Read Online Salvaged to Death by Vanessa Gray Bartal - Free Book Online

home so soon left her a little panicky. She needed more time. “Something else came up.”
    “What?”
    “A missing person. I’m going to look into it.”
    “Sadie, don’t.”
    “Luke, I can’t refuse a client.”
    “You can do anything you want; that’s the beauty of owning your own business.”
    “I need the money,” she said.
    “I don’t need to see your face to know you’re lying; I can hear it in your voice. Look, just come home, okay? We’ll work out whatever your issue is, I promise. Everything is weird when you’re gone. It’s too quiet and Abby keeps wandering around cleaning. She’s been muttering about writing her memoirs again. Last time she tried that she almost got arrested. Come home, Sadie.”
    “I haven’t even been gone a whole day, Luke,” she said.
    “I know, but everything feels off.”
    “Will Vaslilssa be there?”
    “Eventually, when she gets off work. Is that what this is about? I mean, I know you joke about her eating a lot, but does it really bother you? Because I can contribute more to the food budget.”
    “Bank robbery doesn’t suit you, and I have no idea how else you would get that much money,” Sadie said.
    “Sadie, be reasonable.”
    “I can’t. My feelings toward Vaslilssa are in no way rational.”
    “She’s a nice person,” Luke said.
    “Of course she is.”
    “You’re being unfair.”
    “Of course I am. But how would you feel if it was me? What if I was the one with a serious boyfriend?”
    “I never said Vaslilssa and I are serious,” he said.
    “You said you’re exclusive,” she reminded him.
    “I’m exclusive with whomever I date; I’m a one woman man. Anything else feels like cheating.”
    “Are you insinuating that I’m a cheater?” she bristled.
    “What is wrong with you? Since when are you sensitive? Since when do you get upset over nothing?”
    “I don’t know,” Sadie said. “This is why I went away—to clear my head, to get some perspective.”
    “And you think you’re going to do that in Bateman, staring at pumpkins,” Luke said.
    “You know me; I go where the action is. This is something I need to do. I’ll be home when it’s over.”
    He blew out a breath. “Fine. Don’t do anything stupid. You know Hal’s not going to stop you, so try to hear my voice, okay?”
    “That would interfere with me trying not to hear your voice,” she said.
    “ Sadie .” He had the tone, the you’re-nearing-the-end-of-my-patience tone. Sadie smiled.
    “I will try to think like you,” she promised. “Step one: find a Russian who doesn’t understand the word ‘cholesterol.’”
    “Sadie.”
    “Step two: take a sledgehammer to my sense of humor.”
    “Sadie.”
    “Step three: call you on the pretense of chocolate syrup when what I’m really trying to say is that I miss you.”
    “Hanging up now.”
    “I haven’t reached step four.”
    “Step four is hanging up,” he said and hung up. 
    Sadie tucked the phone back in her pocket and checked to see if Hal was still asleep. He was. She didn’t begrudge him the much needed rest, but keeping watch alone was boring. She edged around the pumpkin and scanned the patch. This time last year she had been on television, reporting on a freak autumn Nebraska snowstorm. Now she sat in a garden not her own, trying to figure out if pumpkin murder was afoot, and she had never felt happier. Even with the sticky emotional situation with Luke, Sadie had never felt such a sense of purpose before. She was where she was supposed to be, doing what she was supposed to do. When the timing was right, no task was too small, even keeping watch over a giant group of gourds.
    A movement at the far edge of the garden caught her attention. Was it a deer? A coyote? Maybe even a bear? It was too far to make out any details. She looked at the object askew, letting her peripheral vision take over and scan for movement. When it moved, she decided it was a human. A stealthy human, but a human