Nash shrugged, obviously unbothered by the threat, and Tod twisted in his chair to face me fully. “At first, I wasn’t too fond of my job. The whole thing seemed pointless and sad, and just plain wrong at times. Once I actually refused an assignment and nearly got myself terminated. I’m guessing that’s what he wants you to hear.”

Nash nodded on the edge of my vision, but I kept my focus on the reaper. “Why would you refuse an assignment?”

Tod exhaled in frustration. Or maybe embarrassment. “I was working at the nursing home, and this little girl came with her parents to visit her grandmother. She choked on a peppermint her grandma’s roommate gave her, and she was supposed to die. She was on the list—all official. But when the time came, I couldn’t do it. She was only three. So when a nurse showed up and gave her the Heimlich, I let her live.”

“What happened?” My heart ached for the little girl, and for Tod, whose job conflicted with every ounce of compassion in my body. And in his, evidently.

“My boss got pissed when I came back without her soul. He took her grandmother’s instead, and when a shift opened up at the hospital, he passed me over and gave it to someone else.” Anger darkened his eyes. “I was stuck at the nursing home for nearly three more years before he finally moved me over here. And there’s no telling how long it’ll be before I move up again.”

“But don’t you think it was worth it?” I couldn’t help asking. “The grandmother had already lived her life, but the little girl was just starting. You saved her life!”

The reaper shook his head slowly, blond curls glimmering in the light overhead. “It wasn’t an even exchange. From the moment she was supposed to die, that little girl was living on borrowed time. Her grandmother’s time. When you make an exchange, what you’re really doing is trading one person’s death date for another’s. That little girl died six months later, on the day her grandmother was originally scheduled to go.”

That time I couldn’t stop the tears. “How can you stand it?” I wiped at my eyes angrily with the napkin Nash handed me, glad I wasn’t wearing much mascara.

Tod glanced at Nash, then his expression softened when he turned back to me. “It’s easier now that I’m used to it. But at the time, I had to learn to trust the list. The master list is like the script from a play—it shows every word spoken by every actor, and the show keeps going so long as no one deviates from it.”

“But that does happen, right?” I wadded the napkin into a tight ball. “Even if the list is infallible, the people aren’t. A reaper could deviate from the list, like you did with the little girl, right?”

Nash shifted in his seat, drawing our attention before Tod could answer. “You think those girls died in place of people who wereactually on the list? That they were exchanges?”

I shook my head. “Three in three days? It’s still too much of a coincidence. But if Tod can deviate by not taking a soul, couldn’t another reaper deviate by taking an extra one? Or three?”

“No.” Tod shook his head firmly. “No way. The boss would notice if someone turned in three extra souls.”

I arched one brow at him. “What makes you think he turned them in?”

The reaper’s scowl deepened. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s impossible.”

“There’s a way to find out.” Nash eyed me somberly before turning his penetrating gaze on Tod. “You’re right—we can’t get our hands on the list. But you can.”

“No.” Tod shoved his chair back and stood. Across the cafeteria, the mother and children looked up, one little boy smeared from ear to ear with chocolate ice cream.

“Sit down!” Nash hissed, glaring up at him.

Tod shook his head and started to turn away from us, so I grabbed his hand. He froze the minute my flesh touched his and turned back to me gradually, as if every movement hurt. “Please.” I begged him with my eyes. “Just hear him out.”

The reaper slowly pulled his fingers from my grasp, until my hand hung in the air, empty and abandoned. He looked both angry and terrified when he sank back into his seat, now more than a foot from the table.

“We don’t need to see the whole thing,” Nash began. “Just the part from this weekend. Saturday, Sunday, and today.”

“I can’t do it.” He shook his head again, blond curls bouncing. “You don’t understand what you’re asking for.”

“So tell us.” I folded my hands on the table, making it clear that I had time for a long story. Even if I didn’t.

Tod exhaled heavily and aimed his answer at me, pointedly ignoring Nash. “You’re not talking about just one list. ‘Master list’ is a misnomer. It’s actually lots of lists. There’s a new master for every day, and my boss splits that up into zone, then shift. I only see the part for this hospital, from noon to midnight. There’s another reaper who works here the other half of the day, and I never see anything on his lists, much less the lists for other zones. It’s not like I can just walk up to a coworker and ask to see his old lists. Especially if he’s actually reaping ‘independently.’”

“He’s right. That’s too complicated.” Nash sighed, closing his eyes. Then he opened them again and looked at me resolutely. “We need the master list.”

Tod groaned and opened his mouth to argue, but I beat him to it. “No, we don’t. We don’t even need to see it.”