“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 the 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, 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 backs of my eyes as my hand rose without permission to cover my mouth.
I couldn’t save everyone. I couldn’t even save one. I could only ease their passage into the afterlife.
Chapter 8
“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 that Reapers existed outside of 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. I thought the captain was out that way but I can’t reach him. It 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 Liberty, 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 would be the one time they were telling the truth.
“Great.” He sighed into his cell phone. The deep chuckle from the other end 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. John’s on his way back to the station so 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 Barnetts’ 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. “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 Barnetts’ 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 and 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.
With each step toward the door, though, the feeling got worse—a lot worse than just a couple of old ladies peeping through the sheers. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, practically vibrating, and all his survival instincts kicked in on high alert. Adrenaline flooded his body, his heart pounding as he looked around for the source of the danger. Nothing. No one in the trees that surrounded the house. No one behind him, just the house in front.
Sweat slid down his spine in icy droplets, and he had to resist the urge to go for his gun. Didn’t look good knocking on the door of a potential witness with a gun in hand. He put a foot on the steps leading to the veranda and the front door creaked open. He plastered a professional smile on his face as it swung wider to reveal one of the Barnett sisters.
He’d only seen the two fully dressed, in matching cardigans and pearls, so the fact she was dressed in nightclothes made Troy blink. But not as much as the fact that she hovered six inches off the floor.
“What the fuck?”
His instincts worked faster than his brain because his gun was in his hand at the same second he processed the very nonhuman movement, trained on the floating Miss Bennett. She...it...grinned, revealing double rows of sharpened, blackened teeth. As Troy watched, blood dripped onto the veranda from under the flannel nightdress.
“Welcome to the party, Detective Regan,” the demon cackled. Behind it, the second of the sisters came into view, also in nightwear, dragging Tiffany Clarke. “We’ve been expecting you.”