From Dead to Worse Read Online Free PDF

resort. I couldn’t help but know.
    Sam told me I could leave. “I’ll get Dawson to help me unload at the bar,” he said. Since Dawson, who’d been standing in for Sam at Merlotte’s Bar tonight, was built like a boulder, I agreed that was a good plan.
    When we divided the tips, I got about three hundred dollars. It had been a lucrative evening. I tucked the money in my pants pocket. It made a big roll, since it was mostly ones. I was glad we were in Bon Temps instead of a big city, or I’d worry that someone would hit me on the head before I got to my car.
    “Well, night, Sam,” I said, and checked my pocket for my car keys. I hadn’t bothered with bringing a purse. As I went down the slope of the backyard to the sidewalk, I patted my hair self-consciously. I’d been able to stop the pink smock lady from putting it on top of my head, so she’d done it puffy and curly and sort of Farrah Fawcett. I felt silly.
    There were cars going by, most of them wedding guests taking their departure. There was some regular Saturday night traffic. The line of vehicles parked against the curb stretched for a very long way down the street, so all traffic was moving slowly. I’d illegally parked with the driver’s side against the curb, not usually a big deal in our little town.
    I bent to unlock my car door, and I heard a noise behind me. In a single movement, I palmed my keys and clenched my fist, wheeled, and hit as hard as I could. The keys gave my fist quite a core, and the man behind me staggered across the sidewalk to land on his butt on the slope of the lawn.
    “I mean you no harm,” said Jonathan.
    It isn’t easy to look dignified and nonthreatening when you have blood running from one corner of your mouth and you’re sitting on your ass, but the Asian vampire managed it.
    “You surprised me,” I said, which was a gross understatement.
    “I can see that,” he said, and got easily to his feet. He brought out a handkerchief and patted his mouth.
    I wasn’t going to apologize. People who sneak up on me when I’m alone at night, well, they deserve what they get. But I reconsidered. Vampires move quietly. “I’m sorry I assumed the worst,” I said, which was sort of a compromise. “I should have identified you.”
    “No, it would have been too late by then,” Jonathan said. “A woman alone must defend herself.”
    “I appreciate your understanding,” I said carefully. I glanced behind him, tried not to register anything on my face. Since I hear so many startling things from people’s brains, I’m used to doing that. I looked directly at Jonathan. “Did you . . . Why were you here?”
    “I’m passing through Louisiana, and I came to the wedding as a guest of Hamilton Tharp,” he said. “I’m staying in Area Five, with the permission of Eric Northman.”
    I had no idea who Hamilton Tharp was—presumably some buddy of the Bellefleurs’. But I knew Eric Northman quite well. (In fact, at one time I’d known him from his head to his toes, and all points in between.) Eric was the sheriff of Area Five, a large chunk of northern Louisiana. We were tied together in a complex way, which most days I resented like hell.
    “Actually, what I was asking you was—why did you approach me just now?” I waited, keys still clutched in my hand. I’d go for his eyes, I decided. Even vampires are vulnerable there.
    “I was curious,” Jonathan said finally. His hands were folded in front of him. I was developing a strong dislike for the vamp.
    “Why?”
    “I heard a little at Fangtasia about the blond woman Eric values so highly. Eric has such a hard nose that it didn’t seem likely any human woman could interest him.”
    “So how’d you know I was going to be here, at this wedding, tonight?”
    His eyes flickered. He hadn’t expected me to persist in questioning. He had expected to be able to calm me, maybe at this moment was trying to coerce me with his glamour. But that just didn’t work on me.
    “The