“Are you?” Bethany asked, her breathing hitched slightly as she awaited my response.
I scrunched up my face in confusion. “Am I what?”
“Psychic,” she supplied.
“What?” I chuckled nervously. No one besides Nan could ever know the truth about me and Octo-Cat. “No, of course not. Don’t be silly.”
Bethany laughed, too. “Just seeing if you still have your wits about you after that massive loss of oxygen to your brain.”
Mr. Fulton placed a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Bethany, could you give us a moment?”
“Sure. I’ll be waiting for you outside,” she answered, smiling at me one more time before leaving the room and clicking the door shut behind her.
Fulton grabbed a nearby chair and pulled it up beside my bed. “I think it goes without saying I’ll be resigning from the firm.”
I nodded, unsure of what he wanted from me now.
“I’ll actually be using it as an opportunity to retire, get to know my daughter, and enjoy life outside of work for a change.”
“That’s great,” I said, happy for him but finding it hard to maintain my enthusiasm. My brain felt heavy with the weight of all the new knowledge I’d acquired that day, and I needed my rest.
“I had no idea what Diane was up to all this time, but I’m so sorry you got hurt because of it.” He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a check book. “I know I can never make it fully right, but let me help you somehow. Do you think one-hundred thousand is enough to…? Well, to forgive me?”
I edged my hand toward his, but couldn’t quite reach. “You don’t need to pay me off. I forgive you.”
“Please let me do something. This money and more was going to go to Diane in the divorce, but now that she’ll probably be spending the rest of her life in prison, I suddenly have far more than I need.” He seemed so sad, so desperate to give me a small fortune in recompense. But he had never done anything wrong. Well, not for the past thirtyish years, at least.
“I don’t need anything,” I said, realizing as soon as I said the words that they weren’t entirely true.
Mr. Fulton must have caught onto my ambivalence, because he said, “I can see you do. How about one hundred and fifty? Two hundred? Please, just tell me what you need.”
For the briefest of moments, I allowed myself to envision what life would be like with that kind of money. I could stop working, put a sizable down payment on a house all my own, or even take a couple years off to travel the world.
I could do anything my little heart desired.
But, honestly, I liked my life, no matter how lackluster it may appear to an outsider. Sure, I wanted to be rich one day—who doesn’t?—but I also wanted to make my own fortune, my own way.
There was one thing, however, I now desperately wanted that only Mr. Fulton could provide.
“I do have a request, if you don’t mind,” I said after licking my cracked and dried lips.
He perked right up and poised his pen over the checkbook. “Anything. Name your price.”
“Would you mind if I keep the cat?” I asked, almost afraid to breathe until he gave me his answer.
He closed his checkbook and stared at me blankly. “The cat?” he asked to clarify.
“Yeah, Octavius Maxwell…” I broke off in a laugh. “You know, Ethel’s cat, the one I’ve been looking after this week.”
“The cat!” Recognition at last lighted in his eyes. “I forgot about him with everything else that’s been going on these past few days.”
I smiled and waited for his answer.
It came with a wink that I didn’t quite understand. “Of course you can have the cat. I’ll send over his things in a couple days when you’re settled back at home.”
My heart filled with joy over being able to keep an animal I had until very recently considered the bane of my existence, but now wouldn’t trade for the world—or for two-hundred thousand dollars.
“Thank you so much,” I called after Mr. Fulton’s departing figure, absolutely beside myself with delight.
I couldn’t wait to get home and tell Octo-Cat the good news.
Iwas given the next two weeks off work to recover from my ordeal and spent most of it curled up on the couch with Octo-Cat, catching up on all our favorite human TV shows. We even found a show about a cat trainer, which we both found hilarious. Every time the “expert” interpreted what the cat was feeling, Octo-Cat corrected him and we both broke out laughing.
A few days into my forced vacation time—yeah, they really had to twist my arm on this one—a parcel arrived by courier.
“What’s this?” I asked, after signing my name on the dotted line.
He shrugged and trotted away, leaving me alone with the mysterious letter. It was a very thick letter, at least twenty pages long.
“Whatcha got there?” Octo-Cat asked, coming to sit beside me at the table as I continued to puzzle over the manila envelope lying before me.
“I honestly have no idea,” I answered while fiddling with the clasp.
“Well, open up! I’m dying of curiosity here.”
I decided to let that one go since I was also quite curious myself.
After pulling out the bundle of pages, I quickly scanned the first, then flipped through, glazing over the headlines for each subsequent section of the legal document before me.
“Say, Octo-Cat,” I murmured, unable to tear my eyes away. “What’s your full name again?”
“Octavius Maxwell Ricardo Edmund Frederick Fulton Russo,” he said, each syllable rolling off his sandpaper tongue seamlessly.
“Aww,” I cooed. “You added my last name.”
“Well, of course I did. You’re my human,” he said with an endearing twitch of his whiskers.
“Um, for legal purposes, you’ll have to drop the Russo, though.”
“Why?”
I pushed the papers toward him, even though he couldn’t read very well yet.
“What’s that say?” His tail flicked in agitation.
“This is the paperwork for the trust fund Ethel set up for you. Now that you live with me, I’m your official guardian and thus guarantor of your estate.”
He yawned. “And that means?”
“Two things,” I told him with a huge smile on my face. “One, you’re legally mine now. And two, we will receive a stipend of five thousand dollars per month to contribute to your care and provide the lifestyle to which you are accustomed.”
Octo-Cat’s eyes grew wide.
“Finally!” he cried. “I knew Ethel would come through for me. Now let’s have a little talk about these living quarters…”
WHAT’S NEXT?
I’m finally coming to terms with the fact I can speak to animals, even though the only one who ever talks back is the crabby tabby I’ve taken to calling Octo-Cat. What I haven’t quite worked out is how to hide my secret…
Now one of the associates at my law firm has discovered this strange new talent of mine and insists I use it to help defend his client against a double murder charge. To make things worse, Octo-Cat has no intention of helping either of us.
Our only hope rests on a spastic Yorkie named Yo-Yo, who hasn’t quite figured out his owner is dead. Can we find a way to get Yo-Yo to help solve the murder without breaking his poor doggie heart?
Pre-order to save! TERRIER TRANSGRESSIONS is just 99 cents until it releases on May 1.
SNEAK PEEK OF TERRIER TRANSGRESSIONS
Hi, I’m Angie Russo, and I have a talking cat for a pet. Well, he only talks to me, but still. A few months have passed since he came to live with me following the murder of his owner—a sweet old lady who was poisoned by a member of her own family in a greedy inheritance grab.
Since then, Octo-Cat and I have been settling into our new life as roommates, and he’s nice to me more often than not just so long as I feed him his breakfast on time and never, ever call him “kitty.” He’s even learned how to use his iPad to call me on FaceTime so we can check in with each other while I’m at work.