Dead Reckoning(15)

“What do you think, Sookie?” he asked, looking from one item to another.

I examined the art deco earrings, pearl drops dangling from a rose gold setting. The hair receiver was pretty, too, though I couldn’t imagine what it was for or what Jannalynn would do with it. Did anyone need to receive hair anymore?

“She’ll wear the earrings to show them off,” I said. “It’s harder to brag about getting a hair receiver.” Brenda gave me a veiled look, and I understood from her thoughts that this opinion branded me as a philistine. So be it.

“The hair receiver’s older,” Sam said, wavering.

“But less personal. Unless you’re Victorian.”

While Sam compared the two smaller items to the beauties of a seventy-year-old New Bedford police badge, I wandered around the store, looking at the furniture. I discovered I was not an antiques appreciator. This was just one more flaw in my mundane character, I decided. Or maybe it was because I was surrounded by antiques all the day long? Nothing in my house was new except the kitchen, and that only because the old one had been destroyed by fire. I’d still be using Gran’s ancient refrigerator if the flames hadn’t eaten it up. (That refrigerator was one antique I didn’t miss, for sure.)

I slid open a long, narrow drawer on what the tag described as a “map chest.” There was a sliver of paper left in it.

“Look at that,” Brenda Hesterman’s voice said from behind me. “I’d thought I’d gotten that thoroughly clean. Let that be a lesson, Miss Stackhouse. Before we come to look at your things, be sure to go through them and remove all papers and other objects. You don’t want to sell us something you didn’t intend to part with.”

I turned around to see that Sam was holding a wrapped package. While I’d been lost in exploration, he’d made his purchase (the earrings, to my relief; the hair receiver was back in its spot in the case).

“She’ll love the earrings. They’re beautiful,” I said honestly, and for a second Sam’s thoughts got snarled, almost . . . purple. Strange, that I would think of colors. Lingering effect of the shaman drug I’d taken for the Weres? I hoped to hell not.

“I’ll be sure to look over everything real carefully, Brenda,” I said to the antiques dealer.

We made an appointment for two days later. She assured me that she could find my isolated house with her GPS, and I warned her about the long driveway through the woods, which had led several visitors to believe they’d become lost. “I don’t know if I’ll come, or my partner, Donald,” Brenda said. “Maybe both of us.”

“I’ll be glad to see you,” I said. “If you run into any trouble or need to change the date, please let me know.”

“Do you really think she’ll like them?” Sam asked when we were in the truck and buckled up. We’d reverted to the topic of Jannalynn.

“Sure,” I said, surprised. “Why wouldn’t she?”

“I can’t shake the feeling I’m on the wrong track with Jannalynn,” Sam said. “You want to stop and get something to eat at the Ruby Tuesday’s on Youree?”

“Sure,” I said. “Sam, why do you think that?”

“She likes me,” he said. “I mean, I can tell. But she’s always thinking about the pack.”

“You think maybe she’s more focused on Alcide than on you?” That was what I was getting from Sam’s head. Maybe I was being too blunt, though. Sam flushed.

“Yeah, maybe,” he admitted.

“She’s a great enforcer, and she was real excited to get the job,” I said. I wondered if that had come out neutral enough.

“She was,” he said.

“You seem to like strong women.”

He smiled. “I do like strong women, and I’m not afraid of the different ones. Run-of-the-mill just doesn’t cut it with me.”

I smiled back at him. “I can tell. I don’t know what to say about Jannalynn, Sam. She’d be an idiot not to appreciate you. Single, self-supporting, good looking? And you don’t even pick your teeth at the table! What’s not to love?” I took a deep breath, because I was about to change the subject and I didn’t want to offend my boss. “Hey, Sam, about that website you visit? You think you could find out about why I’m feeling more fairy after hanging out with my fairy relatives? I mean, I couldn’t actually be changing into more of a fairy, right?”

“I’ll see what I can find,” Sam said, after a fraught moment. “But let’s try asking your bunk buddies. They ought to cough up any information that would help you. Or I could beat it out of them.”