“Damn. Thuggy,” Sadie said.
She realized she should’ve called him like she promised. The last thing she needed was to deal with him today. Sadie didn’t get out of the vehicle, but she rolled down her window when he approached.
“Sorry I didn’t call you back,” Sadie said.
“Have you talked to Egan?” he asked.
“Not lately.”
He looked disappointed.
“I know I promised you a meth clean, but I’ve got another job I need to work first.”
“Then I’ll help with that,” he said.
“It’s a decomp scene. Two women left to rot in their home for a couple weeks in this heat.” She raised her eyebrows at him in question.
“Yeah, well, think I’ll pass.” He blew out a breath. “I could do other things, though. I heard your place got trashed. I could give you security. I’ve done lots of security before.”
Sadie could believe it. Thuggy’s muscles had muscles. It gave her an idea.
“You know what? My sister could use security.” Sadie reached for her purse and slipped out a photo of Dawn. She held it up to Thuggy.
“Your sister?”
“She’s very pregnant and I’ve been staying with her, but I can’t be with her every second. Fierce Force threatened her because of me. I need to keep her safe.” She looked for a pen but couldn’t find one.
“I’ll call your cell phone in a few minutes and leave you the address for my mom and sister. Dawn’s at my mom’s now, but you can pick her up and bring her back to her place. Then just stay with her until I get there.”
“You said she needs protection from the FF?” Thuggy asked.
“Yeah. And the devil,” Sadie replied, and at Thuggy’s taken-aback expression she added, “Some weird cult. Just make sure nobody gets near my sister, okay? I’ll pay you full wages for your time.”
He agreed. As he turned to walk away, Sadie reached out and stopped him.
“Thuggy, if anything happens to Dawn, you’ll never work in this business again. Ever.”
18
After Thuggy left, Sadie adroitly backed the behemoth van out of her driveway while punching in her mother’s phone number on her cell.
“Can I talk to Dawn?” she asked her mother.
“Hello?” Dawn greeted.
“How’s it going?” Sadie asked her sister.
“Great. It’s been really nice visiting like this.” Her voice was light, but Sadie could hear the underlying tone of desperation. Spending time refereeing their mother and Aunt Lynn could make a person crazy.
“Aunt Lynn’s not so bad,” Sadie said.
“Auntie Lynn is a real hoot,” Dawn replied with forced cheeriness.
“That’s me,” Aunt Lynn shouted in the background. “I’m a hoot.”
“Stop shouting,” Sadie heard her mother’s voice hiss.
“And that’s your mother,” Aunt Lynn shouted again even louder. “The wet blanket.”
“Tell me you’re coming to rescue me,” Dawn said through clenched teeth.
“Not unless you want to come with me to a double-death decomposition scene.”
“Even the words make me feel like losing my lunch,” Dawn replied. “But it might be worth it to get out of this place,” she added on a whisper.
“I’m sending someone to keep an eye on you,” Sadie said.
“Really? Who? Is it Zack? Man, I could use some eye candy right now. Just looking at that man makes my insides all gooey.”
“It’s not Zack. It’s Thuggy.”
“Thuggy?”
“He’s kind of a coworker and he’s done security before. Zack said he’s okay, so I’m trusting him. He’ll be keeping an eye on you.”
“Is he cute?”
Sadie thought about that.
“If you find refrigerators or small mountains cute, then, yeah, he’s a real cutie-pie.” She gave Dawn a description of the muscled man. “He’ll give you a ride home and stay with you until I get there.”
“Fine, but if he’s not here shortly, I’ll leave without him and you’re going to owe me big-time,” Dawn said. “I’m talking back rubs and foot massages and loads and loads of free babysitting and diaper changes.”
“Don’t get carried away,” Sadie said. “I’ll offer to babysit when the kid hits puberty and understands what I do for a living.”
“Great. You’re already a pillar of support.”
“Sorry. Tell Mom that Terry is trying out new recipes for a wedding, and she may want the recipes because the food would blow her socks off.”
“Why would I tell her that?”
“Help me out. I need brownie points here. You’re having her grandbaby, so you can do no wrong. I’ve done wrong based on everything else in my life. It’ll help if she thinks I’m actually working on this shower thing.”
“Fine. Gotta go. I have to pee. I always have to pee. Oh, Auntie Lynn wants to talk to you.” There was the rustling of the phone changing hands before Sadie’s aunt came on the line.
“I was just telling your mom and sister about how Uncle Glen really loved spending time with you girls when you’d come for two weeks every summer.”
“Uncle Glen usually made us play board games for three days straight,” Sadie said with a smile, and she bit her tongue so she wouldn’t add, Then in the middle of the night I’d hear him talking to himself as he paced the floors and he scared me to death.
“He never forgot those days,” Aunt Lynn said. “Even just before he passed away, when he had one of his clearer moments, he said he wanted a rematch of your Monopoly game.”
“It was a nice weekend,” Sadie said. “It was just before he . . .” Sadie’s voice trailed off.
“Yes, before I locked him in the loony bin.” She sighed. “Sometimes I think that was what sent him over the edge. Just because a person hears voices doesn’t mean they have to be locked up. I wish I’d kept him home.”
Sadie thought of the voices of the dead in her own life and shuddered. She hoped nobody got it in their head to lock her up.
“You did everything you could,” Sadie assured her. “The doctors said it was for the best.”
“Maybe.”
“I have to go now. I’ve got a meeting with my staff,” Sadie replied quickly, and they said good-bye as she steered the van into the neighborhood of Queen Anne.
The heat was unbearable. She had the AC on high and still it seemed to make little impact inside the large expanse of the van. She dialed Thuggy’s cell and got his voice mail. She gave him all the addresses he needed and told him to hurry his ass over to her mom’s.
When she parked the vehicle a block down from the El Diablo coffee shop, she was fifteen minutes early. Sadie glanced in the rearview mirror and cringed as she caught sight of her reflection. She looked like she’d already sweated a bucket and then dumped it on her head. She dug around in her purse for a comb but came up empty. Ditto on the lipstick. She ran her fingers through her short-cropped hair, hoping to spike it and give it some lift. It lay limply against her scalp as if she’d just stepped out of the shower.
This was ridiculous. Why did she give a rat’s ass what she looked like?
Sadie gave up and climbed from her van, hoping the air-conditioned coffee shop would remove some of the sweaty gleam from her face. She walked through the wall of heat up the street to the coffee shop and noticed Zack’s Mustang parked at the curb. He was early too.
This is good, Sadie thought. We’ll have a chance to talk before Jackie gets here. I can tell him that I honestly don’t care if he’s sleeping with her.
“Where he unzips his pants doesn’t matter to me,” she murmured as she pushed open the door to El Diablo’s.
A blast of icy air hit her and goose bumps immediately cropped up on her forearms, but it felt good. She stepped into line behind a few others in need of their coffee fix, and she scanned the clientele for Zack. She finally spotted him perched on a stool at a counter near the wall that boasted the de
vil-girl mural, the shop’s mascot. Between Zack and the devil sat Jackie. Both had their backs to Sadie.
Sadie’s teeth clenched at the sight of them together. She repeated a mantra of it-doesn’t-matter, it-doesn’t-matter in her head while she waited in line to order her coffee.
She wanted a Cubano coffee, but she needed to cool off and not just because the thermometer said ninety outside. She ordered a piña colada batido and stepped aside to wait for it.
From the corner of her eye Sadie watched them. Zack was leaning left and speaking intently in Jackie’s ear, but it didn’t look cozy. He looked pissed. When he stabbed her shoulder with his index finger, Jackie flinched and nodded curtly in response.
It almost looked like Zack was telling her off about something. Then again, there was a very good chance they were just comparing stories and trying to decide how to handle Sadie and the impending meeting.
The barista handed Sadie her icy fruit shake and she stirred it once before taking a big breath and walking toward Zack and Jackie.
Be calm, she told herself. You need them to stay on as employees. Things will be fine as long as you don’t reveal your inner jealous bitch.
With an impassive look pasted on her face to hide her anger and trepidation, Sadie was at their counter before either of them looked over.
“Good. You’re both here.” Her voice was clipped. “How about we move to a table.”
“Sure,” Jackie said swiftly, swinging her long legs off her stool and snagging a nearby empty table.
“Good choice,” Zack said, nodding at Sadie’s fruit shake. “It’s hotter than a ten-dollar pistol out there.”
They sat then, the three of them sipping their various drinks. Sadie knew she had to be the one to break the silence.
“I just want to say,” Sadie began, pulling her chair closer to the table, “that I’m okay with . . .” She stumbled a little and used her hand to motion from Zack to Jackie. “With the two of you doing . . . I mean, being together.” She cursed the blush that crept up her neck, and sipped her shake.
“Look, it was a onetime thing,” Zack said. He looked at Jackie, his eyes challenging her to say otherwise.
“He’s right,” Jackie said, and added hurriedly, “I was at the bar and had too much to drink and I called Zack to come and give me a lift, but then I convinced him to have a few drinks too, and, well, one thing led to another and we shared a cab.” Her face reddened as she spoke and she fluffed her hair with her fingers to distract from her embarrassment.
“Could we please skip the details?” Sadie said, blinking away the repulsive visual of a drunk Zack and equally inebriated Jackie slobbering all over each other.
“Sorry. I just wanted to make sure you knew it was, like, you know . . .”
“A onetime thing,” Zack said.
“Right,” Jackie agreed.
God, this was positively painful!
“Look, I’m not a prude,” Sadie said. “I’m not going to fire either of you for, um, ending up together and—”
“It’s over.” Zack’s voice was louder than it should’ve been and other people turned to look over at them curiously.
“Um, okay.” Sadie was feeling increasingly more uncomfortable and struggled to regain control of the conversation. “Actually, what I really thought we should talk about was what Zack told you about me.” Sadie looked pointedly at Jackie.
“We don’t need to talk about it,” Jackie said. “I’m good.”
“No. We really do need to talk about it. Zack told you about my . . .” She groped for the words and lowered her voice to a mere whisper. “My way of dealing with spirits.”
Jackie’s lips threatened a smile, but Zack looked positively miserable.
“What’s done is done. It couldn’t have stayed a secret forever, but I can at least answer any questions you have,” Sadie said to Jackie. “I’d rather you hear it from me, and it would be good if you at least didn’t feel like you were working for a complete lunatic.”
A quick flash across Jackie’s face said that no matter what Sadie said, Jackie already had made up her mind Sadie was crazy. However, Jackie recovered her facial expression and changed it to bland.
“It’ll just take some getting used to,” Jackie said with a shrug. “But, hey, you can do whatever you do with, um, ghosts, and it doesn’t change what I do, right?”
“No. Of course not,” Sadie said quickly. “Your job doesn’t change. Zack’s job has never changed because of my, um, ability. I don’t know that he’s ever gotten used to it, but at least he’s stopped complaining about me talking to spirits around him when he’s working a scene.”
“It still freaks me out when she starts talking out loud and we’re on a scene,” Zack replied, his tone half-joking.
Sadie shot him a don’t-push-your-luck look.
“I don’t expect you to believe in ghosts or that I speak to the dead. I hardly believe it myself sometimes,” she said ruefully. “So if it’ll make you feel better to think you’re working for a nut or somebody who’s eccentric, I’m okay with that.”
Jackie offered her the first glimpse of a smile.
“But here’s the thing, and it’s a big thing,” Sadie said seriously. “This topic does not go beyond the three of us. I mean it. I need you to promise you won’t talk about this to anybody. You can understand how damaging it would be to Scene-2-Clean if this kind of thing got out.”
Jackie looked like she was about to say something, then thought better of it, and shook her head.
“Well?” Sadie demanded.
“I get it,” Jackie replied, looking down at her hands. “You don’t have to worry. It’s not like I’m going to run around telling people I work with a ghost whisperer.” She snorted and downed the rest of her coffee.
“Okay, and I’ll make sure you get that advance on your pay you asked about,” Sadie said, slurping from her drink. “Now let’s move on. We’ve got a big cleanup ahead of us. You probably heard about the case in North Queen Anne? The one with the eighty-year-old twin sisters who shared the house?”
“Sure. They both died at home and nobody noticed for almost two weeks,” Jackie said. “It’ll be nasty.”
“I’ve got the van loaded up,” Sadie informed them. “Let’s go.”
They drove the two miles until they were winding down the narrow street and Sadie parked her van in the sloped drive of an old Victorian home. On either side of the house stood modern multileveled homes squaring off for the best views. Zack and Jackie each parked at the curb and came to help her unload the van.
An old man across the street ran over to greet them just as Sadie was about to take supplies out of the van.
“I’m Bill,” he shouted, thrusting his hand at Sadie. The old man had a full round face layered with so many wrinkles he looked like a Shar-Pei dog.
“Bill Doyle?” Sadie asked as her hand was enveloped in a hardy handshake.
“Yes.” He nodded. “I called your company to do the job.”
“Nice to meet you, Bill. I didn’t know you would be meeting me here today. Do you live in the area?”
“Right there.” He pointed proudly across the street to a small, old cottage-style house.
Sadie made introductions.
“Zack and Jackie will be working with me on this house,” Sadie explained to Bill. To her employees she explained, “Bill is the heir to the twins’ estate. He was their good friend and, apparently, neighbor.”
“Wanda and Jean had nobody else,” Bill admitted, looking terribly sad. “It’s a shame what happened to them.” He shook his head slowly from side to side. “A real shame. If I hadn’t been visiting my daughter in Maine, I would’ve noticed they hadn’t left the house. Every single morning Wanda and Jean would be out in their garden tending the roses.”
He pointed to the dense, thorny bushes that lined the drive so close they nearly scratched Sadie’s van.
“They’re beautiful,” Jackie said, smiling warmly at him.
&nbs
p; “I just can’t believe they’re both gone at the same time. The medical examiner said Wanda fell down the stairs and the fall killed her instantly, and then Jean’s heart gave out, probably after she saw her dead sister, and Jean fell over the railing.” He sighed and shook his head. “I guess they were meant to be together forever.”
Sadie was an expert at handling the bereaved, but even she found this one a little hard to take.
“Yes, I guess we should be glad that they’re still together, right?” Sadie stepped aside and Zack opened the van door to take out supplies while she dealt with their client.
“Yeah, everyone’s been telling me that it’s nice they went at the same time, since they lived together for nearly fifty years. I guess that’s a good way to look at it, but it doesn’t sound right. Near the end they were talking about each getting their own place. They’d finally gotten fed up with living together.”
Guess Mr. Death put an end to that idea, Sadie thought drily.
Sadie put her hand on his shoulder.
“How about if we go over to your place and I’ll get you to sign the documentation and get the insurance papers from you, and we can chat while Zack and Jackie do the initial walk-through?”
“Good idea,” Zack said. “We can get started.”
“Jackie, would you mind taking the pictures? My camera’s in the van,” Sadie asked.
She left them then and walked across the street to the small home directly opposite.
Bill made tea and Sadie forced herself not to feel overly nauseated as she drank it. She hated tea. Why did grieving people always drink tea? He put a plate of stale cookies in front of her too, and Sadie politely took one.
“So you were away visiting your daughter?” Sadie asked as she delicately nibbled a cookie and watched as Bill looked over the Scene-2-Clean contract.
“Yes. She’s going through a divorce and wanted me there to tell her everything would be okay.” He looked up sadly. “Since my wife passed on a few years ago, it’s been up to me to make sure the whole damn family doesn’t fall apart. I do my best, but, hey, they’re spread all over the entire country. One in Maine. Two in Portland.” He sighed and sipped his tea. “Of course they all want me to move to where they are, and nobody gives a rat’s ass to the thought that this is my home!” Then he looked apologetic. “Sorry. You don’t need to hear about my garbage.”
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