Page 12 of Death and Do-Overs

I shook my head, not wanting to hear that, or whatever she had to say next.

Imogen bared her unnaturally white teeth in her most unsettling smile. If I didn’t know it meant trouble, I’d like this expression of hers best. It was off-putting to most, as it resembled a snarl, but it was brutally honest, unrestrained Imogen.

She said, “It’s how I know there are rainbows behind your raincloud exterior, just waiting to be released.”

I poked her in the nose. “No.”

She blinked hard.

Andrew shined a small flashlight into Nie’s eyes, still not sharing what he was looking for or if he’d found anything. He swabbed inside her ears and up her nose.

My nose itched as I watched.

“What about the reaper?” Wendy suggested. “She’s clearly gaga for murder.”

Imogen frowned. “Birdiepromisedto leave us alone.”

After attempting to manipulate Imogen into becoming a reaper, Bernadette Graves conceded defeat with a promise not to kill any of us before it was our time. There was nothing stopping her from going back on her word, or from deciding it was Nie’s time to die.

“That’s also possible,” I agreed with Wendy.

“She wouldn’t go back on her word.” Imogen furrowed her brows. “She’s a good person. I just know it.”

I was not convinced. No one in their right mind would be.

Something occurred to me then, something I should have thought of sooner.

I turned to Wendy. “It’s also possible Nie’s death isn’t about me at all. It could be about you.”

“Me?” Wendy opened and closed her mouth. “How could this be about me?”

“Whoever killed Nie may have thought she was the only me,” I said.

“Ooh, that’s smart.” Rose snapped her fingers.

“There’s no addressee on the package,” Andrew chimed in.

Wendy threw her hands up.“Why?”

“Almost no one knows about your cloning magic. So it’s more likely that your head was sent to Wendy to intimidate her,” Rose said.

“Or me,” Imogen said. “I work there, too. And I adore Marnie.”

Aside from supernatural people who happen to have been bodysnatched by Imogen, like me, I couldn’t imagine anyone hating her. She wastoonice. Now that I knew her, I couldn’t hate her either.

“You, as a lead, points back to Bernadette,” I told Imogen.

She wrinkled her nose and flattened her lips into a line, like she wanted to tell me again that Bernadette had promised to be nice.

“No address or postage on the box means it was hand delivered,” Andrew said.

“And could have been intended for any of the three of us,” Wendy said.

So a dead end.

“What about Jayden?” Imogen asked.

Then she and Wendy shook their heads in unison. It was a laughable suggestion, really. Jayden was the most universally beloved person on the planet.

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