Dying Echo A Grim Reaper Mystery - By Judy Clemens Page 0,109

while.”

“Wonderful idea!” their mother exclaimed, and bustled off to make the call.

Forty-five minutes later a kid delivered two large pizzas, breadsticks, wings, and several two-liter bottles of pop, as well as a gigantic take-out salad. Casey figured her mom would have enough leftovers to last until the next year.

As the evening wore on, Ricky became more animated, not revealing his whole self, but showing glimpses of who he had been before Alicia. Casey was relieved to see already that he wasn’t completely broken, and allowed herself to relax enough to laugh and play a game of canasta and eat more than she should have. She and Eric shared many glances throughout the time, and hardly was there a time when they weren’t touching in some manner.

It was close to midnight by the time Ricky almost fell asleep in the easy chair, and Casey and Eric said their farewells. She gave Ricky an extra-long hug. “It will be hard, bro. You know it will. But you’ll make it through.” When she let go, both their eyes were wet, and she could see his weariness.

“I’ll be all right, eventually. Right?” He looked to her left, where Casey saw only air.

Something cold traveled up her spine. “Ricky?”

He looked back at her. “Your friend is pretty wise, Casey. And I have to tell you, it’s nice not to be alone.”

Casey looked frantically around, but couldn’t see anything. She didn’t understand. What was going on? Had she really become fearful of Death so suddenly? Did she want to live that badly?

“Hey,” Ricky said. “You all right?”

She wasn’t sure, but she said, “I’m fine. Goodnight, bro. Be careful.”

“Of what? Sleeping in my old bed?”

She put her hand on his cheek, not sure what else to say.

“Casey, honey.” Her mother was reaching for her.

She gave her mom a hug. “Thanks, Mom. Ricky will be best staying here for a while.”

Her mother squeezed her back. “I wouldn’t want him any other place.”

Eric shook hands with Ricky and endured a hug from Casey’s mom, and they left. Casey still didn’t see an extra houseguest.

She and Eric didn’t speak for the entire ride back, and didn’t hold hands or even look at each other. When they arrived at Casey’s house she unlocked the door and they went in. She took extra long making sure the door was locked before turning toward Eric.

“Casey,” he said.

They crashed together like two long lost lovers, stumbling into the living room, falling on the couch. Eric held her face in his hands, and Casey gripped his back like he was going to disappear if she let go. He kissed her eyes, her lips, her neck, and she arched toward him, wanting his touch. Wanting him.

She yanked his shirt from his waistband and ran her hands over his skin. He shuddered and pulled her upright so she straddled him. He yanked her shirt over her head and pressed his face against her chest as she worked the buttons on his shirt and dragged it from his shoulders. Their bare stomachs touched, and fire ran through her veins. “Eric…”

He laughed softly against her, then stood, hefting her into his arms.

And he carried her upstairs.

Chapter Fifty

Casey woke up with a start. It took several seconds for her to remember where she was, and why there was another person under the covers with her. It was her house. Her bedroom. Hers and Reuben’s.

But not anymore.

She looked over at Eric, who lay on his back, eyes twitching, as if he were dreaming. Casey wondered what he was dreaming about. Home? Near death? Revenge? Tortured young women? Prison? Or perhaps something more pleasant, like what had just happened in this bed? His light hair flopped over his forehead, one thatch of it close to his eye, and she fought the impulse to move it.

His coloring was the opposite of what she used to see there, Reuben’s dark, Mexican heritage having been burned into her soul, into these sheets, these pillows. But he breathed evenly, like her husband, his face relaxed, except for the moving eyelids. One arm was flung above his head, the other reaching out, as if to touch her.

Casey closed her own eyes and tried to go back to sleep, hopefully the dreamless kind. She didn’t need any more images crowding into her mind. She thought of Ricky, in his old bed at their mother’s house, free at last from his undeserved jail cell. Of Betsy and Wayne, finally freed from their waiting, only to have to deal with the knowledge of what they could have had, but had lost. Of Zeke and Dan Pinkerton, forced to face the deeds of their brother. How long would it take any of them to move on? To live life as they had? But perhaps that wasn’t the point. Perhaps the point was that they had to take what had happened and learn to live their life in its light.

Oh, for heaven’s sake, it was no use. There was no way she was going back to sleep. Moving slowly, with the same focus she had used in Texas, only this time for gentleness, she slid from the bed, pulled on shorts and a T-shirt—Reuben’s old one that she kept in her bag, which still lay almost entirely packed—and made her way downstairs.

The moon was nearly full and cast shadows on the back steps, where she chose to sit. The yard looked foreign in that eerie light, as if Casey had landed in some other time, at some other place. She gripped the cement of the stairs, so solid underneath her. So unchanged in the past years.

She closed her eyes and breathed in the night. The air smelled the same, tasted the same. Its composition had not changed since she had last experienced it. But at the same time…

She got up and walked across the yard. When she reached the end, she turned to look up at the house. Reuben. Omar. Eric. A building that once held a family, that now saw what could be referred to as a beginning. Or was it an ending?

A train whistle floated over the breeze, and Casey’s nerves tingled. Where was the train coming from? Where was it going? Casey tried to tamp down a nagging feeling that something wasn’t as it should be. That her priorities had shifted too far. Reuben. Omar. They’d shared a life there, in that house. They were supposed to still be there, with her. That had been the plan. They weren’t supposed to die in a flaming wreck, only for her to replace them with other things, with other people.

God, what was happening? What was her problem? What was she thinking?

Something rustled in the pine trees, but Casey didn’t have to look to see what had caused it. She stood silently in the moonlight. Waiting.

For Death.

Dying Echo A Grim Reaper Mystery - By Judy Clemens Page 0,109

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