Prologue

Cassandra held out her hand and beckoned. “Come with me.” She ignored the crushing sadness that bled from the woman. It was a drawback of the job that she could sense every emotion from whoever she approached.

The woman looked around, a bewildered expression on her face. “What’s happening?” She looked down at her feet, saw her body lying there, and took a startled step back.

“It’s okay. I’m here to help.” That was her job, her purpose. And she was damn good at it. Why, then, did her heart clutch a little tighter this time?

“Am I dead?” the woman asked.

She ignored the question that they inevitably all asked. There was no point answering. It changed nothing. “Please come with me.” The quicker she finished this job the better. The calm and sense of purpose that had sustained her through the never-ending passage of time was nowhere to be found.

The woman placed both hands behind her back and shook her head in denial. “No. I don’t want to go. This is a bad dream. That’s all it is. I’m not dead. Really, I’m not.”

Something inside her shifted. She could almost hear an audible snap. Sorrow cascaded over her. “I’m truly sorry.” And for the first time in her existence, maybe she was. “There is no going back.” No matter how much she might wish differently. She reached out, gently took the woman by the arm, and led her away from the dark alley and fetid stench of garbage and blood, away from her lifeless form.

The woman’s only crime? Covering a friend’s shift at the restaurant where they both worked so the friend could celebrate an anniversary with her husband. For that, she’d died. A victim of a robbery gone wrong. Simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That was fate. And she was a bitch.

It was so unfair. But then again, no one ever promised life wouldn’t be.

“There’s so much I have left to do,” the woman murmured. “Fall in love, finish culinary school, get married, have kids.”

She tried to block it out. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard millions of times before.

But this time was different.

Still, she had a job to do. But for the first time, she was reluctant. If only she could turn back the hands of time and warn the woman to stay home. But then her friend would have died, and it wasn’t her time. Stiffening her spine and swallowing back the rage bubbling up inside her, she guided her charge forward. “This is where you need to be.”

A brilliant light shone on the woman. She peered into it and slowly nodded before glancing back over her shoulder. “It’s just not fair.” Then she walked forward and was gone, leaving Cassandra all alone in the dark.