Dead Suite

by Wendy Roberts

  “The fly in the ointment here,” Owen said, picking up where his partner left off, “is simple. We need to do renovations but the workers don’t want to do jobs there because they think the place is haunted. Right now, only a very few people have been inside and experienced what’s going on. We want to keep it that way.”

  “Right,” Gayla added. “If we can take care of the problem and get the place fixed, it’ll be all well and good, but if the house begins to have a reputation for being haunted”—she threw her hands in the air—“then poof! There goes our profit.”

  “And is it haunted?” Sadie asked.

  Owen snorted dismissively.

  “I’m asking Gayla.” Sadie narrowed her eyes in Owen’s direction and he covered the smirk on his face by drinking from his glass of wine.

  “Well, we had the locks changed and there didn’t appear to be any sign of a break in,” Gayla said, turning to Owen. “What else could it be?”

  “I’m sure a couple creative teenagers could slide open those old windows without a problem,” he reasoned.

  “And what about the workers who got hit by paint cans and stuff?” Sadie asked, regarding him coolly. “Were those same teenagers invisible?”

  “Even grown men can have active imaginations,” he offered, and the way his gaze scraped hotly over her body Sadie didn’t require any imagination to guess his thoughts.

  “None of it really matters,” Gayla said, waving her hand as if to wipe the slate clean. “Of course it could be kids or jokes, and we have no way of knowing for sure. Right now it’s all about perception. We’ve told all our workers we’re spending a couple weeks to ensure the house is ghost free, and if they believe all is well they’re sure to come back and finish the job. We’ve given them deposits and we don’t want to lose that money either.”

  “Which brings me back to what I said earlier,” Sadie said, pushing her empty dish aside and dabbing her lips with her napkin. “The staff at Madam Maeva’s will do a great job. You don’t need me.”

  “Like I told you before, I heard Maeva speak at a workshop before and that’s what sold me on her company.”

  “You attend psychic workshops?” Owen sounded surprised.

  “It was open to the public and I happened to be staying at the hotel.” She shrugged. “I was curious and it was fascinating information. Maeva’s a compelling speaker. “But we want you. All we ask is that you go over to the house a couple times with the Thingvolds and help them out.”

  Sadie realized Gayla Woods was a woman who was very used to getting her own way.

  “We’re prepared to pay you double your usual rate.”

  And Sadie was prepared to take that offer.

  “Are you sure?” Owen didn’t appear to be on board with the extra payment, which suddenly made the deal that much more appealing. Besides, beggars couldn’t be choosers and if they wanted to pay her double her rate in order to make her sit around ghost busting with the Thingvolds, she wasn’t in a financial position to turn the offer down.

  “You have a deal. I will work with Rick and Rosemary Thingvold in their attempts. I can’t make any guarantees.”

  “Agreed,” Gayla said, but Owen was silent.

  Sadie shook hands with Gayla and then offered her hand to Owen, who reluctantly shook it.

  After the meal, Owen insisted on walking her to her car since it was now dark. They walked in silence. Mostly because Sadie was huffing and puffing up the hill to the parking garage and her feet hurt.

  They rounded the block and Sadie spotted her car where she’d left it parked in the lot.

  “That’s my car. Thanks for walking me,” she said dismissively.

  Owen continued walking alongside her.

  “What’s that on your windshield?”

  Sadie narrowed her gaze but couldn’t quite make it out. As they got closer it appeared that a clear bag was under her wiper.

  “Trash just blew onto my window,” Sadie explained.

  Her heart was beating hard in her chest. It could’ve been because of the hike up the steep street in heels, or it could’ve been the fact that she was obviously attracted to Owen Sorkin, whose arm was brushing against hers. Then again it could’ve been because it was becoming clear the bag on her windshield contained something gruesome.

  “Oh my God!” Owen called out, and they stopped short just a step from her Corolla. “Is that what it looks like?”

  Sadie swallowed thickly and spoke slowly. “It looks like a severed finger.”

  Chapter 4

  Owen reached for the clear baggie on Sadie’s windshield as if to be absolutely sure it was what they thought it was. Then he let out a girly scream, flung the bag a few feet away, and ran to wrap Sadie in a suffocating hug.

  “What are you doing?” She gasped for air and pushed him away.

  “I don’t want you to faint again.”

  “Me?” Sadie said indignantly, placing her hands on her hips. “I clean up far worse than this almost every single day. I didn’t faint at your house on Halladay Street because I was afraid or freaked out.”

  “Then why did you faint?”

  Sadie frowned. “I don’t know.” She tugged her cell phone out of her pocket. “I gotta call this in.”

  ***

  Detective Petrovich showed up dressed in a three-piece suit complete with a violet-colored tie and pale blue dress shirt. Sadie noted his girlfriend, Jenny, was in the car.

  “Sorry. I obviously got you away from a big date.”

  “More than a date. I was on my knees proposing when you called,” Petrovich said, rubbing the top of his brush cut with one hand and surveying the scene with the other.

  “Congratulations!” Sadie cried and then turned to offer Jenny a thumbs-up.

  “I didn’t wait for a response, and we left before I could pull out the ring.”

  “Oh.” Sadie glanced again at his date and noticed she looked slightly pissed. “Couldn’t you call anybody else to help out here?”

  “This is mine. If she’s going to marry a detective she’s gotta know this comes with it.”

  Sadie played with the pendant around her neck as she shot Jenny a sympathetic look.

  “So where’s the finger?” Petrovich demanded.

  “It was under my windshield,” Sadie said. “Now it’s over there.” She pointed to a parking spot behind her car.

  “How’d it get over there?” Petrovich barked. “You know better than to mess with a crime scene.” He strode over to the baggie and Sadie followed, talking to his back.

  “Wasn’t me that tossed it. Owen Sorkin and his partner took me out for dinner at Etta’s to talk to me about a job. Owen walked me back to my car. He saw the baggie, picked it up, and chucked it before I could react.”

  Sadie nodded to indicate Owen, who was leaning against a dirty brick building at the side of the lot looking queasy and distinctly uncomfortable at this turn of events.

  “Don’t go anywhere until I get your statement,” Petrovich yelled to Owen, who responded with a weak nod. Petrovich turned to Sadie. “He looks a little fancy-pants for you.”

  “It was a business meeting,” Sadie said.

  The detective crouched down to stare at the digit in the baggie. He took a small flashlight from his pocket and shone it on the ground. Sadie crouched next to him.

  “It belongs to that dead hooker from the Bay Eminence, doesn’t it? May Lathrop,” Sadie whispered.

  “Won’t know for sure until we do testing,” Petrovich said.

  “It’s got the same bright pink polish on the nail,” Sadie said, playing with the necklace around her neck.

  “I’m not in the business of guessing,” Petrovich barked. “And neither should you.” He got to his feet, turn
ed, and waved to an unmarked car that pulled up at the curb. “But the more important question here is that if it turns out to be from a crime scene, why the hell did this body part end up on your windshield?”

  And that line of thought did make Sadie feel a little woozy.

  “Not like you to get sick over a tiny bit of blood.” Petrovich tilted his head at her. “You okay? You look a little green.”

  Sadie planted her feet farther apart and willed the world to stop spinning.

  “I’m fine. Ate too much fish stew.”

  “That’s why I never touch the stuff.”

  He waved the other detective over and the two chatted briefly before Petrovich took a statement from Owen Sorkin and then Sadie.

  “Sorry, but we’re going to have to impound your car for a couple days,” he told Sadie. “Ask your boyfriend to give you a ride.”

  “He’s not my—,” Sadie started, but Petrovich had already turned and walked away.

  Owen put his hand on her shoulder.

  “No problem. I’ll drive you.”

  They had to walk all the way back to Etta’s because Owen had been able to find parking for his snazzy BMW M6 coupe directly in front of the restaurant. He opened the door for Sadie and she slid into the plush passenger seat.

  After he’d started up the car she told him her home address and he punched the information into his GPS.

  “Sorry you got tied up in this.”

  “I’m not sorry at all. As a matter of fact, this entire thing was an elaborate setup so that I could have the opportunity to drive you home.”

  Sadie laughed. “Really? You chopped off someone’s finger and put it on my dash?”

  “Well, no . . . it’s a fake finger . . . got it from a gag shop,” he joked. “If I’d known you were going to get all serious and call the police, I would’ve just flattened your tire or something.”

  Sadie appreciated that Owen was trying to take her mind off the seriousness of the matter. She glanced over at this handsome man at home in the cockpit of this gorgeous automobile and had to ask:

  “So how come a guy like you is single?”

  “Who says I’m single?” he countered, accelerating smoothly into traffic.

  “I just assumed because you’ve been flirting with me like a sex-crazed rock star,” Sadie remarked. “Of course, maybe you’re just like that with everyone. Probably the senior ladies crowding the Safeway deli department swoon at your compliments.”

  He tossed back his head and laughed. As he brought the car to an easy stop at a red light he turned and offered Sadie a look that could only be described as smoldering.

  “The old ladies are safe. I’m very select in my attentions.” He turned his eyes back to the road as the light turned green. “You fascinate me, Sadie Novak. I’d like to get to know you better. Unless, of course, you’re attached. I did ask Rosemary and Rick if you were single. Rick said you were involved and living with someone. Rosemary told me you’d broken up and were no longer together with this guy.” He glanced her way. “Which is it?”

  “It’s . . . complicated,” Sadie replied, squirming a little in her luxurious leather seat.

  Sadie was uncertain if she was heating up because of the sexual tension, or if it was because the seat warmer was heating her tushy to a toasty temperature. She figured it would be best to just keep quiet the rest of the way. Owen Sorkin had other ideas.

  “So what’s your story?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m sure you didn’t grow up telling everybody that you wanted to do trauma cleaning when you got older.”

  “No. I wanted to be a primary school teacher. And I was.”

  “What happened?”

  Sadie turned and looked out her window as if the sidewalks of Seattle were fascinating.

  “My brother shot himself.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that,” he said sincerely.

  “Thanks. It was a number of years ago,” she said and didn’t add, but it still hurts like hell every single day. “Detective Petrovich did the investigation. Afterward I found out that it’s the family’s job to clean up the mess left behind. Police and EMTs? Not their job. Most people don’t realize that until they’re faced with their own personal hell. So I cleaned up after my brother because there’s no way a parent should ever have to wipe their son’s gray matter off the bathroom walls of his house.” She shrugged and turned to face him. “Then it became my calling. I didn’t want other families to have to be traumatized twice when a family member dies. I researched trauma companies, took all of the extensive training required, and opened Scene-2-Clean.”

  “Wow.” He whistled. “That’s quite a story. What about the rest of it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The psychic stuff. Your work with the supernatural and Madam Maeva’s Psychic Café?”

  “Maeva’s my friend. I already told you that,” was Sadie’s only response. “Now, tell me what’s your story? If that house on West Halladay and this car are any indication, the downturn in the economy isn’t biting you in the ass like the rest of us. What do you do?”

  “You know what I do.” He smiled at her as he cornered onto her street then steered into her driveway. “I buy places, fix them up, and sell them for profit.”

  “You finished high school and decided to start flipping houses?”

  “Well, no. I trained as a software development engineer. Worked a number of years at Boeing.”

  “A techno geek? No way?”

  “Way.” He winked at her. “I enjoyed it, but lots of stress. Then one year I used my savings to buy a fixer-upper. Made more profit on that house than I did in six months’ work and I enjoyed it more, so . . .” He trailed off.

  “So you dropped one career for another. Like me.”

  “Something like that.”

  “And Gayla Woods? You work with her a lot?”

  “Nope.” He cornered sharply and accelerated into Sadie’s neighborhood. “Never had a partner before, but we both put bids on the house on Halladay Street and decided that rather than compete on it and drive the price up, we’d share the expenses and profit.”

  Sadie felt more assured that he confirmed what Gayla had already told her. Still, she got the feeling there was more to his story. He pulled into Sadie’s driveway then, and she thanked him for the ride. She was about to invite him in for a drink but then thought better of playing with fire. She shouldn’t give him any encouragement.

  “Are you sure you’re okay to be alone?” he asked, turning his body toward her in the small space of the car. “Somebody left you a pretty strong angry message tonight.”

  “The finger?” Sadie raised her eyebrows. “It wasn’t necessarily a threat directed at me. It could’ve just been meant as a way to taunt the police.”

  “Really?”

  Damn him! Now she was getting a little freaked about being alone. Then again, she was slightly more freaked out about being alone with Owen.

  He reached out and placed a hand on her leg. “You want me to come inside and look under your bed?”

  “No.” She pushed his hand off her leg and opened the door.

  “Fine, but I’ll wait until you go inside and check all the rooms before I leave, okay?”

  Sadie smiled. “Agreed.”

  She climbed out of the car and her cell phone rang as she walked toward the house. It was Zack.

  “I’m so glad you called,” she told him honestly.

  “You texted me about a finger on your car? What’s that about?”

  “It’s a long story.” She slid her key into the lock at the front door and stepped inside.

  “I’ve had a bad day,” Zack answered roughly. “I don’
t think I can handle one of your long stories.”

  Sadie flinched like she’d been physically hit by his words. Then she closed the front door behind her and began to flick on the lights in each room as she went.

  “I’m sorry if listening to me talk is such a big inconvenience. It seems like everything about me bugs you these days,” she bit back.

  “Look, I’m working my ass off to pay off my medical bills and help you out with your house. I don’t have a lot left over to be touchy-feely with you.”

  “Excuse me!” Sadie paused with her hand hovering over the light switch in the kitchen. “You are about as untouchy and unfeeling as a guy can get. As a matter of fact, you haven’t touched me in months!” She angrily slapped the light switch on and leaned against the wall.

  “Look, Sadie, you knew it was going to be like this. I told you that when I got out of Whispering Groves we needed to reevaluate our relationship.”

  “You did? Because I don’t remember the word reevaluate. I remember you saying that you wanted a chance to date and woo me. This doesn’t feel like wooing. It feels like you’re finding a way to leave.”

  “I don’t know what to say to that.”

  “Give it to me straight,” Sadie demanded, pressing the phone hard to her ear. “I need to know if we’re on a break or if we’re together.”

  “Maybe it’s not that simple.”

  “I need it to be black and white. I’m tired of living in the gray area of romance purgatory. You’ve been home for months but it doesn’t feel like you’re home at all.” There was a painful pause, so she tried to explain herself more. “I need to be able to define what we have, Zack. I feel like I’m out floating around in a nonrelationship, and somewhere between fainting, chopped off fingers, and fishmonger stew my life needs to make sense.”

  “I have no clue what you just said. If you’re looking for a point-blank answer about us right this second, then I guess I have to say that yeah, we’re on a break.” His tone was needle sharp and it stabbed right through her heart.