Calla's hands smelled like flowers.

Roses and calla lilies, to be precise—a great irony, she mused, inspecting the lines on her palms. With her index finger, she traced the grooves in her skin, following what the Director's wife had once described as her life line.

What a short, shallow thing it was.

Calla curled her fingers into a fist and took a steadying breath, glancing about the mortuary every so often, as if checking for ghosts—and perhaps she was. A ghost in a pretty white dress and a sad, sad smile.

But the mortuary was empty now, the funeral procession Calla had helped orchestrate for the Director having moved on to a cemetery just outside of town. The Director would stay there, with the guests, to make sure everything went smoothly with the burial.

Meanwhile, Calla would stay here, as she'd promised she would, to clean up. And indeed, the reception reeked of cleaning supplies, the sharp bite of chemicals lingering in her nose, chasing away the smell of flowers, the roses and calla lilies she'd so painstakingly laid over that dead girl's coffin only moments before the procession.

Of course, sprucing up the place wasn't the only reason she'd volunteered to stay behind.

Michaels had only agreed to meet her here because he'd shot down her offer to regroup in the park—the same park where she was supposed to be, according to the lie she'd fed the boys. Calla had known Michaels would hate the idea of a public meeting for the same reasons she did.

She wanted this to be over. And one way or another, in less than an hour's time, it would be.

That was when she'd fed him the line about the mortuary—I've got work all day, I won't be able to meet you until later, after the place clears out. He'd taken the bait like a fish downstream, leaping at the opportunity to catch her alone. An empty building. No witnesses.

And so now she waited.

Albeit impatiently. Scowling, Calla checked the time. An hour had already passed since the guests had departed. Cooper and Vincent would be expecting to hear from her, and soon. If they weren't already.

"Come on, Michaels," she murmured, shoving her phone in her back pocket. Seeking whatever small reassurance she could, her fingers brushed the handle of the knife she'd stowed in her other back pocket.

Then, through the curtains—a shadow crept across the front lawn.

Calla released her hold on the knife, automatically reaching for the bracelet at her wrist—but no. She couldn't have him. Not here. Not anymore.

You're going to live a long life, Cooper Daniels. That's a promise.

She only wished she would be around to see it.

Sucking in another breath, Calla positioned herself in front of the staircase—no, the empty fireplace. There. That was better. As good a place to drop dead as any, she supposed, if this plan of hers backfired.

Footsteps on the porch. A heavy, considering pause as whoever it was hesitated on the other side.

No. That wasn't hesitation, she realized, glaring at the hint of a shadow beneath the door. He's gloating.

A heartbeat later, the door swung open on silent hinges.

Michaels stepped over the threshold. "I hope you have what I came here for."

He looked good. Better than good. Self-assured and rested. His silver hair combed into place, clothes pressed, the collar of his coat drawn around his neck, a shield against the cold.

Smug bastard.

As he moved, his coat, unbuttoned, opened—revealing the gleam of a gun holstered at his hip.

An intentional flash. Calla stiffened, appropriately wary.

"Just a precaution," he said cheerily, taking note of her reaction.

You can lie better than that. Calla eyed the cheap silver chain around his neck, the flashdrive dangling in plain sight. "I see you have what I came here for." She dipped her hand in her front pocket and produced a black USB the size of her thumb. "Here it is. The last moments of Jeannette Michaels."

A muscle in his cheek spasmed. He closed the door behind him. "I see." She tracked his every breath as he moved around the couch, across the room and over to the grand piano in the corner, wedged between the windows and the door to the inspection room, cold and dark and empty, now that the funeral procession had moved on. "You must think I'm a horrible hypocrite."

"Pretty much, yeah."

He bent over the piano, head tilted curiously, and pressed a finger to one of the keys. A pure, sweet note hung in the air, suspended—before it guttered and died. "Lovely," he mused.

"Wow." Calla folded her arms, tucking the flashdrive against her elbow. "You've really got the whole creepy crazy asshole thing going for you right now. I'm impressed."

"And here I thought Cooper was the one with all the jokes." Michaels clasped his hands behind his back. Smiled at her from across the room. "You two make a cute couple."

"Is that really the only card you have left to play?" she asked dispassionately. "Cooper isn't here."

"Pity."

"Pity about your wife, too."

His left eye twitched. "That was an accident."

"Oh. So you accidentally bashed her over the head with a tire iron?" Calla pressed a hand to her chest. "Funny story. You see, I accidentally ripped your son's throat out with my teeth—"

He laughed. A high, cold sound. "Still running that mouth," he hissed, brushing back his coat, his hand coming to rest on the butt of his gun.

"What? You don't want to hear about your dear son's last horrific moments?" she asked, feigning surprise. "Well, I can tell you this. He made the strangest little choking scream when I bit down." She snapped her teeth together and shuddered. "Shame I missed the vocal chords, though. That boy was chatty."

"Bitch," he whispered, unholstering the gun. What little gray light that filtered through the front windows cast strange shadows on his face as he strode across the room.

Calla held perfectly still as he pressed the gun to her temple, the barrel longer than she remembered, and for one terrible moment she thought that this was not the gun from the safe, it couldn't be, but—but of course it was, and with that knowledge came relief. Michaels had only added an enhancement to his little toy.

A silencer.

"Give." The cold metal digging into her skin. "Me." His finger caressing the trigger. "The flashdrive."

She licked her lips. "Why the rush, old man?"

But of course, there was a rush. Maybe not for him. Calla, on the other hand—Calla had a deadline to keep.

She desperately wanted to check the time. Instead, meeting Michaels' unwavering gaze, she unwound her arms and held out her hand, the flashdrive nestled in her palm.

She didn't feel the moment he plucked the drive from her fingers—they were numb and anyway, she was too busy staring down the gun's barrel to notice much of anything at all.

When her nerve threatened to break, she sucked down a breath and held it in her chest, and imagined she was standing back in Michaels' office, that very same gun in her hands, the bullet she'd slid from the chamber balanced between her fingers.

"What now?" she asked softly, watching him watch her.

He slipped the flashdrive into his pocket, the other still hanging from his neck. "Idiot girl," he sneered.

Calla closed her eyes. We've come to it at last.

"This is for my son."

When she opened them again, he was grinning at her—a terrible, overstretched smile that pulled his jaw wide, cracking his lips. A ghoul liberated from the grave.

"I must have the whole bird," he breathed, a manic light in his eyes as he pulled the trigger.

Click.

Alive. She was still alive.

Calla released the breath she'd been holding and smiled back at him. "My turn," she crooned, slipping the knife out of her back pocket.

Michaels, that ghastly smile frozen in place, stared at the useless gun in his hand.

Calla grabbed the collar of his coat and slammed the knife home, right between his ribs. "I am Death."

The gun clattered to the floor. Michaels, his fingers slick with his own blood as they wrapped around hers, blanched, his smile slipping at last. "You—"

But whatever he had to say was lost as his knees buckled. Calla yanked the knife free. "That's right," she said. "Calla Parker, motherfucker."

Michaels, kneeling there on the floor at her feet, stared down at his gut, his hands pressed over the wound she'd inflicted, red, red blood spilling between his fingers.

Eyes glazed, he looked up at her.

"And I make all equal," she said quietly. "I told you I would ruin you, Detective."

Something inside her cracked and gave way, like a tremendous sigh expanding her ribs, as the light in his eyes winked out and he toppled over, face-first onto the new carpet.

Blood crawled across the hardwood, seeping into the cracks and the carpet and—oh, what a pity, the Director's hideous upholstered chairs had been splattered all over with it. His wife would be displeased.

His wife will be displeased about a great many things after tonight, she thought, tilting her head to the ceiling. She spread her arms, a beatific smile lighting up her face.

"Calla."

Her smile slipped. Slowly, she let her arms drop, the bloody knife hanging at her side. When she turned her head, Rachel was standing there with her by the fireplace.

At least, it sounded like Rachel. Calla could hardly see her there, her edges flickering like dying firelight. There and then gone.

"What's happened to you, Rach?" she asked wearily. The time to question, to disbelieve what her own eyes were trying to tell her, had passed.

"It's almost over." Rachel's words were as faint and indistinct as she was.

Calla gazed down at the knife in her hand. "Almost," she murmured, bending to wipe what blood remained on Michaels' fancy-shmancy coat.

"Are you sure about this, Calla?"

"To be honest, Rach," she said, pocketing the knife and wrenching free the chain from around Michaels' neck. "I'm not sure about anything anymore."

Retrieving her work bag from the couch, Calla dropped the flashdrive inside and pulled on the pair of latex gloves she'd slipped into the bag's side compartment earlier that morning, before Cooper had woken and stared at her as though she were already a ghost.

Soon enough, she supposed she would be.

Calla readjusted the gloves and crouched to investigate Michaels' many pockets: coat, pants, vest. She found a wallet, which held little interest for her. A pack of gum. Keys. And—ah. Her flashdrive. She reclaimed it with a smile.

"Didn't have that for long, did you?" she asked darkly, shooting his corpse a quick glare.

And then she went for the gun.

Staring at it now, she smiled. There had been a moment, right before Michaels had pulled the trigger, when she'd thought, it didn't work, that bullet is going to fire right into my head and this is all there is.

It had been a gamble. A dangerous, terrible gamble, tampering with the bullets that day in his office, denting the cartridges just enough that she hoped—oh, how she'd hoped—that when the time came the gun would fail, buying her time to stick that knife into Michaels and end what she'd started long ago on Halloween night.

Everything she'd read, every little scrap of research, had claimed that so long as the bullet couldn't fire, the gun couldn't discharge, but—well, one could never be absolutely certain about those things, not when they had a gun in their face and the black abyss yawning before them, promising oblivion.

But here she was. "And there you are," she said, gazing down at Michaels with a contemptuous smirk.

"Calla," Rachel whispered.

She blinked, eyes and nose stinging from the close proximity to the floor, the cleaning supplies she'd used to scrub the place spotless causing her head to spin. Calla straightened and, after her head had cleared, aimed the gun at the opposite wall and fired off two shots, thankful now for the silencer. Satisfied with the work, she placed the gun in Michaels' hand, curling his fingers around the grip.

Two shots. The last act of a dying man.

"Alright," she muttered to herself, stepping over Michaels' body. "Just a few more things..."

Calla knew Rachel had to be with her, watching as she moved about the mortuary, even if Calla herself couldn't see a damn thing—she knew it by the way the cold stole her breath, the surest indicator that somehow, she was not alone.

"You don't have to watch this, Rachel," Calla muttered, slumping against the fireplace to catch her breath.

"I won't leave you."

Her words were punctuated by the promising sound of footsteps. Another figure crossing the front yard, climbing the steps to the mortuary.

Adrenaline propelled Calla away from the fireplace and behind the front door, where she crouched in the shadows. Waiting.

A knock came at the door. And then a tentative voice called, "Hello?"

Cold air hovered against Calla's right side.

The knob turned. Again, that voice: "Hello? Calla?"

Slowly, the door began to open.

And in walked Astrid Baker.