Devil May Ride

by Roberts, Wendy

  Sadie looked at him with wonder and amazement.

  “That’s why you made them?”

  “To help me remember that besides the fact I looked crazy, I was doing a good thing with my life.”

  “Wow.”

  “Now, about your aunt,” he said firmly. “She’s lonely here. You need to convince her to sell this place and move to Seattle so she can see you girls and your mom and dad.”

  “But she’s happy here.”

  “No, she’s not. She just doesn’t want to burden anyone or feel like she’s a fifth wheel.” He nodded sharply. “Make her feel like you need her there and she’ll dump this ol’ place in a heartbeat.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. I want you to promise me you’ll work on your mom and dad too, so that they can convince Lynn that’s what she needs to do.”

  Sadie agreed to try.

  “I’m sorry about Brian,” he said softly. “I tried to warn him before the blood vessel burst inside my head. I told him all about the voices and how they might come for him and that he shouldn’t be afraid.”

  “And?”

  “What do you think?” He blew out a low breath. “Your brother was a young stud full of life. He thought I was crazy. And rightly so. Only those living with it know the truth.”

  “I wish I’d known what he was going through. Maybe I could’ve helped him to understand. . . .”

  “You probably would’ve thought he was crazy, Sadie.” At the look on her face he added, “You don’t think so, but I’m sure you haven’t told the whole world what you got going on, have you?” At the look on her face he smiled. “Nope. I didn’t think so. You know damn well not everyone gets it.” He nodded toward the kitchen, where there was the sound of running water as Maeva continued to make a pot of coffee. “You’re lucky you found a friend who gets it. The graveyards are full of those who couldn’t handle their so-called gift.” He got up and walked toward Sadie and stopped directly in front of her. “Wish I could give you a hug,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  She got to her feet.

  “Do it, then,” Sadie said, offering him a brave smile.

  He shook his head. “Nope. I remember how it made me feel when the dead touched me. I thought I was gonna pass out or toss my lunch. I don’t want you to remember me that way.” He folded his hands neatly together and regarded his niece seriously. “Sadie, I’ve been trapped inside this house for six years. I’m tired. I need to let go.”

  She nodded and tears burned the backs of her eyes.

  “I can almost see him,” Uncle Glen said wistfully, his eyes distant.

  “Who?”

  “Brian,” he said. The edges of his shape began to shimmer. “He can’t come for me because he took his own life, but we can still be together after I let go.”

  “Then go,” Sadie said firmly. “I’ll take care of Aunt Lynn. You go and take care of my brother. Tell him I love him.”

  “Sorry it took me so long,” Maeva said, walking into the room with two hot mugs filled with coffee. “I found the coffee grinds, but it took forever to locate where she keeps the sugar, and you know how I hate my coffee without a couple spoons of—” She stopped short. “Shit. Why are you crying?”

  It took a while for Sadie to get the words out. Maeva helped Sadie to feel relief and gratefulness that she could help her uncle move on while she got closure for herself. After they finished their coffee and cleaned up, they hit the road again.

  “I need to talk to Joy,” Sadie said as her Honda rocketed down the highway back toward Seattle.

  “You can call her in the morning,” Maeva said sleepily.

  “I could,” Sadie agreed, digging out her cell phone. “But I’d rather talk to her now.”

  Sadie punched in the number of Onyx House and was grateful that it was Joy who answered the phone instead of Tim.

  “Hullo?” came the sleepy greeting.

  “Sorry to be calling so late.”

  “S-S-Sadie?” Joy stammered.

  Sadie could hear the rustling of blankets.

  “It’s nearly two in the morning,” Joy said incredulously. “What’s up?”

  “I need to talk to you about Brian,” Sadie said. “About how he acted after he visited my uncle in Oregon.”

  “That was years ago!” she exclaimed angrily. “And I’ve got to get up early tomorrow morning. If you really want to talk, we can meet for coffee later. When it’s actually daylight.”

  “Just a couple questions. Do you remember Brian going to visit my uncle?”

  Joy sighed.

  “He didn’t s-s-set out to visit your uncle. He was on his way to S-S-Smith Rock for his annual boys’ rock-climbing weekend,” Joy said with a snort. She seemed to not approve of the outing. “He went a day early and decided to stay with your aunt and uncle.”

  “And how was he when he got back?”

  “Again, Sadie, that was over s-s-six years ago! How would I remember how he was?”

  “Because maybe he came back different. Was he talking to himself, or, um, seeming to talk to people who weren’t there?”

  Joy was quiet for so long Sadie prompted her.

  “Joy? Did you hear me?”

  “Look, Brian had a kind of thing going on in those last few weeks,” Joy answered. “I don’t think it’ll come as any s-s-surprise for me to tell you that he was down. Really depressed.”

  “Depressed because he heard voices?” Sadie pushed.

  “All I know is that I tried to get him to go to a doctor, but he wouldn’t, s-s-so I brought him here, hoping he’d find peace with himself and maybe find people who understood.”

  “Obviously that was a big help,” Sadie replied snarkily.

  “Look, I’m s-s-sorry your brother and my fiancé killed himself,” Joy said, biting off each syllable with anger. “But it was s-s-six years ago. I’ve moved on and you should consider just letting sleeping dogs lie.”

  And that reminded Sadie of Rhea.

  “One more question. Why didn’t you tell us that you were pregnant? Why didn’t you give us the opportunity to get to know Brian’s daughter?” Sadie demanded.

  She was talking to air.

  “She hung up,” Sadie told Maeva.

  “Gee, I wonder why.” Maeva chuckled. “Ever hear of tact and diplomacy? Ever hear that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?”

  “Ever hear that he who hesitates is lost?” Sadie snapped. “I always knew that there must’ve been a big reason why Brian killed himself, and now I know what drove him to it. If she’d told him she was pregnant, maybe he would’ve snapped out of his depression. Maybe he would’ve gotten help or even just accepted that the dead talk to him and that he wasn’t going crazy.”

  “Joy probably didn’t even know she was pregnant, Sadie. You can’t pin it all on her.”

  Sadie’s fingers were tight on the steering wheel and tears leaked from under her lashes as she gunned the accelerator.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Maeva said.

  “No, you don’t,” Sadie snapped.

  “You are not your brother, Sadie,” Maeva said quietly. Then she added in a firm voice, “You know why you’ve been given this gift. You know that you help people go over. If Brian had given it half a chance, maybe he could’ve learned that too. You help people with your gift.”

  “My so-called gift was handed down to me because my brother killed himself, Maeva. How can I go around happily trying to move spirits from here into the great beyond knowing that the only reason I can do it is because Brian blew his brains all over his bathroom with a gun?”

  “How can you not?”

  21

  “I think I should try to talk to Rhea,” Sadie said as she steered the car into the outskirts of Seattle.

  “In the morning,” Maeva said sleepily.

  She fell back asleep and dozed off for the remaining drive until they were parked a few houses down from the bed-and-breakfast and Sadie killed the ignition.


  Maeva sat up and looked around.

  “Where are we?”

  “Parked around the corner from Onyx House.”

  “I thought we agreed we’d do it in the morning?”

  “Technically it is the morning.”

  “It’s like three in the morning,” Maeva pointed out. “Okay, we’re here. So what’s your plan?”

  “Um . . .”

  “You don’t even have a plan?”

  “In all fairness your snoring made it difficult to concentrate.”

  “Hunh.” Maeva crossed her arms over her chest and scrunched up her face. “Okay, I’ve got it. You want to talk to Rhea, right? You’ve always seen this kid outside, right? So it’s not like we have to break in or something. Lord knows we don’t want to confront Joy, since she’s already not very happy with you. We’ll just walk around the gardens outside the house, keeping near the bushes so nobody notices us, and hopefully Rhea shows up.”

  “Okay,” Sadie agreed.

  They climbed out of Sadie’s car and gently closed the doors. Walking around the corner and slowly up the street, Maeva bent to Sadie as they ducked under a streetlight.

  “So what killed your little niece anyway?”

  “She fell out her bedroom window,” Sadie said.

  “Jesus,” Maeva muttered.

  “Yeah,” Sadie agreed. “One of the neighbors said Joy was working in her garden at the time and Rhea landed only a foot away.”

  “So your brother kills himself and then a few years later his little girl falls out a window. It’s amazing Joy is still standing upright.”

  Sadie thought about how Brian’s death just brought her to her knees emotionally. Losing a fiancé would’ve been awful, but losing your daughter in such a preventable accident would’ve been murder.

  They ducked under the trellis archway and stayed along the cedar hedge as they circled the yard. The house was completely dark and the full shrubs added spooky shadows to the yard. The cool grass tickled her ankles. After a few minutes Sadie was getting discouraged.

  “She’s a little kid. Maybe she doesn’t even come out at night,” Sadie said.

  “She’s a spirit, Sadie. She has no concept of time and space as we know it. She can materialize or not as it pleases her.”

  They stepped around the back of the house, and outside lights promptly lit the yard.

  “Oh shit!” Sadie whispered, and jumped back into shadow at the side of the house. Maeva leapt back with her.

  “I think they’re just motion-detector lights,” Maeva whispered in Sadie’s ear.

  “What are you guys doin’?” a young voice asked.

  Sadie whirled around to find Rhea standing there smiling and eyeing them curiously.

  “She’s here,” Sadie said to Maeva, her voice still a hushed whisper.

  Maeva turned and looked where Sadie pointed.

  “I can make out only a whitish wisp of smoke,” Maeva admitted.

  It was no surprise. Maeva’s skills were more along the lines of receiving messages from those spirits she herself actually summoned.

  “Why are you whispering?” the little girl asked, her own voice lowered and followed by a delighted giggle.

  “I don’t want your mom or stepdad to know we’re here,” Sadie admitted.

  “You don’t have to worry ’bout Dad, on account of he’s not home. He went out and he’s not back yet.”

  “So Joy’s home alone?” Sadie asked, looking up to the higher windows above them. Maeva’s gaze followed hers.

  “Yep. ’Cept for she’s got a guest.”

  “Right. I guess this is a B and B,” Sadie said, more to herself. She faced Rhea, then dropped down to one knee so that she was looking the little girl straight in the eye. “I want to ask you something important. I want you to think hard and tell me if you ever remember your mom talking about why your real dad died.”

  “Oh, I know why he died,” Rhea said, nodding her head seriously. “I do. It was ’cause of a gun and that’s why guns are never, not ever, for kids to touch or play with.”

  Sadie blew out a long breath and tried a different approach.

  “Yes, it was because he got shot with a gun, but did your mom ever say why?”

  Rhea pinched her face into a thoughtful look and tapped her pursed lips with the tip of her finger.

  “It was on account of voices.”

  “Voices?”

  “Yep. Voices he heard, and then he came here and Daddy Tim told him he was gonna end up loony like his uncle and he’d be better off gone. Mom said his head and heart were all broken inside ’cause of voices.”

  “Tim told him he was crazy?” Sadie’s tone was harsher than she wanted and she saw Rhea flinch away.

  “You’re mad.”

  “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad that your daddy is dead.”

  “Tim’s my real daddy, you know, on account of Mom said so and since I never knew the other dad.”

  Sadie sighed and looked into Rhea’s sad face.

  “I wish I could’ve been your real aunt when you were alive.”

  “You need to help her move on,” Maeva said, coming to stand next to Sadie. “You’re becoming attached.”

  “She’s Brian’s flesh and blood,” Sadie whispered.

  “No, she’s not,” Maeva said firmly. “Because she’s no longer even part of our reality. You need to help her move on, because it’s what you are called to do.”

  “I don’t wanna go,” Rhea said, her bottom lip beginning to quiver.

  “See what you’ve done?” Sadie demanded. “You’re upsetting her.”

  Maeva opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again, tilting her head as if listening to a distant sound.

  “You don’t have to move on if you’re not ready,” Sadie told Rhea.

  “You better leave,” Rhea said. She looked off toward the front yard and lifted her finger to point. “One of the bad people is coming.”

  Sadie looked toward the front yard where Rhea pointed. When she turned back, Rhea was gone. Then she heard it.

  “A motorcycle!” Maeva and Sadie cried simultaneously.

  By the time they heard it, he was already driving up to the front of the house. There was no way to get to Sadie’s car without walking right past the biker, so they hunkered down low behind a clump of shrubs that, hopefully, hid them while allowing them ample view of the front yard.

  The Harley-Davidson made a final fwap fwap growl before it was turned off. Seconds later a man clad in black leather strode purposely through the vine-covered trellis and toward the front door. His leather jacket was new and fitted. The helmet he wore was the modern full-facial type and certainly not the black beanie Fierce Force members were known to wear. At the front door, the motorcyclist simply knocked once.

  Sadie found herself leaning forward, her face against scratchy branches, in order to see. She could hear Maeva’s heavy breathing next to her.

  The front door was opened by Joy. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and looked like she’d been expecting someone. When the man stepped inside, he tugged off his helmet. As he reached behind him to shut the door, Sadie saw his face clearly.

  It was Scott Reed.

  Sadie’s hand flew to her mouth to stifle a gasp. Maeva’s face had the same look of astonishment.

  The door to Onyx House closed.

  “Let’s wait a minute and then make a run for it,” Maeva suggested.

  Sadie nodded.

  After a minute or two, they got to their feet and carefully threaded their way between the taller shrubs in the garden. Once they were near the trellis, they bolted through the yard, down the street, and around the corner.

  Once inside the car, they zipped out of the neighborhood as quickly as possible.

  “He could be doing a story,” Maeva suggested.

  “Maybe . . . ,” Sadie said, but it felt wrong to her. She opened her mouth to say more but heard the muffled ring of her cell phone sounding from the bottom o
f her purse.

  Since Sadie was driving, Maeva dug out the phone for her. She looked at the display before handing it over to Sadie.

  “It’s Zack.”

  Sadie frowned. It was the middle of the night.

  She took the phone and answered.

  “Yeah?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m out,” she said huffily. He had no right to demand to know where she was in the middle of the night.

  “You need to get your ass to your sister’s place. Someone’s taken Dawn.”

  22

  Sadie reached Dawn’s house in record time, but she didn’t remember the drive. Her Honda had barely come to a complete stop at the curb before she was flying out of her car and hurling herself toward the house with Maeva jumping out of the passenger seat and running to catch up.

  Zack stopped her in the driveway.

  “Tell me everything!” Sadie said, her voice tinged with hysteria. “What are they doing to get my sister back?” She nodded toward a growing police presence in and around Dawn’s house.

  “I’m sure the police are doing everything they can,” Maeva said quietly.

  “They’ve got her, don’t they?” Sadie said, her eyes large and brimming with tears. “Those bikers or Satanists or whoever took my sister and they’re . . . they’re going to kill her and cut out her baby!” The last was said behind her fingers. She felt her knees buckle and Zack grabbed her by her elbow.

  “You’ve got to calm down,” he said, his voice coplike in its firmness, and his jaw set in granite anger. “Time is everything right now.”

  Sadie nodded and bit the inside of her cheek to stop from screaming. The part of her that was insanely angry with Zack got buried beneath the heart-pounding fear her sister could be dead.

  “Oh, God, Thuggy was supposed to be watching her!” Zack’s eyes narrowed. “When did you talk to Thuggy?”>

  “Earlier today. He came to my house and I told him I’d pay him to keep an eye on Dawn until I got here.”

  “He wasn’t here. The cops got a nine-one-one call from your sister. She said someone was breaking into her house, but then the call ended and by the time they got here, she was gone.”