Drop Dead Beauty (3 page)

“Thanks!” Sadie smiled. “And sorry for taking up your lunch hour on such a stupid quest.”

“No big deal. I’m always there for you. You know that.”

Sadie felt tears prick her eyes and she nodded.

Zack lifted her chin with the tip of his finger and frowned.

“What’s up?”

She shook her head.

“Just off my game.” She offered him a brave smile. “I think I need to go home and sleep this day away and start fresh tomorrow.”

He put his hand to her forehead.

“No fever but you’re definitely not yourself.”

They walked back to their cars and he pulled her into a hug.

“Straight home to bed,” he whispered into her hair.

Sadie agreed and waved good-bye as Zack took off down the street. Once back in her car she put her Bluetooth in her ear and dialed Maeva’s number as she steered away from the curb.

“Something weird is happening to me,” Sadie started.

“It’s not weird. It’s perfectly natural. Pregnancy brings on many changes and—”

“I’m not talking about being p-p – . . .” Sadie licked her lips.

“You can’t even say it!”

“First of all, just because some dumb window on a plastic stick turned into two pink lines does not mean I have a
not
mean I have a human being growing inside my uterus.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what it means.”

“But I can’t be pregnant!”

“You can. We already discussed the who and the when, remember? I’m telling you like it is. Those tiny little sperm are sneaky suckers.” Maeva took a deep breath. “So . . . have you called him yet?”

“Who?”

“Owen Sorkin! Your baby’s father!”

“Oh God.” Sadie swallowed bile. “I just threw up a little in my mouth.”

“First trimester sucks,” Maeva said. “I strongly encourage you to start carrying an extra-large Ziploc bag in your purse for those times you’re feeling sick and aren’t near a bathroom.”

“Shut up!” Sadie shuddered with revulsion. “I can’t deal with that right now. Just let me tell you the real reason why I called.”

“Fine. Go ahead.”

Sadie explained to Maeva about what happened in the apartment and her voice shook a little as she described how she felt like her windpipe was being crushed.

“So this Yolanda ghost attacked you?”

“Yes. No.” Sadie thought about it. “I don’t know. Actually, the whole time she just sort of stood there looking confused.”

“So it was another ghost that tried to choke you?”

“I didn’t see another ghost.” Sadie rubbed the tender marks around her throat and sighed. “It was just me and Yolanda.”

“Huh.” Maeva paused a minute. “I’ve got an idea. . . . You’re not far from my place, so why don’t you stop in for a cup of coffee and we can talk about it. Unless you’d rather I come to your place?”

Sadie thought about Dean Petrovich waiting at her place and told Maeva, “I’ll be at your house in five.”

When Sadie arrived at Maeva’s place she was immediately handed her godson, Osbert.

“Take him for a second,” Maeva said, holding her house phone to her chest to cover the receiver. “I’m just talking to my neighbor.”

Sadie looked at the seven-month-old boy in her arms and cringed. He had yellow snot running from his nose and crusted to his cheeks.

“Hello, Ozzie my boy,” Sadie cooed. “You’re looking particularly unappealing today.” She whispered to Maeva, “Is there a tissue box around here somewhere?”

Sadie followed the direction Maeva pointed across the kitchen, where a box of Kleenex sat on the counter. Sadie grabbed numerous tissues and tried to wipe down Osbert’s face, but he squirmed and cried out in protest. Pudgy arms kept blocking Sadie’s attempts to clean him up, until finally the little guy buried his face against Sadie’s chest and wiped the mess on her shirt.

“Nice. I’ll remember this sixteen years from now when you want to borrow my car.”

Maeva hung up the phone and took back her son.

“Sorry about that. I’ve been feeding the neighbor’s cat and collecting her mail while she’s out of town and she was just calling to check up on Mr. Mike,” Maeva explained.

“Mr. Mike?”

“The cat.”

“Is that the elderly neighbor whose husband just died a couple weeks ago?” Sadie asked.

“Yes. She decided to visit her daughters in Portland after the funeral.”

Maeva brought Osbert over to the kitchen sink and turned on the tap. Digging out a rag, she soaked it then scrubbed down the boy’s face while he screamed in indignation. Then she got a new wet rag out for Sadie to use on her shirt.

“Sorry, he’s got a bit of a cold and flu. It’s affecting both ends.”

“What does that mean?”

The words were no sooner out of her mouth when the putrid smell reached her.

“Oh God.” Sadie clamped a hand over her mouth and nose. “That’s coming from him?”

“Oh c’mon.” Maeva rolled her eyes. “You smell worse things than that in your line of work.”

Sadie thought about the smell of body decomp earlier in the day and felt it was a pretty close call.

Maeva handed Sadie a mug of coffee, then left the room to clean her boy. She was back in less than two minutes.

“That was fast,” Sadie remarked.

“What can I say? I’ve got it down to a fine art. You’ll be surprised how quickly you adapt.” She put Osbert down on a blanket on the floor and then sat down at the table next to Sadie and lowered her voice to a soft, empathetic tone. “Have you decided how to handle this?” She pointed at Sadie’s stomach.

“You’re wrong. I don’t feel pregnant. I think the test was a dud.”

“They’re supposed to be ninety-nine percent accurate.”

“Right. So I’m the one percent.”

“Not likely.”

“What percentage of women can see and talk to the dead? Would you say that figure is over one percent? I don’t think so.” Sadie smiled triumphantly at Maeva. “If I can be special in one way, I can be special in another.”

Sadie lifted the coffee mug to her lips, took a big gulp, and then made a sour face.

“That’s horrible.” Sadie put the cup down. “Since when do you serve bad coffee?”

“It’s organic decaf. It’s what I drank while pregnant and nursing.”

Sadie pushed the mug away. “I know you want to harp on this pregnancy thing, but I called my doctor on my way over and made an appointment for tomorrow. Until I hear it from his mouth, I don’t want to deal with it. Let’s not use the word
pregnant
until then, okay?”

“Fine.” Maeva’s mouth turned up in a tiny smirk. “Let’s talk about what happened to your neck and how you got strangled by someone or something at this job.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do about that.” Sadie rubbed the back of her neck. “I guess I could turn the job down. Make an excuse and refer him to another trauma-cleaning company.”

“But business has just been improving. You finally got on top of bills and are back to making a profit. Turning away work is not an easy option. Especially now that you’re—” Maeva stopped herself.

Sadie gave her a warning glance. “As my go-to expert on psychic phenomena, how do you suggest I handle this situation?”

“Well, first I think you should come with me to my neighbor’s house to feed her cat.”

Sadie offered to carry the new, cleaner version of Osbert as they walked to the small ranch house next door. Normally she’d be blowing raspberries against Osbert’s pudgy cheeks and bouncing him around. Not wanting to take a chance on either end releasing noxious substances, she opted to hold him like a sack of potatoes on her hip.

Maeva unlocked the neighbor’s front door and called for the cat.

“Mr. Mike? Here kitty, kitty!”

Sadie sat down in a nearby living room armchair with Osbert on her lap.

“What are you doing?” Maeva asked.

“Sitting.”

“Well don’t,” Maeva admonished. “Come with me in the kitchen. I, um, might need your help.”

“To open a can of cat food?” Sadie grumbled but got up and followed anyway.

In the kitchen, Maeva took Osbert from Sadie’s arms and pointed to the door to a walk-in pantry.

“Grab a can of the seafood feast. That’s his favorite.”

Sadie opened the door to the pantry and the first thing she saw was at least a dozen neatly stacked cans of cat food on the first shelf. She reached for a can of seafood feast just as a bald elderly man with large liver spots on his head appeared in the pantry with her. Inadvertently, Sadie’s hand touched the ghost and she shuddered with revulsion. Coming in physical contact with the dead gave her the heebie-jeebies.

Sadie acknowledged the ghost with a nod.

“How ya doing?” she asked as she backed out of the pantry with the cat food.

Suddenly Sadie felt an excruciating pain in her chest. She stumbled backward and dropped the cat food.

“Argh!”

The pain caused Sadie to drop to her knees, and she clutched her chest as wave after wave of white-hot agony ripped through her.

Chapter 3

Maeva jumped in front of Sadie and slammed the pantry door shut.

“Look at me!” Maeva shouted and knelt to Sadie’s level. “You are fine! Do you hear me? You are
not
having a heart attack.”

Sadie couldn’t bring herself to speak, but slowly she got to her feet.

“Let’s get outside,” Maeva said.

Sadie staggered and dragged herself out of the house. Once outside, the pain evaporated and she slumped onto the steps.

“I need to go to the hospital.”

“No. There’s nothing wrong with you,” Maeva assured her with a small laugh as she balanced Osbert on her hip.

“My heart just about exploded in there!” Sadie’s fingers bit into her arms as she hugged herself. “Obviously, there is something seriously wrong, and why the hell are you laughing?”

“The job you had at that apartment today, how did the woman die?” Maeva demanded through a fit of giggles.

“Yolanda?” Sadie shrugged. “I don’t remember. In the paper it said her body was discovered after neighbors began complaining of the smell. Basically, all I needed to know was that it was a decomp scene. I try not to get too much info on the victims.”

“So that’s as far as you read because you were hoping to get the cleanup call,” Maeva added.

“And I did get the call. Not that it’s done me a lot of good,” Sadie grumbled. “I don’t know how the hell I’m going to go back to that apartment if there’s a ghost trying to choke me.”

“I looked it up after I talked to you on the phone. That Yolanda woman was strangled by her old boyfriend.”

“Strangled?” Sadie touched the tender area around her throat and winced. “So the boyfriend’s ghost came back to try and choke me?”

“No!” Maeva cried with exasperation. She moved Osbert to her other hip and snapped her fingers in Sadie’s face. “Think about it. What just happened to you inside my neighbor’s house?”

“I felt like I got hit in the chest by a ton of bricks. Like I was having a heart attack or something.”

“Right. And it happened after you saw my neighbor’s ghost. The man who had a heart attack inside that pantry two weeks ago while reaching for a box of Twinkies.”

Sadie let the weight of that information settle inside her head, and then she got angry.

“You set me up!” Sadie got to her feet and pointed an accusing finger at her friend. “You knew what was going to happen to me and that’s why you wanted me to open the pantry.”

“I didn’t know for sure but I figured it was the easiest way to find out.”

“That was mean.”

Maeva just laughed and handed Sadie her godson. “Hold him, will ya? I still gotta feed Mr. Mike.”

Sadie remained on the step with Osbert while her friend went back into the house.

“No offense, Ozzie, but I didn’t sign up for motherhood and I’m hoping this is just an elaborate practical joke or an allergic reaction to my new fabric softener. Not that I don’t hope to have kids one day, but hopefully I’ll be married. Or at least seriously dating someone who is the father of the child, know what I mean?”

Osbert gurgled happily and shoved his entire fist in his mouth in reply and then blew a huge snotty bubble out of his nose.

When Maeva returned a few minutes later they walked back to her house.

“I think I’ve figured all this out.” Sadie moved Osbert to her other hip and gestured as she spoke. “All of this stuff . . . the feeling like I’m being choked, the pain in my chest when I’m here, and my missed periods . . . I’m not pregnant, right? I’m just having some kind of supernatural flu.”

“Remember what happened to me when I was pregnant? My hormones played havoc on my abilities. All of my psychic skills pretty much dried up and disappeared throughout my pregnancy and it stayed that way until after I’d finished nursing Osbert and—”

“Exactly!” Sadie exclaimed as they walked inside Maeva’s house. “I can’t be pregnant because I’m still seeing ghosts. I saw Yolanda inside her apartment and, just now, I saw your dead neighbor in his pantry. If I was pregnant I’d be losing my abilities, like you did, but I’m still seeing ghosts!”

Maeva exhaled a world-weary sigh that sounded like the kind often produced by Sadie’s own mother.

“Look, being pregnant messes with your psychic capabilities but not everyone reacts the same way. For some, their powers diminish. For others, they increase or take on an entirely new level. Since your brother died and you began working as a trauma cleaner, you’ve been able to see and talk to the dead and help them move on to the next dimension, and now . . .” She took Osbert from Sadie’s arms and offered her friend a sympathetic look. “And now you can also
feel
what killed them. Your pain is what they experienced when they died.”

Sadie blinked rapidly and her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish.

“What?” Sadie shrieked when she finally found words. She scrubbed her palms against her face. “No, no, no! That is
not
possible! My livelihood has me cleaning up after traumatic death . . . murders . . . unattended deaths . . . friggin’ stabbings and shootings!” She threw her hands up in the air. “There is
no way
I can work if I’m experiencing that level of pain!”

“Go home. Rest. See your doctor tomorrow to confirm we are talking about pregnancy here and, in the meantime, let me think about this situation.”

“I can’t rest at home. I’ve got Detective Petrovich hiding out at my house, remember?”

“Well, maybe talking to him about his situation will help get your mind off your own,” Maeva suggested.

“That’s the worst advice ever,” Sadie complained as she stuffed her feet into her shoes.

Her arms and legs felt like they were weighted down by lead, or like all her worries were adding a hundred pounds of water weight. It was the PMS from hell.

She drove toward home with her mind on cruise control. Abruptly a thought became front and center in her mind. She had to deal with the apartment near Northgate Mall, or she’d lose all credibility with her client. She could handle a lot of distractions on the job, but there was no way in hell she could handle being strangled all day while scrubbing away body decomp.

Plugging her Bluetooth in her ear, Sadie scrolled through her phone until she found the number she wanted—Joe, who’d worked part-time for her before the economy went south and dragged her bank account with it.

“This is Joe,” came the slightly effeminate voice in her ear.

“Hi, Joe. Sadie Novak.”

“Sadie? Well, hello-o-o-o blast from my past. How are things hanging for my favorite blood-’n’-guts girl?”

“Good. Things are good,” Sadie lied, and propped up her vocals to a happy level. “So good, in fact, I’m looking for a relief pitcher.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’m swamped and I’ve got a couple jobs on the go at the same time. I’ve got this decomp scene at an apartment near Northgate Mall, and of course, I immediately thought of you.”

“I’m flattered that the smell of rotting corpses makes you think of me.” He giggled and then she could hear him suck on a cigarette. “When do you need it?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Oh c’mon! I’ve got a life, you know? I can’t drop everything on so short notice. I’m working all week helping to clean a grow-op in Renton.”

“This will only take a day, and besides, we both know grow-ops are boring work. It’ll still be there when you get back, and the poor neighbors in this building are suffering from the stench.”

He sighed and Sadie rolled her eyes, knowing she had to make it worth his while and sweeten the deal.

“Tell you what—if you use all your own equipment, I’ll pay you up front so you don’t have to wait for the insurance money to come in,” Sadie offered. “Plus, I’ll only take twenty percent for myself instead of my usual thirty.”

“Make it ten percent for you and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

“Ten!” Sadie tightened her grip on the steering wheel and snarled, “You wouldn’t even be getting the job if it weren’t for Scene-2-Clean’s name!”

“And you wouldn’t be calling unless you’d bitten off more than you could chew and were in a bind.” She heard him as he sucked more cancer into his lungs. Finally, he relented. “Fine. You can have fifteen percent but I want to get paid as soon as the job’s done.”

Sadie gritted her teeth.

“Deal.”

Ten minutes later Sadie pulled up to Joe’s dilapidated bungalow. It was a good thing he cleaned crime scenes better than he cleaned up after himself. Joe was a slob. He answered the door with a few days’ straggly growth on his pointy twenty-five-year-old chin and multiple stains on a faded T-shirt. Sadie handed off the key to Yolanda’s building, along with a paper listing the address and firm instructions to work all day tomorrow and get the job done.

“So I can count on you?” she asked.

“Of course.” He straightened. “I am a professional.”

“Good. Call me when you’re done and I’ll swing by and drop off your check.”

“You got it, girlfriend.”

He fist-bumped Sadie’s knuckles and then she went back to her car. Before she drove away Sadie dialed the landlord’s number. She told Harrison she’d have an employee over to clean the apartment first thing in the morning. He told her he didn’t care who cleaned the place as long as the smell was gone when they were done.

“I want it fresh as a baby by the time you guys are finished,” Harrison said.

Sadie thought about Osbert oozing putrid liquids from either end.

“It’ll be cleaner than a baby,” Sadie promised. “And it’ll smell better too.”

Sadie steered her car in the direction of home, but when she drove past a Rite Aid drugstore she found herself cutting off traffic to a cacophony of car horns as she pulled to the curb. When she entered the store it took her only a few seconds to locate what she was looking for but the selection was vast. And confusing. In the end, she gathered eight different pregnancy tests and a large bottled water. She headed to the checkout.

“Guess you can never be too sure,” the green-haired checkout girl told Sadie. She smirked as she handed Sadie the purchase. “Good luck.”

Sadie didn’t reply. She was anxious to just get home and deal with this once and for all. She guzzled the bottled water on the way, and by the time Sadie steered her Corolla into her home garage her eyes were beginning to float.

She rushed inside the door from the garage.

“Get out of the way,” she told Dean Petrovich when he appeared. “I gotta pee.”

Petrovich rolled his eyes and stepped aside in time for Sadie to rush past him into the bathroom. A few minutes later she had eight white plastic pregnancy sticks with various plus signs and pink lines in the positive window. One test stick was so bold and advanced that it actually spelled out the word
PREGNANT
.

Sadie spent five minutes sitting on the toilet seat crying. When she emerged from the bathroom, Petrovich wasn’t around but her bunny, Hairy, sat in the hallway looking up at her with his whiskers twitching expectantly.

“It’s official,” Sadie told him. “The rabbit not only died but somebody slaughtered it in its sleep eight times over.” She scooped up Hairy and nuzzled his fuzziness against her face. “Sorry about that. You don’t have to worry. They don’t kill bunnies for pregnancy tests anymore.”

She put down her rabbit and followed him as he hopped to his bowl in the kitchen. She topped off the remaining kibble bits in his food dish with a carrot stick and then returned to her fridge, where her hands circled an ice-cold bottle of beer, and then she caught herself and sighed.

With a cup of water in her hand, Sadie walked into her den and started up her computer. She dealt with spam promising to enhance her male genitalia and then replied to various questions from insurance companies and clientele over the last few days. Finally, she scrolled down through her messages until she stopped at one that she’d received a couple weeks ago. The message was from Owen Sorkin. It was a brief couple of lines saying that he was still in Albuquerque waiting for an investment property to sell. He joked about her flying down for a weekend getaway. Sadie hadn’t replied to his message, or the half-dozen nearly identical ones he’d sent over the last number of weeks, and sure as hell hadn’t opened any of the picture attachments he’d included in his messages. But she opened them now.

After a couple more minutes she’d opened five pictures that he’d sent to her in the weeks since he’d been gone. Each photo showed Owen with his tousled dirty blond hair and Matthew McConaughey, bad-boy good looks. He had his right arm extended, taking a picture of himself in front of various Albuquerque sites: an old adobe-style church, buildings in historic Nob Hill, and, this newest one, Owen standing in front of a sign for a restaurant named Sadie’s. In his e-mail he claimed it had the best salsa and chili in the world, and Owen challenged her to come for a visit and find out.
It’s just enough spice: just like its namesake
.

Sadie chewed her lower lip as she thought back to their brief time together. Owen had been sexy and fun, but in the end she’d traded him in for the hope of rekindling her relationship with Zack. Her hand went to her abdomen. Apparently, God had a sense of humor.

Sadie enlarged the most recent photo and stared into Owen’s eyes, which were the color of Seattle skies when the clouds parted.

“Hello, baby daddy.”