Recalled (Death Escorts #1)(32)
Author: Cambria Hebert

Charming pinned me with a hard look. “Are you having second thoughts about the job?”

I sat up a little straighter. “Me? No.”

“Then why isn’t it done?”

“It’s been harder to kill her than I thought it would be.”

“Yeah, well, not finishing the job would be harder.”

“What do you mean?”

He smirked. “Seriously? Did you not ask what would happen if you didn’t do the job?”

No. I hadn’t. G.R. (when had he become G.R. to me and not Mr. Burns?) hadn’t really given me a choice about completing the job. It was this or an eternity in hell. It wasn’t a hard choice.

Charming rolled his eyes. “You were given an amount of time to do the job. To prove yourself as a Death Escort. If you don’t do the job, you get recalled.”

“Recalled?” I asked.

“As in that pretty purple spirit of yours gets sucked out of that body and you get sent into a fate I hear is worse than hell. An endless world of emptiness, caught between places, still thinking and feeling but being completely lost in a void of nothing.”

Hell actually sounded preferable. I shrugged. “I’m not worried about being recalled,” I said, the word sounding weird on my tongue. “I’ll get the job done.”

“You better. I’m very invested in this assignment. I’m going to be watching you.”

“Why would you care?”

“Let’s just say there’s something in it for me when she dies.”

Something inside me wanted to tell him to stay far away from Piper. The thought of him near her made my skin crawl. But I didn’t let it show. It would reveal more than I wanted to. And I didn’t really understand what those feelings meant anyway.

“What do you get out of this?” I pressed.

“Did G.R. tell you nothing?”

I shrugged. I was beginning to wonder that myself.

“Sometimes the Escorts get more than payment after eliminating a Target. Sometimes we get powers.”

“Powers.” I scoffed.

“It’s the reason we just don’t go around killing anyone. It’s the reason we have Targets.”

“So some lives are more valuable than others.”

“Exactly. Some of them have tons of money—those are mostly my Targets.” He flashed a grin and I got a glimpse of the charm he bragged about. It dawned on me he was used to charming people out of their money and then killing them. “And some,” he continued, “have abilities that are beneficial to us.”

Well, I knew Piper didn’t have any money. That meant she must have some sort of ability. What could it be?

I pushed that thought away because another was forming. “How could someone take another person’s ability? How would you even know who had one?”

“You don’t know?” Charming said, grinning like he had a secret no one else knew.

“Know what?” I growled. He was an irritating ass.

“Who you—who we—work for.”

“Yes, I do. You know I’ve met him.”

“But he didn’t tell you who he was, why he has the power he does.”

“Just spit it out already.”

“Well, maybe knowing who you’re dealing with will speed up the job completion.”

I gave him a just spit it out look and he grinned wider.

“Your new employer is none other than the Grim Reaper. The ultimate dealer of death.”

“The Grim Reaper,” I echoed, disbelief in my voice.

Charming spread his hands wide. “Who better to run a death ring? With a single touch he can claim a life. No one has the power to stop him and no one would even believe it to try.”

I sat there, partially stunned. I never in a million years imagined this. I knew he had to be powerful. I had known there was something I was missing… but this. This was not what I expected.

Yet I believed it. He went by G.R., mere initials for his full title. He kept bodies in his closet and radiated power, yet he seemed almost jolly. Of course he would be. Because he knew he’d never be stopped. He didn’t have to be mean and vile. If he wanted someone dead all he had to do was touch them.

And now I worked for him.

I worked for the Grim Reaper.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Crush – a strong positive emotion of regard and affection.”

Piper

I crept through the darkened apartment toward the couch where Frankie insisted on sleeping. I hoped she was comfortable, but I wasn’t sure my couch would be. I didn’t have a sleeper with a pull out mattress so she had to settle for the lumpy cushions. I tried to make her take the bed, but she refused, saying I needed more rest than she did.

I peeked over the back of the faded red velvet to see she had a couple blankets piled on her and all I could see was the top of her white-blond hair. At least she managed to sleep. Before creeping back to my room I glanced at the daisies still sitting in the center of the coffee table. They were still as gorgeous as yesterday.

It was early, still dark outside and very cold. I could hear the howling of the wind outside the window. Mornings like this I hated the opening shift at the diner. But on Friday’s, my classes didn’t start until later in the day so that left room for an extra shift, and it was money, which I needed. And since I had the day off yesterday, I didn’t really need to be complaining.

As I pulled on my uniform and then a sweatshirt on top of that, I thought about Dex and how I hadn’t seen him since he brought me home from the clinic. I was still unsure about who he really was and the more I got to know him, the more I wanted to find out. At first it had all been about the man who died in the street. I was positive he knew something. But I wasn’t so positive anymore, and even though I began to suspect he knew nothing, my desire to get to know him was still strong.

Maybe my attraction to him hadn’t been all about the man who died after all.

Maybe I just had a crush on him.

His messy blond hair, the thick-framed glasses, and the green eyes… I couldn’t deny I thought he was handsome. Never mind the fact his jeans always had a rip in them and he wore those black Converse sneakers every time I saw him. His look was an absolute contradiction to his expensive sports car and fancy townhouse (with a butler!). I smiled to myself thinking about it all.

“Why on earth are you smiling that like at this ungodly hour?” Frankie grumped from the doorway of my bedroom and I gave a little shriek and dropped the ponytail I was pulling my hair into.