Sadie spoke quietly.

"You know, sometimes we can work something out with families who don't have insurance. In my line of work it's difficult to advertise. It's not like I can take out an ad in the newspaper. Most people would find that very distasteful." Sadie went on quickly. "So sometimes I agree to do a job for free if a client will agree to be a word-of-mouth advocate for Scene-2-Clean."

"What does that mean?" she asked warily.

"It would mean you'd have to tell your family and friends about our services so that, G.o.d forbid, if they ever need us, they know who to call."

The woman's eyes brightened with tears.

"You'd do that? Seriously? I know the funeral costs are going to be a lot and-"

Sadie took the invoice from the woman's hands and neatly tore it in two.

"It's none of my business, but you may want to check into grief counseling for your daughter," Sadie said.

"I'll do that," the woman said.

Sadie offered Shawna a business card for a place that specialized in such counseling and also handed her a small stack of Scene-2-Clean cards for her to distribute among her family and friends. Chances were good that she would toss all the cards in the trash as soon as Sadie left the building. Sadie didn't blame her. n.o.body wanted trauma-clean business cards hanging around their home as a printed reminder that their son had slit his wrists.

Sadie carried the last loaded bin down to the van and was surprised to find Zack standing there, waiting for her instead of just taking off. He stood with one lean hip against the van, his face partly hidden in evening shadows.

"You didn't need to wait for me," Sadie remarked.

He opened the back door of the truck and took the bin from her arms.

"Did we get paid?" he asked.

"You worked. You'll get paid."

"That's not what I asked."

"It's my company, Zack," she reminded him. "I'll handle things my way."

She faced him, planting her hands on her hips and staring him down, challenging him to a fight. At least a good rock 'n' roll argument would suck the fear from her gut for a while. Instead, he broke into laughter.

"C'mon, I'll buy you dinner," he said.

They had to drop off the bins at their storage location and then bring the company van home to her garage first. Zack insisted on another search of her home, inside and out, before she hopped into his Mustang. There was a pub nearby that grilled pretty good burgers, and they found a table near the fire, away from the office group that came for happy hour but forgot to go home.

They placed their order with a harried waitress.

"You were pretty quiet tonight," she said. "When we were working the soak."

"The kids are always the hardest. You were quiet, too. I thought maybe you were doing your best not to talk to the deceased since I was there."

"I never saw him. Suicides don't come to me."

"Right. I forgot. Maybe I've been working with you too long, but that makes a weird kind of sense." He said seriously, "You know, whenever we do a teenage suicide, I just want to grab every teen in the state and march them through the cleanup and have them spend a few minutes looking at the scene."

"And then get them to spend an hour looking into the eyes of those left behind."

"Guess the only way to get through these jobs is by telling yourself that if we didn't handle the cleanup, the family would have to."

"n.o.body should ever have to clean up their own brother's blood."

When he frowned, Sadie caught her slip.

"I meant their son's blood."

The waitress brought their beers and slid them onto little paper coasters that had silly sayings. Sadie's read, So many beers, so little time and Zack's said, Beauty lies in the hands of the beerholder.

"Do you want to talk about Brian?" he asked suddenly.

"Not particularly."

"I've been working for you for a year now. You don't often discuss it, but it's kind of like the elephant in the room that n.o.body talks about. Can I tell you my opinion on the matter?"

"I have a feeling you're going to tell me anyway," Sadie said with a smirk.

"You're right." He sipped his beer. "I know you started this job as a way to heal after your own loss, but maybe five years of this work doesn't heal as much as it just makes you numb. Maybe it's just an anesthetic for what you should be dealing with inside." He poked his own chest with his finger. "In here."

"Thank you, psychiatrist Zack, for your free a.n.a.lysis of my mental state," Sadie sneered.

"Hey, I was only-"

"How about you? When we scrubbed that messy decomp scene last month, the one from that heroin overdose, did it bring back fond memories of your days hooked on Vicodin?"

It was as though she'd punched him in the gut. Anger and pain marched across his face before those feelings morphed into rage. He got to his feet, flicked a twenty on the table, and stormed out of the pub without a word.

"d.a.m.n," Sadie muttered and gulped down half her beer.

She'd crossed the line. She knew that she should go after him, but she didn't. Instead she dealt with it by blurring the line she'd crossed with a few more beers and a couple of vodka shooters in short succession. When a taxi driver dropped her at her door just after ten, she barely made it to her bathroom in time to vomit.

The bed was spinning wildly, so she headed for the living room and finally pa.s.sed out on the sofa while watching Leno. A garbage pail sat on the floor next to her head. When the doorbell rang a couple of hours later, Sadie figured it was probably Zack coming to give her either a piece of his mind or his resignation. She handled it by turning off the power to the television, resuming her p.r.o.ne position on the sofa, and pulling her chenille throw over her head.

Unfortunately, the doorbell would not be silent and its noise was followed by loud knocks that would probably wake the neighbors. Reluctantly, Sadie swung her legs off the sofa, shook away the cobwebs, and headed for the door.

"Who is it?"

"Noel," came the reply.

What the h.e.l.l? Sadie opened the door and looked into Noel's sheepish face. She couldn't even bring herself to say h.e.l.lo.

"I'm so sorry to wake you, Sadie, but I really need to talk to Dawn."

"Dawn?"

"Yeah, the owner of our house called an hour ago from Australia. She's finally agreed to sell us the place. Best of all, she's agreed to both the price and the terms that we offered."

"Wow, that's awesome news." Sadie rubbed her eyes groggily and tried to make sense of all this by looking at her watch. Nope, it was definitely still the middle of the night.

She looked back up at Noel, who didn't appear the least bit drunk.

"I'm sure Dawn will be thrilled with the news."

"Exactly," he laughed. "That's why I had to come right over. I know you're trying to have a girls' night together, but she isn't answering her cell and I didn't want to leave the news on her voice mail. If you let me in, I won't stay. I'll just give her the great news and be on my way."

Sadie had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as Noel stepped inside and began loudly calling out Dawn's name.

"Where is she, in the guest room?" he asked, then shouted, "Hey, Dawn!"

"Um, Noel," Sadie said weakly, "Dawn's not here."

His smile faltered.

He waggled a finger in her face. "Ha! You're such a kidder."

He ran down the hall, throwing the bedroom and bathroom doors open before returning to face Sadie, who still stood at the front door wishing she could disappear.

"Where is she?" he demanded.

"Maybe she's just taking some time to herself-you know, having a little me time," Sadie offered. "Or else she's gone off with Chloe somewhere."

"She said that the two of you were going out for dinner and clubbing as a sister-bonding thing..." He took off his gla.s.ses and rubbed his eyes before pushing them back up his nose. "Did she cancel at the last minute, or..." He examined Sadie's face and winced. "There never was a girls' night out, was there?"

"I'm not really sure.... Why don't you have a seat and I'll get you a drink."

Sadie tugged Noel's elbow and led him like a child to her living room, where she pushed him onto her sofa. He sat there, his body stiff and his face twisted in pain. She hurried into the kitchen and poured him a three-finger whiskey and soda and rushed back. She handed the drink to him and he drank it like it was water, then coughed a little before looking up at Sadie with damp eyes.

"She's found someone else."

"Oh no, no, no," Sadie said, and she embraced Noel in an awkward hug. "She's just been working lots and she's probably overwhelmed. Full days at her old job and then putting in extra time training for that new position." She plopped herself down on the sofa right next to him. "I bet she was just so d.a.m.n tired, she meant to call me and make arrangements for a girls' night out but decided to spend a night with another friend instead, or alone even. She could've gone to Chloe's just to say hi and fell asleep."

His face pulled down into a frown as he put his empty gla.s.s on the coffee table.

"She would've told me if she wasn't going out with you."

"Not if it was a last-minute kind of thing. I'm sure in the morning she'll have some goofy explanation that will make us both laugh."

Noel looked down at his hands folded in his lap, and a tear rolled down his cheek.

"Could I have another drink?"

Sadie was more than happy to run off to the kitchen and get him another. While she poured the whiskey, she called Dawn's cell.

"Your fiance is at my house looking for you," she hissed onto her sister's voice mail.

Sadie brought Noel his drink, and they sat for a moment in silence. When he did begin talking it was mostly to whine that he was losing Dawn. Without her sister there to defend herself, Sadie was left out on a limb as to how to defend her.

When Noel slumped over around four and began snoring loudly, Sadie pulled his legs onto the couch and tried to make him comfortable. She also repositioned the trash bin close to his head. He'd had a number of stiff drinks, and she didn't want to have to bring the sanitizing chemicals in from the garage to clean up his vomit.

Fetching a comforter from the linen closet, she gently draped it over him. He stirred for a moment, mumbled Dawn's name, then fell asleep again. At that moment she really felt sorry for the guy. She also wanted to kill Dawn.

As Sadie looked down at the man mouth-breathing on her sofa, an eerie flash of reality settled over her. She gently removed his gla.s.ses and set them on the coffee table. Then she held her breath as she memorized Noel's features-his slight overbite, narrow nose, and shock of blond hair.

Swallowing a lump in her throat, Sadie fought an ever-increasing wave of panic. She ran to her side table and s.n.a.t.c.hed a framed picture of Brian. Her fingers trembled as she walked back and held the photo up next to Noel's face.

They were both blond, of slight build, and about the same age. Other than that, n.o.body could possibly think they could be related.

"Why did I ever think he looked like Brian?" Sadie murmured aloud.

She felt like a fool. Grief flooded her on a wave of pain so potent it was as if she was hearing of Brian's death for the first time. With a low, animalistic moan, she sank to her knees and sobbed silently into her hands.

Noel began to stir at the sound of her cries, so she found the strength to move. She stumbled into her bedroom and collapsed onto her bed. She squeezed her eyes shut and the agonizing fire of fresh loss seared her chest.

From her bed, Sadie stared at a blank wall for what may have been a couple of hours. Her mind was bent on replaying every moment she'd ever spent with her brother. She recalled her twentieth birthday when he wrote "Happy Birthday" on her car with shaving cream. A few years afterward he'd decided to take her and Dawn on a fishing trip, and he'd laughed at their incompetence. The year he died, both Dawn and Sadie had received Valentine's bouquets from him because they didn't have boyfriends at the time. He'd worried the whole family with his rock-climbing hobby. They'd all been sure he'd take a fall and break his neck.

The memories caused Sadie to whiplash between tears and heart-searing silent grief.

It wasn't yet morning when she heard Noel get up and slip quietly out her front door. She made no attempt to say good-bye. When she heard his car back out of her driveway, she reached for her bedside table and opened the drawer to get out a tissue box. Her hand brushed against her Ruger .22-caliber handgun that she kept in the drawer, and her fingers jerked back as if burned.

She picked up the gun and felt the weight of it in her hand, and the cold, blued-steel barrel shone up at her. She took the gun and the box of ammo and walked both to her closet. She climbed up on a chair and stuffed the Ruger into a shoe box at the very back of the closet.

Her experience told her that suicide wasn't a thunderous, unimaginable roar. It was a seductive whisper that stole the people you loved.

16.

The phone rang four times before Sadie picked up the extension on her nightstand.

"G.o.d, Sadie, I'm soooo sorry! What did you tell him?" Dawn asked.

"Well, your fiance showed up on my doorstep expecting that you were here because that's apparently what you told him.... What the h.e.l.l could I say? Hang on."

Sadie tapped two aspirin from a bottle and swallowed them with water.

Sadie snapped up the phone again and growled, "If you expect me to lie for you, you should at least let me in on it."

"I have no idea why he'd come to your place in the middle of the night," Dawn said in a rush. "I never would've put you in that kind of position if I'd known."

"You never would have, yet you did, and that is so not the point! Where were you last night, Dawn?"