CHAPTER 1
Raeleen
Life is short. Precious. But most people know that. They spend the entirety of their time ensuring that they’d lived it well. Likewise, they spent a lot of their time trying to figure out what their afterlife would look like. I don’t deal in life.Orthe afterlife.
I deal in death. Specifically, in that short time where you’re no longer living, but haven’t been laid to rest yet. There were a lot of people who thought that I was strange because things like death and dead bodies should make people feel uncomfortable. I understood. Well, I understood that it madethemuncomfortable. But none of that bothered me. I just wanted to make the passing for those whose time here was over as easy as possible. And I liked to help their families find the closure they needed.
Seeing people grieving and in pain hurt my soul. If I could ease that transition for them, I’d do whatever was in my powerto do so. We weren’t talking about anything mystical or spiritual here. I was a mortician. I made people’s loved ones look presentable and arranged a beautiful funeral to hasten them off into that afterlife of theirs.
And because Sentinel, Wyoming, was a small place, I had also become the town’s medical examiner. I’d moved away from the city to get away from that job. There was too much violent death for my liking. I needed a slower pace. I was tired of seeing homicides and suicides and wanted to work in a role where there were other options for why someone ended up on my slab.
But the former sheriff wasn’t willing to allow the opportunity of a well-known medical examiner moving to town to pass him by, and talked me into taking the job here. I could be a bit of a people pleaser. I was working on it. But my one condition had been that I be allowed to also open up my own funeral home. So now I did both.
Being a medical examiner and mortician at the same time might seem like a conflict of interest. “Sorry for your loss folks, but with our bundle package you get an autopsy and funeral all in one.” No, I didn’t do anything creepy or awful like that. There were two simple reasons I continued to do both. One, it was convenient for the town to have both jobs located in one building. Two, no one else was here to do either job.
It kept me busy. Happy. Mostly.
Looking up, I waved as Ainsley, the former new sheriff in town, and Harlow, our mayor, walked in. Ainsley moved here and became our sheriff, then she fell in love with a biker and the conflict of interest between dating Warrant and upholding the law was too much for her. So now, she worked for Sentry Securities, the business that Cypher—the head of The Berserker’s Rage MC—ran. No one fully knew what they did, but all the guys in the MC were military or federal law enforcement at one point, so Ains fit right in with them. She was just assecretive about what her new job was, but one of these days Harlow was going to dig the information out of her.
These two weren’t here today in an official capacity. They were just here to see me because they were my friends. I wasn’t sure how it had happened. It was almost like Harlow had adopted me when I’d moved here and now I had a small circle of female friends who all held important positions within Sentinel.
Making friends was never my forté. Again, people tended to think you were weird when you worked with the dead.
Harlow made a face. “I’m going to pretend that’s ketchup on your sleeve, Rae,” she said.
I glanced down. “It actuallyisketchup. I never get blood on me when I’m embalming a body.”
Her skin went slightly green as she choked back a gag and turned around quickly. “Don’t say that.”
“That’s kind of cool,” Ainsley said, then flinched. “I mean…not that they died. That’s sad.” She paused and cocked her head. “Is that Mrs. Templeton?”
I nodded, placing my gloved hand on the old woman’s cold shoulder. “She died in her sleep last night.”
Ainsley’s eyes soften. “I’m sorry. I know she was your friend.”
“It’s okay,” I told her with a soft smile. “I’ll make sure she’s ready to make her trip. That was something that was important to her.” I pulled the cloth draped over her from chest to feet a little higher. It wasn’t always easy for people to see dead bodies.
Ainsley was fine with it. As a former cop she was used to it. She understood in a way someone like Harlow couldn’t. We didn’t stop seeing the dead as people. They had lives, loved ones, and though our missions were different, they intersected. Ainsley had spent years tracking down anyone who was involved in the death of the person while I comforted anyone left behind.
“Sorry,” Harlow said, lifting her fingers to her mouth as she turned to face us again. “Still haven’t quite gotten used to that.”
“It’s okay,” I told her, in a gentle tone. This was common. It was typical. Normal. People were uncomfortable with death because it reminded them of their own future demise. While people liked to consider the afterlife theyreallydidn’t like to think about their own deaths.
Harlow cleared her throat. “Are you okay?”
“Of course,” I responded, confused as to why I wouldn’t be okay.
She blinked then looked down at the cover. “Like Ains said, she was your friend.”
I nodded, understanding dawning with the explanation. I spent many evenings at the local retirement home. I enjoyed speaking with the residents there. “She was. I’m sorry she’s gone, but passing in her sleep was a peaceful way for her to leave us.”
“True,” Harlow said. “Uh…”
The silence stretched out as she tried to think of a way to explain why they’d come to see me.
“We came to tell you that you’re coming out with us tonight,” Ainsley said, taking over.
I was so glad she was a part of our friend group now. I loved the others, but Ainsley’s straight forward way of doing things meshed well with me. Not that Harlow wasn’t straight forward. The woman would bulldoze the Great Wall of China in order to get her way. In a very charming manner, of course. I adored Harlow. But in situations like this people didn’t know how to deal with me. And I was always in situations like this. There were always the dead to usher into the afterlife.
