Manfred couldn’t take any more upset that morning. “All right,” he said. “Fine. Call me when they need to stop. Hey, there’s a Cracker Barrel in a reasonable location for lunch. I checked the Internet last night.”

“And all old people love Cracker Barrel? That’s what you’re saying, sonny?” Tommy protested from Olivia’s front passenger seat.

“I do,” Suzie said as she buckled her seat belt in the back. “Let’s stop there!”

“They do have good breakfast, and you can get it all day,” Tommy said thoughtfully.

“Apparently these two old people do love Cracker Barrel,” Olivia said. Manfred could tell she was holding some irritation in with an effort, and that was another worry.

“So why’s she so mad at you?” Manfred asked Barry, once they were actually on their way.

“She didn’t want me to be able to read her mind. But I can’t block out specific people. No one wants me to be able to dip in their head,” Barry said reasonably. “But they want to know what everyone else is thinking.”

“Were you born able to read minds?”

“Yeah. It’s not an easy thing to grow up that way. To put it mildly. Especially when you’re little and you repeat what you hear without understanding there are going to be consequences.”

Manfred tried to imagine that, but he found himself so dismayed by the prospect that he could only say, “That’s awful.”

“Tell me about it.” Barry laughed, but not like it was really funny.

“Like I told you,” Manfred said, concentrating on the road ahead, where a pickup had just pulled slowly into his lane. “I’ve met another telepath. But I never thought about what being a mind-reading kid would be like. Damn.”

“You know Sookie, you said.”

Manfred glanced at Barry before turning his attention back to the pickup. Its right blinker kept going, monotonously and without conviction. Of course, this driver did not want to turn. He’d just left the blinker on. “Asshole,” muttered Manfred, and then returned to the conversation. “Yeah, I met her in Bon Temps,” he said. “You from there, too? You related to her? I mean, is this hereditary or genetic or whatever?”

“Whatever,” Barry said. “I thought I was the only one in the world until I met Sookie in Dallas.”

“I can’t picture her anywhere but Bon Temps.”

“I’d as soon live in a shack in the slums of Mexico City,” Barry said vehemently. “I had one of the worst times of my life in Bon Temps, and that’s saying something. Got abducted and tortured.”

“That’s seriously bad,” Manfred agreed. “So, if I called Sookie and asked her about Barry Horowitz, what would she say?”

“She’ll probably remember me under a different name,” Barry said. “But I’m not speaking it out loud in Texas.”

“Because of your vampire problem.”

“My very serious problem.”