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“Can I get you something?”
She started. Mayflower stood by her table. She wore a Soundgarden sweatshirt tonight and her hair had changed color, from purple to blood red.
“Sorry,” Barbara said. “Miles away.”
“Yeah.” The girl raised a cynical eyebrow. “Wish I was.”
Barbara smiled sympathetically. “Working here not your life’s ambition?”
Mayflower rolled her eyes. “When I was a little girl, I used to say, ‘Mommy, when I grow up, I want to work in a shit bar that stores bodies in the freezer. Just like every princess.’ ”
Barbara chuckled, despite herself. “I guess you’re not waiting on Prince Charming either.”
“Damn right.”
“Well, if you care what a middle-aged cop has to say, I grew up in a town like this. My mom didn’t want me to leave. Thought joining the police was a betrayal. But I got away.”
“And yet,” Mayflower spread her arms. “Here you are.”
She had a point, Barbara thought. “Well, sometimes life gives you lemons. Sometimes a crock of shit.”
Mayflower laughed. It completely changed her somewhat sullen face into something open and beautiful. The gift of youth. And the folly.
“So, what can I get you?” she asked.
Barbara realized she was hungry. She hadn’t eaten her burrito. And then she thought about Marcus lying in the deep freeze. “You have anything that doesn’t come out of the freezer—and isn’t reindeer?”
“Chicken sandwich?”
“That would be great.”
Mayflower nodded. “Anything else to drink?”
Barbara hesitated and then caved, “Well, maybe one more beer.”
“Okay.”
Barbara waited for the girl to go, but Mayflower hovered. “Mom had me clean off that writing on the mirror upstairs. It seemed pretty…biblical.”
“Yeah. Any idea who might have done it?”
Mayflower shook her head. “No, but I’ve told Mom before about drunks wandering up there. They get lost, think it’s the public restroom.”
Barbara nodded. She was pretty sure the writing and cross weren’t the work of a confused drunk. “When I was here before, you told me to watch out for Reverend Grey?”
Mayflower’s face clouded. “She acts all smiles and holy light, but that’s not who she is.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know a faker when I see one.”
“What about Grace?”
“That creep who hangs around with her?”
“Yeah, her.”
“She’s a real crazy.”
