It really was nice that Hank and Sumo had each other. She knew how much it hurt to lose her mom - and that had been looming on the horizon for Audrey's entire life, they'd been able to prepare for it in a lot of ways. She couldn't imagine what it'd be like to lose a kid. Plenty of people back home had dealt with that. She immediately thought of Rachel's parents and the accusations they'd hurled at Audrey the night of her funeral. That kind of anger only came from pain and from wanting to blame someone. The worst part was that it was her fault. All of it was her fault. But she supposed that was something she'd just have to keep getting used to. She'd made her choices and even if she hadn't known, at the time, how it was all going to snowball... maybe she should have.
"Yeah," she shrugged, and took the ball from Hank. She gave it a little toss in her hand and then threw it out ahead of them a few yards, smiling softly as Sumo took off after it. "Lakewood has this whole history," she started again. "Twenty or so years back, some guy went postal and killed five kids at a Halloween dance." She paused to toss the ball again, a little further this time, just to test how far Sumo would go to get it. "They thought they killed the guy who did it, but it was the wrong guy... and, also, he lived. Anyway, that guy had a kid. And she was pissed that her dad had become the town's boogeyman." Another toss, overhand this time, with a little more distance on it. "So she came to town with her boyfriend and just went on this rampage of revenge against everyone. The whole thing lasted, like, a year and a half. And a lot of people's secrets came out."
She wrestled the ball away from Sumo, did a fake-toss, and then finally lobbed it underhand again. He was definitely a good distraction and a dog that big had way too much energy to be inside the hotel all day. Plus, she didn't really mind dog slobber. Hands washed.
Audrey took a deep breath and sighed. "Anyway," she said. "My mom was in a hospital in Boston at the time and it was just me and my dad and..." she shrugged again. "It's whatever. But that's how I know so much about police station coffee. I've spent a lot of time there. For one reason or another. I mean, we all took our turns being suspects. I may have been the only one who had to spend the night there, but they always look at the weird kid first."