Dying Echo A Grim Reaper Mystery - By Judy Clemens Page 0,35

I said, there wasn’t much. I came down to fix a light once, and her shower, and it didn’t look any different then. Her purse was there on the table, I think. But she hadn’t brought boxes or anything. She showed up for our rent interview with one bag, and she moved in immediately. I never saw her bring anything else. No furniture, no other luggage…”

“Didn’t that make you suspicious?”

“No. Curious, maybe, but it was really none of my business. She seemed like a nice girl, and someone who needed a place. I was glad to give it to her. She never caused any…any trouble.”

Casey gave him a moment to collect himself by going into the kitchen. The only things in the fridge were a carton of old milk, some yogurt, and a half-empty egg carton. In the cupboard beside it, the only one that was still closed, sat a box of cereal and a partial loaf of bread. Nothing in the freezer. No canned goods. The sink was empty, and there were no dirty cups.

“She must have been so lonely,” Casey said.

“Kind of makes you glad you have me to keep you company, doesn’t it?” Death leaned against the counter, holding a digital meat thermometer. “Amazing what they’ve come up with. This can read a roasted turkey’s temperature in seconds. No more waiting for that silly button to pop out, or for the old kind of thermometer to drag itself up to one-eighty.”

Casey shivered at the sudden chill in the room and hugged herself as she went back to the bathroom. There had to be something to help her get to know Ricky’s girlfriend. But the bathroom was just as bare as the living room. The shampoo was the cheapest kind, and the bath soap was a freebie from some hotel. One well-worn towel hung on the drying bar, along with a mismatched washcloth. Nothing but another bar of freebie soap sat on the sink counter. Casey opened the medicine cabinet. Alicia’s toothbrush was gone, but a well-squeezed tube of toothpaste lay on the bottom shelf beside a small bottle of Advil and a tube of mascara. Her hairbrush was probably in her purse, along with any other make-up.

What a life. What a solitary, lonely, very single life.

Casey shut the cabinet, pushing on it to snap it closed. She looked at herself in the mirror. And then she looked at the mirrored surface itself. The cops had only dusted the edges, where someone might touch when they opened or shut the door, so the center of the mirror was free of dust. But it wasn’t free of smudges. Smudges that looked like they were in a pattern.

Casey leaned forward and breathed on the mirror.

Death sat on the toilet tank, legs crossed. “What are you doing?”

Casey kept breathing until the mirror was fogged up and she could see what the smears turned out to be. Tears stung her eyes, and she pressed her fingers against her mouth.

“Oh,” Death said.

They stood together silently, staring at Alicia’s last words, already fading in the fluorescent light.

I was here.

Chapter Sixteen

“You’re awfully quiet.” Death was back on the Segway, keeping up with Casey as she jogged toward her house.

“Hard to run and talk at the same time.”

“Plus you’re quiet when you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset.”

The night had gotten cooler while Casey was in Alicia’s apartment, which made Casey shiver even as she ran. She sped up, hoping to raise her body temperature and erase the jitters.

Death matched her speed. “Do you buy it that Brooks wanted to help out a desperate young woman? That there was no other agenda?”

“Yes.”

“Really? Was it his face?”

Casey didn’t bother replying. She continued pounding down the street. The lights for the convenience store—her original destination that night—came into view in the distance. But something made the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

“Uh-oh,” Death said.

A man stepped out of the shadows about ten yards in front of her, from between two cars parked along the road. Casey slowed. He stood in the middle of the street, waiting for her. As she got closer, his eyes flicked to something behind her.

“Another one,” Death said.

She glanced back to see the one behind her angling to her right. A third man appeared on her left.

“I’m not liking this,” Death said.

Casey wasn’t, either. It was too much like that other time, in Clymer. The dark of night, on a deserted street. Only that time she was faced with one attacker, not three. Three. These