"Yes," she said rather proudly. She gave me a look of sheer evaluation. I had known the apartment was warded with spells; I had known she was a member of the other world, the hidden world. I might be a regular human, but I was in the know. I read all these thoughts as easily as if Amelia had spoken them to me. She was an exceptional broadcaster, as clear and clean as her complexion. "The night Hadley died, the queen's lawyer phoned me. Of course, I was asleep. He told me to shut this sucker up, that Hadley wouldn't be coming back, but the queen wanted her place kept intact for her heir. I came up and began cleaning early the next morning." She'd worn rubber gloves, too; I could see that in her mental picture of herself the morning after Hadley had died.

"You emptied the trash and made the bed?"

She looked embarrassed. "Yes, I did. I didn't realize 'intact' meant 'untouched.' Cataliades got here and let me have it. But I'm glad I got the trash out of here, anyway. It's strange, because someone went through the garbage bin that night, before I could put it out for pickup."

"I don't guess you know if they took anything?"

She cast me an incredulous look. "It's not like I inventory the trash," she said. She added, reluctantly, "It had been treated with a spell, but I don't know what the spell was for."

Okay, that wasn't good news. Amelia wasn't even admitting it to herself; she didn't want to think about the house being the target for supernatural assault. Amelia was proud because her wards had held, but she hadn't thought to ward the garbage bin.

"Oh, I got all her potted plants out and moved them down to my place for easier care, too. So if you want to take 'em back to Hole-in-the-Road with you, you're welcome."

"Bon Temps," I corrected. Amelia snorted. She had the born city dweller's contempt for small towns. "So you own this building, and you rented the upstairs to Hadley when?"

"About a year ago. She was a vamp already," Amelia said. "And she was the queen's girlfriend, had been for quite a while. So I figured it was good insurance, you know? No one's going to attack the queen's honeybun, right? And no one's going to break into her place, either."

I wanted to ask how come Amelia could afford such a nice place herself, but that was just too rude to get past my lips. "So the witch business supports you?" I asked instead, trying to sound only mildly interested.

She shrugged, but looked pleased I'd asked. Though her mother had left her a lot of money, Amelia was delighted to be self-supporting. I heard it as clearly as if she'd spoken it out loud. "Yeah, I make a living," she said, aiming for a modest tone and just missing. She'd worked hard to become a witch. She was proud of her power.

This was just like reading a book.

"If things get slow, I help out a friend who has a magic shop right off Jackson Square. I read fortunes there," she admitted. "And sometimes I do a magic tour of New Orleans for the tourists. That can be fun, and if I scare 'em enough, I get big tips. So between one thing and another, I do okay."

"You perform serious magic," I said, and she nodded happily. "For who?" I asked. "Since the regular world doesn't admit it's possible."

"The supes pay real well," she said, surprised I had to ask. I didn't really need to, but it was easier to direct her thoughts to the right information if I asked her out loud. "Vamps and Weres, especially. I mean, they don't like witches, but vamps especially want every little advantage they can gain. The rest aren't as organized." With a wave of her hand she dismissed the weaker ones of the supernatural world, the werebats and the shape-shifters and so on. She discounted the power of the other supes, which was a mistake.

"What about fairies?" I asked curiously.

"They have enough of their own magic," she said, shrugging. "They don't need me. I know someone like you might have a hard time accepting that there's a talent that's invisible and natural, one that challenges everything you were taught by your family."

I stifled a snort of disbelief. She sure didn't know anything about me. I didn't know what she and Hadley had talked about, but it hadn't been Hadley's family, for sure. When that idea crossed my mind, a bell rang in the back of my head, one that said that avenue of thought should be explored. But I put it aside to think of later. Right now, I needed to deal with Amelia Broadway.

"So you would say you have a strong supernatural ability?" I said.

I could feel her stifle the rush of pride. "I have some ability," she said modestly. "For example, I laid a stasis spell on this apartment when I couldn't finish cleaning it. And though it's been shut up for months, you don't smell anything, do you?"

That explained the lack of odor wafting from the stained towels. "And you do witchcraft for supernaturals, you read fortunes off Jackson Square, and you lead tour groups sometimes. Not exactly regular office jobs," I said.

"Right." She nodded, happy and proud.

"So you make up your own schedule," I said. I could hear the relief bouncing through Amelia's mind, relief that she didn't have to go into an office any more, though she'd done a stint at the post office for three years until she'd become a full-fledged witch.

"Yes."

"So will you help me clean out Hadley's apartment? I'll be glad to pay you."

"Well, sure I'll help. The sooner all her stuff is out, the sooner I can rent the place. As for your paying me, why don't we wait to see how much time I can give it? Sometimes I get, like, emergency calls." Amelia smiled at me, a smile suitable for a toothpaste ad.

"Hasn't the queen been paying the rent since Hadley passed?"

"Yeah, she has. But it's given me the creeps, thinking of Hadley's stuff up here. And there've been a couple of break-in attempts. The last one was only a couple of days ago." I gave up any pretense of smiling.

"I thought at first," Amelia burbled on, "that it might be like when someone dies and their death notice is in the paper, you get break-ins during the funeral. Course, they don't print obituaries for vampires, I guess because they're already dead or because the other vampires just don't send one to the paper… that would be interesting, to see how they handled it. Why don't you try sending in a few lines about Hadley? But you know how vamps gossip, so I guess a few people heard she was definitely dead, dead for the second time. Especially after Waldo vanished from the court. Everyone knows he didn't care for Hadley. And then, too, vamps don't have funerals. So I guess the break-in wasn't related. New Orleans does have a pretty high crime rate."

"Oh, you knew Waldo," I said, to interrupt the flow. Waldo, once the queen's favorite—not in bed, but as a lackey, I thought—had resented being supplanted by my cousin Hadley. When Hadley remained in favor with the queen for an unprecedented length of time, Waldo lured her to St. Louis Cemetery Number One with the ruse of pretending they were going to raise the spirit of Marie Laveau, the notorious voodoo queen of New Orleans. Instead, he'd killed Hadley and blamed it on the Fellowship of the Sun. Mr. Cataliades had nudged me in the right direction until I'd figured out Waldo's guilt, and the queen had given me the opportunity to execute Waldo myself—that was the queen's idea of a big favor. I'd taken a pass on that. But he was finally, definitely dead, now, just like Hadley. I shuddered.

"Well, I know him better than I want to," she said, with the frankness that seemed to be Amelia Broadway's defining characteristic. "I hear you using the past tense, though. Dare I hope that Waldo has gone to his final destination?" "You can," I said. "Dare, that is." "Oo-wee," she said happily. "My, my, my." At least I'd brightened someone's day. I could see in Amelia's thoughts how much she'd disliked the older vampire, and I didn't blame her. He'd been loathsome. Amelia was a single-minded kind of woman, which must make her a formidable witch. But right now she should have been thinking about other possibilities involving me, and she wasn't. There's a downside to being focused on a goal.