Hairless Harassment

Chapter One

Hi, I’m Angie Russo, and my pet cat never ever stops talking. Not just mews and meows, but actual words that I can understand. So far, I’m the only one who seems to have this ability, and I still have absolutely no idea why.

It all started when I got zapped by a faulty coffee maker at the law firm where I work as a paralegal. Since then, Octo-Cat and I have used our special connection to solve two murder investigations together. Yeah, even I have to admit, we make a pretty great team.

Only a few weeks have passed since our super sleuthing earned the local handyman Brock Calhoun a get-out-of-jail-free card. And already my feline sidekick is begging for another case. Apparently, napping and complaining all day isn’t an exciting enough life for him now.

All my life I’ve been on the search for that one amazing talent that would make me special and give me purpose. My nan starred on Broadway in her prime, and my parents both work for the local news station and love what they do.

They were all so sure of their talents early in life, but I’ve really struggled to pinpoint mine. I couldn’t even figure out my passion well enough to nail down a bachelor’s degree, racking up seven associate degrees instead.

I definitely never expected to find my true calling as a paralegal, especially considering how much I’ve always hated lawyers. But now that I have Octo-Cat and my special ability, I find that working at the offices of Thompson, Longfellow & Associates provides the perfect way to use my new-found abilities for good—especially considering that the newest partner knows all about my ability to speak to animals.

Oh, yeah! Charles didn’t get fired. Instead, he got promoted. I was so proud of him that I even suggested we go back to the Little Dog Diner in Misty Harbor to celebrate with the world’s best lobster rolls. He told me it would have to be some other time, though, because he already had plans with his new girlfriend, Breanne Calhoun.

Yeah, I don’t get that, either.

The news that he’d started dating the cold and snippy realtor we’d very recently suspected of murder was enough to extinguish my crush on Charles once and for all, though. I’ve also decided that the next time Octo-Cat refers to him as “Upchuck,” I’m not going to correct him.

The thought of him and Breanne together makes me sick, too.

It’s for the best, though, I suppose. I really need to focus on understanding my new pet-whispering abilities, and Octo-Cat and I both need to get better at investigating cases without raising the community’s suspicions. That pretty much means I have no time left for love or infatuation or whatever it was I once felt for Charles.

Anyway, who needs a boyfriend when you have a talking cat?

Not me. Well, at least not for right now.

Lately I’ve been spending a lot more time with my mom. Ever since she helped us catch the real murderer in our latest case, she’s been on this kind of career high. She got the exclusive scoop and even managed to record our showdown with the murderer live and on camera. The feature was picked up all over the nation, and she and my dad have received job offers from clear across the country.

The latest was from San Antonio, I think.

She’s not saying yes to any of them, though. At least, not unless I agree to move with them, too. But I would never leave Nan, and Nan would never leave Blueberry Bay.

So we’re all staying put exactly where we are.

Sure, if enough people learn my secret, I probably will have to leave eventually. Right now, a total of five people know—Nan and my parents, who I told on purpose, along with Charles Longfellow, III and a college student named Mitch, who both figured it out by accident. Hopefully I can keep that number from growing any larger, but it seems like several people are on the verge of figuring things out already.

And that definitely worries me.

Especially since my mom just invited me to help her with her newest investigative journalism assignment…

I’d finally switched to a part-time schedule at the firm, and today was one of my days off. And by off, I meant I got to stay home and pack up my tiny rental house under the supervision of one very demanding tabby.

Not only did I have to discard a number of my belongings that he found to be inadequate, but he was also the reason I had to move in the first place. Granted, I’m the one who said I’d owe him a big favor if he allowed me to put him in a harness to take him outside. I hadn’t counted on that favor amounting to more than six-thousand square feet, though.

As it turned out, the favor he wanted was for me to purchase the old manor house he had lived in with Ethel Fulton before she was murdered and, through a truly unbelievable series of events, he came to live with me. Now a twelve-dollar harness was costing me the better part of my five-thousand-dollar monthly stipend, and I’d learned to be more careful about promising my kitty companion open-ended favors.

Yes, my former boss, Richard Fulton, did offer me a generous break on the price. Also, there were fewer interested parties once the greater populace found that the former homeowner had been murdered, but still—still!—owning Fulton Manor would require a pretty penny from me not just to keep up with the mortgage, but also to carry out the many repairs that seemed to be more or less essential for safety purposes.

At least that’s what the home inspector said.

Hardly any time has passed at all, and yet somehow the sale is final and the house is ready for me and Octo-Cat to move in. It’s funny how bureaucracy can either slow things way down or speed them way up depending what side you approach the red tape from. Around Blueberry Bay, the Fultons owned the spool from which the red tape was unraveled, which meant I bought myself a manor house with very little effort on my part.

Nan, who adores both me and my cat in equal measure, decided to help out, too. Even though she’d owned her little Cape Cod style home for more than thirty-five years, she decided it was time to sell and move in with me at my new Eastern seaboard mansion.

“The difference is,” she explained, “this time I’ll be living with you and not the other way around.” That was how she justified kicking me out of her house less than a year ago, only to move in with me now.

Honestly, I’m more than a little thrilled to have an added buffer when it comes to Octo-Cat. I love him more than anything, but he also infuriates me on a regular basis, constantly finding new and exciting ways to push the poorly constructed boundaries I’ve tried to erect.

And so all of us are moving in this weekend, even though Nan hasn’t even had an offer on her house yet. Breanne says it will be easier to sell without a current resident. Yes, I couldn’t believe Nan hired Calhoun Realty to list her house, either. She and I needed to have a serious talk about family loyalty.

But first we had to survive the big move.

“Someone just pulled up outside,” Octo-Cat informed me, hopping onto the end of the bed where the better part of my wardrobe was laid out for evaluation. I took packing as a good opportunity to downsize, even though my living space would increase nearly ten times.

A moment later an urgent knock sounded on the front door and my mom’s voice called out, “Angie? Angie, are you here?”

“Coming!” I yelled, letting the half-full box in my arms fall to the floor.

I flipped the deadbolt and my mom immediately pushed her way inside. “You’ll never guess what happened!” she told me, reaching into my closet and grabbing one of my jackets, which she thrust at me excitedly.

“What?” I asked, still a bit sleepy and not quite ready for this level of enthusiasm.

She followed me into the kitchen where I grabbed a can of Diet Mountain Dew and flipped the tab. It was my latest attempt at a suitable coffee replacement, and so far, so good.

“Lou Harlow was murdered!” she squealed with delight.

“Um, Mom. How about a little less bliss over someone dying, please?” Lou Harlow wasn’t just some random local, either. As one of the two senators appointed to represent the great state of Maine, she was one of the most famous people to reside in our little corner of Blueberry Bay.

And now she was dead. And for some reason, my mother was terribly excited about it.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s sad she died and everything, but guess who’s been asked to cover it?” She bit her lower lip and pointed both thumbs toward her chest while widening her eyes to a comical degree.

“Congrats,” I murmured, still feeling icky about her reaction to this whole thing.

“Thank you,” she said with an airy smile. “Turns out I did such a great job covering the Hayes murders, the station would like me to do another investigative piece.”

“I’m really happy for you, Mom.” And I was. She’d worked hard to get here, and at last everything was coming up… bodies in the morgue, I guess.

“Good, because I need you to do it with me.”

“What? No, no, no, no.” Yeah, I’d done the legwork to find the Hayes’s real killer and clear Brock Calhoun’s name, but that didn’t mean I wanted to jump straight into another murder investigation, especially one as prominent as this one would no doubt prove to be.

“Angie, I don’t really think you have a choice.”

I groaned and shook my head. “Oh, yeah, because that’s the way to win me over.”

“The senator was killed in her home,” she revealed. “Do you know where that home is?”

“Somewhere in Glendale?” I guessed with a sigh.

“Not just somewhere,” my mom corrected with a new light dancing in her hazel eyes. “Right next door to your new house.”