“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 weren’t the three, were they? The ones who had left Alicia broken and dead? Casey remained where she was under the glow of a streetlight and judged the distance between the men. No angle for running, not with the cars and the men in a triangle. She could scream, but as soon as she did the men would be upon her.
She couldn’t see much detail about any of them. They all hovered at the edge of the light, wearing loose clothes that hid their builds, and hats which turned their faces into angles and plains. They moved loosely, unafraid. The light glinted off the teeth of the man in front of her. He was smiling.
The guy on her left stumbled and bumped into a car. He weaved away from it, giggling, waving his hands at the others. “I’m okay!” More giggling.
“Oh,” Death said. “Maybe I’m liking this a little better.”
So the one guy, at least, was drunk. Still no clear shot away, even past him, not with the cars lining the street. But if he was drunk…She took another look at the guy’s partners. Their loose movements spoke more now of alcohol than of competence.
Death swooped away and was back in seconds. “Yup, all three. Drunk as skunks. Although that saying never made much sense to me. Are skunks notorious drinkers in the animal kingdom? They’ve always seemed so antisocial to me. But then, maybe they’re solitary drunks, which of course makes them more dangerous.”
“Shut up,” Casey said.
“What did you say, darlin’?” It was the guy in front of her. He was closer now, and she could see more than shining teeth. He was young. Probably twenty. Not as drunk as his buddy on her left, but enough to make his posture loose-limbed. He wore a University of Colorado hoodie, which reminded her of Ricky’s T-shirt. The one with the blood spatters on it.
The guy behind her, to her right, had stopped, and swayed on his feet.
“Not even a challenge,” Death said. “I think I’ll sit this one out.”
“What do you want?” Casey said in a firm voice.
The guy on her left giggled again, and staggered back to rest against the hood of the car.
The hoodie guy stopped his forward movement but kept smiling. “Just looking for a little fun, baby, that’s all.”
“Too bad I can’t warn them,” Death said from a seat on the roof of a Jeep, where he was filming everything with a palm-sized digital recorder. “You’re not a fun-seeker.”
Casey sighed. She didn’t want to fight these guys. “I wouldn’t be any fun, guys. Honestly.”
“Aw, I don’t believe that.” Hoodie guy took another step forward. “You look like fun to me. Out in the middle of the night. You must be looking for some action.”
“Were you looking for action a week ago?”
“We’re always looking for action, baby.”
“With a woman who looked like this?” Casey pulled the photo of Ricky and Alicia from her pocket and held it up.
Hoodie guy squinted, most likely trying to focus. “Hey, she’s hot. But no. No, I’d remember. And she’s a little old.”
Death laughed. “Talk about beer goggles. What does he think you are? A high school student?”
“So you don’t know her? And you never did anything with her?”
“Never.”
“What about your friends?”
“If I didn’t have her, my friends didn’t have her. I’d know. We share everything.”
Lovely.
The guy behind Casey stopped swaying and began moving forward. Casey put the photo back in her pocket and stepped away, but that only took her closer to the guy on the car.
“Might as well accept it,” Death said. “You’re going to have to deal with this.”
She feinted left, on an angle that would have been between Car guy and Hoodie. Hoodie swung that way, and she moved right. The guy from behind staggered forward to cut off that direction, so all that was left was backward. She turned to go back the way she came.
“Seriously, guys, come on, you don’t want to mess with me.”
Hoodie laughed. “But we do, hottie. We do.” He pulled her closer.
Casey yanked him forward, sticking out her foot and sliding her arm from his grasp as he tripped and fell onto his knees.
“Owww!” He pouted, then lurched upright. “Why did you doooo that?”
Death tsked. “Didn’t his mother teach him not to whine?”
“I’m not interested,” Casey said to the kid. “Not in having fun or beating you up. Can we just call it a night?”
“Not after that. That wasn’t very nice.”
“Assaulting women who are walking alone—”
“Gee, thanks,” Death said.
“—isn’t nice, either.”
“We weren’t assaulting. We were…flirting.”
“Is that what you call it? I’m going home now. You guys should do that, too, before something bad happens.”
Hoodie guy’s eyes flicked over her shoulder, and Casey could hear the third one coming. She balanced herself on her left foot and kicked back with her right heel, connecting almost waist high with a sensitive part of the guy’s anatomy. He grunted, then sank slowly to the ground.
Hoodie guy watched with his mouth open, then frowned heavily, like a kindergartner showing his disapproval. Casey saw in his eyes what was going to happen. She stepped to the left just as he grabbed for her, and he stumbled forward, catching his foot on his fallen friend and dropping face first onto the road. He stayed there, apparently unable—or perhaps just unwilling—to move.
Casey looked over toward the car guy. He was gone.
“That way,” Death said, pointing without looking.
Car guy was hustling down the sidewalk, dimming as he left the circle of light from one street lamp, then brightening as he reached the next. Casey watched until he reached the next intersection. He stopped there and looked back. Casey waved. He jerked a wave of his own, then realized what he was doing and speedwalked around the corner and out of sight.
“Now what?” Death hovered over the unconscious boys.
“Is there a rule about what you do with idiots?”
“None that would be acceptable to you, I don’t think.”
A light on a house across the street turned on, and a face appeared in a front window.
“Great,” Casey said. “A nosy neighbor. That’s all we need. Wouldn’t the cops love hearing how I beat up two guys the same day they dropped the murder charges? You know whoever’s looking out the window has his finger on the 911 button.”
“Most women would be glad if a neighbor took interest while they were being attacked. In fact, one might say something to the paper, like, ‘If it hadn’t been for Mr. Billingsly I wouldn’t be here right now.’ And she’d be all weepy, and fragile, and everybody would feel sorry for her, and she and the neighbor would bond, you know, at least for a month until they realized they have nothing in common, and they would get back to their regular lives. You know the cycle. That whole ‘Save someone’s life, be responsible forever’ stuff is really just crap.”
“You should know by now I’m not ‘most women.’ And that whole cycle sounds exhausting.”
“Oh, it is. But it serves a purpose, not the least of which is saving the woman from a worse fate on the night in question. It’s your own fault you don’t need saving. At least not from these guys.”
Casey took a few steps away from the house, where the light still shone, then stopped and looked back at the heap in the middle of the road. “Stupid kids. They’re going to get run over.”
“Serve them right.”
“How ’bout I leave them over on the sidewalk and you call the cops?”
“Can I do that?”
“I don’t know. You’ve got enough phones.”
“Here.” Death held out a Droid. “Say something.”
“What?”
“About these two. To tell the police. I doubt they’d be able to hear my voice, even if I could get through.”
“Maybe I can just call from the nosy neighbor’s house. Unless he’s already called.”
“Come on, at least let me try.”
“Fine.” She gestured for Death to start recording. “Some drunk guys assaulted a woman on…”
“Pine,” Death said.
“…on Pine. Between…”
“Third and Fourth.”
She repeated the streets. “Two of the men are waiting on the sidewalk for you. You might want to bring a breathalizer. The third one got away. There, will that do?”
Death giggled. “We’ll see!”
Casey dragged Hoodie and his friend to the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street from the neighbor, and jogged away, leaving the drunk guys and Death behind. It would be interesting to see if the cops could make any sense of the recorded message. She was sure Death would regale her with every detail as soon as it was all over.
The lights of the all-night convenience store reminded Casey why she’d come out in the middle of the night in the first place. She’d been hungry then. Now she was famished. Nothing like examining a murder scene and dealing with three frat boys to work up an appetite.
The convenience store was empty of people except for the clerk, who was sitting behind 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 n
ights, 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.”
Casey took a deep breath through her nose and let it out her mouth, centering herself. “The first step is really the hardest?”
“I promise.”
So Casey let go of the doorjamb, clenched her jaw, and took that first step.
She didn’t collapse.
Dying Echo: A Grim Reaper Mystery (Grim Reaper Series) Page 10