Reaper's Stand(2)

“The food won’t be ready for another ten minutes,” I said. “You look sort of tense. Want a neck rub?”

He raised a brow as I circled the table.

“I think you should stay back,” he said slowly. I paused.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’d hate to make it too easy for you, sweetheart.”

My chest tightened. I offered a weak smile, because like I said—I’m a shit liar.

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m assuming you’re planning to shoot me in the back of the head,” he said quietly, and that’s when I realized he wasn’t relaxed at all. He might be leaning back casually, but every one of those solid muscles roping his body had drawn tight, poised to attack. “That’s a bad idea. You shoot that close, you’ll be all covered in blood spatter. Means you’ll have to risk tracking more evidence out of the house or taking time to clean up. Either way, complicates things.”

Well. At least it was all finally out in the open. Almost a relief. I pulled out the gun and held it up, using my left hand to brace my right as I carefully sighted on him. I expected him to explode up at me, to fight back. Instead he just sat, waiting.

“Go ahead, do it,” he said, a sad smile toying with the corners of his mouth. “Show me what you’re made of.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “You’ll never know how much I wish this weren’t happening.”

“Then don’t do it. Whatever it is, we can work through it. I’ll help you.”

“You can’t.”

He sighed, then looked past me and jerked his chin.

“It’s over, babe,” I heard a man say from behind. Huh. I guess it was. Fortunately, I had just enough time to pull the trigger before he hit me.





CHAPTER ONE


EIGHTEEN DAYS EARLIER

LONDON

My back was killing me.

It was nearly two in the morning, and I’d just finished up the late-night cleaning shift at the pawn shop. I’d been letting myself get soft the past couple of months. Too much time spent managing the business, not enough time scouring bathrooms, because I’d forgotten just how much work scrubbing a toilet really is.


Well, scrubbing toilets, floors, dusting, vacuuming. London’s Cleaning Service did it all, and while we might not be the cheapest crew in town, we were the best. I knew this because I turned down more accounts than I took these days. Thanks to my hard-earned reputation, finding new clients was easy. Workers? Not so much. Most people aren’t fans of spending their nights wiping up after others, and even with my higher-than-average starting pay, people flaked on me.

Tonight, for example.

I’d gotten a call from Anna—one of my crew leads—to say she had two no-shows. Because the life of a cleaning lady is nonstop glamour, that meant I got to spend my Friday evening scraping dried pee off the floor in a men’s bathroom.

Charmed existence, I know.

At least my aching back and I could crawl into bed soon.

I pulled up to the house and noticed a blue Honda Civic parked in front. Mellie’s car—my young cousin’s best friend. She must be spending the night with Jessie, I realized. I bit back the surge of annoyance. On the one hand, I really preferred it when Jess cleared stuff like this with me ahead of time.

On the other, there were worse things than having the girl home on a Friday. Most of them were worse, actually. God, I loved her so much, but Jessica was impossible. I reminded myself yet again that it wasn’t entirely her fault—the counselors told me over and over that I needed to help her learn to cope with her limitations, because it’s not like she’d grow out of them.

Decision making wasn’t Jessica’s strong suit.

According to the experts, that part of her brain just hadn’t developed quite right, thanks to her mother’s ongoing chemical romance. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I knew she wasn’t like other kids. But you know what? We all have to learn to get along in this world. Nobody’s born with a clean slate, and she wasn’t a little girl anymore.

I unlocked the front door to find Mellie sitting on the couch. Her knees were drawn up, her eyes were huge, and she clutched a can of Diet Coke like a shield.

My parent radar crackled to life.

“What did she do now?”

“We were at a party,” Mel whispered. “It was around ten o’clock. She ran into some girls who graduated a couple years ago—Terry Fratelli and her friends—and they invited us out to the Armory for a party with the Reapers motorcycle club.”

I swayed, grabbing the back of my old, green wing-backed chair to catch myself.

“Fuck.”

Mellie’s eyes got even wider. I didn’t cuss. She knew I didn’t cuss. Ever.

“What’s the rest of it?”

The girl looked away, biting her lip.

“I’m so sorry for leaving her,” she said, guilt written all over her face. “But there was no way I’d go out there and she didn’t listen to me. She actually got kind of …”

Her voice trailed off and I filled in the gaps. Jessica liked to make fun of Mel when she wouldn’t follow along like a well-trained puppy. Classic Jess. Such an idiot child—I wasn’t quite sure how she managed to keep a friend like Melanie around, given the shit she pulled.