At least I had something to think about besides wondering what the hell was happening with Eric and the Long Tooth pack. At the end of my shift, I found myself in Sam’s office with Sam and Antoine.

Sam shut the door behind me. He was furious. I didn’t blame him. Antoine was mad at himself, mad at me, and defensive with Sam. The atmosphere in the room was choking with anger and frustration and fear.

“Listen, man,” Antoine said. He was standing facing Sam. He made Sam look small. “Just listen, okay? After Katrina, I didn’t have no place to live and nothing to do. I was trying to find work and keep myself going. I couldn’t even get a damn FEMA trailer. Things were going bad. So I . . . I borrowed a car, to get to Texas to some relatives. I was gonna dump it where the cops could find it, get it back to the owner. I know it was stupid. I know I shouldn’ta done it. But I was desperate, and I did something dumb.”

“Yet you’re not in jail,” Sam observed. His words were like a whip that barely flicked Antoine, drew a little bit of blood.

Antoine breathed out heavily. “No, I’m not, and I’ll tell you why. My uncle is a werewolf, in one of the New Orleans packs. So I knew something about ’em. An FBI agent named Sara Weiss came to talk to me in jail. She was okay. But after she spoke with me once, she brought this guy Lattesta, Tom Lattesta. He said he was based in Rhodes, and I couldn’t figure out what he was doing in New Orleans. But he told me that he knew all about my uncle, and he figured that you-all were coming out sooner or later since the vamps did. He knew what you were, that there were other things besides wolves. He knew there’d be a lot of people didn’t like hearing that people who were part animal lived in with the rest of us. He described Sookie to me. He said she was something strange, too, and he didn’t know what. He sent me here to watch, to see what happened.”

Sam and I exchanged glances. I don’t know what Sam had anticipated, but this was way more serious than I’d imagined. I figured back. “Tom Lattesta has known all along?” I said. “When did he start thinking there was something wrong with me?” Had it been before he saw the footage from the hotel explosion in Rhodes, which he’d used as the reason for approaching me a few months ago?

“Half the time he’s sure you’re a fraud. Half the time he thinks you’re the real deal.”

I turned to my boss. “Sam, he came to my house the other day. Lattesta. He told me that someone close to me, one of the great relatives”—I didn’t want to get more specific in front of Antoine—“had fixed it so he had to back off.”