Swimming to the Light (Southern Vampire Mystery)

Chapter 6 - A Persistent Motion

Shreveport:

Alcide grabbed his iPhone. He scrolled through the contacts looking for Jason Stackhouse. The were panther had been helping the Pack in their search for Sookie Stackhouse. "At least I have some good news for someone," the Pack Master thought.

Speaking with Pam was such a cramp in the ass. Petsmart? Alcide smiled in spite of himself. He was definitely going to have to think up something crushing for their next conversation. The ring tone switched to the sound of Michele Stackhouse asking him to leave a message.

"Stackhouse? It's Herveaux. You can tell the police to call off the search. Pam has her. She's in the hospital, but should recover. I'll have someone contact you."

Alcide hit the end button and leaned back in his chair. He thought about April. She had been short and wiry and feisty. Telling her parents had been hard. She hadn't been a universal favorite. In fact, if he had to compare her to anyone, it would have been Jannalyn. April had had that same fire and aggressive in-your-face attitude about the world and her place in it. She would have been a great breeder. In retrospect, Alcide wasn't surprised that Sam had been attracted to her. She was just his type. Not for the first time, Alcide wondered where Sam Merlotte had run to.

Las Vegas:

The technician completed transcribing the conversations for the day. Where she was able to identify those involved, she made the appropriate notes. For those that had used only first names, she added a page of probable options. She checked her work twice for errors. It didn't pay to make mistakes around here. Of course, the pay was good, and there was always a chance that someone would take a fancy to her and she could end up with a Vegas showgirl body forever. All in all – it was a risk worth taking.

She made a local print of the transcripts and walked toward Horst's office. Sandy Seacrest might be the business second for Felipe de Castro, but Horst was the head of the rest. If rumors were true, Horst might end up with all of it. The economy was not recovering. And as a result, Joe Public was not coming to Vegas for a fun-filled weekend. Revenues were down and tempers were short.

She knocked on the door.

"Enter." Horst looked up as the red-head walked through the door. He remembered her. She was the one pulling transcripts from the Shreveport area. Information was a wonderful thing. It took some payroll investment to employ his listening pool, but there were nuggets that had come through which had proven invaluable. There had been a suggestion to replace the humans with automated voice recognition software. But his King and he both believed that humans were more dependable than software or spies. At least most of the time. There had been instances where the devices had been discovered and mis-information fed. And occasionally there was an oversight or error in the transcription. As a result, Horst generally made an effort to cross-verify information when possible. It avoided embarrassing mistakes. Everyone knew that mistakes were generally fatal.

He held his hand out for the paper. "From the Pack Master's house?"

The red-head nodded. "Yes, Master. He was speaking with Pam Ravenscroft. He also left a message for someone named Stackhouse. He said that they could call off the search and that 'she' had been found."

"Nothing from the Fangtasia listening station?"

She shook her head. Horst hadn't expected anything different. Pam was a competent sheriff. Other than the fact that he didn't trust her, she was one of their best producers. She could close deals and she took appropriate risks. Most important – she wasn't sloppy. Too bad some of her contacts didn't take notes.

Horst scanned the page. In this instance, he was not worried about fact checking. Alcide Herveaux had demonstrated an almost reckless disregard for his own security. For the Pack Master to think that somehow he would be exempt from spying was ludicrous. Herveaux's outsized ego had played to their advantage for years.