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bitch. The big C. My most hated enemy.
    “Look, I just need my soul. He can have everything back. I just need my soul to be with her. I promised.”
    So, a woman he loved had died, and now he wanted his soul back so he could be with her. That was also new.
    “You’re the only one who’s ever stood up to one of these guys. No one else will even try.”
    “There’s a good reason for that. They’re rather deadly.”
    “I’ll do anything. You can have it all. The money. The cars. Everything. My husband and I are devastated.”
    And once again, I was taken aback. Just when I thought I knew what was going on. “Your husband?”
    “Yes. Paul. We got married in Massachusetts the minute they legalized it.”
    “Then who is this ‘she’ you promised to spend eternity with?”
    The huge tears shimmering in his eyes as he looked up at me stole my breath and my heart in the same moment. “Our daughter. She was only three when she passed away from neuroblastoma. I got her the best medical care money could buy, but it made no difference.” He took out his wallet and retrieved a picture out of it. Two actually. Handing them to me, he asked, “Do you know what it’s like watching a three-year-old girl die of cancer? She was so brave. She only wanted one thing—our promise that we’d be with her in heaven someday.” His voice broke as I studied the pictures. A gorgeous girl with blond ringlets and huge blue eyes graced the first one. The second one had been taken after a few rounds of chemo, her bald head, no less beautiful, shining in the sun as she flew down a slide, her smile as wide as the New Mexico sky. “We both promised her we’d see her again. Paul doesn’t know what I did for all of this. He doesn’t know I can’t keep our promise.”
    I wasn’t sure if it was his sorrow or mine that formed a lump the size of a softball in my throat. Either way, I couldn’t stop the emergence of tears as I gazed at the angel in her fathers’ arms. “When did she pass?” I managed to ask, my chest tightening.
    “Yesterday.” And with that, he collapsed into a mass of tears, sobbing into his hands uncontrollably. I rounded the desk, wrapped my arms around his shoulders, and sobbed with him. This was the part I didn’t handle well. The people-left-behind part. Their sorrow was like a boulder on my chest.
    I felt Reyes, felt his heat before the door opened and he stepped inside. He didn’t interrupt. He stood back and watched over me as I let the pain of death crush me into dust.

 
    4
    My boyfriend called me a stalker.
    Well, he’s not actually my boyfriend …
    —STATUS UPDATE
     
    I led Mr. Joyce to the door and promised I’d do whatever I could. I still had no idea if he was crazy or not, but I planned to find out.
    “What have we got?” Cookie asked, her voice soft.
    “We have a client who sold his soul to the devil.”
    “Another one?”
    She knew just what to say. A little embarrassed, I graced her with the best smile I could conjure under the circumstances. “Exactly. When will these guys ever learn?” I looked over at Reyes, who’d stood watch the whole time. I was more than a little embarrassed that he’d witnessed my breakdown. “Is that even possible?”
    “It’s possible,” he said. I felt genuine regret emanating off him.
    “Then I have a card game to go to.”
    He pushed off the wall and followed me as I grabbed my bag and headed out the door. “You’re not serious.”
    I stopped and leveled a determined gaze on him. “I’m as serious as neuroblastoma.”
    He bit back a reply, knowing it would do him no good. He was learning.
    I paused at Cookie’s desk. “You’re not wearing that tonight, are you?”
    “What’s wrong with this?”
    “Nothing. If you’re running away to join the circus.”
    She gasped, then narrowed her lids threateningly. “I should have locked you in your office with your stepmother instead of using these ridiculous intercoms you insisted on buying at that