Recalled (Death Escorts #1)(21)
Author: Cambria Hebert

“I don’t care about the money. He looked cold and hungry. He probably just wanted a hot meal.”

He stood up from the table like he was agitated and paced to the window again to look out into the night. “Maybe he was a jerk and took advantage of you.”

“Maybe. But I don’t think a jerk would’ve come back to push me out of the way.”

He didn’t speak for a long time and I thought he might not say anything else, but then he turned and came back over beside the couch. “I’m glad you have something of his. That seemed important to you.”

“I really just wanted to know his name.” I yawned. I was starting to crash from everything that happened.

“Sorry, I can’t help you,” he said so sincerely that this time I found myself wondering if he told the truth.

“I bought those flowers for him. Since I couldn’t take them to his grave, I brought them home.” I tried to force my eyes open wider, wanting to stay awake, wanting answers.

He walked over to the vase and looked at the small bunch of daisies, reaching up to finger the delicate white petals. Then he pulled one out, wiping away the water at the end of the stem on the leg of his jeans. He brought the flower over to me and lowered himself onto the edge of the coffee table, holding it out. “Well, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind sharing. You’ve had a pretty rough day and since I kind of owe you, for feeding ya bad chicken and all, this one can be for you.”

I looked at the flower. It’s perfectly formed smooth petals were open and trusting. It revealed the center of itself so willingly that I found myself sighing.

“Why can’t people be as easy to read as a flower?”

I hadn’t realized I spoke the thought out loud until Dex answered, his voice a mere whisper.

“Because people are flawed.”

I smiled and brought the flower to my nose to take in its bright scent. “Maybe that’s why people like flowers so much. Because they aren’t.”

“Only girls like flowers,” he said with a smirk. He looked cute with his preppy glasses and messed up hair.

“Especially when a guy is the one giving them.” Was I flirting? I must be delirious from all the medicine.

He stood up. “I should let you rest.”

“Is something wrong?” Okay, so clearly I was lousy at flirting.

“No,” he turned back. “I should go.”

I yawned as he moved toward the door and I saw him glance again at the little card with the beach on it.

“The doctor at the morgue said the reason they couldn’t identify him was because his body disappeared. Can you imagine? Who would steal a body from the morgue?”

His shoulders tensed. “Are you serious? That’s sick.”

He made a face like it upset his stomach. There wasn’t a hint of guilt on his face. Maybe I’d been wrong after all. Maybe he really didn’t know anything. I guess it was kind of crazy to believe the guy who’d just given me a daisy was a body snatcher.

“Are you going to be okay? Do you need anything?” he asked after I said nothing else.

I shook my head. “I’ll be fine.”

He unlocked the door and opened it, glancing back once more. “Maybe I’ll see you again.”

“Maybe,” I echoed, knowing full well I would.

I lay there for long moments after he’d gone and replayed our conversation over in my mind. Dexter Allen Roth was quite the puzzle. I couldn’t tell yet where all the pieces fit, but once I had him all put together, I had a feeling he would make a very interesting picture.

With that thought, I went to bed.

I took the daisy with me.

Chapter Seventeen

“Ghost – The spirit of a dead person, especially one believed to appear in bodily likeness to living persons or to haunt former habitats. The center of spiritual life; the soul.”

Dex

I took the stairs two at a time. I had to get out of this building. There was this draining tug and pull action going on inside my chest and I wanted it to stop. It made my stomach clench and my hands shake. Part of me was sickened with everything that happened tonight, and the other part of me was disappointed it hadn’t ended in death.

I was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, only I couldn’t tell which one was the real me.

I reached the first floor and let out a sigh of relief… Then I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. A dark shape seemed to float around the corner—the same looming shape that passed by Piper’s window upstairs. I’d stood at the window, trying to catch a glimpse of it, but I never did. Probably because it was dark, just like the night—until it shifted and moved. That’s the one thing about the dark. It doesn’t move.

I pushed off the bottom step and took chase. When I got around the corner, there was nothing but the door leading outside. I slammed through it and ran out onto the sidewalk. The shifting shadow disappeared around the side of the building and I went after it, running into a dark, narrow space between the two brick buildings.

It was completely dark here and whatever had been there was gone. In fact, it was so still between the buildings that I began to think I was imagining things. Hell, I probably was.

I turned to go back out onto the street when someone spoke. “You’re the new Escort.”

I turned back, once again seeing nothing at all. “Who’s there?” I demanded.

“Please don’t tell him she saw me.”

“Who?” I replied, looking for any kind of movement.

Then something shifted; the shadows seemed to form into a shape. A shape that really wasn’t a shape. It was very familiar… “Where are you?”

“I’m right in front of you.”

The muscles in my back bunched, expecting a fight, but no threat ever came. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I was able to make out more movement, but still no definite shape.

Then it dawned on me.

This was some kind of ghost. Some kind of in-between being, like I was before I got my new body. “What are you?” I asked.

“I’m like you, except I don’t have a body.”

“You’re dead?”

“Sort of.”

“Are you a ghost?”

“A ghost haunts. I don’t haunt.” He sniffed, offended.

“Then what are you doing lurking around Piper?”

“I’m working. Watching her is my job.”

“Who hired you?”

“The same guy that hired you.”

“You’re an Escort?” I asked.