Dead and Kicking by Wendy Roberts

Author:Wendy Roberts
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Paranormal
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2009-12-03T22:00:00+00:00

12

Once out of the crime scene, Sadie doffed her gear in the area she’d designated her safe zone: Principal Tu’s office. She locked up the school and headed for home. She planned to print the pictures and fax the forms to the insurance company. After she dealt with business, she’d allow the emotional side of herself a voice too. She figured she’d pull the covers over her head and cry into her pillow.

When her cell phone rang on the drive back home, Sadie’s heart skipped a beat. When she saw it was only Maeva and not Zack, Sadie let the call go to voice mail. There was a time to cry on your friend’s shoulder and to mourn your breakup, but Sadie needed to bury herself in her work first. She couldn’t deal with Maeva’s positive thinking and emotional pats on the shoulder right now. Tomorrow she planned to seek solace in mopping up blood. Maybe, if she was lucky, she’d feel good enough to help an old janitor find heaven.

She did her paperwork and, as planned, sank into bed. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this drained. When her bedside phone startled her awake the next morning, she seriously considered throwing it across the room.

“Hello?” she mumbled into the receiver.

“Were you at the Sunnyside Avenue house last night cleaning up ghosts and other stuff?” Petrovich asked, his voice gruff.

Sadie squinted at her clock. “Dean, it’s six fifteen in the bloody morning.”

“Crime doesn’t take a vacation.”

Sadie rolled her sleepy eyes and sat up. “What’s up? Why are you asking about the Wickses’ house?”

“Somebody cleaned out an upstairs bedroom last night.”

Sadie frowned. How was that possible? “What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean, one of the bedrooms upstairs, one of those rooms that was floor-to-ceiling crud, is completely empty this morning.”

Sadie shook her head. She was wide awake now. How the hell had someone gotten past Mr. Ugly?

“Maybe your officers got a start on that room. Weren’t you shipping everything into a storage facility before you went through each box?”

“Of course I asked my team first. You’re not the first person I dragged out of bed this morning. Nobody was willing to go inside that house until it was, um, safe. The entire time we were shoveling out that hole of a house, nobody ever even made it upstairs.”

Sadie thought of herself telling Zack to stay away from the upstairs rooms. “If it wasn’t your guys, who could it have been?” Sadie wondered aloud.

“You, or someone else with a key.”

“It wasn’t me,” Sadie said. “What about Paula?” The woman’s name tasted sour in Sadie’s mouth.

“Her apartment is a block from my own place, so when I got no answer at her place, I headed over there and pounded on the door. She said she hadn’t been near the house, and the only ones who had keys to the house besides the cops were her mom, herself, you, and Zack. I asked Zack and—”

“You asked Zack? Did you call him?”

“No . . . um .

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