I decided impress them with brutal honesty. “I don’t normally tell people this, but I’m the grim reaper.”

Smiles snaked across all their faces, even the prince’s. He looked around me from behind and winked.

Another emotion came over Donovan then, something startlingly similar to respect, admiration. He tensed as if fighting for resolve and studied me a long moment. “I’m so f**king in love with you,” he said before dropping his gaze to Danger and Will. “You’d better go before I change my mind.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I ducked past a grinning prince and tore out of that place like a cat in a room full of pit bulls.

While I wanted to stop and chat with Rocket, now was clearly not the time. Those men were going to be out for blood. I just hoped Blake had a good pair of running shoes.

20

Some days you’re the cat. Some days you’re the brand-new, suede leather Barcalounger.

—T-SHIRT

Cookie had left the info on Yost’s property in Pecos by the coffeepot in my apartment. I gave a shout out to Mr. Wong, then put on a pot of java before looking it over. According to the county tax assessor’s report, Yost had a hunting cabin deep in a wooded area of the Santa Fe Mountains a short distance from the Pecos River. Shouldn’t be too hard to find during the day. Since it was already dark, I’d have to wait and head out at first light.

In the meantime, I rummaged through my bag—a cross between a clutch and a suitcase—and fished out the mail I’d stolen from the crime scene of Farley Scanlon’s mobile home. The girl with the knife looked on, slightly interested. I’d managed to abscond with two envelopes addressed to a Harold Reynolds and one addressed to Harold Zane Reynolds. Unfortunately, two were credit card offers, and one was a flyer inviting Harold to invest in gold.

After making a mega-sized cup of coffee, I sat at my computer to see what dirt I could dig up on the guy. The girl stood beside me, mesmerized by the computer screen, her knife clutched solidly in her hand.

It didn’t take me long to find out Harold Zane Reynolds was fairly nonexistent. “Well, this sucks,” I said to the girl. She ignored me.

I searched a bit more and found a previous address for a Harold Z. Reynolds, that looked promising. If nothing else, maybe a neighbor knew Harold and could tell me where he’d gone. If he hadn’t killed them all.

I repacked my belongings, poured my coffee into a to-go cup, then headed out the door, leaving the girl in the incapable hands of Mr. Wong. She was too busy studying my screen saver to notice my absence anyway.

Garrett must have called it a day. Neither he nor his colleague was out front, which made me happy until I hopped in Misery and started toward the address. Something about it seemed familiar. And the closer I got, weaving my way through Albuquerque’s south side, the colder the realization prickling my spine became.

I pulled to a stop in front of a condemned apartment building, the reality of where I was washing over me in stupefying waves. The last time I’d been at this particular building, I stood in the street with my sister Gemma and watched as a man beat a teenage boy unconscious. If I hadn’t been sure Harold Reynolds was one of Earl’s aliases before, I was now.

I looked up at the boarded window, the same window I’d thrown a brick through to get the man to stop. I looked to the side between the buildings where Gemma and I had run when the man came after us. I looked at the steps I’d taken the next day when I went back and found out from an angry landlady that the family in 2C had moved out during the night, stiffing her for two months’ rent and a broken window.

Stepping out of Misery, I closed the door and stared for a very long time as memory after memory flooded my senses, tightened my chest. The crisp night kept me alert as several sets of eyes locked on to me. Most were homeless, hidden in the shadows of the apartment building and the abandoned school behind me. A couple others most likely belonged to gang members curious about my reason for being there. I offered none of them my attention. I just stared at the window. It had been so bright that night, illuminated with a sickly yellow as Earl Walker pummeled a boy named Reyes. Counting back, Reyes had to have been about eighteen at the time. I was fifteen. Young. Impressionable. Ready to save the world with my super reaper powers. Yet the only thing I could do to save him was throw a brick from the abandoned school through the window.

It worked. Earl stopped hitting him and came after us.

If I had called the police that night, if Reyes had let me, I doubt I would’ve been standing here at this moment. I doubt Reyes would have gone to prison for killing Earl. Surely Children, Youth, and Family would’ve taken Reyes and Kim out of that situation. Surely they would have been safe.

With nothing to lose and hours before dawn, I grabbed a flashlight and a tire iron—partly for breaking and entering and partly for protection—and headed up the steps. The metal door had definitely seen better days, and it didn’t take me long to gain access. I was certain the homeless people in the area had been entering the building the same way for months, possibly years. The entrance opened up to the second floor. The floor beneath sat half underground. And 2C was directly on my left. I stepped over trash, debris, and a couple sets of legs, careful not to shine the light directly in the faces of the people lining the walls, until I came to a door with half a 2 nailed to it and the unpainted remnants of a C.

“I wouldn’t go in there, missy.”

I turned to a voice echoing down the hall and raised the light. A woman sat wrapped in several layers of clothes, a shopping cart turned over beside her to protect her meager belongings. Or she needed driving lessons. She raised her hand to shield the light, and I immediately lowered it. I didn’t need it anyway. Not for her.