“No, she did not scream or even sound upset.” The set of her jaw and the firmness in her eyes told me she had no doubt about this.


“Okay. You referred to the stranger as a she. Does that mean the person who entered was a woman?”


“Oh, darling, I don’t know. All humans look and sound the same to me.” At least I’d been upgraded to darling, although I suspect she might use the same pet name for the help as well—well, if she could. She did seem to understand that I wanted to help and had begun to cooperate a bit better.


“That’s what I always said, too,” Octo-Cat said with a hum. “Until I got to know them a bit better.”


“Yes, I did notice your human can talk,” Grizabella said gracefully lowering herself into a sitting position. “Why is that? And don’t you think it’s just a tad suspicious?”


He shook his head, immediately coming to my defense.“She’s here to help. We both are. Is there anything else you can tell us that might help us figure out what happened to your human?”


“Well, I know what happened. She’s dead.”


Great. We had a dead body that so far only I had discovered, and the only witness was a spoiled purebred who couldn’t really tell us anything, anyway. This case would be almost impossible to solve before the train arrived at the next station and the proper authorities had a chance to take over. Should I still try, or should I quietly alert the staff and do my best to secure the scene until help arrived onboard?


Our train passed through a tunnel, turning the night sky even darker than before. I caught sight of heavy stone walls from the hall window and shuddered. It felt like we were passing through a tomb.


How fitting.


I pulled out my phone to check the time. Just past four in the morning. We didn’t have any stops scheduled until seven thirty. Could we make it three and a half hours with a fresh corpse on board? And who should I tell given that the entire train seemed to be fast asleep?


The light flickered overhead and then blinked off with a startling pop. Oh, great, electrical problems were exactly what we needed now. Well, at least things couldn’t get much worse, right?


This was always a bad question, whether or not I asked it aloud.


Because at that exact moment, the train grinded to a stop right in the middle of that dark, tomb-like tunnel. We were stuck in the countryside with a murderer—a violent murderer—on the loose, and I couldn’t even see the hand in front of my face.


How very perfect.


Chapter Six


I pulled out my phone to activate the flashlight. Sixteen percent battery life remained. I really needed to invest in one of those portable chargers in case I ever again found myself trapped on a dark train with a violent killer in the future.


You know, providing I survived this time…


A giant shudder racked my body as my phone chimed merrily into the silence. It’s ringing!


Fumbling, I answered the call and raised the phone to my ear with shaking fingers. My mother’s voice burst through the speaker.


“Angie! Where are you? Are you okay?”


“Mom,” I cried. Normally, I was pretty cool under pressure, but this time I couldn’t help it. Seeing Rhonda’s butchered body up close and now being trapped in the dark right outside the door that led to her corpse, it was too much for me. It would be too much for anybody.


This wasn’t my hometown. In fact, I didn’t even know where we were on our journey from Maine to Georgia. I didn’t know the other passengers and had no idea which of them might be a killer. There was no one to trust.


No one except my cat and my parents.


“What’s wrong? Tell me how to get to you,” my mom shouted into the phone, instantly sensing something was wrong and thankfully not forcing me to say anything more until she could first make sure I was safe.


“Past the dining car. Past the viewing car. In one of the private coaches. Hurry.” I didn’t have to tell her to bring Dad, because I knew she automatically would. Maybe between the three of us, we could straighten this mess out. Of course, there would be no way to save poor Rhonda Lou Ella Smith. Not anymore.


I sank to the ground against the wall and hugged my knees while waiting for my parents to make their way back to us. I’d be the calm, rational detective later. Right now, though, I needed a few minutes to feel my emotions so that I could work through them and let them go.


Something furry brushed against my arm in the darkness.


“Why are you crying?” Octo-Cat asked me curiously. “You don’t cry.”


“It’s the dark. I think it’s making everything so much worse,” I sobbed while groping for him. As soon as my hand made contact with his fur, a bit of my bravery returned. We’d been through all kinds of dangerous scrapes before, but we’d always made it through. Together.


“The dark isn’t so much different than light. Right?” He moved away, and I shivered from the sudden absence of his warmth.


“Maybe for a cat. Humans don’t have night vision like you do.” While I explained this, I was struck with an idea. The two cats were the only ones on the train who could see without the assistance of a flashlight, which meant they were the only two who could sneak around without attracting attention.


“Octavius, Grizabella,” I called to them, not sure how close either was to me at the moment. “Can you two explore the train a little? See if you can find anyone suspicious?”


“What makes a human suspicious?” the Himalayan asked in her soft, melodic voice from across the dark car.


This was good. Focusing on the investigation helped to push the fear aside. Worry would only throw me off my game, and I needed all my wits about me, considering one of my senses had already been all but disabled.


“If they have blood on them for one. This person might also be sneaking around or searching for something. We still have no idea why someone would kill Rhonda, so until we figure that out, we need to look for general clues. Got it?”


“We can handle that,” Octo-Cat assured me, his voice a bit deeper than normal, which I assumed was some part of his misguided flirtation efforts. “The only problem is we need a human to open the doors between cars.”


Oh, right.


Just then, as if on cue, the door to our car opened, and my parents rushed in, their path illuminated by the sweeping of their twin phone lights.


“Turn one of those off,” I hissed. “We need to conserve battery power. We have no idea how long we’ll be stuck out here in the dark.”


“Well, it’s nice to see you, too,” my mom scoffed.


I forced myself to my feet, keeping one hand on the wall to steady myself.“Mom, Dad. There’s been a murder.”


“What? When?” my dad demanded, surging forward and lowering himself to inspect me.


“Right before the lights went off and the train stopped.”


My mom dropped to the floor, too, and hugged my head to her chest.“Oh, Angie. It’s not safe for you to be back here on your own.”


“Well, now you’re here, so I’m fine. See?” I forced a smile, but Mom’s light was focused elsewhere.


“I can’t see much of anything at all,” she grumbled.


I untangled myself from her arms and sat up higher.“Listen, Dad. Can you go find someone who works for the train company? Let them know we have a dead body back here and that it was definitely a murder. Call Mom if they need more details. My phone is almost dead.”


“Sure,” he answered, his voice sure, unafraid. “But what will you two do?”


“Do you even have to ask?” Mom said, and I could picture her with one hand on her hip and her eyes narrowed even though she still sat on the floor beside me.


“Solving the murder,” he responded with a knowing chuckle. “Got it. Just be careful.”


Mom pushed herself to her feet, leaving her light on the ground beside me.“You, too. I love you too much to lose you.” After my mom said this, a sticky smacking noise filled the car. Of course.


“That goes double for you two,” my dad answered before switching his phone light back on and leaving me and my mom behind to take care of business.


“Wait!” I called just before the door latched closed behind him. “Follow him,” I told the cats. “Dad, take it slow at the doors. The cats are going to follow you to see if they can find anyone acting suspiciously.”


“Roger that.” My dad probably saluted, but I couldn’t quite see due to the angle of his light. My mother had told him about my strange ability long ago, but he’d never worked with me and Octo-Cat on a case before. I liked how he agreed to my request without arguing or questioning it.


“When he comes back, you two come back, too. Okay?” I told my cat.


Octo-Cat’s brown-striped body moved into my dad’s spotlight, and he turned back to regard me with a frown. “Angela, please,” he hissed. “I’ve got this. Ladies first, Grizabella.”


The Himalayan walked ahead confidently, tail and nose both held high. The door whooshed shut behind them, and they were gone.


“Show me the crime scene,” Mom said, not wasting even a single second. I may be the family P.I., but she was an ace reporter who loved solving mysteries, too. We’d only worked together a little before, but I sure was happy to have her on my side now.


The last of my tears having spilled, I pulled myself to my feet and directed Mom’s hands—and thus her phone light—toward Rhonda’s door. “In there,” I whispered.


I kept my hand on hers, and we pushed the door open together. This time, I knew what we would find, which made it a bit easier to head back inside despite the pitch black that enveloped everything.


Chapter Seven


Mom led the way into our victim’s private room. There lay Rhonda exactly as she’d been when I first discovered her less than half an hour ago. Poor soul.


“I’d say next time we should upgrade our travel plans,” Mom said, shifting her light around the room and illuminating the cushy furnishings that I hadn’t really gotten the chance to notice earlier. “But this isn’t exactly a shining endorsement for first class.”


“Can you shine the light on Rhonda’s body?” I asked, ignoring Mom’s ill-timed joke. “I want to see if there’s anything I missed before.” Because if I missed the entire room outside of her body, I probably missed some important clues, too.


“You knew her?” Mom asked, her voice quirking in surprise.


“We met in the dining car and talked for a little bit.”


“How did that happen?” She found the light switch and flipped it back and forth, just in case. Nothing.


Having Mom here centered me. Not only was there safety in numbers, but she also might catch something that I would otherwise overlook. Together, we could do some good here—or at least keep things from getting worse.


“She asked me to sit with her and bond over our crazy cat ladiness,” I admitted with a fond smile as I remembered how desperate she had been simply to make a new friend. “That Himalayan belongs to her, and Octo-Cat is quite smitten.”


“He always did like the finer things,” my mom said thoughtfully, then cleared her throat and focused her phone on Rhonda’s body. “Did she tell you anything that might be relevant to her murder?”


I bit my lip as I studied Rhonda’s face. Her features weren’t distorted by terror or even anger. She simply looked at peace, which I found all the more unsettling. “We didn’t say much, and I wasn’t cataloging our conversation for later use, but at least one thing stood out. She either didn’t know or wouldn’t share her destination.”


Mom flinched at this revelation, turning to face me with wide eyes.“What do you mean?”


“I told her we were going to Georgia, and she said she’d probably get off before then. Probably. Not definitely.”


“So she had no clear destination in mind,” she summed up.


“That’s what I’m thinking. Or something happened to make her want to get off earlier than planned.” She’d looked distracted and had glanced out the window an awful lot. Could that be related?


“Lot of good that did her.” Mom swept the light down Rhonda’s body and paused when she reached her stomach. “Stabbed multiple times. It looks like maybe five. It’s hard to tell with all the blood.”


I felt sick to my stomach, remembering how much I’d craved steak earlier that evening. Now I would probably never want to eat it again—or at least I’d be using a butter knife to saw off bite-sized pieces. “Someone had to have enough foresight to take the steak knife from the dining car, but the presence of multiple wounds makes me think this was a crime of passion.”


“So, premeditated, but only very slightly. Hmm.” Mom’s carefully coifed hair didn’t even move as she shook her head from side to side. Small wrinkles lined her forehead and the edges of her mouth, though, while she stared at the body pensively.


“Grizabella—that’s her cat—said she heard Rhonda talking with someone after they entered the room. She was in the bathroom at the time and couldn’t make out any of the words. She also couldn’t tell if the visitor was male or female,” I revealed, wanting to make sure she had just as much information as I did.


Mom sighed.“Meaning we don’t have much to go on.”


“Maybe the room has a clue. You have the light, so maybe you can search her things while I see what I can find on her phone.”


She turned on me so fast, I lost my breath from the sudden fright.“Why don’t you have a light?”


“My phone is almost out of battery. Trying to conserve it in case there’s an emergency later.”


Mom sighed.“I’d tell you to be more responsible, but I’m guessing this is already one heck of a lesson. Let’s find her phone so you can get started.”


She shone her tiny flashlight around the room, locating Rhonda’s cell phone almost immediately. It lay on the dresser beside a small travel case that looked like it would be used for makeup or toiletries. “I’ll start here,” Mom said, unzipping the case and riffling through the contents.


While she did that, I picked up the phone, praying it would be easy to access. And yes! Thankfully, Rhonda had elected to use a fingerprint to unlock her phone rather than a passcode, so I returned to her body, then very carefully and very respectfully pressed her index finger to the surface. The dark lock screen gave way to a photo of Grizabella sitting on a plump pillow and staring straight into the camera.


Aww. She really had loved her cat.


While that was sweet, however, it wouldn’t help me figure out who killed her or why. I needed to learn more than just the surface stuff during our search, needed to find something that could set me and my mom on the right path.


So first I checked her email.


All the unread messages made me cringe. I’d always been an inbox clearer and couldn’t understand people who hoarded thousands of unread messages, especially when so much of it appeared to be spam. After scrolling through the first several dozen emails and finding nothing but cat blogs and clothing sales, I decided to move on to her social media.


Unsurprisingly, Rhonda’s Instagram was actually a fan account for Grizabella. She only had a couple thousand followers, but they appeared to interact regularly with her posts. I scrolled through the recent hearts and found almost every profile picture to be either a cat or a person smiling beside a cat. Well, Rhonda clearly had one very specific use for the platform—one and nothing else.


On Twitter, she followed a handful of politicians and other celebrities but didn’t appear to tweet anything herself. Also not helpful.


But what would Facebook bring? Hopefully something a bit more useful.


Here, Rhonda had very few friends and posted rather infrequently. Her most recent update was a checkin at a train station in New Brunswick, which was strange because I was pretty sure I remembered seeing her on the platform when we’d boarded in Bangor.


Rhonda’s post simply read: Off on another journey!


Scrolling through her feed revealed the usual combination of baby pics, wedding pics, and humble brags from her modest friends list. Hmm.


“Angie,” my mom whispered. She hadn’t been whispering before, so whatever she had to say, I was guessing it would be good. “I’ve found something.”


I swung the phone around to illuminate the room and found her sitting on the edge of the bed with her legs crossed at the ankle. In her hand, she held a small book, and on her face she wore an excited smile.


Here we go.


Chapter Eight


Like most older people I knew, Rhonda had kept her phone fully charged, which meant I didn’t need to be careful about preserving its battery life—and thank goodness for that. I used the screen to illuminate my path as I moved carefully past her body and joined my mother at the bed.


“It’s her personal planner,” Mom revealed, flipping through the pages demonstratively. “You know, like the calendar app, but on paper.”


“C’mon, Mom. I know what a personal planner is.” The cover on this one was made of blue leather that I suspected matched the exact shade of Grizabella’s eyes. Gold trimmed the edges of each page, not unlike a Bible.


Mom shook her head and continued to search through the entries until she landed on the current week.“Here,” she pointed to the box reserved for yesterday. “She got on in New Brunswick. A bit earlier than us.”


“I found the same thing on her Facebook profile, but I could’ve sworn we saw her when we were saying goodbye to Nan. She was in a hurry, but I definitely remember that blinged out cat carrier of hers.”


Mom tucked her heavily hair sprayed hair behind her ears, but it immediately bounced back to its previous shape.“Huh. I don’t remember seeing her, but maybe she just got off to stretch her legs.”


“Or to a say a quick hello to someone waiting at the station,” I suggested. We’d only seen her returning, though. Huh, indeed.


“So she got off, but she got back on,” Mom recapped with a shrug. “Hang on. Let me see what else is in here.”


While she thumbed through the planner, I returned to Rhonda’s email and searched the name of the train company. Sure enough, since she never discarded anything, her travel itinerary popped right up.


“She was headed to Houston,” I told Mom hardly believing anyone would want to be on a train for such a very long trip, but then again, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad with a private room. Still, she had either knowingly lied to me or changed her plans quite suddenly. “She told me she’d probably get off before Georgia.”


Mom stood and marched over to me, then shoved the planner in my free hand.“Her planner has a cat show in that area early next week.”


So a sudden change of plans, then.“I wonder if the person she met at our stop said something that spooked her. Like maybe a threat. Maybe she reached out to me in the dining car because she felt safer with company.”


Now I felt terrible. Had I been given the opportunity to save her, only to run away because I couldn’t take another mundane cat story?


“That’s a lot of maybes,” Mom said, rubbing my shoulder like she somehow knew I was partially blaming myself for poor Rhonda’s fate. “I do agree this is all very suspicious, but we don’t know anything for sure.”


I shook those feelings aside and focused on the facts. Whether or not I’d played a role in what had happened, the best thing I could do now was to find justice for the poor lonely woman who loved her cat more than anything else in this world.


“She was wearing a necklace when I met her, but the necklace was gone when Octo-Cat and I came in presumably just minutes after her murder,” I told Mom, forcing myself to move on.


Mom frowned and set the planner down where she’d initially found it. “Missing necklace. Quick visit to the platform in Bangor. Abandoned trip to Houston. Five stab wounds. We have a lot of little bits and pieces, but not enough to know what kind of puzzle we’re building.”


“Don’t forget the distraught feline. It was Grizabella’s cries that alerted us to the trouble.” Despite the Himalayan’s cool demeanor when we’d first met her in the dining car, her reaction to Rhonda’s death showed the cat had loved her owner just as much as she’d been loved by her.


“Now that’s interesting. Could it be a jealous cat show competitor?” Mom ventured, taking the planner back from me and holding it in both her hands as we continued to talk. “They were on their way to a show, after all. Maybe someone threatened them to keep them on the sidelines this year, so another cat could take the crown.”


“I don’t think cat shows work the same as beauty pageants,” I said with a wry laugh. Laughing was good. It kept the horror from creeping in. “But it’s not a bad theory. A jealous rival killed her off and then took the necklace to make it look like a simple robbery.”


Mom nodded, but her face remained grim.“There are worse reasons to take a life. Not many, mind you, but I’m sure there are at least some.”


The door swung open so suddenly, it made us both jump in fright. My heart hammered a heavy tattoo against my chest.


“Helloooooo!” a young male voice bellowed. Then he gasped and his voice became higher. “Holy heck, so that guy’s crazy claims are true, after all.” He moved into the room and shone his lantern-style flashlight on Rhonda’s body. The curly red hair immediately struck me as familiar. This was the same worker I’d spied in the snack car, the one I’d almost bought snacks from before Rhonda intercepted me.


“Hi. That crazy guy was my husband,” Mom said, offering him a friendly wave.


The man—who couldn’t have been much older than a teenager—staggered back and lifted a hand to his chest. “Yeesh, don’t do that! I thought the dead was rising again.”


Okay, so this kid had seen one too many zombie movies in his day. He also had access to the dining car and all of its knives. Could he be the killer returning to the scene of the crime? If so, Mom and I could definitely take him. Not that I wanted to engage in a fight to the death… now or ever.


“What are you doing in here?” I asked, studying him closely. His pale, blemished skin looked ghastly in the glow of his lantern. His skinny arms didn’t appear strong enough to inflict the wounds I’d seen on Rhonda, but then again, young mothers could lift entire vehicles to save trapped babies—or so the rumor went.


“My boss sent me over here to check it out, since my station was the closest. He said that—” He stopped abruptly and raised his light higher. “Ha! Nice way to distract me. What are you doing in here alone with a dead body?”


He took another big leap back into the hall, terror washing over his once accusing features.“Wait. Did you kill her? Are you going to kill me?”


“Well, that depends…” Mom said and then moved slowly toward the frightened worker.


Yikes! What was happening?


Chapter Nine


“Mom,” I shouted, at the same time elbowing her in the stomach.


“She’s kidding,” I assured the young train worker. He hadn’t shown up at work today knowing he’d have a dead body and a crazy small-town news anchor to deal with, and Mom’s attempt at humor was definitely not helping to ease the tension this time.


Mom said nothing, so I continued chatting nervously, even going so far as to raise my hands to show we meant the young man before us no harm.“We were the ones who discovered the body. Dad went to tell your boss while we stayed here to make sure no one would disturb the scene. You work in the dining car, right? I think I saw you there earlier. What’s your name?”


He stepped back into the room, his shoulders sloped forward defensively or perhaps in defeat.“Yes, that’s me. My name is Dan, and I’m just trying to do my job and—you know—not get murdered.”


“Aren’t we all?” Mom said, and I elbowed her in the ribs again.


“I’m Angie, and I’m a private investigator back in Maine. The deceased is Rhonda Lou Ella Smith. I met her earlier today. Perhaps you saw us together in the dining car.”


Dan nodded, even chanced a smile.“Yeah. Yeah, I think I did.”


Good. This was good. Now that he recognized me, he relaxed enough to hold a rational conversation and to stop accusing me and mom of murder.


“I’m trying to piece together what I can, so I can hand things over to the cops when they arrive,” I continued, motioning toward the planner in mom’s hands and then showing him the phone in mine. “Was she there a long time before I came in or a long time after I left? Did you notice anything unusual about her?”


Dan took the phone from me but didn’t do anything with it other than hold it at his side. It seemed to further relax him, though. After all, most murderers wouldn’t hand over evidence that could likely convict them.


“I don’t know,” he said after a slight pause. “She seemed normal enough. Weird, but normal.”


“Weird how?” I pressed, keeping my eye on the phone. I would need that back at some point.


“She kept talking to her cat like it was a person. I noticed people looking at her funny, but I thought it was kind of nice. Who’s to say cats can’t understand us, right?”


“Sure,” I said dismissively, happy Mom kept quiet on that one. While she thought revealing my secret pet-whispering ability would make for a great human-interest story, she at least respected that I’d prefer not to let the world in on my strange power. “Did you notice when she arrived in the dining car or when she left?”


“She came in right when we left the Bangor station,” Dan said, then nodded in confirmation. “I remember, because she was my first customer and it was just the two of us until you arrived a short while later.”


“Did the two of you talk?”


“Just enough for her to place an order. It was a big one.”


“Could you tell me if—?”


The door swung open again, and in marched my father. The two cats followed him inside, and then a fourth figure joined us in the private room. Dad shut off his phone—not needing it now that Dan was here with his lantern—then made his way to Mom’s side.


The cats stayed quiet, watching us from near the doorway.


I couldn’t quite make out who the new person was, given that the brim of his hat cast his face in creepy shadows. But then he opened his mouth to talk, leaving no doubt as to his identity.


“Wow,” he said on the wings of a dramatic exhale. “You read about it. You write about it. But you never think you’ll actually stumble upon a reallive murder mystery. And on a train. This is so Agatha Christie!”


“Easy, Tolstoy. There’s been a murder here. Show some respect for those of us who didn’t make it,” my father warned, wrapping his arm around Mom’s waist protectively.


“Who’s this guy?” Dan asked, swinging his light closer to the writer who’d invited himself into this intimate scene.


“The name’s Melvin Mann. Remember it, because one day soon you’ll see it at the top of the New York Times Bestsellers list.” I couldn’t be sure given the current lighting situation, but I think he actually made jazz hands to punctuate his expression.


Oh, brother.


“Well, Melvin,” I said slowly, trying not to gag on my words. “This is a crime scene, not Grand Central Station. I think it’s time you went back to your seat.”


“Oh, really? What gives you any more right to be here than I have?” He crossed his arms over his chest and stepped deeper into the room.


“Because I’m a P.I. That’s why.” Would I really need to establish that with each new person who arrived? Apparently.


He leaned forward, making himself several inches shorter so he could look me right in the eye.“Prove it.” His words smacked of condescension. Not only did this guy think he was better than everyone else, but he also seemed to think I was worse. Infuriating.


“What? I can’t prove it beyond my word.”


He straightened back to full height.“Show me a business card or something.” Right, because it was impossible to create cards that read anything you wanted them to.


Case in point, Melvin pulled a stack of cards out of his pocket with a flourish and handed them around.“See, Melvin Mann, novelist. Now show me yours?”


“I don’t have any business cards on me. Sorry.” I would have turned out my pants pockets, if I had any. He seemed the kind of guy to appreciate overwrought gestures, like purple prose in real life.


He jabbed a finger at me so hard it would probably be a bruise.“Ah-ha! See, I knew you were just pretending.”


My father rushed to my side and stared at Melvin so ferociously that the other man couldn’t help but take a step back.


“Look, we can stand here arguing until the killer finds us, too,” my dad said, not taking his hard eyes off the writer for a second. “Or we can work together to solve this thing.”


“Oooh, I like that,” Melvin said, steepling his fingers in a far too sinister fashion for my liking. “This is wonderful inspiration for the mystery story arc of my novel.”


I held in a sigh, an eyeroll, and a groan all at once.“Earlier you were asking me about suspicious characters, so why don’t you go find some?”


“I wasn’t asking about the characters. I have my characters on lock, thank you very much. I was asking about synonyms.”


“Just do what she says, JD Salinger,” my father growled, taking another threatening step forward.


Melvin stood in place; a smile snaked across his face.“You think calling me by classic novelists’ names is an insult, but it’s really quite the opposite.”


Dad did not hold back the choice words he had in response to that.


I turned to Dan, ready to put this whole macho showdown—or whatever the heck it was—to rest. “Can you go check in with your bosses? See if we can get the train moving again or the police sent to our location. Something. Anything to help.”


“Can do,” he said, offering a thumbs up and a smile. At least he was more cooperative than Melvin Mann. The haughty writer would be a liability in this investigation, no doubt.


“Great. Thanks so much.” I pushed them both toward the door. “Oh, and one last thing. Please keep the other passengers in the dark about this. No need to start a panic.”


“In the dark,” my mom said with a chuckle. “Good one.”


I swear, even if she and Nan weren’t related by blood, sometimes it was simply impossible to ignore the similarities they shared. Mom was far more pragmatic and a lot more normal than either Nan or me, but she belonged with us all the same.


We were a family, and nothing—not even newly exposed secrets—could change that.


Chapter Ten


After Dan and Melvin exited, I closed the door behind them and twisted the lock to ensure those of us who remained had some privacy.


“Mom, Dad, could you continue to search the room? I’m going to catch up with the cats,” I said once I could no longer hear the departing men’s footfalls in the corridor.


“Oh, sure, honey,” Mom answered for them both. “We’ll stay out of your way, Miss Pet Whisperer P.I.” She was the one who had come up with that name for Octo-Cat’s and my operation and was immensely proud of it—even though I secretly hated it. Talk about parading my secret for all to see! I pretended it was just a gimmick, but I had to wonder if the unusual name was the reason our firm hadn’t received a single paying case to date.


“Let’s go to the bed so we aren’t in the way,” I told the cats, but it was my dad who moved in the direction I had dictated.


I laughed awkwardly. He hadn’t gotten used to this yet. Well, he was about to become very familiar with how things went when I was working a case with animal assistance.


“Oh, you meant…” He flashed his light toward Grizabella, and the startled feline hissed.


“Well, you have fun with that, then,” he finished, backing slowly away.


“Why did you hiss at him?” I asked the Himalayan, not bothering to hide my irritation as I narrowed my eyes at her.


“He shone that bright light right in my eyes. It hurt!”


Ouch. Okay.


“Sorry, he didn’t mean to.” Again I wondered if I should pet her as a way of offering comfort, and again I decided against it. I had a sneaking suspicion that Grizabella didn’t much like me, and I’d hate to actually be proven right while our investigation was still ongoing.


We settled on the bed. Given the way the comforter lay completely smooth, I guessed she hadn’t tried going to sleep before meeting with her murderer. The cats each lay on a pillow, leaving me to sit farther down the mattress.


“Okay, what did you learn while you were out there?” I had no light with me but could make out their vague shapes in the spill-off from Mom and Dad’s.


“Nothing,” Grizabella answered for the both of them. She sounded almost bored.


“But you followed Dad the whole way, right?”


“We did,” Octo-Cat assured me. “But we found nothing that drew our attention.”


Well, I hadn’t expected this. I was sure my kitty reconnaissance would turn off at least something helpful. “What about anyone who looked, sounded, or smelled familiar, Grizz?”


A threatening growl rose in the dark.“Don’t call me Grizz. My name is Grizabella, and no, I didn’t notice anything. Just as I told you before. This is hard for me, so please pay attention the first time around.”


Yeesh, she sure made it hard to want to help her.


I took a deep breath and reminded myself that she was grieving and probably even more startled by Rhonda’s murder than either me or Octo-Cat. We’d investigated deaths before, but Grizabella had never had to deal with anything like this.


Why would she? Why would anyone?


“I’m sorry,” I said, hoping she’d believe the sincerity in my words. I truly did feel sorry for everything she’d gone through already, everything she’d still need to go through before this case was settled. “I just have a hard time believing this was a simple robbery. Someone wanted Rhonda dead, and I want to know why.”


“Look at this!” Mom called from the bathroom, appearing in the doorway. From behind her, Dad shone his light on the object in her hands. An ornately carved wooden jewelry box.


“I don’t think it was a robbery,” she mumbled, proving that we were on the exact same page. “Otherwise, why would they leave this behind? There’s got to be thousands in diamonds and other precious stones in here.”


Each necklace, bracelet, and pair or earrings she held up was more dazzling than the last. Many of the pieces boasted gigantic sapphires. And again I wondered if she chose the blue to match her cat’s eyes.


“It’s all silver,” I pointed out. “But the necklace she wore when I met her in the dining car was gold and pearl.”


Mom searched the ornate box, shaking her head.“Well, there’s nothing like that in here.”


Grizabella spoke from across the bed.“The necklace she wore today was her most prized possession. An important family heirloom handed down from her grandmother to her.”


“So whoever took the necklace wanted the heirloom, but not the other, arguably even more valuable, pieces,” I summed up for the humans who couldn’t speak cat, rubbing my chin as I tried to make sense of all this.


“Or the killer struck for a completely different reason, saw an opportunity, and stole the necklace she was wearing but didn’t think to search the room for other valuables,” Mom ventured.


Dad nuzzled her from behind and kissed her neck.“I love seeing you in action. You’re so smart.”


“Not the time, guys,” I spat, quickly looking away. Despite being an adult, I still hated seeing my mom and dad’s flagrant and very public displays of affection.


“There is literally a dead body right there,” I motioned toward Rhonda, hoping my parents turned their light to me in enough time to read the disapproving expression on my face.


“Sorry. We’ll just keep searching,” Dad said as Mom turned to take the jewelry box back into the bathroom.


“Grizabella,” Octo-Cat said gently. “What can you tell us about your life with Rhonda? What kinds of things did you do? What kinds of places did you go?”


Good questions, especially since asking Grizabella who would have wanted her owner dead would likely cause the Himalayan to either close right up or get overly emotional again.


The cat answered with a smile in her voice.“Rhonda was a very kind mistress. We traveled constantly, usually by train. Sometimes on a first-class jet. Mostly we went to cat shows, but sometimes we went places simply to take pictures of me amidst new scenery. I think Rhonda had a hard time staying put in one place because it reminded her of how lonely she’d let herself become.”


Oh, this was good stuff. If Grizabella was willing to expand upon it, I was sure we’d learn something important.


“What do you mean?” I asked softly.


“I’ve been with Rhonda since I was a very small kitten. She’s all I’ve ever known for my five human years in this world. Still, in all that time, she’s never had visitors, never gone on dates, never done much of any of the things the humans do in television shows and movies.”


“I love watching TV, too,” Octo-Cat butted in. “Do you like Law& Order? It’s my favorite.”


“Heavens, no,” the other cat answered in disgust. “I much prefer love stories to those with blood and gore.”


Octo-Cat stumbled over his response.“Oh, yeah. Right. Have you seen When Harry Met Sally? I really like the part when she—”


“Octavius,” I interrupted, assuming he preferred his fancy name in the presence of our refined acquaintance. “This really isn’t the time for that. We need to hear more about Rhonda. That’s what’s important now.”


“Thank you,” Grizabella said, surprising me with her politeness and the fact she’d acknowledged I’d done something right.


“Normally I love speaking about such frivolities, but normally my human is safe and sound beside me. Oh, my poor mistress…” Her words fell away, but then she shrieked the same terrible cry that first brought us to this car.


“And oh no! What will become of me, now that she’s gone?”


I wished I had an answer for her, but unfortunately I knew even less than Grizabella did—especially if Rhonda had been as big a loner as she claimed.


Chapter Eleven


Grizabella yowled again.


“What’s wrong?” Mom and Dad cried in unison.


“It’s okay,” I assured them. “Well, I mean, it’s not exactly okay. She just realized she doesn’t know where she’ll go now that her owner’s passed.”


“Oh, poor sweet thing.” Mom crossed the room along the edge and then petted the mourning Himalayan. “A nice, gorgeous girl like you will find a new home in no time.”


Grizabella stopped shrieking but moved away from Mom’s attempts to pet her. “I don’t want a new home. I want my life with Mistress.”


My heart broke for the newly orphaned feline. Since discovering Rhonda’s body, we’d only worked toward solving her murder. None of us had taken any time to see how Grizabella was coping.


“Anyone could see how much Rhonda loved you. Heck, she even made a fan account for you on Instagram, and it has more than two-thousand followers.”


“Yes, but those are fans,” the cat responded with disdain. “I don’t know a single one of them personally.”


“Angela will figure something out,” Octo-Cat promised, purring to show her it would all be okay. “She always does.”


The doorknob rattled and then someone pounded against the door, bringing the tender exchange to an immediate halt.


“Hey,” Dan yelled in his squeaky, pubescent voice. “Why is this thing locked?”


The frantic pounding started again, and Dad ran over to let him in.“Sorry about that!”


“We didn’t want anyone stumbling in by accident,” I explained, leaving out the part about taking the extra measure to protect my secret. “What’s up? What did your bosses say?”


Dan looked back toward the door as if it had personally slighted him, then turned back toward us with lantern held high.“The police are on their way, but it could be a while given our remote location. Figures, right?”


“Yeah,” I said amicably as my eyes struggled to adjust to the brightness of his lantern-style flashlight again. “Anything else? Do they know what stopped the train?”


He shook his head sadly and in obvious fear.“Only that it’s been tampered with somehow. Whoever it was knew what he was doing, ensuring it would be next to impossible to get moving again without an expert mechanic familiar with this kind of train.”


Crud.


Dan’s expression lightened and he rocked his lantern playfully. “I do have good news, though.”


Octo-Cat climbed onto my lap, and I drew strength from his calming presence. Seriously, this case was so different than usual. We hadn’t fought one bit. Perhaps we were evolving.


“Well, out with it already,” Mom demanded. She only liked dramatic pauses when she was the one making them.


“The lights will be much easier to fix,” Dan said, properly chastised. “Someone cut a few wires, but we’ve already found a passenger who says he knows how to fix it. He’s working on it now.”


“That is good news,” Mom agreed, then flashed her phone at me. “And a lucky break for those who weren’t responsible enough to charge up before the journey.”


I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. A migraine wasn’t exactly what I needed right now. “So at least our circumstances aren’t getting worse,” I reminded everyone.


“You girls stay in here,” Dad instructed, moving toward the door. “Dan, bring that big light of yours and come with me.”


I chased after him, refusing to be left behind.“Excuse me. None of that macho nonsense. Wherever you’re going, I’m coming, too. So spill.”


Dad sighed and placed his hand against the wall in defeat.“Why do you always have to assume it’s something like that? I chose Dan because he has the best light and we’re going to need it.”


Yeah, there was no way I would be sitting out the next leg of our investigation. I turned to the young redheaded worker and held my hands out in supplication.“Dan, may I please borrow your light?”


He reluctantly handed it over, and I turned back to Dad with a giant smile of triumph.“You were saying?”


He chuckled at let out a low whistle.“You are just like your mother sometimes. C’mon, we’re going to go nose around outside and see what we can find.”


“Will you stay with my wife?” Dad asked Dan, and they shared a manly nod.


“I’m coming, too!” Octo-Cat called, jumping off the bed and joining us at the door.


“And I’m staying,” Grizabella said, crossing her paws in front of her.


“Let’s go, Dad,” I said, lifting the lantern high as I followed him to the end of the car. We found an exit toward the outside there, but it appeared to be jammed up tight. In the next car over, we found the door already slightly ajar, having swung back into the car a couple inches.


“Hopefully, somebody just needed a cigarette break really, really bad,” Dad told me with a shrug and then pulled the door open the rest of the way so we could exit into the tunnel.


Very little space lay to either side of the train. Dad and I could walk side by side, but not comfortably. The stone walls pressed in close as we studied the gravel beside the tracks. Add in the intense darkness and it was almost like we’d been buried alive. Creepy.


Dad stopped walking and put out an arm to stop me, too. With his other hand, he pointed a few feet ahead.“Blood.”


Sure enough, dark red droplets stained the light scattering of stones and pebbles. Even creepier.


“Did you see any earlier?” Dad asked, sweeping his phone light back toward the exit we used.


I shook my head soundlessly, then continued forward to see if the blood might form a trail.


“Stay by me,” Dad called out, a quiver moving through his strong voice. “We don’t know how close the murderer still is. For all we know, he could be right here hiding in the tunnel just a few feet away. And I’m not risking losing you.”


I gulped and returned to his side.


Dad hooked his arm over my shoulders and pulled me close.“We do this together. Understand? You have my back, and I’ll have yours.”


“Awww. That’s great for you guys. I’ll go check things out on my own, though,” Octo-Cat said, trotting off in the direction I’d just abandoned.


It worried me, him going off on his own, but what reason would a murderer have to hurt a random cat? There’s no way the culprit could know that Octo-Cat was investigating this crime.


Dad and I moved slowly, using my light to illuminate our path and his to search the gravel.“I’m not seeing any more blood,” he said. “Are you?”


I’d never been so disappointed not to find evidence of a violent crime. At least if we had a proper trail to follow, we’d know that the killer had left the train—and we may even be able to follow the drops to find him.


“No,” I answered with a racking sigh. “Someone was definitely out here, and given how close the exit and the blood are to Rhonda’s room, I’m guessing it was our killer. But I don’t think he was injured. It’s probably a bit of Rhonda’s blood that dripped off his hands or something.”


“But if he had the blood on his hands, wouldn’t it be on the door?” Dad pointed out, continuing to move the tiny point of light from his phone around the path. “And also, why are we assuming the killer is a he?”


“Touch?,” I said. “It could definitely be a woman. Good thought, though. Let’s go check out that door.”


We closed the rest of the distance back to our entry and exit point, and I was just about to step through into the train when an anguished cry rang out from deeper in the tunnel.


A cat’s cry.


“Octo-Cat!” I shouted and took off running. There was no way I was leaving him to face whatever danger lurked nearby on his own. I just hoped Dad could keep up.


Chapter Twelve


“Angie, wait!” my dad yelled, but I kept running as fast as I could toward the spot where Octo-Cat had cried out into the black night. By the time I found him lying on his side amidst the gravel, I’d practically run out of breath both from the burst of exercise and my pumping adrenaline.


Please be okay. Please be okay.


Praying hard, I scooped him into my arms and clutched him against my chest.“What happened? Are you okay? Octo-Cat, talk to me!”


“Oof, take it down a couple notches, would you,” he muttered, shaking his head as if my volume had physically injured him.


“What happened? Did you see the killer?” I demanded, searching his glowing amber eyes for answers.


“The killer? Of course not. I’d tell you if I found the killer.” He actually had the audacity to laugh at me.


“Then why did you scream? I thought you were hurt.”


Now that I knew my cat was okay, I wanted to wring his furry little neck for striking such fear straight into my poor pet-owning heart.


“I am hurt,” he said with a low growl, then shifted in my arms and shoved a paw into my face. “I got a little rock or something stuck between my toe beans. See.”


“That reaction was about your toe beans?” I practically screamed but then, remembering the need not to disturb the other passengers on the train, dropped my voice to a whisper yell.


“Don’t act like you don’t love them.” He laughed again, and it took all I had to keep listening as he spoke. “Now can you please be a good human and dislodge this thing for me?”


Quickly, I plucked the pebble from his paw and tossed it away, then set him back on the ground.


“Thank you,” he said, walking back toward our exit door with an exaggerated limp that I had no doubt he was faking for my benefit.


“What happened?” Dad asked, concern still etched in his features despite my utterance of the ridiculous phrase toe beans.


“Cat drama,” I explained in a growl, still beyond angry at Octo-Cat for worrying me needlessly. “C’mon, let’s go back to Mom and Dan.”


We marched single file back toward the open door with me leading and Dad following. Once aboard, we stopped to inspect the door handle but found no blood marring its smooth surface. We did, however, find another spot on the carpet, only a few feet from the door, but—given the fact that each car was close to a hundred feet long—quite far from Rhonda’s room.


Any dripping blood fell infrequently. No gushing here.


It was fully likely we’d find more if we continued investigating outside the train, but the whole toe bean incident had spooked me thoroughly. It also made both Dad and I realize how vulnerable we were out there with no real way to protect ourselves.


“What did you find?” Mom asked, greeting us at the door to Rhonda’s room and throwing her arms around Dad as if they’d been separated for days and not mere minutes. “I heard something, but Dan wouldn’t let me go investigate.”


“Good man,” my dad said, giving the young redhead a fist bump.


“Nothing happened,” I explained, then took on a cutesy voice I knew would drive my cat crazy. “The wittle kitty just got an ouchie in his wittle paw.”


“Angela!” he cried, mouth gaping open in horror. “Not in front of another cat!”


Grizabella laughed, which made me laugh, too.


Dan just looked at me like I was certifiable. Maybe I was.


I returned his lantern to him, then caught everyone up on the droplets of blood Dad and I had discovered.“Did you find anything more in here?” I asked once I’d finished.


“Nope. You weren’t actually gone all that long, you know,” Dan answered, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms.


Mom shrugged and offered me a weary smile.“Unfortunately, no.”


We weren’t going to solve anything by staying huddled together in this room. Someone had to search the train, and that someone was me.


“You guys keep searching here, and don’t let anyone else inside,” I said. “I’m going to see if I can find anything a bit further afield.”


“Meaning you’re going off by yourself,” Dad summarized with a stern set to his jaw


“I’ll take the cats,” I said, drawing another strange look from Dan; he had the good grace not to say anything, though.


I didn’t stick around to argue the point with my dad anymore. There were dozens, maybe hundreds of people aboard this train. And only one of them was a killer. That is, if the killer hadn’t disembarked and run away like we now suspected.


I turned on my phone to guide our way. Twelve percent battery left. Dan said the lights would be back on soon, and I was banking on that in a huge way now.


“Why are we doing a sweep of the passenger cars again?” Octo-Cat asked, obvious irritation laced in his nasally voice. Apparently, my little trick earlier had cost me his pleasant cooperation. This didn’t bother me much, given that I was already well accustomed to working with a crabby tabby.Things actually felt more natural now.


“She doesn’t trust us,” Grizabella answered for me.


We moved into the next car, heading in the direction of the viewing car, dining car, and eventually our assigned seats. I paused after assuring no one had eyes on us.


“It’s not that I don’t trust you guys. I mean, of course I trust you guys. But sometimes things are worth a second look, right?”


“Uh-huh,” Octo-Cat responded with a furious flick of his tail. “You’re right. She doesn’t trust us.”


“Told you,” Grizabella said, also flicking her fluffy tail. So glad they were bonding over this.


I sighed, then spoke while trying to keep the frustration from my voice.“Can you guys just… We’re working together, not against each other. We all have the same goal here, so let’s act like it.”


That shut them up fast. Thank goodness for small miracles.


“Keep an eye out for any strange behavior, and keep trying to think of new ideas in case this doesn’t work,” I said when I was sure neither would hurl another argument at me.


“It won’t work,” Grizabella complained, and I had to bite my tongue to avoid flying into a full-scale lecture about what I’d only just said. Could she really not see how hard I was trying to help here?


Help for me came from an unlikely source.“She’s trying her best,” Octo-Cat explained softly. “Even if it’s not very good.”


Grizabella harrumphed but continued to follow me as I marched off toward the next car.


Oh, boy. I really hoped we’d find something on our tour of the train, because I’d love to make these cats eat crow.


Chapter Thirteen


Well, it looked like I’d be the one eating crow in the end.


Our sweep of the train turned up nothing, just as the cats had warned. Most of the passengers appeared to be sleeping. The few who had woken up seemed relaxed and unbothered, probably because they didn’t know about the dead body that lay several cars back.


I corralled my feline companions into the tiny vestibule between cars to chat about what we should do next.“Before you say I told you so, listen up. We can’t exactly shine lights in everyone’s faces and ask them if they killed Rhonda.”


“Why not?” Grizabella asked with a long, flat face as she sat back heavily on her haunches.


“Darling, please. Let the professionals talk.” Octo-Cat raised a paw to the Himalayan’s mouth to silence her. Wow, he had a lot to learn about women.


And, okay, perhaps I laughed a bit too hard when she bit him right on his poor injured toe bean. Served him right for condescending to her, especially after he saw what happened when I attempted to shorten her overly fancy name.


A whir sounded overhead, announcing the repaired electrical system. As the overhead lights popped backed on, muffled cheers rose from the cars on either side of us. People wanted to celebrate, but not wake their seatmates, which could definitely work to our advantage.


“Well, look at that.” Octo-Cat deadpanned as I rubbed my eyes and wished for my sunglasses. “The lights are back on. Now, shall we return to plan A?”


“There wasn’t a plan A,” I reminded him as bright spots danced at the edges of my vision.


“Then why was there a plan B?”


“Just listen!” I yelled. Enough was enough already.


Apparently, Octo-Cat was just as fed up with me as I with him.“Well, jeez. You don’t have to yell,” he rasped with his signature snark.


“Octavius, please,” Grizabella interjected, scooting closer to him so that their furry bodies touched at the sides.


Thankfully—and probably just as Grizabella had suspected—this rendered the chatty tabby completely silent. Finally.


She nodded for me to continue with what I had to say.


“Most of the passengers are still asleep,” I explained, keeping a close eye on Octo-Cat to make sure he wouldn’t derail us yet again. “If the murderer is still on board, then he or she is definitely not just sleeping it off. That narrows our pool considerably. We couldn’t find any suspicious behavior when we simply walked through the cars, so I think our next step should be to add a little pressure.”


“Good plan. What did you have in mind?” Grizabella asked while Octo-Cat purred beside her.


“Nobody knows Rhonda’s dead except the people we’ve spoken with… and, well, I guess the killer knows, too. I say we pretend to have an urgent message for her and use that as an excuse to talk to the passengers who are awake.”


“But Mistress is dead. How can we have a message for her?”


“I know that, and we know that. But most of the people aboard don’t know that, so asking them won’t freak them out, right?”


Grizabella’s eyes shone bright as understanding swept over her. “Oh, yes!”


“So we’re just going to go up to each person we notice who’s awake and ask if they know where we can find Rhonda?” Octo-Cat asked, rejoining the conversation with a sappy grin stretched between his whiskers. Ahh, the power of love.


“Pretty much,” I said. “I’ll do the talking, obviously. And you guys keep all your senses peeled.”


Grizabella tilted her head to the side.“What does that—?”


“Human expression,” my cat translated with a giant roll of his amber eyes.


“Sorry,” I said with a chuckle. “You guys can smell changes in people’s hormones, right? So if someone were to get really stressed by my questions, you could tell… Yes?”


“Yeah, humans are super easy to read,” Octo-Cat responded haughtily. “Such simple creatures.”


I scowled at him, then turned back to the Himalayan with a smile. Finally, she was on my side, and it felt great.“Are we ready to do this?”


“Let’s.” She rose to her feet and waited for me to open the door into the next car for her. We’d made our way back to the very front of the train a few cars in front of the one that held my family’s seats.


“Excuse me,” I said to a woman who sat with a sullen looking teenager who was immersed in her phone. Probably not our killer, but I had to talk to everyone to avoid suspicion. “Do you know where I can find Rhonda Lou Ella Smith? I have an urgent message for her.”


“Nope,” she answered with a slight shake of her head. “I’m sorry. Good luck.”


I’m going to need it.


I talked to several more people, both men and women of all ages, but not a single person showed any sign of recognizing the name. I checked with the cats between each car, just to make sure they hadn’t found something.


They hadn’t.


We entered the car that held our seats, and I immediately spotted a problem that I’d forgotten we had. Our special writer friend Melvin Mann paced up and down the aisle, talking to himself and eliciting the stares of every single person as he did. No one here was sleeping. Not a single soul.


“Melvin, what are you doing?” I shouted, rushing toward him.


“Trying to figure out the murder, of course,” he told me, tapping a pen against the fingers on his other hand.


Someone cleared his throat across the aisle, and I laughed nervously.“Um, Mel. This isn’t the best time to plot out your next novel. These people are trying to sleep.” I laughed again and shoved him toward the end of the car, hoping and praying that our culprit hadn’t been sitting in that car while Melvin prattled on about all the pieces of evidence he’d either collected or overheard.


As we approached the vestibule, I rasped in his ear,“Go back to the car. Dan and my parents are there. They’ll get you caught up.” I was hoping they wouldn’t tell our resident loose cannon anything, but I needed to offer something to get him to fall in line.


“What car?” he asked, twisting toward me. A garish smile split his face as he realized. “Oh, the scene of the murder.”


I pushed him through the door.“Get out of here, and—for goodness’ sake—try to keep a low profile.”


“Hey, I’m a writer, not an actor.” He lifted a hand overhead and shook his finger at no one in particular. Not an actor, but he sure was a character.


I stood in the vestibule, watching to make sure he kept going toward the sleeper cars without upsetting any more of the passengers.


Grizabella paced and flicked her tail impatiently.“What now?”


“We keep going and hope for the best.” I thought back over the details of the night, then smiled. “He wasn’t pacing and muttering to himself when we passed through the first time, so he must have just started when the lights turned back on. Just to be sure, I’ll shoot my dad a text and ask him to collect Melvin and get him away from the rest of the passengers.”


My fingers moved over the keyboard on my phone. Eight percent battery now, but we had light, which made the dying phone far less of a problem that it was before.


“Now, let’s get on with our search,” I told the cats, pushing into the next car, more determined than ever to find the murderer before circumstances beyond my control—or more specifically, Melvin—ruined everything.


Chapter Fourteen


I’d asked so many people if they knew where we could find Rhonda that my voice stung from overuse. The corners of my mouth also hurt from all the forced smiles. The cats and I had already hit up all the cars between the front of the train and the dining car, which meant there were only a few more to cross before arriving at the sleeper cars, and only a handful of those to try before we ran out of people to question altogether.


C’mon. C’mon, please. We have to find something.


I took a few more steps down the aisle, then turned to an older woman with shoulder-length black hair and large brown eyes rimmed with thick lashes. I could tell she’d been pretty in her youth because she was still stunning even now. She wore a hooded sweatshirt that you didn’t often see women her age sporting, and she definitely didn’t look like the type of person who’d have associated with Rhonda Lou Ella Smith, unless she was also a cat enthusiast.


I smiled and took a deep breath, leaning closer to her as I spoke.“Excuse me. Do you know where I can find Rhonda Lou Ella Smith?” I asked pleasantly, widening my smile as I waited.


She frowned and mouthed,“Sorry” without actually making a sound. Respecting her sleeping seatmate, how thoughtful. I’d been far less considerate in my search, jostling several passengers from sleep unintentionally.


“We’ve got a live one here!” Octo-Cat bellowed.


“She knows something,” Grizabella confirmed in her melodic voice. “I can smell it all over her.”


Showtime.


“Excuse me,” I said to the woman who had already returned her attention to the paperback novel in her hands. “Are you sure you don’t know Rhonda? It’s really quite urgent.”


“No. Now please let me return to my reading,” she grumbled, then raised her book higher to block me out.


“She’s lying!” Grizabella shouted. “She’s lying!”


I pushed the book down and forced the woman to look me in the eye.“I’m sorry, but if you don’t know Rhonda, then why are you acting so nervous?”


“Nervous?” she asked, then laughed nervously. How convincing. “I’m not nerv—”


“No more lies!” Grizabella cried, jumping right onto the woman’s lap and unleashing a terrible hiss.


“G-G-Grizabella?” the woman stuttered. “What are you—?”


“So you do know her!” I widened my stance to block her into her seat in case she tried to make a run for it. I might be angering a violent criminal, but at least the train car was filled to the brim with witnesses. She wouldn’t be so bold as to try anything in front of them… Would she?


The woman set her book down without even bothering to adjust the bookmark.“What’s the message? Perhaps I can give it to her.”


“It’s really quite urgent. Would you come with me? The conductor’s been searching for anyone connected with Rhonda, because we need your help. Urgently.” Ugh. I needed to keep repeating urgent over and over again like it was some kind of magic passcode.


“But I thought you said you had a message for her?”


“Yes, and for you. Now will you join me, or should I call security?” I didn’t even know if this train had security, but the threat worked to get the woman out of her seat.


I surreptitiously texted my mom and asked her to meet me in the viewing car so we could escort the woman back to Rhonda’s room together. For all I knew, she was the killer and could try to take me out at the first opportunity.


As much as I trusted my cat partners to want to protect me, they were no match for a human with a weapon and a motive. I needed to keep her talking as I walked behind her and guided her toward the sleeper cars. Maybe she hadn’t figured out that I suspected her—or at least not yet.


“I’m Angie,” I explained. “The conductor asked me to keep an eye on Grizabella since I have a cat of my own with me on the train,” I yammered on. I needed to stop going on about the conductor every few minutes, but I didn’t know what the other train people were called and I wanted to sound official.


“Is Rhonda okay?” the woman asked, trying to look back at me over her shoulder as we continued to stumble forward.


“Oh, yes,” I lied, needing to get her somewhere private—and with backup—before sharing the truth. “Thank goodness we found you just in time. Say, how do you know her?”


“Oh, um, well, she’s my sister. Half-sister, actually,” she corrected herself immediately, then added, “We weren’t close.”


“I know how that goes,” I said with a smile in case she looked back again. I was an only child, but I would do anything I could to keep her talking and moving, anything to build up some kind of rapport, seeing as it could just save my life. “What’s your name?”


“Sariah Smith,” she mumbled. “Will this take long?”


“Almost there,” I promised as we finally headed into the viewing car. My mom was already there waiting.


“I know you,” Sariah said, stopping in her tracks and raising a hand to point at my mother. “You’re—”


Mom’s hand shot out in greeting. “Laura Lee, Channel Seven News, serving Blueberry Bay, the great state of Maine, and now the full Northeastern Seaboard.”


“I watch you on the news,” Sariah stuttered. “What are you doing here? Investigating a story?” She glanced back toward the rear exit, but Mom placed a firm hand on her shoulder.


I moved toward the other end of the car, but Sariah didn’t follow.


Mom jumped in to help out.“Yes, I’m investigating a story. And I need to speak with you, if you’ll just come with me.”


“Um, don’t I need to sign a waiver or something?”


“Nope. This one’s off the record. C’mon.” Mom shoved her perhaps a bit too forcibly into the next car.


“Almost there,” I assured her again, practically pulling her as Mom pushed from behind now.


“I don’t think I can—” Sariah grunted. I’d have felt bad had I suspected she was innocent in all of this, but as the cats had said, she reeked of guilt. Even I could practically smell it with my weak human olfactory sense.


“And we’re here,” Mom announced before Dad swung open the door to Rhonda’s room.


Sariah screamed the moment her eyes fell on Rhonda’s dead body. She tried to run, but Mom and I formed a barrier in the doorway, blocking her misguided attempt at escape.


Sariah sobbed, choked, and screamed again.“Oh my gosh, what happened to Rhonda? Help, help, help! Somebody get me out of here!”


“We need to shut her up,” Dad cried as Sariah continued to shout and shove at me and Mom. “What should we do?”


Melvin darted forward, a weapon held at waist height but disguised by his jacket. All I could see was an ominous bulge along with the manic rage splashed across his face, but from the way he postured, I was sure it had to be a gun under there.“Quiet, or I’ll give you a reason to be quiet.”


Oh my gosh, this was wrong on so many levels. A very big part of me wanted to tie Melvin up and stash him somewhere so he couldn’t cause any more problems.


But then Sariah stopped crying and started confessing everything.


Chapter Fifteen


“Everyone calm down,” Dad said in a patient, measured voice that must have been so hard to keep, given the current circumstances. He bravely stepped forward and inserted himself between Melvin and Sariah, daring either of them to continue acting out. “There’s no need for things to turn violent.”


Melvin stepped around dad and narrowed his gaze on Sariah.“There is, if she doesn’t start talking and fast.”


“That’s not ne—”


“He wasn’t supposed to hurt her!” Fat tears rolled down Sariah’s cheeks and onto her sweatshirt. “You have to believe me. I didn’t know he was going to hurt her.”


“Who?” I asked from the doorway, anxiety ripping the words from my throat. If Melvin shot at Sariah, the bullet would likely tear into me, too. I so did not feel like dying today.


“Who wasn’t supposed to hurt her?” I asked again when she failed to answer.


Our witness cried so hard she staggered forward, barely able to keep herself on her feet.


Mom draped Sariah’s arm over her shoulder and guided her over to the bed. “C’mon, sweetie. It’s okay. You’re safe with us.”


Melvin followed, his weapon still threatening from beneath his jacket.“That’s right. As long as you keep talking, then you have nothing to worry about.” I wanted to bonk him on the head. Couldn’t he see that he was terrifying everyone around him?


Dan twisted the lock on the door, then looked to my father for guidance, who crossed his arms over his chest and took up sentinel at the room’s one exit point.


It was like we were billiard balls. All of us suddenly rearranging, bouncing into new positions, staying near the edges of the room. I moved close to where Rhonda still lay splayed across the floor. That way, every time Sariah spoke to me, she’d be forced to glance upon her dead half-sister. It wasn’t to be cruel, but rather to keep her honest and remind her how much was at stake here.


Not just for her, either. For all of us.


“Who wasn’t supposed to hurt her?” I pressed again, keeping my voice kind and hopefully free of judgment.


Sariah sniffled and shook her head. Perhaps we needed a more indirect approach to ease her into talking.


“You know, I met her,” I said with a far-off smile, even though the past I was remembering had only happened several hours prior. “We sat together for a while in the dining car and talked cats.”


Mom handed Sariah a tissue from her purse, and she blew her nose into it.“That sounds like Rhonda all right.”


“I thought you weren’t close,” I pointed out, again trying my best not to sound accusing even though Sariah had for sure played some part in the crimes that had happened aboard this train tonight.


She shook her head and balled the tissue in her first.“We weren’t, but I follow her online. That’s how I recognized Grizabella.”


The cats. I hadn’t noticed where they’d gone.


“Over here,” my tabby called from near the bathroom, either reading my mind or sensing the worry that crept up on me when I realized I’d lost sight of him.


I turned toward him and smiled upon spotting him unharmed and unafraid.


Grizabella, however, stared at Sariah with fierce, unblinking eyes. She needed the answers, needed to know why this horrible thing had happened to her mistress.


“You said he wasn’t supposed to hurt her,” I reminded Sariah again, approaching my follow-up differently this time. “What was he supposed to do instead?”


Sariah shook her head and peered at me through red-rimmed eyes. Apparently, my sudden change in questioning had thrown her.“He was only supposed to take what’s ours. That’s it.”


“And what was that?”


“The necklace.”


The image of that beautiful piece of jewelry flashed in my mind’s eye. Pearls, gold, amazing craftsmanship, but worth killing for? Not to me.


“The family heirloom?” I asked.


“Yes, she was wearing it tonight. I saw her when she came off the train to speak with us at the Bangor station.”


That’s right. I knew I’d seen her on the platform. With Sariah here, all the pieces were finally starting to feel like they belonged to the same puzzle. Soon we may even be able to discern the picture. I suspected I knew what happened next but asked anyway. “What did you talk about?”


“We asked for the necklace back. She never should have gotten it.” Sariah balled both of her hands into fists, then let them go, looking at me with equal parts anger and sorrow.


“I’m guessing she said no.”


“He barely even got two words out before she turned away and ran back for the train.”


“Then what happened?” I asked.


All the others in the room remained quiet as Sariah and I continued our conversation. They all needed to hear this, too.


She turned to Mom and addressed her answer there.“He said that one way or another the necklace would be ours, and then we followed her onto the train. He knew she would say no, so we were already ready with the tickets.”


“And what was the next part of your plan? What were you supposed to do after she said no?”


“Not my plan. His. I was supposed to find a way to stop the train in the middle of the night so that he could pay her a visit and take the necklace back. Then we were going to meet in the viewing car and exit together from there.”


“But you’re still here,” I pointed out with raised eyebrows.


Sariah faced me once more.“Yes. He never showed up.”


Desperation clawed at the edges of my brain. I so badly wanted to know who the he in Sariah’s story was, but there were other details I needed to find out first—rather than risk her breaking down again.


“Why did you both want the necklace so badly?”


“It rightfully belonged to us. It had been passed down for generations, long before our ancestors ever settled in America. Not only is it worth a fortune, it has sentimental value, too.”


“So it’s a family thing, but you said yourself that Rhonda was family.” I crossed my arms over my chest and waited, hoping my words had the incendiary effect I wanted. If so, they could blow this whole thing open and finally get Sariah to reveal the identity of her mysterious partner, the he.


“No.” She closed her eyes and her cheeks turned red, but still she spoke. “Her family took everything from us. And it was a cold, hard slap to the face when Father gave the necklace to her instead of one of us.”


I didn’t say anything, hoping Sariah would volunteer more on her own. When she didn’t, someone else stepped in.


“How did her family hurt yours, sweetie?” Mom asked from her spot beside the sobbing witness. Most of her tears had dried up now, however, anger taking their place.


“When I was five, my father left to start a new family. He said he had fallen in love and the lady was pregnant, so he had no choice. But he did have a choice! He just didn’t choose us. He left and he took everything from us. All of the money and privilege that should have been our birthright went to the new family, went to Rhonda. So, when he told me his plan to get our necklace back, of course, I wanted to help. Wouldn’t you?”


“I understand where you’re coming from,” I said, nodding along. “I also believe that even though you hated Rhonda, you hadn’t planned for her to die.”


She straightened and sat taller on the bed. Some of the tension drained from her fists and tightly set jaw.


There, I’d given her something important. Now she had to help by providing that final piece we so desperately needed. “Can you do me one last favor and tell me whose plan it was? We need to know who hurt Rhonda so that we can make sure you and everyone else on this train stays safe.”


“He’s not going to lay a finger on me. I’ll kill him first,” Sariah said between clenched teeth, and I believed her.


“But who is he? Who’s he, Sariah?” I practically begged now.


“He is our brother. Jamison.”


Chapter Sixteen


All eyes were on Sariah, including mine.


“There,” she growled at Melvin, who still held his weapon at the ready. “I’ve told you everything I know, so how about you stop threatening me with that gun or knife or whatever you have in there?”


Melvin snickered and pulled the weapon from his jacket, causing us all to flinch as he tossed it onto the bed beside Sariah.“As they say, the pen is mightier than the sword.” The smug grin on his face showed just how clever he felt he’d been.


Sure enough, a gold-tipped fountain pen lay on the comforter, shining in the light cast down from overhead. A pen!


Crazy Melvin had proven useful, after all.


“Gotcha!” he cried, and I half-expected him to break out into an endzone-style victory dance.


A collective groan rose throughout the room.


Sariah sneered at the false weapon, then picked it up and threw it back toward Melvin.“Figures.”


“How did you stop the train?” Dad asked, pointedly ignoring Melvin.


The writer withered when he realized we wouldn’t spend the rest of the night applauding his clever ruse. But our investigation was far from over. We still hadn’t caught the killer.


“That’s easy for a mechanical engineer,” Sariah answered with a casual shrug.


“No one has been able to get the engine going again, but they were able to get power back,” Dan added from his place beside Dad.


Our witness chuckled wearily.“Lights, that’s electrical engineering. Not my area.”


Clearly, this woman was very educated. Being abandoned by a parent definitely sucked, but did she really end up having such a bad life? Were things truly bad enough for Jamison to murder Rhonda as a way of paying for their father’s sins? Everything in me screamed no.


My own family had a twisted backstory, one Mom and I had only recently discovered and still didn’t quite understand. But I would never in a million years hurt someone for answers—or for revenge.


I guess that’s why I was the P.I. and not the murderer. And thank goodness for that!


“Have you seen Jamison since the train stopped?” I asked, remembering my role.


“No. Like I said, he never turned up at our meeting spot. The jerk probably made a run for it without me.”


“He was probably trying to frame you for it,” Melvin pointed out. “That’s what I would do if I had to write a character like that. As a novelist, I mean.”


When still no one gave him the attention he craved, Melvin cleared his throat, then quieted again.


“We did find a bit of blood outside the train,” Dad offered, bringing all eyes to him.


Sariah sighed and fell back on the bed, making us all tense.“Well, then, there you go. Betrayed by both my siblings in one night. Yay me.”


“Sariah,” Mom said gently. “I don’t think Rhonda ever meant to hurt you. It’s not her fault, what happened with your family. Things were probably hard for her growing up, too.”


“She was lonely all the time,” Grizabella said softly from her spot by the bathroom. “My poor, poor mistress.”


Since Sariah couldn’t understand Grizabella’s words, she spoke over them. “Well, whatever the case, I’m sure the cops are on their way to arrest me, and meanwhile Jamison gets away with the whole thing.”


“He’s not going to get away with it,” I promised. “We know it was him, and I’m sure the police will agree.” We’d solved the murder. Catching the bad guy should be the easy part, right?


Sariah sat up and shook her head bitterly.“Yeah, but he’s gone. He got away.”


“Not necessarily,” Octo-Cat piped up as he crossed the room to stand at my side. “Remember how cats are superior to humans in pretty much every way?”


I wanted to respond to that—if only to set the record straight, lest he later claim I had agreed with him—but we had a room full of people who didn’t know my secret. Instead of asking him to explain himself, I widened my eyes at him, willing him to explain.


Thankfully, he understood.“Yeah, yeah, you don’t want to talk in front of the others. Anyway, cats are awesome. Cats are the best, and this cat can find that killer who’s on the loose.”


“Yes!” Grizabella cried in delight. “Yes, we can sniff him out. Brilliant idea, my darling.”


Octo-Cat became stock still, turning only at his neck to stare at the Himalayan with bright, beseeching eyes.“Your darling?”


She nuzzled him and purred. Everything about her softened.“And my hero.”


Octo-Cat melted like a giant slab of butter.“Oh, Grizabella. I’m so glad you love me back! I will devote all my lives to you. At least all the ones I have left. I will never let you down. I—”


“Will you help avenge my mistress?” Grizabella asked pointedly.


“Oh, yeah, baby.”


The cat soap opera playing out before me would have been cute under any other circumstances, but right now, we had a bad guy to catch.


“Sariah, I have an idea,” I said, eager to get on with it.


“Sure, it was your idea,” Octo-Cat scoffed, then immediately went back to cuddling and licking his new girlfriend.


“What I told you before about watching Grizabella because I have a cat, too, that was true. But I didn’t tell you that my cat is also a highly trained stunt cat. We were, uh, on our way down to Georgia to do some work on an upcoming film before all this happened. Anyway, Octavius here is extremely well trained, and I think if we give him something of Jamison’s, he could use it to track the scent and find our guy.”


Sariah studied Octo-Cat as if trying to decide whether he was up to the task. In the end she frowned and said,“Great thought, but Jamison’s probably made it pretty far by now. What’s the point?”


“Probably. But, then again, do you know how fast a cat can run?”


“I’m not really familiar with—”


“Up to thirty miles per hour,” Melvin interjected, waving his phone to show us he’d found the answer in record time.


Sariah quirked an eyebrow and glanced at Octo-Cat again.“Okay, that’s pretty fast, but how are you sure your cat will even stay on his trail? And aren’t you a little worried about sending him out there on his own? It sounds like he’s really valuable if he’s a celebrity and all that.”


“Well…” I pretended to hesitate, seeing as Sariah seemed to need a few more moments to get on board with the idea. “Let’s just say I trust him, and I know he can do this for us.”


“I’ve seen him in action before,” Mom said from her perch on the bed. “And she’s right, that cat is pretty incredible.”


“Thank you, thank you,” Octo-Cat said, waving his paw at his subjects.


Grizabella cooed and cuddled closer to his side.


Dad asked what we all needed to know.“So do you have something of Jamison’s or not?”


Chapter Seventeen


Sariah took off the hooded sweatshirt she wore, revealing a beautiful fitted blouse beneath.“This is his,” she said, tossing the sweatshirt to me, then reaching her arms up to hug herself and replace the lost warmth.


“Thanks. I’ll get him started on the scent outside. Everyone else stay here. He doesn’t work as well with a crowd.”


“Why not?” Grizabella asked, intertwining her tail with Octo-Cat’s in what had to be the feline version of footsie. “I love an adoring audience.”


He lifted his head and sniffed the air for no obvious reason.“She says things like that sometimes so the other humans don’t figure out she can talk to us.”


“Octavius!” I called, moving toward the door and making a clicking noise. “Here kitty!”


He groaned as he trotted after me.“Enough with the kitty already. You know I don’t like that.”


Grizabella followed us outside into the dark tunnel. Luckily, the now illuminated train cars cast enough light to save me from having to use my remaining battery on the flashlight function.


I set Jamison’s sweatshirt on the ground. “Can you get anything from this?” I asked my cat.


He took a big whiff of the fabric, then sneezed.“Whoo, boy. It’s got that lady’s stench all over it. There is a thing as too much perfume, honey.”


“A lady can never make too many efforts with her presentation,” Grizabella purred. Leave it to a D-list Instagram celebrity to side with vanity.


I bit my lip and said a silent prayer for patience. The thing about working with cats was that it would always be on their timetable.


“Can you smell him, too? Or is she too overpowering?” If this didn’t work, I had no idea what else we could do, especially since Sariah seemed to believe that her brother would have no trouble evading the authorities.


“Yeah, I got him, too.” Octo-Cat yawned and stretched each of his four legs, one by one—showing off for his lady friend, no doubt. “Let’s do this!”


She appeared to swoon at his heroic catliness. Whoo, boy, indeed.


“Wait.” I crouched down, so that I was closer to his height. “I don’t have a way to track you. We didn’t bring your pet GPS and my phone is going to die any minute. It’s dangerous, and you’re going it alone. Can you promise me—?”


“He’s not going alone.” Grizabella stood, fierce determination swirling in her blue eyes. “I’m going, too.”


“My love, I couldn’t possibly ask this of you. As Angela said, it’s dangerous. I’ve already injured one toe bean in pursuit of this investigation. I could never risk your lovely toe beans like that.” Octo-Cat nuzzled Grizabella, but she stepped away before he could make contact.


“Rhonda was my human. I owe this to her.” The Himalayan took a deep breath and then took off in an impossibly fast run. The only time I’d ever seen Octo-Cat move anywhere near that fast was on the rare occasion when he had the zoomies—and we weren’t allowed to talk about that.


“What a woman!” he said, taking one glance back at me before sprinting after her.


“But I don’t know how I’ll find you!” I called into the lonely tunnel, but it was too late. Both cats had already disappeared from view.


Please, please, be safe.


I turned back toward the train and found Dad waiting in the doorway.


“I wanted to give you some privacy in case you needed it,” he said, stepping down to join me on the gravel. “Is everything okay?”


I looked back down the tunnel longingly.“Yeah. I just worry about the dangerous things he gets himself into sometimes.”


Dad laughed.“Believe me, I know how that goes. Both you and your mom are going to put me in an early grave.”


I shivered, not wanting to think about my dad or anyone else dying. I’d already seen more than enough to last a lifetime. Some occupational hazards were harder to accept than others.


“We’ll do anything to take care of our kids. That’s what being a parent is about.” Dad’s voice was soft, kind. “And before you say anything, yes. A pet parent is still a parent.”


Octo-Cat would hate hearing himself referred to as my child, but sometimes it really felt as if he were. I knew Mom and Nan would move mountains to protect me, too. I’d always been loved, protected, valued…


And suddenly I knew that Dad’s words referred to so much more than their surface meaning. “Nan and my real grandparents,” I stated simply.


Dad nodded.“Just because you’re not blood, that doesn’t mean she isn’t your real family,” he said, echoing my thoughts from earlier. “She gave up so much to keep your mom safe, even though she didn’t know why at the time.”


“We still don’t know why.” I wanted to know so badly for myself, for my mom, but more than anything, for Nan who had lived her whole life having no idea why this strange, scary, and even wonderful thing had happened to her.


Dad chuckled again.“Between you and your mom? You’ll figure it out in no time. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s to always bet on my girls.”


I wrapped my arms tight around him. Even though we’d never been very close, I’d never had to doubt his love for me.


“This whole trip has been a lot,” I told him once we released our embrace. “I just don’t know if I have the energy for two weeks meeting the family now.”


“Then we’ll go home. Just as soon as we can get off this danged train, anyway.” He glanced around, then chuckled again. The tension lessened with each sound of my dad’s laugh. It was one of my safe places. “Well, you know what I mean. As soon as we’re out of this tunnel and allowed to officially disembark.”


“Won’t they be mad, though? The family in Georgia?” As much as this entire situation wrung my heart out like a soapy dishrag, I was still excited to meet them, to see our family grow despite the unusual circumstances. Could I really risk ruining that?


Dad shook his head and smiled reassuringly.“We’ve waited this long to meet them. Heck, we didn’t even know they existed until a few weeks ago. It can wait—they can wait—until you’re rested and ready.”


“That’s good. Because I really need to get home and be with Nan,” I said, desperate to be reunited with my favorite person. Nan had raised me. She’d become my very best friend, and I just didn’t feel normal without knowing she was nearby.


“I know you do,” Dad said, and we hugged again. “I know you do.”


Chapter Eighteen


Just over half an hour later, the police arrived and swept through the train. They kicked us out of Rhonda’s room to secure the scene. While two officers investigated the body, another officer took Mom, Dad, me, Sariah, Dan, and Melvin to the viewing car to keep an eye on us while a detective questioned us one by one outside.


“I hadn’t met Rhonda before the train, no,” I assured the detective, but I could sense the suspicion lingering in her eyes.


She looked down and referenced her notebook. I had to wonder how well she could actually see in the dim light of the tunnel.


“Then why did you spend nearly two hours with her in the dining car?” she asked.


And I answered with a shrug.“Just being friendly.”


“Angela! Angela!” Octo-Cat bellowed in the distance.


“Did you hear that?” the detective asked me, tilting her head to listen.


“Angela! Angela!” he cried again. To the detective, his words probably sounded like a horrible caterwauling.


“Yes, I think it’s my cat,” I said, equally excited and afraid of what news he would bring.


“Strange noise for a cat to make,” the detective observed.


“Angela! Angela!” my cat cried again, growing closer and closer to where we stood. A few moments later his fuzzy body hurtled into mine, and he screamed again. “Angela! Angela!”


“Stand back, that animal could be dangerous!”


“He’s just my cat. See.” I scooped Octo-Cat up and cuddled him to my chest to show her he meant no harm.


He panted heavily, which he never did. The poor guy must have been running for a very long time—or be very, very stressed. I was hoping for the former.


“Can we get him some water?” I asked her as his panting continued unchecked.


“No… time,” he wheezed, then hacked, then tried to speak again. “Griz… abella. We… have to… go to her!”


The detective studied me carefully.“Ma’am, is everything okay?”


Ma’am? I was younger than she was. Okay, not important right now. I needed to figure out my next step, and I needed to do it in a way that didn’t raise suspicion.


Earlier that night I’d told Dan, Sariah, and Melvin that I was a celebrity pet trainer as an excuse for setting Octo-Cat on the trail. And now it was time to take on another false persona with the detective. I just hoped she would buy it.


I swallowed hard and then raised my eyes to meet her questioning gaze head on.“I know this may seem a bit unorthodox, but I’m a psychic, you see, and I believe the victim’s ghost is telling me where to find her killer.”


She placed a hand on her hip.“Her ghost?”


“Yes.” Sorry, Rhonda, but this is the best way to catch him. “Rhonda says he’s moved quite a way from the train. We’ll need a vehicle to get to him.”


“Yes, good!” Octo-Cat cheered. His words seemed to be coming more easily now. “I can take you… to her. To them.”


The detective tipped her chin and quirked an eyebrow.“So you need a police escort?” she asked slowly, either to mock me or to make sure she understood.


“I know it’s crazy, but—”


“Let’s go,” the detective said, surprising me with her sudden agreeableness. “Our department has been known to work with psychics from time to time, and right now you’re the best lead we’ve got. The cruiser’s about half a mile that way.” She pointed down the tunnel, then turned backto me. “Try anything funny, though, and I won’t hesitate to make an arrest.”


When I nodded my consent, she took off in the direction she’d pointed earlier. It was the opposite way from the path Octo-Cat had taken to return to us.


I followed, keeping Octo-Cat in my arms because I could tell he needed the rest. While I grew more tired, he regained some of his strength.


“We found him,” he explained as my feet scrambled for purchase on the uneven terrain. “And Grizabella was marvelous. She scratched him up real good. He threw her, and I think she may have gotten hurt. But she wouldn’t leave his side. She sent me back to get help while she continued to trackthe bad guy.”


Well how about that? Grizabella had proven to be the hero, after all.


I just hoped she was okay from the injury she sustained during her fight with Jamison. I hated not being able to comfort Octo-Cat while we were in the presence of the detective, but I had to believe he understood that I would do everything I could for both Grizabella and Rhonda.


At last we reached the end of the tunnel and broke out into the open sky. The sun had just begun to rise, infusing the clouds with celestial fire—beautiful and eerie at the same time. The cruiser sat facing the tunnel, and the detective and I both bolted for it.


I climbed in the back, just in case I was still a suspect. We’d already lost so much time, and I couldn’t cost us anymore until I knew that Grizabella was safe, and Jamison had been apprehended.


“You can sit up front, you know,” the detective said, studying me in the rear-view mirror. A smile crept across her face as she spoke. So maybe I wasn’t a suspect, after all.


“I can’t smell anything from in here,” Octo-Cat informed me from the footwell. Either the detective hadn’t noticed I’d brought him along or didn’t really mind.


“I’m fine back here,” I assured her, buckling in for what was sure to be a wild ride. “But could you please roll down the windows? My, uh, powers work better when I’m one with nature.”


She nodded and lowered both of the front windows.


“Ahh, that’s better. They’re this way.” Octo-Cat moved his body to the car’s left.


“Let’s start by going left,” I told the detective.


The engine roared to life, and we were off.


“How fast should I be going?” she asked, and I had no idea what to tell her.


Octo-Cat moved to the right of the footwell.“This way, but not too much this way.”


“Make a right, but not a full right,” I instructed, ignoring her earlier question, focusing on what I did know instead of what I didn’t.


She guided the cruiser in the direction I’d indicated.


“Too far. Too far!” Octo-Cat cried and moved back toward the left.


“Um, less right than that,” I said. “Bring it back to the center a little.”


Man, it was hard to give driving directions when there were no roads and I had no idea where we were actually going. Still, I trusted my cat, and I knew he’d get us there one way or another.


“Perfect,” he said after the detective had finished her course correction. He hopped onto the bench seat beside me and then climbed onto my lap. “Now straight on to my Grizabella.”


Chapter Nineteen


We drove for a good twenty minutes before I finally spotted movement on the horizon.


Octo-Cat noticed her at the exact same time as me. He screeched and dug his claws into my lap.“She’s there! My beautiful Grizabella! We’ve found her!”


Sure enough, the Himalayan trotted across the landscape ahead. Her beautiful fur appeared almost ghastly in the soft morning light and her once perfect gait now fell unevenly, but she was alive and still moving forward. I had to admire her determination to see this through.


Even though she’d seemed more than a bit spoiled when I first met her, she was a good cat. A really good cat.


“Suspect sighted.” The detective jolted her cruiser forward even faster than before, then veered to a stop.


“Tell Rhonda’s ghost she did a good job,” she told me before racing outside to chase the man hobbling down the hill.


Octo-Cat sprinted through the open door after her, but rather than following the detective, he turned back the way we’d come. “My darling! My darling!” he cried.


As much as I wanted to help, I stayed put in the back of that cop car and sent a quick text to my parents in a group chat: We found Jamison. Detective is apprehending him right now. All is good.


And with that, my battery finally gave out, rendering my phone useless.


Less than five minutes later, the detective returned, dragging a handcuffed man along with her.“Get to the front, psychic,” she barked at me.


As soon as I got out, she shoved Jamison in. For a moment, my eyes met his and I was surprised to see that they weren’t cold or calculating. Instead, they appeared soft, kind, not so unlike my father’s. A smattering of freckles on his cheeks and nose gave him a boyish appearance. Bloody scratches covered his arms, and his shirt had even been slashed through, thanks, no doubt, to Grizabella’s attack.


This guy didn’t look like a killer at all, and yet I had no doubt he’d done the deed.


“Meet me outside the tunnel,” the detective murmured into her radio as she brought the police cruiser back to life.


“Wait!” I shouted, panic rising in my chest. “My cat!”


“I’m bringing the witness back, then taking the suspect in,” the detective continued on, ignoring me completely.


The cruiser hadn’t picked up much speed yet, so I swung open the door, unbuckled my seatbelt, and prepared to jump. Seeing what I was up to, she hit the brakes hard, jerking me clear out of the car.


I fell to the cold ground, landing on my back in such a way that all the air whooshed out of my lungs. Ouch.


Despite the nagging pain, there was no time to waste. I was okay, and I had to make sure the cats were, too. I sat up in a hurry, wincing from the pain of making such a sudden movement.


“Oh, Angela,” Octo-Cat said with a light-hearted chuckle as he and Grizabella approached from nearby. Despite her limp and obvious fatigue, they fell into perfect step beside each other. “I may be a stunt cat, but you are definitely not a stunt human.”


I couldn’t tell whether he was just giving me a hard time or if he actually believed the lie I’d said about him earlier. Knowing him, I’m sure he believed every word of it.


“You were very brave,” the Himalayan told me with an approving nod.


“But not as brave as you, darling,” Octo-Cat cooed in that special lovestruck voice he reserved expressly for his new girlfriend. “You were marvelous. Miraculous, even.”


She giggled, and I pushed myself back to my feet with more difficulty than I would have liked. Ouchie ouch ouch.“C’mon, guys. Let’s get back to our ride.”


I let myself back in through the passenger side and both cats leaped up to join me.


The detective did not look happy.“That stays between us,” she said in a low growl. “I’m already going to get a hard time for consulting a psychic on this case. The last thing I need is for the guys at the station to hear about you hurling yourself from the car before we even hit ten miles per hour.”


“But you said—”


“I know what I said. Turns out you’re not the only one who can bend the truth a little to get the job done.” She glanced at Octo-Cat, then back toward me and winked.


My jaw hit my chest. Not really, but whoa.


What? How could she possibly…?


No, it didn’t matter. Even though I had no idea how she’d figured it out, I knew my secret would be safe with the detective.


By the time we made it back to the tunnel—and thus the train—the sun hung high in the sky and the day was alive with energy. The detective’s partner waited with Mom and Dad outside the tunnel.


When they saw me get out of the cop car, they ran forward. Mom hugged me from the left, and Dad hugged me from the right.


“Why are you all dirty?” Mom swatted at my pants, trying to brush the mud and dirt away. I glanced down and saw just how messy I’d gotten as a result of my fall from the cruiser.


Oh, well. Clothes could be cleaned or, if needed, replaced. What we’d all just been through together was worth so much more.


“It’s a long story,” I hedged. “What time is it, anyway?” I asked, suddenly feeling the weight of fatigue washing over me. I’d only gotten a few hours of sleep sitting in the viewing car before this latest murder mystery had consumed the rest of the night and early morning hours.


“Why don’t you check your phone?” Dad asked with a smirk.


“I can’t because it—” I stopped and laughed sarcastically when I realized his joke. My parents were never going to let me live my low phone battery down.


“It’s about seven thirty,” Mom said, stifling a yawn of her own. “Dad told me you were thinking about heading home instead of finishing our trip down to Larkhaven.”


Guilt washed over me. Mom had really been looking forward to this trip, and now I’d ruined it for her. No, this was important. I could summon strength and mental fortitude from somewhere. “Yeah, but we don’t have to if—”


Mom shook her head and smiled.“I think it’s a great idea. I’ll call the family in a couple of hours and let them know. Hopefully, by then the techs will have us moving again. We heard they were bringing in a new engine to take us back to the nearest station.”


I met my mom’s smile with one of my own. “Smart. Even if they continue, I bet nobody’s going to want to keep traveling aboard that murder train. At least I wouldn’t want to.”


We stood together, watching the police work, saving up our energy for the half-mile walk back through the tunnel. I watched as Octo-Cat tended to his girlfriend’s wounds in a nearby patch of grass.


Sure, their love story was still on its first chapter, but already he was a changed cat. My heart ached, knowing that we may never get the chance to see her again, to even know where she’d ended up.


“You’re worried about her. Aren’t you?” Dad asked, motioning toward the Himalayan with his chin.


“She loved Rhonda, and now she has no idea what’s going to happen to her next.” An idea struck me, allowing a brief burst of hope to fill me up. “Do you think Sariah will take her?”


“I think Sariah will go to prison as an accessory to murder,” Mom said with a sigh. “Or at least for tampering with the train. Such a shame.”


“Then what about Grizabella?” I asked, trying not to cry before we knew for sure what would happen. She’d literally lost everything when Rhonda died, and like Octo-Cat, she was accustomed to having only the best things in life. Would a new owner know how to care for her properly?


“I don’t know, sweetie,” Mom said, kissing the side of my head. “We can only hope for the best.”


She was right. Grizabella’s fate was out of our hands for now, but I would definitely be following up with the police every single day until they could tell me what had happened to her.


I owed it to Octo-Cat. I owed it to Grizabella, and I owed it to that sweet lady on the train who had only wanted a friend to keep her company for a couple hours.


Chapter Twenty


Three weeks later


After a quiet Thanksgiving at home, life returned to its usual insanity. Nan crafted a custom advent calendar, which guided us through a series of over-the-top holiday festivities. A simple trip to get the pets’ photos taken with Santa Claus had somehow managed to turn into a fresh murder investigation, and it was honestly even crazier than the one we’d looked into on the train.


Despite that little hiccough, Nan kept Octo-Cat, Paisley, and me busy practically every second of every day, and for that, I was incredibly appreciative. She was my nan, my favorite person in the whole wide world, and whatever the circumstances that had brought us together, I would always be grateful to have her in my life.


Yes, my little corner of the world had grown by leaps and bounds, but Nan would always be my original number one. That was one thing I knew could never change.


“Quick, quick!” Octo-Cat, a close number two, cried as he scratched at the door to my personal library, begging to be let in. “We won’t have much time before she makes us celebrate again.”


I laughed when he shuddered at the word celebrate as if it were the filthiest curse word he could possibly imagine.


Once inside the library, I booted up my laptop and logged into my Instagram account. Octo-Cat had begged for his own account, but as his parent and someone who wanted to protect our secret, I had insisted he use mine instead.


“My love!” he cried when a brand-new photo of Grizabella popped into our feed. She wore a Santa hat and an enormous scowl on her flat feline face. Peak cat.


Octo-Cat purred and rubbed his side against my computer screen, which is precisely the reason we no longer used his iPad to access Instagram. He couldn’t help but snuggle her image, but always threw a fit when doing so accidentally booted him from the app.


I clicked heart on the photo and sat back in my seat. I knew this could take a while based on past experience.“Well, what would you like us to comment on this one?” I pressed when he did little more than purr and rub up against the screen for a solid five minutes.


“Tell her she’s beautiful and I love her and miss her and cannot wait until fate brings us together again,” he gushed, pausing briefly to actually look at the photo before he resumed all the rubbing.


I groaned at the melodrama but complied—very thankful I’d made my profile private. I was also thankful that I knew for a fact Grizabella’s new owner read all the comments to her. Otherwise I would never agree to be these two lovebirds’ go-between.


Still, no matter how embarrassing this all was for me, I loved how happy it made them both to keep up their long-distance relationship. Sometimes they even video-chatted and took naps together. It was super sweet, actually.


As for that new owner?


She was a friend of Rhonda’s from the show cat circle. Christine. And even though they hadn’t been close outside of the competitions, they’d always made sure to grab a meal together whenever they wound up in the same town—and that was as good as any friend poor, lonely Rhonda ever had.


Christine was a good one, though. She loved cats every bit as much as Rhonda had, which meant that Grizabella now had a host of new sisters, also award-winning show Himalayans.


Unfortunately, the injury Grizabella had sustained when Jamison threw her in their fight meant that her show days were over, but even though I knew she’d never admit it, I suspected Grizabella was happy to retire and live out the rest of her days as a well-loved pet and a very minor Instagram influencer.


I typed the comment: Octavius says,“She’s beautiful and he loves her and misses her and cannot wait until fate brings them together again.”


Christine and everyone else thought I was just being an overly dramatic pet owner with these comments, and I was happy to let them believe that. After all, I really did love my cat bunches.


Right after I pushed enter, the doorbell chimed to the tune of“Memories” from the Broadway show Cats. I hadn’t realized Grizabella was named for the play, but Nan made the connection immediately and made sure we mixed in plenty of Andrew Lloyd Weber scores to complement our constant string of Christmas carols.


“I’ll be right back,” I told the swoony tabby.


He didn’t even acknowledge me as I dismissed myself, such was the enormity of a new photo from his lady love—even though we got at least one of them every single day. Young love, adorable.


“Coming!” I called as I bounded down the stairs. The stained-glass windows that hung on either side of the entryway cast rainbow shapes against the hardwood floor but did not reveal the identity of the person waiting on the porch.


When I flung the door open, an unfamiliar young woman stood waiting with a suitcase at her side.


“Cousin!” she cried and reached out to hug me.


I awkwardly accepted her embrace, and upon pulling away, I realized that I did recognize her.


Mostly because her face was almost an exact replica of mine. We were also both tall and curvy. The most noticeable differences between us were the fact that her hair was so blonde it was almost white while mine took on more of a sandy brown hue. Also, I wore an awesome 80s inspired outfit while she sported a prim cardigan buttoned up to the neck and a flowing peasant skirt that reached down to her ankles. A giant gold filigree locket hung halfway down her chest, reminding me of Rhonda’s heirloom necklace.


She bit her lip as she studied me, then started to panic, her skin turning bright red as she did.“Oh, no. You are Angie, aren’t you? Oh my gosh. If you’re not, I’m so embarrassed right now.”


“I am Angie,” I said with a friendly smile. “I just didn’t realize anyone was coming.”


“My aunt told your nan and… Let me guess, she didn’t relay the message?”


“Sounds like your aunt and my nan have a lot in common,” I said with a laugh. “Please, please come in.”


I took her suitcase and set it by the stairs, then guided her to the kitchen in search of snacks. Snacks made everything better, especially Nan’s homemade baked goods.


My cousin accepted a bottle of Evian and twisted the cap off at once.“You must have gotten quite the shock. I’m sorry nobody told you I’d be coming for the rest of the year.”


This made me pause in my search.“The rest of the year?”


“Well, I mean it’s just a couple more weeks, right? Sixteen days total, actually, just like you were supposed to have for your trip to Larkhaven. I couldn’t wait to meet you, so Aunt Linda suggested I come to you instead. Only I flew instead of taking the train. I mean, who would want to takea train when there are so many faster ways to travel these days?” She giggled and made a funny face. If I hadn’t already decided I liked her, that would have definitely done the trick.


I laughed again as I handed my guest one of the chocolate chip banana muffins that Nan had baked just yesterday.“Well, I may not have known you were coming, but I’m really happy you’re here. This may be a teensy bit awkward, but… Um, what’s your name?”


“Oh, gosh! Sorry! Mags McAllister here,” she said, hugging me tight again and speaking around a mouth full of muffin. “Your long-lost cousin from Larkhaven, Georgia, and I can already tell that we’re going to get along just great!”


Warmth spread through me as I relaxed into her embrace.


I’d never had a sister, brother, or cousin with Mom being an only child—a fact I constantly bemoaned growing up. But now with Mags here, I sensed how important this new cousin would become to me.


And even though I didn’t quite know it yet, the next couple weeks would show just how important, indeed.


8.5. MEOWY CHRISTMAS MAYHEM


1


Hi, my name’s Angie Russo, and I can talk to animals. Yes, talk to themand understand when they talk back. Now before you write me off as some crazy person, let me tell you that I never asked for this special ability of mine.


In fact, it took me quite by shock… Um, literally.


That’s right. My strange power first surfaced when I got electrocuted by a crummy old coffee maker. It happened at the firm where I used to work as a paralegal, right in the middle of a will reading. And when I awoke from that zap, I found a striped cat sitting on my chest and making some pretty meanjokes at my expense.


As soon as I realized the voice was comingfrom him and he realized that I could understand what he said, that cat recruited me to help solve the murder of his late owner.


Well, we solved it all right, and then many more crimes after that. In fact, the two of us now have our own private investigation firm, which my mom and my nan have rather unfortunately dubbed Pet Whisperer P.I.


I don’t want anyone to know my secret, so we pretend it’s just a marketing gimmick. Still, we haven’t had any paying clients since opening, and the cheesy name could very well be the reason for it.


We’re not giving up, though.


Nobody’s hired us directly, but we still manage to stumble into fresh cases on a near monthly basis—from murder to embezzlement and everything in between, we find the bad guys of Blueberry Bay and make sure they don’t get away with their crimes.


And as nice as it would be to get paid for the services we provide, my cat’s trust fund covers all our expenses and then some, including the schmancy New England manor house we call home. The property belonged to Octo-Cat’s previous owner—yeah, the murdered one—and he wasn’t willing to give it up to live in my low-budget rental, so, well, here we are.


Octo-Cat’s full name is Octavius Maxwell Ricardoyada yada yada… Fulton Russo, Esquire. Seriously, the guy has like eight names, thus the shortened moniker. He has his own iPad, only drinks Evian, and is pretty much spoiled in every single way possible. Still, I love the guy and wouldn’t trade him for the world.


We also live with Nan, my eccentric grandmother who happens to be a former Broadway actress, one who refuses to put her glory days behind her. A few months ago, she adopted a sweet little tricolor Chihuahua from the local animal shelter and dubbed the tiny dear Paisley. We all had a rough go at first, but now Octo-Cat and Paisley are good friends—probably because it’s quite easy for him to boss around a dog that’s less than half his size.


Just further proof of his diva catittude.


Nan, for her part, certainly doesn’t help matters by playing right into his paw. For instance, last Christmas Octo-Cat and I put in a brief appearance at our extended family gathering, then headed home to watch old movies on TV until bedtime. This year, Nan has insisted we whip out the elaborate advent calendar she designed during her community wood-working class.


And there aren’t small gifts or chocolates waiting for us inside, either. That would be far too ordinary for my whacky grandmother.


As Nan explains it, each tiny door has a rolled-up paper scroll behind it, and each paper scroll has a whole“experience” outlined for the day. This means we are celebrating Christmas proper for twenty-five whole days, and I’m already exhausted just looking at the giant three-dimensional calendar—let alone thinking about what might be waiting for us inside…


[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]


My nan never turned down any excuse to live large, so naturally she had a special fondness for the holidays. This year, however, she’d taken her normal over-the-top nature to hilariously new heights.


And she’d dragged me right along with her.


“Now this is the life,” Octo-Cat said, stretching his paws contentedly before him as he watched me and Nan flutter around the living room, hanging decoration after decoration with no end in sight.


Paisley stayed right at Nan’s heels wherever she went, which was good because Nan had the grace not to trip over the tiny ball of wagging fur. If she’d been glued to me, I would have definitely injured the both of us by now.


“Isn’t there something we can have the cat do?” I asked my grandmother while she rummaged about in a giant storage container made of bright pink plastic. “He’s enjoying this way too much.”


“Oh, so now I’mthe cat?”The tabby rolled on his side and rubbed his head on the couch with apparent satisfaction.“You need to work on your insults, Angela. Oh, poor me. I’m God’s gift to the Earth. I’m sooo offended.” He let out a wicked chuckle, enjoying his role far too much.


“Please,” I begged Nan as I raised my hands in supplication. “I know you can’t understand him, but he needs to be put in his place.”


Nan pulled away from the garland she’d festooned with ribbons and tinsel, then shot me a mischievous grin. “Well, in that case, I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm to give him one of his gifts a bit early.”


“Gifts?” I cried. “No, don’t spoil him more than he already is.”


She just winked and climbed the stairs to her bedroom. When she returned, she carried a medium brown box with the telltale Amazon smile splattered across two of its sides.


“The box is part of the gift,” she explained, “but the main thing is what’s inside. I made it.” She opened the top flaps of the box and set it down beside Octo-Cat on the couch.


Of course, he shot me a quick smirk, then immediately jumped inside.“This box fits me perfect! How did you know, you old girl?” He purred as he padded whatever was inside in an effort to make himself even more comfortable, even more pampered.


“Hold on, you silly kitty!” Nan plucked him out of the box and put him back onto the couch cushion, then lifted a small red and green item from inside and held it up to show me. “What do you think, dear?”


I squealed, clapped, and then lifted my hands over my mouth—so enormous was my pleasure upon seeing the second part of my cat’s early Christmas present.


Nan wasted no time in pulling the handknit garment over Octo-Cat’s head and then pushed his front legs through. The gift was even better with him wearing it. Truly, it was the ugliest Christmas sweater I’d ever laid eyes on, and I was one hundred percent here for it.


Thick red and green stripes offset a neckline outfitted with at least a dozen little golden bells hanging from short yellow triangles of fabric. The body of the sweater also sported a knitted likeness of Octo-Cat wearing a Santa Hat and looking downright jolly.


The real live version of the cat in front of me looked nowhere near as happy. Half of his face was caught up in a grimace with one tiny tooth poking through. The other half was wide with horror, humiliation—really all the best holiday moods.


“Well, what does our guy think?” Nan asked, hugging the rankled tabby to her face and making squishy kissy sounds in his ear.


I wasted no time in making my reply, keeping my eyes on Octo-Cat the whole time.“He thinks this is wonderful. So wonderful that he’d love to have a special outfit to wear forevery season,” I said, not breaking eye contact but having a very hard time maintaining a straight face.


“That can most certainly be arranged.” Nan kissed Octo-Cat again and then set him back on the couch.


“I hate you,” he ground out before stepping back into the box and turning in several tight circles before he finally settled in a position, one that faced away from us both. Despite the crick in my neck from hanging dozens of decorations overhead, I ended that night feeling incredibly nice.


If every day on Nan’s advent calendar held as much joy as this one, it would certainly be a Christmas to remember…


2


Nan’s quirky calendar kept us very busy the entire first half of the month. On December second, we drove over to Glendale’s highest summit and went sledding… even though there wasn’t yet any snow to speak of. Definitely an adventure, especially considering we brought the pets along.


On the third, we went Christmas caroling downtown. The day after that, we literally roasted chestnuts on an open fire. I have a nasty new burn on my hand to prove how wellthat went.


But did that slow Nan down even one iota? Of course not.


We went on to handcraft Christmas cards to send to our extended family, the folks around town, and her many, many friends across the country and abroad. We also went to a different local church or synagogue every Sunday morning, cooked a truly astonishing number and variety of cookies, and made a very generous donation to the nearest food bank.


It had already been a holiday to remember, and we hadn’t even done the traditional family gathering and gift exchange yet. Lucky for us, Nan was long since retired and my new P.I. business still hadn’t earned its first client. That’s probably a big part of why all this seasonal merrymaking occupied so much of our days.


And if anything, she still seemed to be ramping up.


“Kill me,” Octo-Cat pleaded as I stuffed him into his handknit holiday sweater, then topped it off with the neon green pet harness he loathed.


“Oh, you’ll be fine,” I promised dismissively, even though I knew this one would take him a while to recover from.


“That’s a lie, and you know it!” After I set him back on the floor, he took a few shaky steps and then threw himself over in a dramatic huff. “I’d rather die than suffer the humiliation of this ensemble—and out in public, no less,” he moaned. “What if other cats see me?”


This was the first time I’d heard my tabby worry about what other cats might think of him, but I decided not to tease him since he was obviously already feeling so down. Besides, when the other cats learned that his best friend was a shivering five-pound Chihuahua, they’d have more than enough material to tease him straight through this life and into the next.


“The other cats won’t be paying any attention to you,” I said encouragingly. “They’ll probably be so embarrassed and agitated that they won’t notice anyone but themselves… and possibly the nearest exit.”


Octo-Cat let out a low, rumbling growl that sounded so disheartened, I almost called the whole thing off.


“Would it help if I wore something embarrassing, too?” I offered with a hopeful smile.


A pained expression crossed his face, causing me to wonder if cats really could die from embarrassment. I don’t think I’d ever be able to forgive myself if that happened, regardless of the fact he still had four lives left—per his own count.


He wagged his tail vigorously, then paused and took a deep breath before answering.“Marginally,” he said.


My smile grew quicker than the Grinch’s heart as I marched toward the closet and pulled out a white party dress patterned with tiny Santa Claus heads and a green scarf with a jingle bell print.


He watched me dress with that special disinterest only cats seem to possess, then flicked his tail a few times and said,“Honestly, now I’m embarrassed for you.”


“Good,” I answered with a wink. “That means Nan will love it then.”


Sure enough, when we headed downstairs, we found Nan and Paisley ready and waiting for us, wearing perfectly matched outfits. How she managed to find something that was equally unflattering to both her and her dog was a mystery to me. Let’s just say there was a lot of faux fur trim and shimmering tinsel and even mistletoe headbands.


My little lovable disasters. So sweet.


“See,” I leaned down and whispered to Octo-Cat. “You’re the most stylish one out of all of us.”


He scoffed.“Like that’s hard to do with this bunch.”


“Let me guess,” Nan said as she fiddled with the draping on my scarf. “A certain cat is complaining.Again.”


I shrugged.“Well, he’s nothing if not consistent.”


Even though Nan couldn’t understand the animals when they talked, she’d heard enough of my side of the conversation these past two weeks to know that a certain member of our eclectic little family was far less enthusiastic than the others.


“Look at me, Mommy!” Paisley the Chihuahua called, drawing my attention to her wagging tail and happy face. “Do I look pretty?”


Octo-Cat stalked over to her and said,“You look like something straight out of—”


“A holiday fashion magazine!” I finished for him. “So, so pretty, sweetie!”


Nan lifted Paisley in her arms, then grabbed her car keys from the hook by the door, glanced back over her shoulder, and cried,“Let’s do this thing.”


Of course, we’d been taking her little red sports coupe everywhere this month even though it was a bit cramped. She’d added antlers and giant googly eyes to turn the normally stylish vehicle into a giant likeness of Rudolph the red-everything’d reindeer.


It was about a half-hour drive to the pet supplies store in Dewdrop Springs, and by the time we arrived, the modest store was practically filled to bursting with locals from all over Blueberry Bay and their furry, feathery, or scaly counterparts.


We’d all shown up for one very important reason: to get our pets’ pictures taken with Santa Claus. Octo-Cat still didn’t know this part, and I preferred to keep it a secret from him as long as possible. That plan went out the window the very second we stepped through the door, however.


Officer Bouchard, our favorite local police officer with a secret soft spot for his two rescue cats, came rushing over to greet us.“Well, don’t you four look photo ready,” he exclaimed with a merry chuckle that could rival the man in red’s.


“Angela,” Octo-Cat drawled, turning around to face me and tangling himself in the tacky green harness in the process. “What does he meanphoto ready?”


“I, um—” I stopped myself. Sure, I could have pretended to be speaking with Nan or Officer Bouchard as I answered my cat’s question, but the mixed company provided the perfect excuse not to engage with my crabby tabby. Our friendly neighborhood cop didn’t know my secret—most people didn’t, as a matter of fact—and I intended to keep it that way as long as I possibly could.


“I don’t think I’ve ever met your cats before,” I said, nodding toward the carrying case he held in each hand. “Are these them?”


He beamed proudly and lifted the case on the left so Nan and I could see the sleek black cat inside.“This is Shadow,” he said before lowering the first case and raising the other. “And this is Ghost.”


The second cat was also all black but had gorgeous long fur and little white tips on his paws.“I don’t want to be here,” she said in an alluring feminine voice.


“Tell me about it,” Octo-Cat answered her with another drawn-out sigh.


“Now isn’t that cute?” the officer said, looking from one cat to the next. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think they were saying hello.”


“Ha, right!” I said perhaps a bit too enthusiastically, then thanked my lucky nativity star that hedidn’t know any better…


3


The door swung open behind us, almost knocking me off my feet. Well, that’s what we got for starting a conversation right next to the entrance of a busy establishment.


“Merry Christmas!” sang Mr. Gable—the owner of Glendale’s finest jewelry store who also served as the head of our downtown council—offering hugs all around. In his arms, he held a lop-eared rabbit with smoky gray fur. Its little nose twitched with curiosity as it tried to burrow deeper into its owner’s embrace.


“What a cutie!” Nan cooed, reaching a hand toward the small, scared animal, then changing her mind and drawing it back when she saw just how terrified the poor animal appeared. “What’s her name?” she asked instead.


“E.B.,” Mr. Gable revealed with a proud papa grin. He carefully extracted the small bundle of fur from his armpit and placed her hindlegs on his forearm, using his other arm to hug her to his chest. “Short for Easter Bunny. My sister bought this little girl for her grandkids’ Easter basket.Three days later, the kids got sick of her and their mother got tired of the mess, so E.B. ended up with me. We haven’t looked back since.”


“Well, she’s darling,” Nan said, shaking her head and letting out a slow tsking sound. “Even if she does have an unfortunate start to her story.”


“Please don’t eat me,” E.B. begged in a breathy voice, but I couldn’t tell to whom that particular plea was addressed. Perhaps all of us.


“Nan!” A redheaded blur launched herself at my grandmother and wrapped her in an enormous hug. It took me a second to recognize her since we’d only known each other briefly—and close to a year ago at that. It was the little Yorkie at her side that ultimately helped me remember.


“Mitch! Yo-Yo!” I cried, looking down just in time to see Octo-Cat get slobbered by the hyperactive dog. I laughed at the look of abject horror that crossed his face and shifted my focus back to the dog’s human companion. “How the heck are you guys?”


The smiling college student wrapped me in a tight hug next, yanking Yo-Yo away from Octo-Cat once she pulled away.


“It’s been much better now that I have my Yo-Yo with me.” She offered a brief, sad smile. Poor thing. Her parents had both been brutally murdered, and her traumatized Yorkie was the only witness to the crime. It hadn’t been easy, but Octo-Cat, Nan, and I had helped find the real culprit andclear the name of the falsely accused.


Ahh, memories.


“Charles is here, too,” Mitch said, her smile growing strong again. “He tells me you two are together now. That’s great!”


“Thanks,” I mumbled, heat rising to my cheeks. My crush back then had been painfully obvious to everyone—everyone but Charles himself.


She dropped her voice to a whisper and leaned in closer to reveal,“He also has the freakiest looking cats I’ve ever seen.”


We both laughed at the mention of my boyfriend’s two Sphynx cats, Jacque and Jillianne. They’d also been witnesses to a murder this past year, and they themselves had been framed for it. Luckily, they had a great home now with Charles Longfellow, III, the sole partner of Glendale’s only legal firm, my former boss, and most recently the love of my life.


“Man, it’s so nice to see you again,” I told Mitch and gave her another quick hug. I loved how the holidays brought people together.


“I wish I could say the same to you, Dum-Dum,” Octo-Cat said to the Yorkie after he and Paisley had finished their ritualistic butt-sniffing. “But I generally try to avoid lying.”


“Greetings, Octavius. It’s good to see you again. A very happy holiday to you,” Yo-Yo answered with a smooth, even voice, leaving me dumbfounded in the process.


Back when we’d worked with Yo-Yo, I hadn’t yet been able to understand any animals besides Octo-Cat, which meant he had to act as my translator. The way he’d translated for this Yorkie had made the dog seem like a simpleton of few words. Of course, I was more than a little surprised by how eloquent and well-spoken he actually sounded now that I could understand him, too.


I’d have to call Octo-Cat on that later when we weren’t around so many people who didn’t know my secret. The last thing I needed was to expose my freak ability in such a crowded place. It was already hard enough to focus with all the human and animal voices swirling around the small retail space.


Even now, more and more people squeezed into the pet shop, forcing our merry gang of people and pets to shuffle toward the aquarium section to make space for the new arrivals. Most people hadn’t dressed up for the occasion, although a majority of dogs did sport seasonal costumes or festive sweaters. Octo-Cat was the only feline to be subjected to clothing, which he pointed out multiple times during our wait for Santa.


This particular shop had been victim to a string of thefts a couple months back. They’d never caught the person behind it, but I was happy to see that business was good. Perhaps all the extra holiday sales would help make up for the loss of income earlier in the year. At least… provided Santa ever showed up.


I pulled my phone from my purse and glanced at the digital clock.12:20.


“Shouldn’t we have started already?” I asked Nan, recalling mention of a noon start time but not being entirely sure.


“Yes, I was late as a matter of fact,” Mr. Gable said, showing off a gorgeous diamond-studded watch.


“Maybe Santa is home with a tummy ache after feasting on one too many Christmas cookies,” Nan quipped.


Officer Bouchard was the only one to laugh at her joke. No wonder she had a bit of a crush on him, despite their vast age difference.


“I’m going to go find Charles,” I said as I tightened Octo-Cat’s leash in my hand and scanned the store for any signs of my boyfriend and his two hairless cats. Normally, they’d stick out like sore thumbs, but the crowd made it difficult to see more than a few feet ahead at a time.


Of course, several other acquaintances stopped me for a quick hello, including Pearl from the animal shelter and Harmony from the new day spa that had just opened in town earlier that fall. It took a while, but at last I found Charles standing near an impressive wall of bird cages with an even more impressive variety of birds flittering about behind the bars. He stood beside an extra-large pet carrier that no doubt contained his inseparable duo of Sphynx cats.


Much to my surprise, he wore a sweater that matched Octo-Cat’s, bells and all. “Hey, you,” he said with a flirtatious grin. “Come here often?”


I couldn’t help but giggle as he wrapped me in his arms and gave me an enthusiastic kiss hello. Surprised that my long-suffering cat didn’t make a comment about how disgusting we humans were, I shot a worried glance his way.


He stood on his hind legs like an oversized meercat as his wide eyes watched a particularly plump parakeet hop along its perch. No wonder Charles had chosen this spot to wait with his cats.


“Any idea what the holdup is?” I asked, turning back to Charles.


“No idea. Maybe they’ve just had a better turnout than expected.”


Well, that didn’t make much sense. This was my first time coming myself, but from what I knew, the popular photo-taking event was packed every single year since the pet shop first started offering it. And since they only had a limited amount of time to get the many pets photographed with Santa, they should definitely want to start on time—or at least make some kind of announcement about the holdup.


A feeling of discomfort rose in my chest.


What if something was wrong?


I was just about to say something about this niggling new worry to Charles when an ear-piercing scream rose from the employees-only area in the back of the store.


We both took off running.


4


The screaming continued even after we pushed through the doors into the stockroom.


Several other patrons ran toward the back room as well but hesitated outside the door. It seemed they preferred that Charles and I handle the potentially dangerous situation ourselves.


Good thing we made a heck of a team.


In the poorly lit space, we found a young curly-haired girl wearing the shop’s uniform of a green polo and khakis standing rooted to the spot while tears streaked down her reddened cheeks. Seeing us, she stopped screaming and began to sob and shake violently.


When I was finally able to tear my eyes away from her, I saw exactly what had made her so terrified. There, sprawled across the floor, lay a fat figure dressed entirely in red, save for the white trim on his sleeves and the cuffs of his pants.


It seemed we had located our missing Santa Claus.


“Poor schmuck,” my cat said, wrinkling his nose as he approached the holiday icon.


“I-I-I didn’t…” the girl sputtered, hardly speaking above a whisper now. Poor thing was probably a high school kid who worked here on the weekends. Not that anyone was ever truly prepared to stumble upon a dead body, but being younger could turn the unfortunate experience into a formative one for the unwitting witness.


“It’s okay,” I said, crossing the small distance to wrap her in my arms. She accepted my hug eagerly and continued crying into my scarf. At least she wasn’t screaming anymore.


Charles bent down and pressed his fingers to Santa’s neck. His mouth became a grim line while he waited, while we all waited.


“Dead,” he confirmed a moment later.


“Hands off my crime scene, please,” Officer Bouchard commanded with a hint of agitation as he joined us in the back room. “In fact, go lock up and keep anyone from leaving. Also find someone to keep an eye on my cats.”


I turned to leave with Charles and the store employee, but the police officer stopped me by placing a strong hand on my shoulder.“Looks like you’re my partner in this.”


“What?” I asked in disbelief. Sure, Officer Bouchard and I had connected on a couple of cases in the past, but generally I was either the witness or the victim—never a partner.


“I already alerted the local police, but it seems they’re tied up with a five-car pileup on the highway. They’ve got all their officers on it and asked if I could handle whatever it is we’ve got here while they finish up there.”


I continued to stare at him with equal parts excitement and anxiety.


He cleared his throat.“You are a P.I., aren’t you?”


Technically… yes, I was.


But no one had ever actually hired me as such. Of course, this small fact hadn’t stopped me and Octo-Cat from solving multiple crimes, including more than our fair share of small-town murders.


“C’mon,” the tabby urged. “We haven’t had a mystery to solve in a few weeks, and we need practice to stay on our game. Besides, it’s better than waiting in that circus out front.”


This wasn’t a game to me, even if it was to my cat. Sometimes I felt like he was a little devil sitting on my shoulder; other times he was more like an angel. Even if his reasoning wasn’t the best right now, he had reached the necessary conclusion. Officer Bouchard needed us, which meant the victim needed us.


“Yes, I am a P.I. And I’d be happy to help,” I answered at last.


He nodded but didn’t even attempt a smile.


“Who is this guy?” I asked, jumping straight to business. “Besides Santa, I mean.”


“Let’s see.” He stooped down and dipped his hands into the deceased’s pockets. “Hmm. Doesn’t seem to have any ID on him. We’ll need to get the store manager back here to answer some questions. She hired him, so hopefully she knows enough about him to get us on the right track.”


I bit my lip and watched as Officer Bouchard did another quick search of Santa’s pants and suit jacket. “Is it possible he died of natural causes, like a heart attack?”


“It’s possible, I suppose, but somehow I don’t think so. Look at how red his neck is.” He pointed with two fingers, then lifted the fake white beard up. He had to yank it harder than seemed strictly necessary and even grunted a little before the fake beard finally came away, revealing the telltale signs of a strangulation.


“Actually, I take that back,” the policeman said. “We’ll confirm with an autopsy, but I’m pretty certain this poor guy died of asphyxiation.”


It took a few moments for me to tear my eyes away. I’d never actually seen a dead body up close before. All the murder investigations I’d become involved with in the past had happened after the body had been taken away and the crime scene cleared.


“Ask your Nan if she can find the store manager while I secure the area,” Officer Bouchard instructed without looking up to make sure I was paying attention.


I did as I was told, and Nan eagerly agreed to help in whatever way she could. It took less than five minutes to debrief my grandmother and get her on board, and most of that time was spent fighting my way through the surge of nervous pet shop patrons. When I returned to the crime scene, I saw a very different picture than when I’d left.


Octo-Cat sat close to the victim, watching thoughtfully as the policeman continued his inspection. He almost appeared sad, and that didn’t fit his tough-as-tacks personality at all.


“What are you thinking?” I asked him, knowing Officer Bouchard would just assume I was addressing him rather than my cat.


Luckily, Octo-Cat knew who my words were meant for.“It smells fishy, but not the good kind of fishy,” he said in a nasally tone.


At the same time, Officer Bouchard murmured,“I’m wondering about the murder weapon. Look at that indentation.” He pointed again.


“Oh, the murder weapon’s easy,” Octo-Cat supplied. “I can smell it on him, and I can smell it…” His voice trailed off as he trotted deeper into the supply room and stopped near the back exit.


“There,” he said, sitting in front of a discarded dog leash with a smug look taking over his face.


I glanced back toward Officer Bouchard, but he was still entirely absorbed in his inspection of the corpse. Luckily, I still had my purse with me, and inside I had a small roll of plastic bags that Nan and I used whenever Paisley had to potty on one of our outings. I tore one off from the end, flipped it over my hand, and brought the presumed murder weapon back to the policeman.“Look at this. It was by the back door, and the markings seem to match up. The width, too.”


He turned toward me.“Got any more of those bags?”


I nodded and ripped a second one from the roll. Once his hand was covered, he took the leash and held it near the victim’s neck. Nodding, he bunched the leash into the bag and tied the top. “Well, that’s one way to avoid contaminating the evidence,” he said with a chuckle.


Nan and Paisley joined us then.


A heavyset woman with dark hair wearing the same green polo as the worker we’d met earlier came in right after them. Instead of khakis, she wore a floor-length skirt with diagonal red and white stripes, just like a candy cane. “I cannot believe this,” she murmured. “This is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year.”


“Murder is most definitely not wonderful,” Nan added while bobbing her head.


“I know this must be very upsetting for you,” Officer Bouchard said with a stoic expression that could only come with years of experience. “But we need you to identify the victim.”


“Yes, yes, of course,” she mumbled, widening her eyes as she took in the gruesome scene.


“Ma’am, can you confirm this is the man you hired to play the role of Santa Claus for your store today?” he asked, yanking down the beard to show the dead man’s entire face. Despite being dressed as an elderly Christmas icon, the victim was quite young. Early thirties at the most. I didn’t personally recognize him, but that didn’t make the situation much easier.


The store manager brought both hands to her mouth but didn’t say anything. It seemed she was fighting back tears. I couldn’t blame her for that.


“Ma’am?” Officer Bouchard prompted again. “Is this the man you hired?”


She sucked in a deep gasp of air and shook her head.“No, I’ve never seen him before in my life.”


5


“I’m sorry. What?” I asked the manager in complete disbelief.


“I don’t know who this is,” she said slowly, cautiously. “I hired Andy Crenshaw to be our Santa, and this definitely isn’t him.”


“Then who is it?” Nan asked.


“Why is he here dressed as Santa?” Officer Bouchard asked.


“And why is he dead?” I added to the rapid-fire barrage of questions.


She shook her head without stopping to look at any of us.“I have no idea. I can’t answer any of those questions for you. I’m sorry.”


We all stood quietly for a few minutes, completely at a loss as to where to take the investigation next. We had a body, a murder weapon, but no idea who our victim was or what motive someone might have to kill him or to do it at the pet shop.


It was the store manager who spoke next.“I need to go do some damage control,” she squeaked, heading back toward the front of the shop.


Octo-Cat nudged my stockinged leg with his paw to get my attention, then said,“The door. It’s where we found the murder weapon. Ask her about it before she gets away.”


“Wait,” I cried with a startling amount of passion in my plea. “This door back here. Is it accessible from outside?”


We all walked toward the rear door, and the manager pointed to a keypad on the wall.


“It’s alarmed,” she said. “We added that system in after the third theft this fall. Anyone who wants to get in or out needs to know the code.”


“Thank you,” I said, wondering why she seemed so upset by my innocent question.


“Are we done here?” the manager practically barked.


“We’ll let you know if we have any more questions,” Officer Bouchard said, motioning toward the door that led back to the front of house.


“Oh, but don’t let anyone out or in!” he called after her, offering me and Nan a dispirited shrug once the store manager was out of view.


“I guess I should be thankful it wasn’t grandma who got run over by a reindeer this time,” my grandmother said in a misguided attempt to lighten the mood.


I wanted to ask Octo-Cat if he smelled anything else worth noting on the victim’s body but couldn’t risk being discovered by Officer Bouchard. That meant we’d be solving this crime the good old-fashioned way. “Should we start questioning suspects?” I suggested.


“Oh, that’s a good idea, dear,” Nan said warmly.


The policeman stretched from side to side and then cracked his neck.“Yes, but there must be at least thirty people here, and almost everyone brought at least one pet with them. That’s a really full house.”


“And it will take a long time to question all of them, too,” I said with a sigh. “Hey, what if we get Charles to help? He’s great at examining witnesses in court, so why not at a pet shop? That way, each of us can take ten.”


Officer Bouchard nodded.“Sounds like the best option we’ve got at the moment. Let’s do it.”


“What about me?” Nan asked, then placed an affectionate kiss between Paisley’s giant triangle ears. I’d forgotten Paisley was with us, seeing as her holiday jumper blended in perfectly to Nan’s. She’d also kept strangely quiet since their arrival at the crime scene. Of course, this was all new to her. I hoped she wasn’t scarred by the discovery of the dead body in the same way the teen employee seemed to be.


“You help the manager and the other employee keep everyone in line. Make sure no one comes or goes, and also make sure everyone is brought back for questioning,” the officer instructed.


“You’ve got it.” Nan offered a quick salute, then marched away while chattering happily to the dog in her arms.


“Where are we going to set up to give us all some privacy?” I asked, eyeing the Christmas corpse wearily once more.


“Probably not back here,” he said with a frown. “We don’t want to march folks through our crime scene. I do believe the cat room offers some privacy.”


“Good call. And I think there’s a little free flight area for the birds, too.” I’d noticed the small plexiglass enclosure on the other side of the bird cages. Presumably it was a place where people could interact up close with the small parrots before deciding whether or not to take one home. “Now we just need one more place. An office maybe?”


He motioned toward a messy desk shoved in the corner of the stockroom.“An office? I’m pretty sure that’s it.”


“Ugh, okay.” I fiddled with a hangnail on my thumb, resisting the urge to bring it to my mouth. Whatever comfort the nervous habit brought would be far too gross given the circumstances. “Why don’t you and Charles go ahead and get set up in the bird and cat rooms, and I’ll find somewhere to do my interviews.”


He raised both eyebrows.“You sure?”


“Yeah. There’s gotta be some place that will work. I’ll be fine.”


“Okay,” he said with a hesitant smile. “If you’re sure. Let’s get this show on the road. I’ll go see if Mr. Gable would be willing to make sure no one comes into the back room and disturbs Santa here.”


“I’ll wait for you to come back, then I’ll go catch Charles up on the plan.”


He left, which meant I was alone with an unidentified dead body. Well, at least I still had Octo-Cat at my side.


“Why didn’t we take the bird room?” he asked in annoyance, his striped tail flicking spasmodically. “That would have been a nice thing to consider for your feline partner, you know.”


“Yes, and that’s exactly why we didn’t take it,” I whispered, just in case anyone was nearby and might overhear me carrying on a conversation with my cat. “I need you to focus, not to be distracted by birdwatching or gossipy cats.”


“Fair enough,” he said with a shrug. “Can you at least take this sweater off me now?”


I needed to give him at least this much or he’d give me the silent treatment, and that was never very conducive to solving mysteries. “Fine,” I said with a sigh. “But you’re keeping the harness.”


“Why?” he ground out, the beginnings of a tantrum coming on. “The exits are all blocked. Where exactly am I going to go?”


I groaned but ultimately agreed to let him go naked, save for his God-given fur coat.“There,” I said, once I’d finished undressing my expert manipulator of a kitty. “You’re free.”


“What was that?” Officer Bouchard asked, returning at that precise moment.


“There you are,” I said with a smile. “Was Mr. Gable free to help?”


“Of course, and he’s happy to,” he said. “He’s right outside.”


Pffhew. I’d managed to evade suspicion once more—not that talking to my cat was a crime, but sometimes it sure felt like it given the number of lies I needed to tell in order to avoid being discovered.


“Great. I’ll go get Charles,” I told him with what I hoped looked like an easy smile.


“I’ll go get my interrogation room ready,” he said, then we left the storage room together. While I continued straight ahead, Office Bouchard swerved toward the right, presumably to set up shop in his choice of the bird or the cat room.


I found Charles easily enough. He, Nan, and the two store workers stood together in a small huddle, blocking the exit from the rest of the crowd. But before I could weave my way through the foot traffic and join them there, someone from outside pounded on the door.


All I saw was red—not angry red, more like holly jolly red. The manager moved to the side and quickly unlocked the door to pull the newcomer inside.


“Don’t do that!” I shouted, but it was too late.


She spotted me racing toward them and waved me over to meet the new arrival, the one who shouldn’t have been let in at all.


“This is Andy Crenshaw,” she said, glaring first at him and then at me. “He’s the one whoshould have been here.”


Sure enough, Andy was dressed in a Santa costume of his own. His was of a far better quality than the dead man’s, though. Probably didn’t mean anything, but it was hard not to notice.


“Sorry I’m late,” he said, ignoring me, Nan, and the other store employee as he addressed the manager and only the manager. “I couldn’t find my beard to save my life this morning. Got it now, though.” He stroked the silky white hair on his chin, completely oblivious to what he’d just walked into.


“Oh, Andy. That missing beard probably saved your life,” the manager cried, and as soon as she did, her employee began to cry hysterically all over again.


6


The new Santa—the living one—let out a nervous laugh. “Oh, c’mon, Shirley,” he said with a shake of his head in the store manager’s direction. “Saved my life? That’s dramatic even for you.”


“We have an unidentified body in the back room,” I confirmed with a dead-serious expression on my face. “And he’s dressed as Santa Claus. Just like you.”


“What?” Santa number two squeaked. “She’s not serious.” He turned back toward the store manager—Shirley—with his jaw hanging open.


She nodded.“Unfortunately, she is.”


“Well, I’m outta here.” Santa turned back toward the door and pulled hard with both gloved hands. Luckily, it had been relocked immediately following his arrival.


“Now that you’re here, you can’t leave,” I told him, crossing my arms over my chest and hoping I looked at least somewhat authoritative. “Your name is Andy Crenshaw. Is that right?”


“Yes, and if some psycho is taking out Santa’s impersonators, then I need to get the heck out of Dodge,” he grumbled, but he wasn’t fooling me. Not with this act.


“Well, seeing as you’re already here,” I said with a shrug. “Come with me so I can ask you a few questions. Um, Shirley, do you have a private room where I can speak with Andy?”


“We have rooms for the cats and birds,” she explained with a nervous glance toward Andy. “Oh, and the storage room. But I’m afraid that’s it.”


I shook my head.“Those are all occupied at the moment. Are you sure you don’t have anywhere else?”


She thought for a second, then her face brightened.“The bathroom?” she suggested as if it was the solution to all the problems we faced today. In some ways, perhaps it was.


“That’ll have to do,” I said, charging toward the back of the store without giving it another thought. “C’mon, Andy.”


Shirley pushed him forward, then called after us.“It’s toward the back, just to the left of the storage room door.”


We found it easily enough. Thankfully, it was clean. Unfortunately, it was also rather small and offered no real seating other than the toilet itself.


“I hate human litter boxes,” Octo-Cat sneered. “They’re so unsanitary.”


“You can sit if you want,” I told Andy, ignoring the tabby’s side chatter.


He crossed his arms and leaned against the yellowing wall by the hand dryer.“Yeah, I’d rather not. In fact, I don’t really want to be here at all.”


I mirrored his body language and backed myself up to the closed door.“Sorry about that. If it were up to me, you wouldn’t have been let in at all.”


He let out a sarcastic huff, making his feelings about me excessively clear. Couldn’t he see that I was just trying to help? And if he had nothing to hide, then why was he acting like he might?


I stared at him, working hard to keep my expression neutral and open.“Okay, now tell me. If you were hired to play Santa today, why is someone else lying dead in the back dressed as Mr. Claus?”


Andy shook his head and set his gaze toward the tiled floor.“I still can’t believe any of this real. Do you think that the killer meant to come after me instead of… well, of whoever it is back there?”


“That’s a possibility.” I studied my fingernails, trying to appear disinterested in case he looked up again. “But then that begs a whole new host of questions, such as who would want you dead and why?”


He scoffed.“Jeez, you don’t beat around the bush, do you, lady?”


“Angie,” I introduced myself without a smile. “My name is Angie.”


“I’d say I’m pleased to meet you, but we both know that would be a lie, given our introduction comes with a body count.” He reached out his hand in greeting and I reluctantly accepted.


Andy’s eyes locked on mine and he squeezed my hand tight. “Can I please go now? Angie?”


“But you haven’t told me anything,” I argued.


“Because I don’t know anything,” he said, his jaw firm.


I narrowed my eyes and silently counted to five before continuing. If he had nothing to do with the murder, then why was he in such a hurry to get away from me? Away from here? I had plenty more I wanted to ask him, but it wouldn’t hurt to talk to some other people before taking a second crack at Andy Crenshaw.


I stepped to the side and motioned toward the door.“All right. You can go.”


“Thank you,” he enunciated as he pushed through the door.


“You can leave the bathroom,” I clarified, chasing after him. “But not the store. I may need to talk to you some more later.”


He shook his head, then walked away without another word.


Octo-Cat, who had observed the whole exchange in rare silence, hopped onto the back of the toilet tank, fixing his large amber eyes on me.“Well, that guy’s an idiot,” he said plainly.


“We’re not here to judge his intelligence,” I reminded him. “We’re here to try to find out if he did it or if he might know who did.”


“I doubt that guy can remember what he had for breakfast,” my mean kitty quipped, then laughed at his own joke.


“He didn’t seem suspicious to you?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.


“He did,” my cat confirmed, raising a paw to begin his mid-day ministrations. “But not because he did it. Because he’s too stupid to act cool under pressure.”


I nodded, even though I didn’t quite agree. “Can you think of anything I should have asked him?”


“Well…”Lick, lick, lick.Pause.“It’s hard to figure out whodunnit when you don’t even know who they done it to. If you were a pro like the guys onLaw& Order,you would figure out that first part before trying to solve the second.”


Yes, he was one hundred percent right. I scratched him under the chin to reward him.“You’re really smart sometimes. You know that?”


He flicked his tail and raised the hair on his scruff of his neck.“Please. I’m smart all the time. Also don’t touch me. I’m not in the mood.”


I was more than used to my cat’s wildly shifting attitudes, so I knew better than to be offended. At least he was helping me.


Now I just needed to hurry up and solve this murder before he grew bored with it…


7


Octo-Cat and I left the bathroom a few short minutes later and traced our way straight toward the bird room. But when we spied Charles inside with a willowy, middle-aged woman and her massive dapple dog, we carried on our way toward the cat room and waited outside until the door cracked open and a young couple slipped through with their giant blue-and-gold macaw.


As soon as they were out, I slid in and closed the door securely behind me.


Officer Bouchard sat on a metal folding chair jotting notes into a small spiralbound notebook.“Is it going any better for you than it is for me?”


“I doubt it,” I answered, keeping my voice quiet. “We still don’t even know who the dead guy is.”


He finished writing then slipped the notebook into his back pocket and sighed.“Yeah, that does complicate things.”


“What are you asking people about then?” I wondered aloud.


“I’m mostly trying to get a grip on who’s here and whether anyone seems unusually nervous or unusually calm about what happened.”


I nodded. His strategy made sense, but it wasn’t exactly easy to decode the behavior of people I didn’t even know outside of today’s situation. “Would you mind if I took a picture of the victim’s face and showed it around? See if we can get an ID on the guy?”


“Go for it. Let’s regroup after we’ve had the chance to speak to a few more people each. Oh, and before you head back, will you please send my next witness in?”


I had to wonder if the people at the pet store could really be considered witnesses, given that nobody had actually seen what happened—but I supposed it was nicer than calling them suspects. Though, in truth, they were that, too.


Exchanging a quick nod of acknowledgement, Octo-Cat and I breezed right by Mr. Gable, our impromptu crime scene guard, and returned to the closed-off storage room and the corpse that lay within.


“Poor sad sap,” Octo-Cat hissed as we strode up to the victim. His body lay on the floor undisturbed since our last visit.


“Are you okay?” I asked, realizing he had only seen a dead body once before—and that it had belonged to his late owner, a woman he had loved very much.


“Humans are gross.” He paced away from the body and plopped himself down beside my feet. “Even more so when they’re dead.”


I couldn’t argue with him there. “It creeps me out being back here. Let’s get the picture and go.”


Taking his silence as confirmation of this plan, I squatted down and hovered over the body. The elastic string on the beard had snapped, and the victim’s fake beard lay slightly askew across his face. Was that a result of Officer Bouchard’s roughness with it earlier?


Whatever the case, I pulled it down and snapped a quick closeup photo with my phone. Once I confirmed that his features didn’t appear too blurry or otherwise difficult to make out, I shoved my phone back into my purse and hightailed it out of there.


Octo-Cat stayed close at my heels, chatting incessantly as we journeyed back through the store.“Let’s see, let’s see. Who looks like a murderer here?”


We passed a woman holding a baby on her hip and lecturing twin toddlers who sat near her feet. One of the kids held a small plastic tank with a pair of teddy bear hamsters inside.


“A poor overburdened mom? Yeah, she looks like the type to snap,” my cat commented as we passed, and I was so, so thankful she couldn’t understand him.


I circled back toward the young family and held my phone up so that the mother could see it, but the kids couldn’t. “Do you recognize this man?” I asked with a frown.


She shook her head and rocked the baby seemingly even before it started to whimper.“Sorry, no.”


We spotted the couple with the large dapple dog next. Since Officer Bouchard had just finished questioning them, I decided to pass them by—at least for now.


“Dog people?” my cat quipped. “Guilty!”


I had to bite my tongue to keep from mentioning that he had recently become best friends with a Chihuahua. According to Octo-Cat’s infallible logic, his doggie buddy was too small to actually count as a dog, though.Typical.


We continued making our way down the long aisle and stopped at the next customer, a single man who appeared to be roughly my age. He had an all-white ferret draped loosely across his shoulder. It wore a harness but still didn’t seem entirely under control.


“This guy definitely could have done it,” Octo-Cat said dryly. “Why keep a ferret when you could have a cat? Dogs, I can almost understand. But a ferret?” He shuddered, staring up at me as if he expected me to immediately slap some cuffs on the witness simply for his choice of pet.


“Any chance you know this guy?” I asked ferret man, flashing my cell phone his way.


The animal on his shoulder crept down to sniff at the phone.“That’s Marcus,” the ferret told me, slithering back up to his owner’s shoulder just as quickly and as fluidly as he descended from his perch.


“Yeah, that’s Marcus Manetti,” the human man said after a few awkward moments passed. “We went to high school together. Still hang out sometimes, too.”


“Sometimes?” the ferret demanded with a thick accent. “Try every single week. I have to stay in my cage whenever he comes over.”


“Thanks for helping us put a name to the face,” I told the guy. “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions somewhere a little more private?”


“Yeah, sure, no problem.” He looked me up and down, his eyes lingering for a moment on my ample hips.Ick.


“Let’s get going then,” I said, feeling his eyes on me as I made my way toward my impromptu bathroom office and he followed.


“Wait here for a moment while I, uh, review my notes,” I mumbled, taking great satisfaction in the crestfallen expression that crossed his face right before I slammed the door in it.


“You want me to talk to the ferret while you talk to the creepy human. Am I right?” Octo-Cat asked drolly.


I nodded and gave him the thumbs up, so happy we were on the same page when it came to procedure. Now that that little bit was taken care of, it was time to commence questioning.


I flung the door open again and placed one hand on my hip. Since I’d already caught ferret guy ogling me, I wanted to make extra sure I appeared professional and authoritative while speaking with him.


“Okay,” I began. “Let’s get this…”


My voice fell away when I discovered that Octo-Cat and I were entirely alone. Our carefully placed—and only very temporarily abandoned—pair of witnesses had vanished.


8


I did a full circuit of the pet shop but couldn’t find the man and his ferret. Just as I was about to give up on him for the moment and question someone else, something pulled me back to the storage room.


More specifically my cat.“Yuck, ferret stench at nine o’clock,” he groused as we were passing by the doors that led into the back.


I immediately turned back and pushed through those doors. Sure enough, our missing witness and his ferret knelt shaking beside his murdered friend.


He jumped when I entered.“Why would anyone want to kill Marcus?” His voice cracked midway through the question.


I stared down my nose at him. Although he was clearly upset about seeing his friend in such a state, he’d also barged in uninvited and contaminated the crime scene. “That’s what we were hoping you could tell us.”


He glanced toward me, not bothering to hide his tears as he asked,“We? Us?”


“Officer Bouchard and me,” I clarified. Jeez, I needed to be more careful with my pronouns before they got me in trouble.


“Way to show appreciation for your real partner here,” my cat growled, then stalked right up to the man and unleashed a wicked hiss.


The ferret made a defensive noise somewhat resembling a hiss, but his owner remained unperturbed.


“What’s your name?” I asked him. “Any why did you come back here? How did you even get past our guard?”


His shoulders slumped.“I’m Scott. I just needed to see Marcus to be sure. I still can’t believe anyone would want to kill him.” Now a sad smile crossed Scott’s face. “And, um, by guard do you mean the old man who’s sitting outside the door, sleeping while cuddling a rabbit?”


Okay, that was embarrassing. I’d been in such distress over trying to find Scott and his ferret, I hadn’t even noticed that Mr. Gable had nodded off.


“Why are you surprised by Marcus’s death?” I asked.


“Hey, ferret, c’mere,” Octo-Cat commanded the little white rodent.


“The name’s Dmitri. Thanks,” the ferret responded. Finally I placed his accent as Eastern European. Where did all these animals get their accents from if they’d only ever lived in Maine?


Dmitri showed zero fear of the larger feline predator as he climbed down his owner’s leg and plopped onto the ground. His leash, however, prevented him from wandering too far.


“Step into my office,” my cat said, circling behind Scott and using the man’s baggy pants to serve as a makeshift screen, thus separating his conversation with Dmitri from the one I was about to have with the ferret’s owner.


Scott cleared his throat, but his voice still came out scratchy.“Murder is always surprising,” he answered matter-of-factly. “Don’t you think?”


Fair enough, but not exactly helpful.“Did he have any enemies? Anyone who would want to hurt him?” I asked next while the animals whispered to each other nearby.


Scott became rigid. His face set in a determined scowl.“Is Marcus the one on trial here?”


“No, but we need to know more about him and who might have wanted him dead,” I pointed out. “That is, unless you don’t want us to be able to catch the killer.”


“Of course I want you to catch the killer. I just have no idea who it could be.” And just like that, all the newfound bluster drained away and Scott sat limp and sad once more. “Nobody had a problem with Marcus,” he continued. “I mean, he didn’t really know that many people. He mostly stayed at home, seeing as he was between jobs.”


This was new information. So far, Scott was the only person who seemed to have any information at all—or at least the only one who was willing to share with some random woman and her cat.


“At home?” I asked gently, not wanting to scare him out of sharing. If he saw me as an ally, perhaps he would speak even more freely. “Did he live with you?”


He shook his head and tightened the ferret’s leash in his hand. “No, he and Dmitri don’t exactly get along, though he has crashed on my couch a few times.”


Hmm.“So he didn’t like Dmitri? Why not?”


“It wasn’t just Dmitri. He didn’t really like any animals as far as I knew,” Scott explained.


I raised an eyebrow.“Allergic?”


“Maybe. He never said anything, and I never really noticed. Well, other than the fact I had to keep Dmitri locked up whenever Marcus came for a visit.”


Regardless of his reasons for disliking animals, it seemed strange that Marcus would be creeping around the back of a pet shop during an event which brought out dozens of pets.


I tucked that observation away and moved on with my questions.“Okay, so you said he wasn’t living with you. Do you know who he was living with now?”


Scott shrugged.“I don’t know. He doesn’t really talk much about things like that. And come to think of it, he’s blown me off the last few times we were supposed to hang out.”


“So, as far as you know, he was homeless and unemployed?” My soft tone and gentle features did nothing to lessen the impact of this statement.


“That’s offensive,” Scott shot back. “It’s not like he was some scourge on society, but yeah, I guess,technically, he was both of those things at the moment.”


“Thank you, Scott. This has all been really helpful. Are we done here?” I asked, projecting my voice to make sure Octo-Cat would hear the question.


“I sure hope so,” Scott answered with a frown. “It’s bad enough that he’s dead. I really don’t like standing over his corpse and saying awful things about him, too.”


All things that are true, though, I thought but had the good sense not to say.


“Not quite ready yet,” my cat called back. “Can you buy me like five minutes, please?”


“Actually, I have another question,” I told my witness before he could slink away. “Um, why would Marcus have shown up here dressed as Santa?”


“No idea. Maybe it was a last-minute gig or something. I mean, he regularly surfed the gigs section on Craigslist to make quick cash doing whatever someone needed. And a few times a month, he’d hang out at the hardware store looking for day labor or whatnot.”


“But he hates animals,” I countered.


“He probably hated starving even worse, I bet,” Scott said with a sigh. Despite his valid point, something still wasn’t adding up.


“Done,” Octo-Cat shouted.


“Thanks for your help,” I muttered. “We’ll let you know if we have any more questions.”


Scott scooped up his ferret and left after taking one last lingering look at his lost friend.


“Okay, what did you learn from Dmitri?” I asked Octo-Cat quietly.


“Who’s Dmitri?” he asked me with wide, unblinking eyes.


I would have laughed if I weren’t so irritated. “The ferret you just had like a ten-minute conversation with,” I reminded him.


“Oh, right. That guy. Yeah, he said that the stiff is basically a good-for-nothing layabout who hates animals but loves to cheat at video games when he thinks his friends aren’t paying attention.”


“Lovely,” I said with a sigh. “Sounds like a gem of a guy.”


Octo-Cat snorted.“Sounds to me like he’s not going to be missed.”


I thought about this for a second. The pieces had finally started clicking into place.“Maybe that’s what the killer was counting on,” I exclaimed, more than a little excited by the new theory that was forming in my mind. “I have an idea. Let’s go get the others.”


9


Officer Bouchard and Charles joined me in the storage room once the two of them had finished their most recent interviews. I’d interrupted both partway through to let them know I’d be waiting to speak with them as soon as they were available.


“Okay, what have you got?” Officer Bouchard asked, once the three of us were huddled together at the scene of the crime.


“I have a working theory, but I want to hear what you guys found first,” I said, then sucked in a deep breath and waited for them to share.


“We’ve only made it through a handful of witnesses at best,” my boyfriend said with a heavy sigh. “I’ve got nothing.”


Officer Bouchard nodded as he flicked through his notepad.“I’ve learned that the Santa who was supposed to be here was well known in the area. He’d been acting as Santa for this establishment ever since they first started doing Christmas pet pictures six years back. He usually serves as Santa at outdoor festivals and other seasonal events, too. Basically, if someone wants to hire a Santa, he’s it.”


“So that makes the appearance of a double all the more curious,” Charles said, then bit his lip in thought.


Curious, yes, but with each new fact I heard, my theory only gained strength. Add to that Andy Crenshaw’s behavior during our brief chat and I knew there was no way he could be innocent—or at least not completely.


Officer Bouchard studied the victim with a frown.“No one seems to know who he is or why he was here.”


“One of the customers identified him as Marcus Manetti, a local who was both out of a job and out of a home at the moment,” I revealed.


“Hmm,” Charles said, running a hand across the back of his neck. “Not someone I’ve ever met.”


Well, of course not. Not only did they live in different cities, but they ran in completely different circles.


“According to one of my witnesses, Marcus was desperate, would have done anything for cash.” I carefully watched both men, waiting to see if they might reach the same conclusion I had.


It was Charles’s eyes that sparked with understanding first. “He was desperate. And the pet store has suffered more than its fair share of thefts this year. He turns up dead right here. Seems like that might not be a coincidence.”


“Don’t tell me you’ve already figured this thing out?” Officer Bouchard said, raising his eyebrows in surprise.


I couldn’t have hidden the giant smile that creeped across my face even if I’d wanted to. If my suspicions were correct, then Octo-Cat and I had managed to solve this one in record time. “Actually, I think I might have,” I told my co-investigators. “But to catch our killer, we’re going to have to put on a little play.”


I caught them up on my conversations thus far and how I’d reached my theory.


“Sounds pretty logical to me,” Charles said, then gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “You’re so sexy when you’re smart.”


“So all the time?” I asked with a laugh.


“Ugh. Gag me,” Octo-Cat spat. “Just because you and UpChuck are an item doesn’t mean you have to flaunt it everywhere. Some of us have delicate dispositions. Also, how about you don’t steal my lines next time?”


I briefly remembered Octo-Cat’s and my conversation in the bathroom after we’d questioned Andy Crenshaw and how he’d likewise claimed to be smart all the time. Maybe he was rubbing off on me a little too much these days.


Deciding not to worry about it, I grabbed Charles by the shirt collar and pulled him in for a deeper kiss, much to my cat’s chagrin.


“All right, all right,” Officer Bouchard interrupted. “Break it up. We’ve got work to do.”


[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]


Less than ten minutes later, we found ourselves assembled in the storage room once more, now with one dead body, two store employees, and our two most likely suspects. One of them had killed Santa, and I felt pretty confident I knew whodunnit. If everything went according to plan, we could trick the killer into a confession that would clarify everything—and all before local police arrived on the scene.


Officer Bouchard led the charge. His uniform and badge lent an air of authority that neither Charles nor I could hope to replicate.“Thanks for joining us back here. We’re just about done with the primary stage of our investigation, and your cooperation will get us all out of lockdown and headed home just as quickly as possible.”


“I hope whoever did this goes away for a long, long time,” Shirley, the store manager, grumbled while smoothing unseen wrinkles from her skirt. As far as she knew, we’d asked her back to help corral the suspects. She hadn’t been too keen on leaving the store unattended during a lockdown, but Nan had agreed to keep an eye on things up front for as long as this took, which at least was enough to get her back here.


We’d also invited Andy, the man who was supposed to be playing Santa for the event, and Scott, the one who had correctly identified Santa. Rounding up our little group was a sixteen-year-old girl named Bella. She was the employee who had first discovered the dead body.


It had been much more difficult to convince the three of them to join us. Might a guilty conscience be at play? I was betting on it.


“This is Marcus Manetti,” Officer Bouchard said next, motioning toward the victim. “As far as we know, he was unemployed, hated animals, and had absolutely no reason to be in the store today.”


“Somebody, however, made sure he was,” I said shooting a sad smile toward poor Marcus. “This wasn’t a case of mistaken identity. The killer nabbed his intended victim.”


“But why would someone kill Marcus?” Scott, the ferret guy, asked with a sniff. Even though he’d already spent time with his fallen friend, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. It was almost as if he expected Marcus to cryGOTCHA and jump back to his feet.


“Whoever did it was really angry,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself and letting a shudder overtake my body. I wasn’t the best actress in the world, but my former Broadway starlet nan had made sure I was at least passable. “When we flipped him over, we found several knife wounds in hisback.”


“Knife wounds!” Bella cried just as we knew she would. “That’s it. I quit. I know you needed the help, Miss Shirley, but there is no way I’m working at a place where someone was stabbed to death, and during business hours, too.”


“Stabbings aren’t very common,” Charles said with an understanding nod. “I wouldn’t give up your job on the off chance that lightning could strike twice. Don’t you depend on the income for gas and trips to the mall and stuff?”


“Hardly.” Bella pulled the uniform shirt off over her head, leaving only a thin-strapped tank top beneath. “I’ve only worked here for a few weeks, anyway. And my life is worth way more than some spare change.”


“Only a few weeks?” I asked, tilting my head to the side as I repositioned myself to face Shirley. “Then who worked for you before that?”


“No one,” the manager complained with a grimace. “Apparently I can’t keep an employee to save my life.”


“Interesting choice of words,” Officer Bouchard noted. “Did you ever employ Marcus Manetti?”


She shook her head, but not with much vigor.“No, he dropped off an application several months back, but he had too many holes in his work history for me to even consider hiring him.”


“I thought you’d never seen him in your life,” Charles pointed out gently, taking a couple steps toward Shirley.


She stood her ground.“I hadn’t, but I recognize the name, now that you’ve said it,” Shirley answered, nonplussed. If she was guilty, then she was doing an amazing job of hiding it.


I took two steps forward as well.“So are you saying it wasn’t you who stabbed him in the back?”


Only now that Charles and I had formed a wall before her did she appear nervous.“Of course not! And if he was stabbed, where’s the blood?”


“Oh, good point,” Charles said. “There’s no blood, but he was definitely stabbed in the back.”


We all turned to stare at her, but Shirley held her ground even as Officer Bouchard moved toward the door to block the exit.


“Well, it wasn’t me,” she said coldly.


“No, it wasn’t you who did the deed,” Charles said without breaking his glare toward Shirley.


“But that doesn’t mean you’re not guilty,” Officer Bouchard finished.


And that was the end of act one.


In act two, we would catch a killer.


10


“I don’t have to take this,” Shirley cried, marching straight up to Officer Bouchard and pushing his chest.


He refused to budge from his place in front of the door.


“You’ve got the wrong person,” she hissed, fury building to a fever pitch. “It’s bad enough this happened in my store during a very public event, but to have you accuse me as well?”


I approached slowly and put a hand on Shirley’s shoulder. She spun around and faced me head-on. “We know you didn’t kill him, but we also know you wanted him dead.”


I was taking a risk with this proclamation, but given the store manager’s flaring temper, I was banking on the fact she wouldn’t be thinking logically—just as Bella’s fear kept her from thinking logically about our claim of stab wounds on the victim’s back. Sometimes it took a few well-placed lies to suss out the truth.


Shirley breathed heavily, her entire chest heaving as she regarded me coldly.


I matched my breathing to hers and waited. I would wait as long as it took.


“I wanted the thief who was stealing from my store punished,” she said at last. “I didn’t want anyone dead.”


And there it was.


Officer Bouchard removed the handcuffs from his belt but made no move to slap them on Shirley.“So you ordered the hit? Who carried it out?”


Panic mounted. I so badly wanted to turn and see how the others were reacting, but I had to count on Octo-Cat and Charles to keep eyes on them until we were done with Shirley.


“No, of course, I didn’t order a hit,” she insisted, her voice breaking. “Can you hear what you’re saying? I told you I’ve never seen that man before in my life, and I wasn’t lying about that.”


“Then how did you find out Marcus was the thief who’d been stealing from your store?” I asked, shaking my head.


“Why are you so convinced it was me?” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. Crimson droplets of blood fell to her candy cane skirt. A stress nosebleed. Gross.


“I didn’t do it,” she said in a husky growl.


“Can we stop with this now?” her employee Bella whined. “I just want to go home.”


“Me, too,” our hired Santa Andy said.


“Nobody’s going anywhere,” Charles snapped.


Only Scott remained silent. Well, and Marcus.


“You.”Shirley rounded her shoulders and snapped her attention toward Andy.“What is wrong with you? Are you honestly going to let me take the fall for your stupidity?”


“I didn’t do it. I wasn’t even here!” Andy exploded.


“Weren’t you, though?” I asked, crinkling my nose as I spun on my heels to face him.


“Ooh, goodie! Now we get to play with the moron. I’ve been waiting for this.” Octo-Cat unsheathed his claws and ran a gentle tongue over them. “Want me to take him out at the ankles?” my cat offered, and I motioned for him to hang tight.


Confusion crossed Andy’s face. It seemed he’d taken my wild motioning to be some sort of signal to Charles. Well, good.


“You all saw me come in after you’d already barricaded the doors,” he reminded us.


“Yes, that was a valiant attempt at an alibi,” Charles said with a chuckle. “But it doesn’t actually clear you at all.”


“I didn’t kill the guy,” Andy protested. His eyes zoomed toward the door where Shirley still stood near Officer Bouchard. “Why would I when you told me just to scare him a little bit?”


“Is that why you stabbed him?” I asked before he even realized he’d said too much.


“I didn’t stab him,” he mumbled. “I just strangled him a little bit.”


“So you admit it!” Shirley screamed and held both arms out to indicate Andy. “There you go, there’s your guy. Arrest him.”


“No, I didn’t kill him!” Andy shouted back. I had no doubts that the people at the front of the store could hear every word that passed between us now. We needed to hope that they didn’t storm Nan in a desperate attempt to get away from the murderous shouting match.


“Like I said,” Andy said with a clenched jaw. “I just strangled him a little. Not enough to kill him. The leash was around his neck for less than a minute while I whispered a warning in his ear. I scared him, just like I was paid to do. I did not kill him.”


“If I didn’t kill him, and you didn’t kill him…” Shirley’s voice trailed off as everyone turned toward Scott, the only remaining suspect.


Scott grabbed the ferret from his shoulder and cuddled the thin white creature as he spoke.“He may have been lazy and a cheat, but he was my friend.”


“One of you did it,” Officer Bouchard said sternly. “And so farall of you have freely admitted your motives. Well, all of you but one, that is.”


“Are you even kidding me with this right now?” Shirley growled. “Stop throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping it will stick, and stop holding my customers hostage. If you need to arrest Andy, just do it and let’s get on with our day. Whether or not he confesses to the murder, he admits tothe strangling.”


Officer Bouchard swung the handcuffs and traded places with Charles.“Actually, we’ll be making three arrests today. Yours included,” he informed Shirley.


“Who’s the third?” Scott asked, his voice shaking. “Because I didn’t—”


“I didn’t mean to kill him!” Bella cried out. “When I found him, he was already laying on the floor and gasping for air. I thought I could help by using my CPR training, but the beard got in the way and… and…” The teen broke apart in sobs.


And scene.I hadn’t known for sure that Bella played a part in Marcus’s death, but there was no mistaking the girl’s frantic confession for the truth.


“So Shirley wanted the person stealing from her store to be found and stopped,” I summarized, pacing the length of the room. “She hired Andy to put a little fear into him. Andy, in his own words,strangled him just a little bit,and Bella accidentally smothered him while trying to administer a life-saving procedure. What I still don’t understand is why he was even here and dressed as Santa Claus in the first place. Especially when Shirley hired Andy, not Marcus.”


“Bella…” Shirley whispered, but could hardly be heard over the girl’s sobbing.


Scott spoke up next, still stroking his ferret for comfort.“This all sounds pretty crazy to me. Marcus may have been a cheat, but he wasn’t a thief.”


“How did you determine that Marcus was the one stealing?” Officer Bouchard asked Andy.


He stifled a yawn as if the whole thing bored him.“The security footage, obviously.”


“But we never caught the guy on camera. In fact, it’s been busted for months, which was the whole reason why we had to install the alarm,” Shirley said, taking a step back and shaking her head in disbelief. “And, like I said, I never saw Marcus before today.”


“But you admitted to knowing it was him,” I said to Andy. “How?”


“I don’t have to answer your questions,” he said with a growl.


Shirley broke into a sprint, moving faster than I’d have thought possible as she fled toward the desk in the corner of the room, turned a key in the locked drawer, and pulled out a gun.


Rounding on us, she shouted,“No, but you have to answer mine!”


“Whoa, ma’am. Put down the gun,” Officer Bouchard said quietly, probably to avoid alerting the thirty-ish people outside of the storage room to the new danger that had arisen.


“Not until he tells me what happened,” she said, her unblinking eyes fixed on Andy. “My pet shop is not a killing ground.”


“You’re crazy.” Andy laughed. Octo-Cat was right; this guy was an idiot.


Shirley raised the gun higher. She only had eyes for Andy now.“Keep stalling, and you’ll find out just how crazy I am.”


“He owed me money, all right? Jeez. He owed me money. I asked him to pick up this gig for me as part of that repayment. He also agreed to take the fall for stealing from your store to lessen his debt. And I already told you that I only strangled him a little. I was supposed to get the money from you, the money from him, and move on. Nobody was supposed to die.”


“But somebody did die,” Charles said, drawing both Andy’s and Shirley’s gaze toward him. “And it sounds like there’s nobody to blame but you.”


Officer Bouchard used the distraction to restrain Andy and finally make use of the handcuffs he’d been flashing for much of this conversation, while I approached Shirley with both of my hands out in surrender.


“Can we put the gun away, please?” I said calmly, even though I was becoming more and more terrified by the moment. My plan had gone off without a hitch… until the gun. That had definitely not been a part of the plan.

ТЕЛЕГРАМ

Канал с обзорами, анонсами новинок и книжными подборками

Книжный Вестник

Бот для удобного поиска книг (если не нашлось на сайте)

Поиск книг

Свежие любовные романы в удобных форматах

Любовные романы

О психологии, саморазвитии и личностном росте

Саморазвитие

Детективы и триллеры, все новинки

Детективы

Фантастика и фэнтези, все новинки

Фантастика

Отборные классические книги

Классика
ВКОНТАКТЕ

Цитаты, афоризмы, стихи, книжные подборки, обсуждения и многое другое

Книжный Вестник
БИБЛИОТЕКИ

Библиотека с любовными романами, которая наверняка придётся по вкусу женской части аудитории

Любовные романы

Библиотека с фантастикой и фэнтези, а также смежных жанров

Фантастика

Самые популярные книги в формате фб2

Топ фб2 книги