“Or it could have been someone she knew.” Maddy finished the thought. “Maybe someone you know too, Becca. I’m just glad that you didn’t get there a few minutes earlier. They might have killed you too.”
Chapter 9
If Becca’s friend had meant to comfort her, she’d failed miserably. After she left, Becca was as agitated as, well, as a wet cat. Even when exhaustion drove her—and the cats—to bed, she tossed and turned to the point where the feline sisters had to abandon their usual post at their person’s feet.
“If she doesn’t settle down, I’m going to swat her.” Laurel watched from her perch atop the bureau as the morning sun crept around the bedroom blinds.“I bet she won’t even remember to feed us.”
“Really?”Harriet looked up in dismay as Becca yawned and roused. Weekends meant little to the felines—and little to Becca since she lost her job. But breakfast meant everything to Harriet. “She wouldn’t!”
“She’ll remember.” Clara jumped to the floor in her role as peacemaker, and began to weave around Becca’s ankles as she sought her slippers.“If not, you can sit on her, Harriet.”
“Huh.” Harriet turned away, insulted, but Laurel chortled in glee.
“Oh, no!” Becca ran over, catching Laurel around her caf? au lait torso. “Are you having a fur ball?”
Laurel’s laugh was, at best, disconcerting. But Becca’s misguided query did at least have the advantage of distracting Clara’s older sisters, and Laurel obligingly hacked up a nugget of felt, which she deposited on the floor at Becca’s feet. Furballs are the easiest summoning there is, which is why all cats do it, even when spring shedding doesn’t necessitate it.
“Disgusting…” Harriet sauntered into the kitchen, following Becca, who had gone for a paper towel. “But now that she’s here…”
Clara knew she should have interceded. Harriet had already been fed, hours before, when Becca had woken from a nightmare. They all had, but poor Becca was so distracted that when she saw Harriet sitting by her bowl, she succumbed—once she’d cleaned up Laurel’s mess. Clara didn’t know if her oldest sister had used any mind control tricks—that one was Laurel’s specialty. That pleading look in her round yellow eyes was probably all she needed.
One thing none of them had mastered, however, was that human device called the phone. Becca’s began buzzing almost as soon as the three had finished breakfast, long before what her ex-boyfriend would have called “a decent hour.” The first call was from Maddy, who sounded determined to try once again cheer up her friend. And while Becca had refused the other woman’s offer of brunch, hearing her old friend talking about something other than collusion seemed to do her good.
It was the other calls that began to weigh on her. Kathy had been her usual self—as bouncy as a rubber ball—when she called, acting for all the world as if the upcoming meeting were a treat. But Marcia had grown so teary that Becca had ended up putting aside her own complicated feelings to comfort her and ultimately found herself asking for Luz, Marcia’s roommate, to calm the distraught paralegal down.
Becca’s mother was next, and even from the other room, the cats could hear her insisting that Becca leave the city and “come home,” wherever that was. Of course, any mention of moving made the felines uneasy, and Laurel took it out on Clara, batting at her as she tried to nap. Larissa—Clara believed she could almost smell her perfume over the line—had gone on so long about some personal tangent that Becca had laid the phone down on the counter and begun to clean as she rattled on. After that, Becca had turned the device off to read, pulling her notes on that old history again, the one that named her great-great-something grandmother as part of some long-ago witch trial.
It was dinnertime when Becca peeked at her phone again, muttering in dismay.“Cousin Joan? Richie? Did Mom tell everyone?” She turned the device on then, and as it rang again, she paused—open can in hand—to answer it.
“Jeff!” she squeaked like a mouse, and dropped the phone.
“Becca, are you there?” Harriet sniffed at the device with disdain. Nothing good came from separating Harriet and her can. “You never called me back.” Even through the tiny speaker, the disembodied voice sounded hurt.
Becca reached for the device, only to be blocked by Harriet, who pressed her furry head into her person’s hand.
“Hang on.” Becca grabbed the phone and propped it on the counter before reaching for a dish. She’d been well trained—and not simply by her cats. “Sorry,” she called over to the phone. “I’ve just been—it’s been crazy.”
Clara could feel the fur begin to rise along her back as the tiny speaker emitted some small, beetle-ish response, and she readied for a leap to the counter. How Becca could even be talking to her ex was beyond the little calico. Sure, he was tall and had what the young woman had called a raffish smile, but if Clara could have knocked the phone all the way into the sink, she would have.
“Wait!” Harriet’s paw landed on her tail.“Not until she fills the dish.”
“But it’s Jeff.” Clara rounded on her.“He cheated on her and broke her heart. You remember!”
“Humans.” Laurel, washing her face, piped up from the corner.“They’re all like that. The males gallivant; the females accept it. Not like us.”
Clara could only stare, focusing her green eyes on her tawny sister. With her Siamese blood, Laurel affected a certain worldliness, but Clara knew that both Laurel and Harriet had to remember the bad times, after the faithless computer programmer had said his last goodbye and all Becca did was cry. There was no way they could be nonchalant about his reappearance. At least, not once Harriet got her dinner.
But Clara hadn’t counted on her sisters’ appetites. Once the dishes were placed on the mat, the two could not have cared less. And while their youngest sister hesitated—tempted like her siblings to bury her face in the savory pile—Becca picked up the phone again.
“Jeff.” At least the break had allowed her the opportunity to compose herself. “I’m so sorry.” She stopped there and bit her lip.
With a sigh, Clara turned from her dish and jumped to the counter. From here, she hoped to get a better handle on the situation, but all she heard from the other end of the line was a one-word query:“What?”
“About—” Becca swallowed. “About Suzanne.”
A spurt of sound followed, and went on for so long that the calico found herself looking longingly down at her bowl. If she didn’t get to her dinner quickly, Harriet would soon be scarfing it up.
“Don’t, Jeff.” Becca’s voice grabbed her attention back. “I know…and I’m sorry.” A pause as her brows knit. “You didn’t hear?”
Harriet was sitting back, demurely washing her face with those cream-colored mitts. Clara knew what was coming next and made her decision. As Becca delivered the news in halting tones—“I found her, Jeff,” she said. “She was, well, she was already gone”—the compact feline hit the floor and headed for her dish. Too late: a large, creamsicle-colored mass had moved into her path.
“Harriet!”Clara tried to push by. Yellow eyes blinked back at her over a well-rounded shoulder.“That’s mine.”
“I didn’t think you wanted it.” Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
“Well, I do.” Clara managed to shove past her, and nudged Laurel out of the way as well. The middle sibling had already managed a few bites, but Clara managed to wolf down the rest, ears turned back to hear Becca, who was now in the awkward position of having to comfort her ex.
“Don’t use those ears with me, little sister.” Harriet was waiting when Clara finally came up for air. Not to reprimand her, she knew, but to see if she had left anything over.“I won’t stand for it.”
“Fine.”Clara licked her chops clean.“I’m out of here.”