by Paula Lester
But she couldn’t be upset with him for following her. If he was the one acting weird all the time, she’d probably try to investigate too. No, she definitely would.
Except she couldn’t tell Silas the truth about her job. Not yet.
She smiled. “Silas, there’s nothing going on. I swear. Like I said, Gloria texted me that she found her pass key. I happened to look out and see that lady with the girl and a stroller. I had one of those feeling—you know, a hunch. Something made me start walking toward them and then I saw Dani wobbling and ran to grab her. That’s the girl’s name—Dani.” Tessa shrugged it off as no big deal. “My stomach is growling. Do we still have our table at the Thai place?”
Silas still looked a little suspicious, but his expression softened slightly. “Yes. I left my credit card as collateral. We should have a big tray of hot spring rolls waiting for us.” He held out an elbow. “Let’s go.”
She breathed a sigh of relief as the energy between them seemed to settle back to normal.
But, at the same time, her stomach dropped. That had been a close one. Silas was too smart for Tessa to keep her secret from him for long.
She’d been stupid to think they may be able to have a romantic relationship.
Chapter 16
THEY HAD A PLEASANT dinner, even though the heavy feeling never really left Tessa’s stomach. She and Silas went on a short walk on the beach after the Thai food, and then he dropped her off at the hotel.
The weight of the untruth between them still held something back for him too. There was no almost kiss. No grazing of hands. Tessa had put so much thought behind the word date from his text, only to ruin it by being a reaper.
She went straight up the room, not expecting Gloria to be there, since it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. The crowd at the bar partied until at least midnight.
But as she pushed the door open, the toes on a pair of socked feet wiggled at the end of Gloria’s bed.
“Oh . . . I didn’t expect you to be here.” She’d actually wanted some alone time. Tessa pushed open the door the rest of the way.
“That’s because you never answer your phone, dear.” Cheryl sat on Gloria’s bed, back against the headboard, flipping through a home decorating magazine.
The door swung shut behind her. Frantic, Tessa’s eyes swept the room. This felt like a surreal dream. Gloria’s gold suitcase was gone from the luggage rack, replaced by a navy-blue one. In fact, all of Gloria’s stuff had vanished.
“Mom. What are you doing here? And what did you do with Gloria?”
Cheryl flipped another page and kept her eyes on the magazine. “The problems here are too grand. We can’t allow the conference to continue without our intervention. The task force was called up this morning.”
Tessa dropped her phone and pass key on the dresser. “Task force? What . . . wait. You’re a member of the super-secret task force that comes in to handle things when a soul is lost or whatever?”
Cheryl raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Not a member, Theresa. I’m the head of the task force.”
Tessa sank onto her own bed and ran a hand through her hair. It had gotten knotted up a bit during her walk with Silas on the windy beach. She felt off-kilter. Her mind was sluggish as she tried to catch up with what was happening. “You didn’t answer my question. Where’s Gloria?”
Tessa’s heart fluttered as, momentarily, she wondered if her friend was okay—if maybe her actions had triggered Timothy into offing another reaper. But Cheryl had said this morning. Nothing had happened this morning.
“We moved her to a single room. I thought it would be nice to bunk with my daughter.” She finally looked over at Tessa. “Like old times.”
Tessa pressed her lips together. There was something odd in her mother’s expression . . . the hint of an emotion she couldn’t remember seeing there before. If she didn’t know better, Tessa would have said it was vulnerability.
She nodded. “That sounds like fun, Mom.” She managed not to choke on the word fun. “But wait. If you’re the head of the task force, why did you make me find Chet Sanborn’s spirit by myself?”
The strangely vulnerable expression on Chery’s face disappeared, replaced by amusement. She waved a hand. “Oh, that. I didn’t want to get involved unless it was required. And look! You did just fine.”
Tessa narrowed her eyes, thinking about the stress she’d gone through during her first week on the job. Her mother could have helped relieve that and decided not to?
Cheryl licked her finger to pry open the next page. “Oh, please. Don’t get your knickers in a knot. I was paying attention. I could have jumped in to help any time. But I thought it was a valuable learning experience. And I was right. You’ve jumped into your career with more knowledge than most at this stage. You should be thanking me.”
“No. You told me there was going to be an apocalypse if I didn’t find Mr. Sanborn.” Tessa’s tone was accusatory.
Cheryl chuckled. “Well, I may have exaggerated a touch. But, really, it is true that things can go awry fast with the fabric of the universe if the accounting is off for too long.” She set the magazine aside and swung her legs over the bed, facing Tessa. “Tell me. What have you dug up on this current situation?”
Tessa didn’t want to change subjects. She still felt pouty about the revelation that Cheryl was on the task force. But she knew from years of experience that once Cheryl had decided that a topic of discussion was over, she wasn’t likely to entertain it further. “Not a whole lot.”
“Really? Gloria says you’ve been snooping.”
Traitor!
“Timothy . . . April’s assistant . . . he’s my biggest suspect right now.”
“Timothy?” Cheryl cocked her head as though it would help her access data in her brain about the man. “Timothy. That man from the office last week. He’s awfully mousey, isn’t he?”
Tessa shrugged. “I guess so. He wants to be a reaper. I think maybe he’s killing reapers to make a job opening for himself.”
“A little extreme, isn’t it? What brought you to this conclusion?”
“It’s not a conclusion. Not yet. But I don’t really have any other leads.” She flopped back onto the bed and talked to the ceiling instead of Cheryl. “Lee Stuart told me that, if there was an allocation issue in the eastern district, it was Timothy who’d be behind it. He seemed to think Timothy was easily distracted by nonsense and could have messed up the accounting on accident.”
“And you agree?”
“I’m not sure. I mean, Timothy has been on the outskirts of all the weird things going on. He was on the plane when Art died and nearby when Cynthia was attacked by a shark. And he’s doling out allocations here.”
“Here? In Miami?”
“Yes.” Tessa nodded. “There have been two reaps that I know of so far. He sent Lydia on one—a stroke on the golf course. And he followed her to watch. Mom, he told me he did that to see if he still had the chops to be a reaper after he got squeamish during Cynthia’s death. Then, he assigned a reap to me.”
“You?” Cheryl’s tone was sharp, tinged with alarm.
Tessa got onto one elbow to look at her mother. “Yep. I was supposed to reap a little girl. A drowning. But I didn’t do it.”
“You lost the soul?”
“No. I saved the little girl.”
Cheryl’s eyes got wide. “You what?” Her words were barely above a whisper.
Tessa shook her head and sat up all the way. “Something didn’t feel right. I think Timothy was messing with the numbers. Like, he allocated the little girl’s death to make the numbers add up or something.” She leaned forward. “I just had this strong gut feeling that she wasn’t supposed to die.” She shrugged. “So, I saved her.”
Cheryl blew out a breath. “Okay. I don’t know if I can get you out of this one, Theresa. If you saved a soul that was truly supposed to cross over . . . well, that’s very, very bad.”
For the first time since she’d yanked Dani
back onto the pier, Tessa felt a ripple of doubt. “Like what?”
“Like you could be court-martialed and sentenced to life in federal prison.” In answer to the questioning look Tessa shot her, she explained, “We contract out to them in these situations. A few people high up in the government know about us.” She stood and began to pace. “But that isn’t important now. What’s important is proving Timothy is the culprit and that he ordered a death, or more than one, that shouldn’t have occurred. We need to be proactive about defending you.”
Tessa twisted her fingers together. “How, exactly, do we do that?”
Cheryl grabbed her pass key and purse and spun toward the door. “We don’t do anything. You go to bed and stay out of trouble. I’m going to consult with the rest of the task force.”
She was gone before Tessa could say anything else.
Tessa was left staring at the back of the door, wondering what else her mom kept secret from her.
THE NEXT MORNING WHEN Tessa woke up, Cheryl wasn’t there. It was clear she’d been back and left again because the clothes she’d been wearing the night before were on her bed and a damp used towel lay on the bathroom floor.
Tessa was obviously still catching up on sleep from the late night out with Silas at the beginning of the convention. It felt like another time. Another her.
She took her time getting ready, Cheryl’s warning about a court martial and federal prison dominating her troubled thoughts.
When Tessa finally managed to push away that worry, another one popped up—Silas. Had she made a mistake spending so much time with him? He was clearly getting the feeling that Tessa was keeping something from him. If they continued their relationship, that could increase. He could get hurt.
But maybe it would be okay once that got back to Mist River and weren’t surrounded by reapers—and a rogue administrator ordering bogus reaps.
Tessa hadn’t come to any conclusions by the time she was dressed. With a sigh, she grabbed her purse and headed out and immediately spotted Gloria, who was coming out of a room across the hall.
Gloria grinned. “Nice surprise last night, huh?”
“If by nice, you mean terrifying and annoying, then yes. Having my mother slash boss show up in my room unannounced was nice.” Tessa rolled her eyes.
“She said she called to tell you to expect her. You didn’t answer or call back.”
“She’s never heard of voicemail,” Tessa shot back. “Seriously, if what she had to say was important, she’d leave a message or text it to me.”
Gloria punched the down button on the elevator. “I guess you deserved the surprise, then. What’s she here for, anyway? Did she decide at the last minute that she wanted to get her learnin’ on? Or is she presenting? Seems weird, since this is the last day of the conference.”
They got into the empty elevator. “She’s the head of the task force that investigates lost souls and such,” Tessa explained. “She’s here to help handle the deaths of Art and Cynthia.”
Gloria whistled. “Wow. I don’t think you’re supposed to say things like that out loud,” she whispered, “the mythical task force is real. And Cheryl’s the head of it. That’s how you say it.”
They exited the elevator into the lobby, where reapers milled about or huddled in groups of two and three, talking in hushed tones. Tessa had a feeling that word of Cheryl’s arrival and what it meant had gotten out.
The breakfast buffet was crowded too. April was scheduled to give her wrap-up speech in the big conference room while people ate. Gloria and Tessa carried their plates and cups of coffee in and stood for a minute, looking for spots to sit. There weren’t many left, and they ended up in the front row, next to Bubba, who was beside Lee.
And to Lee’s other shoulder, Cheryl sat sipping coffee and looking calm. She glanced at her daughter, her gaze dropping to Tessa’s plate. She pressed her lips together, and Tessa knew her mother was judging her breakfast choices. Tessa lifted her chin, set the plate down, and took a big bite of donut in defiance.
April made her way to the podium and tapped the microphone. She looked paler than usual, and her eyes lingered on Cheryl for a second before darting away. She began to speak, talking about how well the conference had gone—considering—and how much knowledge had been passed back and forth between reapers.
Tessa nibbled and listened with half an ear. April’s tone was flat, her words more halting than usual. But she wasn’t saying anything particularly interesting, and Tessa preferred people-watching.
After ten minutes of droning on, April seemed to be wrapping up. “Our profession is an old and venerated one. As reapers, we are chosen for a sacred job. Gathering like this to help one another learn to do that job to the best of our abilities is an essential part of maintaining the integrity of our careers. I salute you all for attending and wish you luck over the next year. Until we meet again.”
April turned away from the microphone, toward Timothy, who approached his boss with a file.
Cheryl stood and cleared her throat, causing the murmur of voices that had begun to rise in the room to decrease back to silence again.
Lee and Bubba got to their feet too, and the three reapers edged out of the row of chairs and approached April and Timothy.
Tessa perked up. Lee and Bubba were on the task force?
Cheryl spoke in a clear, ringing voice that seemed enhanced somehow, as though she wore an invisible microphone. “Yes, we do have a sacred mandate to help the dead cross over. We also have a responsibility to police ourselves—to ensure that those who are within the fold of our organization have impeccable ethics. Unfortunately, we have reason to believe there’s been a problem. The Task Force on Lost Souls and Misplaced Allocations,” she glanced at Lee and Bubba, “has found reasonable proof that Timothy Bond has engaged in unlawful activities resulting in the deaths of reapers and the misallocations of their souls.”
Bubba stepped forward, reaching for Timothy, whose face drained. He looked even paler than on the dock at the time of Cynthia’s death. His hands began to shake. He dropped the file.
“But . . . but I didn’t do anything,” Timothy objected.
Bubba made a strange motion with his hands and a pair of handcuffs appeared in them. But they weren’t standard-issue police variety cuffs. They looked like they were made of silver electricity, and they sparkled and snapped as Bubba grabbed Timothy’s left wrist.
“Of course, you’ll be able to present your defense to the judge,” Cheryl said, not unkindly. “If you have a lawyer, you can call them once we get you to a secure location. If you don’t, one will be appointed for you.”
Bubba pushed one end of the magical cuffs against Timothy’s skin, and the loop went right through his wrist, then clamped down. With a swift motion, Bubba grabbed Timothy’s right wrist and repeated the motion with the other end of the cuffs. Once they were on, the handcuffs disappeared from view. Timothy was able to hold his hands at his sides. Tessa realized the task force would be able to remove Timothy from the premises without any non-reapers who may be around realizing he was restrained.
Timothy turned toward April. His tone was desperate. “Tell them I didn’t do it! I’m a good employee. An honest one.”
April rubbed her temple and blew out a breath. “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen in my career,” she snapped. “Timothy is nothing but an assistant. If you take him, how am I going to get everything done? I don’t even know how to run the data base.”
Cheryl crossed her arms. “We’ll assign you a temporary assistant until this is sorted out.
April opened her mouth to say something else but then shrugged and addressed Timothy. “There’s nothing I can do. The task force, on official business, outranks me. You’ll just have to go with them. My hands are tied.”
Timothy’s chin dropped to his chest. “But I’m not guilty.”
“Let’s go.” Bubba grabbed Timothy’s elbow and propelled him forward.
Lee turned toward the room a
t large and gave a relaxed smile. “As you can see, we have this under control. Please relax and enjoy the last day of the conference.”
The task force left with Timothy, who whimpered and cast looks of panic back at April. She ignored him, carefully gathering the papers form the podium as though that were the most important thing she’d do all day.
Once the task force and Timothy were gone, the room erupted in excited chatter.
Gloria said, “Well, that was fast. I guess that’s why the task force gets the big bucks. Can you believe Bubba’s on it?” She looked amused.
“No!” But Tessa was only partly listening to Gloria. Her mind was on what had just happened.
She’d nearly been convinced that Timothy was behind the recent reaper deaths and extra Miami allocations. But not completely. There had still been a whisper of doubt. When she’d talked to Timothy, he’d seemed genuine. Still, the order for Dani’s death hadn’t felt right to Tessa. And Timothy must have been behind that.
Yes, he must be the culprit.
Still, as she bussed her dishes and left the conference room, Tessa had a strange, worried feeling in the pit of her stomach.
What if they had the wrong guy?
Chapter 17
TESSA EXCUSED HERSELF from the table at lunch and returned to her room to rest a little and freshen up—which meant take a quick nap and hope it didn’t rearrange her hair into a hopeless rats’ nest before the evening’s activities.
But Cheryl was already there, using the mirror above one of the dressers to reapply lipstick. She glanced at her daughter. “Oh, good. I was afraid you wouldn’t bother to pack until after I’m trying to sleep tonight. Glad to see you’ll be getting it done now.”
Tessa knew that was a Cheryl code of instruction—a maneuver to get her way without demanding it.
Tessa sighed. She hadn’t any intention to pack yet. In fact, her plan pretty much had been to do it after the awards dinner that would mark the end of the conference that night. After all, they weren’t flying out until late the next morning. There was no sense in wasting time she could spend napping or lying by the pool this afternoon.