Grave Danger, page 9
“I didn’t know she had a sister,” Demmy said. “Does she live here in town?”
“No, she moved to Florida years ago,” a woman said. “Probably, oh, thirty years ago now. Her name’s Dottie.” She looked around the group. “Anyone have her information? She should be told about this.”
“I’m sure the authorities will contact her,” Otis said. “Once they do some investigating and find out what happened.”
Amelia let out a breath and patted her chest. She smiled, and Cody noticed it didn’t look quite natural, yet, but was glad she was giving it a try.
“Well, how about you boys come inside and visit a bit,” she said. “I’m sure we can find something to talk about other than JoAnn’s accident.”
The group of seniors disbanded, loudly debating funeral costs and the value of the Widow’s estate. Cody and Demmy followed Otis and Amelia to the front door of their condo. Once inside, Amelia asked if they wanted anything to drink, offering iced tea, lemonade, or something stronger.
“If you’ve got a beer, I wouldn’t say no,” Cody said.
“Same with me,” Demmy added.
“I’ve got a six pack of an IPA I’ve been waiting to break into,” Otis said. “It’s in the garage fridge. Be right back.”
“How are you, Aunt Amelia,” Demmy asked once Otis had left the room. “Things going okay?”
“With us?” Amelia nodded and smiled. “Oh, yes. We’re doing well. Better, actually, than we were before all that werewolf business.” She sat next to Demmy on the couch and patted his knee. “And since you caught that pesky mole, my flowerbeds are looking bright and cheery. Don’t you worry about us. How about the two of you?” She looked across the coffee table to Cody where he sat in one of the recliners. “You two doing all right?”
Cody nodded as he looked to Demmy, glad to see his confident and natural smile. “We’re doing great.”
Amelia looked between them and lowered her voice. “Any more sightings of the mayor?”
“Um, no,” Cody said. He hesitated and looked at Demmy who gave a quick shrug. It was going to be all over town at some point, and Cody wanted to make sure Amelia and Otis were taking extra precautions. “No sign of the mayor. But Ollie and I had a run in with a woman we think was… well, was like the mayor.”
Amelia’s eyes widened. “Dead?”
“Or supposed to be,” Cody said.
“Who’s dead?” Otis said as he came in with several bottles of beer. “Someone other than the Widow?”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know.” Amelia blew out a breath. “Some woman Cody and Oliver had a run in with.”
“Who was it?” Otis handed Cody and Demmy each a bottle, then held one out toward Amelia. She tipped her head back and forth, debating, then accepted it. They all twisted off the caps and Otis collected them before sitting in the other recliner and taking a swallow from his bottle.
“We didn’t know her,” Cody said. He took a long, grateful drink from the bottle. The beer was a bit too hoppy for his preference, but, damn, it still tasted good. “Ollie and I checked out the cemetery afterwards, and we think her name was Belinda something.”
“Belinda Hirsch?” Amelia said, sitting back. “Oh, weeping willows, that is just awful. I played pinochle with her every week. She passed a few weeks ago.” She shook her head and, removing her glasses, grabbed a tissue to dab at her eyes. “This is just awful. She would hate having this happen to her.”
“We’re not certain it was her,” Cody said, trying to find a way to comfort Amelia, but not really sure how. What was the right thing to say to someone when a person they cared about may or may not have turned into a zombie? “I mean, she gave Ollie and I a scare out in the woods. And when we saw her grave, it looked…” He noticed Amelia going a little pale, so he changed things up. “Well, anyway, there’s no way to be absolutely certain it was her.”
They stayed a little longer, but once they’d finished their beers, Cody was getting anxious to escape. He caught Demmy’s eye, and they came to an agreement using that magical telepathy that develops between close friends and lovers.
“We should go,” Demmy said, standing up. “We have a few things to take care of at the office, and you both need some time on your own.”
Amelia gave them each a hug, and Otis shook their hands. The two of them stood in the door watching them walk to Cody’s truck, Otis with his arm around Amelia’s shoulders. Amelia looked troubled and sad, and Cody hated the fact that he’d been the one to make her look that way.
“Me and my big mouth,” he said when they got in the truck. “I feel bad I upset Amelia.”
“I know,” Demmy said, patting his thigh. “But you didn’t know. And at least now she’ll be on the alert for any weird stuff.”
“Yeah, I hope so.” He started the engine. “Did you really want to go to the office?”
“I do. There are some things I’d like to get done since we have an open afternoon.”
“Anything I can do?” Cody offered.
“Oh, there are plenty of things you can do.”
“Great.” Cody pulled away from the curb. “So glad I asked.”
The things Demmy had in mind for Cody were administrative tasks Cody could have sworn Demmy was making up just to keep him busy. Who needed to alphabetize their client files? For that matter, who kept hard copies of client paperwork anymore? And when had Demmy even created a file for each of their clients? That was some next level administrative witchcraft right there.
Cody frowned as he came across a file with a red tag across the tab. He sat back in the chair, not liking how it creaked beneath him. Damn cheap stuff from that office furniture warehouse over in Harriettville. Holding up the file, he spun the chair to look at Demmy who was busy working at his desk with his back to him. From this angle, and the way the neckline of Demmy’s T-shirt lay across the base of his neck, Cody could see the top edge of one of the scars left by Nicolae’s bite. His heart beat a little faster, and the familiar prickle of hot and cold needles flashed across his skin.
The events of the day had left him open to every emotion, because everything Demmy had sacrificed to save the people of this town roared into Cody, filling his chest with ice blocks of anxiety and tension. These blocks bonded together and made it difficult for his lungs to work correctly and pressured his heart to pound hard and fast. He lowered the file and blinked a few times to clear his suddenly blurred vision. Quick, shallow breaths at first helped his lungs remember their function, and he eased into longer, deeper breaths, even though his heart still beat fast.
All they’d been through over the years, and everything Cody had experienced the last couple of days swamped his mind and nervous system, overwhelming him. He couldn’t seem to fix his attention on anything for longer than a moment: familiar items in their office, his thoughts, nothing. A sudden vision of the mayor lurching out in front of his truck made him jump, causing the chair to creak beneath him, and his vision blurred as a wave of vertigo rolled over him like a rough surf.
Demmy looked over his shoulder, the scarred skin wrinkling with his movement.
“You okay?”
Cody’s brain was unable to choose the right words for a response. It didn’t seem to be able to find any words at all, actually. His mind was a complete blank as he stared back, his gaze moving from Demmy’s face to the puckered skin of his scar and up to his face again.
Thankfully, Demmy turned his chair to face him, putting the scars out of sight, and the steadily tightening feeling inside Cody’s chest suddenly released. He drew in a breath as his brain kicked back into gear.
“Cody?”
“Yeah,” Cody forced out, his voice sounding much too deep and very off to himself.
Demmy heard it, too, because he rolled his chair closer and put his hands on Cody’s knees. “You don’t look so good. You’re pale and your eyes are wide and a little glassy.”
“Might have been something I ate.”
“I think this is more than an upset stomach.”
“What’s the red tag mean?” Cody’s brain had latched onto his original question, and he thrust the file he still held—clung to, actually, like a lifeline to the office and this life they’d built together—toward Demmy.
“What? Oh, that. Those are, um, clients we’ve lost.”
Cody frowned. “To a competitor?”
“No, they… they’ve died.”
“Oh.” Cody drew the file back and looked at the name written on the tab. Clarence Simmons. Oh, yeah. He hadn’t put it all together before. Clarence had been the hipster house flipper who’d hired them to clear a bunch of rabbits out of his basement. It had been a job Jugs and Cody had gone on, and to which Cody had taken his niece, Summer.
And Clarence had become a victim of Nicolae in wolf form, murdered in a graphic and gory manner.
“I thought I had explained it to you before,” Demmy said.
Cody looked up and give him a smile, though it felt pretty lame. “You probably did, and I wasn’t listening.”
Demmy grinned and squeezed his knees, then kept his hands on them. Cody was grateful for his touch as it was working to help bring him back to this point, this space they were occupying within their office. They were both safe and healthy, and Cody was simply having a moment.
Or two. Maybe three, if he was honest with himself. It would seem hitting the mayor with his truck had really gotten to him. That and possibly the years of dealing with monsters that had preceded the impact. And the death of the Widow Monroe, as well.
“Cody?”
He looked into Demmy’s eyes, the irises so blue today, like the water off a Caribbean island. “Yeah?”
“I was saying maybe we should call it a day and go home. What do you think?”
“Yeah. That sounds good. I like the idea of going home.”
“We can do that.” Demmy leaned in a little closer, squeezing his knees again as he lowered his voice to whisper, “Codes.”
The smile came up from inside him, dragging behind it the warmth of a shared joke and the gentle aggravation Cody always felt toward his older brother, Grant, when he used that nickname.
“Don’t call me that.”
“There’s my big guy,” Demmy said, rolling himself in even closer so he could lean in for a kiss. “My big, sexy, handsome, strong, brave, and kind guy.”
“You’ve been hitting up your thesaurus.” Cody kissed him again. “You might want to save some of those words for later, Dems.”
The office door opened and Demmy looked over his shoulder, but, to Cody’s relief, he didn’t take his hands off Cody’s knees. And, to Demmy’s credit, a few years ago, Demmy wouldn’t have had the courage to remain this close together in front of a stranger.
“This is a place of business, isn’t it?” the new arrival said, familiar voice tinged with typical annoyance.
Demmy had the courage in front of an old acquaintance, as well.
“Hi, Lucia,” Demmy said. He turned to Cody again and gave his knees one more squeeze before letting go and rolling back to his desk.
“Second time I’ve caught you two going at it in your office. Is this what you do with your spare time?” Lucia walked into the space between them. “Make out and hope for the phone to ring?”
“Pretty much.” Cody stuck Clarence Simmons’s file back into the drawer, most likely far out of order, and slid it shut. For some reason, the sound made him think of a morgue drawer sliding away and the door closing behind it, and he thought about the Widow and shivered a bit. “And, trust me, we were far from ‘going at it.’ You would have known if we’d been ‘going at it.’” He was satisfied to see her cheeks turn pink. “What do we owe the pleasure of seeing you yet again today?”
“I wanted to ask you some questions about the Widow’s accident. See if you two had any insight about it.”
“We were sitting in Margie’s when it happened,” Demmy said. “Having lunch with Dave and Oliver at a back booth. Cody and I had our backs to the front windows, so we didn’t know anything was happening until people started screaming outside, and then we heard the crash.” He glanced at Cody before leaning in a little and lowering his voice, though it was only the three of them in the office. “Is she really dead?”
“Yeah, she’s dead.” Lucia blew out a breath. “Not sure if it happened while she was driving or because of the accident. I’ve been trying to talk to Eileen, but the doctors have been keeping me out of her room until they get her settled and thoroughly examined.”
“Is Eileen doing okay?” Cody asked. “Any injuries?”
“She’s got some bruising that I saw, and she was highly agitated. Otherwise she’s okay. Zenona admitted her for observation overnight.”
“Zenona should let you in to talk with her later tonight, I would think,” Demmy said.
“You’d be surprised. She’s pretty strict when it comes to her patients.”
Demmy sat back and shook his head. “Wow, the Widow Monroe is actually gone. Doesn’t seem possible.”
“She’s definitely been a town institution,” Lucia said. “And hazard.”
“Going to be a lot of editorial pieces written about her in The Herald,” Cody said.
“That’s for sure.” Lucia hooked her thumbs in her gun belt. “Once the autopsy is completed, they’ll ship her over to Eternal Rest. From what it sounds like, she had a casket and service pre-paid and ready to go.”
“Guess she was ready, huh?” Demmy said. “Amelia told us she has a sister down in Florida. I don’t remember the name off the top of my head.”
“Dorothea Lavish. She goes by Dottie. I’ve met her briefly a couple of times, when she’s been visiting during holidays and they attended social functions together.” Lucia smirked as she shook her head. “You’d swear they were twins, but Dottie is older by eighteen months.”
“Good God, she’s older than the Widow and still around?” Cody gave a low whistle. “That’s a good gene pool.”
“Looking for a surrogate for you two?” Lucia asked with a grin.
Before Cody could respond to that, Demmy asked, “Have you contacted Dottie?”
“Not yet. I need to find a number for her.”
Cody looked at Demmy. “I still have money on the Widow coming back. Especially now that I know what cemetery she’s going to be buried in.”
“What’s that mean?” Lucia snapped.
“It means both the mayor and that woman Ollie and I saw earlier were buried at Eternal Rest.” Cody shrugged. “And if those two could manage to come back from the dead, then the Widow Monroe sure as hell is going to make another appearance.”
“For fuck’s sake, we don’t have a zombie apocalypse starting here in town. Stop spreading rumors.”
“I’m not spreading anything,” Cody said, his voice rising.
Lucia grinned, and the sight of her amusement, so foreign on her usually stony face, left Cody momentarily speechless.
“Not even your legs?” Lucia pursed her lips in sympathy and looked at Demmy. “Have you been holding out on your husband? You two having some kind of lover’s quarrel?”
“Oh my God,” Demmy muttered, putting his face in his hands.
“I’m getting plenty of action, thank you very much,” Cody said. He heard how that sounded and waved a hand in Demmy’s direction. “We are getting plenty of hot, steamy love making action. Together. With each other. At the same time.”
“Making it worse,” Demmy said, his face still in his hands. “So much worse.”
“Well, I feel a lot better about things.” She beamed as she looked between them. “Thank you both for helping to lift my spirits after a trying day.”
Demmy finally looked up and gave her a flinty look and half-smile. “You’re so welcome. Always a pleasure.”
She walked out the door and Cody waved away Demmy’s piercing stare. “I know, I know. Sorry, she gets me wound up.”
“Yes, I’m quite aware.” He turned to his computer and started shutting down programs. “Come on, let’s head home.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
After a restless night, Demetrius was groggy and cantankerous the next morning. He managed grunts in response to Cody’s questions and attempts to engage him in conversation. When Cody finally stopped talking and turned his attention to his phone, Demetrius was relieved.
A few cups of coffee, some sugary cereal, and a cool shower he turned to bracingly cold for the last minute helped bring him around. He dressed and entered the kitchen. Cody was finishing up with the breakfast dishes, and gave him a cautious side-eye.
“I’m feeling much better,” Demetrius said, leaning his butt against the counter. “Sorry about my bad mood. I didn’t sleep very well.”
“Unsurprisingly, neither did I.” Cody wiped his hands on a dishtowel. “Want to talk about it?”
“Not much to talk about. Weird dreams and a boatload of anxiety.”
“We’re pretty much in sync with that.” Cody scrubbed his hands over his face, and Demetrius enjoyed the rough sound of his palms against his scruff. “Seeing the Widow’s car like that triggered a few flashbacks for me.”
Demetrius nodded. “The hedge?”
Cody’s eyes were wet and haunted by visions of the past, but he smiled shakily and lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Guess I’m getting a lot more sensitive as I age.”
“Or we’ve both been through a lot of trauma.” Demetrius reached up and pulled him down for a tight hug. “I know you went through a lot because of Nicolae and me. And I’m sure it freaked you out when you hit the mayor. I wish I could help.”
“Me, too.”
They held each other a little longer before Cody drew back and gave him a soft, sweet kiss. “I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Cody’s phone buzzed and he grimaced. “And that’s my office calendar reminder about a job.”
“Gotta catch the critters to bring home the cheddar.”
The laugh Demetrius earned wasn’t the usual relaxed version he loved to hear, but he’d take it. “Did you just make that up?”
