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“Always.”
“Love you.”
They said their goodbyes. D.D. ended the call. But she still found herself studying the shadows in the corner of the room and shivering.
—
SHE HATED TO LEAVE BONITAalone in the room. She didn’t want the girl to come out of the bathroom and feel abandoned. But D.D. needed some info, and hopefully supplies, from the reluctant motel owner. She found him seated behind the counter. He appeared to be studying his cell phone, but D.D. was positive he’d registered every sound of her footsteps coming down the hall.
Someone didn’t want the taskforce staying in town. Mayor Howard was in county jail. Which left... Bonita’s mystery demon? Someone even higher up the food chain? D.D. was not prone to nerves, but she’d give anything to have Flora’s new toy—that butterfly blade—tucked in her pocket right now.
Instead, she made a show of keeping her right hand on the butt of her service pistol as she approached.
“Good evening,” she said with false cheerfulness.
The man didn’t put down his phone, just eyed her sullenly from beneath his helmet of thick dark hair.
“So as owner, you get the night shift?”
“My motel. My responsibility.”
Or, D.D. figured, he’d been ordered to keep an eye on the outsiders.
“I could use a recommendation for pizza delivery,” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“Now, now, this motel is your responsibility. Meaning your guests are also your responsibility. I can’t believe you’ve been running this place for... how many years?”
“Twenty.”
“Without a single pizza delivery.”
“We’re a small town—”
D.D. leaned over the counter, got up close and personal so he could see the dead seriousness in her eyes. “Little man, don’t make me hurt you. Because the things I know how to do with just my thumb...”
The man glared at her. Finally, he reached out, grabbed some pamphlets from the desk in front of him, and slapped it on the raised counter between them. A brochure for a Dahlonega pizza parlor, with the promise of delivery to anywhere within thirty miles. Perfect.
“I could use blank paper and a pen. Printing paper will be fine. Any pen will do, though if you have colored markers, that would be excellent.”
“I don’t have colored markers.”
D.D. sighed heavily. Made a show of wiggling her right thumb.
“I have crayons. For kids. Activity packs.”
“How extraordinarily kind of you.”
More shuffling around on the desk. A small pack of five crayons was tossed on the counter. Then the man swiveled his chair toward the printer behind him and extracted the tray to grab paper.
D.D. picked up the crayons. She knew these packs from her own family’s attempts at dining out. When Jack was two, he used to eat the green crayon. Only the green. She and Alex had never figured out why. Now at the age of six, Jack had more self-restraint when it came to munching on wax. He wasn’t much into coloring, though, being on the active side. He did, however, enjoy a rousing game of tic-tac-toe while they waited for their food to arrive.
Again, she felt a pang of homesickness. Was she growing soft in her old age? Or maybe it was just that she was standing in a deserted motel, across from a man who’d already made it clear they weren’t welcome here anymore, and she had no idea if any establishment would accept them, or who in this small town they could trust.
They were outsiders. Cops always felt that way. But after a day at a mass grave followed by an early morning at a woman’s hanging, and now this...
Bonita hadn’t drawn a man. She’d drawn a demon.
