Page 27 of Grave Danger

“Let’s finish lunch then go back to our office and discuss this further,” Demetrius suggested. “Out of earshot of everyone else in town.”

Before any of them could respond, they heard the blare of car horns right outside the diner, followed by shouts and screams. A loud crashing sound accompanied by the breaking of glass made diners around them cry out in surprise, and the table and bench of their booth shook, rattling their dishes and utensils.

“What the hell was that?” Cody said.

The diners sitting at the front window were kneeling on the benches of their booths and peering out at the street. Others rushed out the door, and Demetrius exchanged a look with Cody before each of them tossed cash onto the table and slid out of the booth.

“Money’s on the table,” Demetrius said to Margie as he passed her.

“Hell with that,” she replied, “I’m coming, too.” He felt her grab hold of the back of his cargo shorts so they didn’t get separated in the crowd.

Outside the diner, they paused on the sidewalk to look up and down the street. A crowd had gathered a couple of blocks away, in front of what looked to be Parson’s Pharmacy. People were rushing in that direction and their group joined the fray, Margie still holding tight to the waistband of Demetrius’s shorts.

Through the crowd, Demetrius caught glimpses of the back end of a large car sitting across the sidewalk. Cody, taller than the rest of them, was craning his neck to see over the heads of the crowd and said in a quiet voice, “Oh fuck, she’s done it this time.”

“Who?” Margie asked. “What’s going on?”

“The Widow.” Cody looked down at Demetrius. “She drove her car into Parson’s Pharmacy.”

“What?” Oliver exclaimed. “Good God. That woman is a fucking disaster. She can’t possibly be allowed to drive after this, right? Lucia’s got to take her license away.”

“That won’t stop her,” Dave said. “She’s been a threat on the roads around town since Cody and I were kids.”

“This fucking town,” Oliver muttered.

By then they’d reached the edge of the crowd, and Cody made a path for them to the front line. Demetrius’s stomach dropped, and he felt a little dizzy when he saw the extent of the damage. JoAnn Monroe, known to Parson’s Hollow residents and those in the surrounding communities as the Widow Monroe, had been married to the fire chief who had passed away over forty years prior. She was in her mid- to late-nineties and stubbornly refused to quit driving her whale of a car, a tan mid-70s Cadillac Sedan de Ville with a white vinyl roof, the front quarter of which was currently lodged inside Parson’s Pharmacy.

She alternated between driving very slow or extremely fast, with no in-between. For safety purposes, a previous sheriff had installed a revolving yellow light on top of her car, intending for it to act as a beacon to all motorists in case she got stranded or pulled out into traffic without looking, which happened a lot. The yellow light allowed people to keep track of where she was and adjust their own speeds accordingly or get the hell out of her way.

All hail the Widow Monroe.

Now, the yellow light lay on the sidewalk amid shards of glass, twisted pieces of aluminum window frame, and chunks of brick and mortar. It was still tethered to her car by its cable and the light continued to revolve, though a little more slowly. The car had pierced one of the big plate glass windows that fronted the street, the front wheels having jumped over the brick and concrete at the bottom. A large poster for some new medication lay across the windshield and down over the driver’s door, wickedly jagged pieces of glass still adhered to it.

“Good Lord!”

The exclamation grabbed Demetrius’s attention, and he saw a man in a white pharmacy coat standing inside the store, staring wide-eyed at the damage as he held his hands to the sides of his head. He looked up at the crowd, and when his eyes met Demetrius’s, he gestured toward the car. “Is someone still inside there?”

“I…” Demetrius looked over the glass-sprinkled poster that effectively blocked access to the driver’s side of the car. “I don’t know.”

“For God’s sake,” Oliver said in a low voice as he looked the Cadillac over. “I don’t see any damage to the car.”

“This thing is a tank,” Cody said, his voice low and words slow as he stared at the car and the damage it had caused.

“Right,” Oliver said. “I remember how it took out Farmer Reed.”

“Farmer Reed?” Dave said, then nodded as understanding crossed his face. “Oh, the steroid rage monster?”

“Right,” Oliver said with a shudder, still looking at the car. “Actually, I’m not sure which of them is worse.”

“Rage monster,” Demetrius said. “All the way.”

“Or an alpha werewolf,” Cody said, his voice so low only Demetrius heard him.

He turned and saw a distant look in Cody’s eye, but before he could say anything, Margie finally released her grip on the back of his shorts and stepped up beside him.

“Do you think she’s okay?” Margie asked.

“Hard to tell with her,” Demetrius said.