Page 64 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

Gunnar shook his head. “She’s great. It’s all great. I forgot how fucking good it is to be alive.”

“You’re still dead,” Dottie corrected. She squinted at the label on the front of the Honeybuns box. “Just not in Hell.”

“Close enough,” Gunnar muttered and took a monstrous bite of the second cake.

I peeled open the package of Twinkies and pulled one out to offer to Whitney. “Wanna try? Might be kinda like a syllabub. The inside part, anyway.”

He frowned but accepted while Dottie helped herself to a Honeybun.

With everyone gathered around, I was keenly aware of Loren’s absence. I found him by the door, simultaneously as close as he could get to the exit and as far as he could get from me. It sent a clear enough message that I didn’t bother trying to loop him in, even though I had a box of Oatmeal Creme Pies with his name on it.

Gunnar polished off one package of Swiss Rolls and ripped into another while Dottie licked the glaze off her Honeybun. Her expression shifted from confusion to delight, making it clear this was a novel experience.

I knew Whitney was old—Loren, too—but I wasn’t sure about the other two. I waited until Gunnar had swallowed his next bite before asking, “How long have you been in Hell? Been dead?”

That opened the door to further inquiry, more questions like the ones I’d asked Whitney on his first day with us. Surely not all hellhounds were born from tragedy like ambushed soldiers or narcissistic lovers. Maybe some people just… died.

“Twenty… thirty years, I think?” Gunnar replied. “About as long as I was alive.” He laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “What about you, Dot?”

Dottie’s lips twisted in contemplation. She had a certain vibe about her, tough girl aesthetic but not in the modern sense. Like she would have been a member of the Pink Ladies inGrease. Rizzo’s best pal.

“Twice as long, I imagine. Maybe more,” Dottie said. “Eisenhower was in office. We were at war with Korea?—”

“1953,” Loren’s voice rumbled from the far wall. I think the interruption surprised even him because when we all glancedover, he shied away from our attention and muttered, “It’s the only year those things coincided.”

The break in his silence came as a relief, even if he wasn’t speaking directly to me. No one replied, busying themselves sampling the treats I’d brought. Whitney dabbed his finger into the cream oozing out of the bottom of the Twinkie, then peered at it.

“It’s good,” I encouraged him. “Sweet.”

He put his frosting-tipped finger to his tongue, then his features twisted. “Saccharine. What’s it made of?” Despite his apparent distaste for the stuff, he gave the spongey corner of the Twinkie a nibble.

I grinned. “Pretty much just sugar, I think.”

“Little wonder,” he replied.

He smacked at the little bite of food, then mulled it around in his mouth for several seconds while I tried not to giggle. The combination of the shape of the cake and the idea of him sucking out the cream filling was almost too much to keep to myself, so I spun toward Dottie and Gunnar and changed the subject.

“Since you guys are here for the foreseeable future, we should probably get to know each other,” I said. “More than what they put in your obituary.”

“Sure,” Gunnar agreed, gleefully riding a sugar rush.

Dottie remained guarded and recoiled slightly as she asked, “What do you have in mind?”

Honestly, I hadn’t thought beyond getting out of the trailer and delivering the food like a Little Debbie dealer, but I could think on the fly.

“Let’s play a game,” I said.

Rounding the island, I went to the fridge and retrieved a chilled bottle of Chardonnay. Setting it on the counter, I next searched the cabinet above the sink. It was too much to hope to find ten identical cups, so I collected an assortment. Coffeemugs, stemware, and water glasses were ferried from the shelves to the island, where I pushed the snacks aside then arranged the cups like pins in a bowling alley.

Ping-pong balls were not likely to be found in Sully’s apartment, but I had a plan for that. Rummaging into the pantry, I found a roll of aluminum foil, tore off a sheet, and then shaped it into a ball. When I waggled it in the air, Gunnar’s enthusiasm sparked anew.

“Beer pong?” He pumped his fist. “Hell yeah!”

Uncorking the wine, I poured some in each of the ten cups, then polished off the dribble that remained.

“What is this?” Whitney gestured to the spread.

Gunnar launched into an enthusiastic explanation of the rules of beer pong. Or wine pong, in this case.

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