Dead and Gone

appeared in the bar, the reaction of the patrons almost certainly would have been a lot more hysterical. Though wereanimal brains are very difficult to read, I could sense the disappointment the two panthers were sharing. I was sure the decision had been Calvin Norris’s, as the panther leader. Good move, Calvin, I thought.
    After I’d helped close down the bar, I gave Sam a hug when I stopped by his office to pick up my purse. He was looking tired but happy.
    “You feeling as good as you look?” I asked.
    “Yep. My true nature’s out in the open now. It’s liberating. My mom swore she was going to tell my stepdad tonight. I’m waiting to hear from her.”
    Right on cue, the phone rang. Sam picked it up, still smiling. “Mom?” he said. Then his face changed as if a hand had wiped off the previous expression. “Don? What have you done?”
    I sank into the chair by the desk and waited. Tray had come to have a last word with Sam, and Amelia was with him. They both stood stiffly in the doorway, anxious to hear what had happened.
    “Oh, my God,” Sam said. “I’ll come as soon as I can. I’ll get on the road tonight.” He hung up the phone very gently. “Don shot my mom,” he said. “When she changed, he shot her.” I’d never seen Sam look so upset.
    “Is she dead?” I asked, fearing the answer.
    “No,” he said. “No, but she’s in the hospital with a shattered collarbone and a gunshot wound to her upper left shoulder. He almost killed her. If she hadn’t jumped . . .”
    “I’m so sorry,” Amelia said.
    “What can I do to help?” I asked.
    “Keep the bar open while I’m gone,” he said, shaking off the shock. “Call Terry. Terry and Tray can work out a bartend ing schedule between them. Tray, you know I’ll pay you when I get back. Sookie, the waitress schedule is on the wall behind the bar. Find someone to cover Arlene’s shifts, please.”
    “Sure, Sam,” I said. “You need any help packing? Can I gas up your truck or something?”
    “Nope, I’m good. You’ve got the key to my trailer, so can you water my plants? I don’t think I’ll be gone but a couple of days, but you never know.”
    “Of course, Sam. Don’t worry. Keep us posted.”
    We all cleared out so Sam could get over to his trailer to pack. It was in the lot right behind the bar, so at least he could get everything ready in a hurry.
    As I drove home, I tried to imagine how Sam’s stepdad had come to do such a thing. Had he been so horrified at the discovery of his wife’s second life that he’d flipped? Had she changed out of his sight and walked up to him and startled him? I simply couldn’t believe you could shoot someone you loved, someone you lived with, just because they had more to them than you’d thought. Maybe Don had seen her second self as a betrayal. Or maybe it was the fact that she’d concealed it. I could kind of understand his reaction, if I looked at it that way.
    People all had secrets, and I was in a position to know most of them. Being a telepath is not any fun. You hear the tawdry, the sad, the disgusting, the petty . . . the things we all want to keep hidden from our fellow humans, so they’ll keep their image of us intact.
    The secrets I know least about are my own.
    The one I was thinking of tonight was the unusual genetic inheritance my brother and I share, which had come through my father. My father had never known that his mother, Adele, had had a whopper of a secret, one disclosed to me only the past October. My grandmother’s two children—my dad and his sister, Linda—were not the products of her long marriage with my grandfather.
    Both had been conceived through her liaison with a half fairy, half human named Fintan. According to Fintan’s father, Niall, the fairy part of my dad’s genetic heritage had been responsible for my mother’s infatuation with him, an infatuation that had excluded her children from all but the fringes of her attention and affection. This genetic legacy hadn’t seemed to change anything for my dad’s sister, Linda; it certainly hadn’t helped her dodge the cancer bullet that had ended her life or kept her husband on-site, much less infatuated. However, Linda’s grandson Hunter was a telepath like me.
    I still struggled with parts of this story. I believed the history Niall had related to be true, but I couldn’t understand my grandmother’s desire for children being strong enough to lead her to cheat on my grandfather. That simply