Dead Man's Latte

Nell Kovač tends the dead-shift at a Portland coffee shop — the 3 a.m. hour when ghosts line up for their last cup. She's good at it. She's also four years overdue on her own soul, and tonight a reaper slid into the corner booth, ordered a flat white, and told her she's two deaths over quota. His name is Anatole. He is eight hundred years old. He does not like his job. Nell has forty days to audit her ghosts before the ledger closes. What she finds is a laundering ring feeding on the grief of the living, her missing ex-boyfriend holding the keys, and a reaper willing to break every rule for a barista who keeps pouring.