“I was getting bored anyway,” she said. “I mean, I get to make out with gorgeous Chinese guys all the time.”

I smiled in the darkness. There weren’t any lights on in the Collins backyard or in the Collins house, which was odd because it was getting dark now.

There was a living brain in the house. I told Luna that, and she rolled her eyes at me. “Big whoop,” she said. “So what?”

“That’s my specialty,” I said.

“But I can smell something dead,” she told me. “Hasn’t been dead long, but it’s dead. That’s my specialty. I know a dog or a Were would be better at this, but any twoey nose is better than a oney nose.”

I shrugged. I’d have to concede that one. To knock or not to knock? As I stood flattened against the wall by the back door, debating furiously with myself, I heard a little whimper from inside. Luna stiffened beside me. I crouched and pulled open the screen door. It made the wheezy noise so common to screen doors, and I sighed.

“Who’s here?” I said, keeping my voice hushed.

A sob answered me. I felt Luna come in, and she crouched beside me. Neither of us wanted to present a target against the faint light from the Merlotte backyard.

“I’m turning on the light,” I told Luna in a tiny whisper. I patted the wall where the switch should be, and sure enough it was there. There were two. One would control the outside lights, and one the kitchen light. Was there a rule? If so, I didn’t know it. I flicked the one on the left.

I couldn’t have been more shocked by what I saw.

Jim Collins was absolutely, messily dead. He lay sprawled across the low kitchen counter, gun resting loosely in his right hand. Closer to the doorway into the interior of the house, Sarah Newlin sat on the floor. She was hurt somehow, because there was blood on her arm and more on her stomach. Her legs were extended in front of her. She was crying almost silently. There was a gun lying by her side, though I couldn’t see what make.

“Call the police from his phone,” I said instantly.

“No,” Sarah said. “Don’t!”

Luna punched in numbers so fast that I thought the phone was going to break.

With convincing hysteria, Luna said, “Oh my God! Bring an ambulance to Jim Collins’s house! Some woman has shot him; he’s dead and she’s bleeding out!” She hung up and snickered.

Sarah Newlin made a halfhearted attempt to climb to her feet. I went over to her and put my foot on her gun. I didn’t think she had enough sand in her to grab it, but better to be sure.