Page 30 of Snake

“My house,” she enunciated, speaking more clearly but making no more sense. “Like It’s a Wonderful Life. I love it soooooo much and you people jus’ let it rot.”

Was she talking about the old Dahlberg house? That wreck had been empty almost as long as he’d been alive, and it had been more than a decade since anybody at all lived on that dead-end block of Redbud Lane. The Dahlberg house was so old it had outlived its reputation as a haunted house; nobody even talked about it anymore.

He didn’t bother to ask if she meant that old skeleton; she’d stopped squirming and had dropped into semi-consciousness again. He continued on his way.

Less than five minutes later, as they were almost at Marie’s, Autumn moaned and struggled in his arms again.

“Gonna yark,” she mumbled, and Cox barely got her to the grassy sward that marked the edge of Marie’s parking lot and out of his arms before half a handle of Jameson erupted from her mouth like the first break in a levee.

He crouched beside her and held her hair back while she knelt on all fours and voided the entire contents of her digestive system, moaning miserably between each retch.

When she finally seemed to be through it, she tried to fall over on her side; Cox kept hold of her with one arm while he fished in his pocket for his bandana and wiped her mouth clean.

“Okay, city girl, let’s keep movin’.”

“Wanna sleep,” she protested muddily as he stood and pulled her to her feet.

“You go ‘head and do that.” He collected her in his arms and continued toward her car. Thankfully, Marie’s was closed, and the only vehicle other than Autumn’s rental luxury sedan and the diner’s catering van was Saxon’s brother’s truck. Orville Sachs had been both cook and manager tonight. The only light coming through the front windows of the diner reached from the kitchen; he was still in there closing up.

When Cox got Autumn to the Audi, he realized he didn’t have the key fob. She wasn’t carrying a bag, so the fob was probably in a pocket.

Well, fuck.

If she wasn’t unconscious in his arms, she was all but. He shook her gently, trying to rouse her, but got only a faint mumble in reply.

“I need your key, Autumn,” he said, shaking her a little more—but not enough to get Mt. Rooney erupting again, he sincerely hoped.

Another faint and entirely unhelpful mumble. She seemed to have puked out the last of her senses as well as a bucket of booze.

So Cox sat her on the hood of her rental and set about going through her pockets as carefully as he could. He started with her jacket, and was so relieved to find it in the first pocket he actually let out a gust of breath that phewed.

Collecting her again, he got her settled in the passenger seat and buckled in. After a few minutes working out the controls to move the driver’s seat back so he could actually enter the car, he drove back up the hill to Keller Acres B&B.

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~oOo~

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It was late enough that the front door to the inn was locked and the front desk was unattended, but the lock was coded, so guests could come and go 24/7. Like all the Horde, Cox knew the code, and he keyed it in with Autumn unconscious in his arms again.

In the lobby, he realized he didn’t know her room number, so he sat her down on one of the sofas and went through her pockets again. This time, he had to shove his hand in both front jeans pockets—her hipbones were surprisingly sharp—before he found the old-fashioned brass fob. The numeral ‘1’ was etched on it.

He shoved the key into a back pocket of his jeans and bent to pick her up again—but she moaned and rolled over, almost off the sofa ... and let loose another plume of puke, this one chunky with the remains of a several-hours-old fried chicken sandwich.

Cox had a cast-iron stomach, but even he was starting to get a little queasy.

“Fuck me,” he muttered and got Autumn settled more securely on the sofa. He couldn’t leave that mess for the staff to find in a few hours.

“I got it, I got it,” a feminine voice said. Cox looked up to see Vivien Adams, the night manager and Jesse’s older sister, coming from her apartment, dressed in crisp slacks and a soft sweater.

“You don’t gotta clean up our mess,” he countered.

Vivien smiled wryly. “Cleaning up other people’s messes is Hospitality 101, Cox.” With a nod to Autumn’s oblivious form, Vivien added, “It looks like you’ve got a bigger mess to deal with.”

“Yeah, looks like.” He gathered Autumn into his arms. She whimpered softly and snuggled tightly to his chest, hooking her fingers in the neck of his shirt. Cox saw Vivien take note of that seeming intimacy but chose to ignore it, just as he was ignoring the sudden, weird cramp in his chest. “Thanks, Viv.”

“Don’t mention it,” Vivien said to his back as he headed to the stairs.

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