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

Alejandro Martinez sat in his car, staring at Dr. Crawford’s house as interior lights flickered inexplicably.

Moments later, a man Alejandro didn’t recognize used the back entrance to enter the house he had recently ransacked.

Alejandro was still parked nearby because he was waiting for instructions from the man who had hired him, El Jefe. His orders had been clear: once Ledo, Alejandro’s partner, gave the confirmation that the physician wasn’t home, Alejandro would search her place for a computer or disc drive.

An hour of turning the place inside out had yielded nothing. El Jefe had already searched her office, while Ledo had searched her car—the dead woman’s car.

Que Dios descanse su alma en paz eternal.

God rest her soul.

As far as Alejandro could tell, the only crime she had been guilty of was being a good doctor. He had seen glowing letters of praise from patients in one of her decorative collection boxes. He was comforted by the fact that her death wasn’t on his conscience, since Ledo had done the killing. Alejandro kept to thieving only. In this instance, he hadn’t yet accomplished his goal and couldn’t get paid until he did so.

The arrival of the unknown man had instantly made the job more complicated. Alejandro looked down at the newspaper clippings in his lap. Having stolen them out of sheer fascination over their headlines, he scrutinized them more closely.

He couldn’t believe his eyes. The mystery man matched the pictures from the newspaper clippings. According to the articles, Asher Brenner was a psychic consultant with the Atlanta police department.

The hair on Alejandro’s neck stood on end. This psychic detective entering Dr. Crawford’s home was no coincidence. Had she recruited him somehow? So soon after her death?

Que Dios apiade de mi.

May God have mercy on us all.

He kissed the pendant around his neck to ease his angst at the thought of the physician’s ghost soliciting help from a psychic. Alejandro was sure that Saint Anthony of Padua—the saint of lost and stolen articles—would hear his prayer.

If Ledo were with him, he would be scolding Alejandro for his ridiculous superstitions. If Alejandro’s great-aunt was still alive, she would be telling him it was a sign from God, and that he had better cut and run while he still could. He liked his great-aunt better than Ledo, whose soul was as black as his beard, but he had an obligation to finish the job.

He called El Jefe.

“What?”

“There’s a new development,” Alejandro replied.

“I’m listening.”

“A man arrived at her house. He went in the back. He hasn’t called the police.”

“He’s alone?”

“Sí, señor.”

“Did he see you?”

“No,” Alejandro answered.

“Who is he?”

“Perhaps a brother or a boyfriend. Mid-thirties. Brown hair.”

Alejandro wasn’t ready to divulge the man’s identity. Information and secrets held value.

A quien le cuentes tus secretos, a él renuncias a tu libertad.

He liked this old Spanish proverb: “To whom you tell your secrets, to him you resign your liberty.”

“She has neither a brother nor a boyfriend.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I wanted you to find her computer. Since you failed at that, I want you to follow him. See what he does and keep me updated.”

The man disconnected the call.

Maleducado.

The boss didn’t need to be so rude; however, Alejandro had observed that those dictating the crimes for others to commit often lacked courteous behavior.

Alejandro watched the house with a mixture of anticipation and dread. He desperately wanted to know if his theory about how Asher Brenner had come to arrive at the physician’s home was correct.

He looked down at the article in his hand. The headline screamed: “Psychic Detective Solves Buck Farm Murder.”

Asher had been a firefighter, then a paramedic in downtown Atlanta. Then he had diverged from his career path for a year to become a psychic detective. After a failed case and public disgrace, he had moved to a remote town in northwest Georgia. Now he was back in Atlanta poking around a dead woman’s home. Alejandro wanted to know why, but he had a feeling he wouldn’t like the answer.

4

“Sadie,” a soft voice called out to her.

She continued to shake.

“Sadie?” Asher’s voice was close behind her.

Warmth radiated down her arms. Asher’s warmth.

She blinked and her bedroom came into focus. The walls and furniture shimmied. Her belongings hovered an inch off the floor.

“Release your anger,” Asher gently commanded.

As quickly as flicking on a light switch, everything fell back to the floor.

“I can feel you touching me.”

She turned around to see his face. He had a firm jaw, and thick brown hair framed his rich golden-brown tiger eyes. They were filled with compassion rather than anger.

“I can feel you, too.” He kept his hands next to her arms. “You feel like raw energy. It's amazing. I’ve never felt anything like you.”

She gave him a lopsided grin. “I bet you say that to all the lady ghosts in your life.”

Asher chuckled. “Well, perhaps if they were all as beautiful as you I wouldn’t have quit the consulting job.” He dropped his hands to his sides and took a step back from her. “Truthfully, though, I’ve only ever seen wisps of spirits and heard voices of the dead. You’re so vibrant.”

“Do you think that’s because I’m so fresh?” Sadie frowned, trying to mask the way her cheeks flushed in response to his compliment. “Or maybe because of our relationship?”

“I don’t know.”

His gaze wandered around her bedroom.

“This is more action than my bed has seen in a long time,” she said.

Asher didn’t laugh.

He placed his hands on his hips and scrutinized the crime scene. She imagined him in his firefighter garb, looking dismally around her room the way he might look at a fully involved building, fire blazing from the windows and roof. Nothing salvageable here.

“What were they looking for?” he asked.

“I don't know.”

“What’s missing?”

Asher followed her from room to room as she took a mental inventory.

“Nothing,” she said.

He slipped on a pair of vinyl gloves and picked up a cracked photo frame. He stared at the picture.

Sadie knew the photo well without seeing it. They had taken a five-day hiking and camping trip through the redwood forest. They had stood close together in the picture, dwarfed by an enormous redwood.

She thought back to the hike. She had felt small yet exhilarated among the giant trees. She and Asher weaved through the old forest, over woodlands, and crossing streams. An afternoon rainstorm struck abruptly, and they scrambled to make shelter. The crisp smell of rain in the forest enveloped them. Warm inside the tent and out of their wet clothes, they made love. Fervent, passionate kisses. Skin and friction and ecstasy.

“You kept this?” he asked dryly.

“I kept everything, Asher. You’re the one thing I gave up. I let you go, and I never should have.”

“Sadie—”

“Anyway,” she turned away from him and cleared her throat, “we have a murderer to catch. You’re here to help me with that, not to walk down memory lane. When this is over, I'll be gone—celestial dust, or whatever comes next. We have nothing to gain from memories and might-have-beens.”

He straightened as his expression hardened. “I don’t see a computer. Don’t you have a laptop?”

She nodded. “Yes, but it has patient-sensitive information on it, so it’s locked up at work.”

He began walking through the house again, taking care to treat it like the crime scene it was and not to displace or disturb anything.

She watched him move, silently and predatorily. She looked at the gloves he wore. With a twinge of guilt, she thought again of the danger she was putting him in by involving him. When her body was found and an investigation got underway, fingerprints or fibers gathered while