I shook myself but still kept hold of my body. Of my past. “It’s me,” I said, then cleared my throat. “This is my body.”
He let out a low whistle. “Why’s it in here?”
I shook my head and carefully put it back where it was. Then I looked at the one beside it. It was a man I’d never seen before. He had dark hair parted on the side and combed over. It was an old hairstyle from a very long time ago. There wasn’t anything remarkable or special about him so I moved on to the next body.
It was a woman.
I reached out and pulled her out for Storm to see. “Check her out.”
She was wearing a long gown made of rich woven fabric. I couldn’t tell exactly, but her hair looked like it was a shade of red and it was done up in a style of many curls all piled on her head. She had pale skin and what appeared to be freckles splattered across her cheeks. She was pretty attractive, if you liked redheads.
“When’s the last time you saw a girl in G.R.’s closet?” I asked Storm, not taking my eyes off her.
“Um, never?”
“Exactly. He doesn’t use women as Escorts. He thinks they’re too soft to kill.”
“Well, he hasn’t met my ex,” Storm quipped.
It was something I didn’t agree with the Reaper about, though I never said anything. Who he chose to make an Escort wasn’t something I cared about. I wasn’t going to make friends with them and I worked alone so it didn’t matter in terms of my job either. But if you asked me, a woman had the potential to be the perfect Escort. Because of a woman’s softness, their girly-like qualities, they were often underestimated. They were too often thought of as innocent. Many Targets wouldn’t see their death coming until it was already delivered.
“What’s in the next one?” Storm asked.
It took me a second to close the door of the closet I was standing in front of. It was surprisingly hard to shut away the body I’d just found.
But I did. Because I knew I wasn’t going to leave it there.
I pulled open the next door.
There was a single body.
I sucked in a breath.
It washer. My sister.
Sadness overcame me. Sadness for her… about a life cut way too short. A life lost that was all my fault. And now there she was, hanging in a secret, dark closet like she was someone’s shirt. Like she wasn’t once brimming with life with her own set of dreams and wants. She had been a person… a beautiful and innocent person. And now she was here. Held hostage by a man who shouldn’t even have her. I should have known she was here. I should have done something.
Her light hair was around her shoulders and she was dressed in the same clothes she was wearing the last time I saw her.
“Another woman?” Storm said. “She’s hot.”
I spun around and snarled. “Watch your mouth.”
“Whoa. I didn’t mean nothing.” He backtracked. After a short pause, he said, “I take it you know this one too?”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Yeah, I do.”
But really, there wasn’t anything here to know. Yes, I recognized the body, but it was merely a shell of the person who lived inside. It was she who I missed. I didn’t think she was here. I would have known. After all these years of working for the Reaper, of butting heads with him, there was no way he could have kept the fact that my sister was still alive a secret.
Besides. I knew she was dead.
I was the one who killed her.
“I don’t mean to interrupt your… uh, reunion,” Storm said over my shoulder. “But we need to hurry.”
He was right.
There was still one more closet to look in. Gently, I closed the closet containing my sister and faced the final door.
