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How had it all worked out so well?
When would it all be taken away?
“We don’t even know what we’re looking for,” Jugs said, lowering his normally deep voice to an even deeper rumble.
Demetrius gave Cody a reassuring smile, receiving a wink in response followed by a squeeze of his hand before Cody released him. He already missed his touch.
“We will,” Clarabell said, her attention on a leather-bound notebook filled with cramped handwriting and the occasional crude sketch of something monstrous and terrifying. “I just haven’t found it yet.”
Lucia pushed her chair back and stood up. “We need to get out on patrol.”
Deputy Walsh, the thin and strong Black woman who’d gotten in the boat and pushed Claudia Sykes’s body to shore, nodded and stood as well. She looked along the table and said, “I have to say, this has been one of the most unusual dinners I’ve been to, and my family gets into fights at Thanksgiving.”
Lucia laughed, actually laughed, and Demetrius cocked his head a bit. She removed a wallet from her pants pocket and tossed some cash on the table, shaking her head at Deputy Walsh who was reaching for her own wallet. “I got it.”
“You got the last one, too,” Walsh said.
“Yeah, well, you can get the next one,” Lucia said, and she and Walsh looked at one another a moment, and a flutter of surprise and happiness went through Demetrius. Then Lucia looked down the table at him, all business again as she said, “Keep me updated.”
“We will,” Demetrius said, unable to stop smiling as he watched the two women walk out of the diner, the ring of the bell on the door sounding loud in the otherwise empty space. Could there be something there between Lucia and Deputy Walsh? He decided to keep his suspicions to himself for the time being, but the thought of it made him happy.
“Do we know how many victims there actually are?” Agatha asked, stealing a French fry from Oliver’s plate. She dragged it through a puddle of ketchup on her own plate before popping it in her mouth.
Oliver didn’t even notice the food theft. He was looking through a notebook of his own, though his was a composition notebook with a cardboard type cover, nowhere near as fancy as Clarabell’s, and with fewer scribbled on pages.
“Just the ones that have been found,” Oliver said, then looked down the table at Demetrius. “Right?”
“Right. We only know about Claudia and Devin Sykes,” Demetrius said.
Agatha looked toward the door. “We should have asked Lucia if there were any missing person reports called in lately.”
“I’m sure she would have shared that information freely and openly with us,” Clarabell said, and everyone laughed as she flipped a page in her notebook.
“I feel like we should have a notebook or something,” Cody said across the table. “Is it weird that I’m getting all FOMO about us not keeping notebooks?”
Demetrius chuckled and reached across the table to take his hand. “It’s not weird at all.” He smiled and squeezed. “And I do have notes about the weird stuff we’ve seen. It’s just electronic.”
“You do?”
“Yep. I started it after Arnold Kelmer.”
“Our first weird case all those years ago?” Cody said in surprise.
“I wanted to make sure we kept detailed notes in case we needed them.”
Cody leaned in over the table and reached his free hand across to take Demetrius’s other hand. “Does Dieter know you have all these notes?”
“I doubt it. I mean, you didn’t even know, so I’m assuming he doesn’t.” Demetrius cocked his head. “I’m having trouble reading you right now. What are you thinking? Are you angry about me keeping notes?”
Cody smiled, and it was the same sexy, confident smile Demetrius had seen for a majority of his life. It was the smile Cody flashed after winning a football game or getting in a good verbal jab. Or, in the last few years, seducing Demetrius.
And damn, if it didn’t work every single time.
“I’m far from angry.” Cody got halfway out of his chair and leaned over the table to kiss him. “I think you might have saved us from bankruptcy.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jugs said from the other end of the table. “What the hell’s going on down there?” He looked at Agatha sitting beside him. “Is it time for couples to kiss or something?” He leaned down, lips puckered, but she put a hand on his face and blocked him as she looked at Demetrius and Cody with narrowed eyes.
“What’s going on with you two?” Agatha said, hand still on Jugs’s face. “Why the sudden PDA?”
