by Paula Lester
Of course, there were always people being reaped. Every minute of the day. But Art and Cynthia were unaccounted for, and that was unusual.
The third reap on her mind—the man who had the stroke—seemed to have been allocated to the eastern district, but was it?
The reap hadn’t felt right to Tessa, just like Dani’s death hadn’t. Still, Lydia had done the reap, so it had to have been allocated to the east, right?
Tessa needed to talk to Timothy.
When she got out of the elevator on the sixth floor, Tessa stood for a minute, looking both ways and wondering where they were keeping Timothy. Cheryl had said there wasn’t much going on up there, and she was right. The hallway was empty.
Tessa stood uncertainly and chewed her bottom lip. Which way? She shrugged. If she had to check every room, so be it.
But as she took a step to the left, a sound stopped her. She whirled around. It had been a laugh. And she recognized it.
Tessa hurried in the direction of the sound, glad when it rang out again to help her pinpoint where to go. She arrived at a closed doorway at the end of the hall. She pressed her ear to the door, and it wasn’t long before she heard Bubba laugh again. She knocked softly.
Bubba pulled the door open and looked surprised. “Oh, hey, Tessa. Did your mom send you up for something?”
She shook her head. “Can I talk to Timothy for a minute?”
His brow scrunched. “I don’t know.” He glanced over his shoulder into the room at something she couldn’t see.
“It’ll just take a minute, I promise. I want to ask him something.”
Bubba shrugged and opened the door wider. “I guess it’s okay. Nobody told me he couldn’t have visitors. And he has the cuffs on. They’ll stop him if he tries to do anything weird.”
“Thanks.” Tessa followed Bubba in, closing the door behind her. It was a regular hotel room with two beds. An old comedy played on the TV.
Timothy, who had been lying on one of the beds, rolled onto his elbow and pushed himself up. His hair and clothes were rumpled, lapel stained as usual. He looked miserable.
“Hey, there.” She sat on the foot of the bed, more than arm’s length away from him. “How are you holding up?”
He shook his head. “Not so great, actually.”
“I can understand that. Listen, for what it’s worth, I don’t really think you’re guilty.”
His gaze met hers. “That’s worth a lot. Thanks.”
“I was just at the awards ceremony, and Lee won by three allocations. I was thinking about that. How many allocations were the numbers off by before the conference? You know, when you and April went to Chicago to investigate it.”
“Four,” he answered.
Four. Did that make sense?
Dani . . .
Her mind whirled as puzzle pieces slotted together. She thought about the rivalry between April and Lee. How some said they’d both go to any length to outdo each other. Tessa had thought that was hyperbole, but maybe it wasn’t. At least for one of them.
“Well, my shift is over.” Bubba got up and headed for the door. “Tessa, you coming with me or staying here?”
The three mis-allocations were exactly the ones Lee needed to win the award. Which meant April wasn’t the killer at all.
Bubba opened the door. “Ah! You’re right on time. Thanks for relieving me.”
A slither made its way up Tessa’s spine as she realized who must be behind the murders of the two reapers.
The same person who had just arrived to take Bubba’s place. Who had entered the room and closed the door. Who stood smiling at her, oozing charm.
Lee Stuart.
Chapter 19
A QUICK GLANCE AT TIMOTHY let Tessa know she was right about Lee. Or at least that he’d come to the same conclusion as she had. The assistant’s face lost its color, and he shrank back against the headboard as though trying to blend in with it.
Lee’s gaze moved from Tessa to Timothy and back. A slow smile raised the corners of his mouth, and he reached over to lock the deadbolt.
Tessa’s mind raced as she tried to figure out how to get out of the predicament. She decided the best thing to do was to keep her mouth shut—act like she hadn’t put things together. In theory, it’d work because there were still several facets she’d yet to understand.
If she could convince Lee she was harmless, maybe he’d let her go. And then, she could find her mother, or, even better, Mr. Blade.
“Well, well. What do we have here?” Lee’s smile grew broader. “A gathering of the minds? Fraternizing with the enemy? You’re aware this man is charged with, well, serious charges. It could even be viewed as murder in a certain light.”
“I didn’t do it. Tessa knows I didn’t do it.”
“Does she now?” Lee leaned back against the door, crossing his arms and ankles. “And who does she suppose did?”
Unfortunately for Tessa and the solid, safe plan, the connection between her brain and mouth was, as usual, broken. Her brain was unable to stop her mouth from blurting out, “It was you. You killed Art. And Cynthia. Didn’t you? And probably more.”
She winced.
Timothy winced.
Come on, mouth. Work with me here. “Why, though?” Clearly, her mouth had gone rogue, and Tessa would just have to roll with it.
“It was all part of the game.”
“Game? Taking people’s lives—before they’re supposed to go—is a game for you?” Rage boiled up in her chest, and she spat out, “Little Dani’s life . . . her death . . . that’s a game to you?”
Lee chuckled. “We take lives every day. That’s what we do. There are so many people on this earth. No one really notices a few extras gone.”
“Besides their families, their friends—”
“Their coworkers,” Lee finished. “That’s why you stuck your nose in it. All for a couple of people you barely even met.”
Tessa balled her fists. She wanted to leap on the evil man and throttle him with her bare hands. But she forced herself to breathe deeply and stay seated, reminding herself that he was dangerous.
She glanced at Timothy. His eyes were wide.
“It was all for the contest, wasn’t it?” Tessa accused.
“My rivalry with April has gotten more heated every year,” he conceded. “Not only do we spar over the award, but we also place personal bets on various other things.” His eyes slid to Timothy. “Including mythical death allotments.”
Timothy looked like he was going to be sick.
It looked like Tessa would have to win this fight alone. She only hoped he kept it together. If she was going to die in here by Lee’s hands, she didn’t want it to be beside vomit.
Lee shook his head, still looking amused. “In an orderly world, the allotments would be about equal between our two divisions—barring a natural disaster or something, of course. But this world isn’t ordered. It’s dirty and rough and competitive. People who understand that and give in to the natural order of things will always do better than those who don’t—goody-two-shoes like the both of you.”
Tessa’s eyebrows went up. Timothy looked away from Lee.
“Yes, that’s right.” Lee’s hard gaze pinned Timothy. “I know you were working against me.”
Timothy didn’t answer, but a muscle clenched in his jaw.
“I don’t understand,” Tessa interjected. “How did Art’s and Cynthia’s deaths count for you? They lived in the eastern division. They died in the eastern division.”
“Well, that was my trick, of course. It was actually April who discovered the loophole, but she never understood it well enough to manipulate. Luckily, I was able to grasp the finer points and use it to my advantage.
“You see, if a death is cheated somehow . . . the person doesn’t die as they were destined to . . . that allocation is up in the air, to do with as anyone pleases. I just have to use my managerial access to the reaper app, add the unused allocation number, and optionally the victim,
then be the first to take it off the queue.”
“All I had to do was prevent a few eastern deaths and voila! They became allotments for me. I figured I could use them to my advantage twice—once to add to my side’s total and help me win the award, and once to remove a couple of April’s best reapers from the equation. Doing that could help me win for years to come.”
“But how do you manage to prevent those deaths? Doesn’t their reaper see you intervene?”
“Ah. Now you’re using your noggin.” He pushed himself away from the door and started pacing in front it, a few steps in each direction. He reminded Tessa of a professor giving a lecture. “They didn’t see me for the same reason no one saw me take Art or Cynthia across the veil.” He gave Tessa a sly, sidelong look. “Because I received secret knowledge from the original reaper. A secret I can tap into at will. I can become invisible.”
“Corwin Blade gave you the ability to go invisible?” Tessa was shocked.
“It was many years ago. Long before I was the western district supervisor. He said I was a promising reaper. So promising that I deserved a special gift.”
Promising. The word rang in Tessa’s mind. Blade had said something like that to Tessa at the pool.
Tessa’s mind kept scrambling to keep up. “Okay, you showed up and prevented three deaths from occurring in April’s territory—”
“Four deaths,” Timothy corrected. “I caught on after the first two. He wasn’t fast enough to take the other two from the app. I took them as soon as I saw the allotment, then gave the first two Lydia. That’s why I followed her. I was hoping to figure what was going on—because even her reap went to him.”
“The invisibility,” Lee sneered. “She only thought she did that reap. I was guiding that man along the whole time.”
“And Dani?”
“It was nothing personal.” Lee cleared his throat. “After the first two, with Timothy hot on my trail and you snooping around, I knew I could no longer choose my victims from the reaper community. I had to venture out. I let the app decide.”
It seemed like Lee was getting bored of talking. Tessa wanted to keep him talking. Maybe, just maybe, Cheryl would be looking for her. And maybe, just maybe, she’d come up here.
“You know, there’s still Dani’s allotment unaccounted for.” He reached into the back of his waistband and pulled something out. “And lucky for me, I was just plugging it into my phone on the elevator.” He brandished a blade in front of his body, pointing first at Tessa with it and then at Timothy. Then, with his other hand, he pulled out his phone. “The only remaining question is who the lucky one will be. Stabbed to death. What a way to go.”
Timothy choked out a mini-sob and shrank further back against the headboard. Tessa glanced at him before retraining her eyes on Lee’s knife. She knew Timothy wouldn’t be able to fight Lee much if at all. His hands were bound by the magical invisible handcuffs. If they were both going to get out of this alive, it was Tessa who was going to have to make it happen.
Lee’s knife seemed to quiver indecisively for a second before it settled on Tessa. “Maybe it’s finally your time to go, Ms. Randolph. After all, you’ve already cheated death once. You can’t do that forever.”
“That debt has already been paid,” Tessa ground out, thinking of her father taking her place—dying so she didn’t have to when she was a teenager. No way was she going to let this maniac make it so his sacrifice was for nothing.
Slowly, she got to her feet, keeping the bed between her and Lee.
“Be that as it may,” Lee said, “I can see you have an annoying rebellious streak. Timothy here will be easier for me to control. I’m sure we can work out an agreement, can’t we Tim? May I call you Tim?”
“No.”
“Come on. It will be nice to have someone in April’s office who’s under my thumb. I’d like to smoke her out of the water by dozens of allocations next year. That will be much easier if I have an operative working right under her nose.” He stepped around the end of the bed toward Tessa, gripping the knife hard and still fidgeting with the app, attempting to type with one thumb. “Yes. I think today is your unlucky day.”
As Lee moved in front of a big mirror on the wall, his reflection caught Tessa’s eye for a moment. Only it wasn’t only his reflection. There was another person visible there.
Blade.
She jerked her head to look for the man in the room, but he wasn’t there.
Once again, Tessa thought of their conversation by the pool. What had he said? That the power of the scythe was hers to use as needed. She had only to wish for it.
She hadn’t understood at the time that he meant it literally. But Lee’s confession that the Grim Reaper had given him access to invisibility had made it clear to her.
Lee kept moving. He kept drawing closer, distracted by the phone.
All of a sudden, Timothy, who had apparently used his blubbering and weeping as a cover to disguise the fact that he’d maneuvered himself into a crouched position with his feet under him, propelled himself forward across the bed, hurling his body to intercept Lee.
Lee grabbed Timothy’s arm and used the assistant’s momentum to send him hurtling through the air. But in doing so, dropped the phone.
Timothy screamed as the blade glanced off him before he hit the dresser and crashed to the ground with a sickening thud.
Tessa glanced his direction, not wanting to take her eyes off Lee for long. Blood pooled under Timothy’s body. She fought the urge to rush to him, forcing her gaze back to Lee.
Timothy had stopped him, at least for a moment. Lee’s eyes were on Timothy and the blood too. But the assistant’s spirit didn’t rise out of his body. He wasn’t dead. Yet.
Tessa took the second of Lee’s inattention to plant her feet shoulder-length apart and brace for his inevitable attack.
She squared her shoulders and focused on Lee. “Turn yourself in,” she said. “Tell the task force what you did and face the consequences. You can still have a life if you end this now.”
Lee dragged his gaze over to her. He threw back his head and howled with laughter. When he brought his chin down again, the look in his eye was chilling. He held the knife up higher. “I do have a life. The exact one I want. I’m number one. Invincible. I’m as close to the original Grim Reaper as it comes. I choose who lives and who dies. And I choose you to die.”
Tessa had less than a moment to react when Lee charged forward. She raised her hand, thinking of Blade and the scythe he’d mentioned. When the wickedly sharp, curved blade appeared in her hand, its wooden handle smooth, as though someone had spent hours sanding it to perfection, she was so surprised she almost dropped it. She fumbled for a moment and then slapped the other hand onto the handle to steady it. She lifted the blade.
Lee’s face registered complete shock but then he looked resigned. “I see I’m not the only one the boss let in on a secret.”
“I think the boss has decided you’re unhinged and need to go.”
He shook his head, bringing the knife forward and pointing it at Tessa’s neck. “Nah. I still think my secret is better than yours.”
And, suddenly, she couldn’t see him anymore. Lee and the knife were both gone.
Tessa twirled in a circle, but Lee wasn’t there. It was as though he had completely disappeared from the room.
But she knew that wasn’t the case. He was still there, stalking her with his knife, looking for a chance to plunge it into her neck.
Tessa brought the scythe up and tried to keep moving. She didn’t want to create a still, motionless target for the psychopath.
Timothy moaned and stirred, but Tessa didn’t spare any attention for him. She’d have to hope Lee came after her instead of deciding to take out the easier target——the injured man who didn’t even know the reaper was there.
The comforter moved a tiny bit at the foot of the bed. Tessa swung the scythe, hard, in that direction. But it didn’t connect with anything. Instead, the momentum
of her swing spun her ninety degrees to the left.
Panic tore at the edges of her mind as she anticipated an invisible Lee grabbing her while she tried to get her balance. She stumbled and had to let go of the scythe with her left hand to steady herself on the bed.
When she looked up again, movement caught her eye. Her gaze popped over to the mirror. It was Lee. She could see him in the mirror. He wasn’t completely solid. More like a ghost that she could see better in her periphery than straight-on. But she could see him behind her, lifting his knife over her back.
Without thinking about it, Tessa whirled, using both hands on the scythe as she swung it like a bat.
It sliced right through Lee’s body.
It felt like cutting butter.
And Lee was solid again.
He had only a fraction of a second to give Tessa a shocked look before he crumpled to the ground at her feet, the knife clattering out of his hand.
“I’m not dying today, Mr. Stuart,” Tessa said. “Today, you fill Dani’s allotment yourself.” The scythe was gone. She glanced at the mirror, where Blade’s reflection had appeared again. He grinned and winked. And then he was gone.
She skirted around Lee, rushing to kneel next to Timothy. He stirred, and she helped him sit up. A deep cut on his arm seeped blood slowly. “You’ll be okay,” she assured him. “I’ll get help.”
“Tessa!” Timothy grabbed her arm. His eyes were focused over her shoulder. “Look!”
She twisted her neck to see what Timothy pointed at. Lee’s soul ascended from his ruined body. The spirit looked around, first at his own body, and then at them. His ghostly face twisted in disgust.
Tessa popped to her feet. She waved a hand to open a path to the other side. Bright light shone, as though from the ceiling. She headed toward Lee’s spirit, intending to tether it and take it across the veil. She’d seen Gloria do it once and thought it looked simple enough.
But Lee smiled widely. Shook his head. Then, he took off.
Before Tessa could do anything, the spirit had passed right through the closed hotel room door.
