It was for the same reason she hadn’t used her real name when getting a cab, just like Jeb had advised in his last text, before she boarded her plane at LAX. Tabloids had spies everywhere, and neither she nor Jeb needed some nasty pap suddenly sticking his nose in.
She walked up to the front door of the lodge and held up her hand to knock on the door. Even before it landed on the coarse wood, the door swung open, and she found herself staring at that familiar face.
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Jeb woke up with a groan. His head was pounding and his eyes were sore. He rubbed them then stretched. Instantly, he regretted not having stayed perfectly still. The room was spinning so fast he felt like he was on a merry-go-round and about to fall off. His poor suffering stomach lurched, anxious to regurgitate its contents and deposit it on the bed.
He opened his eyes to glare at the offending sun, which had had the gall to intrude upon his fitful sleep.
Sleep, or near-coma.
It had been another long night, and as he sat up in bed he brushed aside an empty bottle of Smirnoff. It fell to the faux sheepskin rug below with a dull clunking sound.
The ashtray was filled to overflowing with cigarette butts and roaches and his bong was still firmly lodged between his thighs.
He was dressed in only his boxers, his fifty-five-year-old body displaying so many tats it was as if a mad tattoo artist had been given free rein to fill up the canvas as he saw fit.
On the nightstand a mirror still held a line of coke, which he now snorted up eagerly, rubbed the remains into his gums and washed it down with a swig from a bottle of Bud.
It was only then that he noticed his hands were covered in some type of weird substance. He stared at it. A dark, reddish brown. Henna? He brought his index finger to his nose and sniffed. In spite of the coke wreaking havoc on his nasal cavities, he frowned when he got a hit of a coppery odor. He gave his finger a tentative lick. Huh. Tasted like blood.
Had he suffered a nosebleed last night? He picked up the mirror, blew off the remnants of white powder and held it up in front of him. Nope. No sign of a nosebleed.
He stared at himself. Once he’d been handsome—every teenage girl’s dream. Now he looked like a garden gone to seed. Wisps of dirty grayish hair covered the lower portion of his haggard face, and the eyes that stared back at him were heavy-lidded and tired.
He grinned at himself, and thought not for the first time that he should really pay a visit to the dentist.
As he got up, suddenly something fell to the floor.
He stared at it numbly.
It was one of those big butcher knives.
And it was bloodied.
Weird. Had he cut himself last night? But then why wasn’t he in any pain?
He quickly checked himself for holes in his corpus and found none.
Nope. Everything was still as it should be.
He then stumbled out of the bedroom and into the living quarters of the modest lodge he now called home.
And that’s when he saw it—or rather, her: lying spread-eagled on his living room rug was the body of a woman. And not just any woman. He instantly recognized her as the woman he’d once loved and had recently divorced in one of the nastiest divorces in Hollywood history.
What was worse, from the way Camilla’s lifeless eyes stared back at him, and the spots of dark crimson covering her torso, it was pretty obvious that she was dead.
And that’s when the pounding on the door began. And even before he could rouse himself from the sense of stupefaction that had descended upon him, the door slammed open and a fat cop burst through. The copper took one look at the dead body, then at a bedraggled Jeb, hands bloodied and eyes unfocused, andhis expression turned grim.
“Jeb Pott, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of your ex-wife.”
Chapter 1
I woke up from the sound of distinct mewling. Not so unusual, you might say, since I live in a house occupied by no less than four cats—though technically three of those cats live next door, even though they do spend an awful lot of time at Odelia’s. But this mewling was different than the usual sounds my three feline friends Dooley, Harriet and Brutus make. This was more like the mewling of… kittens. And since to my knowledge Odelia has not and hopefully will never take in kittens, this struck me as particularly odd.
Discounting the sound and ascribing it to a bad dream, I attempted to go back to sleep, turning over to my other side at the foot of Odelia’s bed, closing my eyes once more.
But the mewling persisted.
With a frown, I pricked up my ears.
No mistake. It definitely was mewling, and it seemed to come from downstairs.
With a sigh of extreme reluctance, for I love to sleep, I dragged my blorange self up from the soft, warm, comfy comforter, and dropped to the hardwood floor below.
My human wasn’t up yet, judging from the even breathing, only interrupted by an occasional snuffle, coming from the tousled head on the other end of the bed. And neither was my human’s significant other, police detective Chase Kingsley, who was sleeping in the buff, as usual, and had wrestled free from the comforter to display his chiseled torso while his equally chiseled face was frowning. It would appear that even when sleeping Chase was solving crimes and apprehending criminals. The lone warrior of the law never sleeps.
Nor do cats, actually. Not completely, anyway. There’s always a tiny part of our consciousness that stays wide awake, ready to pounce on prey, or thwart a natural enemy.
Or track strange mewling sounds where no strange mewling sounds should be.
As I plodded down the stairs, I was already figuring out ways and means.
It could be Odelia’s smartphone, which had adopted a new ringtone.
It could be Nickelodeon, launching into its daily programming.
Or it could me, hearing things that weren’t here. Though that was highly unlikely.
Behind me, Dooley sleepily muttered,“Wassup, Max. Why you up?”
“Go back to sleep, Dooley,” I said. “It’s probably nothing.”
I may not be one of those guard dogs humans like to keep, but I do possess a certain sense of responsibility, and like to think that in case of danger I’m ready to sound the alarm.
The noise seemed to come from the modest hallway, where Odelia keeps her small cabinet containing knickknacks, her key dish, and an assortment of cat toys locked up safe and sound inside. I know how to jiggle the door, so each time I want to lay my paw on some rubber duck or plastic mouse, it’s right there for me to find. Not that I’m all that interested in rubber ducks or plastic mice, mind you. I mean, how old do you think I am? Six months? I’m a grownup, and rubber ducks lost their strange and fascinating appeal a long time ago.
I trod up to the door and put my ear against it. On the other side of the plywood I detected the distinct sound of cats mewling. And not just any cats, either. Kittens. Perhaps the foulest creatures in existence, though that particular and dubious honor should probably go to puppies.
I frowned. What were a bunch of kittens doing on Odelia’s doorstep?
“What do you want?” I asked therefore, not making any effort to conceal my disapproval at what amounted to an early-morning raid.
But the mewling continued unabated.
“Oh, stop it, you whiny little pests,” I sternly declared. “Just go away and don’t come back. This house has plenty of felines and no use for more.” Especially—gasp!—kittens.
And then I stepped away from the door and fully intended to retreat upstairs and put in another couple of hours of invigorating and refreshing sleep.
You may think me unnecessarily harsh, but you would be wrong. Kittens are a menace, plain and simple, and if you don’t believe me just try adopting one. They may seem deceptively appealing, with their cute little faces, and their cute little gestures, and their cute little noises, but I’m here to tell you they’re pure, unadulterated evil. Once they get past those first natural defenses, humans will take them in and give them a place, not only in their homes but in their hearts, and soon they won’t be able to get rid for them. And since I already have three other housemates to contend with, this was simply a matter of survival.