The Grim Reaper's Dance

“I’ll take the credit for that.” Bailey walked around Casey, examining her. “You didn’t even destroy your hair. But you haven’t slept on it or washed it yet. Then we’ll see.” She stopped in front of her. “So, did it work? Could you do whatever it was you wanted?”

“Well enough. I take it you didn’t get caught this afternoon?”

“No problem. Dad was gone when I got back, and by the time Mom got home I was all set up doing my homework—my teachers sent my stuff home with Sheryl. So, you still have all the make-up?”

Casey held up the now-bulging bag. She had removed the scrubs when she was a safe distance from the hospital. If Bruce was brave—or stupid—enough to tell somebody at the hospital about her visit, she didn’t want to be too obvious on the streets. “Can I keep them for a day or two? Just in case?”

Bailey waved her hand. “Keep them forever. Not exactly my style, you know. So sit. We’ve been waiting for you before we cut Terry’s cake.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Bailey insisted.” Terry held up a knife. “But now that you’re here…”

Casey lowered herself to the blanket, wondering where Death had gone. She expected to hear that annoying rubber band twanging any second. She also wondered what had happened to the store-bought cookies. Terry must’ve skipped his nap and made a trip to the bakery, after all.

“Here.” Bailey set another bag beside Casey. “Food. And more clothes.”

Casey stomach rumbled in response. “Thank you. You guys are all really— Hey, where’s Johnny?”

“Football.” Bailey rolled her eyes. “His dad makes him play. He doesn’t seem to realize that one more good knock to the head and Johnny’s history.”

“Really? Why? Too many concussions?”

“No,” Sheryl said. “Because he’s already dumb as rocks. Where can he go from there?”

“Sheryl…” Terry said, but it was half-hearted.

“Oh, Terry, don’t be such a sap. You know it’s true.”

Terry looked away, obviously uncomfortable.

Bailey wrinkled her nose at Casey. “We all love Johnny, you know? He’s a great guy, just—”

“—stupid.” Sheryl said.

A heavy silence fell, with only Sheryl willing to lift her eyes.

“Anyway,” Bailey finally said, “Johnny’s dad’s this bigwig doctor at the hospital.”

Casey blinked. “Not Dr. Shinnob?”

“Shinnob?” Bailey laughed. “Hardly. Dr. Cross. That’s Johnny’s last name. And Dr. Cross seems to realize Johnny’s never going to be doctor material, so he figures he’d better do something, like play football. You’d think the big doctor, of all people, would realize what that could do to Johnny’s head, but…” She shrugged. “Oh, well.”

“So, Martin,” Casey said, feeling sorry for Johnny. “Bailey says you have something for me. Oh, thank you.” She took the piece of cake Terry offered.

“I do.” Martin waggled his eyebrows. “What you gonna give me for it?”

“Martin!”

“Just joking, Bail, don’t have a shit fit. Here.” He dug in his bag and pulled out a manila file. “One accident report, fresh from the cop shop.”

“Thanks.” Casey wiped her fingers on a napkin and took the folder. “Anything you noticed?”

“What? You think I read it?”

“Yes.”

He grinned. “You’re right. I did. And you know what bugs me? Those machines on the road. They weren’t supposed to be there.”

It seemed obvious. Casey had thought the same thing. They had mentioned it in the newspaper articles. Why had no answers been found?

“It wasn’t a surprise the construction vehicles were around,” Martin said. “They’ve been clogging up that road for weeks. But when the road crew left on Saturday they were parked way over to the side. Nowhere near the actual driving area. And there were still tons of caution signs around.”

Casey hadn’t seen any of those. “So someone moved them on purpose.”

“Well, duh,” Sheryl said.

Bailey smacked Sheryl’s shoe.

“Another thing,” Martin said, scooting forward on the bucket. “The cops gave someone a speeding ticket on that stretch of road five minutes earlier.”

“Five minutes?”

“So the machines were beside the road then. Not on it.” Martin’s face was grim. “Whoever moved those machines did it just before you and the trucker came that way. Why would they do that?”

Casey’s stomach twisted. She’d known it. It couldn’t have been any other way. But to have confirmation that the machines were moved on purpose was almost too much to take.

“Casey?” Bailey looked up at her. “You knew that, didn’t you?”

Casey nodded, and let out a huff of air. “What else does the report say?”

Martin gestured to the file in her hand. “It’s all there.”

“But what else stuck out to you?”

“No witnesses.” Bailey spoke up this time.

Casey laughed. “You read it, too?”

“Of course.”

“Did anyone not read it?”

Sheryl and Terry shrugged. They’d read it, too.

“Anyway,” Bailey said, “there was no one who saw what happened. At least, no one who will come forward.”

“But you know what they did find?” Martin said. “Just before the accident? Somebody stopped the traffic going east, on the other side of the highway. So nobody was coming the opposite direction to see anything, anyway.”

“The police didn’t check out the traffic problem?”

“They tried. But by the time they got there, whoever had stopped the cars was gone, and traffic was moving again. They couldn’t find the people from the first stopped cars, who had seen what had stopped them to begin with. They were long gone.”

“And,” Bailey said, “the same thing happened on the western side. When the ambulances and stuff were coming to the accident from the other way, they had to get through a bunch of cars who’d been held up.”

“And nobody saw what caused that, either?”

Martin shook his head. “I talked to one of the cops who was called to the scene, and he said there were construction signs all over the highway, saying there was stopped traffic, and then orange barrels across the road.”

So that’s where the warning signs had gone.

“But there were no people. The cops just left the barrels there while they worked on the crash and got… well…took you to the hospital.”

Casey couldn’t believe it. She didn’t think these guys were that organized. “They planned every aspect of this.”

“Who did?”

Casey wasn’t sure who’d asked, but all four pairs of eyes were on her. “I don’t know yet.”

“But you know something,” Bailey said. “Don’t you?”

Casey knew some very important things, the main one being that the papers in her bag were worth killing for. No. The men hadn’t meant to kill Evan. At least not right then. But Randy Westing, Bruce Willoughby, and the other guy had brought guns to Davey’s scrapyard, and didn’t seem nervous about using them. She rubbed her temples. What was in those papers that was so damaging? Could it be simply that the drivers were operating under false names? Tom hadn’t seen anything blatantly illegal in the photos. Just that weird business of the logos being on, and then off, the trucks.

Casey looked around at the teenagers. Kids who were allying themselves with her. Forget herself—she was