DevilMayRide

17
Back at Dawn’s house, Sadie waited for the women to return from their marathon shopping. Then she oohed and aahed appropriately over all the cutesy baby purchases. It was evening and they were deciding on pizza or Chinese when Aunt Lynn announced she’d go back to her sister’s house for the night. Sadie and Dawn didn’t push her out the door but didn’t beg her to stay either.
Once their aunt was gone, they decided on pizza and an evening of doing their nails and watching a chick flick. Dawn fell asleep ten minutes into the movie. Sadie watched the rest of the romantic comedy, all the while scowling at the hero, thinking that he was probably a two-timing creep like Zack.
It took her a long time to fall asleep. When Sadie woke up the next morning, her first thought was that sleeping on Dawn’s futon was killing her back. Her next thought was how much she was dreading going to Onyx House and asking Joy if she’d had Brian’s baby and just failed to mention it.
Sadie found Dawn in the kitchen eating a large portion of fresh fruit and toast and sipping a glass of milk.
“There’s coffee in the carafe,” Dawn said. “I’m dying for some, but it’s not good for the baby.”
Sadie poured herself a full cup and sat with Dawn. “I’m doing breakfast at Onyx House this morning. Why don’t you come with me?”
“And watch you ask our dead brother’s ex-fiancée if she had a baby who died?” She wrinkled her nose. “I’d rather go into labor right here and right now.”
Dawn scooped Hairy into her arms and snuggled him under her chin for a minute before he wriggled free and she let him down to skid along the floor to his food bowl.
“I don’t feel good about leaving you home alone,” Sadie said.
“I appreciate you telling me that some ghost has threatened my baby, but I think I can fend Casper off with a vacuum cleaner and some garlic,” she giggled.
“I’m not joking about this, Dawn.”
“I know you’re not, but c’mon, you can’t expect me to take this seriously.”
Sadie stripped off the shirt she was wearing and turned around.
“What are you—?” Dawn began, and then she gasped. “What the hell is that thing on your back?!”
“A satanic mark put there by Casper, or should I say Penny Torrez.”
“The woman who was killed when they took her baby?”
“Yes. She’s not like any spirit I’ve ever dealt with before, Dawn. As you can tell.” Sadie tugged her T-shirt back over her head. “Whoever took Penny’s baby from her and killed her is not a spirit. They’re a live person living in Seattle who knows that you’re pregnant and has threatened to take your baby, since we interrupted their ritual.”
“Shit.” Dawn’s eyes were wide. “You didn’t tell me that part before.”
“I didn’t want to scare you.”
“Well, I’m scared now!”
“Good. Hopefully that means you’ll be careful. If you won’t come with me to Onyx House, how about if I drop you off at Mom’s?”
Dawn stuck out her tongue.
“Mom loves to dote on you and try and figure out if you’re having a boy or a girl. You could torture her by saying you found out what the ultrasound results were and keep her guessing. When you get tired of that, you can start whining and whimpering about how nobody’s thrown you a shower yet because everyone’s too busy, and watch her swallow her tongue as she tries hard not to blow Saturday’s surprise.”
“That does sound like fun.” Dawn grinned. “In the meantime, you’ll find out about that ghost girl—what was her name?”
“Rhea.”
“Yeah. Rhea.” She ate the last bite of her toast. “I’d like to know if I used to have a niece.”
Within a half hour they’d both dressed and were on their way out. Dawn was careful to set her house alarm before they locked up. When they arrived at their mom and dad’s place, Aunt Lynn was also there and both the women were thrilled with the prospect of spending a few hours with Dawn.
On Sadie’s drive over to Onyx House she checked her phone messages. No new calls asking Scene-2-Clean to come mop up a loved one. No messages from Zack. Her phone rang just as she was tucking it back in her purse.
“Hello?” Sadie answered.
“Any new jobs you need me for?” Jackie asked a little too cheerfully.
“I did a walk-through of a new meth job yesterday,” Sadie said in a clipped, businesslike tone. “I’m busy this morning, but I’d like us to get started on it later today.” Sadie gave her the address. “I’ll call you when I’m on my way over there, and the two of you can meet me. I take it you’ll tell Zack about the job.”
“Tell Zack? Sure,” Jackie replied. “I can do that if you want.”
“I just figured it might be easier for you to talk to him, since you two are a thing and all.” A thing? Sadie rolled her eyes at her own inability to put it better than that.
“A thing? You mean because—”
“Because you’re sleeping together. Yes.” She snapped the words off.
“You sound pissed,” Jackie said. “I mean, you have every right to be ticked off if there’s a Scene-2-Clean policy about employees dating, but, you know, you never said anything about that and—”
“I guess since I run a company of only three employees, I didn’t know I had to have a dating policy!” Sadie was stopped at a light. She leaned forward to rest her forehead on the steering wheel. She’d wanted Jackie to deny everything. Instead she’d confirmed Sadie’s fears. She took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. It wasn’t Jackie’s fault. She probably didn’t know Zack and Sadie had had a thing of their own last year or that he’d just recently lured her back to his bed. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business and I have no right to be pissed off. I’m just . . .” Hurt. “Surprised. That’s all. What you two do on your own time is your own business.” She quickly finished, “Just make sure it is on your own time, okay?”
“Yes. Of course. Um. This probably isn’t a good time, but I was wondering if I could get an advance on my paycheck? I’ve had some unexpected expenses this month.”
“You’re right. It’s not a good time.”
Sadie said good-bye. Instead of placing her cell phone neatly in her purse, she angrily flung it to the floor.
As she drove closer, Sadie focused her energy on how she’d ask Joy about Rhea. Traffic was lighter than she expected, and she debated circling the neighborhood before going inside. Then she spied the same two girls that had been jumping rope in the driveway. They had their backpacks on and were just boarding a school bus.
After the bus pulled away, Sadie saw Rhea. She had her arms out wide and was spinning round and round. When she stopped, she had her head tilted back, laughing as she stumbled unsteadily on her feet. Finally she fell and lay there, hovering a few inches above the ground.
Sadie smiled. She remembered the joy of spinning around like that as a kid. Fun times. Simple times. Her hands were tight on the steering wheel as she brought her car to the curb. She watched Rhea get to her feet and wave. Brian’s bracelet dangled from her tiny wrist. She was eyeing Sadie curiously as if unsure whether to approach.
Sadie felt the same uncertainty.
She could be my niece, Sadie thought. My own flesh and blood and my last connection to Brian.
Sadie turned off the ignition and frowned. Another idea was quick on the heels of that one.
Rhea could just as easily be Tim’s child.
Sadie looked at the girl with the huge eyes and bouncy pigtails, but nothing about her features gave a clue either way.
Sadie picked up her cell phone from the floor of the car and spent a few seconds checking for voice mail messages. Still no calls from Zack. When she put the phone away and glanced up, Rhea was standing outside the driver’s side of the car.
Sadie emitted a sharp squeak.
“Sorry. You scared me,” Sadie explained as she rolled down her window.
The little girl offered her an amused smile.
“I knew you’d come back.”
“You did, huh?” Sadie smiled in return. “How old did you say you are?”
“I’m old enough to count,” she shouted. “One-two-three. And I’m ol’ enough to bounce—one-two-three. . . .” She hopped up and down on the balls of her feet. “And I’m ol’ enough to pounce!” She made her hands into catlike claws and lunged at Sadie’s car, then dissolved into a fit of giggles.
When her laughter subsided, Sadie asked her, “So did you know I was coming because you heard someone saying I was coming for breakfast today?”
“Yeah, I heard Dad tell Mom you were coming.”
“Your dad . . . that would be Tim?” Sadie asked.
“They had a fight about it,” Rhea said sadly, ignoring Sadie’s question.
“About what?”
“About you coming. Mom said it wasn’t the right time for you to visit. She called you a dog.” Rhea made a woof woof sound and giggled.
“She’s no prize herself,” Sadie grumbled.
Rhea put a finger to her lips and looked up at the sky thoughtfully.
“I think she said you were a sleeping dog, so Dad should let you sleep.”
“Maybe what she said was ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’?” Sadie asked.
“Yeah!” Rhea nodded enthusiastically.
Well, that was kind of better than being called a dog. “I wonder why she’d say that.”
Rhea shrugged.
“Maybe ’cause Dad wants to talk about my real dad and Mom doesn’t wanna.”
Aha!
“Real dad?”
“Yeah, I call Tim Dad ’cause my real dad is an angel in heaven from before I came out of my mom’s tummy.” She looked over at the house. “They’re watching for you.”
Sadie glanced quickly through the trellis and could see the drapes parted slightly. When she glanced back out her car window, Rhea was gone. Sadie put her cell phone to her ear and pretended to talk on it. Let them think she needed to make a phone call before making nice-nice over breakfast. She needed a moment to get her blood pressure under control.
“Why would Joy have Brian’s baby and never tell us?” Sadie asked her quiet cell phone.
She thought of Joy back then. Twentysomething. Her fiancé breaks up with her and then goes home and kills himself. She packs up to live with her mom and dad in California and maybe just then discovers she’s pregnant. She would’ve been confused and overwhelmed.
“I’ll cut her some slack for not telling us in the beginning,” Sadie mumbled to herself. “But to not tell us even after she has the child, our flesh and blood, living with her here in Seattle?”
She tried to make a new start with a new man, Sadie reminded herself, but she still felt cheated.
A sidelong glance told her someone was still watching for her and waiting. She put her phone in her purse and then it rang for real. She answered before checking the incoming number.
“Jackie called me about the meth job this afternoon,” Zack said.
Did she call you over the phone or call your name in her bedroom? Sadie thought vehemently.
“Right,” Sadie said, going for an all-business tone.
“I know you’re upset but—”
“Upset?” she shouted. She could feel tears clog her throat. “Why should I be upset except that you climbed into my bed while you left Jackie still warming yours?!”
“About that. We’d had too much to drink and—”
“I don’t want to hear all the gory details, thank you very much.”
“Well, you’re just going to have to listen up, Sadie, because there’s more.”
“More?” she asked, struggling to keep a tearful tremor from her voice.
“Yeah. I screwed up.”
“I think we already established that.”
“It’s worse. I told Jackie.”
“Told her what?” But even as she asked the question, she already knew. “Oh, God. You told her I see the dead?”
“I’m sorry. I had too much to drink, and, well, what can I say? I fucked up.”
She felt hurt and betrayed and now kicked while she was down.
“I’ve got to go.”
“We should talk about this,” Zack said. “Even if you decide to fire my ass, we should still talk about it.”
“I’m busy. I have to go into a wacky new age workshop and confront my ex-future-sister-in-law about having Brian’s child, who fell out of a window.”
She hung up the phone before he could even respond to her convoluted statement.
It felt like there was just too much going on in her world to sit down now and have a polite breakfast. Still, Sadie realized that was exactly what she needed to do.
She left her car and began walking toward the front door of Onyx House. She ducked through the ivy-covered trellis and up the path and then stepped up the stairs of the wooden porch. She raised her hand to knock and paused momentarily as the decorative wooden plate once again caught her attention.
ONYX HOUSE, it read. Burned into the block of wood. And the O had spokes. But the sign was worn and faded with age. She reached to touch it, but her fingers recoiled at a sound. She whirled on her heel to find Tim standing just beyond the screen door watching her.
“H-hello,” Sadie stuttered. “I was just about to knock.”
“It was a gift,” Tim said, nodding toward the carved sign. “At first I found it a little backwoodsy, you know? Like something you’d hang on the door of your cottage. But Joy thought it was a quaint thing to hang at the entrance.” He opened the door wide. “Come in.”
Sadie pasted a smile on her face and stepped inside. A thick aroma of home baking reached her. The smell of cinnamon and fresh coffee.
“I’m early,” Sadie said apologetically.
“You’re perfectly on time,” he said with a grin. “I’m just about to take the cinnamon rolls from the oven.” He closed the heavy wood door behind her and it sounded with a thud of finality. “You can have one hot out of the oven.”
He motioned for her to follow him down the hall and into the kitchen. The room was huge with a massive table, or possibly two or three pushed together in a long rectangle, covered with one long emerald green cloth and surrounded with a dozen dark wood chairs.
He poured her coffee into a beautiful blue ceramic mug and put it on the table in front of her.
“Is milk okay? I’m afraid we’re out of cream. Joy just left for the store to pick some up.”
“Black is fine,” Sadie said.
“I know it must’ve been a shock for Joy when Dawn and I just showed up here out of the blue.”
“Not really.”
He pulled out the chair across from her and sat down with his own cup of coffee.
“I’ve tried to convince her to call you for years but she didn’t want to deal with things. I knew you can only put off things for so long. Eventually you were bound to show up or run into each other, I mean.”
“Yeah, sure, but like I told Joy, I just found a brochure for this place in a box of Brian’s things, so when I saw he’d been here just a few days before . . .”
“You were curious. I don’t blame you.” He sipped from his coffee.
“So you two got married after Joy returned to live in Seattle?” Sadie asked.
“Yes, I’d offered her a job, and well, things progressed from there and—”
“Any kids?” Sadie blurted before she could stop herself.
“A daughter.” He looked down into his mug before his gaze lifted to meet hers. “She died last year. She was only five.”
“I’m sorry,” Sadie said, feeling the wave of sorrow that left him. “It must be horrible to lose a child.”
She wanted to talk to him about Rhea but decided that was a can of worms to open with Joy instead.
A timer went off and Tim was on his feet removing cinnamon rolls from the second oven. He was a regular Betty Crocker.
He put some of the buns onto a plate and brought them to the table.
“Please help yourself,” he said. “They’re great when they’re still warm.”
“Delicious,” Sadie said, and meant it. One bite and the roll had melted in her mouth.
They ate in silence for a moment before Tim began to speak.
“Although we get a lot of guests here, I want you to know that I remember Brian. He seemed like a sincere guy. Very serious.”
Sadie shook her head. “That’s interesting. I don’t remember seeing his serious side too often. He was the jokester in the family. To tell you the truth, I find it hard to believe he’d ever consider coming here, let alone taking some of your sessions.” She swallowed the last mouthful of her cinnamon bun and added, “No offense.”
“Some people come here out of curiosity and some come just to relax. Brian, well, I got the feeling he was . . . searching.”
“For what?”
“Answers.”
“To what?” Sadie asked, her eyes firm on Tim’s.
“I’m not sure. . . .”
Sadie got the distinct impression he was lying.
“You must’ve talked about this with Joy,” Sadie pushed. “What did she say he was looking for?”
“Joy always found it extremely painful to talk about your brother. I’m sure you understand that.”
He got up from the table and brought a carafe over to refill their mugs. As he topped off Sadie’s coffee, he looked sincerely into her eyes.
“I just wish we could’ve done more to help him. If only we’d known he was so troubled . . .”
“Yes,” Sadie said abruptly.
Tim sat with his back to the large kitchen window that had a view of the picturesque yard. It would’ve been more scenic if Rhea weren’t bouncing up and down on the rear porch and occasionally pausing to make faces at Sadie through the window. She stopped now and held up fingers—one-two-three—and bounced up and down, then made clawlike finger action as she jumped around on the deck.
Sadie could hear her shouting in a singsong voice.
“I’m old enough to count, one-two-three, and I’m ol’ enough to bounce, one-two-three, and I’m ol’ enough to pounce!”
She stopped to make a snarling-tiger face at Sadie, her fingers in claws against the window.
At least she was a happy ghost.
“How did she die?” Sadie murmured.
“Who?” Tim asked, putting down his coffee and tilting his head quizzically at Sadie.
“Rhea.”
“I don’t remember telling you her name.” Tim looked at Sadie oddly, then followed her gaze over his shoulder. He opened his mouth to say more, but just then the front doorbell rang.
A look of annoyance crossed his face as he excused himself to get the door. Sadie made shooing motions with her hands, but Rhea still made funny faces in the window. This one had her tongue sticking out and her eyes rolling to the back of her head. Obviously the little girl enjoyed an audience. A jokester. Like Brian.
Sadie decided to get up on the pretense of walking around admiring the kitchen. If she was no longer looking out the window, she could think without Rhea’s distraction.
When Tim returned, it was with a woman who looked like a throw back to the sixties in a long peasant skirt, a tie-dyed shirt, and dreadlocks.
Tim introduced her as Lulu, who’d be running the session that morning.
“So you’re here for the workshop on healing after loss?” Lulu asked, her voice sounding spacey, like she’d smoked a joint outside.
“Yes,” Tim answered for her.
Only if I can’t figure out a way to escape before then, Sadie thought.
“We’d hoped for a quiet breakfast together first. You’re early.” Tim looked pointedly at Lulu.
“Sorry, Tim.” Lulu giggled. “It’s those cinnamon buns. It’s like they call to me.”
“I’ll get you one to take into the meeting room while you set up.” He walked toward the counter.
“Joy told me about your loss,” Lulu said. “Have you tried to get in touch with him? It could help you move forward with your life.”
“I have moved on,” Sadie said with more bite than she intended. She took a breath and softened her tone. “It’s been six years. Time heals all wounds, right?”
“Time has nothing to do with it,” Tim insisted, returning with a roll on a small plate lined with a paper napkin, and coffee in a travel mug. He handed the items to Lulu and she thanked him.
“Am I setting up in the basement room?” she asked.
Tim nodded.
“Did you ever meet Rhea?” Sadie blurted.
Lulu opened her mouth to speak, but Tim put a hand on her arm to stop her.
“Lulu has to go set up. We’ll be expecting more guests soon.”
Sadie noted a tattoo on Tim’s hand between the thumb and forefinger. A small circle with wiggly lines extending from its circumference.
“Interesting tattoo,” Sadie said, nonchalantly pointing to it.
Sadie thought Tim and Lulu exchanged a knowing look, but Lulu excused herself to leave.
Tim refilled their coffees and Sadie asked again about the tattoo.
“Is it a symbol of something?”
“Yes, it’s symbolic of a college dare after a keg party in my younger days.” Tim winked.
Sadie laughed politely and then her cell phone rang. She answered the call, determined it was business related, and excused herself to finish talking in the other room. The caller was an insurance adjuster Sadie had been dealing with on a prior job. It was a routine follow-up call about some paperwork, but Sadie took the opportunity to use it as an excuse.
She returned to the kitchen and almost bumped right into him by the door.
“I’m sorry, but I have to leave. Something’s come up at work.” She looked at Tim evenly. “I wish I could stay and talk with Joy, but I need to get started on this immediately.”
“I understand,” Tim said. “But how about a quick tour?”
She almost relented, but her phone rang again.
“I really should go,” Sadie said.
“Another time, then,” Tim said with a flicker of annoyance in his tone. He walked her to the door.
The second she’d pulled away from the curb, Sadie took out her cell phone and dialed Zack. She didn’t want to talk to him and she really didn’t want to look at him either, but this wasn’t high school. She was a grown woman with a business to run and she wasn’t going to let a convoluted romantic love triangle screw with her job. It was time to put on her big-girl panties and do what was right.
“Hi,” he answered, obviously recognizing the incoming phone number. “I’m glad you called. We should talk about—”
“We need to talk about work. I just got a call for a decomp scene in North Queen Anne,” she interrupted. “It would help if I had both of you on board to get the job done.” Sadie paused for effect. “That means I want us all focused on the job.” Rather than on each other, she thought, and finished, “Let’s just meet for coffee and talk so we can get beyond this.”
“Great,” he said, sounding simultaneously relieved and apprehensive. “We can sit, the two of us, and I’ll explain—”
“Not just the two of us. I want Jackie there as well.” She fought the touch of annoyance that flared through her, causing those big-girl panties to pinch painfully. “I don’t want explanations, Zack. I want assurances.”
“What kind of assurances?”
“The kind that tells me the two of you are still able to work with each other and with me.”
“That’s not going to be a problem.”
“I also need to know that Jackie can keep her mouth shut and be a professional no matter what she thinks about my conversations with dead people.”
Zack didn’t respond.
“So call her up and tell her I’d like to meet with both of you at El Diablo’s in an hour.”
Sadie used that hour to drive back to get the Scene- 2-Clean van and load it up with equipment from her garage. She climbed into the van and pressed the garage remote to roll up the back door. She was just backing out of the garage when she spotted someone walking up her driveway.
“Damn. Thuggy,” Sadie said.
She realized she should’ve called him like she promised. The last thing she needed was to deal with him today. Sadie didn’t get out of the vehicle, but she rolled down her window when he approached.
“Sorry I didn’t call you back,” Sadie said.
“Have you talked to Egan?” he asked.
“Not lately.”
He looked disappointed.
“I know I promised you a meth clean, but I’ve got another job I need to work first.”
“Then I’ll help with that,” he said.
“It’s a decomp scene. Two women left to rot in their home for a couple weeks in this heat.” She raised her eyebrows at him in question.
“Yeah, well, think I’ll pass.” He blew out a breath. “I could do other things, though. I heard your place got trashed. I could give you security. I’ve done lots of security before.”
Sadie could believe it. Thuggy’s muscles had muscles. It gave her an idea.
“You know what? My sister could use security.” Sadie reached for her purse and slipped out a photo of Dawn. She held it up to Thuggy.
“Your sister?”
“She’s very pregnant and I’ve been staying with her, but I can’t be with her every second. Fierce Force threatened her because of me. I need to keep her safe.” She looked for a pen but couldn’t find one.
“I’ll call your cell phone in a few minutes and leave you the address for my mom and sister. Dawn’s at my mom’s now, but you can pick her up and bring her back to her place. Then just stay with her until I get there.”
“You said she needs protection from the FF?” Thuggy asked.
“Yeah. And the devil,” Sadie replied, and at Thuggy’s taken-aback expression she added, “Some weird cult. Just make sure nobody gets near my sister, okay? I’ll pay you full wages for your time.”
He agreed. As he turned to walk away, Sadie reached out and stopped him.
“Thuggy, if anything happens to Dawn, you’ll never work in this business again. Ever.”