Dead Suite by Wendy Roberts Read Free Book Online

right.”
    “Okay, so why are we going to some house then?” Sadie asked warily.
    “Oh you’ll see.”
    “You’re lucky I was dying for an excuse to get out of the house tonight,” Sadie remarked.
     She took the next right and accelerated. “This had better be good.”
    After fifteen minutes mostly spent with the two of them singing along to raunchy seventies
     rock, Maeva gave Sadie more driving instructions until they were turning from Twenty-Eighth
     Avenue onto West Halladay Street in the hilly Magnolia neighborhood. Halfway up the
     block Maeva announced they’d arrived, and Sadie steered to the curb and parked in
     front of a turn-of-the century home that was eerily lit from the overhead streetlights.
    “Wow, she’s a beaut.” Sadie whistled and nodded to indicate the house. “The place
     has to be a hundred years old.”
    “Give or take,” Maeva agreed, glancing out the passenger window. “Do you recognize
     it?”
    “The house?” Sadie asked. “Don’t think I’ve ever been here before.”
    “It was in the news a few years ago, so I thought you might remember it.”
    “In the news?”
    “Yeah. A mother believed her fourteen-year-old daughter, Iris, was possessed by demons
     and she tried to perform an exorcism.”
    “Oh yeah,” Sadie said, nodding slowly as she remembered the wild story. “The papers
     had a field day. They called it the Halladay Horror. The mother poisoned her, right?”
    Maeva’s face grew dark as they both stared at the house. “Good ol’ mom tied her daughter
     to her bed, then fed her poison to scare away the devil inside her. The next morning
     when mom saw the poison had killed Iris, instead of just exorcising a demon, the she
     ran around the neighborhood screaming the devil had killed her kid.”
    Sadie remembered reading that the mother had killed herself while locked up awaiting
     a psychological examination. It was just one of those sad tales of mental illness
     that ended tragically. Sadie shivered in spite of herself.
    Sadie and Maeva got out of the car and began walking up the staggered stone walkway
     toward the front of the old-style, storybook Tudor home. The massive oak front door
     showed the wear of battling the howling winds and Seattle rains.
    “Has the house stood empty since then?” Sadie asked.
    “The mom left it to a friend, and he sold it recently. The new owners hired Rosemary
     because they weren’t having any luck getting renovations done. All the workers they
     hired claim the house is haunted.” She turned to Sadie. “And that’s where Madam Maeva’s
     Psychic Café comes in.”
    “Why do I feel like I’ve been bamboozled?” Sadie asked dryly.
    Maeva just smiled and pounded her fist a couple times on the solid front door before
     opening it and stepping inside.
    “We’re here!” she shouted.
    Sadie followed her inside.
    “Come to the kitchen!” The reply came from the back of the house.
    Maeva kicked off her shoes and walked ahead up a long, narrow hall. Sadie held back.
     The air in the house felt heavy and thick. Although old houses might be considered
     beautiful because of their dark wood and quality craftsmanship, Sadie preferred new
     construction—where there was a lesser chance of running into ghosts. Sure she enjoyed
     helping recently departed spirits like May Lathrop, but those who’d hung around long
     enough to claim a location like this house tended to be territorial and harder to
     get rid of than cockroaches.
    Finally Sadie slipped out of her shoes and followed Maeva down the long hardwood hallway.
     Her footsteps echoed in the empty house and she found herself looking over her shoulder.
     The hallway opened onto a large eat-in kitchen, where Rosemary and Rick Thingvold
     were waiting, seated at a small card table and folding chairs. Their cue-ball shaven
     heads and jewelry piercings glistened in the pale overhead light. They’d each added
     a few new tattoos since Sadie had seen them last and, in some