Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
When Cody returned home, Demmy was on the couch watching TV.
Cody gave him a distracted greeting then got in the shower.
He stood under the cool spray for a long time, letting it beat against the back of his neck as the water swirled around his feet.
He had no idea how to put anything he’d experienced into words.
Turning, he braced his hands against the tile and ducked his head, watching the water run over the slightly puckered marks across his chest.
He thought about Andy. As a kid, he’d always looked panicked when he’d spot Cody and the other members of the football team coming down the school hallways.
When that happened, Andy would hug the walls as he scurried past, as if he wished he could disappear into the bricks.
The man didn’t seem too far off from that kid, but he was braver than Cody would have expected.
Andy had gone to what was most likely a vampire bar—which Cody wasn’t at all ready to look at very closely—all alone, wearing what might have been a thrift store leather jacket as he tried to find his sister.
After drying off and brushing his teeth, Cody dressed in sleep shorts and a t-shirt and forced himself to return to the living room.
Dropping beside Demmy on the couch, he tried to follow the show, but his brain wasn’t able to focus.
Intermixed with his conversation with Andy, he kept replaying his interactions with the bartender, Marlowe.
Looking back on it, he felt as if there’d been more to their talk than he’d realized.
She’d definitely dodged a few of his questions.
And the fact she’d called him Stretch, the same nickname Eileen called him, still felt off.
“Are we okay?” Demmy asked, taking his hand.
Cody started. The TV was off—when had that happened? He thought he managed to call up a genuine smile. “Us? Always.” He lifted their hands and kissed Demmy’s knuckles. “I am really beat though, it’s been a long day.”
“You were gone for a while tonight.”
Cody hesitated. Demmy had given him an opening. But he wasn’t up to telling him about it or for the eventual argument that would follow. “Yeah. But it’s all good. Really.” He stifled a yawn. “I’ve got that job with Jugs tomorrow morning. I think I’m going to hit the sack early.”
“Yeah?”
“That okay?”
Demmy shrugged and pulled his hand free. “Of course. If you’re tired, go on in to bed. I won’t be much longer.”
Cody gave him a quick kiss and padded down the hall to the bedroom.
He didn’t sleep. He might have dozed off for an hour or two through the night, but dark and disturbing dreams of moonlit cornfields and dark rooms left him anxious and agitated.
Demmy was restless beside him, tossing and turning, muttering in his sleep.
Cody knew he needed to talk with him first thing in the morning to get everything out in the open, but he wasn’t looking forward to it.
He lay on his side facing the wall, watching the light in the room steadily brighten.
When the alarm on his phone finally went off, Cody’s eyes felt puffy and dry, sleep crusted in the corners.
He got up and made a stop in the bathroom before going to the kitchen and starting the coffee.
Usually he wasn’t the first one up, but he couldn’t lie in bed any longer.
He’d just poured himself a cup and sat at the dining room table when Demmy appeared in the doorway. The back of his hair stood up, and he yawned as he scratched his belly underneath his t-shirt.
“You’re up early,” Demmy said.
“I didn’t sleep great.”
Demmy paused and turned his head slightly. “Oh?” He was definitely on edge.
“We’re okay,” he said. “I promise. But I need to talk with you about some serious stuff.”
“Okay.” Demmy dragged the word out. “Let me get some coffee.”
“I set out a mug for you.”
Demmy sat across from him, one hand curled around the steaming cup, the other in a loose fist on the table. Cody took a breath and released it. He hadn’t planned any of this out, but he knew how he wanted to begin.
“We both have a lot to get off our chests, I know. And you’re going to be mad when I tell you what I did last night, but I want you to know I didn’t do any of it to intentionally hurt you or get back at you.”
“You’re kind of scaring me right now. What’s going on?”
He told him all of it. The drive to Stone Hill to take a look at the missing woman’s house.
Seeing Andy leave and following him to The Rusty Screw.
His decision to go inside and check it out, along with the conversations he had, and the vaguely threatening air around the three bikers who rolled up to the bar after sundown.
“You did all of that last night?” Demmy’s voice was calm.
“Yeah, I know. But—”
“You’ve been making me feel like shit for a couple of days now because I did the same thing.
You realize that, right? The only difference is I didn’t have a run in with a creepy bartender, someone’s grieving and vengeful brother, or a bunch of biker thugs who may or may not have been vampires.
” Demmy’s stare hardened and red slashed across his cheekbones. “Are you kidding me?”
“I know, okay? I get how it looks and how it feels, but I didn’t do any of it to hurt you or get back at you.”
“Are you sure? Because it really feels like you spent your evening giving me a couple of big middle fingers as you went off and did what you wanted.”
“It wasn’t like that, I just made the decision—”
“In the moment?” Demmy finished for him.
The table between them suddenly felt twice as wide. “Yeah.”
“That’s exactly how I explained my actions.” He jabbed a finger into his own chest, his glare ice cold. “Which happened during the daytime, by the way. And you yelled at me for it.”
“Do you want to yell at me? Will that help? Because there’s more I need to tell you.”
“More? What’s left? Did you give the bartender or Andy our home address?”
“Don’t do that,” Cody snapped.
“Do what? Respond how you usually do?” Demmy crossed his arms and shook his head, looking away toward the bay window at the other end of the table. “Good for the goose but not the gander?”
“You’re angry, and you have every right to be, I know. But I also know we work well together, really well, and it seems like we’ve got another vampire invasion starting. We have to move past this to figure it out for everyone’s sakes.”
Demmy shook his head before facing him again, his arms still folded tight over his chest. “I know you’re right. But we also need to be better at talking about this stuff.”
“I agree.” Cody hesitated, then added, “Both of us.”
Demmy’s expression tightened. “Yes. Both of us.” He shook his arms out then leaned forward to take a sip of coffee. “All right, tell me what else happened.”
“After I left the bar and was on 118 heading back into town, Zenona passed me going the opposite direction. I slowed up, and in the mirror I saw her turn onto Hemlock.”
Demmy’s eyes widened. “She was going there?”
“Not much else out that way. Unless she was heading over to the next county.”
“What the hell would Zenona be doing there?”
“Not sure. Maybe trying to get revenge for Michael?”
Demmy’s brow was creased, and he tapped a finger against his bottom lip. “What was the overall vibe of the place? Did it feel threatening?”
Cody thought a moment, recalling Marlowe’s quiet and calm. Did she know she was serving drinks to vampires? And why the hell would a vampire drink, anyway?
“I wasn’t comfortable by any means, but I didn’t feel like I was in danger until I saw the bikers in the parking lot.”
Cody’s phone buzzed on the table by his elbow, and he checked it. “It’s Jugs.”
“What’s he saying?” Demmy picked up his own phone. “You guys are due out to that job in an hour.”
“Well, hell.” Cody made a face. “He’s got food poisoning.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Pretty much.”
That earned him a half-smirk. It was weak, but Cody would take every inroad back to Demmy he could get.
“The job’s a family of raccoons,” Demmy said, letting out a heavy sigh. “You can’t do it alone.”
“Despite how much you want me to?”
Demmy smiled. He got up and carried his cup into the kitchen, saying over his shoulder, “No, because then I’d have to hear you go on and on for weeks about how you did it all alone.”
Cody was surprised at the tired laugh that slipped out.
As he passed back through the dining room, Demmy said, “For better or worse.”
“We’re stuck with each other.”
He paused at the doorway, and Cody was glad to see his expression had softened slightly when he said, “For good.”
“I love you.”
“I know.” Demmy left the doorway.
“What? Oh my God, you just Han Solo-ed me!” Cody called after him, laughing.
“We’re not done talking about this,” Demmy called back. “Get your ass in gear, Bower. We’ve got raccoons to wrangle.”
They decided Cody would drive, and when Demetrius got in the passenger seat, he was surprised to find a spray bottle of garlic water in the cup holder. When Cody got in with his coffee in a travel mug, he stopped short at finding his usual spot taken by the sprayer.
“Oh, right.” He plucked the bottle free and got back out to return it to the tackle box.
“That bar really got to you last night, didn’t it?” Demetrius said.
“Yeah, it did.”
It was a short drive to the client, so they didn’t have time to talk any further about Cody’s nighttime excursion or possible reasons Zenona might have for visiting the bar.
Demetrius didn’t know what he would actually say to any of it anyway, so he was somewhat grateful to have the reprieve.
But the unfinished conversation hung between them.
The job helped a bit. Their client lived in a long, rectangular brick ranch in the middle of about five acres of property.
Demetrius said it looked like some giant child had dropped a Lego and left it, and Cody laughed.
Because Cody wore his sunglasses, however, Demetrius couldn’t tell if the laugh reached his eyes.