Dead Suite (25 page)

Read on for a sneak peek at the next Ghost Dusters Mystery

DROP DEAD BEAUTY

Available from InterMix in May 2013

Sadie bolted upright in bed and squinted into the dark. Someone was in her room. She
could hear them breathe and felt the shift in the air as a shadowy figure came closer.
Weighing her options, she decided on the most logical choice. Emitting a shrill, piercing
scream, she launched herself to the furthest side of the bed and scrambled in the
drawer of end table for her pepper spray.

“Shut up already!” yelled a male voice in reply.

Sadie flicked on her lamp and blinked rapidly as her eyes adjusted.

“Detective Petrovich?” Sadie’s jaw dropped. “Dean?”

He nodded sharply.

She put a hand on her pounding chest.

“You scared me half to death!”

“Sorry to barge in on you like this, but I needed a place to stay.”

“It’s five in the morning!” Sadie groaned and shook her head. “Why me? What about
your fiancé? Wouldn’t she be the more logical choice?”

“They’ll look for me there. I’ve got to lay low until this case blows over.” He paced
the floor and rung his hands nervously. “Staying with Jenny would put her in danger.”

“But you’re okay putting me in danger?”

He didn’t reply.

Sadie sighed, swung her legs out of bed and walked to the kitchen. She had raging
heart burn. Dean followed her and watched as she dug out a roll of antacids from the
drawer and popped two in her mouth before heading for the coffee maker.

The detective had the good sense to wait until Sadie was seated at her kitchen table
with a mug of coffee in front of her before continuing the conversation.

“I’m in trouble,” he began. He scrubbed his hand across the stubble of his regulation
short hair. “They think I killed her.”

Sadie hesitated and nodded. It was all over the news. Petrovich’s ex-wife, Jane, had
been murdered and most reports had pegged Dean as the shooter.
Seattle Detective shoots his ex wife
. The papers hadn’t had this much fun since a certain senator was caught stepping
out on his wife with a transvestite.

“I have to ask,” Sadie said. “Did you do it?”

“No!” Dean roared.

“Okay.” Sadie held her hands up. “But I don’t know how I can help you.”

“You can start by finding out who did it.”

“Whoa. I do trauma cleaning. I’m not a police officer and I don’t even pretend to
be one.”

She got up and brought her mug to the sink, pouring out half the coffee. Her stomach
felt unsettled. She decided on juice and toast.

“Move aside,” Sadie told Dean when he followed her. She nodded with her chin. “I need
to access my toaster.”

Instead, Petrovich stepped closer until there were only a couple inches separating
them.

“I need you to do that thing you do.” His voice was quiet and pleading.

“If you’re talking crime scene cleanup, I turned down the chance to clean up that
scene.” Her bottom lip quivered as she talked and she took a deep breath. “I couldn’t
do it. It’s one thing to clean up the blood of strangers. It’s another when you have
a personal connection.”

“I’m talking about that
other
thing you do. Talking to dead people. I want you to ask Jane who killed her. She
won’t even be surprised that you’re talking to her on account of I told her all about
what you do one time when we were on better terms.”

“You told her?” Sadie was annoyed. She’d assumed that information was just between
the two of them.

“Yeah, well, she was fascinated with that kind of shit. Psychics and stuff.”

Sadie ignored the fact that he’d just called her way of life ‘shit’ and walked around
the detective to shove a piece of bread in the toaster.

“First of all, it’s not a given that somebody’s spirit remains behind if they’ve been
killed,” Sadie told him.

“Really?” Petrovich frowned. “Sure as hell feels like it happens all the time with
you.”

It feels like that to me too.

“Well, it
doesn’t
happen all the time. You only think that because you happened to be involved in a
lot of those cases.” Sadie retrieved peanut butter and jelly from the fridge. “Couple
weeks ago I had an unattended death. Guy had a massive heart attack and died alone
at home. By the time his neighbors complained about the smell, he’d been gone about
a week. You can imagine the state of his apartment.” The toast popped and she systematically
slathered on peanut butter and jelly and then took a big bite. “I had to sweep up
so many maggots that—”

“How do you do that?” Petrovich shook his head.

“Do what?” Sadie asked around a second mouthful of toast.

“How do you talk about decomposing bodies and maggots while eating?”

Sadie shrugged.

“See!” He waggled a finger near her face. “You should’ve been a cop. You’ve got a
stronger stomach than most rookies by far.”

“My point is that there was no spirit lingering behind at that scene. It was nice
and peaceful,” she told him.

“Only you would describe an unattended death scene as peaceful.”

Sadie drank some orange juice and winced as it caused her stomach acid to roar back
to life.

“I understand you not wanting to be labeled a killer, okay? But you need to let the
cops do their job, Dean. No good will come from me poking around trying to get your
dead ex-wife to talk to me.”

“My reputation’s on the line here!” His voice got louder. “I’ve been a detective for
nearly twenty years! I can’t just stand back and listen to everyone saying I’m guilty
without at least trying to get evidence to clear my name.” He put his hands on his
hips. “I don’t want to say you owe me but...”

But she did. She owed Dean big time. Petrovich had been the cop on the scene of her
brother’s suicide. He’d gone above and beyond the call of duty to make sure she was
okay then and had saved her sorry trauma cleaning ass many times since that day. He’d
also been a champion of her trauma cleaning company, Scene-2-Clean, and had referred
many families in need of her services over the years.

Sadie closed her eyes feeling suddenly unbearably exhausted.

“I’ll think about it but, right now, I gotta go back to bed.”

“Okay.” He nodded. “That’s good. You sleep on it and I’ll be right here whenever you
want to talk.”

Sadie looked him over and shook her head slowly from side to side as she left him
in her kitchen and returned to the comfort of her tangled bed sheets.

When Sadie woke up a second time it was to the doorbell. She glanced at her bedside
clock, cursed and ran for the door.

Petrovich stopped her in the living room.

“Don’t answer it. You don’t know who it is. It could be the cops coming to look for
me.”

“It’s Zack. We have a date. He’s taking me out for breakfast.”

“What?! You can’t let him in. I don’t want anyone to know I’m staying with you.”

Sadie rolled her eyes.

“Go away then,” Sadie said, making shooing motions with her hands. “You’re not screwing
this up for me.”

“I thought you and Zack broke up.”

“We did. Or not. It’s complicated.” Her stomach was a bundle of nerves partly because
she was still in her PJ’s and there was the little matter of harboring a suspected
murderer in her house.

“If he’s taking you out on a date, even if it’s only breakfast, then you’re obviously
back together.”

“This is our first date since our breakup a couple months ago.”

They’d started with stilted emails, moved on to upbeat texts and, recently, had graduated
to awkward phone calls trying to test the waters of their relationship. Sadie was
hoping a successful breakfast would pave a bridge across the river of poison that
was their past. It might be too much to expect from eggs and bacon, but she was an
optimist.

The doorbell rang again and she waved her hands at Dean with annoyance and hissed,
“Leave!”

Sadie made for the door while Petrovich took off.

“Hi,” Sadie said, smiling at Zack while running a nervous hand through her short cropped
hair. “Sorry, I’m running late.”

She looked over at her on-again off-again boyfriend of the last few years. He looked
rugged and handsome in Dockers and a button down shirt. He smelled lightly of cologne.
She couldn’t remember Zack ever bothering with cologne before. He’d obviously made
an effort. It caused her heart to do painful flip flops in her chest and also made
her slightly queasy. She was beginning to think she shouldn’t have eaten the specialty
taco from that food truck downtown yesterday.

Zack looked her over without nearly the same appreciation.

“You just woke you up, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I had a rough night.” She tugged at the hem of her Mariner’s t-shirt
that she wore as a nightgown. “Make yourself comfortable and I’ll be ready in five
minutes tops.”

Zack bent and scooped up Sadie’s pet bunny, Hairy, and stroked the rabbit’s fur.

“Take your time.”

Sadie ran to her bedroom and threw on a pair of Levis and a t-shirt, then hustled
into the bathroom to brush her teeth and hair. She applied a little makeup and was
ready for her big date.

Sadie had Zack wait one more minute while she topped off Hairy’s fresh kibble with
his favorite yoghurt yummy treat. Then they were on their way. Zack opened the passenger
door to his Mustang for her and when she sat down he reached over and buckled her
belt. When he started the car he had the radio station tuned to her favorite soft
rock station. He was being so nice it bordered on weirdness.

They talked about the weather and, basically, in Seattle that meant they discussed
the various forms of precipitation. It had rained but now it was just misting and
by the time they reached their destination it had ramped up to a drizzle. Their conversation
positively sparkled with moisture.

Zack had chosen Beth’s Cafe. It was a blast from the past. They’d eagerly shared grease
and carbs after nights of shared passion in Sadie’s bed. Except, it felt different
now. Strained.

“Just like old times,” she quipped with a smile. What she really wanted to say was,
Why is this so weird when we’ve known each other so long?!

They walked inside and slipped into one of the small booths. Sadie felt assaulted
by the thick, greasy smell of bacon in the air. Her usual iron stomach was betraying
her. Must be nerves. She took a calming breath as the waitress came over and filled
their coffee cups.

“I’ll have the country fried steak and eggs over easy. She’ll have the breakfast burrito,”
Zack told waitress.

“Hold on.” Sadie shook her head. “Not the breakfast burrito.”

“But you
always
get the breakfast burrito.” Zack frowned and his tone sounded hurt. He was trying
so hard.

“You’re right. I love the breakfast burrito.” Why did she want to bungle his hard
attempts to please her on this first date. “What was I thinking?”

Raising his steaming mug of coffee to his face Zack smiled warmly at her.

“I thought for a second you were going to tell me you were on a diet or something.”
He chuckled. “You’re as skinny as ever.”

“Um. Thanks.”

“In a good way,” he said hastily. “Not too skinny. Just that you’ve always had a great
appetite and never worried about weight. Not like some women who wouldn’t set foot
in this place.”

Beth’s was famous for twelve-egg omelettes and all you could eat hash browns. It was
not a diner for dieters or the faint of heart.

“Me? On a diet?” Sadie forced a giggle as she sipped her coffee and they fell into
an uncomfortable silence. Finally Sadie just blurted out, “So I’ve been wanting to
ask you about what happened a couple weeks ago at the spa.” Sadie leaned in on her
elbows. “What can you tell me?”

Since Zack was an ex cop she knew she could trust his instincts when it came to the
shooting of Dean’s ex wife. Even though he was no longer on the force due to a regrettable
bullet wound that created an even more unfortunate addiction to Vicodin, Zack still
had a network of friends and fellow boys in blue. She needed to know whether the situation
was as dire as Dean Petrovich suggested.

“Do we really need to talk about this?” Zack asked. He reached out a hand and placed
it over hers on top of the table. “I know you’ve had a rough couple weeks. It’s hard
to think of Dean slipping over the edge . . . but you’re just going to have to put
this behind you.”

That was easy for him to say. He didn’t have Petrovich hiding out at his place.

“Just tell me the truth. Do you think he did it?”

“Sadie,
everyone
thinks he did it.”

Sadie frowned.

“That’s unfair. How can they be sure?”

She pulled her hand from under his and nervously nibbled the cuticle of her thumb.
Taking another sip of her coffee she struggled with the uneasiness in her stomach
and waived the waitress over to ask for some water.

“Let’s review what we know. It was no secret that Jane and Dean had been squabbling
for weeks.” Zack leaned in. “He was seen fighting with her right inside the spa before
she was going for her massage. An hour before she was killed. Not to mention the fact
that the shooter killed Jane using Dean’s gun and—”

Sadie put up a hand to stop him.

“There is a heaping, smelly pile of evidence against him. I know that.” She blew a
breath out between pursed lips. “But we’re talking about Dean Petrovich here . . .
what does your gut tell you?”

The waitress delivered Sadie’s water and she chugged from the glass but didn’t take
her eyes off Zack’s. He was the first to break away with a long sigh.

“You think he did it,” Sadie concluded.

“I wish there was another suspect in this. I really do. Sometimes, no matter how much
you want the evidence to point another way, you gotta go with the facts.”

Sadie’s heart dropped.

When the food arrived she stared at the tortilla oozing sour cream, eggs and cheese
onto her plate and immediately thought about the shotgun suicide she’d cleaned the
week before. Her stomach made a mysterious gurgling noise. Since she usually had no
problem chowing down on a smelly tuna sandwich just minutes after cleaning up body
decomp, Sadie figured this momentary aversion must be anxiousness over this date with
Zack.