“If he were mine, I’d be raising him, you can bet your money. He’s Hadley’s. She was my cousin, the daughter of my aunt Linda. She was the, ah, the girlfriend of Sophie-Anne. You know, the former queen? And she became a vampire, eventually. This little boy, Hunter, is the son Hadley had before all that happened to her. His dad’s bringing him by.” Was Claude related to Hadley? Yes, of course, and therefore to Hunter. I pointed that out.

“I like children,” Claude told me. “I’ll behave. And I’m sorry to have upset you.” He gave a stab at sounding contrite.

“Funny, you don’t look sorry. At all.”

“I’m crying inside,” he said, smiling a wicked smile.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I said, turning away to complete my bathroom routine alone and unobserved.

I’d calmed down by the time I got to work. After all, I thought, Claude has probably seen a gazillion people naked in his time. Most supes didn’t think nudity was any big deal. The fact that Claude and I were distantly related—my great-grandfather was his grandfather—wouldn’t make any difference to him; in fact, it wouldn’t make any difference to most of the supes. So, I told myself stoutly, no big deal. When I hit a slow time at work, I called Eric’s cell and left a message to tell him I was expecting to babysit a child that night. “If you can come over, great, but I wanted you to know ahead of time that someone else will be here,” I told the voice mail. Hunter would make a pretty effective chaperone. Then I thought about my new upstairs roomer. “Plus, I kind of forgot to tell you something the other night, and probably you aren’t going to like it much. Also, I miss you.” There was a beep. My message time was up. Well . . . good. There was no telling what I would’ve said next.

The tracker, Heidi, was supposed to arrive in Bon Temps tonight. It seemed like a year since Eric had decided to send her over to check my land. I felt a little concerned when I thought of her arrival. Would Remy think Hunter attending the funeral was so bad, if he knew who else was dropping by my house? Was I being irresponsible? Was I putting the child at risk?

No, it was paranoid to think so. Heidi was coming to scout around in my woods.

I had thrown off my niggling worry by the time I was preparing to leave Merlotte’s. Kennedy had arrived to work for Sam again because he’d made plans to take the Were girl, Jannalynn, to the casinos in Shreveport and out to dinner. I hoped she was real good to Sam, because he deserved it.