A DIAMOND BEFORE DYING
Reapers in Heels #4
Jason Krumbine
Copyright 2012 by Jason Krumbine
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental
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about this book
Things are tense for Century City’s prettiest grim reapers.
Brooke’s boyfriend has ended up in Saint Mercy’s ER thanks to a brutal beating from local gangster, Dicky Ramburg. In addition, Brooke’s now on the hook for finding a centuries old human skull and delivering it to Ramburg. If she doesn’t deliver, Dicky’s promised that it’ll be her and her family that end up in the emergency room next. Before Brooke and Avery have any time to even process what’s happened, things go from bad to worse.
Something is amiss in Saint Mercy’s. At first its thought to be just an accident, a tired, overworked doctor simply wasn’t paying attention. But then it happens again.
And again.
And again.
Avery and Brooke find themselves trapped in every grim reaper’s nightmare:
The dead in Saint Mercy’s aren’t staying dead.
previously
Grim Reapers are real. They are governed by the Council of Reapers and are responsible for the capture and containment of dead souls that refuse to or cannot move on to the afterlife.
There are three classes of Reapers: Metal, Cloth and Wood. Each Reaper operates using a style of magic based on their class.
Avery and Brooke Graves are two such reapers.
They inherited the job from their father, Will Graves, after his death.
Avery and Brooke recently turned down a job offer from Messor & Decessus, one of the largest grim reaping firms in the nation, when they discovered that the firm was manufacturing incidents to convince the Council of Reapers to create a fourth reaper class built around the use of modern technology, which was an industry that was worth billions of dollars
Without any hard evidence to prove what M&D were up to, the Graves sisters were forced to frame one of the reapers in M&D’s employ, which forced the Council to issue sanctions against M&D and shut down any research the firm was doing into grim reaper technology for the time being. To do this they needed help from the local gangster Dicky Ramburg.
Dicky Ramburg was also a former business associate of Stanley Morris, Brooke’s on again/off again boyfriend. Stanley had been hired by unknown persons to find an centuries old human skull. Through Dicky, Stanley had believed to have found the skull. But when Stanley brought Brooke along to authenticate it, it was discovered that the skull wasn’t old enough to be the one the buyer was looking for. Dicky was not pleased and the meeting ended on a sour note. Dicky later found out the skull’s value: well over a million dollars. He decided to cut Stanley out as the middle man and put Brooke on the hook for finding the skull.
Stanley was than brutally beaten by Dicky’s men.
one
On the sixth floor in Saint Mercy's Hospital, in room six-twelve, the Madison family was experiencing a great loss. They gathered around the hospital bed in quiet contemplation of the man that was leaving them.
At ninety-five years old, George Madison had lived nothing less than a wholly fulfilling life. He had lived through the two great wars and seen mankind accomplish unbelievable things: man on the moon! Computers! Texting! He was lucky to have been blessed with 70 years of marriage to the love of his life, Bethany Madison. She had passed five years prior. Laying there, surrounded by family, George knew that he should be sad, that he should be scared. But in truth, all he felt was unbridled joy at the thought of finally being reunited with his beloved Bethany.
The last five years hadn't been easy, but they had been easier than most because of his wonderful family.
George would be survived not only by three children and seven grandchildren, but two great grandchildren, and a third one not too far away. As far as he was concerned, that was a pretty good legacy to leave behind.
George smiled as he gently turned his head, trying to see them all at once.
"My family," he whispered. "My wonderful, wonderful family."
They had all come to see him off.
His youngest daughter gripped his hand tightly for the last time. "Oh, Daddy," she cried. In that instant she went from being a forty year old woman who headed up her own successful law firm, to the tiny baby he would sing lullabies to at night when the thunderstorms kept her too scared to sleep.
"It's...going..." George coughed. He could feel it coming. It wouldn't be long now. "It's going...to be...okay."
His eldest, Brian, patted him on the shoulder. He was a strong man, not prone to public displays of emotion, but even his eyes brimmed with tears and his lips trembled as he struggled to keep his feelings in check. "We're gonna miss you, Dad." There was more Brian wanted to say, but he couldn't trust himself to speak it. His voice was already cracking. He needed to be strong for the rest of the family. Brian took a step back. There wasn't anything else he could say that his father didn't already know, anyway.
The family took solace from the steady beeping of the monitors in the background. That beeping told them that everything was going to be okay. That it wasn't time yet. That they would still have another moment with their father, their grandfather.
The little ones weren't sure what was happening. Their great-grandfather was just sick. They had no other point of reference to understand what was happening in that bed on the sixth floor of Saint Mercy's Hospital. All they knew was that their great-grandfather looked both sad and happy, despite his sickness.
The morning sun poured through the open blinds. It didn't feel right. So much sunshine for a moment like this. These times called not for the cheerfulness of morning, but the dark sorrow of the night. It didn't feel right.
George took another deep breath and his chest rattled, startling his children.
"Dad," his middle child began. Her name was Ann and despite everything Bethany had said, Ann had always been her favorite. She had no trouble with her emotions and it had been a virtual roller coaster for her ever since he had been admitted to Saint Mercy's the week before. There was so much she wanted to say to her father, but she didn't know how to say it. Though, she wondered if it even mattered. He was her father, didn't he already know how she felt? So, Ann said the only thing that she could think of, "I'm sorry for breaking your ship in the bottle when I was six."
George frowned, confused. "You..." he said, pausing between the words, "told me...that Shirley did...that," he looked at his youngest daughter.
Ann shrugged, tears streaming down her cheeks and a bittersweet smile on her lips. "I lied. I'm sorry."
He laughed. They all laughed. It was a wonderful sound.
And that was it. George realized that there would be no better way to go than with a smile on his lips and a laugh in his throat.
"I love you all," George whispered and his eyes fluttered closed. His grip on his daughter's hand loosened slowly.
The beeping, the steady, reassuring beeping that promised everyone that the end wasn't there yet, s
lowed. It slowed and then it stopped.
Silence fell in the room. There were sniffles that were quickly followed by tears. Even Brian was not immune to the heartbreaking moment.
Doctor Reyes, who stood off to the side giving the Madison family their privacy, stepped forward. He discreetly placed two fingers against George Madison's throat. He waited and then glanced up at the clock on the wall. He stepped away and whispered to the nurse in the room, "Time of death, ten-oh-five am."
The nurse jotted down the time on George Madison's sheet and then she started to follow the doctor out of the room. The family would be allowed to stay with their deceased for a little bit longer to say their good-byes.
Doctor Reyes pulled out his smartphone and started scrolling through his texts as he stepped out of the room. Specifically, he was checking to make sure his lunch date with the pretty anesthesiologist was still on, when there was a sudden, sharp gasp from behind him. Reyes ignored it. His work here was done and he was eager to get to work on that pretty anesthesiologist.
"Doctor," the nurse squealed breathlessly.
Reyes stopped and swore under his breath. He never could just do his job and walk away with these things. He took a moment to compose himself. He knew that it was going to be about the insurance. It was always about the insurance. Even though he had nothing to do with the insurance, the families always harassed him about the insurance. Like he could do anything about the damn insurance. He was a doctor, not a secretary. So Reyes closed his eyes for a brief moment and composed himself. It wouldn't be good for his career if he started cursing out deceased patient's families.
Reyes turned around, prepared to take whatever their stupid concerns were in stride and as patiently as possible.
It turned out, however, he didn't compose himself enough. His smartphone slipped from his hand and fell, cracking against the tile floor.
His lunch date with the pretty anesthesiologist was immediately forgotten.
"Holy shit!" The words were out of his mouth before he even realized he was saying them.
On the bed, George Madison sat upright, his eyes wide open and alert. He asked in a level voice, "What's going on?"
two
Brooke Graves sat in the waiting room outside the ER at Saint Mercy's. She felt numb all over. But at the same time, every inch of her ached with an indescribable pain. She was in a fuzzy daze, everything just melded together. How long had she been waiting there? An hour? Two hours? Brooke couldn't remember. Waiting rooms had that effect on her.
Brooke was curled up in the chair furthest from the receptionist. The pale blue cushion was frayed and already tearing at the seams. It was lumpy and looked like had been beaten to a pulp. Brooke knew how the cushion felt.
In her late twenties, Brooke Graves was a little over five feet tall, but curled up in that waiting room chair she managed to look tiny enough for someone to scoop her up into the palm of their hand.
But there wasn't anybody there to scoop her up and tell her that everything was going to be okay.
Her jeans were old and worn-looking and her plain tank top had seen better days. A sparkly gray hoodie kept her warm. Somebody had set the temperature in the waiting room at well under sixty degrees. She was almost certain that it was meant as some kind of cruel joke. The hoodie also hid the bloodstains on her shirt. It wasn't her blood, but she felt like it might as well have been.
Her dark brown hair was pulled back into a hasty ponytail. Completely devoid of any makeup, her face had a hollow look to it, as though it was missing something important.
She struggled to keep her eyes open. They were bloodshot with exhaustion and she so desperately wanted to close them. After being up all night and operating on less than twenty minutes of sleep, Brooke needed to close her eyes. Except, every time she closed her eyes she saw Stanley's bruised and bloodied face staring back at her.
It was going to be a while before she got anything resembling a good night's sleep.
Brooke sucked in another deep breath and hugged her legs closer to her chest.
The hospital's intercom crackled as somebody called for a Doctor Martinez to go to the sixth floor.
The waiting room was empty. There weren't a lot of medical emergencies this early in the day in Century City. So Brooke sat there, all alone.
The receptionists didn't pay her any attention and why should they? There was nothing special about her. Just some girl who had come in with a boyfriend that had been beaten to a bloody pulp. Granted, they didn't normally get a lot of people beaten to a pulp first thing in the morning, and usually it was a girlfriend that was sporting the bruises, not the other way around, but it still wasn't anything new for them.
So Brooke was alone. She tried to find something to occupy her mind, because if she didn't, she'd start thinking about Stanley again. And that would lead back to Stanley's bloodied face. And once she started thinking about that, she would lose it altogether.
So, instead, she thought about how alone she was. And how appropriate it was that she was alone in that waiting room.
A pity party for herself at a time like this seemed extra pathetic, but at least it kept her from thinking about Stanley.
Stanley...
Stanley's beaten body, laying there in the apartment, blood everywhere. So much blood. She had never seen so much blood. That didn't make any sense given her line of work, but she felt it was true.
So much blood...
He had barely been conscious when she found him. In fact, her first thought had been that he was dead. An inarticulate moan convinced barely convinced her that he wasn't.
Brooke shuddered and zipped her hoodie all the way up. But it didn't do any good against these shivers. They weren't from the cold.
She shook her head, as though to shake the images from her mind. She needed to think about something else. Anything else.
Brooke stared at the stark white wall across from her.
Nothing came to mind.
She felt numb all over.
"Brooke?" The voice sounded as though it was coming from a great distance. "Brooke?" The voice was louder this time and it snapped her back to reality. She turned away from the white wall to find her older sister standing over her.
Avery Graves' first instinct was to go with anger. She only knew part of the story. The part that Brooke had conveyed to her over the phone between the heaving sobs and the sniffling tears. But it was enough to convince her that anger was the way to go in this situation. Her sister had a bad habit of making even worse decisions and then needing other people to clean up her messes. Avery was certain that that's what this situation was going to end up being: her cleaning up after her little sister.
But when she got to Saint Mercy's and saw Brooke curled up there in the waiting room chair, looking so small and fragile, Avery changed her mind.
She knelt down next to her. "What happened?" she asked gently.
Avery was only three years older than Brooke, but there were days, most of them in fact, where she felt decades older. She got her eyes, light blue, from their mother. Her hair was lighter, almost strawberry blonde, and kept a little shorter than Brooke's. She had a graceful, athletic figure and when they were standing next to each other, Avery was almost two inches shorter than her younger sister. But right then, in the hospital waiting room, Brooke seemed so much smaller. Avery was dressed in a hastily thrown together outfit, the only kind you could wear when your sister calls you to tell you that her boyfriend has been beaten within an inch of his life.
"Brooke," she said again. "What happened?"
Brooke sniffed and wiped at tears she hadn't realized were there. "They, uh, they said there's bleeding in the brain," she paused, hiccuping. "There's bleeding in his brain." She shuddered and shook her head. "I don't..." Brooke wiped at her eyes with the hoodie sleeve. "I don't know what's going on."
Avery frowned. She needed answers, but she'd never seen her sister this broken before. She rested a gentle hand on Brooke's knee and took a
deep breath. "Brooke, why don't you tell me what happened?"
Brooke didn't say anything for a minute. She just stared past Avery at the white wall again.
She's in shock, Avery realized. The older Graves sister wrestled with herself for a moment on the best way to help her when Brooke finally spoke.
"Stanley brought me along on a job a few nights back," Brooke began. Her voice sounded hollow.
"What kind of job?" Avery asked, immediately cautious. Stanley Morris wasn't known for his connections with upstanding, decent members of society. The man was a loan shark, scumbag and scuzzy entrepreneur. His idea of a job could be anything from breaking some guy's legs for protection money to helping a few HDTV's fall off the back of a truck.
"I'm not really sure," Brooke replied.
Avery frowned. "That doesn't sound very reassuring."
Brooke paused and then said, "It was a meeting with Dicky Ramburg."
The name hit Avery like a gut punch. She dropped her hand from her sister. "You did business with Dicky Ramburg?" Avery got back to her feet and folded her arms. The anger was coming back.
Brooke wiped at her wet cheeks again, but the tears were slowly stopping. "I specifically wasn't doing business with Dicky Ramburg. Stanley was."
"But you were there, in the room with Dicky Ramburg?" Avery asked. "Just so that we're clear. You were in the room with Dicky Ramburg?"
"Yes, Avery, I was in the room with Dicky Ramburg," Brooke said. The numbness was wearing off. She got to her feet. "I didn't know who he was at the time, obviously."
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