The Demon Road Trilogy: The Complete Collection: Demon Road; Desolation; American Monsters

Teddy sighed. “You’re not too bright, son, and that’s okay. There’s no law against being stupid. There’s also no law against being a bloodhound, but I’m going to have to ask you to stop pestering people with questions – especially my daughter.”

“Your daughter?”

Teddy nodded. “She works in the library. She’s the librarian who is not elderly.”

“Ah,” said Milo. “Heather called you.”

“She may have mentioned it during one of our regular father-daughter chats.”

“So are you going to run us out of town?”

Teddy chuckled. “I don’t think I have to do anything quite so dramatic, do you? Quite the opposite, in fact. It’s getting late in the day and, as you folks aren’t from around here, I’d like to invite you to stay overnight in our little town.”

“That’s mighty Christian of you.”

“And to save you some money, you’ll be staying with us, my wife and I. Have a good home-cooked meal. That sound good?”

“We really couldn’t impose,” said Milo.

“It is not an imposition, I assure you,” said Teddy. “I insist on you staying with us. That okay with you?”

Milo glanced at Amber, and nodded. “Sure,” he said. “That’d be great.”

“Excellent,” Teddy said, beaming. “I’ll tell her to make up the rooms. Our bed-and-breakfast rates are quite competitive, just so you know.”

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SHERIFF ROOSEVELT’S PLACE WAS a neat little house out on the edge of town. It had pebbles instead of grass in the front yard, and a path of cobblelock paving. Mrs Roosevelt – Ella-May – was a handsome woman who struck Amber as someone playing at running a B&B. She had a way about her, a way of asking questions and getting answers, that suggested a whipsmart mind, even in her advancing years. Running a B&B seemed a rather tame endeavour for someone like her.

The house looked like a picture-perfect amalgamation of various local tourism brochures. Everything was pretty, with a restrained, folksy charm. Milo and Glen had to share the twin beds in the double room, but Amber got a room all to herself. It had a small TV in the corner, the very opposite of a flatscreen.

Dinner was at eight. Amber had a bath to pass the time, and as she lay in all those bubbles she tried not to look at the countdown on her wrist.

438, it said now. Three days gone out of her twenty-one. Lots of time left. Plenty of time. Providing they find Dacre Shanks.

When eight rolled around, she was dressed and hungry. She went downstairs, following the aroma.

Teddy sat at one end of the table. Amber and Glen sat to his right, and Milo to his left. Glen kept his hand curled, hiding the Deathmark from sight in the same way that Amber’s bracelets hid her scar. When Ella-May was finished serving the food, she sat opposite her husband.

Teddy interlocked his fingers and closed his eyes. “Lord, thank you for this meal we are about to enjoy. Thank you for our guests – after some initial frostiness, they have proven themselves to be nice enough people, and they’ve paid in advance, which I always take as a sign of good manners. Thank you for no dead bodies today and no real crime at all, to be fair. Thank you for my beautiful wife, my wonderful daughter, and for the continuing wellbeing of my town. Amen.”

“Amen,” Amber muttered, along with Glen. Milo and Ella-May remained silent.

“So, Milo,” Teddy said as he reached for the potatoes, “what do you do for a living?”

“I get by.”

“That it? That’s all you do?”

Milo smiled like he was a normal, good-natured kind of guy. “I make ends meet, how about that?”

Teddy shrugged. “That’s fair enough. A man who doesn’t want to talk about his business shouldn’t have to talk about his business. Where you from, originally?”

“Kentucky,” Milo said.

“Aha,” said Teddy. “The Bluegrass State.”

“That’s what they call it.”

“You a farm boy, Milo?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Pigs? Cattle?”

“Some.” Milo’s smile was easy and his tone was relaxed. He was like a different person. “Ella-May, this is one humdinger of a dinner.”

Ella-May smiled. “Why, thank you, Milo. Humdinger, eh? Never heard my cooking called that before.”

Milo actually chuckled. “How long you two been married?”

“I was nineteen,” said Ella-May, “he was twenty-three. We were married in the summer. My father, who was sheriff, could not let his future son-in-law waste his natural gifts in an aluminum factory, so he made him a deputy and started him on the road to becoming the fine, upstanding law-enforcement official you see before you with gravy dripping down his chin.”

“Goddamn it,” Teddy said, dabbing at himself with his napkin.

“We were so in love.”

Teddy winked at Amber. “She was besotted.”

“Yeah,” said Ella-May, “I was the one going all moon-eyed. I was the one blushing and stammering and falling over bushes …”

Teddy pointed his fork at her. “Hey. I fell over one bush.”

“But it was a big one.”

“Damn near broke my neck,” Teddy muttered.

“I swear, my husband is brighter than he lets on.”

“I’d have to be,” said Teddy.

“Was your dad sheriff when Dacre Shanks was killing people?” Glen asked Ella-May.

Milo’s smile vanished. “Damn it, Glen.”

“What?”

“Boy, you have got to be the most tactless person I have met that I haven’t punched yet,” said Teddy.