Sadie's Spirit, CB Samet [book club recommendations .TXT] 📗

up Louie. He had the scheming physician pinned against a car, with his coat collar bunched up in his fist. Louie’s nose looked broken, and the blood was staining his shirt. Asher’s face was flushed and twisted in fury.

Louie shoved his right fist into Asher’s abdomen. The motion didn’t look powerful enough to have an impact on Asher, but he suddenly released the doctor and fell back onto the asphalt.

Asher!

Sadie no longer had a voice. She drifted closer to the scene of the fight.

Louie put the Taser back in his coat pocket, while Asher lay unconscious on the ground. The doctor looked down at his victim, his face contorted into a sneer. With a hateful expression on his face, and the blood congealing around his mouth and nose, he looked like the devil.

He loosened his tie and took it off. “Sadie should have stopped poking her nose into the data. She was about to cost me millions. I invested heavily in this drug, and they would have closed the study early if she’d blabbed about what the combined data showed.”

Sadie realized Louie must have done his own analysis, except he would have had access to data from all the sites. She burned with outrage at his selfish greed.

Louie shivered and his breath condensed as he exhaled. He looked around the empty parking lot as he began to wrap each end of his tie around his hands. He bent down and wrapped the tie around Asher’s neck.

No! Sadie panicked.

Louie started to strangle Asher.

She looked around the parking lot, but no one was in sight.

Sadie dove at Louie, feeling her apparition enter his body. Instead of the warmth she had felt when she came into contact with Asher, she felt nothing but a void inside her research mentor. A void and vital organs.

Using every ounce of her will, she squeezed her spirit around Louie’s heart. She heard him gasp as he fell back, clutching his chest. He released the noose around Asher’s neck as he lost consciousness.

As she floated back to Asher’s side, she stared intently at his torso. She saw that his chest was rising and falling with each breath. Relief poured over her even as she faded into the cool fall breeze.

I love you, Asher.

Asher gasped and choked as he sat up in the parking lot. His neck felt hot and raw. He looked over to see Dr. Lebeau unconscious on the ground, his tie still wrapped around one hand. His skin was pale and waxy. Asher held two fingers at the man’s neck. He still had a pulse.

As Asher rose clumsily to his feet, he rubbed at his raw throat. Sadie. He had to get to Sadie. He dashed inside the hospital, found the visitor check-in and explained who he was there to see. Sanchez had texted him the room number.

As he approached Sadie’s hospital room, police and nurses were flocking into and away from the room. His throat constricted. Was she okay? What if her spirit had vanished because she was truly dead? The mystery of her murder had been solved. Perhaps there was no reason for her to remain among the living.

“Brenner!” Sanchez called, waving him into the room.

Asher pushed through the crowd, but was halted by a police officer.

Sanchez stepped in beside him. “It’s okay. He’s a friend of hers, and he’s also with White County Fire Department.”

“Thanks, Sanchez.” Asher shook hands with his partner before turning toward the policeman. “Officer, there’s a man outside in the parking lot, early fifties, receding hair line, wool coat. His name is Dr. Lebeau, and you you’ll want to hold him for questioning involving the attempted murder of Dr. Crawford.”

The policeman nodded. “Don’t go anywhere. We’ll need to question you as well.”

The officer stepped aside and began to speak into his radio about the man in the parking lot.

Asher entered Sadie’s room with slow, deliberate steps, as though walking on rafters above a raging fire.

Sanchez spoke. “Some hikers found her and brought her to the hospital. Other than some contusions and a concussion, her injuries aren’t too serious. But she hasn’t woken up since she arrived at the hospital.”

Asher nodded in response to his friend’s words. His heart stopped for a brief moment as he fell into the chair beside Sadie’s bed. He hesitated before clutching her hand.

Warm. Solid. Sadie.

He kissed her fingers. “Sadie, you’re alive.” He stroked her dark chocolate hair. “Sadie, come back to me.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead.

Her lashes fluttered, and then she opened her eyes.

Asher stroked a hand over her bruised jaw. They had matching injuries.

She turned her head and looked up at him. He watched as her eyes focused and a smile slowly spread across her lips. Seeing her alive and happy set his world aglow. Warmth radiated through him.

“Asher.” The word was emitted through a sigh of contentment.

“Hey you.”

She squirmed in the bed and gripped his hand tighter. “I had the most amazing dream about us.”

He smiled. “Me too.”

Reaching up, she touched his neck. “You’re okay!”

“I’m okay.” He raised his fingers to the bruise on her jaw once again.

“Do I need a bag of frozen peas?” she asked.

He chuckled. “Yeah, you do. But you still look gorgeous to me.”

He held her gaze. He could see in her eyes that she remembered her time as an apparition. She remembered everything.