Unearthed (20 page)

Deception.

“Where is it?” His dad was watching him now, kinda lazy about it. He took a path around his father, who was trudging toward his office anyway. That put them heading in opposite directions, and Brian tried to time his trip to the kitchen and make it quick. He went for a bottle of water out of the fridge and looped back in two seconds, letting the refrigerator door slam shut behind him. That fried scent lingered in the air as he hurried quietly back down the hall and paused just outside his father’s office.

“I know who Katlin Elizabeth is,” his father said quietly, probably thinking he wasn’t around to hear it. “Stay away from that party. It’s very likely it’ll go tits up in one way or another, and you don’t want any part of it. Uh huh.” He paused. “Thanks for letting me know.” A beep loud enough for Brian to hear it signaled the end of the conversation.

Brian considered his options. Ignoring this didn’t really seem like the way to play it. But if he pushed a little now, he’d maybe get something out of it. He strolled around the corner into his father’s office and stood there in the door, looking around. His eyes fell on the gun cabinet in the corner and he shuddered. He’d never liked the things. His dad had started him when he was young, and he’d just never gotten past the tension of hating them. He’d gotten a few shells ejected right back at him, in his hair, on his face, and they’d burned, and he’d just not been enthusiastic about going shooting again for any reason. After a few years of asking, pleading, cajoling, demanding and even begging, his father had quit and left him be. They were both happier that way, Brian had concluded, and Alison’s enjoyment of shooting and hunting had more than made up for his total lack of interest.

“What was that all about?” Brian asked, letting his eyes fall back on his dad. Making him craft a lie on the fly seemed the way to go. It wasn’t like sitting back and letting things go their course was likely to result in any new information. This was supposed to be a fun way to play gotcha, not to sit back until he died of old age.

“Party invitation,” his father said without looking up.

“You gonna go?”

“Not my sort of soirée, I’m afraid,” his father said, meeting his eyes. “Little bit too stiff-necked for me.”

“Sounds like Mom’s sort of thing,” Brian said, imagining himself pulling the strings a little tighter.

“I doubt your mother would be interested in attending this particular party,” Bill said, now back to looking at his desk. There was a pad of paper there, a small one, and his father rested his hand directly atop it, shrouding some writing from view. Brian could see hints of an address there.

“I dunno,” Brian said, “I bet she’d love a chance to get out and socialize. You’re gonna ask her, right?” Tighter and tighter, he drew the circle.

His father’s shoulders fell. He was clearly annoyed at being challenged, but his voice stayed even. “Of course.”

Brian smiled. “I bet she’ll really love it.” He slapped his palm against the frame of the door and turned to leave, feeling like he’d done what he needed to in order to bring this game closer to its end.

Lauren’s head was reeling from her meeting with Dave Belzer, an almost literal spinning sensation that made her feel like she was on a tilt-a-whirl. She’d gotten some basics from Erin when the deputy had woken up, drug-addled hints that she’d been unwilling to elaborate on later, and they’d been enough to rock Lauren’s orderly world.

Dave Belzer had just blown her mind completely. Another world, coexisting with their own, replete with a demon culture that interlaced with theirs, tendrils extending so deep that no one seemed able to fully judge how much of the human world was even affected by the other, the underworld … well, it was a hell of a thing. Belzer had explained the idea of hotspots of activity that drew demons in like moths to a flaming bonfire. The thought that one of those was going on right here, right now? That explained a hell of a lot about what was going on in Midian lately.

She was walking down the street, barely feeling the sun shine on her head except to notice her hair felt hot, when she almost ran into someone. Didn’t even see him coming, almost shoulder-checked him. He seemed to be a little more aware of the world, though, and caught her just before she hit, rocking her, surprising her completely out of the palace of thought she’d settled herself into. A “Watch where you’re fucking going!” died on her lips as she recognized his face and felt hot shame blossom onto her cheeks. “Administrator Pike,” she said instead, swallowing heavily, “I am so sorry.”

“Well, that’s all right, Dr. Darlington,” he said with that winning smile he had. “You seem like you’re preoccupied, as I would expect you to be. You’ve got more than a little responsibility, after all. How’s that daughter of yours doing?”

“Just fine, Mr. Pike,” she said and felt the flush of heat on her cheeks again. She’d met Pike when he was campaigning, and had connected with him immediately. He wasn’t provincial, he wasn’t closed-minded—which was a rarity here, in her experience. “How are you doing?” She felt her face turn to a squint. “And … if you’ll pardon me for asking, why are you in Midian?”

“Well, I do like to get around my constituency a little bit,” he said, almost bashful. “You’re the second person in the last few days who’s said it to me like that. I reckon that means I need to get over here more often. I’ll admit, now that the campaign is done, it’s a drive to get here for what seems like little purpose—shopping in Cleveland or Athens is a little easier and—well, let’s face it—more wide-ranging in variety than trucking down to Midian, but none of those folks voted for me, so I probably oughta come here more often, huh?” He smiled again. “Loyalty repaid and all that. Keeping touch with people.”

“Not a bad idea,” she said, nodding along. “But I wouldn’t blame you for going elsewhere. Not a ton of restaurant variety here, after all.”

“Oh, it’s not all that bad,” Pike said. “I like Surrey’s. Pat makes a pretty damned good biscuit, after all.” He studied her for a minute, straightening up in his suit. “So what troubles you this day, Dr. Darlington? How’s work at the, uh … it’s the emergency room, isn’t it? Down in Chattanooga?”

She felt a little surprised—and pleased—that he remembered. “It is. And no, my work is just fine. Satisfying.” It took her another second to realize that he’d now inquired about what was troubling her, and she’d ruled out that it was her family and then her job. His look of concern was genuine; that was Pike’s gift, and the reason he connected so well with the voters even though he wasn’t from here. The man could listen and figure things out in a rare way, and he had charisma to spare.

He was easy on the eyes, too, but Lauren tried to ignore that because she knew he was married. Happily, he professed long and loud, at every campaign event, but she wouldn’t have judged him too harshly if that hadn’t turned out to be the case. It was an election, after all, and almost no one wanted to vote for the candidate who admitted, bracingly honestly, that his marriage was in trouble and he’d rather be fucking other women.

“What’s on your mind, Doctor?” Pike asked, shrewdly going to the next logical place in the conversation. Lauren felt a little knitted in, having cut off both of her obvious escape routes. “I only ask because I’m concerned.”

“I appreciate your concern,” she said, slowly.

“Oh, it’s purely self-motivated,” Pike said. “If I’m gonna spend more time in Midian, I would like to be able to walk the streets without getting rammed into by a doctor with a full head of steam.” He grinned. “Call me selfish.” The look softened. “You doing all right?”

The answer hit her like a softball to the face. “Just worried about the town,” she said, and realized it wasn’t far from the honest truth. “Lot going on right now.”

She realized as he answered that Pike had assumed this was what she was thinking about. “It’s a difficult time for everybody,” he agreed, nodding. “I was talking with Sheriff Reeve the other day, and he was telling me that what’s going on here doesn’t fit the profile for anything law enforcement really deals with. I was a little surprised at that admission. A little alarmed, too, because it’s almost inconceivable to think that someone hasn’t seen this before. One of my favorite quotes from the Bible—not that I know that much about it,” he winked at her conspiratorially, and she knew he didn’t share that bit of inside baseball with everyone he spoke to, “is ‘There is nothing new under the sun.’ I really believe that. I think that we’ve seen just about everything in the range of human emotion and possibility, that whenever there’s a technological advancement, we see the same worry and fretting from the populace, torn by the possibility of change. Our stories are the same, our heroic myths adapted to modern day frameworks. If there’s really nothing new under the sun, just new ways of expressing old states of being, then it seems to me someone would have to have dealt with something like what we’re seeing here. This level of carnage, this state of disarray.” He shook his head. “Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this
is
something new.”

Lauren felt herself grow cold. “I don’t think you’re wrong.” But it wasn’t new, was it? It was old, if Belzer was right. Demons had been written about for thousands of years, feared for just as long.

“Well, let’s hope we see some progress on this soon,” Pike said with a reassuring smile. He clapped a hand on her shoulder gently. “If you want to talk it over some more, you feel free to give me a call, okay? I’m letting everybody know that I’m available to talk. I know I’m not a counselor, but dangit, we’re all in this together. Nobody ought to feel like they’re alone, not now.” He glanced at the street as a car went by. “Not now, not ever.”

She nodded, feeling his reassurance. “Thank you, Mr. Pike.”

He looked up at her in surprise as he withdrew his hand. “What for, Dr. Darlington?”

“For being you,” she said, and started away from him, back toward her car.

He took the cue and started on his own way. “Of all the things I can be, Doctor, that one seems the easiest. Take care.” He gave her a wave and heading toward Surrey’s. She watched him go for a few moments until he stopped to talk to Rex Goodman, and then she went on her way, feeling better about the direction she was headed, now that she wasn’t totally alone in it.

Reeve took the long way back to the station, and it carried him once more past Casey Meacham’s taxidermy shop. Once again, Reeve found himself pulling in, this time for reasons he couldn’t fully explain. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was nothing waiting back at the station that wasn’t a headache. Besides, if he checked in on his fish, he’d delay that return by a little bit longer. Sure, there was no Pike waiting for him this time, but he wasn’t too proud to admit that there was plenty of joy in just avoiding the office in general at this point. Six months ago it wouldn’t have been a problem. Now, it was getting to be all he could do just to go to work in the morning.

He came in through Casey’s door and listened to the jangle of the bell. He sidled up to the counter and looked at some of the skulls. They really did look sun-bleached, like Meacham had left them out there until they glowed. He could see the plates come together in uneven lines, looked into the hollowed-out eye sockets with the shadows falling on them from the overhead light, and he let out a big ol’ sigh.

“Sheriff Reeve,” Casey greeted him as he came out of the back room. His face faded to a screwed-up look, like a frown. “I ain’t got done with your mount yet. I’m gonna need some time for—”

“Oh, I know,” Reeve said, waving him off. “I was just in the area and figured I’d drop by. Random patrol, a little time to kill.”

Casey’s face was pretty open, his thoughts obvious, and his eyebrows jumped a few inches on that one. “I’d think you’d be pretty busy right now.”

Reeve felt the weight he’d tried to leave at the door follow him in and settle back onto his shoulders. “Well … I am and I’m not.”

“I suppose it’s like anything else,” Casey said, settling his palms on the glass countertop and leaving smears from the grease. “I get a lot of orders in come hunting season, so many I’m working the back room all night practically, and all day in between heads coming in. Get a backlog going and work six months to clear it. By then, fishing season’s underway, but we don’t get near the volume. In between some of those things, though, you just got those moments where you gotta wait. And the waitin’s hard, you know?” He leaned forward. “You don’t look like you’re doing any fishing today.”

“I’m not,” Reeve said, glancing down at his uniform. “On patrol.”

“I like to do a little fly fishing every now and again myself, if you know what I mean,” Casey said, and his voice held the hint of a setup. “Fly down, bait dangling, just see if the ladies go for it, if you see where I’m heading with this.”

Reeve tried to keep his expression straight. “I’m trying really hard not to at this point, actually.”

“So, why are you here again?” Casey asked, squinting at him. “Just bored?”

Reeve let out a sigh. “Maybe more like avoiding work.”

Casey nodded. “When I want to avoid work, I watch the bugs for a while. Let them do their thing, you know? Takes a load off. You want to go?” He pointed toward the back room.

Reeve almost said no. Almost. “You know what? Maybe I will.” And he followed as Casey led him into the back room, to watch some destruction that wasn’t his responsibility for a while.

Molly came home bubbling with excitement, with eyes too big for her head and a smile that stretched across her face and could barely be contained. When Vera wasn’t watching, she grinned at Lauren, who was watching her with the tentative curiosity of someone seeing something they didn’t quite believe. It wasn’t that she’d changed dramatically after the Summer Lights festival and all that had happened during it; it was more that Lauren expected a dramatic change and was still waiting for the fallout. This was just weird, though.

“What are you so chipper about?” Vera asked, stopping in her pattern of buzzing around the kitchen long enough to focus on Molly.