Dying Echo A Grim Reaper Mystery - By Judy Clemens Page 0,15

that you’ve left town again.”

“I’ll be back, Mom. I promise.”

Her mother turned away, returning to her posture of staring at the far wall, her hands knotted together on her lap.

“Bye, Mom. Just for now.”

Her mother’s only response was a tightening of her lips.

Casey avoided looking at the photos on the shelf, even though they pulled at her like living things. Omar. Her sweet baby. Dead and gone.

Once outside, she took a deep breath and made her way toward the front yard. Out on the sidewalk she paused and glanced toward the front window, where she could imagine her mother hiding behind the curtain. “Why would Ricky and Alicia stay away from Mom? Why keep everything so secret?”

“Because they were afraid,” Death said.

“Of the Three? You think Alicia told Ricky about them?”

Death pulled out an iPod and stuck in the earbuds. “No, I’m sure she never mentioned them to him. It would have freaked him out, and most likely she was trying to forget them herself.”

“Then what were she and Ricky afraid of?”

Death looked back toward the house and laughed.

“What?” Casey said. “You think they were afraid of Mom?”

Death turned up the volume and spoke loudly, like people do when they have music in their ears. “For the life of me, I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t have been.

Chapter Eight

The restaurant where Alicia had worked was called The Slope, and it seemed to be walking a slippery one. Casey took a booth at the back, where she could sit against the far wall and see both the front door and the doors to the kitchen and unisex bathroom. It resembled the restaurant from the day before, where Casey had found the pay phone amidst the competing smells of stale fry oil and dead rats. She could hardly imagine her mother there, trying not to touch anything, and only picking at the food she was served for fear of contracting some deadly—or just gross—disease.

“You know,” Death said. “I think I’m going to leave you to it. I’m feeling all…greasy.” And Death evaporated in a cloud of french-fried mist.

After a few minutes of examining the cover of the not-quite-clean-enough menu, Casey studied the waitress who sauntered over to her table. Her name tag had been made with an old-fashioned Labelmaker; dark green tape with raised white letters, which read simply, “Bailey.” The girl’s brown uniform shirt strained at the seams around her ample breasts, and her jeans were so tight they couldn’t possibly have been easy to move in, let alone allow circulation. Dark circles surrounded her washed out blue eyes, as if she hadn’t had enough sleep in the last year, and her skin would charitably be called pale and pasty. But that could have been the poor lighting.

“Get you something?” Bailey held her order pad and pen at the ready.

Casey pushed the menu away. It wasn’t likely she’d be eating anything out of that. “You know Alicia? The woman who got killed?”

Bailey fumbled with her pen, almost dropping it. She snatched it up and scribbled something on her pad, avoiding Casey’s eyes. “Of course I knew her. We worked together.”

“Here at The Slope?”

Bailey gave a jerky nod. “Where else? She started back a few months ago, in the summer. I’ve been here for, like, ever.”

“What can you tell me about her?”

Bailey’s eyes narrowed. “You a reporter?”

“Do I look like a reporter?”

Bailey checked out the pale blue warm-ups. “Hardly. You look like a soccer mom.”

Casey kept her face neutral. “I’m not that, either. So what was she like?”

“Why do you care?”

Casey refrained from jabbing the girl’s pen in her eye. “Because I want to know what happened to her.”

“Why?”

What was this girl? A four-year old? “I think they have the wrong guy in prison.”

Bailey sucked in a breath, and her eyes went wide. “You do?”

Casey almost laughed. “Why is that such a surprise?”

Bailey looked over her shoulder, then scooted in the opposite bench, leaning forward on the table. “Because nobody else seems to think so. Everybody just wants to think he’s the guy and forget about it.”

“Why?” Now Casey was asking.

“Dunno. Scared, I guess. I mean, if it wasn’t Ricky, who was it?”

Casey felt like she’d been punched in the gut. Hearing this girl use her brother’s name so casually, naming him a scapegoat, was too much. “But you feel differently?”

Bailey’s eyes shot first one way, then the other, before settling on Casey’s. “Look, Leesh and I didn’t get along, okay? I wanted to be friends, but she was all ‘I’m too