Grim Reaper Mystery

After a near fatal car accident, Casey Maldonado's life is over. So she packs up, puts her house on the market, and leaves town, her only companion Death, who won't take her but won't leave her alone. Casey stops in Clymer, a town in upheaval. The town's appliance factory and main employer, a company called HomeMaker, is planning to move to Mexico. Not only that, but the town has been rocked by the suicide of a beloved single mother. However, many citizens don't believe the verdict of suicide at all. Death encourages Casey to investigate, and she uncovers information that points to the factory. Did the victim truly have the means, as she claimed, to keep the factory from leaving town? Is it possible that her death was a cover-up?

When Casey Maldonado and Death hitch a desperate ride away from one disaster, they throw themselves right into the middle of another one. The semi in which they are traveling crashes, and before the Grim Reaper takes Evan the Trucker away, Evan whispers to Casey about a stash hidden in the truck that she should keep away from them. Them turns out to be a band of men who want that package no matter what it takes, and they believe Casey knows where—and what—it is. Alone and injured, Casey escapes from the hospital under the noses of her pursuers and hides out in the Kansas cornfields. The valuable stash turns out to be photos, truck manifests, and other information pointing Casey toward something big and complicated—a conspiracy? Smuggling? Blackmail? She can't be sure. Uncertain how to proceed, Casey is led by Death to a group of teenagers looking for something other than dust and crops to fill their days—and their nights. Using their limited resources, she finds her way into a maze of greed and desperation and into the clutches of people who don't care who gets hurt as long as they get what they want. Casey, determined that no one else should die because of the desires of one group of criminals, finds herself defending not only herself, but also the teenagers, a few other kind locals, and perhaps even the trucking industry itself.

Casey and Death are on the run again. This time, Casey needs to make her disappearance permanent. After obtaining a new identity and throwing herself off the grid, she travels to Florida to begin life as Daisy Gray, fitness instructor for a moneyed, enclosed community. But even while keeping her head down, it doesn't take long for Casey to find herself in the middle of trouble. One of the residents is attacked, and Casey is the one to find her, bleeding, on the floor of the locker room. Despite heroic attempts to save her, she dies, and the community is thrown into turmoil. The cops are at a loss, unable to find anyone who might want the woman dead. Despite Death's encouragement to “get the hell out of Dodge, or, er, Florida,” Casey feels partially responsible and won't let the murderer get away with it. Besides, where else is she going to go? Is she going to abandon this life so soon and try to forge another? Casey takes a careful look at the victim's life. Who could possibly want such a nice, friendly woman dead? Could it be Del, the extremely muscular man from the weight room? Could it be Krystal, the victim's so-called best friend and the resident hottie? And what about Maria, the receptionist, whose key card was used to access the locker room late at night? And what, if anything, do Casey's redecessors in her new job have to do with it? Casey must find out, even with Death on her back.

It has been years since Casey Maldonado visited her hometown, and the only reason she's returning now is to get her brother Ricky out of jail, where he sits after being arrested for the brutal murder of Alicia McManus, his girlfriend of several months. Casey believes in her brother's innocence, but proving that to the cops is a different matter altogether—especially since she has her own murder warrant to worry about. Perhaps even more frightening than the law is Casey's confrontation with her personal demons: the home she shared with her late husband and son, the resentment of her mother, and even the presence of Eric, who wants to be more than just a friend. As Casey and her ever-present companion, Death, investigate Alicia's murder, it becomes clear that she was not who she claimed to be, from her name to her nonexistent past. Instead of a solid history, she left only questions when she died. Where did she come from? What secrets did she know? And, most importantly, who were the three people she spoke of when Death carried her away? Casey must sort the truth from the elaborate fiction of Alicia's life in order to clear Ricky's name, but as she reveals the woman's secrets, Casey begins to see just how alike their lives appear. Is Casey destined to an existence as empty and dark as Alicia's, or can she overcome the tragedy of her past and move forward into a life worth living?