Dead Suite Part 7

"What does it mean?" she asked, tracing the outline of the tattoo with her finger.

"It means I was a college boy studying mythology and consuming far too much vodka," Owen said with a breathy chuckle.

Owen slid his body down hers. He opened the front of her blouse and momentarily played with the circular pendant lying in her cleavage. She glanced down and saw him reading the words on the back.

"It's some kind of good-luck thingamajig," she said breathlessly.

"Hmm. If you say so."

He pushed the necklace aside, unsnapped her bra and began leaving wet, sizzling kisses on Sadie's b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She groaned softly, closed her eyes, and behind her lids she saw Zack's face.

"I . . . I can't." Sadie sat up so abruptly she toppled Owen onto the floor. He b.u.mped the coffee table and deftly steadied her gla.s.s of beer before it spilled.

"I am sooo sorry." She rearranged her clothes and ran her fingers through her mussed hair.

"No harm done. Although I nearly spilled your beer, and that would've been a real shame."

He winked at her and offered Sadie a sincere smile as he b.u.t.toned his s.h.i.+rt and tucked it into his pants. He looked better mussed then dressed up, and that thought almost made her want to drag him back onto the sofa. But she didn't.

Owen bent down and grabbed her hand, giving it a squeeze.

"Guess I'll get going."

"Um. Okay." She walked him to the door. "Thanks for the ride," Sadie said, then added, "And for the dinner."

"Dinner was all on Gayla." He paused to place a brief, chaste kiss on her cheek.

"Sorry about the finger and-" She shrugged. "About not . . . you know."

"No need to apologize. The finger thing wasn't your fault, and this"-he pointed at Sadie and then back at himself-"was just too fast." He shrugged. "See you tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow?" Sadie frowned.

"Didn't Gayla tell you? Rosemary and Rick Thingvold are doing some kind of purification ritual tomorrow, and since you agreed to be on the payroll I'm guessing Gayla expects you there."

Sadie opened the front door and, at the same time, felt like she'd also opened Pandora's box.

Chapter 5.

Sadie woke up the next morning with the vague recollection of a fiery dream involving Zack's face and Owen's body. She took a long, cool shower before checking her messages. The only person who'd called was her sister, Dawn, reminding her about dinner and saying she'd call again later.

She tossed Hairy's mini stuffed bunny around for a minute but the rabbit was too intelligent to have ever believed in the game of fetch. Sadie gave him fresh water and refilled his kibble before getting dressed up for a return to the Bay Eminence Hotel. Even though the only thing she had to do there was pick up her ozone generator, she needed to maintain her businesswoman-from-out-of-town look as part of her agreement with Eminence manager Herbert Sylvane.

Sadie arrived at the hotel just after noon dressed in a gray knit dress and kitten heels and pulling a large suitcase behind her. She walked down the hall to the right of the front desk and knocked twice on Herbert's office door before trying the k.n.o.b and finding it locked.

"You looking for Father Herb?" asked an older Hispanic woman carrying a huge stack of mail.

"Um. Herbert Sylvane?" Sadie said. Father Herb?

"Right, that's what I mean." She nodded. "He's around the hotel somewhere. I saw him heading up the elevator a minute ago. Do you want me to leave him a note?"

"That's okay," Sadie said. She turned to leave but then couldn't resist asking, "Is that his nickname? Father Herb?"

"Oh that." She waved a hand in the air. When Sadie offered her a blank stare the woman added, "I heard he was a priest before he came to work in the hotel biz."

"Really?" Sadie was stunned. She'd never heard of anybody becoming a priest and then leaving that life to run a hotel.

It just seemed odd. Sadie must've looked curious because the woman continued , "It was a long time ago, and I don't think he likes to talk about it. So, if you don't mind, maybe don't mention I told you."

"No problem."

Sadie walked away thinking she'd talk to Herbert Sylvane on her way out. She rolled her extra-large Samsonite behind her as she headed across the lobby to the elevators and then up to the tenth floor. She made her way down the hall, and this time she used the key card she'd kept to open the door to the crime-scene room, as there was no reason to enter through the adjoining room she'd used as a safe zone.

When she opened the door and she encountered Herbert Sylvane in the doorway.

The hotel manager jumped back a couple feet, then placed his hand on his double-breasted, tweed heart and cursed like a sailor.

"You scared the frickin' h.e.l.l out of me!" he hissed.

"Sorry." Sadie wheeled her suitcase inside and closed the door with both of them inside. "I'm just collecting the ozone generator." She nodded to the machine proudly sucking in bad air and blowing out good.

"Oh." Herbert looked like he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't, and Sadie noticed he had a small sack in one hand that he quickly stuffed into his suit pants. "I'll leave you to it then."

He coughed into his hand to clear his throat and then absently smoothed his unwrinkled suit jacket.

"I was just following up and checking the room," he added. "The new mattress and box spring are due to be delivered tomorrow along with the carpeting and underlay to replace the area you removed. Thanks for all your work here," he said, at the door. "I guess you won't be back again?"

He looked impossibly hopeful.

"Not unless you get another dead body here," Sadie smirked. "If you do, I'm your gal."

"Right. Okay." Herbert chuckled good-naturedly. "Let's hope that doesn't happen."

Then he left speedily like his a.s.s was on fire. He certainly wasn't the first grown man Sadie had seen with an aversion to being in a room where someone had died. The thought had her find the necklace around her throat and she wondered about Hugh Pacheo and how he was handling his son's death.

She found it curious that Herbert Sylvane would be at the murder scene, but she realized that he couldn't avoid the room entirely. Sadie imagined that Herbert, as the hotel manager he couldn't exactly rent out the room until he'd seen for himself what still needed to be done. Then again, he might've merely been curious and was embarra.s.sed about being caught peeking at a crime scene. Or maybe he'd just come in to take a coffee break and watch a little p.o.r.n. Sadie didn't know and didn't care what an ex-priest did in his spare time.

Once she'd unplugged her ozone generator, Sadie placed the machine inside her oversized suitcase and left her room key on the dresser. When she was leaving, she took the time to flip the plastic door hanger to say MAID, CLEAN THIS ROOM NOW.

Truthfully, the room had never been as clean as it was after Sadie gave it a scrub, but this way everyone knew she was finished.

Sadie took the elevator with her heavy suitcase. Back in her vehicle, she headed for home and answered a brief call from Dawn.

"Don't forget you're bringing the salad for dinner tonight," Dawn said.

"I didn't forget." Sadie s.n.a.t.c.hed up a tiny sc.r.a.p of paper from the pa.s.senger seat and scribbled a reminder to pick up salad fixings, then jammed the note next to the speedometer. "I can't stay late."

"Don't worry about that. Dylan finally sleeps through the night if we get him into his own bed by eight o'clock, so trust me, we aren't night owls either," Dawn remarked. "Are you working tonight?"

"Yeah." Sadie thought about the purification ritual scheduled at Halladay Street. "Kind of."

"Okay, remember the rules about-"

"Yes, I know. I'm not supposed to talk about crime-scene cleanup, ghosts, or basically anything that concerns my day-to-day life in front of Mom," Sadie snipped. "Is my love life off-limits too?"

"Why, is Zack back in town? Is he coming to dinner tonight? Oh my G.o.d. You're getting serious again, aren't you?" Dawn gasped. "Did he propose? Again? Did you finally say yes?"

Sadie sighed. "No to all of those questions and yeah, let's just keep that topic off our discussion list too."

"Oh. That's too bad. I take it there's trouble in paradise?" Dawn asked.

"Sis, you can call my love life a lot of things, but I don't think paradise would cover it." Her phone beeped that another call was coming in. "Gotta go. See you at five."

The other call was from Maeva.

"Rosemary and Rick are thrilled you're coming to the seance tonight."

"Seance? I thought it was a purification ritual."

"No, they already tried purification and decided to draw the spirit out instead. Regardless, they're totally over the moon that you're coming tonight!"

"They're over the moon on a regular basis," Sadie remarked. "I'm thinking way past the moon and into another universe or dimension altogether."

"Very funny. What made you change your mind?"

"Gayla and Owen took me out to dinner last night to convince me, and they offered to pay me double my usual rate."

"So you wouldn't do it out of friends.h.i.+p but you could be bought?" Maeva joked.

"Basically, yes. I'm a wh.o.r.e that way. Are you going?"

"Yes, because they need six."

"Six what?"

"Six people. It's best if it's divisible by three," Maeva explained. "Originally it was going to be the Thingvolds and Louise, which was three, but once they heard you were coming there needed to be more."

"I haven't seen Louise in a while. Does she still burn places down?"

"She still smudges but I think it's been a while since she set fire to an entire building."

"Good to know." Sadie brought the Scene-2-Clean van to a stop at a red light. "So with you, me, Louise, and the Thingvolds we've got five. Who else?"

"They wanted Gayla but she's unavailable, so Owen is coming."

Sadie felt her skin get hot at the mere mention of Owen's name.

"Why did you suddenly get so quiet?" Maeva asked. Sadie heard Osbert fussing in the background. "Hold that thought while I put a nipple in this kid's mouth."

"Thanks for the visual," Sadie remarked.

When the crying stopped Maeva asked, "What's up with you? I'm getting a bad vibe. And considering I hardly get any vibes about anything anymore, please don't tell me it's nothing."

"It is nothing. My life is in the c.r.a.pper. Like usual."

"Please elaborate. I need to live vicariously through someone who's more than a milkmaid."

Sadie launched into the explanation about the finger stuffed in a baggie found on her winds.h.i.+eld, followed by her breakup of the nonrelations.h.i.+p with Zack, and concluded with the near-s.e.x experience with Owen.

"This is why I love you," Maeva stated at the end. "You pack more living into one evening than I've managed to pack into the last year."

"Not true. You created an entire human being and squeezed him out of your body and that's pretty amazing. A lot more amazing than the fact that I'm basically a Typhoid Mary when it comes to anything romantic."

"Well, the good news is that at the seance, if we don't have any ghosts to entertain us, at least there'll be s.e.xual tension between you and Owen to add gusto to the evening."

"Oh joy. I'm thrilled my life is a never-ending source of amus.e.m.e.nt for you."

"By the way, I'll be seeing you at your mom's for dinner. I met Dawn for coffee this morning and she invited me to come. Terry's working but he made a kick-a.s.s cheesecake for me to bring for dessert."

Now that her friend Maeva had four-month-old Osbert and Dawn had eighteen-month-old Dylan, the two mothers had become friends. Sadie had mixed feeling about the fact that her best friend and sister had bonded over episiotomies and cracked nipples. It made her feel left out.

"If Terry's working tonight, what are you doing with Osbert during the seance after dinner?"

"Don't worry about that. Terry said his catering job should only go 'til eight. We can drop off Osbert on the way."

Sadie ended the call with Maeva just in time to get another call from Detective Petrovich.

"I just got a call from the manager of the Pacifica," he told her. "She was checking your references and I told her you were the best blood-'n'-guts cleaner out there. We'll be finis.h.i.+ng up there today."

"Thanks for the reference," Sadie said. She pulled her company van into her garage and continued talking. "Any news when I can get my car back?"

"We've dusted it and gone over every inch of that car." He paused. "There were old French fries under the driver's seat."

"What can I say? I can clean the h.e.l.l out of a crime scene, but my car is another matter." She walked inside her house through the garage and headed to her bedroom.

"That car is a hazardous-waste dump."

"I wouldn't go that far." Sadie chuckled, but her mirth abruptly turned to sadness. Zack had always taken the time to vacuum and wash her car. Tears stung her eyes. She took a deep breath and continued. "So you got May's finger to be buried with the rest of her? I'm sure her spirit will be happy that all the body parts are together."

"You know I can't say whether or not it was May's finger," he said in a clipped cop tone.