Dead Suite

by Wendy Roberts

  Contents

  Also by Wendy Roberts

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Special Excerpt from Drop Dead Beauty

  About the Author

  Also by Wendy Roberts

  The Remains of the Dead

  Devil May Ride

  Dead and Kicking

  This book is for all the Ghost Dusters fans that asked for more. You rock!

  Thanks to Sandra Harding and Melissa Jeglinski for making it happen.

  INTERMIX BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  USA / Canada / UK / Ireland / Australia / New Zealand / India / South Africa / China

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  For more information about the Penguin Group visit penguin.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not have any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  DEAD SUITE

  An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  InterMix eBook edition / February 2013

  Copyright © 2013 by Wendy Roberts.

  Excerpt from Drop Dead Beauty copyright © 2013 by Wendy Roberts.

  All rights reserved.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-59512-1

  INTERMIX

  InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group

  and New American Library, divisions of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Chapter 1

  For most people, checking into a five-star hotel meant luxury and pillow mints. For Sadie Novak, luxurious accommodation meant blood spatter, maggots, and the occasional ghost. But it paid the bills.

  Sadie was dressed in a skirt and heels as she rode the elevator up to the tenth floor of the prestigious Bay Eminence Hotel. She smiled sweetly at the businessman who got off at the convention level, and when the doors slid open on the tenth floor Sadie made her way down the hall and slid her key card into the door. Her sweet smile was long gone and she was all business.

  Inside the room, Sadie sighed with brief longing as she took in the lavishly appointed space with the stunning view of Seattle’s Puget Sound bay. She could totally imagine the room being rented by a famous actress or a rock ’n’ roller wanting to trash its lusciousness just for fun. Sadie glanced hungrily at the bed and wished she could sink into its tempting fluffiness. Too bad the room wasn’t Sadie’s for rest, relaxation, or rolling around in the king-sized bed. Instead the space served only as a safe room that she used to don and doff disposable coveralls and where she would be storing supplies. Marring the elegant surroundings were large biohazard bins and containers holding all she needed to do crime scene cleanup.

  Sadie slipped out of her fancy skirt and blouse and into sweatpants and a T-shirt. Next she promptly covered up in a hazmat suit, including booties and a respirator. With an armload of specialized cleaning solutions, she made her way to the door that connected this hotel room, which she used as a safe room, to another that had turned out to be not so safe for its previous lodger. Sadie opened the door and stepped inside the second room. It was equally prestigious and opulently appointed; or at least it would have been if it wasn’t for the blood-streaked, naked hooker sitting on the edge of the cushiony king-sized bed.

  “Ah geez,” Sadie muttered from behind her respirator.

  The job just went from normal mess and gore to an entirely more complicated and paranormal level.

  Yesterday she’d been hired by the manager of the Bay Eminence to clean up an “unfortunate incident” in one of their rooms. Sadie had already read about it in the papers over the last few days. She didn’t need the hotel manager to tell her the little event that occurred at this plush hotel involved the brutal butchering of a prostitute. That kind of thing tended to knock a star or two off the five-star rating.

  The Seattle Police Department had done its job removing the body and collecting evidence, but somebody had to tidy up the remaining ghoulish disaster of blood spatter. It was definitely far beyond housekeeping’s usual job requirement. Sadie had promised the hotel manager, Herbert Sylvane, that she would be discreet. Management had done its best to minimize the appearance of the hotel name in local papers, impressively having it buried on page four instead of headlining the Seattle Times. Nobody wanted Sadie’s cleanup to cause Seattle tourists and convention goers to question their choice of accommodation.

  Sadie had already arranged for hotel staff to bring up her supplies from the loading area, including heavy-duty air purifiers, and transport them into the adjoining room. They used linen carts and the freight elevators to make the delivery, and Sadie could hear them dropping off more gear in the other room while she took photos of the crime scene for the purpose of billing the insurance company. When she’d checked out the scene yesterday she’d thought the job would be easy-peasy—at least as uncomplicated as it ever was mopping up the dead—but there’d been no dead prostitute welcoming her last night.

  Sadie went to work around the naked woman, which was not as simple as it might sound. Whenever Sadie attempted to wipe away blood spatter or tried to spray emulsifiers on sloughed dried skin, the nudie-patootie working girl would leap in front of her, trying to get her attention. Considering the victim had slashes that made her previously model-like body look like bloody Swiss cheese, it was distracting to say the least.

  Sadie had hoped to get the job done quickly and deal with any possible ghosts after the cleaning, or at least in the latter stages when she didn’t have to make herself heard through a respirator, but the apparition before her obviously had other ideas.

  “I really didn’t want to do this right now,” Sadie shouted through her respirator as she turned to face the attention-seeking spirit. In addition to the respirator muffling her voice, the ozone generator air purifier created a noise of its own. She didn’t want to turn them off even for a second because the ozone helped destroy odor molecules and also killed airborne bacteria. “What would you like to tell me?”

  The lithe twentysomething redhead faced Sadie with a look of surprise and pointed to herself as if to say, “Who, me?”

  “No. The twelve other ghosts in the room,” Sadie responded sarcastically.

  It would’ve been funny, exce
pt Sadie knew that for the dearly departed, this wasn’t a humorous moment at all. Sadie took a step forward to punctuate her point with a tap on the ghost’s shoulder. “Yes, dear, I’m talking to you.”

  When Sadie’s fingers touched the apparition she was filled with the revulsion that always flooded her if she physically touched the dead. She shuddered, made a sour face, then shook off the wave of nausea that followed.

  The woman blinked at Sadie with a look of uncertain confusion.

  “Okay, I’ll start,” Sadie shouted, but her voice was muffled by the apparatus over her face. “I’m so sorry to tell you this, but you’re dead. You were killed here in this room by some crazy guy. This might be news to you. My friend with Seattle police, Detective Petrovich, told me you were most likely drugged, so there’s a very good chance that you don’t remember being killed.” Sadie glanced over the woman, taking in the multiple stab wounds, and slowly shook her head. “If that’s true, you should be grateful for that one small comfort.”

  The woman looked down as if seeing her mutilated body for the first time. She shrieked in horror before vanishing into thin air.

  “She’ll be back,” Sadie mumbled to herself.

  With a scrub brush in hand, Sadie turned and tackled the blood-spattered wall. It had been a few days since the Seattle PD investigators had gotten what they needed from the room and left the rest. Maggots were having a social gathering in the sludgy congealed blood puddles on the floor. Unfazed, Sadie tackled the job in systematic stages. She worked like a frenzied machine of clean, using emulsifiers to soften dried tissue and blood and then scrubbing and wiping them away. What couldn’t be cleaned—such as sections of carpeting, underlay, and mattress—she cut away and placed into medical waste containers. Blood was cleaned, maggots were swept up and flushed away, and Sadie tackled it all hour upon hour until every muscle in her body screamed from the exertion.

  In fact, it was nearly six hours later when Sadie surveyed the room and pronounced it reasonably ungory, unbloody, and, generally, unmaggoty. The first stage of the cleaning was always the toughest because of the amount of gear required. Beneath her hazmat gear she was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. Slipping into the adjoining safe room, Sadie doffed her gear, stripped to her bra and panties, and stood in front of the air-conditioning vent for a couple minutes.

  It was after midnight but Sadie was positive that she could complete the second stage of cleaning before morning. This confidence came from the fact that the manager of the swanky Bay Eminence was paying her triple her usual going rate to accomplish the task within twenty-four hours. Things had been slow for Sadie’s trauma-clean company, Scene-2-Clean, so she didn’t mind sacrificing sleep to get the job done. She might even be able to make her mortgage payment this month.

  Herbert Sylvane told her she could order whatever she wanted from room service for as long as it took her to get the job done. That was one of the better perks she’d ever been given. Her stomach growled as she picked up a leather binder and flipped through to peruse the room-service menu. Normally Sadie would’ve grabbed a sub or burger on the way home from a job. The Bay Eminence menu was a tad more refined. She went with the lobster bisque to start and the fennel-crusted salmon as the main course. Instead of dessert she decided to order lots and lots of coffee. The cost of the meal was about how much she usually earned on a job, so it was no small bonus. She called the order into room service and asked them to bring it directly into the room since she’d be in the bath.

  She filled the tub with hot water laced with the girly-scented bath products provided. She stripped off her undies and slid blissfully beneath the bubbles, then picked up her cell phone from the edge of the tub and called her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Zack Bowman.

  “Hey, how’s it going at the Eminence?” he asked, answering on the first ring.

  “It’s a real hardship.” Sadie sighed as she slid deeper into the bubbles. “I’m soaking in a Jacuzzi filled with rosemary-mint bubbles while I wait for room service to deliver my lobster bisque and salmon. I may never come home.” She added, “By the way, I’m naked.”

  “You are?”

  Sadie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s how I usually take my baths.”

  “You’re killing me.” But he laughed and sounded distracted when he said it. “Guess I could hop in my car and be there in a couple hours.”

  Sadie’s heart jackhammered in her chest. She wished he meant it. He’d spent a number of weeks at Whispering Groves Rehab Center but had been home for months now and they’d been living like roommates, not lovers. With business slow, she’d been channeling all her pent-up sexual energy into jogging. If she didn’t have sex soon she was going to have to seriously consider entering the Seattle marathon.

  “Do it. Climb in your car and drive up for the night,” Sadie said and hated that it sounded like she was begging. “Take your time so I can get the job done. You’d be breaking every speed limit to get to Seattle from Portland in two hours.”

  “It would so be worth it.”

  “I wish you meant that.” Sadie’s annoyance peaked. She wanted to tell him to act like a boyfriend and make love to her. Instead she muttered, “I’m working through the night in Seattle and you’re working the rest of the week almost two hundred miles away, so stop teasing.”

  “Guess we’ll have to stick to the weekend.”

  Since the economy had gone south and Sadie’s trauma-clean company had it tough, Zack had taken a job as a rent-a-cop in Portland. It helped out financially, but it was doing nothing to add spark to their diminishing love life.

  “How about we go out for dinner and a movie when you’re back?” she suggested.

  “Maybe . . .”

  “You were the one who said we should start going out on dates once you were out of rehab.”

  “I know. We will . . . eventually.”

  Sadie’s heart tightened in her chest. She wanted to snap and tell him she was sick of his lack of commitment, but she was afraid it would make things worse. She heard the door to the room open up and a male voice announced he was leaving the tray on the table. She shouted “Thanks” in return.

  “I guess I should finish up before my food gets cold,” Sadie told Zack.

  “Okay. Talk to you later,” he replied, sounding all too okay with ending the call.

  “You know, if you do decide to drive up for a visit you could head right up to the room, and by the time you got here I’d be done cleaning so we could . . . spend some quality time together.” She hoped her voice sounded soft and sexy and not as desperate as she felt.

  “That’s tempting, but . . . it’s not such a good idea,” Zack said haltingly. “We’d agreed I’d find my own place after rehab and take things slow.”

  “Like the dinner and a show I suggested?”

  He didn’t reply. Sadie bit her lower lip. He was the one who’d insisted on finding his own place but he’d delayed that move only because of her money situation. She knew Zack would’ve moved out immediately if she hadn’t needed the help financially.

  “Right,” she replied, all business now. “Well, I should get back to work. Make hay while the sun shines or, in this case, wash blood while there’s blood to mop.”

  They ended the call with uncomfortable chuckles, and Sadie dropped her cell phone onto a stack of towels next to the tub. She sunk down until her face was submerged beneath the water and then screamed until all the air exploded from her lungs in a blast of bubbles.

  After lathering and rinsing away the smell of body decomp from her hair and skin, Sadie reluctantly removed her pruning body from the Jacuzzi jets. She sat with a plush hotel housecoat wrapped around her damp body as she devoured the gourmet meal. It was delicious, but she had to admit that it still fell short of a burger and shake from Dick’s Drive-In.

  Sadie redresse
d in clean, casual clothes and washed the meal down with excellent coffee poured from a fancy carafe. Looking out the hotel window, she admired the startling beauty of Puget Sound. All in all, this job was one sweet ride. If you didn’t mind ghosts and gore. Her gaze slid sideways to the connecting door and the room beyond. There was still work to be done.

  Sadie didn’t need the respirator for this next phase of cleaning and she was more than a little grateful. She still suited up in disposable Tyvek coveralls, gloves, and booties before passing through the connecting door, but the respirator stayed behind. She brought with her an additional waste bin. She’d already removed large sections of carpet and underlay and placed them into rubber bins for proper disposal later.

  It was in the wee hours in the morning when the redhead ghost reappeared, perching herself so that she hovered just a few inches above the edge of the bed. She watched Sadie for some time before saying anything.

  “My name is May Lathrop,” she said slowly, her bottom lip quivering with emotion.

  Sadie glanced over and offered her a sympathetic smile. “I know. Your name was in the paper.”

  “It was?” She blinked rapidly as if she might cry and then swallowed her tears and began pacing the floor anxiously. “How did this happen? Who did this to me?”

  “Sorry, I don’t know, but I’m sure the police will try their best to find out,” Sadie replied, then added, “I’m guessing you took a job here, right? At the Eminence? I imagine whoever hired you for an hour or a night . . . well, I guess he was messed up in the head.” Sadie tapped the side of her own head.

  “I have a corner off Union Street. This is a much fancier place than I’m usually at,” May said. Her fingers reached to stroke the fabric of a fine high-back chair in the corner, but her hand simply dropped through the material without contact and May choked back a sob.

  “Don’t suppose you remember what you were doing here?” Sadie shook her head. “I don’t mean what, I mean who. Do you remember who hired you or even where you were before coming here?”