Page 9 of Grave Danger

“You do. Come on.”

They ate at the dining room table while Demmy looked at his phone, scrolling through the Critter Catchers calendar he shared with Cody and Jugs. After some discussion about who should take which scheduled jobs, Demmy sent a text to Jugs before turning his phone screen side down on the table and giving Cody his full attention.

“You and I are open all morning, so I suggest we drive out to the cemetery and check the mayor’s grave and get that over with.”

Cody made a face.

“And I wanted to go back to something you said last night,” Demmy continued before Cody could start talking. “When you were wondering why it’s always us doing this kind of investigating.”

“Yeah, and I still feel that way today,” Cody said, hearing the edge in his voice. “Why can’t the sheriff’s department run with this?”

“You said Ryan Zellmer didn’t see the mayor. And although he’s got some background with the stranger side of things around town, mostly because of his dad, he doesn’t have the experience we do.”

Cody poked his fork at the few bites of egg left on his plate. “I hate being the one with experience.”

“I hate it, too.”

“Do you? Because you’re always really eager to jump right into one of these cases.”

“I am eager,” Demmy said, now with an edge to his voice. “Because this is a dangerous situation, and we can do something to keep it from spiraling out of control.”

“Like we did with the werewolves?”

Demmy sat back, his right hand going across his chest to grip the spot where his left shoulder met his neck, the place he’d been bitten by Nicolae. A ragged furrow of scar tissue would forever remind Cody of how close he’d come to losing Demmy that night. And now Cody watched as Demmy’s expression switched from surprise to hurt to anger in the space of seconds. He felt the deep claws of regret dig into his gut, and wished he could reel the words back in like some kind of verbal fishing line.

“I’m sorry,” Cody said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, it’s all right.” Demmy blinked and quickly dropped his hand into his lap. “We both did what we had to do that night to save as many lives as possible. To save this town.”

“Right. I know.” Cody pushed his plate away and sat back in the chair. “Don’t mind me, I’m just recovering from hitting someone with my truck, and then realizing he’d been dead and buried for a week.”

A small smile flickered across Demmy’s face, then he reached across the table. Cody took his hand and looked into Demmy’s eyes, relieved to see the hurt and anger had dissipated, or been pushed down. For now.

“I know that must have been really awful for you,” Demmy said. “I’m sorry you went through it. But if we don’t try to do something to fix it, it could happen to someone else. Someone who isn’t able to get away from the mayor.”

“Yeah, I know.” Cody sighed, gave Demmy’s hand a squeeze, then released it. “But we don’t know anything about zombies.”

“All it takes is a head shot, right? We watched a few seasons of The Walking Dead, we know what we’re doing. Don’t get bit and aim for the head. Also, we didn’t know anything about werewolves or swamp monsters either.”

“When you say these things, it all seems like it’s going to be fine, like everything will just magically work out. Easy peasy. But then we get involved, and all of a sudden the situation takes a hard left and everything goes off the rails.”

“That’s true. But we always manage to put things back on track again, don’t we?”

“Yeah, but sometimes it comes with a pretty high price tag,” Cody said.

“You’re thinking of Rufus and Hap.”

“Them, but also you. You died when we got tangled up in that Esther business. Your heart stopped, Demmy. I was right there next to you and watched them do CPR to bring you back.”

“I know. I can’t change that, and I’m sorry you went through it all alone. But to me, Esther and that whole situation on Heaversford Lake was different than what happened with Nicolae and what we can do now with this business with the mayor.”

Cody made a face. “I’m afraid this ‘business,’ as you put it, is going to turn into a dangerous escalation.”

“It might, but we can’t live that way. If we can do something about a situation, we should do it.”

“Even if it means risking our lives?”

“Every day we risk our lives,” Demmy said. “We drive all around town. We pull animals out of dark, tight spaces in houses. Anything could wrong at any time.”