. "But if one of them is Adabelle Yancy, who is the other?"

"There's not much left of the other," Coughlin said, before he told himself to shut his mouth.

"They were kind of jumbled up," Alcide said quietly, close to my ear. He was sickened. "I didn't know . . . I guess if I'd analyzed what I was seeing . . ."

Though I couldn't read Alcide's thoughts clearly, I could understand that he was thinking that Adabelle had managed to take down one of her attackers. And when the rest of the group was getting away, they hadn't taken all the appropriate bits with them.

"And you're from Bon Temps, Miss Stackhouse," the detective said, almost idly.

"Yes, sir," I said, with a gasp. I was trying not to picture Adabelle Yancy's last moments.

"Where you work there?"

"Merlotte's Bar and Grill," I said. "I wait tables."

While he registered the difference in social status between me and Alcide, I closed my eyes and laid my head against Alcide's warm chest. Detective Coughlin was wondering if I was pregnant; if Alcide's dad, a well-known and well-to-do figure in Shreveport, would approve of such a marriage. He could see why I'd want an expensive wedding dress, if I were marrying a Herveaux.

"You don't have an engagement ring, Miss Stackhouse?"

"We don't plan on a long engagement," Alcide said. I could hear his voice rumbling in his chest. "She'll get her diamond the day we marry."

"You're so bad," I said fondly, punching him in the ribs as hard as I could without being obvious.

"Ouch," he said in protest.

Somehow this bit of byplay convinced Detective Coughlin that we were really engaged. He took down our phone numbers and addresses, then told us we could leave. Alcide was as relieved as I was.

We drove to the nearest place where we could pull over in privacy—a little park that was largely deserted in the cold weather—and Alcide called Colonel Flood again. I waited in the truck while Alcide, pacing in the dead grass, gesticulated and raised his voice, venting some of his horror and anger. I'd been able to feel it building up in him. Alcide had trouble articulating emotions, like lots of guys. It made him seem more familiar and dear.

Dear? I'd better stop thinking like that. The engagement had been drummed up strictly for Detective Coughlin's benefit. If Alcide was anyone's "dear," it was the perfidious Debbie's.

When Alcide climbed back into the pickup, he was scowling.

"I guess I better go back to the office and take you to your car," he said. "I'm sorry about all this."

"I guess I should be saying that."

"This is a situation neither of us created," he said firmly. "Neither of us would be involved if we could help it."

"That's the God's truth." After a minute of thinking of the complicated supernatural world, I asked Alcide what Colonel Flood's plan was.

"We'll take care of it," Alcide said. "I'm sorry, Sook, I can't tell you what we're going to do."

"Are you going to be in danger?" I asked, because I just couldn't help it.

We'd gotten to the Herveaux building by then, and Alcide parked his truck by my old car. He turned a little to face me, and he reached over to take my hand. "I'm gonna be fine. Don't worry," he said gently. "I'll call you."

"Don't forget to do that," I said. "And I have to tell you what the witches did about trying to find Eric." I hadn't told Alcide about the posted pictures, the reward. He frowned even harder when he thought about the cleverness of this ploy.

"Debbie was supposed to drive over this afternoon, get here about six," he said. He looked at his watch. "Too late to stop her coming."

"If you're planning a big raid, she could help," I said.

He gave me a sharp look. Like a pointed stick he wanted to poke in my eye. "She's a shifter, not a Were," he reminded me defensively.