Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

out of a neighbor. Dawn had been proud enough to hang curtains, white with dark gold flowers. They were drawn, but the fab-ric was thin and unlined, and Dawn hadn't shut the cheap one-inch aluminum blinds. I peered in and discovered the living room held only some flea-market furniture. A coffee mug sat on the table by a lumpy recliner and an old couch covered with a hand-crocheted afghan was pushed against the wall.
    "I think I'll go around back," I called to Rene. He started across the street as though I'd given him a signal, and I stepped off the front porch. My feet brushed the dusty grass, yellow with pine pollen, and I knew I'd have to dust off my shoes and maybe change my socks before work. During pine pollen season, everything turns yellow. Cars, plants, roofs, windows, all are powdered with a golden haze. The ponds and pools of rainwater have yellow scum around the edges.
    Dawn's bathroom window was so discreetly high that I couldn't see in. She'd lowered the blinds in the bedroom, but hadn't closed them tightly. I could see a little through the slats. Dawn was in bed on her back. The bedclothes were tossed around wildly. Her legs were spraddled. Her face was swollen and discolored, and her tongue protruded from her mouth. There were flies crawling on it. I could hear Rene coming up behind me.
    "Go call the police," I said.
    "What you say, Sookie? You see her?"
    "Go call the police!"
    "Okay, okay!" Rene beat a hasty retreat.
    Some female solidarity had made me not want Rene to see Dawn like that, without Dawn's consent. And my fellow waitress was far beyond consenting.
    I stood with my back to the window, horribly tempted to look again in the futile hope I'd made a mistake the first time. Staring at the duplex next door to Dawn's, maybe a scant six feet away, I wondered how its tenants could have avoided hearing Dawn's death, which had been violent. Here came Rene again. His weatherbeaten face was puck-ered into an expression of deep concern, and his bright brown eyes looked suspiciously shiney.
    "Would you call Sam, too?" I asked. Without a word, he turned and trudged back to his place. He was being mighty good. Despite his tendency to gossip, Rene had always been one to help where he saw a need. I remembered him coming out to the house to help Jason hang Gran's porch swing, a random memory of a day far different from this.
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    The duplex next door was just like Dawn's, so I was look-ing directly at its bedroom window. Now a face appeared, and the window was raised. A tousled head poked out. "What you doing, Sookie Stackhouse?" asked a slow, deep, male voice. I peered at him for a minute, finally placing the face, while trying not to look too closely at the fine, bare chest underneath.
    "JB?"
    "Sure thing."
    I'd gone to high school with JB du Rone. In fact, some of my few dates had been with JB, who was lovely but so sim-ple that he didn't care if I read his mind or not. Even under today's circumstances, I could appreciate JB's beauty. When your hormones have been held in check as long as mine, it doesn't take much to set them off. I heaved a sigh at the sight of JB's muscular arms and pectorals.
    "What you doing out here?" he asked again.
    "Something bad seems to have happened to Dawn," I said,not knowing if I should tell him or not. "My boss sent me here to look for her when she didn't come to work."
    "She in there?" JB simply scrambled out of the window. He had some shorts on, cut-offs.
    "Please don't look," I asked, holding up my hand and without warning I began crying. I was doing that a lot lately, too. "She looks so awful, JB."
    "Aw, honey," he said, and bless his country heart, he put an arm around me and patted me on the shoulder. If there was a female around who needed comforting, by God, that was a priority to JB du Rone.
    "Dawn liked 'em rough," he said consolingly, as if that would explain everything. It might to some people, but