"What's up?" I asked.

"Oh, not much," Jason said expansively. "You bring us a couple beers?"

"Sure," I said, thinking he'd never ordered for Crystal before. Crystal was a pretty woman several years younger than Jason. She was a werepanther, but she wasn't a very good one, mostly because of all the inbreeding in the Hotshot community. Crystal had a hard time changing if it wasn't the full moon, and she had miscarried at least twice that I knew of. I pitied her losses, the more so because I knew the panther community considered her weak. Now Crystal was pregnant a third time. That pregnancy had maybe been the only reason Calvin had let her marry Jason, who was bitten, not born. That is, he'd become a panther by being repeatedly bitten—by a jealous male who wanted Crystal for himself. Jason couldn't change into a real panther but into a sort of half-beast, half-man version. He enjoyed it.

I brought them their beers along with two frosted mugs and waited to see if they were going to place a food order. I wondered about Crystal drinking, but decided it wasn't my business.

"I'd like me a cheeseburger with fries," Jason said. No surprise there.

"What about you, Crystal?" I asked, trying to sound friendly. After all, this was my sister-in-law.

"Oh,I don't have enough money to eat," she said.

I had no idea what to say. I looked at Jason inquiringly, and he gave me a shrug. This shrug said (to his sister), "I've done something stupid and wrong but I'm not going to back down, because I'm a stubborn shit."

"Crystal, I'll be glad to stand you lunch," I said very quietly. "What would you like?"

She glared at her husband. "I'd like the same, Sookie."

I wrote her order down on a separate slip and strode to the hatch to turn them in. I had been ready to get angry, and Jason had lit a match and thrown it on my temper. The whole story was clear in their heads, and as I came to understand what was going on, I was sick of both of them.

Crystal and Jason had settled into Jason's house, but almost every day Crystal rode out to Hotshot, her comfort zone, where she didn't have to pretend anything. She was used to being surrounded by her kin, and she especially missed her sister and her sister's babies. Tanya Grissom was renting a room from Crystal's sister, the room Crystal had lived in until she married Jason. Crystal and Tanya had become instant buddies. Since Tanya's favorite occupation was shopping, Crystal had gone along for the ride several times. In fact, she'd spent all the money Jason had given her for household expenses. She'd done this two pay-checks in a row, despite multiple scenes and promises.

Now Jason refused to give her any more money. He was doing all the grocery shopping and picking up any dry cleaning, paying every bill himself. He'd told Crystal if she wanted any money of her own, she had to get a job. The unskilled and pregnant Crystal had not succeeded in finding one, so she didn't have a dime.

Jason was trying to make a point, but by humiliating his wife in public he was making the wrong point entirely. What an idiot my brother could be.

What I could do about this situation? Well ... nothing. They had to work it out themselves. I was looking at two stunted people who'd never grown up, and I wasn't optimistic about their chances.

With a deep twinge of unease, I remembered their unusual wedding vows; at least, they'd seemed odd to me, though I supposed they were the Hotshot norm. As Jason's closest living relative, I'd had to promise to take the punishment if Jason misbehaved, just as her uncle Calvin had promised the same on Crystal's behalf. I'd been pretty damn rash to make that promise.

When I carried their plates to their table, I saw that the two were in the jaw-clenching, looking-anywhere-but-at-each-other stage of quarreling. I put the plates down carefully, got them a bottle of Heinz ketchup, and skedaddled. I'd interfered enough by buying Crystal lunch.

There was a person involved in this Icould approach, and I promised myself then and there that I would. All my anger and unhappiness focused on Tanya Grissom. I really wanted to do something awful to that woman. What the hell was she hanging around for, sniffing around Sam? What was her goal in drawing Crystal into this spending spiral? (And I didn't think for a second it was by chance that Tanya's newest big buddy was my sister-in-law.) Was Tanya trying to irritate me to death? It was like having a horsefly buzzing around and lighting occasionally ... but never quite close enough to swat. While I went about my job on autopilot, I pondered what I could do to get her out of my orbit. For the first time in my life, I wondered if I could forcibly pin another person down to read her mind. It wouldn't be so easy, since Tanya was a wereanimal, but I would find out what was driving her. And I had the conviction that information would save me a lot of heartache ... a lot.

While I plotted and schemed and fumed, Crystal and Jason silently ate their food, and Jason pointedly paid his own bill, while I took care of Crystal's. They left, and I wondered what their evening would be like. I was glad I wasn't going to be a party to it.

From behind the bar Sam had observed all this, and he asked me in a low voice, "What's up with those two?"

"They're having the newlywed blues," I said. "Severe adjustment problems."

He looked troubled. "Don't let them drag you into it," he said, and then looked like he regretted opening his mouth. "Sorry, don't mean to give you unwanted advice," he said.

Something prickled at the corners of my eyes. Sam was giving me advice because he cared about me. In my overwrought state, that was cause for sentimental tears. "That's okay, boss," I said, trying to sound perky and carefree. I spun on my heel and went to patrol my tables. Sheriff Bud Dearborn was sitting in my section, which was unusual. Normally he'd pick a seat somewhere else if he knew I was working. Bud had a basket of onion rings in front of him, liberally doused with ketchup, and he was reading a Shreveport paper. The lead story was POLICE SEARCH FOR SIX, and I stopped to ask Bud if I could have his paper when he was through with it.

He looked at me suspiciously. His little eyes in his mashed-in face scanned me as if he suspected he'd find a bloody cleaver hanging from my belt. "Sure, Sookie," he said after a long moment. "You got any of these missing people stowed away at your house?"

I beamed at him, anxiety transforming my smile into the bright grin of someone who wasn't all there mentally. "No, Bud, I just want to find out what's going on in the world. I'm behind on the news."

Bud said, "I'll leave it on the table," and he began reading again. I think he would have pinned Jimmy Hoffa on me if he could have figured a way to make it stick. Not that he necessarily thought I was a murderer, but he thought I was fishy and maybe involved in things that he didn't want happening in his parish. Bud Dearborn and Alcee Beck had that conviction in common, especially since the death of the man in the library. Luckily for me, the man had turned out to have a record as long as my arm; and not only a record, but one for violent crimes. Though Alcee knew I'd acted in self-defense, he'd never trust me . . . and neither would Bud Dearborn.

When Bud had finished his beer and his onion rings and departed to rain terror on the evildoers of Renard Parish, I took his paper over to the bar and read the story with Sam looking over my shoulder. I had deliberately stayed away from the news after the bloodbath at the empty office park. I'd been sure the Were community couldn't cover up something so big; all they could do was muddy the trail the police would surely be following. That proved to be the case.

After more than twenty-four hours, police remain baffled in their search for six missing Shreveport citizens. Hampering them is their inability to discover anyone who saw any of the missing people after ten o'clock on Wednesday night.