Someday You'll Find Me (Eric Northman/ True Blood)

Hissin and Howlin

Merlotte did not disappoint. We meet at Stan's last known residence on Blanchard Avenue, in downtown Shreveport the following night. I wasn't aware that he'd even moved. The shifter tells me that Stan hired a wolf named Alcide Herveaux to keep watch over Tara during the day. He hired him exactly three months ago when Tara moved back to Bon Temps. He said he has a potential lead on Stan's current whereabouts, but the source is not reliable.

He'll have to go to New Orleans for verification.

In the meantime, I find Alcide taking a piss in the alley outside Lou Pine's, a werewolf bar located in Jackson, Mississippi.

"Alcide Herveaux..." I call out to him. He turned to meet my gaze before his eyes sparked amber and he shifted into a wolf, I locked onto his eyes, glamoring him,

"Where is Tara?" Without pause, I command, grabbing him by his oversized neck

"I don't know." The bearded man grumbled lethargically. I know he was the dog at Tara's house, his stench is unmistakable.

"Does Stan know?"

"He knows when she wants him too..."

"Explain yourself Herveaux!" His ignorance is frustrating. "Did Stan take my Tara?! Where are they!?" The compulsion to snap his neck is overwhelming. However, it may not be entirely his fault. Perhaps, I am not asking the right questions.

"I-I don't know where they went...or where they are" His thick brow furrowed, his simple mind searched for information that was no longer accessible.

"What were you and Stan doing at Tara's house?"

"Stan needs more money," he answers quickly, "he owes me money too, I remember cause I wrote it down before he glamoured me...

Now I'm getting somewhere.

"He's trying to get money from Tara...Why?"

He nodded torpidly. "Tara has a shit load of money."

"Is Stan blackmailing Tara?"

He confirmed with another unsure nod, "Yes, has been for years...I-I used to know why but... I-I umm...Tara told me..." He foolishly mumbled and in frustration, my focus was nearly torn apart.

FUCK!" I roared out loud.

That piece of shit Stan is actually one step ahead of me. He's efficiently covered his tracks by glamoring his wolf into forgetting crucial data. But the fragments of info I pulled provided usefully. I release my hold from the wolf's mind, but not before I glamored him into forgetting our brief encounter. I flew back to my bar and while in flight, a cascade of thoughts invaded my mind. I struggled to piece this puzzle altogether. It seems nothing in Stan's files led me to believe Tara was wealthy. In fact, the files made it seem as if she worked at restaurants, bars, casinos, and nightclubs to make her living. And besides having enough to travel a hand full of times over the past fifteen years, she's lived a very modest life. Now I realize, that was obviously a lie. I now realize most, if not all of Baker's reports on my lover were a fabrication.

Has Tara enough money to pay Stan? How in the hell did she acquire that kind of income? What is she paying him for? The house she is building in Bon Temps is appraised at a quarter of a million dollars. The shop's renovations cost over twenty-five grand. The members of her coven work menial jobs of little means around town. Yet they all drive new cars.

So what has my beautiful Tara gotten herself into?

In the two centuries I've known Baker, he's never been able to maintain wealth. He lives in excess, squandering his earnings away on women, flashy cars and his biggest weakness -gaming. Has he now resorted to kidnapping and extortion? If so I should have gotten a ransom letter by now...

Either way, I am sure he's taken Tara's money and who knows what else he's done to her... doing to her right now. There is no way I'll ever allow him to walk the same earth as me.

Stan has signed his own true death warrant.