Sadie steered around a slow-moving driver and they drove for a few minutes in complete silence.
“Do you mind if we stop at my place first? I’d like to get my car, pack an overnight bag, and pick up Hairy.”
“Sure, but only if you tell me what thought has given you that serious, grim look on your face.”
“You won’t want to hear it.”
“Is it about eyeballs and maggots?”
“No.”
“Then tell me.”
“The little girl, Rhea, said she was almost six.” Sadie looked pointedly at her sister.
“Yeah, so?”
“So . . .” Sadie waited for her sister to get it. Apparently pregnancy hormones had slowed her ability to count.
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah,” Sadie agreed. “If she’s almost six and Brian died six years ago, she’s either Brian’s kid, and our niece, or Joy was screwing around.”
“Or she just hooked up with Tim right after,” Dawn said.
They drove the rest of the way in silence. At least until they pulled onto Sadie’s street and realized a vociferous sound was the earsplitting shriek of Sadie’s house alarm.
“Great. Just great,” Sadie muttered as she pulled up in her driveway, alongside a Seattle PD cruiser.
“Do you think someone broke in?” Dawn asked.
Sadie didn’t reply. An uneasy feeling caused her nerves to ping and her heart to pound in her chest.
“Maybe you should wait here,” Sadie told Dawn. Before her sister could respond, Sadie was out of the car.
Two officers were just walking up her driveway toward her open front door.
“Hey!” she shouted over the wail of the alarm. “I’m Sadie Novak. I live here.” Because she knew the drill, Sadie produced her driver’s license as proof.
A middle-aged female officer with a sour look on her face nodded. Her partner, a young recruit with a quick smile, spoke first.
“We’ll check things out inside. Wait here,” he shouted back.
“Don’t suppose you left your front door wide open when you went out?” the female officer asked.
Sadie could only shake her head.
“Maybe the siren scared ’em off before they could take much,” the young recruit said over his shoulder.
The officers unholstered their weapons. The guy went around back, while the woman cautiously stepped through the front door and disappeared down the hall.
Seconds felt like hours while Sadie stood on her front lawn wringing her hands and watching lights flick on inside her house one by one. Her next-door neighbor peered at her from between parted drapes and offered Sadie a look of pure disgust. This wasn’t the first time her alarm had gone off and it wasn’t the first time the police had come by her house either. She wasn’t exactly going to win neighbor of the year.
“It’s clear,” the woman officer shouted to Sadie. “Can you deactivate your alarm?”
Sadie hurried inside and froze. Her house was a chaotic disaster of overturned furniture and emptied closets. She blinked back tears as she stepped over a pile of jackets that had been yanked from her front closet. Her fingers trembled and felt clumsy as she punched in the code on the alarm keypad to disable the siren.
“I’m Officer Shultz,” said the woman. “My partner is Officer Reagan.”
“You want I should call for fingerprints?” Reagan asked.
He received a nod from Shultz, who then put a hand on Sadie’s arm.
“You said your name was Sadie Novak. You’re that entrails-cleanup gal I’ve heard about?” She had a look of revulsion on her face that she quickly shook away.
“Yes,” Sadie admitted. “That’s me.”
“Then I guess you can handle seeing a mess. You’ve certainly seen worse on the job.”
Officer Shultz led Sadie out of the living room, where sofa cushions were tossed to the floor and drawers were emptied from the end tables. Sadie followed the officer into the kitchen.
Sadie’s gaze went to the wall across the room and a scream burned her throat. A black-and-white ball of fluff covered in blood was nailed to the center of her kitchen wall.
“Hairy!” she gulped. She would’ve dropped to her knees if Officer Shultz hadn’t caught her under the arms.
“It’s not real!” the officer hurriedly shouted. She yanked Sadie upright. “It’s stuffed. Sorry, I kinda thought it was obvious. I shoulda warned you.”
Ya think?!
Sadie blinked back tears and took a step closer. She tentatively reached out her fingers. Even though it was now obvious it was a stuffed bunny and the smell was definitely ketchup, not blood, Sadie still needed to touch it, just to be sure. She exhaled slowly, but her panic did not subside.
“Hairy,” Sadie said, whirling around and looking anxious. “Have you seen him? My rabbit should be around here somewhere.”
“I take it he looks like this one?” Officer Shultz asked drily.
“Except for the ketchup.”
Officer Reagan returned and the three of them started the search. Sadie paused only a few seconds to take in the mass of upturned files in her office and the smashed computer monitor. Her bedroom was just as bad, with every drawer dumped out and the mattress ripped to shreds.
“Are you okay?” Dawn called out from the other room.
Sadie left the bedroom to meet her. Dawn was standing in the living room. Her gaze took in the disaster that was Sadie’s house and she burst into tears. Dawn cried over just about anything these days, but Sadie felt like bawling along with her.
“It’s a break-in. Stuff can be replaced,” Sadie said, giving Dawn a hug. “Just wait for me in the car, okay? I’ll just gather up Hairy.” She swallowed thickly. “And I’ll be right out.”
“Probably best we don’t add any more fingerprints to the mixture,” Officer Shultz pointed out.
“Okay.” Dawn nodded reluctantly and left the house.
“Last thing I need is for her upsetting herself and going into premature labor because some assholes tossed my place,” Sadie grumbled.
“So did they find what they were looking for?” Officer Shultz asked.
“I don’t know what they were looking for,” Sadie said quietly. She called Hairy’s name. Not that she expected Hairy to answer or come hopping along. He was kind of independent that way.
It wasn’t long before they’d checked every room.
Oh God. What if they took him? she thought worriedly. What if they took him for . . . oh, God! She closed her eyes as the thought completed. . . . He could be rabbit stew in a biker’s pot.
“In here,” she heard Officer Reagan call from down the hall from the combination mudroom and spare shower that was between the house and the garage.
Sadie rushed in to see the officer kneeling in front of the opened dryer door and holding Hairy in his arms.
“What kind of a sick puppy puts a cute little guy like this in the dryer?” Reagan asked, handing Hairy to Sadie. “Good thing the dryer wasn’t turned on.”
“He seems okay,” Officer Shultz said
Sadie held Hairy’s fuzzy body up to her face. She pressed her cheek against the warm feathery softness of his back, and his fur came away damp from her tears. She stifled a sob with the back of one hand. She did not want to think of what would’ve happened had the dryer been turned on.
“Hey, there’s a note,” Officer Reagan announced. He pulled a tissue from his pocket and used it to pull a white piece of paper from the dryer. He got to his feet and placed the sheet on top of the dryer so they could all read it.
“ ‘Give back what’s ours or we’ll take what’s yours.’ ” Officer Shultz raised her eyebrows at Sadie. “Care to fill us in?”
“You need to call Detective Carr. This probably has to do with a meth-lab scene I cleaned. The one where all that money was found.”
“That place over in Kirkland? I heard about that. Why would this have any connection?”
“You heard about the money?”
�
�Walls were full of it.” She nodded.
“Apparently the bikers don’t appreciate losing all their money to police evidence and I guess they blame me for that.” Sadie paused and blew out a breath. “They might also believe I helped myself to a chunk of it.” She met the officer’s face. “I didn’t.”
“Of course you didn’t,” she said, but her face said she’d seen more-honest-looking people do even worse things. “That would be stupid.”
“Yeah,” Sadie agreed.
“Because even if you were stupid enough to steal money from a Fierce Force gang house, that doesn’t mean you’d be so retarded you’d hide it in your own house.”
“Um. Ri-i-ight,” Sadie said. “Isn’t there anything else you could be doing here? Like searching the neighborhood for a passel of bikers or canvassing my neighbors for witnesses?”
“Yeah, we’ll go ask around to see if anyone saw or heard anything suspicious. But I’m guessing whoever did this didn’t hang around for us to come looking for them.”
“It took more than a few minutes to create this kind of disaster,” Sadie remarked, tiredly looking around.
“The fingerprint guy’ll be here and we’ll take pictures and stuff, so, yeah, you might just want to go and stay somewhere else tonight.”
“Yeah, I was planning on it. That’s why I was here,” Sadie said weakly.
She looked up and saw Dawn in the doorway. “Sorry for making you wait so long. I’m . . . I’m just looking for Hairy’s carrier.”
“I heard the officer outside say this was gang related.” Dawn’s voice cracked. “God, Sadie, what if they come back?”
“They won’t. They just wanted to scare me. Why don’t you go back home? I’m just going to pack a bag and get Hairy’s litter box and stuff and then I’m out of here. You look tired.”
“I can’t leave you in this mess. I’ll help you clean up.”
“I’m not going to get any cleaning done today because they still have to wait for the fingerprint guy to come and make an even bigger mess. Plus, Maeva called and invited me over to talk about the food for your shower.”
“My surprise shower?” Dawn asked with a smirk.
“Right. It’ll be great food and that alone will be a surprise, right?” Sadie smiled. “So I’m going to visit Maeva for a while before I go to your place for the night.” Sadie felt she needed some time to digest what had happened and she didn’t want Dawn to worry about her every second she was gone.
“Are you sure?” Dawn sniffed.
“Yes.” Sadie waved an arm around. “Trust me, this looks worse than it actually is.”
Thank God she didn’t see the note or hear about Hairy.
After shooing her sister out the door, Sadie did pack a couple changes of clothes, toiletries, and Hairy’s litter box and food. Then she piled everything, including her rabbit in his animal carrier, into her Honda. She was backing out of her driveway when Zack’s Mustang pulled up and parked at the curb in front of her house.
Sadie rolled down her window as he walked over. His hands were in fists and his stride was angry.
“Why didn’t you call me?” he growled.
“There’s nothing you could do,” she said, her voice extra calm. “I would’ve called and told you about it. I just wanted to get out of here and clear my head first.”
“So I got to hear about it from my cop friends instead of you.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes it’s not great having a friend who’s an ex-cop with connections.”
“Friend. Right.” He spit the words out like they were bitter.
She saw his fists unfurl and the hard edges of his face soften as he leaned into her window.
“So you’re okay?”
“As okay as anyone can be after finding their pet stuffed in a dryer and receiving death threats from a crazy biker.”
He glanced into her backseat where Hairy thumped his feet angrily in his cat carrier.
“Where are you staying?”
“With Dawn. John’s out of town and it’s probably good that I spend time with her before the baby comes.”
He looked like he wanted to protest but didn’t know how, so he just nodded sharply.
“I’ll see if I can find out anything more,” he said.
Without waiting for her to answer, Zack turned and started to walk away back toward his own car. Then suddenly he came back. He opened Sadie’s door, reached in, unbuckled her belt, and tugged her to her feet. All the while Sadie was thinking, What the hell? but before she could ask what he was doing, Zack pulled her body up against his and kissed her.
His mouth was hard and fierce but then melted to soft. Sadie felt her insides dissolve to liquid. The second her mind began calculating whether her Honda had a big enough backseat, a cold splash of reality hit her and Sadie pushed him roughly away.
“You don’t get to do that!” she shouted, and her voice was thick with emotion. “You don’t get to treat me like a stranger for a year since we slept together and then just kiss me out of the blue! It’s not fair.”
She climbed back into her vehicle and slammed the door. Anger propelled her as Sadie whipped down her driveway and burned rubber up the street before the first tears came.
Sadie drove around aimlessly but wasn’t surprised when her Honda parked at Seven Coffee Roasters, a small independent coffee shop. As for most Seattleites, coffee was Sadie’s comfort food. The smell of fresh-ground beans was as soothing as a warm blanket on a cold night. Sadie got a four-shot Americano to go. She would’ve liked to curl up with it on the coffee shop sofa, but she knew Hairy was already pissed about being stuffed in the cat carrier.
When she got back to her car, Sadie slipped Hairy one of his yogurt treats, then found herself driving toward Maeva’s place. When she told Dawn she was going to hook up with her friend to discuss shower stuff, she hadn’t really planned on visiting the psychic, but it would be good to see her friend.
Sadie tucked her car into a visitor stall next to Maeva and Terry’s townhome. She hadn’t bothered to call first and regretted that decision as she shifted Hairy’s cat carrier from one hand to the other and rang the doorbell. She could hear voices inside. Happy, cocktail-type voices.
Terry answered the door.
“Hi!” A wide grin split his narrow face, and his spindly arms circled her in a bear hug. “Sadie’s here,” he called over his shoulder, then glanced down. “And she’s brought Hairy.”
“Sounds like you’ve got company. Maybe I should just go,” Sadie said, still standing at the front door.
“Nonsense!”
Terry ushered Sadie through the small foyer and into their comfortable living room. Maeva was already on her feet and greeting Sadie at the door.
“This is kind of a surprise,” Maeva said with a smile.
“Kind of?” Sadie asked.
Maeva just winked.
“Let me introduce you to another friend of ours,” Maeva said. “This is Louise.”
“Oh.” Sadie blinked in surprise. “We’ve met.”
The petite redhead with the pointy nose clapped her hands in delight. It was the same woman Sadie had met at Onyx House.
“How wonderful to see you twice in the same day. The stars must be aligned in our favor.”
Great. I’ve come on weirdo night, Sadie thought.
“Right,” Sadie said. “Um. Nice to see you again.”
“Have a seat,” Terry insisted. “You prefer white, right? I’ve just opened a nice sauvignon blanc.”
“Thanks. Are you sure I’m not interrupting?” she asked Maeva.
“Of course not,” Maeva said with a wave of her hand. “You’re always welcome here. You know that.” She took the pet carrier from Sadie’s hand. “And for God’s sake, let Hairy out of his jail and then tell us where you met Louise.”
Sadie sat on a nearby chair while Maeva released Hairy. The rabbit scurried off in a big hurry, probably worried he’d be locked up again.
“I’ve never met anyone w
ho has a rabbit as a pet,” Louise said, sipping from her own glass of wine as she sat down on the love seat. “At least not someone who carries the thing around.”
“Usually Hairy doesn’t leave the house,” Sadie said.
Terry returned with Sadie’s wine and then took a seat on the sofa. Maeva scooted over so that she was close to her beau, and Terry placed his arm around her shoulders. They were both roughly the same height of five eight, but Maeva’s pale complexion and wild curly hair stood in sharp contrast to Terry’s Jamaican skin tone and shaved head. They looked impossibly happy together and it made Sadie’s heart ache.
“I met Sadie today at Onyx House,” Louise gushed.
“Really?” Maeva’s eyebrows rose. “The reason I said your visit was only kind of a surprise was because Louise was just saying seconds before the doorbell rang that we’d be getting a guest,” Maeva explained. “Now I hear that you, Sadie Novak, the ultimate skeptic of everyone’s talents but your own, were hanging out at Onyx House? I’m shocked.” She smirked.
“It’s a long story. It’s not like I was taking any of their weird courses or anything—” Sadie realized her mistake and her hand flew to cover her mouth as she looked apologetically at Louise. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that your aura-washing thing was weird.”
Louise and Maeva laughed.
“So, is Louise part of your, um . . . ?” Weirdos. “Your group that meet every month at the Psychic Café?” Sadie asked, trying to keep her question innocent.
“No, but we’ve met at conferences occasionally.” To Louise she added, “Sadie’s the one I was telling you about. The one who talks to the dead and convinces them to go over to the other side,” Maeva explained. “And she thinks that we’re the weird ones.”
This brought another round of giggles. Sadie tried to join in but could only offer a tight smile.
“What’s up?” Maeva asked. “You’re looking a little stressed?”
“Well, let’s see. . . . Curly the Cutter almost dissected me, my house has been trashed by scary bikers who stuffed Hairy in a dryer because they think I took their money, and a little dead girl is wearing Brian’s ID bracelet. Other than that, I’m just peachy.”
The room quieted and Sadie sipped her wine.
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