Page 23 of The Hard Way

Margie simply nodded.

Chapter 4

Zeus tooka plastic-wrapped breadstick from the basket on the table and began to unwrap it. The basket also contained plastic-wrapped saltines. The Cobblestone Supper Club hadn’t changed a bit in the two years I’d been gone. Looking around now, I realized it probably hadn’t changed a bit since the 1970s.

“What did you call this place on the way over? Was the word you used…elegant?” he teased. “Because I don’t want to alarm you, but somebody has replaced the bread basket with a basket of wrapped dried things.”

“They always had that.” I gazed around at the dark paneling. Red stained-glass lights hung from decorative chains. They’d had those lights back when I was a kid, and I really had thought it was fancy. I unwrapped my own breadstick and munched on it. Eating made my nose ruffle area maddeningly itchy.

“Goddess,” Zeus whispered. “I hate to tell you this, but the deer heads on the walls have cobwebs between the antler spikes. Or whatever you call them.”

“Points,” I said dryly.

Odin threw back a scotch. “At least they have top-shelf scotch here.” He caught the waitress’s eye and pointed at his glass.

“Slow down, cowboy,” Zeus said.

Odin gave Zeus a dark look. Aback-the-hell-offlook. That was bad.

It was Odin’s demons. Fighting with cupids had not improved them.

The day before we’d left Italy, I’d asked Thor why Odin’s demons would get worse during our Italian honeymoon, the first time we were finally able to relax in forever.

No, goddess, it makes perfect sense that this would happen now,Thor had said.When you’re robbing banks and running for your life, there’s no time to think. No time to feel. The demons are pushed down.

I’d asked him whether that meant Odin could never just be relaxed and happy.

Thor didn’t know. He only knew that vacations and peaceful times were the worst times for Odin, the worst time for many people with PTSD.

That had made me feel so sad. And then I’d tried to calm his nightmares, and what had happened? He’d ended up hitting me in his sleep, which had only made him feel more awful.

The waitress delivered his next scotch.

“And let’s munch on a basket of frog legs to start,” Zeus said, putting aside the menu. I winced as the waitress set off. He turned to me. “What?”

“I don’t know. They’ve been on the menu forever, and nobody orders them. They could’ve been in the freezer for decades.”

“Somebody has to order them, or why would they be on the menu?”

“Because this menu hasn’t changed since the 1970s.”

“But the prices had to have changed—”

“Dude. Are you not an elite ex-secret agent?” I pointed at the tiny stickers next to each food item. “They just change the prices.”

Odin swirled the ice in his glass. He really did look tired. “Do you either of you get the sensation that we’re being watched?”

I cast my eyes around at the few other tables. I wasn’t surprised we were attracting attention; this was a rural Wisconsin supper club, so anyone new would be a novelty. “We are new here.”

“No,” Odin said. “Not just curious citizens. There are eyes on this room. Nothing specific; just a feeling.”

“Damn,” Zeus said. He didn’t like this.

Odin had the best senses, the best intuition of the gang. If Odin felt extra eyes on us, it usually meant there were extra eyes on us.

My gaze rested on the deer head mounted on the wall facing us. There was a moose head on the opposite wall, just to the other side of Odin. Another deer head hung over the rustic gas fireplace at the center of the restaurant.

Zeus was seeing the same thing. “Dude, is it the fucking deer heads?”

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