Free The Grim Reaper's Dance by Judy Clemens

could do about that. She pulled down the sun visor to get at the mirror behind it, and blanched at the sight of her hair and face. The fact that Death was now in the back seat didn’t faze her. The fact that the rest of the seat was filled with bagpipes was a little more disturbing.
    “You keep asking to die,” Death said. “What better chance do you have than with a teenage girl who texts while she drives?”
    Casey blew her bangs off her forehead and ran her fingers through the rest of her hair, wincing at Death’s blast on the bagpipes, which sounded like a dying whale.
    Bailey glanced over, then reached into the back seat, putting her hand right through Death’s leg and scrabbling around where the bagpipes lay. Casey clutched the dashboard as the car swerved dangerously toward the side of the road.
    “Here.” Bailey tossed a baseball cap into Casey’s lap. “You can wear this till you get inside.” She looked at her fingers, clenching them into a fist and blowing on them.
    Rather than a ball team, the cap advertised a seed company. “You wear this often?”
    Bailey wrinkled her nose. “It’s Dad’s. He has tons of them. Guys from the different places give him free stuff all the time, so we’ve got more crap than we know what to do with. Hats, pens, tablets, money clips—like who uses those —even T-shirts. Not that I wear them.”
    Casey pushed back her hair and put on the hat. Not great, but at least a little improvement.
    “ Niiiiice ,” Death said, giving Casey a thumbs up in the mirror.
    Casey flipped up the visor.
    “That’s our place,” Bailey said, turning a corner. “White farmhouse down there.” She pointed to a homestead about a quarter of a mile ahead.
    “And all of this is your land?”
    “A lot of it. We own over a thousand acres, and work about nine thousand more.”
    “That’s a lot of land. It must take forever to farm it all.”
    “It’s what Dad does. And with the new farm equipment nowadays it doesn’t take all that long. Now, you might want to get down. We’ve got some guys who work for us, and unless you want to get me in trouble you’d better stay out of sight.”
    “Won’t you be in trouble if they see you, anyway?”
    “They’ll probably just think it’s my dad, coming home for lunch. They don’t always know where he is. Stop worrying.”
    Casey hunched over in the seat, scooting down low into the leg area of the passenger seat and ducking her head as far as she could.
    “This is fun.” Death sat in the passenger seat, feet up on the dashboard, above Casey. “Think we could do this more often?”
    Bailey pulled into the long driveway, driving faster than Casey liked, bumping Casey’s head up into Death’s legs. She was thankful she was wearing a hat. Bailey lurched to a stop, opened the electric garage door, and pulled in. “Stay down.”
    The garage door made its slow descent, ending with a quiet clunk.
    “Okay,” Bailey said. “You can get up now.”
    Death had already moved, so Casey unfolded from her position and climbed out of the car. She bent over, hands toward the floor, stretching her back.
    “You okay?” Bailey stopped halfway to the door to the house.
    Casey straightened and forced a smile. “I’m fine.” She grabbed her bag of information and followed Bailey into the house, stopping just inside the door. This place was not just a “farmhouse,” as Bailey had said. It was a state-of-the-art home, beginning with the kitchen into which they’d come. Stainless steel appliances shone in the brightly lit room—skylights and windows were everywhere—and the floor looked like original tile work, as did the counter top. Rows of expensive pots hung from hooks above a cooking island, and the tops of the custom cabinets were lined with cut glass bowls.
    “Wow,” Death said. “So much for the idea that farmers are back-woods.”
    Bailey dropped her purse onto the glass kitchen table. “Shower first, or food?”
    No contest.
    Death watched