Drop Dead Beauty

Also by Wendy Roberts

The Remains of the Dead

Devil May Ride

Dead and Kicking

Dead Suite

INTERMIX BOOKS

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not have any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

DROP DEAD BEAUTY

An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

PUBLISHING HISTORY

InterMix eBook edition / May 2013

Copyright © 2013 by Wendy Roberts.

All rights reserved.

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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ISBN: 978-1-101-59515-2

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Chapter 1

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 as a distraction, she launched herself to the farthest side of the bed and scrambled in the drawer of the 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 heart.

“You scared me half to death!”

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

“You didn’t exactly barge; you snuck into my room.” She looked at the bedside clock and groaned. “It’s five in the morning!” Sadie shook her head. “Why me? What about your fiancée? 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 wrung 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, then swung her legs out of bed and walked to the kitchen. She had raging heartburn. 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 coffeemaker.

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 and need a place to say. I’m sure you’ve heard. I’ve got to lay low,” 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 Dean as the shooter. S
EATTLE
D
ETECTIVE
S
HOOTS
E
X-
W
IFE.
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. You know I’d do anything for you, but 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—one time, when we were on better terms, I told her all about what you do.”

“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.

“I want to help you get answers, but first of all, you need to know 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 the stomach acid in her belly to roar back to life.

“I understand you not wanting to be labeled a killer, okay? But you’re always the first one to tell me that I 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. And he’d always been her friend.

Sadie closed her eyes, feeling suddenly unbearably exhausted, and swayed on her feet.

“I’ll do whatever I can for you, Dean. I’ll think about how I can help, 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 as she left him in her kitchen and returned to the comfort of her tangled bedsheets.

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 for a bit then,” Sadie said, making gentle shooing motions with her hands. “He doesn’t need to know you’re here.”

“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 e-mails, 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. “Leave already! We’ll talk when I get back.”

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 made her heart 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 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 new 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 yogurt 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 here 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 the 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-can-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, “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 had 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 waved 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 . . . all round good guy . . . not a bad-ass criminal. 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 of the shotgun suicide she’d cleaned the week before. Her stomach made a mysterious gurgling noise. She 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.