Pecked to Death (8 page)

“He wasn’t always like this,” Hal said. He turned a speculative eye on Luke. “He’s acting odd; I’m intrigued.”

“He wasn’t always like this?” Sadie repeated. “Now I’m intrigued.” She bestowed her attention on Luke. He shook his head as if shaking off water droplets.

“You two are not allowed to join forces. The universe might collapse. Are you ready to go home, Sadie?”

I would be if I could figure out where that is,
Sadie thought. Outwardly, she plastered on a smile and nodded. “Thanks for helping a chicken down on her luck, Doc. If there’s anything I can do to repay you, let me know, as long as it doesn’t involve an exchange of actual money because I don’t have any of that.”

“We could have dinner,” Hal suggested. “My treat, and I promise not to serve chicken; I don’t condone cannibalism.” Belatedly, he remembered Luke and shot him a sheepish glance. “If that’s okay with you.”

“Why wouldn’t it be okay?” Luke asked. “It’s going to end in disaster as everything does when Sadie touches it, but you’re a grownup.”

“Aw, Luke, you say the sweetest things,” Sadie said. “I don’t know how I stayed away from my beloved bestie for so long. It’s good to be home.”

“Just get in the car, Sadie,” Luke said, pointing toward the driveway.

Too tired to argue, she did as directed for once. Stopping short in the entryway, she turned and addressed Hal. “If someone died in her home, what would happen next?”

“If an ambulance was called shortly after the event, then they would be taken to the hospital for an attempted revival.”

“What if an ambulance wasn’t called soon?” Sadie said.

“The police would be called to determine if the death was suspicious. If it wasn’t, then a family physician would sign off on it.” He smiled. “Are you planning to commit a murder?”

Sadie returned his smile. “No, I’m planning to solve one.”

Sadie’s legs felt wobbly on the short walk to Luke’s car. She couldn’t let him see, though. Never give the enemy a foothold; wasn’t that a saying somewhere? Not that Luke was her enemy. Or was he? She stared at him as he slid behind the wheel of his boring beige sedan. How much did he really hate her? Or, as with her, was most of his bluster and hot air a cover for deeper pain? How could he know her better than anyone and yet not know her at all? That question was what drove her sometimes anger. How could he not understand her? How could he always think the worst of her? How could he of all people not be able to see behind the façade? That question more than any other made her sad.

“You’re staring at me,” he said.

“That’s how I know you’re a real scientist—your powers of observation are astounding.” She tore her gaze from his profile and turned to rest her throbbing head on the window instead. Who knew getting overheated could make one feel so miserable?

“Why were you staring at me?” he asked.

“Checking for cancerous moles. You’re in the clear. Good job with the sunscreen.”

“Sadie, can you give me a straight answer for once?” Luke said. “Why can’t you ever be serious?”

“You’re serious enough for both of us. The good news is that your humorectomy was a smashing success,” Sadie said. When they were kids, she had been able to cajole him into laughter or adventure and he had tempered her wild schemes and emotional meltdowns. She missed those days, missed the old Luke who didn’t scowl at her like she was something he found on the bottom of his shoe.

“It’s called being an adult with responsibilities and a full-time job.”

“We’re twenty eight, Luke. You can probably stop measuring yourself for a casket. You’re not tied down with a wife and kids. So you have a job. Big deal. You can still manage to smile once in a while.”

“Did it ever occur to you that I smile a lot when I’m not with you?” Luke said.

“No, it didn’t because I know you better than that. If it’s not me making you grumpy, then it’s the high price of gas or starving children in Africa. You look for reasons to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

“I don’t have fun at the expense of other people,” Luke said.

“You don’t have fun at all,” Sadie accused.

They arrived at her father’s house. Luke threw the car into park and waited for her to get out. Sadie obliged, slamming the door for good measure. She turned toward the house and everything went black, as if someone had flipped off the lights.

“Sadie?”

She opened her eyes to see Luke hovering nearby looking worried. She wasn’t on the ground, but she was leaning on the side of his car with no recollection of how it happened. “Maybe I’m not fully recovered from my earlier swoon,” she said.

“Can you walk to the house?”

“Yes,” she said. She took a step, teetered, and leaned against the door for support again.

Luke sighed before bending to pick her up, cradling her to his chest like a small child. “In twenty eight years, I’ve never had to carry another human being besides you. Why is that, Sadie?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” Sadie said. She closed her eyes and rested her face on his shoulder, resisting the urge to nestle. The temporary reprieve from pretending to be stronger than she was made her feel vulnerable. She wanted to alternately push him away and cling harder. He deposited her on her bed and took a step back.

“I’m going to retrieve your chicken suit from my car. You want it in here or in the living room?”

It was tempting to leave it in the living room as a reminder to Gideon about how hard she was working to prove him wrong, but if anything happened to it, she was out a few hundred dollars. “In here,” she said.

Luke left and came back, depositing the suit on her vanity so it appeared the chicken head was staring at itself in the mirror. “Do you need anything else?”

Sadie opened her eyes and smiled. His tone was so reluctant that she had no doubt how much the words cost him, but he made the offer because Luke always did the right thing. “Could you rub my feet? They’re killing me.”

“Rub your…” he began before realizing she was teasing him. He shook his head. “You’re chock full of evil, Sade.”

“Isn’t it comforting to know some things never change?” she asked.

“It would be if it were true,” Luke said. She didn’t react to his words. Her smile remained in place as she gave him a knowing look that sent shivers of annoyance through him because it made him feel guilty. But why should he feel guilty for stating the truth? Nothing was the same between them. Their friendship was irrevocably broken and, even if it weren’t, they weren’t the same people they had been when they were kids. “You should probably drink some water,” he added. He left and went to the kitchen, grabbing a glass from the cupboard without having to think about it. The glasses had been to the right of the sink for as long as Luke could remember. The fact that they still were was sort of comforting. He added ice to the glass and carried it back to Sadie’s bedroom.

She was asleep, a sign of how drained she was because Sadie wasn’t one of those people who could fall asleep at will. As a kid, she had been the last to fall asleep, not wanting to miss a moment of fun or conversation. Luke had slipped into unconsciousness many nights, the sound of her chatter lulling him to sleep, at least until she jabbed him in the ribs and made him wake up to keep her company.

He set the glass on her nightstand and backed toward the door. He was oddly reluctant to leave her. She was a grown woman, fully capable of taking care of herself, and yet she looked vulnerable with her downy curls splayed across her pillow, her lips slightly parted, her too-rosy cheek resting on her palm. Maybe it was because her curls were damp with sweat or because she was wearing his too-big t-shirt and shorts, but she looked like a little kid who had played too hard and fallen asleep. His eyes scanned the room, looking for a reminder of the woman he disliked. They landed instead on the chicken head, staring unblinkingly at him from the mirror.

Sadie’s new job was another dent in his pre-formed opinion of her. Why was she still working the humiliating job? He wanted to pretend she was a snob who was too good to perform menial labor, but the truth was that she had never been that way. In high school she had spent her summers as the towel girl at the car wash. Even when it was over a hundred degrees, Sadie had never complained about standing in the sun, wiping down steaming cars. In fact, she had made it fun. His parents, along with every teenage male in town, had made special trips to the car wash just to see Sadie. She always had a smile, and so had her coworkers, usually because of something she said to make them laugh.

Luke could feel the balance of his anger and resentment begin to fade as the old familiar affection began to take hold. He fought it. Sadie was temporary. Sadie didn’t belong here. Vaslilssa was his girlfriend now; he couldn’t and wouldn’t let Sadie ruin another good thing for him. He needed distance. He needed to steel himself against her. The first step in that plan was to turn and walk away, and that’s what he did. He let himself quietly out of her house and refused to give her another thought that night.

Sadie woke in her own bed with little memory of how she got there. Her joints felt stiff and sore, her throat parched, and her hair matted to her head. It was while she was in the shower that it all came rushing back. The humiliating dive in the chicken suit, the subsequent rescue by Hal and then Luke. When had life become a series of mortifying events? If Someone was trying to teach her humility, He was definitely succeeding.

Just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, life proved her wrong again. She was halfway through her cereal when her father slapped a paper on the table. “What is this?” he demanded. Sadie saw a picture of herself in the chicken suit, face down on the pavement with the headline, “Former Police Chief’s Daughter Drunk on the Job.”

She swallowed her bite of cereal and forced a bright tone. “There’s a chance of rain today. Good. Maybe that will help with the heat.”

“Is that all you have to say for yourself?” her father demanded. “All I’ve ever asked is that you keep your nose clean and keep our family out of the headlines, and you can’t even do that, Sadie.”

If that was all he had ever asked of her, then she would have been happy to comply. Instead he had asked her to choose between himself and her dying mother and they had both been living with the consequences since. “Dad, you know I wasn’t drunk,” she said. “I had a little episode with the heat. No big deal. Besides, it’s not the first time the newspaper has skewered you.” Though why they were still picking on him now that he was retired was anyone’s guess.
 
And how had they known it was her in the suit? For that matter, who had taken the picture? Surely they didn’t have the restaurant staked out, just waiting for her to keel over. That meant someone had to have called them, but who?

Ray,
she thought. Her smarmy manager had no doubt sensed an opportunity for a quick buck, the weasel.

“A little episode with the heat,” Gideon repeated, genuine concern in his tone now. “What do you mean? What happened?”

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Sadie said. He had forfeited the right to come to her rescue years ago. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of doing it now. “A Good Samaritan came along and fixed me up and Luke brought me home.”

The mention of Luke gave him a new target for his simmering anger. “What’s with you and Luke? You love him, you hate him, you love him, you hate him. Why can’t you just leave him be?”

“I can’t rest until I’ve broken the heart of every man in the world, Dad. It’s my nature.” Sadie was joking, but her father’s opinion of her was so dim that he stood there trying to sift her words for any truth. Sadie turned toward the sink, fighting a wave of the old, familiar sadness. For a time when she was a kid, she had been the child of his dreams; that is to say that she had been almost a boy. But as puberty approached, Sadie started to become more interested in feminine things just as her mother started to lay her own claim. At first Sadie had resisted being the girly-girl her mother wanted her to be, but terminal illness trumps any argument. Even as a pre-teen, Sadie knew her mother’s days were limited. Of course she had to give in and do whatever made her mother happy. Why was she the only person who had understood that?

Abby had been the only person who urged Sadie to be herself, to stand strong in her parents’ tug of war. Sadie hadn’t realized what that meant until it was too late, unfortunately.

She sensed that her father wasn’t done spewing his anger for the day, but Sadie was finished being a target. She was too tired from the fiasco of yesterday, and from too many years of the same thing. After tucking her bowl in the dishwasher, she left the kitchen without a word, showered, dressed, and headed out for the day. The forecasters were calling for another record-breaking scorcher. Sadie thought they were probably more accurate than she had been at the job because, even in her father’s air-conditioned house, the atmosphere felt muggy and close. Still, she dragged the chicken suit to her car and tucked it in the back seat. Going back would be another stake in her doomed pride, but giving up meant her father won whatever silent battle they had going. She knew he was waiting for her to throw in the towel and run away with her tail tucked between her legs; she refused to give him the satisfaction.