Recalled (20 page)

I put my spoon down and looked at my visitor. It was hard to really focus on him because all I saw was red.

“Did you die too?”

He stopped eating and put his spoon in the bowl. “All of the Escorts died at some point.”

“But why?”

He gave me an
are you serious
look and rolled his eyes. “How am I supposed to know why we all died? If there’s one thing I’ve learned all these years it’s once you’re fated to die, you die. You can’t outrun death.”

But that bus wasn’t aiming for me. It had been aiming for Piper. Did that mean she was really the one meant for death? Or had it been me all along?

“But why didn’t we end up in heaven? How did G.R. find us?”

“People that die violent or sudden deaths don’t cross over right away. I guess it’s because their spirits are too shocked to realize they’re dead. Sometimes they’re good candidates to be a Death Escort and G.R. finds them and makes them a deal, like he did with you.”

I made a good candidate because I was easily seduced by money. Anyone who never had anything would be. Add that to the fact I became a killer as a child and you had a perfect match.

“What’s your name?” I asked, turning away from the heavy topic for a minute.

“Everyone calls me Charming,” he said with a smirk.

“Charming,” I said, deadpan. “Are you serious?”

“I come by it honestly.” He got up and filled his bowl with another serving of chili.

“People think you’re charming?” I scoffed. I thought he was an ass.

“I have a way with people.”

I made a rude sound. “Do people thank you while you’re killing them?”

“I give the friendless a friend, the depressed hope, and the rejected acceptance. When their time is up, they go happier than they were.”

I looked at him again, looking past the red, trying to see what he claimed others saw in him. All I saw was white, perfect teeth, wide shoulders and a sarcastic grin. He was wearing dark jeans and a heavy grey sweater with a zipper near the neck. It had a collar, which was flipped up around his jaws.

To me he looked like a soap opera actor.

I watched one of those shows today and I thought it was ridiculously cheesy. But the ladies must like them, so maybe they liked him too.

But really, dude? You let people call you Charming?

“So basically you get close to people, get them to trust you—like you—and then you Escort them.”

“Pretty much.” He flashed me a grin that said he liked his job.

To do what he did, I wondered if he liked himself.

That thought brought me up short—I’d never thought about that before. About liking myself. I guess I always knew where I stood in the world. At the bottom. And I did what I could to survive. I never really had the luxury of self-worth. But sitting here now, it seemed self-worth wasn’t a luxury; it was something everyone should have.

Charming pinned me with a hard look. “Are you having second thoughts about the job?”

I sat up a little straighter. “Me? No.”

“Then why isn’t it done?”

“It’s been harder to kill her than I thought it would be.”

“Yeah, well, not finishing the job would be harder.”

“What do you mean?”

He smirked. “Seriously? Did you not ask what would happen if you didn’t do the job?”

No. I hadn’t. G.R. (when had he become G.R. to me and not Mr. Burns?) hadn’t really given me a choice about completing the job. It was this or an eternity in hell. It wasn’t a hard choice.

Charming rolled his eyes. “You were given an amount of time to do the job. To prove yourself as a Death Escort. If you don’t do the job, you get recalled.”

“Recalled?” I asked.

“As in that pretty purple spirit of yours gets sucked out of that body and you get sent into a fate I hear is worse than hell. An endless world of emptiness, caught between places, still thinking and feeling but being completely lost in a void of nothing.”

Hell actually sounded preferable. I shrugged. “I’m not worried about being recalled,” I said, the word sounding weird on my tongue. “I’ll get the job done.”

“You better. I’m very invested in this assignment. I’m going to be watching you.”

“Why would you care?”

“Let’s just say there’s something in it for me when she dies.”

Something inside me wanted to tell him to stay far away from Piper. The thought of him near her made my skin crawl. But I didn’t let it show. It would reveal more than I wanted to. And I didn’t really understand what those feelings meant anyway.

“What do you get out of this?” I pressed.

“Did G.R. tell you nothing?”

I shrugged. I was beginning to wonder that myself.

“Sometimes the Escorts get more than payment after eliminating a Target. Sometimes we get powers.”

“Powers.” I scoffed.

“It’s the reason we just don’t go around killing anyone. It’s the reason we have Targets.”

“So some lives are more valuable than others.”

“Exactly. Some of them have tons of money—those are mostly my Targets.” He flashed a grin and I got a glimpse of the charm he bragged about. It dawned on me he was used to charming people out of their money and then killing them. “And some,” he continued, “have abilities that are beneficial to us.”

Well, I knew Piper didn’t have any money. That meant she must have some sort of ability. What could it be?

I pushed that thought away because another was forming. “How could someone take another person’s ability? How would you even know who had one?”

“You don’t know?” Charming said, grinning like he had a secret no one else knew.

“Know what?” I growled. He was an irritating ass.

“Who you—who
we
—work for.”

“Yes, I do. You know I’ve met him.”

“But he didn’t tell you who he was, why he has the power he does.”

“Just spit it out already.”

“Well, maybe knowing who you’re dealing with will speed up the job completion.”

I gave him a
just spit it out
look and he grinned wider.

“Your new employer is none other than the Grim Reaper. The ultimate dealer of death.”

“The Grim Reaper,” I echoed, disbelief in my voice.

 Charming spread his hands wide. “Who better to run a death ring? With a single touch he can claim a life. No one has the power to stop him and no one would even believe it to try.”

I sat there, partially stunned. I never in a million years imagined this. I knew he had to be powerful. I had known there was something I was missing… but this. This was not what I expected.

Yet I believed it. He went by G.R., mere initials for his full title. He kept bodies in his closet and radiated power, yet he seemed almost jolly. Of course he would be. Because he knew he’d never be stopped. He didn’t have to be mean and vile. If he wanted someone dead all he had to do was touch them.

And now I worked for him.

I worked for the Grim Reaper.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Crush -
a strong positive emotion of regard and affection.”

Piper

I crept through the darkened apartment toward the couch where Frankie insisted on sleeping. I hoped she was comfortable, but I wasn’t sure my couch would be. I didn’t have a sleeper with a pull out mattress so she had to settle for the lumpy cushions. I tried to make her take the bed, but she refused, saying I needed more rest than she did.

I peeked over the back of the faded red velvet to see she had a couple blankets piled on her and all I could see was the top of her white-blond hair. At least she managed to sleep. Before creeping back to my room I glanced at the daisies still sitting in the center of the coffee table. They were still as gorgeous as yesterday.

It was early, still dark outside and very cold. I could hear the howling of the wind outside the window. Mornings like this I hated the opening shift at the diner. But on Friday’s, my classes didn’t start until later in the day so that left room for an extra shift, and it was money, which I needed. And since I had the day off yesterday, I didn’t really need to be complaining.

As I pulled on my uniform and then a sweatshirt on top of that, I thought about Dex and how I hadn’t seen him since he brought me home from the clinic. I was still unsure about who he really was and the more I got to know him, the more I wanted to find out. At first it had all been about the man who died in the street. I was positive he knew something. But I wasn’t so positive anymore, and even though I began to suspect he knew nothing, my desire to get to know him was still strong.

Maybe my attraction to him hadn’t been all about the man who died after all.

Maybe I just had a crush on him.

His messy blond hair, the thick-framed glasses, and the green eyes… I couldn’t deny I thought he was handsome. Never mind the fact his jeans always had a rip in them and he wore those black Converse sneakers every time I saw him. His look was an absolute contradiction to his expensive sports car and fancy townhouse (with a butler!). I smiled to myself thinking about it all.

“Why on earth are you smiling that like at this ungodly hour?” Frankie grumped from the doorway of my bedroom and I gave a little shriek and dropped the ponytail I was pulling my hair into.

“Crap! You scared me!”

“Well that’s what you get when you creep up on a girl who’s dreaming about a hot actor sweeping her off her feet.”

I grinned. “Who was it this time?”

“Patrick Dempsey,” she said as she trudged over to my bed and fell onto it face first.

I laughed. “I’m sorry I woke you.” She grunted into a pillow as she pulled the covers up around her. “Make yourself at home,” I said, amused. Really, I wished I was still in bed. It was too cold for work this morning.

“What are you all smiles about?” she mumbled. “I know it isn’t because you have to go to work.”

“Nothing,” I replied, going into the bathroom to brush my teeth and throw on some minimal makeup.

When I came back, she lifted her head from the comfort of the blankets and said, “Mmmhmmmm, it’s Dex, isn’t it?”

“Maybe.” I smiled.

“I’ll never understand it. Crushing on some guy who fed you chicken with peanuts.”

“He didn’t mean it,” I said, trying not to remember the reaction I had. My body was still sore from the panic. It was probably why I still felt tired even after a full night of sleep.

“I’ll meet you here later and drive you to class.”

“Don’t you have to work?”

“Yes, but not until an actual decent hour. And I’ll take an early lunch to come drive you.”

“You don’t have to do all that.” I protested, knowing it was useless. I covered up my reaction to touching her last night, but she still knew me well enough to know something had thrown me off. I’m just glad she didn’t seem to realize that whatever it was had been about her.

“Girl, don’t make me get out of this bed,” she warned. “After everything that’s been going on, it’ll make me feel better to know you actually made it to class. And that peanut boy won’t be driving you.”

I rolled my eyes, but then said, “Thanks, Frank.”