Dying Echo: A Grim Reaper Mystery (Grim Reaper Series) (2 page)

She let herself into her apartment and flipped on the light in the tiny entryway. The mail lay scattered on the floor where the landlord had dropped it through the slot, and she picked it up. Nothing personal, of course. Coupons for the pizza place. An envelope saying that “Yes! She could own her own home!” And a promise that the local water company would give her the purity she deserved. Wouldn’t that be something.

She dropped her purse onto the floor and stretched. It was good to be home. She walked past the kitchen door into the living-slash-bedroom and turned on the light. She turned a slow circle, happy in her little nest, and made her decision. A decision that would affect many people in the coming hours, days, and much, much longer. She decided that, “Yes. It was a good night for company.” She pulled out her phone and dialed Ricky. “Want to come over?”

A smile colored his voice. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

He was knocking on the door when she emerged from the shower. She let him in, locked the door behind him, and dropped the towel.

He raised his eyebrows. “And hello to you, too.”

She laughed, and he scooped her up, carrying her to the bed. She held him there for a moment, her hands on either side of his face, and studied him. “You’re so good to me.”

His eyes went serious, and he tucked a strand of wet hair behind her ear. “Just returning the favor.” And then he kissed her.

Two hours later she jerked awake. Ricky was getting dressed.

“Where are you going?”

He glanced over, then bent to kiss her. “Would you believe an early morning delivery? As in
early
early. Four am. Do these people
really
need to host a breakfast before the break of dawn?”

She frowned. “I was hoping you would stay.”

His face softened, and he sat on the edge of the bed. “I would like to. Believe me. It’s not every day I get the offer. Can I take a raincheck? For tomorrow, maybe? If you can take two nights in a row.”

She laughed. “I think I could manage it.”

He tugged on his shoes and kissed her again. “You’re beautiful when you’ve just been ravished.”

She gave him a weak punch. “You got me all sweaty, you know. Now I have to take
another
shower.”

He laughed and stood up, pulling on his jacket. “Go back to sleep. There’s plenty of time for a shower in the morning.”

“I guess.”

“Goodnight, love.”

She sighed, snuggling under the covers. “‘Night. Love.”

He ran his fingers gently over her face, then let himself out, with the soft
snick
of the lock moving into place.

She tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t. She had to pee. Why did sex do that? Why couldn’t she just fall asleep in the warm aftereffects like they did in the movies? Well, she
had
fallen asleep, actually, when Ricky was still with her. So it was his fault, for getting out of bed and waking her up. She’d make him pay the next time.

Smiling at the thought of what exactly his consequences would be, she slipped out from under the covers and padded across to the bathroom. She took the time to wash up, rebrush her teeth, and run a comb through her hair. When she was done, she went back out to the living room.

A man she recognized was sitting on her bed.

He smiled. “Hello, Lizzie. It’s been too long. Way, way too long.”

She spun around, but the hallway was blocked by another man. She knew him, too. He was another one of the Three. Which meant….She whipped her head right and left, but saw only the man on the bed. He smiled again, and tilted his head sideways. “You looking for him?”

She followed his gaze to the corner, where the third man crouched on the floor. Just seeing him made her skin crawl. Those blank eyes. The pasty skin. She shuddered. All of her personal belongings—measly as they were—had been spread out on the floor in front of him. A couple of books, some money, the picture of her father. The third man picked up the photo and dangled it between his thumb and forefinger. He held a flaming cigarette lighter under the corner.

“Say good-bye to Daddy,” the first man said.

Alicia closed her eyes. But she didn’t say good-bye to Daddy. She’d done that many years before.

Chapter Two

“
Ricky’s in trouble. You have to come home
.”

Her lawyer’s words had chilled her, and Casey had had no choice. Two days ago she’d left Florida, where she wasn’t exactly welcome anymore, anyway, and made her journey west. The last trucker to give her a ride had dropped her off outside of town, and she’d walked the rest of the distance. She grabbed some cheap fast food on her way in, but her lack of appetite kept her from eating much of it. How could she eat when her little brother was in who knew what kind of trouble?

She made her way through back streets to Don’s building, hoping he would somehow know she’d gotten to town. But of course he didn’t, and his office was dark, completely locked up. She shouldn’t have expected otherwise, as she hadn’t called ahead, but she’d been hoping to avoid phone calls or late night visits to his house. She was too recognizable in this part of town, close to where she’d lived Before. There were still some tourists around, even though it wasn’t yet the ski season, but they made her more of a stand-out, with her slept-in clothes and unwashed hair. So she skulked in the shadows by Don’s building, afraid to let her face be seen. She wouldn’t even attempt to visit Don’s residential neighborhood, where Crime Stoppers had some of its staunchest—or should she just say, most fanatical—supporters.

“You want to use my phone?” Death held out what looked like the latest version of an iPhone.

“I can’t use that. It will evaporate.”

“Sorry. Forgot. Guess I should call it a
My
Phone.”

Casey rolled her eyes.

“So now what?” Death said. “Go to your house and get some sleep?”

“I’m not going to my house.”

“Right. You think there are
ghosts
there.” Now it was Death’s turn for eyerolling.

“I don’t think there are ghosts. I just…don’t want to go.”

“Uh-huh. So are we going to spend the night here on Don’s doorstep?”

“No. I’m going to call him.”

“With what technology? A cup and string? Or are you going to send up a prayer and hope he catches it?”

Casey had ditched the last phone she’d owned when she’d left Florida. “I’m going to find a pay phone.”

Death laughed. “Speaking of ghosts.”

“There has to be one around here somewhere.”

There was, but it took her almost an hour to find it, out in front of some dive of a restaurant in the nontourist part of town. Apparently pay phones were too tacky to be seen by out-of-state visitors, who were there to spend big bucks on apparel and clothes and tickets up the mountain.

Casey dug change out of her pocket and dialed Don’s home number.

“This is Don Winter speaking.”

Death snickered. “Chipper, isn’t he? You’d think it was eleven in the morning instead of at night.”

“Don,” Casey said. “I’m here.”

“Where?”

“Your office.”

“
Now
?”

“Well, I’m at a pay phone a mile and a half away. I can be back there in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen.”

She hung up and turned away from the restaurant. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was smelling—steak or cabbage or just a bunch of deep fried stuff—but it wasn’t too appealing, especially since the place was obviously closed, and the smells were hanging around in the air, along with a sickly sweet odor like damp vegetation. Or something dead.

She jogged back to Don’s office, grabbed her bag from where she’d stashed it behind a bush, and waited there in the shadows. In a few minutes, longer than he had anticipated, his headlights cut across the parking lot, washed over her hiding place, and turned off, leaving the small square of pavement in the dim glow of the street lights.

Don got out of his car and swept his eyes over the back of the building. “Casey?”

“I’m here.” She stepped out of the darkness and waited for him to spot her.

When he did, he held still for a few moments. “It’s good to see you.”

“Don—”

He moved toward the door. “Come on.”

She followed him inside, waiting while he reset the alarm and locks behind them. Then he turned to her, his eyes traveling from her hair to her feet. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. What’s happened to Ricky?”

“I can make coffee. And we have some cake in the break room.”

“I don’t want
cake
!”

He inhaled, filling his cheeks with air, then gestured her toward the interior of the office, which was lit only by the security lamp on the ceiling. She walked behind him, thinking how very
same
the office was toward when she was last there. She’d spent a lot of time in those rooms, dealing with the law, with Pegasus—the car manufacturer who had basically killed her family—and with her own personal hell.

The place was pretty much like any independent lawyer’s office. Neutral colors in the waiting room, a reception desk, a small conference room, Don’s office space. The only difference from a normal visit, of which she’d had too many, was that they were there at night this time. His secretary was long gone, and the computers had been shut down. There was no comforting hum of the copier, no phones ringing, no fingers tapping on keyboards.

Don settled behind his desk and opened a fat file, with some photos face down.

Casey eyed the folder, her skin crawling. Face-down pictures weren’t a good sign. “What are those?”

“As you probably realize from my phone call, Ricky got involved in something bad, Casey. A murder. It happened last Thursday night. I know I talked to you Friday, but Ricky hadn’t gotten involved yet, and by the time I knew, I didn’t know where to find you. ”

“Tell me now. Or show me.”

“It’s not pretty. I don’t think you should look at the pictures.”

Casey held out her hand. “I’m not a little girl.”

“I never said you were. I just…she didn’t go easily.” Don turned the top photo right-side up and held it just out of her reach.

Death sucked in a breath, peering over Don’s shoulder. “I can vouch for that. Her killers didn’t hold back. And don’t yell at me for not telling you before. I didn’t know who we were dealing with until I saw the picture just now.”

“Who is she?”

“Her name was Alicia McManus,” Don said. “Don’t know her middle name. Cops got what we know from the landlord.”

Death leaned further over Don’s shoulder, and Don shuddered.

“That’s not right,” Death said. “Her name wasn’t Alicia. It was Elizabeth. Elizabeth Paige Mann.”

Casey swiveled the file toward her. Don gave only token resistance before letting her have it. She scanned the top paper. “You sure about her name?”

“Dead sure,” Death said.

“It’s the name everyone gave the police. Her landlord, her coworkers.” Don cleared his throat and played with his pencil. “Ricky.”

Casey turned over one of the photos, since Don was still holding on to his. It showed a woman lying on a carpet. Her face was beaten, so much so that Casey couldn’t tell tell if she was young or old, pretty or plain, dark or light. Her body lay on its side, her neck at an impossible angle, her clothes barely covering her.

“She was dead when the police arrived,” Don said. “It was lucky they even found her when they did. She could have lain there for days.”

Casey glanced at Death, who shrugged. In and out at the death scene to take the woman’s soul, and that was all the information Death had gotten from the earthly authorities. Everything else had to come from a woman newly dead, who wasn’t exactly at peace with how she’d gone.

“Any clue who did this to her?”

Don shifted in his seat.

“
Other
than Ricky.”

Death squinted onto the dark street between the blind and the window trim. “Don’t know any names. But she called them the Three.”

“There were
three
of them?”

Don blinked. “Three of who?”

Casey sat there, mouth open, unsure what to say. So she flipped over another photo, this one showing some burn marks on the woman’s stomach, probably from a cigarette, or maybe a lighter, or a match, if the shape of the wound meant anything. Nasty. “So how did they find her?”

Don leaned his elbows on his desk and rubbed his forehead. “She didn’t go in to work on Friday morning, and her manager called her. When he didn’t get an answer, he got in touch with her landlord.”

“Why? Did her landlord keep tabs on her?”