Grim Reaper 01 - Embrace the Grim Reaper

me go.”
    So he held her there, his warmth and body trapping her beneath him as she shivered and shook, until she finally, with one last shudder, tapped him on the hip with a finger, one of the few body parts she could move. “Eric.”
    “Yes?”
    “I can’t breathe.”
    He lifted himself onto his elbows and rolled off of her, leaving her flat and deflated. He sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at her, smoothing her tear- and blood-sticky hair from her face. “I’m sorry, Casey.”
    “Yeah.” She closed her eyes. “Yeah, I’m sorry, too.” She could hear him breathing, could hear her own breaths matching his. She rolled onto her side, away from him, hugging her sore wrist to her chest.
    “I can’t do it,” Eric said.
    She opened her eyes. “Do what?”
    “Leave Ellen. I can’t let her disappear. I can’t let her death be what they want us to think. Chief Reardon never even questioned it. Just believed what the forensic people said.”
    She rolled back toward him. “We don’t have to let her disappear, Eric.”
    “But what can we do? We have nothing, except—”
    “The DVD,” they said together.
    “I can’t go back to get it from your mom,” Casey said. “There are…I can’t go back.”
    He nodded, not asking her to explain. “Well, then, it’s good you don’t have to.”
    “I don’t?”
    “Nope. Because I’ve got it right here. I brought it home after that night at their house.”
    “You did?” Casey sat up.
    “Yes. Come on.”
    “What about the cops? They’ll probably be back. They’ll see the light downstairs.”
    He stopped. “Okay. Wait here.”
    He was back in less than a minute, sliding the DVD into a player on top of his dresser. “This TV isn’t nearly as good as Rosemary and Lillian’s, but it should do.”
    They fast-forwarded through Eric’s visit and the minutes of Yvonne typing, until they got to Todd’s arrival. They watched his entrance and exit, and fast-forwarded again, through the remaining office footage of Yvonne’s office work, all the way to the blue screen.
    “Nothing,” Eric said.
    “Let’s watch again.”
    They did, but saw nothing much more than Karl’s door and Yvonne’s desk.
    “I don’t get it,” Eric said. He tossed the remote onto the quilt and yawned, rubbing his hand over his face.
    Casey picked up the remote and went back to the first frame of the footage, freezing the picture. She sucked in a breath. “Eric.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Look at the picture.”
    “I’m looking.”
    “What are we looking at?”
    He shrugged. “Karl’s door.”
    Casey shook her head. “What is in the middle of the frame?”
    He squinted at the TV. “Yvonne?”
    “And?”
    He sat up. “Yvonne’s computer.”
    Casey started the DVD again and jumped up from the sofa, standing with her face inches from the screen. “I can’t read the typing on here. It’s too small.”
    Eric went to the player and ejected the DVD. “Come on. We’ll look on my computer.”
    They left the lights off as they went downstairs, Casey avoiding windows. Eric’s computer sat in a messy office, one of the four bedrooms in his house. He put in the disk, and with the media player he enlarged the screen of Yvonne’s computer so they could see the typing.
    “These are just bills,” Eric said. “They look normal. Nothing unusual about paying utility bills or insurance premiums.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “No, but I think so.”
    “Okay. Move ahead.”
    They fast-forwarded, stopping frequently, moving past payroll and inter-office memos about packing up supplies, announcements telling employees to be sure to sign up for their severance packages, and production lists.
    “There,” Eric said. “What’s that?”
    Casey’s stomach flipped. She knew the format. She knew it all too well. “It’s a contract.”
    “About what?” Eric said, bending closer to the screen.
    Casey noted the names at the beginning of the document: MIKE and PATRICIA MARLOWE.
    “This contract is between HomeMaker and these people,” Casey said. “The Marlowes.” She read further, the hair on the back of her neck prickling. “It says someone died from using one of HomeMaker’s appliances.” She looked at Eric. “It was a dryer.”

Chapter Forty-one
    Eric slid the DVD into its sleeve. “So it’s true. Ellen was right. Where do we go to find out more? HomeMaker?”
    Casey shook her head. “There’s surveillance there. We’d be seen for sure.” She sighed. “Who would be