The thing that had stuck out the most, though, was that she’d noticed his watch had stopped: When she’d called 911, they’d told her to see if there was a pulse and she’d gone for his nearest wrist. As she’d pulled it up and dug her fingers in, she’d seen that the timepiece was not the one their father had given him upon his graduation from U Penn—that Rolex had long ago been pawned off. What he’d had on was just a battery-operated Timex and the hands had frozen at eight twenty-four.

It was the same way that Daniel’s body had just stopped. After all the beatings it had taken, it had finally run out of life.

So ugly. The scene had been so ugly. And yet his lovely hair had been the same. He’d always had a blond angel mop, as their mother had called it, and even on the slide into dead-and-gone, the curls on his head had retained their perfect circular nature: though the color was dingy from lack of washing, Grier had been able to see past that to the beauty that was.

Or had been, as it were.

Snapping out of the past, she rubbed her face and stood up from the sofa.

Then with all the grace of a zombie, she put the back stairs to use and went to her room—where she got a suitcase and started packing.

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 27

On the lawn at the McCready Funeral Home, Jim didn’t waste a lot of time trying to figure out how Devina had known where to find him: She was here and the issue was how to get rid of her.

“Cat got your tongue, Jim.” Her voice was just as he remembered it—low, smooth, deep. Sexy—provided you didn’t know what was inside her skin.

“Nah. Not hardly.”

“How have you been, by the way.”

“I’m fan-fucking-tastic.”

“Yes. You are.” She smiled, showing perfect pearlies. “I’ve missed you.”

“What a sap.”

Devina laughed, the sound rolling through the chilly night air. “Not in the slightest.”

As a car turned the corner and went by on the street, its headlights illuminated the front of the funeral home and the patches of brown in the lawn and the barely budding dogwood—and did absolutely nothing to Devina. Then again, she didn’t really exist in this world.

The demon’s eyes ran down him and then focused on Matthias. “Back to the issue at hand.”

“There is no issue, Devina.”

“I love when you say my name.” She took a lazy step forward, but Jim wasn’t fooled by the nothing-special. “Whatever are you going to do with him?”

“I was going to put him in his car to wake up. But now I’m thinking I’ll fly him back to Boston.”