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Maria approached the front door of Dan’s upscale office space in downtown St. Petersburg. She thought she had a little time to get comfortable before he arrived. Which was good. She had a surprise for him.
Okay, she’d been shopping. That wasn’t the surprise. That was her passion. The new Sundial St. Pete Mall was her new best jam. She realized getting such a charge out of retail therapy was possibly not healthy. But she had other hobbies. Kitesurfing. Scuba diving. Paragliding...
Okay, those were Dan’s hobbies. But she’d done them so many times they were starting to feel like hers.
Dan accepted Ben Kincaid’s offer to help manage the Last Chance Lawyer offices nationwide, but he didn’t want to move, so he needed this additional space downtown. He could still get to the beach in fifteen minutes, which allowed him to start his day with extreme watersports, risk his life a few times, and still put in a full day at the office.
She’d rather shop. Nothing wrong with that. Good genes and frequent trips to the gym had given her an excellent figure, and she knew Dan appreciated it, so why not show it to its best advantage? That didn’t make her any less feminist or lawyerly. It didn’t mean she was superficial or some ’50s hausfrau stereotype. It was simply a matter of...leading with her strong suit.
The salespeople knew her well enough to offer the best deals on sight. Some people shopped online, but she thought that was so much less fun, surfing Poshmark or The RealReal. She wasn’t a snob but she worked hard to get where she was and if that allowed her to dress well, what was wrong with that? She didn’t want to be upstaged by someone who scored a pair for less by obsessive clicking.
She switched into some midleg straight Gucci jeans she’d left in her car. They looked awesome on her. Skinny jeans were so yesterday and she for one was glad. She had an actual figure. She watched what she ate but didn’t starve herself. And they were Gucci, for heaven’s sake, Gucci, and she got a great deal on them at Ellenton Premium Outlets.
One thing was certain. Dan would notice she had new jeans. He always did. He would say she looked great in them. He always did. And if they got a little privacy, he might show her how much he liked them. They’d been together for several years now, but he didn’t seem to have lost his enthusiasm. Maybe it was because they hadn’t married, hadn’t had children. They still had room for one another, but...
She stepped inside Dan’s office and closed the door.
The lights were off in the lobby. Not surprising. He didn’t have a full-time receptionist or assistant.
She took two steps forward, then stopped.
Her foot hit something.
She couldn’t make out what it was in the dim light, so she pulled her phone from a tight jeans pocket and turned on the flashlight.
Books, files, papers, and folders littered the floor. An entire file cabinet had been overturned. Broken glass littered the carpet.
Someone had ransacked the office and made a mess in the process.
Did she hear something? The tiniest sound of weight shifting...
She felt a chill trickle through her body.
Was else someone here? She started to call out, then stopped.
She turned off the flashlight, then pressed herself against the wall and held her breath. Dan’s private office was just around the corner. The only other room was a kitchenette.
She was certain Dan had not beaten her here. She came as quickly as she could and she would’ve noticed his Ferrari in the parking lot.
Maybe it would be smarter to call someone. She was getting seriously concerned and she didn’t need any trouble. Maybe she should just tiptoe out...
The hood appeared before her with such suddenness it seemed supernatural, as if it had materialized out of the ether. And then the skeletal face emerged.
She jumped. She hated being startled, but who could blame her? It looked weird, gaunt, twisted...
And a hand was traveling toward her throat.
She ducked. She would’ve preferred to have a calm conversation and determine what the hell was happening, but that didn’t seem to be an option at the moment. She swiveled around, dodging a blow, then raced toward the front door.
It wouldn’t budge.
Damn. She’d locked it behind herself on her way in, hadn’t she? She twisted the deadbolt—
Too late. She felt a hand on her shoulder and a second later, a hard shove. She smashed into the glass door, making a titanic noise and briefly losing her footing. Her assailant grabbed her neck. Her head whipped back so fast it cracked the glass. She felt glass tumbling around her head, but at the moment, that was the least of her concerns.
Her phone was still in her hand. She beamed the flashlight toward her assailant.
And gasped.
The Grim Reaper had come calling. And now had her by the throat, so there was little question about who Death wanted to be the next passenger to the netherworld.
The dark figure knocked her phone out of her hand. It skidded across the floor.
“What—What do you want?” Maria gasped.
No reply. Seemed Death was not much for small talk.
But the grip around her throat tightened.
She had to do something and she had to do it fast. She pounded the arm pinning her down, but it didn’t make any difference. She aimed a blow at the elbow, where everyone’s arm was most vulnerable.
Death didn’t budge. That skinny arm did not buckle in the slightest.
She guessed she probably could survive another thirty seconds of this choking before she lost consciousness. And then finishing her off would be easy.
“Why—are you doing this?” she managed to croak.
No answer.
She kicked the cloaked figure hard in the leg.
Death responded by clubbing the side of her head.
Ohmigod. The pain was so intense she forgot how to breathe. She felt the little air left in her lungs spill out. Her legs weakened. She would’ve fallen to her knees, except Death’s steady grip held her upright.
“Are you...going to kill me?” she choked. She didn’t expect a reply.
But she got one. The voice was weird and distorted. “You’re not on the list. You’re just in the way.”
Was that good? Bad? She wasn’t sure. “Is that why you’re trying to kill me?”
“You aren’t the first. You won’t be the last.”
That sounded ominous, even if she didn’t have a clue what the Reaper was talking about. “Are you looking for Dan? I expect him here any moment. And believe me, he is going to kick your ass so hard it’ll probably end up in the Pacific Ocean.”
No response. Other than an increased tightening, crushing her trachea.
Kicking Death’s leg didn’t accomplish anything, so she switched to a swift kick between the legs. Male or female, didn’t matter. That didn’t feel good to anyone.
Right after she landed the blow, she felt the choking grip relax slightly. This was her opportunity. She screamed, loud and defiant, then pushed back as hard as she could. The Reaper stumbled, then tripped and fell.
She knew she had seconds at best. She unlocked the damaged door, started through—
Death grabbed her foot. Technically, grabbed the bottom of her straight-leg Gucci jeans. She fell forward, scraping her hands on the pavement.
The sudden burst of pain helped clear the fog in her head. She kicked backward, trying to force him to let go.
He did not.
She rolled over. By God, she’d worked hard to establish her rep as a lawyer, and she’d worked even harder to get Dan to pull his head out of his butt and notice that she adored him. She was not going to let this bastard take it all away from her.
She waited until Death’s head was close. Then she swung around with both fists and pounded the sides of the hood.
Death winced. She knew that hurt. She’d used the same move on creeps at frat parties and law school keggers. It still worked.
But the grip on her neck did not relax. She couldn’t see a face, but she felt the rage.
An angry psycho dressed like the Grim Reaper held her captive. Not a promising scenario.
She was pinned down on the concrete. She tried screaming again.
Death slapped her hard across the face.
Then the fog set in, much too quickly. It was already so dark. Was this the final darkness?
What had she interrupted? What was Death after?
She didn’t want to die, but in the end, she had to admit she’d lived a dynamite life. She couldn’t complain.
Except she really did want Dan to see her in these jeans. And to tell him about her surprise...
Too late.