“You haven’t heard the worst part yet,” Odelia told her. “You have a second brother.”
Like her father, Mom plunked down on the first solid object she found, in her case the library cart, disturbing the neatly placed books and dumping them all to the carpeted floor.“What?” she asked, pressing a hand to her heart.
As Odelia told the story, the thought occurred to her that this was almost like an episode ofThe Jerry Springer Show.“And since Gran hasn’t shown up at Dad’s office there’s a good chance she’ll be leaving us soon to go and live in Burt Goldsmith’s mansion in the Centennial State, sending us postcards from time to time while she lives it up out there.”
“Oh, dear,” said Mom. “How did your father take it?”
She wanted to say Dad was over the moon but that seemed inappropriate.“He’s concerned about you and Alec. The news of this third sibling must be tough on you guys.”
Mom raised an eyebrow.“Tough? Either your grandmother has finally gone off her rocker or she’s in this for the money. And if she is, the woman is dead to me.”
Odelia was surprised by the resolute tone in her mother’s voice. “I’m sure she’ll come to her senses. She always does.”
“Dead!” Mom exclaimed, getting up. “After all that we’ve done for her? Leaving us high and dry? She can join her newly acquired grandson in Colorado and choke!”
“Um, that seems kind of harsh, Mom.”
Mom swept up an arm.“She needed support after my dad died? We gave it to her. She needed a place to stay after it turned out Dad had gambled away the house? We took her in. She wanted a job so she could stay active and earn some extra money? We gave her two jobs! And now this!”
She was now stocking the shelves with Nora Roberts books at such a rate and with such fury the entire cabinet shook. Mom was usually a soft-spoken and gentle person but now she resembled Lizzie Borden before taking up the ax and chopping down her relatives.
“I, um—do you need help? I mean, now that Gran probably won’t show up?”
Mom planted a hand on her hip.“I’m sorry, honey. But it’s been one of those days.”
Yup. One of those days where you find out your mother secretly had a second son. Or not.“I’ll just put these away, shall I?” she suggested, and pushed the cart away from her mother before she bodily lifted it up and hurled it through the large plate glass window.
And as she was collecting more returned books and stocking the shelves, she said,“Oh, I forgot to tell you but I took the cats to Vena’s.”
“Uh-huh,” said Mom without much enthusiasm from the next aisle.
“She squirted some topical gel on their necks and gave me a flea comb.”
“Mh.”
“She wasn’t sure about a flea collar but the poor creatures are so riddled with fleas I’m going to have them wear them for a while. Only a couple of days. Until they’re free of the pests. And I’ll have to vacuum the carpets, the floors, the bed, the sofa, wash the sheets…”
“That’s great, honey,” her mother said distractedly, probably still fuming. Odelia could hear the tack-tack-tack of books being stacked on the rack. It sounded like gunfire.
“You should probably do the same.”
“Mh.”
Odelia heaved a sigh. Looked like Mom was a goner for now. At least until she got what she perceived as Gran’s betrayal out of her system. Which could take a while. And as she filed a Debbie Macomber Christmas novel under the letter M, she thought about what Max had said. Burt Goldsmith had a cat. A cat that had gone missing. If Max could find out where Burt’s cat was holed up and talk to her, there was a lot he could find out.
She suddenly remembered the conversation about her and Chase having babies and smiled to herself. It wasn’t just Mom who could get worked up. Her cats did, too. As if she and Chase were ever going to have babies. Hah. Just the thought was ridiculous.
Still, the sudden fire lighting up her core at the thought of having Chase’s babies told her otherwise. She tamped down on the sudden heat. The whole thing was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.
But when her phone lit up with a message from Chase she felt ridiculously excited.
Chapter 13
We were stuck on the fire escape. No doubt about it. Staring at a closed door willing it to open and the door wasn’t budging. At least not until some helpful human opened it for us. That’s the disadvantage of being a cat. No opposable thumbs. Imagine the damage we could do if only our creator had outfitted us with opposable thumbs. We could actually open this damn door. Oh, wait. Human to the rescue. A young man dressed like a bellboy shoved open the door, pinned it against the wall so it stayed open, and took out a pack of cigarettes.
Dooley and I slipped inside.
Thank God for smokers.
“You know, Max?” said Dooley as we traversed the nicely carpeted corridors of the Hampton Cove Star hotel. “This collar isn’t so bad. I mean, it smells like diesel fumes and everything but it’s not a smell I can’t get used to, if you know what I mean.”
I rolled my eyes. I hated the collar from the moment Vena put it on me. Like Dooley said, it smelled like diesel, and it itched. Besides, cats aren’t meant to wear collars. Dogs are. Because dogs are an inferior species. Cats are meant to roam wild and free. Collars don’t feature into that story. Odelia had promised us it was only for a few days. Until all the fleas had fled. Between the drops and the collar and the comb she said she’d apply to our furs, it wouldn’t take more than two or three days for this whole terrible episode to be behind us.
“I mean, as long as it’s for a good cause I’m quite willing to wear the collar,” Dooley prattled on. “I’m not saying I like it. But I’m not saying I don’t like it, either.”
I kept a dignified silence. As long as we didn’t meet A) other cats, and B) dogs, I was fine. Kingman might get away with wearing a collar and keeping his dignity, I could not.
We’d arrived at the room formerly occupied by the Most Fascinating Man in the World, now fascinating the Suffolk County medical examiner with how dead he was, and peered inside. The door was missing, but some helpful police officer had put up yellow crime scene tape to keep people out. People, not cats.
We entered the room, padding around a nice hole in the floor, and checked around for signs of Shadow, Burt Goldsmith’s elusive cat.
“Shadow,” I called out. “Where are you?”
“Shadow,” Dooley echoed. “Here, kitty, kitty.”
I gave Dooley a scowl. Cats don’t debase themselves by using those awful words. Here, kitty, kitty indeed. We covered the entire hotel room in half a minute. Not much to see. Terrible smell, though. Like when Odelia burns her toast in the morning. But worse. Much worse. I thought I even smelled charred meat at some point in the proceedings. Yikes.
We got out of there as fast as we could, having exhausted our options and our capacity to take in terrible odors. Out in the corridor, a door opened and a man walked out, a cat slipping out in his wake.
“Don’t be too long, Princess,” said the man softly, and the cat growled something rude that the man probably didn’t understand, for he heaved a contented sigh and giggled.
The door closed and the cat stared at us. We stared back. It was one of those Clint Eastwood moments, from the days when Clint still starred in westerns as the inscrutable hero with the inscrutable squint. Then the cat spoke.“What are you doing here?”
“I’m glad you asked,” said Dooley, approaching the black cat. He wasn’t just black but more as if a black hole had suddenly opened up in the corridor floor, only the whites of his eyes indicating he was animated by the force of life. That and that grating voice. “We’re looking for Shadow? The Most Fascinating Cat in the World? Maybe you’ve seen her?”
The black cat—Princess, according to his owner—merely continued to stare.