He seemed to genuinely care for me. It was kind of nice, but unsettling, not to know exactly how much.
Sex with him was absolutely great. I had never dreamed it would be that wonderful.
No one would mess with me while I was Bill’s girlfriend. Any hands that had patted me in unwanted caresses were kept in their owner’s laps, now. And if the person who’d killed my grandmother had killed her because she’d walked in on him while he was waiting for me, he wouldn’t get another try at me.
And I could relax with Bill, a luxury so precious I could not put a value on it. My mind could range at will, and I would not learn anything he didn’t tell me.
There was that.
It was in this kind of contemplative mood that I came down Bill’s steps to my car.
To my amazement, Jason was there sitting in his pickup.
This was not exactly a happy moment. I trudged over to his window.
“I see it’s true,” he said. He handed me a Styrofoam cup of coffee from the Grabbit Quik. “Get in the truck with me.”
I climbed in, pleased by the coffee but cautious overall. I put my guard up immediately. It slipped back into place slowly and painfully, like wiggling back into a girdle that was too tight in the first place.
“I can’t say nothing,” he told me. “Not after the way I lived my life these past few years. As near as I can tell, he’s your first, isn’t he?”
I nodded.
“He treat you good?”
I nodded again.
“I got something to tell you.”
“Okay.”
“Uncle Bartlett got killed last night.”
I stared at him, the steam from the coffee rising between us as I pried the lid off the cup. “He’s dead,” I said, trying to understand it. I’d worked hard never to think of him, and here I thought of him, and the next thing I heard, he was dead.
“Yep.”
“Wow.” I looked out the window at the rosy light on the horizon. I felt a surge of—freedom. The only one who remembered besides me, the only one who’d enjoyed it, who insisted to the end that I had initiated and continued the sick activities he thought were so gratifying . . . he was dead. I took a deep breath.
“I hope he’s in hell,” I said. “I hope every time he thinks of what he did to me, a demon pokes him in the butt with a pitchfork.”
“God, Sookie!”
“He never messed with you.”
“Damn straight!”
“Implying what?”
“Nothing, Sookie! But he never bothered anyone but you that I know of!”
“Bullshit. He molested Aunt Linda, too.”
Jason’s face went blank with shock. I’d finally gotten through to my brother. “Gran told you that?”
“Yes.”
“She never said anything to me.”
“Gran knew it was hard for you, not seeing him again when she could tell you loved him. But she couldn’t let you be alone with him, because she couldn’t be a hundred percent sure girls were all he wanted.”
“I’ve seen him the past couple of years.”
“You have?” This was news to me. It would have been news to Gran, too.
“Sookie, he was an old man. He was so sick. He had prostate trouble, and he was feeble, and he had to use a walker.”
“That probably slowed him down chasing the five-year-olds.”
“Get over it!”
“Right! Like I could!”
We glared at each other over the width of the truck seat.
“So what happened to him?” I asked finally, reluctantly.
“A burglar broke into his house last night.”
“Yeah? And?”
“And broke his neck. Threw him down the stairs.”
“Okay. So I know. Now I’m going home. I gotta shower and get ready for work.”
“That’s all you’re saying?”
“What else is there to say?”
“Don’t want to know about the funeral?”
“No.”
“Don’t want to know about his will?”
“No.”
He threw up his hands. “All right,” he said, as if he’d been arguing a point very hard with me and realized that I was intractable.
“What else? Anything?” I asked.
“No. Just your great-uncle dying. I thought that was enough.”
“Actually, you’re right,” I said, opening the truck door and sliding out. “That was enough.” I raised my cup to him. “Thanks for the coffee, brother.”
IT WASN’T TILL I got to work that it clicked.