Five Deaths of Roxanne Love: A Page a Day (9)

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He’d walked in like he had a purpose, though. Now he sat cloaked in all that shadow and manliness. It was unnerving. He was unnerving. And he’d been watching her since he’d come in.

She knew because she’d been watching him back.

“What does it matter if he’s a cop?” she asked Reece, trying not to look at the man again. “We’re not breaking the law. We’re serving food and drinks, just like it says we do on the front door. I’ve been checking IDs. Don’t worry about him.”

“I’m not worried,” Reece snapped.

“Then why are you biting my head off?” She grabbed his sleeve when he would have turned away. “Seriously. What’s up? What’s the matter?”

Her brother glanced at the man again before he searched Roxanne’s face as if seeking understanding. But she didn’t get what he wanted her to understand. In all honesty, it had been a long time since she’d been on the same page with her twin. Not since the accident.

“Nothing’s going on,” Reece said at last. “I just want to get the fuck out of here.”

With that, he filled his cup and went back to the kitchen. A few seconds later, she heard him slamming things around and cursing loud enough that Jim and Sal, regulars who could be found at their bar most any night, could hear him. The two men exchanged glances but said nothing. 

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Five Deaths of Roxanne Love: A Page a Day (8)

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At the same time, a niggling sense of disquiet wormed its way into her addled brain.

“I’ll be right back with your drink,” she mumbled.

As she turned away, the stain caught her eye again and her unease tipped into foreboding. The power of the feeling on the heels of her embarrassment gave it a disproportionate weight that made it all the more disturbing. What the hell was wrong with her tonight?

She served the man’s drink quickly, avoiding his eyes and returning to the safety of the bar like an awkward teenager with a really bad crush.

A minute later her twin brother pushed through the swinging door from the kitchen. “Eighty-six the meatloaf,” Reece said, eyeing the deserted bar and tables. “We should just close up for the night.”

“Ryan says not before midnight.” Ryan was their older brother and the boss.

“Ryan says,” Reece mocked.

He caught sight of the man sitting in the corner and paled.

“Who’s that?” he demanded, turning his back as he filled his cup with ice and soda.

“A customer?” she answered.

He scowled at her. “I don’t think so. He looks like a cop.”

Surprised, Roxanne gave the man in question a glance. He didn’t look like a cop to her, but he had this dark, sexy as sin, if George Clooney were Latino thing going on that lent him a mysterious, dangerous air. 

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Five Deaths of Roxanne Love: A Page a Day (7)

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He wore a black T-shirt beneath a weathered leather jacket that looked like it might have been brown at one time but had faded to a distressed shade of beige. Jeans hugged his long legs and a whole lot of masculine mojo followed him like fanfare.

He took a seat in the corner, seeming to pull all the shadows in around him. The observation was so strange that it made her pause.

“What can I get for you?” she asked, setting a cocktail napkin in front of him.

“Wild Turkey,” he ordered in a smoky voice that teased her a step closer.

He was ridiculously attractive with all that dark, brooding attitude and he-man brawn. In contrast, he had the longest eyelashes she’d ever seen. Thick and black, they framed smoldering eyes the color of midnight.

“Please,” he tacked on when she stood there staring.

Embarrassed, she asked, “Straight up or on the rocks?”

“In a glass,” he answered with a bewildered frown.

She might have laughed if he hadn’t seemed so serious.

“That’s generally where we pour them,” she said. “The floor is just too messy.”

His startled expression became a slow grin that made her blush to her roots. He was that good-looking. 

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Five Deaths of Roxanne Love: A Page a Day (6)

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Fifty-eight minutes before she died, Roxanne Love noticed three things. The stain on the ceiling, her brother’s short fuse, and the tall stranger who quietly entered and sat in the back.

The stain had caught her eye earlier, and after that, she couldn’t stop looking at it. A stain meant a leak and that meant a bill. Bad news all around. But worse than that, the black splotch crouching in the far corner like a fat spider gave her a bad case of the creeps, though she couldn’t say just why. The crazy feeling stalked her as she served drinks to the two customers sitting at the bar of the pub she co-owned with her sister and brothers. She couldn’t shake it.

Then the man came through the front door.

Six and a half feet tall, sporting the kind of muscle that took work to build, he strode in like he was on a mission. 

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Five Deaths of Roxanne Love: A Page a Day (5)

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Or should.

For Santo Castillo, death would come, but not from a bullet. His beautiful face would remain intact, his gray matter safely stored in his cranium. The reaper had never taken a soul from a human that still lived, but he didn’t hesitate to do it now. He needed a body for a day, maybe less. Just long enough to find the woman who’d escaped him. The woman whose soul he’d touched, held, and lost. Just long enough to reap her and return to the Beyond.

In less than twenty-four hours Roxanne Love would die once again. Only this time he’d be there, in flesh and spirit, to make sure she stayed dead.

As Santo put the gun in his mouth once more, the reaper sat down on the table in front of him and let himself be seen. For a single, glorious moment, Santo’s terror swaddled them both, then the reaper took over and put an end to the human’s misery.

--End of Chapter 1--

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