Dying Echo A Grim Reaper Mystery - By Judy Clemens Page 0,18
too boring, and the technology is so yesterday”—but was now back, holding up the iPad and checking out heat signatures again. “Someone’s coming.”
When the door opened, Casey jumped up. Don grabbed her wrist. “Stay behind the table until the guards tell you it’s okay.”
She shook him off, but stayed where she was, even when Ricky appeared.
The first sight of him took her breath away. Pale, blotchy skin, sunken, dull eyes, and a buzz cut. His prison-issued clothes hung loosely on him, and the slump of his shoulders turned him into an old man. But what really got her were the handcuffs. They held his arms stiffly behind him, in a posture Casey had never seen, or even imagined, on her little brother.
Two guards followed him in, one staying by the door, the other with a hand on Ricky’s elbow. “Okay,” the one touching Ricky said. “Hold still.”
Ricky waited, his eyes averted from Casey’s, as the guard unlocked the cuffs. When he was free he shrugged, then pulled his arms forward to rub his wrists.
“Call if you need anything,” the guard said, “or bang on the door. We’ll be waiting outside.” The guard gave a little salute and let himself out.
Casey walked around the table. “Ricky—”
He ducked, hands up, as if expecting to get hit.
Casey froze. “Ricky, it’s me. Casey. Your sister.” She felt almost like she had at her mother’s, except her mother hadn’t acted afraid of her. Casey walked slowly toward him, hands out, as if she were approaching a nervous dog. “I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you. But I’m here now. I’ll get you out of here, I promise.”
He lowered his hands and peered up at her with wide eyes.
She couldn’t manage a smile, but she tried to look confident and loving. “It will be okay.”
His eyes filled. “It will never be okay.”
“Look, whatever has happened to you in here, we’ll deal with it together. I’ll get you any help you need. I’ll stay with you.”
His eyes flashed. “I don’t care about what’s happened to me. I’m fine. It’s what they did to her. What they did. They…” He closed his eyes and swayed on his feet.
Casey grabbed him, and Don hopped up from behind the table. Together they lowered Ricky onto a chair. When they were sure he wasn’t going to fall over, Don went back to his seat.
“He means it, you know,” Death said. “What they did to her is far worse in his mind than what’s been done to him in here.”
Casey knelt beside her brother. “I know what they did to her. I’m sorry about that, too. It was terrible.”
“Terrible?” He gave a manic laugh. “It was…more than that.”
Casey dragged another chair around the table so she could sit next to him. “I want to help find out who did this, Ricky. You don’t deserve to be in here. And she deserves the truth.”
He looked away. “She doesn’t care about the truth anymore.”
“No, but you do, don’t you?”
“The truth won’t bring her back.”
Casey had way more experience with going after “truth” than she ever wanted. Courtrooms, test drives, payoffs. All of them were designed to “bring closure,” but in reality brought nothing other than wasted time and money. She was more alone after all the legal crap than she’d ever been. Which was why she’d given up on the “truth” of her family’s accident long ago. But this situation was different. No innocent person had ever been charged with killing her family, not like Ricky was being blamed now. Not even Pegasus, the guilty car company, had paid very many consequences for the accident. No matter what sort of “closure” there was supposed to have been, Casey—and her husband and son—had paid all there was to pay.
“Listen, Ricky, I didn’t know this girl—”
“Alicia.”
Casey hesitated.
“He thinks it’s her real name,” Death said. “You going to tell him, or should I?”
Casey let it go. “I didn’t know Alicia, but it sounds like you knew her pretty well. What can you tell me about her?”
His eyes went soft. “She was sweet. And quiet. And kind of…mysterious.”
“Secretive?”
“No! Just…” He sat for a few moments. “She wasn’t the kind to go blabbing about herself everywhere. She was…private.”
“But she talked to you?”
“Of course. We talked all the time.”
“About what?”
“What do you think? Normal stuff. Work. Food. I don’t know.”
“Where was she from?”
“All over, I guess. She moved around a lot. Oregon. California. Lots of places. But I told her this should be her final stop. I’d convinced her,