“No.”

With a soft laugh, he reached around my waist, pulled me to him, and bent his head. I breathed in softly as his lips touched mine; then he was gone.

When people crossed through me, I could feel their warmth, sense their fondest memories, and smell their auras. After he disappeared, I lifted the collar of my sweater to smell him again. His scent was a mixture of cotton candy and sandalwood. I breathed deep, hoping never to forget him. When he was twelve, he risked his life to save a neighborhood boy from a dog attack, resulting in twenty-seven stitches for himself. The fact that neither he nor the boy died was slightly miraculous. But that’s all he’d ever wanted to do. To help people. To save the world. Then along came a drunk kindergarten teacher named Carrie Liedell to rob us of one of the good guys.

And he had been lost. For three years, he’d lost who he was, what he’d grown up to be. Until Cookie opened that trunk and my light found him, he lay in confusion and darkness. Somehow, according to his memories, my light had brought him back. Maybe there was more to being a grim reaper than myth would have me believe. I totally owed Cookie a margarita.

“Do you kiss dead people all the time?” Garrett asked.

I’d forgotten he was there. “I didn’t kiss him,” I said defensively. “He crossed through me.”

“Yeah, right.” He shouldered me as he walked past. “Remind me to cross through you when I die.”

Chapter Fourteen

SOME GIRLS WEAR PRADA.

SOME GIRLS WEAR GLOCK 17 SHORT RECOIL SPRING-LOADED SEMIAUTOMATIC

PISTOLS WITH A LOADED CHAMBER INDICATOR AND A NONSLIP GRIP.

—T-SHIRT

For a short, blissful moment, I’d almost forgotten that Reyes could be dead, that I might never see him again. The moment I climbed back into Misery and started home, the weight of sorrow resettled around me. I focused on breathing and passing every car possible just because I could. It was after six when we got back to the office. I didn’t bother going to see my dad. The hospital released him and he was home, which would mean a tedious drive to the Heights, and the four hours of restless sleep I’d managed the night before had worn off around noon. I figured I’d go see him on the morrow. After a long night’s sleep.

Cookie was going to do a little more work and was checking messages as I headed out. Ubie had left one, explaining where Cookie’s car was and still wanting his statement. Didn’t I give him a statement? It was never enough with that man.

“Will you make it home?” Cookie asked me, frowning in doubt.

“Don’t I look like I’ll make it home?”

“The truth?”

“I’ll make it home,” I promised with a grin.

“’Kay. How about that Mistress Marigold?”

“No kidding.” I shook my head in astonishment. “How on Earth did she pull the son of Satan out of her bag?”

“I wish I knew. I just signed you up for a fake e-mail address and e-mailed her. You need to check it from time to time.” She handed me a scrap paper with the username and password on it. Her face softened then. “He’s okay, Charley. I’m sure of it.”

The mere thought of Reyes siphoned the breath from my lungs. I decided to change the subject before I turned blue from lack of oxygen. Blue was not my best color. “Mistress Marigold’s a nut. And I think Mimi’s in hiding.”

She acquiesced with a smile. “I think so, too. On both accounts. I think Mimi knew what was happening and went underground on purpose.”

“We’ll find her.” After a promising nod, I went home to a bowl of cold cereal and a shower. A hot one, now that Dead Trunk Guy had crossed. The rascal.

I barely remembered landing on my bed when I was awakened by a familiar texture sliding over my skin. A warmth. An electricity. My lashes fluttered open, and I looked over at one Mr. Reyes Alexander Farrow sitting on the floor underneath my window. Watching.

He was incorporeal, so despite the darkness that drenched the other objects in the room, every fluid line of his being was visible, each one tempting, luring my eyes, like the hypnotic waves of the ocean. I followed them, drifted over the plains and plummeted into the valleys below.

I turned over to face him, burrowing farther into the folds of my comforter. “Are you dead?” I asked, my voice a groggy echo of its real self.

“Does it matter?” he volleyed, evading the question.

He was sitting as he’d been sitting in the black-and-white photograph stalker chick Elaine Oake had—one leg bent, an arm thrown over it, his head back against the wall. The intensity of his gaze held me captive. It was hard to breathe under the weight of it. I wanted nothing more than to go to him, to explore every solid inch of his hard body. But I didn’t dare.

As if aware of the exact moment I decided not to go to him, he smiled, tilted his head. “Little girl grim,” he said, his voice like butterscotch, smooth and sweet and so tempting, my mouth literally watered. “I used to watch you for hours on end.”

I battled down the elation that thought evoked. The thought of him watching me. Staring. Studying. I’m sure he felt it anyway. He had to know how easy I was when it came to him.

“I used to watch the way you ran through the park to get to the swings, the way your glistening hair spilled over your shoulders and fell in tangles down your back. The way your lips turned red when you ate Popsicles. And your smile.” A heavy sigh slid through his mouth. “My God, it was blinding.”