The Grim Reaper's Dance

Chapter Fourteen

“So where were you?” Casey looked at Death in the hospital bathroom’s mirror. She’d allowed Davey to take her as far as the edge of town, then insisted on being dropped at a quiet intersection. She’d ducked quickly down a side street and zig-zagged through the neighborhood, making sure he didn’t follow. The last thing she needed was for the guys in the hospital to see him. The one—Craig Mifflin, according to Evan’s photos—had been unconscious when Davey had come out of the trailer with Randy Westing’s gun at his head, but the second guy—Bruce Willoughby—could probably ID Davey, unless he’d been in such pain from his knee he didn’t remember anything.

Casey finished lining her eyes and put on the mascara, topping it off with a dusting of eye shadow.

“Those high school boys aren’t going to know what to do with themselves tonight when they show up at the shed,” Death said. “You’re turning hot.”

“Teenage boys don’t have eyes for old ladies like me.”

Death snorted. “And I have wings and shoot arrows at lovers. Come on, Casey. Do you not remember what boys that age are like?”

“I guess not.” She stepped back, trying to view herself in the slanted, handicapped-accessible mirror. She’d locked herself into the one-person bathroom after ducking onto the cardiac wing. The floor was dark and quiet, the patients bedded down for the night.

“And I was wrong about the scrubs,” Death said. “They’re more attractive than I thought they’d be, in a professional, woman-in-charge sort of way. Except you really should take off your other clothes instead of wearing the scrubs over them.”

“And put them where?”

“I don’t know. Nurse’s locker?”

Casey considered it, but shook her head. “Too much opportunity for seeing other nurses who would know I don’t belong.” She put on the lipstick and blotted her lips with a paper towel. “So, anyway, where were you? I thought you wanted to be there when I was questioning the trucking guy.”

“I did, and was planning on meeting you there, but I was called away. Business.”

“What happened to the whole Santa Claus comparison you gave me last week? That you can be in multiple places at once?”

Death made a face. “Do you really want to know? I was trying to spare you.”

“Oh. Okay, forget it.”

“Suicide bomber in Iraq, military action in Afghanistan, and an earthquake in Peru. All at the same time. Very messy.”

“I said forget it!”

Someone knocked on the door. “Everything okay in there?”

Casey glared at Death. “Fine, thank you!”

“You’re not on the phone, are you? You know you can’t use them on this floor.”

“No phone. Just talking to myself.”

Death gave a little giggle, but quickly smothered it.

The person stopped talking, and Casey hoped she’d gone away. Casey slid the reading glasses on, and Death’s nose wrinkled. “Well, that kills the hotness factor.”

It did. It also added several years to her appearance, as Bailey had predicted. An added benefit was the hiding of her eyes. She really did look different. She hoped it was enough to get her into the hospital room and close enough for her questioning.

She gave Death another silencing glance and reached for the door, putting the make-up in the bag with Evan’s photos. She peeked out. The closest person was a woman in pink scrubs, who sat behind the counter at the nurse’s station. Casey went the other direction, toward the elevator.

“So where are these guys?” Death asked.

“I asked at the visitors’ desk when I got here. Craig Mifflin’s already been released. Bruce Willoughby is still here to get his knee worked on. Orthopedics.”

“Let’s go get him.”

Orthopedics, illogically, was on the third floor. Casey would’ve thought people who needed help walking should be on the first.

They were almost to the elevator when a familiar person came out of a room, coat flapping. “Nurse, can you please make sure the patient in 113B gets a new gown? We made a little mess.”

“Yes, Doctor.” Casey nodded her head deferentially, as she imagined a nurse might do, and kept walking. Of all the people to run into, did she have to find Dr. Shinnob? She glanced back, and he was watching her with a confused expression, as if he wasn’t sure what to think. Great.

She scooted into the next room and stood up against the wall, peering back out into the hallway through the door’s little window. Dr. Shinnob still looked her way. He was taking a step. Casey gritted her teeth. What was she going to do?

Dr. Shinnob stopped, and the woman in the pink scrubs came up to him with a chart. He took it, gave one more look Casey’s way, then followed the nurse in the other direction. Casey heaved a sigh of relief and leaned against the wall, her heart pounding. Her disguise obviously wasn’t enough.

“Um, Casey,” Death said.

She looked up. A man lay in the hospital bed, sunk deep into his pillows. He was alone. And he was watching her, smiling.

“Hello, sweetheart. Did you come to take me away?”

Casey glanced at Death, who gave a subtle shake of the head. “No, sir,” Casey said. “Just checking in.”

“Come sit with me a minute.” The man patted the bed beside him.

“I don’t really have time—”

His smile faded. “Of course. You’re all so busy.”

Casey’s stomach fell. “I’ve got a minute or two.”

“No, you don’t,” Death said. “That doctor’s going to come in here and find out you’re a fraud.”

Casey went to stand beside the bed. “What would you like to talk about?”

The man lifted his skinny arm, his hand feeling for hers. She clasped his fingers.

“I don’t want to talk,” he said, his voice weak. “You talk. Tell me something happy.”

Death groaned.

Something happy? The poor man had asked precisely the wrong person. “I don’t know what—”

“Anything,” the man said. “You have to have something to say, a young, pretty girl like you.”

Casey tried to clear her mind of everything that had happened during the past day, the past week, the past year. When had she ever been happy? Or young? Or even pretty? What did that feel like?

“My wedding day,” she said aloud.

The man smiled again. “Yes.”

She thought back. “We weren’t sure if it was going to rain. The clouds were heavy and gray, with just a hint of blue sky in-between, and the air was chilly, with a light breeze. But they always say rain on your wedding day is lucky, right? So we didn’t care. We got married in a little church, with just a small group of family and friends. My mom and brother, a few cousins, the guys from my dojang.” She glanced at the man, who didn’t seem to notice she’d just said something unusual. “I wore my mother’s wedding dress, an ivory sheath, with just a bit of lace, and he wore a new gray suit, with a red sash. He’s Mexican,” she explained.

The man nodded.

“There was lots of singing, and good food planned for the reception—homemade soup in bread bowls, and my mother’s famous German Chocolate cake. But during the ceremony, just after Reuben slid the ring on my finger and