Drop Dead Beauty (9 page)

“I’m going to get changed,” she told him.

When she tried to step around Owen he blocked her path.

“Are you pregnant?”

She bit her lip and closed her eyes before murmuring, “Yes.”

Tears blurred her vision but she didn’t want him to see her upset. She pushed past him and made her way down the hall toward the living room and then went straight to the kitchen. She opened the fridge and, frustrated at the lack of choices, she slammed it shut.

“Well, you and Zack must be very happy. Where is he? Didn’t he zip you off to the altar? I’m surprised he’s not at least here taking care of you.” Owen’s voice dripped with acid.

“He doesn’t know.”

“Doesn’t know?” He shook his head in confusion as he leaned one hip against her kitchen counter. “Why the hell haven’t you told him? Did you break up again? Is that why?”

She reopened the fridge and handed Owen a beer. He stood there dumbly holding it without unscrewing the cap. Just staring at Sadie expectantly.

“Well?” he demanded.

“Apparently I’m not as in tune with my own body as I should be. I just found out that I’m pregnant. Yesterday as a matter of fact. So, I haven’t had a chance to tell him yet.”

She sat down at the kitchen table with a glass of water. He joined her with his still unopened bottle of beer.

She added in a small voice, “Besides, I thought it would be best to tell the baby’s father first.”

He blinked at her with his lips moving wordlessly and a puzzled look on his face. Sadie stared pointedly back at him, waiting for him to connect the dots. Suddenly Owen was on his feet.

“Oh no, no, no! Not me. We were careful!” he shouted. “I made sure. I
always
make sure!”

“Not every time,” she pointed out.

He froze, and she could practically hear the memory gears clunking into place inside his brain. Then he began to pace while waving his hands in the air.

“One time out of what . . . five?”

“Stop bragging,” Sadie joked. “It was four. And one time is all it takes.”

“Oh come on!” He sat back down with his elbows on the table, leaning his chin in his hands. A minute later he put his palms together and made pleading motions.. “This is all a joke. It’s got to be, right? I mean, when I left Seattle you told me you and Zack were together. You were going to try and make it work. We had no contact; you didn’t return a single e-mail until a couple days ago. There is no way that kid is mine.”

Sadie clenched her teeth together angrily and wished she had enough energy to throw herself into a rage. Or at least kick him in his baby-making nuts. But at the moment, the only thing that really appealed to her was the thought of throwing herself into bed. She was completely drained. It was the middle of the night and she’d busted her ass cleaning a suicide for the last few hours while wearing poop around her neck as a guardian. She was not in the mood to have this conversation, or any other, with Owen Sorkin.

“You’re right. You got me. This is all just an elaborate prank. Ha ha,” she said, without even a hint of a smile. “You’ve been punked. Now you need to go because I’m dead on my feet.” She stood up and began making shooing motions with her hands. “I mean it. Get the hell out.”

Owen blinked at her with a confused look on his face but he walked to the door. Sadie folded her arms over her chest and waited for him to change his mind, but he just left. She watched through her blinds as he walked to his BMW parked a few houses down. Once he’d started up his car and driven away, she headed for her bedroom. Hairy followed her, his bunny toenails click-clacking on the laminate floor as he went.

Heartburn bubbled in her throat and when she opened the bedroom door she was only somewhat surprised to find Dean there.

“Well, that went well,” he said. “You couldn’t think of a better way to break it to the guy?”

“Stop eavesdropping on my conversations!”

“I hid in the bedroom. Granted that may not have been the best choice. Next time you’re bringing a guy home, you need to give me a heads-up.”

“I didn’t invite him over. He just showed up. Now get out of my bedroom. I need to sleep.”

“But I’ve been waiting all night to hear about how things went at the spa. Did you talk to the employees?”

“Yes.” She yawned. “And basically they all think you snuck in through the back exit and shot Jane while she was in relaxation mode after her massage.”

He threw back his head and moaned loudly. When he glanced back at Sadie she saw that his eyes looked utterly dejected. She couldn’t help but feel sad for him.

“The good news is that when I left I saw the masseuse, Emilio, and the owner having a heated conversation outside. So maybe there is something they’re hiding—if they’re so upset that I was asking about it.” She offered Dean a smile. “Maybe I’ll have to pay them another visit.”

“Emilio . . .” Dean looked thoughtful. “I’m positive I heard Jane talk about Emilio. Last time we talked she said Car Boy was ticked off with someone and I’m sure the name she used was Emilio.”

“Who’s Car Boy?”

“The boyfriend. The guy she dumped me for.”

“Okay.” Sadie tugged her extra-large Mariner’s T-shirt out of a drawer to wear as pj’s and then went to a second drawer and pulled out a roll of antacids. She popped one in her mouth and told him, “I got a coupon for half off a massage, so maybe I’ll book one with Emilio and see if I can get more information out of him.”

“Good idea. And I’ll try to remember the name of Car Boy. . . . I know he works selling cars. . . . The name will come to me.”

“Yeah, you think about that outside my bedroom. Good night.”

She followed Dean to the bedroom door and closed it after him. Hairy stretched out his full bunny length on a small dog bed that sat in the corner of the room. Sadie dropped her robe and pulled her Mariner’s tee over her head. She had barely tucked the blankets up under her chin when she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When Sadie woke up at the crack of noon the next day she was positively starving and nauseous at the same time. She was beginning to think that pregnancy was just an elaborate joke played on women by God. She stumbled to the kitchen and made herself a piece of toast, then ran to the bathroom and tossed it in the toilet. She showered, got dressed, and then tackled a handful of crackers and water while she checked her e-mails and played a few rounds of solitaire.

Maeva called to see how she was feeling and Sadie told her all about the surprise visit from Owen.

“So he didn’t believe the baby was his? What an asshole!”

“Yeah, except who can blame him? Half the time,
I
don’t even believe I’m pregnant.” Sadie clicked the cards on her computer screen. “We didn’t even have a real relationship. I helped with his haunted real estate and we ended up having a roll in the hay. For all he knows about me, I’m an accomplished liar.”

“Anybody who’s spent more than five minutes with you knows that you’re honest and down-to-earth.”

“Thanks, but as a friend you have to say that. Owen probably just thinks I’m a gold digger out to cheat him into marrying me so I can have half his bountiful riches.”

“Huh. That’s right. I forgot the guy had a few bucks,” Maeva said thoughtfully. “Well, that’ll certainly come in handy for child support.”

“Now that
does
make me feel like a gold digger. I don’t think I can accept any money from him.”

“Are you kidding me?” Maeva shouted. “You have no choice here, Sadie. It’s one thing for you to be stupid all on your own, but you have to think of your child here. That baby deserves to live an existence better than just scraping by because his or her mom is too stupid or too proud to accept the child support the law demands Owen to pay!”

Sadie was beginning to feel overwhelmed and not just because she was losing at solitaire.

“I’m going to have to think about it.”

“Yeah, you think about it, and while you’re thinking about that I want you to think about the luxurious, vibrating baby swing that’s set up in my living room.”

Sadie frowned. “What about it?”

“You remember how colicky and miserable Osbert was those first few months? We went through three different baby swings before we found one that soothed him long enough for me to be able to eat a hot meal. It cost over two hundred dollars.”

“What? Two hundred for a swing?”

“Not just any swing. The luxury vibrating swing that gently jostles in multiple directions to more effectively simulate the womb,” she told Sadie. “And before you say you’d never spend that much on a swing, I’ll tell you that until I’d gone a month without sleep I said the same thing. Baby stuff is expensive, Sadie.”

“You’ve made your point. I’ve gotta get back to work or the only swinging this baby will be doing is when Auntie Maeva babysits.”

Her phone remained completely void of any more texts or calls from anyone. Particularly Owen. No doubt he’d burned rubber all the way home to Albuquerque. Sadie was both relieved and sad about how things had turned out. Why couldn’t she be a normal woman with a job she hated, a husband that annoyed her, and two point five kids that drove her crazy?

Sadie played more solitaire on her computer while she delayed the inevitable. Zack had sent her a couple messages and she owed him a reply. Sadie thought she might as well scare off both men in her life and get on with the lonely, harrowing life of single motherhood that was ahead of her. She picked up her phone.

“One down. One to go,” she muttered to herself.

“What does that mean?” Petrovich asked her from the hallway.

“It means, stop eavesdropping on my conversations.”

“It’s not a conversation if you’re just talking to yourself.”

“Fine. Hold that thought while I finish this message.”

She replied to Zack’s texts about arranging a movie date by suggesting that, instead, they spend a quiet evening at her place. She even offered to cook him dinner. She hit send, and while she was walking to the kitchen to find something to alleviate her heartburn, her phone chirped Zack’s reply:
Sounds great! I’ll bring the wine
.

Sadie exhaled sorrowfully as she stared at his response.

“It can’t be that bad,” Dean said.

“It is,” she announced to Dean, putting down her cell phone. “I just invited Zack over tomorrow night. I’m going to feed him dinner and then tell him about the baby.”

“So he’s coming over here thinking a romantic dinner with a pretty woman might lead to getting back together, and you’re going to stab him in the back?” Dean’s eyes were huge. “Geez, there’s gotta be a better way to go about it!”

“What do you propose I do, wait a few months and just tell him I’ve been consuming too many Oreos? I think he might notice I’m putting on some pounds, and if he doesn’t, he’ll definitely notice when I’ve got a baby latched to my nipples.”

“Argh! Don’t talk about your nipples.” He shook his head with revulsion. “All I meant is that this is going to be tough on a guy like Zack . . . getting slammed like that.”

“This isn’t exactly a party with Jell-O shots and confetti for me either,” Sadie grumbled. “I’m puking daily and my boobs hurt. I have stretch marks and hemorrhoids to look forward to, and don’t forget labor pains followed by twenty years of real labor raising the kid.”

“Have you thought about maybe this isn’t the best time? Lots of families can’t have kids. Maybe you should consider giving it up.”

“Let’s talk about something else.”

“Okay. I remembered the name of Jane’s boyfriend—Martin. Don’t know his last name but he works selling cars at that dealership on Eighth and Blanchard. Whoever killed Jane, it was personal. They didn’t take her purse or anything, so we need to look at those closest to her.”

“You mean, like you?”

“No. Like Martin. Go talk to him.”

“And say what exactly? Sorry for your loss, but your dead girlfriend’s ex-husband is a friend of mine and I’m trying to prove it was you who killed her instead of him?”

“No. Definitely don’t say that.” He scowled. “You’re not very good at this, are you?”

“That’s why I became a grade school teacher and then a trauma cleaner instead of a cop.”

“He’s never met you and doesn’t know you from Adam. You go to where he works and tell him some kind of story. . . . You can say you’re an old friend of Jane’s and ask to buy him lunch. You’ve done this kind of thing before. You know how to get guys to talk. Just make polite conversation and pick at their relationship a bit. Maybe you can say you and Jane just hooked up on Facebook or something and that Jane hinted her relationship with him wasn’t perfect. See the kind of reaction you get.”

“I don’t know. . . .” Sadie shuffled junk mail on her kitchen counter. “What if Martin knows all her Facebook friends and has access to her computer? Any story I give him could totally blow up in my face and then if he is the killer, I’ve done nothing but make him want to cover his ass even more by, say, shooting me in the head like Jane!”

“The guy is a dinosaur,” Dean assured her. “He doesn’t know Facebook from Myspace. Jane would joke that she had to read his work e-mails to him because he didn’t own a computer and didn’t know how to use one but he didn’t want his bosses to know that.”

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll talk to the guy.” Sadie’s office phone began to ring and she took off back to her den.

“Don’t forget to go for that massage too!” Dean called after her.

Being a good friend to the detective and repaying him for all his kindness in the past was turning out to be a huge pain in the ass.

She ran into her office and snatched up the cordless phone on her desk.

“Scene-2-Clean. How may I help you?”

“My name is Bill. I own a property on Southwest Brandon Street that had a crime take place a couple weeks ago.” Bill had a low, gravelly voice. “So the police said I can go back in the house now, but the detective mentioned we gotta get it cleaned properly. And your company does that kind of thing, right?”

Sadie fist-pumped the air and said a silent
yes!

“That’s right, Bill. I heard about the unfortunate incident in the newspapers. If the residents were your friends, I’m sorry for your loss,” she said seriously.