Dying Echo A Grim Reaper Mystery - By Judy Clemens Page 0,38
the counter on a high stool reading a romance novel. She looked up when the bell on the door jingled, and pushed a strand of limp blonde hair behind her ear. “Help you?”
Casey studied the food under the glass-fronted counter. “Any chicken?”
“Just fried drumsticks. They’re dry as bones. Even ketchup doesn’t help.”
“What’s that?” Casey pointed at something sitting in sauce.
“Supposed to be barbecued pork. I’d avoid it if I were you. It’s been sitting there forever.”
“Tater Tots?”
“Ick.”
“Potato salad?”
“Disgusting.”
“So what would you suggest?”
“Something from the freezer section. That is, if you want to avoid a painful and messy death.”
Now there was a saleswoman for you.
Casey settled for a burrito and a bottle of Lifewater. She took both back to the house, ate them while sitting at the bare kitchen table, and lay down on the couch, pulling her dad’s afghan over her legs for another try at sleeping.
It still didn’t work.
“You know where you need to be.” It was Death’s voice, but Casey was still alone.
“I can’t,” she said out loud to the empty house.
But Death’s response was as clear as if it had been spoken. She would never sleep if she didn’t do what needed doing. Maybe she should call Eric. Nah. She didn’t want to wake him up.
“You think he’s sleeping?” Death’s voice dripped with incredulity. “With you three blocks away?”
Even more reason not to call him.
The clock on the wall ticked. The heater kicked on. The wind made the drying leaves on the trees rustle. Something skittered across the roof. Or in the ceiling.
“Okay. Okay. I’ll go.”
Casey flung off the afghan and got up, before she could change her mind. She hesitated only briefly before heading up the stairs, and went directly to Omar’s door. She stood there, listening, as she used to when she would check on him before going to bed. Of course there was no sound now. Nothing but the heater and the wind and her rodent visitor. She opened the door.
Omar’s crib still sat against the wall, under the mobile. Ricky must have thought it would sell the house better that way, with the Noah’s Ark wallpaper and the blonde wood changing table. Omar’s dresser, drawers empty, sat beside it, a collection of Webkinz on the top, complementing the decorative border. Casey ran her hands along the top of the crib, and used a finger to start the mobile turning. The rocking chair sat in the corner along with memories of late nights, and Casey decided she’d had enough.
She shut the door behind her, her heart in her throat, wondering if she should just cut her losses and spend the night on the street.
Her feet propelled her across the landing until she stood outside her own bedroom door. Hers and Reuben’s. She was tempted to listen there, as she had at Omar’s, but the sounds she might hear from behind that door were too painful to contemplate. She turned the doorknob and flung the door open.
Her breath left her in a wild rush, and she grabbed at the doorjamb, her head spinning. How could the room still smell like him after all this time? That mixture of Reuben’s natural musk and Sybaris, his Mexican cologne. He’d been gone two years. The house had seen many cleanings and walk-throughs and days. How was it possible? How could it still hurt that much?
“Go on then, sweetheart.” Death stood beside her, for once empty-handed, so close she could feel the chill. “The first step is the hardest. I promise.”
“Like you would know.”
Death looked at her with such kindness she thought her heart would break.
“You think I don’t know pain?” Death said. “Or sorrow? My dear, they’re part of what I do. Part of who I am. Not a day goes by I don’t feel it a hundred and fifty thousand times. So I do know, my love.”
“You took him.”
Death sighed the sigh of many losses. “It wasn’t my decision. You know that. It’s never my decision. I just follow the rules.”
“The rules.”
“They’re what make the world go ’round. And no matter how creative we try to be, we can’t break them. Your voice on my phone? Didn’t work a bit. Good thing the nosy neighbor had a phone handy, because apparently you have to use human devices, since you’re a human. And I have to do what I do. Because no matter how we feel about them, no matter how bent and crooked we think they are, we have to follow the rules.”