The Tessa Randolph Collection, Books 1-3 by Paula Lester (best ereader for comics .txt) 📗

Without warning, the hood slammed. Silas jumped back in the passenger side. “She’ll start now. Let’s go.”

“What about your truck?” She twisted the key and puffed out a breath when the engine came to life, even though it was more of a whimper than a roar. It didn’t matter. Linda was running. She put it in reverse and stepped on the gas.

“It’s down the road a bit.” He gestured the right direction, and Tessa went that way. An ambulance, then three police cars passed them, squealing into Artemis’s driveway.

Tessa had the ridiculous thought that they would have to hop out and open the other side of the gate for the ambulance to fit through.

Silas said, “If you don’t explain to me what I just saw, my brain is going to explode.”

Tessa pulled onto the shoulder behind Silas’s truck. “Let’s get back to my apartment, okay?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “If it’s not assisted suicide then, what?” He barked out a thin laugh tinged with hysteria and brushed floppy hair out of his eyes. “I know. You’re the grim reaper.”

When she didn’t laugh at his attempt at a joke, his face stilled, eyes widening a fraction. He whispered, “Are you the grim reaper?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m a grim reaper.”

Chapter 5

SILAS STARED AT TESSA, his throat working as though a bunch of words were fighting each other to be the first one out of his mouth. None of them won. He remained silent.

Tessa's phone buzzed. She pulled it out of her pocket, and her brow furrowed as she scrolled down the list of pop-ups on the screen.

"My phone's been blowing up," she muttered.

During all the running and screaming and siren wailing, she hadn't heard or felt it buzzing. She had a bunch of missed calls and texts from the office telling her to get there for a meeting immediately. The last one from Gloria, said, "SOS. Get here now."

"What on earth? Silas, I don't know what's going on, but there's some kind of emergency at the office."

Silas didn't reach for the door handle. "What did you just say?"

She held up the phone. “Work is being weird. Well, weirder.” Usually, it was a laid-back office just as long as the reaps got done.

Silas shook his head. "Not that. Before. I mean, I know what you said. You said you're a grim reaper. But I was just kidding when I suggested that. I mean kind of. I did think something supernatural was afoot.” Another head shake that sent his hair to flapping over troubled eyes. “But how is it possible to be that? If you don’t work for an assisted suicide organization, then what is it? Some kind of government thing? Are you an agent of some sort?"

"Sort of. I swear I'll explain all of this to you. Tonight. Right now, I have to get to work."

“Right. Your work. Grim reaping or whatever.” Finally, some color flooded into Silas’s too-pale face. With it, anger floated across his features. He reached for the door handle.

“It’s complicated,” Tessa said.

"I’m sure.”

Tessa’s phone buzzed again. She winced.

“I don't know what's going on here, but I'm not sure I can be associated with it.” He stabbed a finger toward Tessa’s phone. “You do what you have to do. Maybe I'll be around tonight to hear your explanation—and maybe I won't."

He jumped out of Linda before Tessa could say anything else, slamming the door behind him. He stalked to his pickup truck, got in, and pulled away.

Part of Tessa wanted to wheel the car around and follow him back to Mist River Manor. She could explain everything right that moment and smooth things over before he could stew over it all afternoon, getting angrier and more frightened. Because she was sure part of his reaction was fear.

If she put herself in his shoes, she would be scared. She imagined herself following her boyfriend to a mansion, only to find him standing in a room with a man whose lifeless body lay in a bowl of cereal. She shuddered. Terror would probably be right at the top of the list of emotions she’d be having. Especially if the boyfriend’s explanation for the whole thing was that he was a grim reaper.

Tessa's phone buzzed again. Whatever this was, it truly must be an emergency. She groaned before pulling the car onto the street and heading away from Silas and toward the façade that was the Cooper’s Life Insurance building.

Her mind wasn’t really on the driving. It lurched back and forth between the situation with Silas and Artemis Green’s contention that someone had poisoned him. Before she knew it, and without having worked through either of the problems her mind had been chewing on, Tessa arrived at work.

She sprinted across the broken sidewalk and through the front door and then stopped short—short of crashing into another reaper, Jake. The lobby was full of people. Gloria and Cheryl were there, as were the other two reapers who worked at their agency and the secretary.

There was a thermos of coffee and an open box of donuts on the counter above the secretary’s desk. But there were no regular donuts left, only some sort of cream filled and a bear claw. Neither of which Tessa fancied. Good thing she’d had cereal. But the thought of cereal took her mind back to Mr. Green.

Six necks swiveled and twelve eyes focused on Tessa, who felt like their gazes physically pinned her to the closed door behind her. “Um. Hi!” She followed up her overly perky greeting with a toddler-like wave. “Sorry I’m late.”

Cheryl rolled her eyes. “Where were you? Your assignment was over ages ago.”

“I was . . . well, my car wouldn’t start.” It wasn’t anyone’s business that she’d been caught in a reap by her almost-boyfriend and then had to escape the situation, dragging him along, before the cops and ambulance showed up.

Okay, maybe it was her mom-boss’s business. But she could read about it later in