Dead Reaper Walking (8 page)

He opened his mouth to argue but Troy was done playing nice. Turning full on, he locked gazes with Mr. Clarke and crowded his personal space. Toe to toe.

“
Do you understand?”

Silence filled the room. Everyone looked at Mr. Clarke. Waiting for his next move. Troy’s fingers twitched. If he had to put this asshole in cuffs and charge him with obstructing an investigation, he would. Anything to get that girl back alive.

Clarke gave him back attitude, for all of a nanosecond. Troy was a breath from pulling his cuffs, but then Clarke’s eyelid flickered and he nodded, looking away.

“Yes, sir, I understand.” His manner was deferential, like the beta in a pack backing down. Troy breathed a sigh of relief. Good. At least he hadn’t had to piss on him, or dry-hump him or anything.

He carried on with the hard look for a couple of seconds longer, just to ensure Clarke knew he wasn’t messing about, then turned to Laney. “So, explain to me the significance of a virgin seer?”

Laney pursed her lips, giving him that stubborn-ass mule look. She had that about her. He pushed and she pushed back twice as hard. Her gaze shifted to the right, flicking an almost imperceptible glance toward the parents. Just that one look, that one tell, and Troy knew what she said next wouldn’t be the whole truth.

“Virgin seers are a major component in a number of spells. B-i-i-g spells.”

John had obviously picked up her tell and slid in as smooth as silk. “Spells. Perhaps that coven we’re investigating in the Kaufman case?”

Laney nodded. “Exactly. Could just be a kid’s prank…”

It could be, if the officers on scene hadn’t reported a shitload of sulfur in the alleyway. But Mrs. Clarke murmured, hope in her eyes. Troy felt awful to give her false hope but what else could they do? Tell them ‘I’m sorry but your daughter is probably a demon’s chew-toy by now’? Besides, it wasn’t entirely false hope. Laney had said no reap. No reap, no death. No death meant they still had a chance.

John snapped his notebook shut and slid it into his pocket. “Okay, I’ll start with the names we have, see if I can shake anything loose. You and Ms. Larson check out the scene? Mr. Clarke, Mrs. Clarke, if you’ll excuse us. We’ll keep you updated, as soon as we know more…”

Mrs. Clarke cleared her throat, that hopeful look focusing with purpose. Troy turned back to give her his full attention—professionalism and all that—but she wasn’t looking at either him or John as he’d expected. Instead her gaze was riveted on Laney. She looked back, and as he watched, her ‘reaper’ expression softened.

“Can I help you, ma’am?”

The woman pushed past her husband, her gaze on Laney as though she was the last beacon of hope. “You know, don’t you? If someone’s going to die?”

Laney paused for a moment. From their conversations Troy knew she probably didn’t talk about this shit with people not in the know. Her family perhaps, other reapers…other reapers who were men. Jealousy hit him but he locked it down quick-smart. There was a time and place for stuff like that, and it wasn’t here and now.

“Each lifeline is unique.” Laney’s voice was soft and she reached out to take Mrs. Clarke’s hands. “Look hard enough and you can tell which ones are related to each other. Brothers and sisters. Father and sons… Mothers and daughters.” She paused to look between the couple. “Looking at yours, I can tell which one is Tiffany’s. It’s not calling to me at the moment. She’s still alive.”

Mrs. Clarke gasped, almost folding in on herself. Tears of relief sparkled in her eyes.

“Thank you. Thank you so much. We’re not a powerful line like some…” Her voice was the barest whisper. “So our visions are sporadic at the best of times. Under stress—”

Her voice broke and she pressed her hand to her mouth, swallowing hard. It was always hard to see a victim’s family trying to keep it together, but Troy kept his gaze level and refused to look away. They’d trusted him enough with their honest emotions, it would be discourteous of him to brush that off. “Please, bring my daughter back.”

Laney covered the other woman’s hand with one of hers. Her face was serene. A chill swept the room, stirring her hair as her shadow lengthened behind her.

“I am Death made flesh,” she said, her voice not human. More than human. It rang with power and the silence of the grave, bringing shivers to the back of Troy’s neck. “
I
cut the cord that binds a soul to this life, no other. I will find your daughter and I will bring her home, this I promise you, but I cannot guarantee it will be alive.”

Troy whirled around before he reached the gate, a hand shoved in his hair and a look of exasperation on his face. Exasperation aimed solely at me.

“Fuck
me,
Laney. Did you have to just drop it out there in the open like that?”

“What did you expect me to say?” I shrugged, spreading my hands in an innocent gesture. “Yeah, I can bring her daughter home but… I’m a reaper. If I’m involved, it’s not often gonna be a happily ever after, is it?”

Troy growled, a sound that was kind of sexy, even if he was angry with me. “You didn’t have to outright tell the woman that!”

I folded my arms and matched him glare for glare. “Why, Detective Regan, are you telling me I should have lied?”

John chuckled, quickly smothering the sound when Troy turned the glare on him, giving me a moment’s respite.

“Annnnnd, that’s my cue to leave. Need to lose a few pounds so I’m gonna take a walk back to the station.” John pushed past Troy, waving at me over his shoulder. “Have fun, kiddies. Try not to kill one another, ‘kay?”

“Given one of us is the physical embodiment of death,” Troy snarled, “no promises on that one.”

John shook his head and with that, he was gone, striding off down the street. Troy turned his attention back to me.

“Not lie, not exactly.” He took a step toward, frustration etched into his features. “Just don’t tell the damn parents you’ll deliver them a dead body.”

Okay, even I admit, put like that I sounded like a grade-A asshole.

“It’s not like that with us. With paranormals,” I argued, “we don’t sugarcoat the truth or bullshit like humans do.”

“Oh, that’s it, play the species card.” Anger replaced the frustration on his face. He took a breath and I saw the struggle reflected in his eyes. He closed them for a moment, then sighed heavily. The whole process fascinated me. Human emotion played out on a stage of one man’s face.

Until he opened his eyes and looked at me, gaze hard. Piercing. The expression in them made me shiver, and not in a good way.

“So, from what you’ve said before, when a lifeline goes active, you track it to the body?”

I kept my answer limited to a nod. The tension between us hadn’t disappeared, just altered, and right about now, I wasn’t sure what game Troy was playing. The energy emanating from him, I checked his lifeline again. Still human. Was it my imagination or was it flatter and duller than it had been?

He stepped forward, until we were barely inches apart. He loomed over me but I didn’t back down. I’m a badass reaper after all, we ain’t scared of no one and nothing. Not even demons. I looked him right in the eye.

“And you said in there that you can identify an inactive lifeline…” He paused, running his thumb against his chin. Normally I’d want to kiss in its wake, but I had the feeling I was being outmaneuvered. “So putting the two together, it’s logical to assume you could have tracked Tiffany from the word go, couldn’t you?”

And
boom,
there it was. Shit. Trust Troy to put it all together.

“Maybe. But it doesn’t work like that.”

“What do you mean? How else would it work?”

There was no way I was backing down, and from the look on Troy’s face, neither was he. So I was going to have to answer. Fuck.

“It’s not my job.” Okay, out there in the open. No secrets. “Yes, I could pick up and trace a lifeline back to its body, but why would I? Until they make the decision that puts them on my radar, I have no reason to go looking.”

He blinked. A slow descent of the lids over his eyes, one I could almost hear before he opened them again.

“
It’s not your job
.” His voice was tight, angry, but unlike before, it wasn’t sexy. It wasn’t the fiery anger I could turn to passion. No, this was white hot fury that would burn me if I so much as touched it.

The sensible thing would have been to say something to calm him, particularly as he was the one carrying a gun. Did I? Hell, I’m not
that
sensible. Not when pissed off.

“Reaper, buddy. As in death. Dead or dying, but mostly dead. As in not alive. What part of that don’t you fucking well understand?”

“Understand?” His lips curled into a sneer. “Oh, I understand all right. Basically you’re telling me you could’ve saved lives but didn’t. Because it’s not
your
job.”

I opened my mouth to explain. How I couldn’t track one, because then I’d have to track them all. And I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t save them all. I’d drive myself mad chasing lifelines and changing their futures. So I didn’t. But he didn’t give me chance to say that, or anything, cutting me off with a sharp gesture.

“No, I don’t want to hear it.” The disgusted expression in his eyes cut me to the quick. “Unlike you, obviously, my job is to save lives. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get on with doing just that. Saving lives.”

He turned and walked away, each step ringing like a death knell in my ears. My throat tightened and tears stabbed at the back of my eyes, as my hand rose without permission to cover my mouth.

I couldn’t save everyone. I could only ease their passage into the afterlife.

“Fucking idiot.”

Troy didn’t make it to the car before the look on Laney’s face got to him. Hurt. Betrayal. Misery. Like a puppy that had been kicked. His steps slowed and guilt wrapped itself around his heart, settling into a hard knot in his gut.

Shit. He shouldn’t have said all that about saving lives. To a reaper. He got it, really he did. For her to track down everyone about to make a bad decision and save their lives would be a futile task. One that led to madness. He couldn’t ask that of anyone. But…would it be too much to ask for her to pick up a missing girl’s lifeline?

He had his hand on the car door handle before he sighed and turned around. Perhaps he was reading this wrong. Perhaps there was some unwritten reaper rule he didn’t know about. After all, they’d only known each other a few days, and before that, he hadn’t a clue reapers existed outside fairy tales. Then again, perhaps he just couldn’t see himself tracking down a missing girl and a demon without her backup. Hell, without her at the Kaufman house, he and Reilly would have been toast. Literally.

He made two steps around the car on his way back to her before Laney roared past in her big SUV. He could have sworn it grinned and leered at him as it passed.

“Goddammit!” Stepping into the street, he tried waving her down but she studiously ignored him, her face set in angry lines.

“Nice one, Troy. She’s pissed at you. Well pissed.
Beyond
pissed.” Berating himself, he stormed back to his car and yanked the door open. His cell rang as he slid into the driver’s seat.

“Yeah. Regan.” His answer was short and clipped. Great, now he was being an asshole to everyone.

“Regan. It’s Andrews.” The sergeant’s deep voice filled his ear. “Just got a report of screaming at the Barnett place. Might be nothing, but you want to check it out?”

Troy closed his eyes, and rested his head back against the seat. The Barnett place. Home of the battiest pair of old women anyone had ever met. Every cop in Oakland knew about the Barnett sisters. There wasn’t a week that went by without the department getting a call out to the place. Cat up the tree. Intruders in the house that turned out to be their own reflections in the mirror. Strange noises from the pipes they swore had to be their dead parents trying to communicate from beyond the grave.

Wouldn’t be so bad if they were just harmless old women, but both had an eye for the men. Wasn’t a cop in Oakwood, Troy included, who hadn’t had his ass pinched by one or both of them. Even Reilly had…and honestly, Troy would’ve have given his right
arm
to see that little confrontation.

But still, a scream was a scream and Murphy’s Law said the one time they dismissed the batty Barnetts, that would be the one time they were telling the truth.

“Great.” He sighed into his cell phone. The deep chuckle from the other told him that Andrews had picked up his inner struggle. There was the distinct probability Troy was getting an ass-pinching from at least one octogenarian before the night was out. Great. “Okay, no problem. If I don’t check in by nine, send out a search party.”

Andrew’s voice rumbled down the line. “Not a problem, my man. But…surely your girl being there will ward off any unwanted advances?”

Troy turned the key with a savage twist. “It might. If she was with me.”

Pulling out into a gap in the traffic, he put his foot down and took the road toward the Barnett’s place. “We had a minor disagreement. If she turns up at the station, can you ask her to call me?”

There was a long pause before Andrews answered, his tone not as chirpy as Troy expected given he seemed to have a thing for Laney. “I’m sorry to hear that. And, of course. As soon as I see her.”

“Cheers, man. I’ll catch you later.”

Clicking the cell off, he slid it into his inside jacket pocket. The drive to the Barnett’s wasn’t long, but it took him out of town and into the countryside. The Barnett place was one of a group of three family owned lots clustered together. Not so close as to be chatting over the garden fence but close enough to hear a scream. If it was loud enough.

Pebbles crunched under the tires as he pulled the car to a stop in front of the house then cut the engine. Everything seemed normal. Lights on in various rooms, no spine-chilling screams or blood splashed up the walls. Steeling himself, and his butt, Troy got out of the car and headed to the house.

He felt eyes on him every step of the way to the front door. Nothing unusual about that. With how quiet it was out here, the sisters would have heard his car long before it came into view. Anyone who lived out in the sticks like this would check any vehicle approaching, safe from the concealment of the net curtains.