When she finished the kiss with several soft pecks over his face and drew back, a look of guilt had shadowed her features. “I’m sorry. About raking through your memories like that.”
“Don’t be. They’ve been left to their own devices for far too long. They probably needed to be raked. Maybe even weeded.”
She laughed softly. “Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
He pulled on an old canvas windbreaker and pushed the sleeves up to his elbows. A windbreaker with deep pockets that had been preloaded with black salt. She shrugged into the same jacket she’d worn before.
“I have a hoodie in there somewhere.”
“No,” she said, hugging the jacket to her. “I like this one.”
“The rip down the center does give it that, what did you call it, hobo look?”
She giggled, the sound like sparkling water, and kissed him on the cheek. The fact that he’d never heard her giggle before today broke his heart. He’d been missing out.
“Let’s go kick some demon ass,” she said.
“Yeah, you get to stay in the truck, Rambo.”
“What? I’m the one who told you about Sarah.”
“You can help with her. Maybe knowing why all of this is happening will give us an edge. But when I have to face the demon, I need to know you’re safe. Thinking otherwise will only distract me.”
She blinked as she considered his words. “I guess. I certainly can’t move like you can. But maybe it won’t come to that. Maybe we can stop it through the website or whatever they’re using to learn how to summon it, which, seriously, what the hell?”
“Maybe,” he said, not believing that for a minute. “But I do agree. What the hell?”
“Can I bring the crossbow?”
“No.”
They went back inside the Tavern and spotted their table. Kyle had come back in, and both he and Dora sat there, but the lunch crowd had cleared out. Most of them, anyway. The man in the Hawaiian shirt was still there, reading a paper.
Dora waved excitedly.
Kyle sent him a glare and asked. “You okay, boss?”
Amber gave him a thumbs-up just as Sarah saw them.
“You’re back,” she said as she wiped the table down. “I kept your food warm, but mostly you owe me forty bucks.”
Quentin grinned. “Sorry. We had an emergency.”
Sarah eyed Amber, clearly noting her change of clothes. Her mussed hair. Her pinkened cheeks. “I can see that.”
Quentin took out a fifty and handed it to her as Amber asked, “Sarah, can we talk to you?”
She straightened in surprise. “Sure thing. Want to sit?” She gestured toward their table. The one that still had an old pair of sunglasses sitting on it. The ones Amber had put on Quentin. His eyes must’ve been black when she delved into his head. That would take some getting used to.
Instead of sitting in one of the empty seats, Sarah pulled up a fifth chair. Amber had been right. She could see Kyle and Dora, at least to some degree. They sat, and she looked between them, askance. “What’s up?”
Quentin decided to leave the diplomacies to Amber. He’d never been good at tact.
“Sarah, did you summon a demon to kill Billy Tibbets, Angela Morrisey, and Dora Rodriguez?”
Okay, then. Maybe the elfin wasn’t the best at diplomacy either.
Dora gasped and stared wide-eyed.
Sarah stilled for a long moment before sinking back in her chair.
A blonde woman came around the bar, combing through her bag as she walked toward the door. “I have a few errands to run. You okay for a bit, Sarah?”
Sarah nodded, her response automated.
The woman stopped and studied the group curiously. “Is everything okay?”
Sarah snapped out of it and turned to her. “It’s all good, Lori. We’re just catching up.”
Not entirely convinced given the look on her face, the woman pulled the strap over her shoulder and headed out. “I won’t be long.”
Sarah waved and then turned back to them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course, you do. We know it was you. We just don’t know how. Or why.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “What does it matter? It’s not like you can prosecute me for summoning a demon.”
Dora made the sign of the cross.
Amber tilted her head in thought. “Technically true. But you need to be honest with us. Did you sic it on anyone else?”
She pressed her lips together to fight a grin, then shook her head. “No. Is that who’s here?” She pointed to the only two departed people in the room. “Are they going to haunt me or something?”
“Dora’s here,” Amber said. “Billy and Angela must’ve crossed over.”
Sarah laughed and shook her head. “So, they get to go to heaven? Is that it?”
Quentin noted her distaste. “You didn’t want them to?”
“No. I did not want them to bask in eternal bliss. If that’s even real.”
Amber leaned forward. “Sarah, what did they do? Dora honestly doesn’t know.”
“The fuck she doesn’t.” The woman Quentin had once thought so pretty became little more than a demon herself in his eyes. Ugly with hatred and vitriol.
Dora pressed both hands to her chest. “I don’t understand, Amber. I don’t even know her. What could I have done to her to make her hate me so much?”
Amber turned back to Sarah. “She doesn’t know you. What is it you think she did?”
A cryptic smile spread across the woman’s face. One filtered through resentment and cruelty. “Madeline Kemp.”
Dora’s expression morphed from confusion to doubt then finally to realization. “She’s Madeline? The little girl who disappeared on my bus route? But that was…that was over twenty years ago.” She clasped her hands at her mouth. “She’s alive? All this time, she’s been alive?”
Quentin and Amber watched as Dora’s emotions ran the gamut. At first, she was filled with joy, thrilled that the little girl who’d disappeared years ago was alive and well. Then the stark reality hit her. The fact that Sarah hated her so much that she’d summoned a demon to kill her. Tears pooled between her lashes.
“What happened, Sarah?” Amber asked.
“I was abducted that day, and that bitch knows it.”
Dora shook her head. “I don’t understand how she could believe such a thing.”
“You were abducted?”
“Of course, I was abducted. And my own mother set it up.”
Amber seemed taken aback. “How do you know?”
“Because I found the letters between her and the Gladwells.”
“The Gladwells?”
“The couple who abducted me. They told me my mother was sick and I had to go live with them. But my mother practically sold me to that crazy old couple as cheap labor.”
“No,” Dora said. “Pauline would never do that. And she really was sick. She died of cancer not long after Madeline disappeared.”
“Wait.” Amber held up a hand in a timeout. “What does any of this have to do with Billy and Angela?”