Singing to myself, I showered and made myself up . . . and by that time I had to leave for work again for the early shift. I glanced into the living room, tired of it looking like a junk store. I reminded myself that tomorrow the antiques dealers were supposed to come.

The bar was a little busier than it had been the night before, which made me even more cheerful. A little to my surprise, Kennedy was behind the bar. She looked as polished and perfect as the beauty queen she’d been, though she was wearing tight jeans and a white-and-gray-striped tank. We were quite the well-groomed women today.

“Where’s Sam?” I asked. “I thought he would be working.”

“He called me this morning, said he was still over in Shreveport,” Kennedy said, giving me a sideways look. “I guess Jannalynn’s birthday went real well. I need as many hours as I can get, so I was glad to roll out of bed and get my hiney over here.”

“How’s your mamma and your daddy?” I asked. “Have they visited lately?”

Kennedy smiled bitterly. “They’re just rolling along, Sookie. They still wish I was Little Miss Beauty Pageant and taught Sunday school, but they did send me a good check when I got out of prison. I’m lucky to have ’em.”

Her hands stilled in the middle of drying a glass. “I been wondering,” she said, and paused. I waited. I knew what was coming. “I was wondering if it was a member of Casey’s family who bombed the bar,” she said, very quietly. “When I shot Casey, I was just saving my own life. I didn’t think about his family, or my family, or anything but living.”

Kennedy had never talked about it before, which I could understand completely. “Who would be thinking about anything else but surviving, Kennedy?” I said, quietly but with intensity. I wanted her to feel my absolute sincerity. “No one in her right mind would have done any different. I don’t think God would ever want you to let yourself be beaten to death.” Though I was not at all sure what God would want. I probably meant, I think it would have been dumb as hell to let yourself be killed.

“I wouldn’t have gotten off so light if those other women hadn’t come forward,” Kennedy said. “His family, I guess they know he really did hit women . . . but I wonder if they still blame me. If maybe they knew I’d be in the bar, and they decided to kill me here.”

“Are any of his family two-natured?” I asked.

Kennedy looked shocked. “Oh my gosh, no! They’re Baptists!”

I tried not to smile, but I couldn’t help it. After a second, Kennedy started laughing at herself. “Seriously,” she said, “I don’t think so. You think whoever threw that bomb was a Were?”