“No. I can get your statement later,” Carr said. To Zack he said, “You shouldn’t be on this scene anyway. Guess you can take her back to your place for safe-keeping.”
“Why the hell does everyone assume I’m staying with Zack?” Sadie asked. “I do know other people.”
Nobody said a word. Sadie whirled on her heel and walked away, realizing she had no vehicle to hop into. She saw a couple of uniformed officers shooing Scott Reed away from the street. Sadie elbowed her way past the officers and right up to Reed.
“Can you give me a ride to my sister’s house?” she demanded.
Scott Reed raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I’d rather bring you back to my place and—”
“Cut the crap. Can you or can you not drop me off at my sister’s place? She lives in Green Lake on Sixty-sixth Avenue.”
“Sure.” He nodded, his face serious. “I can do that.” The cameraman was not at all happy about riding in the back while Reed drove and Sadie rode shotgun.
Sadie was surprised Scott waited an entire ten minutes before his first question.
“How did the woman die?”
“What woman?” Sadie asked.
“The woman whose body they dug up today.”
“How did you find out it was a woman and that she was buried?” Sadie asked him.
“I didn’t know for sure, but thanks for confirming it.” He smiled. “My source only told me there was more action going on at that location and when I got there, Jacob”—Scott nodded to the cameraman in the back—“used his telephoto lens to get a look at the fact they were digging up something in the yard under a tree.”
“Don’t do that,” Sadie said, her voice tired.
“Do what?”
“Trick me into giving you answers that you’ll use to destroy my reputation.”
“Hey, Sweets, I’m not going to do that,” he said with a reproachful tone. “I can just say a source that wishes to remain anonymous told this reporter that information.”
“You don’t get it. I saw you guys filming while I had words with the cops. If you show that footage and then say a source told you, you and I both know people will think I was your source.”
“I don’t think Jack and Jill Q. Public are bright enough to put that together, darling.”
“You have a pretty low opinion of Seattleites, then,” Sadie said.
She blew out a breath and folded her arms over her chest and refused to say anything more except to give him directions to Dawn’s house in Green Lake. When he pulled his van in front of the split-level, Sadie thanked him politely for the ride and hopped out.
“Hello!” Sadie shouted as she used her key to let herself into Dawn’s house.
“We’re in here,” Dawn shouted back.
Sadie kicked off her shoes. She took a deep calming breath and pasted a big smile on her face before crossing the living room and entering into the kitchen at the back of the house.
“Sadie!” Auntie Lynn exclaimed. She jumped to her feet and tugged Sadie into a bear hug far greater than should’ve been possible for a four-foot-eleven white-haired lady in her seventies. The woman released her niece and smiled. “I can no longer say, ‘My, how you’ve grown,’ but I can sure say, ‘My, how lovely you look.’ You’re too skinny, but you’re beautiful!”
“Thanks,” Sadie said, noticing that Dawn, on the other hand, looked mighty relieved. “You look wonderful too, Auntie Lynn. You haven’t aged at all since we last saw you, has she, Dawn?”
“Nope,” Dawn said, chugging down a glass of water and looking like she wished it could be whiskey. She got to her feet with some effort, covered her mouth in a yawn. “I’m sorry, Auntie Lynn, but I’m just beat.” Dawn put a hand to her belly. “This little person seems to suck up all of my energy. Now that Sadie’s here, would you mind if I disappear for a short nap?”
“Not at all,” Auntie Lynn assured her. “It’ll give Sadie and I a chance to catch up on the last six years.”
Sadie was pretty sure the look she got from Dawn as she passed said nya nya nya instead of I’m tired.
“Sit, dear, sit,” Aunt Lynn encouraged. “I’ll pour you some of the wonderful coffee Dawn was kind enough to make me.”
“I’ll pour the coffee,” Sadie insisted.
Sadie brought the pot over and filled their cups. Then they sat down together and smiled at each other. Sadie wondered what on earth Dawn was complaining about. Aunt Lynn wasn’t so bad.
After they were halfway through their first cup of coffee, though, Auntie Lynn took a deep breath and began a long dissertation listing absolutely every item she planted in her large vegetable garden that was surely going to dry up to nothing in this heat wave.
“How was your drive up from Redmond, Oregon?” Sadie asked to get her off the topic of dehydrated radishes and desiccated strawberries.
“The drive was fine. Peggy acts as if I’m a total fool to hit the road by myself, but then your mother was always directionally challenged. She once got lost in a mall parking lot.” She rolled her eyes. “But the drive is really no big deal. I just took the Ninth Street north until I got to Highway 26, and then took the I-84 toward Portland, and by the time I was on the I-5, the traffic was busy but, you know, I’m not afraid to drive in traffic and—”
“So you’re still in the same house?” Sadie interrupted.
“Yes, I know Peggy suggested I move here after Glen died, but I’d been living on my own for ten years before that, so I was used to it.” The woman closed her eyes and sighed. “Those were the really hard years.”
“The ten years Uncle Glen was, um . . .” In the loony bin?
“When he was in the institution.” She sighed again and this time dabbed at her eyes a little. “Sometimes I wondered if I did the right thing letting the doctors put him in there. Seemed like once he got locked up, things only got a lot worse. He heard voices all the time.”
“Schizophrenia is a terrible disease, Aunt Lynn, but I’m sure Uncle Glen knew you loved him.” When he wasn’t hearing voices from outer space.
“Brian came to visit Glen at the end. It was so sweet of him and I hoped just for one day he could see the old Glen. He was a lot like Brian when he was younger, you know.”
“I forgot Brian used to drive up to visit you,” Sadie said thoughtfully.
“Well, truthfully he wasn’t there to see us nearly as much as he was there to climb Smith Rock.” She chuckled. “Why on earth rock climbers come from all over to climb that damn sheet of rock is beyond me.”
“I’m sure he enjoyed visiting you too.”
“Well, his timing was something else. You know Brian was actually there in the room with me when Glen passed on. Of course the stroke really killed him the week before, but he took his last breath with just Brian and myself standing there.”
Sadie shook her head. “I didn’t know that.”
And then Brian shot himself only a week later.
Aunt Lynn must’ve been thinking the same thing.
“I never thought your brother was unhappy in any way. He was so patient with Glen,” she added wistfully. Then, as if she was determined to keep the conversation more upbeat, she clapped her hands and announced, “I need more coffee. How about you?”
Sadie declined a second cup and when her aunt returned to the table, she was smiling brightly.
“By the way, I know all about you.” She leaned in and whispered, “I’ve seen you on the news.”
Oh, great. Just great. Even her aunt saw her flirting with Zack.
“Actually, we’re just coworkers.”
“Huh?” She looked puzzled. “I mean I know what you do for a living. Your mom kept telling me how you ran some kind of fancy cleaning company as if I’m an utter buffoon that can’t see for myself from the TV and newspapers that you clean crime scenes.”
“Oh. Well, I think Mom tells herself those things so she can sleep at night. I don’t think she can deal with the reality of my job. It makes her uncomfortable.”
>
“She doesn’t see that you started it all for her?” Auntie Lynn asked, shaking her head slowly from side to side so that her tight white curls shook. “Doesn’t she know that cleaning up after Brian killed himself made you want to do it to help other families too?”
Tears clogged Sadie’s throat with emotion and she didn’t answer. Picking up her coffee cup, she blinked them away while she sipped her drink.
“You’re like a modern-day heroine. That’s what you are.” Auntie Lynn reached and patted Sadie’s hand.
Sadie put down her coffee. “I’m not a hero. Most of the time, when I’m working, I’m just trying not to think about what I’m doing.”
“Exactly, and that’s why I was going to also say, don’t you think it’s time you went back to teaching second grade?”
Sadie stiffened. “What do you mean? Why would I go back to teaching?”
“I imagine your work is hard on you emotionally. Nobody could possibly do what you do . . . see the things that you do, day after day without becoming, well, hardened to the world, I guess.” She looked at her watch. “Oh, Lord, look at the time.” She guzzled the remains of her coffee. “Be sure to say good-bye to Dawn for me, but I’ve got to run off and visit your cousin Tina before she goes in to work the night shift at the hospital.” She leaned in to hug Sadie and whispered in her ear, “You don’t have to worry. Dawn knows nothing about the shower. It’s going to be a wonderful surprise.”
Aunt Lynn had been gone for less than a minute when Dawn poked her head into the kitchen.
“Is she gone?”
“Yes,” Sadie said drily. “Nice escape trick. I’ll have to remember to use napping as my own excuse next time.”
“It only works for pregnant women,” Dawn said, sitting down at the kitchen table across from her sister.
After a moment of quiet Sadie asked her, “Do you think I’ve become hardened because of what I do?”
Dawn was contemplative.
“I’d like to say no, but the truth is, you’ve changed since you’ve been doing this job,” she whispered. “It’s like you’re scarred on the inside.”
“Last month I cleaned the scene of a home invasion where a single mom and her baby were shot to death by a drugged-out lunatic.”
“I remember hearing about that one. That must’ve been awful.”
“It was. While I’m cleaning the living room, I can see and hear the ghost of the baby. He’s crying and crying, but I can’t help him. When I went to clean the corner of the room, I found the mom’s eyeball. I guess the ME missed it when he was picking up the rest of the body parts. The whole time I’m dealing with the mess, I’ve got the ghost baby bawling for his mom.” Sadie looked at her sister. “How can anyone experience that kind of thing and not be scarred?”
10
Dawn returned from throwing up in the bathroom and sat back down at the kitchen table.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sick,” Sadie said.
“That’s all right. I should know better than to discuss your job. How about we talk about something else? Like the fact that you don’t have rats, so why will you be sleeping on my futon?”
Sadie gave Dawn a rundown on the Curly the Cutter situation.
“You’re a magnet for trouble,” Dawn said. “Can’t they put you into police protection?”
“They’ve recommended I stay with Zack for protection.”
“And you chose to stay with me instead? Are you insane?”
“Things with Zack are complicated.”
“Huh. Well, then let’s concentrate on thinking up fun things to do to take your mind off a crazy biker and my mind off the fact that a large object will try and leave my vagina soon.” She sipped a glass of water. “Do you want to watch me fold and refold the baby’s clothes?”
“Is that supposed to be fun?”
“I can’t help it. I’ve got this nesting thing going on.” Dawn sighed. “I know! Let’s go to Macrina for a bite. I’ve been dying for an avocado and peppers sandwich. Oh, and that great dessert with the apricots and toasted hazelnuts.” She closed her eyes and licked her lips. “Puleeese?”
“Hey, I think I even have a coupon for that place,” Sadie replied, digging into her purse. But what she pulled out was the B and B pamphlet she’d found with Brian’s things. Onyx House: A Journey to Within. It didn’t sound any less strange the second time she looked it over.
“What’s that?” Dawn asked, snatching the brochure from Sadie’s hands. “I didn’t know you were into this kind of stuff. Shamanic divination and vibrational healings?” She wrinkled her nose at the grocery list of services. “What kind of bed-and-breakfast is this place?”
“The kind Brian would go to,” Sadie responded drily.
“Brian? No way.”
“Way.”
Sadie flipped to the back of the brochure and showed her sister the invoice, complete with names and dates. “Apparently Brian and Joy checked out just days before Brian killed himself.”
“Really?” Dawn shook her head. “Weird. I never knew he was into this kind of thing.”
“I don’t think he was. I think it was Joy’s thing.”
“Really?”
“That’s what Mom said.”
“Huh. Do you get the feeling we didn’t get to know our future sister-in-law as much as we should have?” Dawn asked, handing the brochure back to Sadie. “I’ve changed my mind. I think we need to go and check out a certain B and B before we go eat.”
“It’s been six years since Brian and Joy spent a weekend there participating in wacky workshops. The place has probably closed.”
“Let’s see.”
Dawn picked up her phone and punched in the phone number on the front of the pamphlet. She put it on speaker and it rang twice before the call was answered.
A woman’s melodic voice answered the phone.
“Onyx House, how may I be of s-s-service?”
Dawn dropped the phone to the table as if it were a live snake. Sadie could only stare at it.
“Hello?” the voice came across the speaker again.
Sadie reached out and pressed the off button.
“Holy shit,” Dawn whispered.
“Yeah,” Sadie agreed. “Maybe we’re wrong.”
“Both of us?” Dawn rolled her eyes. “Have you ever met anyone other than Joy with an s stutter?”
“No,” Sadie reluctantly agreed.
It sure sounded like Brian’s fiancée but it had been years, so Sadie couldn’t be sure.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Dawn said, getting to her feet.
It didn’t take long for Dawn to drive her car into the upscale area of Capitol Hill. They entered a cul-de-sac lined with mature trees and Sadie spotted a small sign for Onyx House almost immediately.
“It’s at the far end,” Sadie said.
Dawn slowed and as they got closer, Sadie made out the curved barnlike roofline above a hedge of tall cedars. They could see beyond the wrought-iron arbor entrance from the sidewalk to a turn-of-the-century two-story tucked far back onto the pie-shaped lot.
Three young girls played on the street in front of the driveway. Two of them skipped rope as fast as they could, while the other sat cross-legged on the sidewalk and watched.
“Just park in front of the next house,” Sadie suggested so as not to interrupt their play.
Once they were parked and Dawn had removed her keys from the ignition, they sat for a moment.
“So if it is Joy, what do we say?” Sadie asked.
Dawn cracked her knuckles as she contemplated her answer.
“Let’s just be honest.”
“What? And tell her that we found the brochure for this place in her dead fiancé’s belongings and we’re coming to see what kind of voodoo happens here to make a normal guy want to kill himself?”
“Maybe not that honest. How about we stick with ‘We found the brochure in Brian’s stuff and were curious’?” Dawn turned to Sadie and shook her he
ad in wry disbelief. “You don’t really think Brian committed suicide because of something that happened at a B and B, do you?”
Sadie didn’t reply. She opened her car door and waited while Dawn unfolded her legs and then heaved herself, belly first, from the driver’s seat.
They stepped up on the curb and each took a deep breath as they stood next to the sign for Onyx House. To their left, the little girl who’d been sitting watching her friends jumped to her feet. She eyed Sadie and Dawn curiously, but the other two merely sped up the spin of their ropes to a loud rhyme.
Never laugh when a hearse goes by
’cause you might be the next to die.
They’ll wrap you up in a great big sheet
and send you down fifteen feet.
One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . .
The girls madly sped their skipping ropes until fifteen, then fell together in a squealing, giggling hug.
Sadie and Dawn looked from the girls to each other and chuckled.
“Seems like just yesterday that was us,” Dawn said.
“Yeah.”
They paused for a moment before stepping through the vine-covered trellis. An interlocking-brick path led toward an older two-story home. The exterior wood was stained dark green and the trim around the windows was painted white, giving the large house the appearance of a cozy cottage. The grass in the yard was almost impossibly green in this heat. In the far corner of the yard half a dozen Adirondack chairs were arranged in a cozy circle around a small copper chimenea fire pit. It looked like a perfect getaway spot. Sadie found it hard to believe that she was less then a half hour from her own home instead of in the backwoods.
“Man, I could get used to this,” Dawn said dreamily, echoing Sadie’s thoughts. “I’ll have to tell John about this place.”
In the shade of the house lush flower beds boasted rotund rhododendron bushes covered in globes of bloodred blossoms. As they got closer, Sadie could hear the soft hum of bees buried deep into the flowers. They walked up the wood stairs to a large wraparound deck that had more deck chairs and a porch swing that begged dreamy days with a glass of lemonade in one hand and a romance novel in the other.
Devil May Ride Page 11