My name is Jane Delaney and I do things my paying customers can’t do, don’t want to do, don’t want to be seen doing, can’t bring themselves to do, and/or don’t want it to be known they’d paid someone to do. To dead people.

Dean was about to dismiss me with a quick nod, but my name caught his attention. “Hey, you’re that Death Diva girl, right?”“’Fraid so.”“Huh.” He studied me a moment as he extracted a lighter and pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. I studied him back. Dean’s head bore the aftermath of what had to be the world’s worst hair transplant. Reddish brown crop rows marched back from a severe, slightly lopsided hairline. The whole mess had been meticulously blow-dried and sprayed in a swept-back style more appropriate to the 1980s.He tapped out a cigarette. “You make money doing that?”“Why, yes I do,” I said. “That’s kind of the point of it.” That’s the number-one question I get asked.“What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done, eh?” The number-two question, right on schedule.

Bob leaned back and straightened his red paisley power tie. His smile was a bit lopsided and more than a bit suggestive. “In my experience, older women have very definite ideas about what they want—ideas that don’t include wheezing, potbellied, middle-aged guys with receding hairlines.” He chuckled and smoothed his flaxen tresses once more.She drummed her fingernails on the white tablecloth and looked for the waitress. That made six times so far this insolent pup had used the term “older women.”He gave her the once-over. “Nowadays, older women are so—”God help him if he says...“—well preserved.”Lina briefly closed her eyes. It was going to be a long evening.

You’re repulsive, Mike.”“Huh?”“I said, you’re impulsive. Such a fun, impulsive guy.” When Leah looked into her date’s little eyes, she couldn’t help picturing Mavis Fletcher’s prize sow Gertie in a two-thousand-dollar silk suit and a gold Tag Heuer watch.

Lucy woke with the munchies the night the kidnappers came for her.