Kitty Litter Killer (3 page)

“Does she live around here?” I asked.

“Yep. I just moved her into a house outside of town. She hasn’t been well, and I’m taking care of her.”

“Wow.” April drew out the word, making it sound as though Clark had done something supermanly heroic. “That’s so nice of you.”

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. The man was only doing what most people normally do.

He preened a little bit and shrugged. “Gotta watch out for family, you know.”

“Wow,” April repeated.

I had a sudden thought that might help April out. “You know what? Abbie Grenville, the author of that book, is my best friend. I could get a bookplate for that book personally autographed for your mother. Then I could deliver it to your house.” With April in tow.

“Now that would be really nice,” he said. “My mother’s name is Eunice Matthews.”

April stared at him with rapt attention. I was tempted to look more closely to see if she was drooling.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you later.” He winked at April, waved, turned on his heel, and strolled out of the shop.

I thought April had stopped breathing again. I patted her arm. “It’s okay. He only said hello. He didn’t declare his undying love or anything.” I paused. “Okay, well, he didn’t really say hello; he said, ‘Hey, April.’”

“I know.” She took a deep breath, which relieved me. I had been afraid she was going to faint. “Wow.” She turned glazed eyes toward me. “He knows my name.”

“April!” Gail hollered. “We need you over here.”

“Gail knows your name, too,” I murmured.

April stood up, mumbled good-bye to me, and floated back to work. At least she’d been distracted from looking for another job.

As I ate my sandwich, I watched my mother and Gail. Now they were making wide swaths around each other to avoid accidentally touching, and there was no eye contact between them at all. When they did speak, their words were clipped and harsh. I found myself wishing one of them would just turn to the other and say something nice. Like I’d felt when I observed Jaylene and Henry.

A simple effort on the part of just one of them could end the ongoing hostility.

Chapter Two

As I turned the key in the SUV, my cell phone rang from the depths of my purse. I flung pens, receipts, and other things aside as I dug for it. As was my habit, I didn’t bother to look at the screen to check the caller ID.

I jammed the phone against my ear. “Hello?”

“Patricia?”

The caller was the one person in the world who calls me by my given name. Lady Angelica Louise Carmichael Cunningham, otherwise known as my mother-in-law.

“Hello, Angelica.” Despite my best efforts not to be intimidated, I always find myself speaking more properly with her.

“How are you, dear?”

“I’m fine. How are you?” Angelica never calls me without a reason, so I stiffened in preparation for whatever she was going to say.

“I’m well. How are the children?”

“Everyone is good.” I opened the center console in the SUV and pawed through the contents, looking for a headset. I found cleansing wipes, a bottle of germ killer, pens, fast-food napkins, and a slightly used mint. Where was my headset? “The kids are fine. So is Max.”

I heard her brief intake of breath and braced myself for what she would say next.

“Has Sammie stopped indulging in her unfortunate. . .habit?”

I dropped the lid on the console. It bounced once then shut.

“Mamamamamamamama,” Chris chanted from his car seat.

“What’s that noise?” Angelica asked. “Are you still there?”

“It’s Chris. I’m here.” Talking with gritted teeth and stiff lips is nearly impossible.

“Did you hear my question? Has Sammie—”

“Sammie is fine,” I said, trying to force my jaw muscles to relax.

“I’ve spoken to some of my friends and found the name of a child psychiatrist.”

This is a test, I told myself. Only a test. Chris began smacking his hands on his car seat in rhythm with his repetitious monosyllable.

“Patricia?”

I took a deep breath. “Sammie is going to be fine. She’s just developed a habit of picking things up off the floor and putting them in her pockets. It’s not a big deal. She’s—”

“Kleptomania is a serious mental disorder, dear.”

“Klepto. . .what are you saying? What exactly did Max tell you she’s doing?”

“Stealing,” Angelica said.

I knew my husband would never say such a thing. He had agreed with me that it was probably just a phase. At least that’s what he told me.

“She’s not stealing,” I said. “She’s a neatnik. She just picks things up off the ground and the floor.”

“And puts them in her pockets!” Angelica sighed long and hard. “Sometimes it takes longer for mothers to see the truth about their children.”

Well, that was an accurate statement, but I happen to know that a person’s version of the truth can be subjective, based on their perception of reality. And that was the big problem here. Angelica and I rarely perceived reality the same way.

“Sammie says she’s worried about Chris,” I said. “This didn’t start until he began trying to crawl. Unfortunately, Sammie watched a show where a toddler choked to death on something he got off the floor.”

“Whatever you believe, dear, but this is why she needs a distraction. Have you made a decision?”

She was referring to the kitten, and I wouldn’t let myself be fooled by her use of the endearment. She used words like weapons, shooting them like friendly fire that kills just as dead as enemy fire. I decided to play with her head.

“A decision? Um, about what?”

I heard her delicate sigh. “About the cat, dear. Maxwell said he’s leaving it all up to you. . .” Her voice trailed off.

Which I don’t understand at all. . . I completed her sentence in my head. “Oh yes. The cat.” I paused just long enough to irritate her. “Yes, I’ve made a decision.”

“And?” Her tone of voice changed. “This. . .is important. Not just for Sammie.”

That was an odd statement for her to make. Was that vulnerability I heard in her voice? I felt a niggle of guilt. Playing with her head—anybody’s head—wasn’t nice. And the Lord had been trying to teach me to be nice for a long time now. I had only to look at the Adlers to see the end result of not being kind to someone.

“I’ve decided that Sammie can have the cat.”

“Good.” Relief laced the satisfaction in her voice. “She needs to pick which kitten she wants from the litter. She gets first choice.”

“Why now?” I asked. “They aren’t ready to leave their mother yet.”

“That’s the way it’s done, dear,” Angelica said. “What time this afternoon after she gets home from school is good? Hayley will be home after we play tennis.”

Give someone an inch, and they’ll take a mile, as my mother would say. I’d given my mother-in-law just the tiniest bit of leverage by agreeing to the kitten, and now she was taking over, which she’d do in every area of my life if I let her. Just like my mother. But unlike my mother, Angelica doesn’t believe I’m good enough to be a Cunningham, along with my many other failures of character. Unfortunately, I resent that.

“Patricia?”

“Tell Hayley around four.”

Angelica said good-bye and I hung up, wondering how I got into these things. My life was being controlled by two domineering women, not to mention all the demands from my family. I felt like I was losing myself.

I needed to go back to work. That was all there was to it. Not to the self-storage business. When I left there, we turned the running of daily operations over to our office manager, Shirl. She was doing a great job. We’d even hired help for her.

But maybe I could get a job in another part of the Cunningham family business. Angelica had nothing to do with any of that. Max and his father had recently begun work on a housing development. Perhaps I could help with that. For the first time since I’d gotten up that morning, I felt a twinge of excitement.

The trees had shed most of their leaves, helped by the strong wind I felt pushing at my SUV as I drove to the cat breeder’s place.

I’d texted Max on my cell phone and told him what was going on. Lately we’d developed the habit of text messaging on our phones rather than calling. I enjoyed the new technology. Plus, if he was in a meeting, he could still subtly check his message and even answer me—unlike a ringing phone.

Sammie and I stopped briefly at the local Gas ’n’ Go to get some juice for her and to satisfy my addiction, an ice-cold, bubbly Mountain Dew from the fountain. After that, I continued on to Hayley Whitmore’s house. In the backseat, Sammie babbled about cats and school. Fortunately, her presence kept Chris entertained.

“Mommy, look!” Sammie squirmed in the seat and pointed at a farm we were passing.

A big sign loomed in the field, advertising a cornfield maze. We’d done the maze the last couple of years and enjoyed it.

“Can we go?” she asked.

“We’ll talk to Daddy tonight,” I said. “I’m sure we can.”

Hayley’s house was near the Cunningham estate. The Cunninghams had moved to this neighborhood when Max was a teenager. . . . Well, this wasn’t a neighborhood like the typical suburban sprawl. Instead, large houses were planted tastefully on acres of carefully manicured land. It was beautiful.

Despite my irritation with Ma for going behind my back to set up house-hunting help, it was true that we were considering a new home. Our present home still seemed crowded with the addition of a very active baby, even though my oldest stepson, Tommy, was away at college. My in-laws wanted me and Max to buy property out here, build a home, and be near them. I figured it wasn’t because my mother-in-law particularly wanted me nearer to her, but it was more likely that she wanted to make sure the children were raised correctly. More of her influence and less of mine.

I knew Max would like being nearer to his father. He sounded a little nostalgic when he mentioned houses and land for sale in this neighborhood. I tried to act interested, but I couldn’t imagine living here. In addition to being closer to my in-laws, living here would mean being farther from my parents and everything I’d known my whole life. Besides, I wouldn’t fit in. I was a farm girl. A redneck through and through. Despite the fact that I married a man with money, my clothes still usually came from the racks in Wal-Mart. There was no way I would join the country club and meet the girls twice a week. I hated tennis and golf.

Still. . .was I being selfish?

I found Hayley’s place easily because the shiny brass street numbers glowed on an ornate black mailbox. I followed the curved, tree-lined driveway, calculating in my head how much the asphalt had cost. After I rounded a final bend, I saw the house, and my breath caught in my throat. Built in the style of a southern mansion with tall white pillars gracing the front, the building glowed in the setting sun. I felt like donning a Civil War–style gown and crying, Tara! Home. I’ll go home.

I parked in the circular driveway, half expecting servants to run from the house to help us from the SUV. Then I turned to Sammie, who was eagerly undoing her seat belt. “Honey, don’t pick up anything in the house and put it in your pocket, okay?”

“I know, Mommy.” I could hear the sigh in her answer. She jumped from the car, coat flapping around her legs, more excited than I’d seen her in a long time. As much as I hated to think it, perhaps Angelica had been partially right. Sammie needed a distraction. A new addition to a family, especially one as demanding as Chris, was hard on everyone. And sometimes the kids who are the quietest get lost in the process.

While she ran over to the flower bed full of lovely mums and other fall plantings, I took Chris from his car seat and balanced him on my hip. He started yanking on my hair, messing up the already frizzy blond curls.

When our motley crew was assembled on the massive veranda, I rang the bell and didn’t have to wait long. A petite girl, about my height, answered. For a moment, I thought she was a teenager, then I realized this was Hayley. I was surprised by her youth. I had expected she would be older since she was friends with my mother-in-law. Hayley wore a pair of jeans and a black sweater set with pretty gold buttons. I’m small, but I’d gained way too much weight when I was pregnant with Chris—and I still hadn’t lost it all. She made me feel frowsy.

“Hayley?” I asked.

“You must be Trish.” She looked me up and down and then smiled. The smile was genuine and reached her eyes with warmth that surprised me. “It’s nice to meet someone as short as I am. Come on in.”

We stepped into the marble-floored foyer. She took our coats and draped them on an antique umbrella stand, and we followed her into a central main hallway. The mellow oak floors looked like refurbished antique wood. Two rooms extended from the hall; one looked like a music room complete with a grand piano. The other was a living room.

Chris babbled, motioning with his arms that he wanted to get down. I jiggled him up and down.

“This is Chris, and this is Sammie.” I pressed my free hand on Sammie’s head, trying to send a mental message to behave and be good. I needn’t have worried. Sammie beamed up at Hayley.

“Thank you for the kitty,” she said.

I couldn’t have scripted it better myself.

“Oh, aren’t you just the sweetie. Your grandmother has already told me all about you. She just loves her grandchildren so much.” Hayley glanced at me. “Your in-laws have been over here to dinner recently. We’ve really hit it off.”

I felt a twinge of guilt. Angelica wanted to see the kids more often. I just couldn’t stand her attitude toward me. But was I depriving my kids of something they really should have just because I didn’t want to deal with her? My mother was just as judgmental of me in her own way, yet our family spent a lot of time at her house.

Hayley took Sammie’s hand. “Let’s go to the back where you can play with the kittens and decide which one you want.”

She motioned for me to follow her.

Two whitish-gray cats with dark-tipped ears, feet, and tails slipped from the living room and dashed in front of me. I noticed a third sitting on top of a bookshelf in the hallway, tail twitching as it watched me walk past. I began to feel like eyes were staring at me from the walls. All my good feelings about doing this for Sammie slipped away, and I wondered if I should have said no. Cats were sneaky. Cats were sly. Cats were. . .

A horrid wail came from somewhere in the house. I skidded to a stop. It sounded like a baby with hormone issues.