Chapter 4
Sadie hit reply to Owen’s most recent e-mail that he’d sent a couple weeks ago. She said simply,
Thanks for the picture. If you get a chance, we need to talk.
She hit send, then closed her e-mail. Sadie was just opening a game of solitaire when her cell phone rang. She nearly hit the ceiling. Was it possible Owen was sitting at his computer and picked up the phone already? She was trying to compose herself when she saw the caller was not Owen, but Zack.
“Hi! How are you?” she answered with false cheerfulness.
“The bigger question is, how are you? Do you still have that flu bug?”
“Um, no . . . No, I think it’s safe to say that I dodged an infection.”
Except the nine-month kind caused by one persistent sperm.
“Glad to hear it. I was hoping I could take you to a movie on the weekend.”
Her stomach rolled at the thought of popcorn dripping with butter.
“Oh sure . . .”
“Great! You pick the show. I’ll call you in a couple days.”
She ended the call and pinched her eyes shut wearily. How would she begin to tell Zack she was expecting another man’s baby?
“You okay? You don’t look so good.”
Sadie looked up at Dean Petrovich and sighed.
“I’m not okay. I’m pregnant.”
“Yeah, I saw all those test strips in the bathroom.” He offered her a sympathetic smile. “But you’re giving this far too much thought. Zack will be thrilled. He’ll probably ask you to marry him again and—this time—you should probably say yes. A baby should grow up with both a mom and a dad, and besides, you know you love him. You’re just scared and that’s normal, but—”
“Zack’s not the father.”
She looked into the detective’s shocked face. In all her years knowing him, she’d never seen Petrovich speechless.
“Hold that thought. I have to pee.” Sadie rushed to the bathroom and when she returned to her den, Petrovich was still standing there dumbstruck. She rubbed her sternum as acid burned from her stomach.
“Look, when I was with the other guy, Zack and I were on a break. It was Zack who actually ended it. He broke up with me.” She threw her hands up in the air as she scooted back behind her desk to sit down. She opened a drawer and found a roll of antacids. Popping one in her mouth, she continued. “Then all I did was spend one night with this guy . . . just one . . . and we ended up—”
“Please.” He held up his hands. “I don’t need to know the details.” He shook his head. “What are you going to do? Have you told the other guy? You gotta tell him. And Zack. Zack needs to know too.” He was pacing now. “You gotta get a handle on this and the sooner the better. The longer you wait, the harder it’ll be on everyone.”
He left then as if it was all too much to take. Sadie shouted after him, “I know, I know!”
Lucky for Sadie the office phone began to ring.
“Scene-2-Clean,” she answered. “How may I help you?”
The call was from a woman needing her home cleaned on Forest Ridge Drive in Auburn. It was about forty minutes away. Far enough for Sadie to get some much-needed alone time to think about her situation. Best of all, it was a suicide.
Although Sadie talked to ghosts during trauma cleans, her past experiences had shown her that suicides weren’t included on the list of her chattering specters. For some reason, people who took their own lives never appeared to her. Sadie believed it was partly because she helped spirits move on to the next dimension, and suicides didn’t linger in this world because they’d already made their choice to leave. Either that or it was part of a sick joke. Sadie had never been able to communicate with the ghost of her brother who’d taken his own life years before.
Today Sadie was a little excited about the prospect of getting some work done and not having to worry about feeling someone else’s pain from their passing, or not having to make polite chitchat with a delusional ethereal being. There were definitely days when that got a little old.
After Sadie took down the particulars from the caller, she hung up and headed for the door.
“I’m going out on a job,” she called over her shoulder.
Dean didn’t bother to respond. Most likely he was still in shock over Sadie’s slutty past behavior.
She packed up her Scene-2-Clean work van and pointed the nose of her vehicle south toward Auburn. On the way, she took a call from Maeva.
“How are you holding up?” her friend asked.
“As good as can be expected. I’ve concluded I’m definitely pregnant.”
“You saw your doctor?”
“That’s tomorrow. After I left your place I bought out the pregnancy test selection at Rite Aid. Eight different ones said I was pregnant. If even one had wavered slightly I could’ve ridden the denial train a little longer.” She paused. “Besides, my boobs hurt like crazy, I’m simultaneously nauseous and starving, and I have to pee every five minutes.”
“Look, I know this isn’t what you bargained for, but I’ve seen the way you look at Osbert and you’re amazing with him. You wanted kids one day, right?”
“Sure. One day. When I was married and, you know, had nothing else to do.” She changed lanes and sped into traffic on the highway. “Truth is, once Dawn had a baby it took a lot of pressure off me. Mom was thrilled at least one of her daughters gave her a grandbaby, so she stopped asking when I’d be jumping on the marriage train and pumping one out.”
“So when are you going to tell Owen?”
“I e-mailed him that we should talk.”
“Are you going to tell him over the phone? Don’t you think this would be better done in person?”
“I’ll ask when he’s coming back to Seattle. If he has no plans to return in the near future, then I guess I can either tell him over the phone or wait until he does come back and then just hand him a five-year-old.”
“And Zack?” Maeva’s voice got quiet.
“I don’t know what to do about that,” Sadie replied truthfully. “I was just getting my hopes up that we’d started dating. He’s making a real effort and acting like a complete gentleman. We’re supposed to see a movie this weekend. Once I tell him I’ve got a bun in the oven and he does the math and realizes how long it’s been since we’ve had sex, I’m guessing I’ll never hear from him again.” Her throat tightened.
“You don’t know that. Maybe he’ll be supportive.”
“And maybe pigs will fly,” Sadie murmured. “What kind of guy says, ‘Oh, you’re pregnant with somebody else’s kid? That’s okay, how about dinner tomorrow night?’” Sadie forced a laugh. “Anyway, I’m on my way to Auburn to meet a client, so I should go.”
“I thought you weren’t going to meet up with anyone until we figured out what to do about your increased talent?”
“Increased talent? Is that what we’re calling it?” Sadie guffawed. “I was thinking of it as more of a pain in the ass, or the supernatural’s way to sabotage my already messed-up life.” She drew her lips into a tight smile. “Anyway, it’s a suicide so—yay for me—that means no ghosts.”
“All right, but do me a favor and call me when you’re done so I know you’re okay.”
Sadie agreed and then ended the call and concentrated on driving. She was meeting the client at a coffee shop a couple blocks from the house that needed cleaning. Finally she located the place and found parking out front. When she walked inside, Sadie scanned the crowded room and zoomed in on an older woman who had grief written all over her sunken eyes and wringing hands. Sadie spent a few minutes listening to the woman’s tale of woe, offering her a sympathetic ear. Then she explained how her business worked and got the name of the woman’s insurance company as well as a key to the house. The poor woman had been away on a monthlong vacation and had allowed her niece to stay in the house. Unfortunately, the majority of the time she’d “stayed,” the niece had not been alive. Heartbroken over a recent breakup, she’d taken a bottle of pills and left a note. She obviously hadn’t given much thought to the damage that would be caused to the home and to her aunt when her body went undiscovered for a couple of weeks.
Once she was back in her vehicle, Sadie made her way directly to Forest Ridge Drive. At least, she meant to go directly. She started feeling queasy and thought a little food might help. She stopped at a McDonald’s a couple blocks away from her destination. She was inside trying to decide what to eat when the burger smell caused her queasiness to turn into full-fledged nausea. Sadie bolted to the washroom just in time to empty her stomach into the toilet. Her cell phone rang as she was getting to her feet. Instinctively she tugged the phone from her pocket, and caller ID told her the person calling was Owen Sorkin. Startled, Sadie fumbled the phone and promptly dropped her BlackBerry into the toilet.
“Damn,” she muttered as she gazed at the phone sinking to the bottom of the contaminated bowl.
In that moment Sadie was acutely relieved that she’d dodged the bullet of an extremely uncomfortable conversation with Owen. She wasn’t looking forward to telling him that one of his swimmers was an overachiever. She was also saddened by this unexpected and grody end to her cell phone.
She stared into the toilet bowl for a second before simply hitting flush. Once outside the washroom the burger smells hit her again, but this time she discovered she was famished. Sadie got a burger and a milkshake to go.
It wasn’t long before she pulled up to the Forest Ridge Drive home. True to form, the house appeared to live on the edge of a forest, or at least a lot of trees. It was a simple bungalow with an attached drive and nicely landscaped shrubbery. The air smelled of the thick, damp foliage in the area, but she knew from experience the aroma inside the house wouldn’t be nearly as fresh and the biggest pine air freshener in the world couldn’t cover up eau de rotting corpse.
Sadie rolled up the back door of her van and pulled out a hazmat suit and her camera. She walked to the front door and paused on the stoop with the key in the lock before pulling on her respirator. Even from outside she could smell the decomposition. She opened the door and stepped inside. The décor was very 1980s, with a color scheme of gray and rose throughout. The short shag carpet had lasted well the last twenty-five years, but sadly it would not survive the pungent bouquet that now saturated the rose-colored pile.
Sadie snapped a couple routine pictures of the living room, but the area where the body had been discovered was in a guest bedroom, so she made her way down the hall. Even though the body had been removed over a week ago, flies were thick at this end of the house, telling Sadie that the sticky fluids and remnants would cause her ample work.
She opened doors in the hall as she walked, taking pictures of the main bathroom and master bedroom before opening a smaller room at the end of the hall. There was no mistaking what had occurred here. Sadie nonchalantly photographed the outline of sloughed skin on the floor where the body must have lain. Abruptly, she began to feel light-headed. Sadie straightened, rolled her shoulders, and took a deep breath through her respirator.
“You can do this.”
She walked to the back of the room, swatting flies away from her mask as she went. Although she began to feel dazed and groggy, she also had an odd mellow sensation envelop her.
“It’s fi-i-ine,” she told herself. “You’re oka-a-ay.”
But she stumbled around the room and smacked her head on the wall, becoming instantly aware that she was definitely
not
okay. Suddenly all she wanted to do was lie down on the carpet in the exact location the young woman had died. She wanted to close her eyes and sleep forever.
Somewhere deep inside Sadie found the strength to put one foot in front of the other and bring herself outside the house. Once she’d left the building, she pulled off her respirator and took in deep, cleansing breaths. The drugged feeling was gone but a new feeling of utter despair encompassed her. She’d felt like she’d swallowed a handful of nighty-night pills. Exactly like the woman who’d died inside the house. Even though she couldn’t see the ghost, apparently her new pregnant self could still feel how she died.
“This sucks!” she screamed.
Her outburst startled a couple of crows from a nearby cedar hedge. Sadie doffed her gear and bagged it before climbing inside her van and driving back toward home. The sun was setting and it had begun to rain. She turned on her lights and wipers and concentrated on driving and also focused on sulking about her life situation. How the hell could she make a living if she was going to pawn off her jobs to other trauma cleaners? More than ever she needed to be banking funds. Who knew how long she could physically work in her condition? Sadie made a mental note to check with her supplier and order larger hazmat suits. Did they come in supersize, jumbo with expandable prego bellies?
Her mind was a whirl of questions with no answers. When she returned home it was early evening, and she planned to call Maeva to update her about being able to feel the deaths of suicides as well. Maybe her friend could offer some advice. Sadie shuffled inside her house and was thrilled not to be greeted by Detective Petrovich. She needed to think things through. She needed a plan of attack.
She needed a nap.
Sadie lay down on her bed fully clothed with the idea of resting her eyes for just a few minutes. When she woke up light was streaming in through her blinds.
“I was beginning to think you were dead.”
Sadie sat up and blinked at Petrovich.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Ten in the morning. If you hadn’t been snoring so loudly I would’ve thought you were dead for sure. I tried talking to you but you didn’t move a muscle. The phone’s been going off like crazy next to your head, but it didn’t even make you flinch.”
Sadie sat up and stretched. She felt much better. Hairy sat on the floor of the bedroom looking up at her.
“Guess I needed the rest.” She picked up her bunny and stroked his softness. The home phone handset had a blinking red light indicating missed calls. She dialed her voice mail and listened to a message from Owen.
“Hey, got your e-mail about talking but I’ve had no luck reaching you on your cell phone. By the dozens of unanswered e-mails I’ve sent you, you’ve probably guessed I’m a persistent guy. So call me back.”
He left a throaty chuckle followed by his phone number.