Maura’s scream echoed through the parking lot, nearly giving Kat a heart attack.
“That’s Sadie!” Maura shouted. “Sadie Cramer!”
Kat twisted around, coming face-to-face with her boss. Maura must have snuck up behind her while Kat was still reeling from the shock of what she’d found.
Maura looked at Kat with huge eyes. “Is she dead?”
“I—I don’t know.” Kat crouched down and picked up the woman’s gloved hand to check for a pulse.
“Oh my goodness, she’s dead,” Maura muttered, not bothering to wait to hear whether Kat discovered any signs of life. “She’s dead. Dead. I can’t believe Sadie’s dead.”
Kat set the woman’s hand down, feeling as if a stone had settled in her chest. Unfortunately, she couldn’t dispute Maura’s statement.
“We have to call the police.” Maura fumbled in her coat pockets with her cigarette-free hand. “Where’s my phone? I must have left it on my desk.”
“I have mine.” Kat reached for her pants pocket before she remembered the new slacks she’d worn for her first day on the job didn’t have any. “Actually, I don’t. My cell is upstairs in my purse.”
Maura pivoted around, her eyes wild, before she looked back at Sadie. “We’ll use Sadie’s phone.”
Kat waited for her to retrieve it, but Maura stood rooted in place. Evidently she expected Kat to do the honors.
Kat swallowed. “Do you know where she keeps it?”
“Try her coat.”
Kat held her breath as she extended her hand toward the woman’s coat. Her stomach was roiling at the notion of pawing through a dead person’s clothes, but she also wasn’t sure she had the strength to run back upstairs for her own phone. Besides, it seemed wrong somehow to leave Sadie out here by herself.
Luckily, Sadie’s iPhone was tucked inside the first pocket Kat checked. She withdrew it and turned it on.
“It’s password protected,” she said, her heart sinking.
“Use 1-1-2-4,” Maura suggested.
Kat did, unable to hide her surprise when the combination worked.
“November 24 is her birthday,” Maura said, her face crumpling. “She’d just turned sixty.”
Kat dialed 9-1-1 with shaky fingers, forcing aside thoughts of how Sadie had only lived a handful of days past such a personal milestone.
“9-1-1, police, fire, or medical?”
Somehow, Kat managed to keep a clear enough head to answer all of the dispatcher’s questions. When they ended the call, she cradled Sadie’s phone in her palms, wondering whether she should put it back where she’d found it. But the thought of touching Sadie again, even if it was only her coat, seemed too intrusive. She slipped the phone in her own coat pocket instead.
“I can’t believe she’s dead,” Maura muttered over and over again as she and Kat stood there waiting for the first responders to arrive.
Kat hugged herself, trying to get warm. It felt twenty degrees colder now than it had ten minutes ago, although she suspected that had more to do with the discovery of Sadie’s body than any change in ambient temperature.
“What do you think happened to her?” Maura asked.
“I have no idea.”
Maura’s eyes drifted toward Sadie’s body. The smoldering cigarette in her hand was all but forgotten. “She was in excellent health. She did yoga and all that. And her daughter’s a nurse, so I’m sure she knows all the warning signs for heart attacks and strokes and whatnot. Sure, she smoked, but that wouldn’t cause somebody to keel over.”
Kat swallowed past the tightness in her throat. If Sadie hadn’t died from natural causes, there were only a few options left—options that made Kat’s veins feel as if they were filled with ice water.
“You should go inside,” Maura said, clearly misinterpreting the cause of Kat’s shiver.
“The dispatcher said to wait here.”
“We can wait inside just as easily.” Maura glanced at the cigarette in her hand, as though she were surprised to see she still had it. She stubbed it out on the sidewalk and tossed the butt into the garbage can near the door. “C’mon.”
Maura grabbed Kat’s arm and steered her into the building. Warm air swirled around them when they stepped through the doors. But as chilly as Kat had been outside, the change in temperature didn’t offer her any relief. Instead, the artificially hot air felt smothering, and she had to work to draw it into her lungs.
“Let’s sit over here,” Maura said, dragging Kat over to a bench by one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that flanked the entrance.
“Tell me about Sadie,” Kat said when they were both situated.
“She’s a career counselor.” Maura pointed down the corridor. “Her office is at the end of the hall.”
Kat peered down the corridor. Although she thought of the building as the DataRightly building, the software company only occupied the second floor. A dozen or so other small businesses leased space on the ground level.
“How long have you known her?” Kat asked.
“About a year, since she moved her business into this building.” Maura flashed Kat a sad smile. “I kept telling her we should do something together after work, something besides smoking, but we never did. I guess I figured we’d always have more time.”
An ache bloomed in Kat’s chest. “There’s just no telling when somebody’s time will be up.”
“I guess not.”
A car pulled into the parking lot, causing them both to sit up straighter. But Kat deflated when she saw it was just an ordinary vehicle.
She and Maura watched in silence as a tall blonde swung her legs out of the car. She wore oversized sunglasses and kept her shoulders hunched as she hurried toward the building. When she stepped inside, she paused.
“Maura?” she asked.
Maura offered her a weak smile. “Hi, Rachel.”
Rachel took off the sunglasses and slipped them into her purse. “Are you okay? You look really pale.”
Maura scooted closer to Kat and patted the bench beside her. “You might want to sit down for this.”
“Sit down for what?” Rachel asked.
“Sadie’s dead.”
Rachel’s jaw slipped open, her eyes widening as she grasped the gravity of Maura’s words. After standing there in stunned silence for a long moment, she finally stumbled over to the bench and practically collapsed onto it.
“Are you s—sure?” Rachel stammered.
Maura nodded. “Kat here checked for a pulse.”
Rachel peered at Kat as though to evaluate how likely she was to have mistaken a living woman for a dead one.
“Were you here to see her?” Maura asked Rachel.
“I came to pick up my last paycheck.”
Maura nodded, then turned to Kat. “Rachel used to work for Sadie,” she explained. “She was her receptionist.”
Rachel sucked in a breath. “Oh gosh.”
“What?” Maura said. “What is it?”
Rachel’s eyes were so wide that Kat could see the whites around them. “How did Sadie die?”
“We don’t know yet,” Maura said.
Rachel pulled her hands into her lap and wrung her fingers together. “She was too fit to have dropped dead. She had to have been murdered.”
Maura gasped. “Murdered?”
Kat cleared her throat, causing both women to whip toward her. “We don’t know for sure that Sadie was killed. She could have fallen down. Maybe she slipped on the snow and hit her head.”
“That seems more likely than a murder,” Maura agreed.
“Right. As of this moment there’s zero evidence that somebody deliberately killed Sadie.” Kat wasn’t sure whether she was trying harder to convince them or herself. “And there’s no sense in speculating until the responders get here. They can tell us what really happened.”
Rachel didn’t appear to hear her. “I hope the police don’t think I killed her.” She grabbed Maura’s arm. “Do you think they’ll arrest me?”
“Of course not,” Maura said. “Why would you think that?”
“Because Sadie let me go. They might think I hated her for that. They might think I snapped.” Rachel’s knuckles turned white around Maura’s arm. “This isn’t going to look good for me, especially after Allen.”
“Allen?” Kat asked.
“Allen Bolt. He’s the lawyer with the office next to Sadie’s. I worked for him up until a few months ago.” Rachel folded her arms across her chest. “And before you go thinking I messed up, I didn’t. He had money problems and couldn’t afford to keep me any longer.”
“Cherry Hills is so small it has to be tough for a business owner to make a go of it here,” Maura sympathized.
“Yeah,” Rachel agreed. “He does all these wills and trusts for rich people, but I guess that doesn’t translate into much of an income.” She sighed. “Bummer for me.”
“I’m sure you’ll find work soon.” Maura patted Rachel’s knee. “Sadie always told me your talents were wasted as a receptionist anyway.”
Rachel’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Maura. How can she be gone?”
The atmosphere grew heavy and, except for the occasional sniffle emitted by Maura and Rachel, the lobby fell silent. Sitting so close to them, Kat couldn’t help but absorb some of their grief as her own.
It wasn’t until she heard the distant sound of approaching sirens that Kat felt as if she could breathe again.