“Yes. Of course. Um. This probably isn’t a good time, but I was wondering if I could get an advance on my paycheck? I’ve had some unexpected expenses this month.”
“You’re right. It’s not a good time.”
Sadie said good-bye. Instead of placing her cell phone neatly in her purse, she angrily flung it to the floor.
As she drove closer, Sadie focused her energy on how she’d ask Joy about Rhea. Traffic was lighter than she expected, and she debated circling the neighborhood before going inside. Then she spied the same two girls that had been jumping rope in the driveway. They had their backpacks on and were just boarding a school bus.
After the bus pulled away, Sadie saw Rhea. She had her arms out wide and was spinning round and round. When she stopped, she had her head tilted back, laughing as she stumbled unsteadily on her feet. Finally she fell and lay there, hovering a few inches above the ground.
Sadie smiled. She remembered the joy of spinning around like that as a kid. Fun times. Simple times. Her hands were tight on the steering wheel as she brought her car to the curb. She watched Rhea get to her feet and wave. Brian’s bracelet dangled from her tiny wrist. She was eyeing Sadie curiously as if unsure whether to approach.
Sadie felt the same uncertainty.
She could be my niece, Sadie thought. My own flesh and blood and my last connection to Brian.
Sadie turned off the ignition and frowned. Another idea was quick on the heels of that one.
Rhea could just as easily be Tim’s child.
Sadie looked at the girl with the huge eyes and bouncy pigtails, but nothing about her features gave a clue either way.
Sadie picked up her cell phone from the floor of the car and spent a few seconds checking for voice mail messages. Still no calls from Zack. When she put the phone away and glanced up, Rhea was standing outside the driver’s side of the car.
Sadie emitted a sharp squeak.
“Sorry. You scared me,” Sadie explained as she rolled down her window.
The little girl offered her an amused smile.
“I knew you’d come back.”
“You did, huh?” Sadie smiled in return. “How old did you say you are?”
“I’m old enough to count,” she shouted. “One-two-three. And I’m ol’ enough to bounce—one-two-three. . . .” She hopped up and down on the balls of her feet. “And I’m ol’ enough to pounce!” She made her hands into catlike claws and lunged at Sadie’s car, then dissolved into a fit of giggles.
When her laughter subsided, Sadie asked her, “So did you know I was coming because you heard someone saying I was coming for breakfast today?”
“Yeah, I heard Dad tell Mom you were coming.”
“Your dad . . . that would be Tim?” Sadie asked.
“They had a fight about it,” Rhea said sadly, ignoring Sadie’s question.
“About what?”
“About you coming. Mom said it wasn’t the right time for you to visit. She called you a dog.” Rhea made a woof woof sound and giggled.
“She’s no prize herself,” Sadie grumbled.
Rhea put a finger to her lips and looked up at the sky thoughtfully.
“I think she said you were a sleeping dog, so Dad should let you sleep.”
“Maybe what she said was ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’?” Sadie asked.
“Yeah!” Rhea nodded enthusiastically.
Well, that was kind of better than being called a dog. “I wonder why she’d say that.”
Rhea shrugged.
“Maybe ’cause Dad wants to talk about my real dad and Mom doesn’t wanna.”
Aha!
“Real dad?”
“Yeah, I call Tim Dad ’cause my real dad is an angel in heaven from before I came out of my mom’s tummy.” She looked over at the house. “They’re watching for you.”
Sadie glanced quickly through the trellis and could see the drapes parted slightly. When she glanced back out her car window, Rhea was gone. Sadie put her cell phone to her ear and pretended to talk on it. Let them think she needed to make a phone call before making nice-nice over breakfast. She needed a moment to get her blood pressure under control.
“Why would Joy have Brian’s baby and never tell us?” Sadie asked her quiet cell phone.
She thought of Joy back then. Twentysomething. Her fiancé breaks up with her and then goes home and kills himself. She packs up to live with her mom and dad in California and maybe just then discovers she’s pregnant. She would’ve been confused and overwhelmed.
“I’ll cut her some slack for not telling us in the beginning,” Sadie mumbled to herself. “But to not tell us even after she has the child, our flesh and blood, living with her here in Seattle?”
She tried to make a new start with a new man, Sadie reminded herself, but she still felt cheated.
A sidelong glance told her someone was still watching for her and waiting. She put her phone in her purse and then it rang for real. She answered before checking the incoming number.
“Jackie called me about the meth job this afternoon,” Zack said.
Did she call you over the phone or call your name in her bedroom? Sadie thought vehemently.
“Right,” Sadie said, going for an all-business tone.
“I know you’re upset but—”
“Upset?” she shouted. She could feel tears clog her throat. “Why should I be upset except that you climbed into my bed while you left Jackie still warming yours?!”
“About that. We’d had too much to drink and—”
“I don’t want to hear all the gory details, thank you very much.”
“Well, you’re just going to have to listen up, Sadie, because there’s more.”
“More?” she asked, struggling to keep a tearful tremor from her voice.
“Yeah. I screwed up.”
“I think we already established that.”
“It’s worse. I told Jackie.”
“Told her what?” But even as she asked the question, she already knew. “Oh, God. You told her I see the dead?”
“I’m sorry. I had too much to drink, and, well, what can I say? I fucked up.”
She felt hurt and betrayed and now kicked while she was down.
“I’ve got to go.”
“We should talk about this,” Zack said. “Even if you decide to fire my ass, we should still talk about it.”
“I’m busy. I have to go into a wacky new age workshop and confront my ex-future-sister-in-law about having Brian’s child, who fell out of a window.”
She hung up the phone before he could even respond to her convoluted statement.
It felt like there was just too much going on in her world to sit down now and have a polite breakfast. Still, Sadie realized that was exactly what she needed to do.
She left her car and began walking toward the front door of Onyx House. She ducked through the ivy-covered trellis and up the path and then stepped up the stairs of the wooden porch. She raised her hand to knock and paused momentarily as the decorative wooden plate once again caught her attention.
ONYX HOUSE, it read. Burned into the block of wood. And the O had spokes. But the sign was worn and faded with age. She reached to touch it, but her fingers recoiled at a sound. She whirled on her heel to find Tim standing just beyond the screen door watching her.
“H-hello,” Sadie stuttered. “I was just about to knock.”
“It was a gift,” Tim said, nodding toward the carved sign. “At first I found it a little backwoodsy, you know? Like something you’d hang on the door of your cottage. But Joy thought it was a quaint thing to hang at the entrance.” He opened the door wide. “Come in.”
Sadie pasted a smile on her face and stepped inside. A thick aroma of home baking reached her. The smell of cinnamon and fresh coffee.
“I’m early,” Sadie said apologetically.
“You’re perfectly on time,” he said with a grin. “I’m just about to take the cinnamon rolls from the oven.” He closed the heavy wood d
oor behind her and it sounded with a thud of finality. “You can have one hot out of the oven.”
He motioned for her to follow him down the hall and into the kitchen. The room was huge with a massive table, or possibly two or three pushed together in a long rectangle, covered with one long emerald green cloth and surrounded with a dozen dark wood chairs.
He poured her coffee into a beautiful blue ceramic mug and put it on the table in front of her.
“Is milk okay? I’m afraid we’re out of cream. Joy just left for the store to pick some up.”
“Black is fine,” Sadie said.
“I know it must’ve been a shock for Joy when Dawn and I just showed up here out of the blue.”
“Not really.”
He pulled out the chair across from her and sat down with his own cup of coffee.
“I’ve tried to convince her to call you for years but she didn’t want to deal with things. I knew you can only put off things for so long. Eventually you were bound to show up or run into each other, I mean.”
“Yeah, sure, but like I told Joy, I just found a brochure for this place in a box of Brian’s things, so when I saw he’d been here just a few days before . . .”
“You were curious. I don’t blame you.” He sipped from his coffee.
“So you two got married after Joy returned to live in Seattle?” Sadie asked.
“Yes, I’d offered her a job, and well, things progressed from there and—”
“Any kids?” Sadie blurted before she could stop herself.
“A daughter.” He looked down into his mug before his gaze lifted to meet hers. “She died last year. She was only five.”
“I’m sorry,” Sadie said, feeling the wave of sorrow that left him. “It must be horrible to lose a child.”
She wanted to talk to him about Rhea but decided that was a can of worms to open with Joy instead.
A timer went off and Tim was on his feet removing cinnamon rolls from the second oven. He was a regular Betty Crocker.
He put some of the buns onto a plate and brought them to the table.
“Please help yourself,” he said. “They’re great when they’re still warm.”
“Delicious,” Sadie said, and meant it. One bite and the roll had melted in her mouth.
They ate in silence for a moment before Tim began to speak.
“Although we get a lot of guests here, I want you to know that I remember Brian. He seemed like a sincere guy. Very serious.”
Sadie shook her head. “That’s interesting. I don’t remember seeing his serious side too often. He was the jokester in the family. To tell you the truth, I find it hard to believe he’d ever consider coming here, let alone taking some of your sessions.” She swallowed the last mouthful of her cinnamon bun and added, “No offense.”
“Some people come here out of curiosity and some come just to relax. Brian, well, I got the feeling he was . . . searching.”
“For what?”
“Answers.”
“To what?” Sadie asked, her eyes firm on Tim’s.
“I’m not sure. . . .”
Sadie got the distinct impression he was lying.
“You must’ve talked about this with Joy,” Sadie pushed. “What did she say he was looking for?”
“Joy always found it extremely painful to talk about your brother. I’m sure you understand that.”
He got up from the table and brought a carafe over to refill their mugs. As he topped off Sadie’s coffee, he looked sincerely into her eyes.
“I just wish we could’ve done more to help him. If only we’d known he was so troubled . . .”
“Yes,” Sadie said abruptly.
Tim sat with his back to the large kitchen window that had a view of the picturesque yard. It would’ve been more scenic if Rhea weren’t bouncing up and down on the rear porch and occasionally pausing to make faces at Sadie through the window. She stopped now and held up fingers—one-two-three—and bounced up and down, then made clawlike finger action as she jumped around on the deck.
Sadie could hear her shouting in a singsong voice.
“I’m old enough to count, one-two-three, and I’m ol’ enough to bounce, one-two-three, and I’m ol’ enough to pounce!”
She stopped to make a snarling-tiger face at Sadie, her fingers in claws against the window.
At least she was a happy ghost.
“How did she die?” Sadie murmured.
“Who?” Tim asked, putting down his coffee and tilting his head quizzically at Sadie.
“Rhea.”
“I don’t remember telling you her name.” Tim looked at Sadie oddly, then followed her gaze over his shoulder. He opened his mouth to say more, but just then the front doorbell rang.
A look of annoyance crossed his face as he excused himself to get the door. Sadie made shooing motions with her hands, but Rhea still made funny faces in the window. This one had her tongue sticking out and her eyes rolling to the back of her head. Obviously the little girl enjoyed an audience. A jokester. Like Brian.
Sadie decided to get up on the pretense of walking around admiring the kitchen. If she was no longer looking out the window, she could think without Rhea’s distraction.
When Tim returned, it was with a woman who looked like a throw back to the sixties in a long peasant skirt, a tie-dyed shirt, and dreadlocks.
Tim introduced her as Lulu, who’d be running the session that morning.
“So you’re here for the workshop on healing after loss?” Lulu asked, her voice sounding spacey, like she’d smoked a joint outside.
“Yes,” Tim answered for her.
Only if I can’t figure out a way to escape before then, Sadie thought.
“We’d hoped for a quiet breakfast together first. You’re early.” Tim looked pointedly at Lulu.
“Sorry, Tim.” Lulu giggled. “It’s those cinnamon buns. It’s like they call to me.”
“I’ll get you one to take into the meeting room while you set up.” He walked toward the counter.
“Joy told me about your loss,” Lulu said. “Have you tried to get in touch with him? It could help you move forward with your life.”
“I have moved on,” Sadie said with more bite than she intended. She took a breath and softened her tone. “It’s been six years. Time heals all wounds, right?”
“Time has nothing to do with it,” Tim insisted, returning with a roll on a small plate lined with a paper napkin, and coffee in a travel mug. He handed the items to Lulu and she thanked him.
“Am I setting up in the basement room?” she asked.
Tim nodded.
“Did you ever meet Rhea?” Sadie blurted.
Lulu opened her mouth to speak, but Tim put a hand on her arm to stop her.
“Lulu has to go set up. We’ll be expecting more guests soon.”
Sadie noted a tattoo on Tim’s hand between the thumb and forefinger. A small circle with wiggly lines extending from its circumference.
“Interesting tattoo,” Sadie said, nonchalantly pointing to it.
Sadie thought Tim and Lulu exchanged a knowing look, but Lulu excused herself to leave.
Tim refilled their coffees and Sadie asked again about the tattoo.
“Is it a symbol of something?”
“Yes, it’s symbolic of a college dare after a keg party in my younger days.” Tim winked.
Sadie laughed politely and then her cell phone rang. She answered the call, determined it was business related, and excused herself to finish talking in the other room. The caller was an insurance adjuster Sadie had been dealing with on a prior job. It was a routine follow-up call about some paperwork, but Sadie took the opportunity to use it as an excuse.
She returned to the kitchen and almost bumped right into him by the door.
“I’m sorry, but I have to leave. Something’s come up at work.” She looked at Tim evenly. “I wish I could stay and talk with Joy, but I need to get started on this immediately.”
“I understand,”
Tim said. “But how about a quick tour?”
She almost relented, but her phone rang again.
“I really should go,” Sadie said.
“Another time, then,” Tim said with a flicker of annoyance in his tone. He walked her to the door.
The second she’d pulled away from the curb, Sadie took out her cell phone and dialed Zack. She didn’t want to talk to him and she really didn’t want to look at him either, but this wasn’t high school. She was a grown woman with a business to run and she wasn’t going to let a convoluted romantic love triangle screw with her job. It was time to put on her big-girl panties and do what was right.
“Hi,” he answered, obviously recognizing the incoming phone number. “I’m glad you called. We should talk about—”
“We need to talk about work. I just got a call for a decomp scene in North Queen Anne,” she interrupted. “It would help if I had both of you on board to get the job done.” Sadie paused for effect. “That means I want us all focused on the job.” Rather than on each other, she thought, and finished, “Let’s just meet for coffee and talk so we can get beyond this.”
“Great,” he said, sounding simultaneously relieved and apprehensive. “We can sit, the two of us, and I’ll explain—”
“Not just the two of us. I want Jackie there as well.” She fought the touch of annoyance that flared through her, causing those big-girl panties to pinch painfully. “I don’t want explanations, Zack. I want assurances.”
“What kind of assurances?”
“The kind that tells me the two of you are still able to work with each other and with me.”
“That’s not going to be a problem.”
“I also need to know that Jackie can keep her mouth shut and be a professional no matter what she thinks about my conversations with dead people.”
Zack didn’t respond.
“So call her up and tell her I’d like to meet with both of you at El Diablo’s in an hour.”
Sadie used that hour to drive back to get the Scene- 2-Clean van and load it up with equipment from her garage. She climbed into the van and pressed the garage remote to roll up the back door. She was just backing out of the garage when she spotted someone walking up her driveway.
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