by Molly Fitz
“I’ll be waiting,” Breanne gloated as she accepted his kiss, then sauntered past me, hips swinging. Have I mentioned how much I actively loathed her? Because it was a lot.
Charles sighed and sunk down into his leather desk chair. “What’s up, Angie?”
“Sorry to interrupt,” I answered, rubbing my index finger on my thumb to try and loosen a hangnail I’d been fighting all morning. It was a bad habit of mine—a nervous habit. Seeing Charles and Breanne’s disgusting canoodling had knocked the speech I’d prepared clear out of my brain.
Guess I would just be speaking from my heart.
I closed the door behind me, then came closer and took a seat in one of the two visitor chairs angled across from his desk. “It’s about the new person Bethany hired.”
“Peter Peters?” Charles asked with a slight snort. “What about him?”
“I don’t like him,” I said plainly, hoping Charles would understand without me having to go into more detail. “And I don’t want him here.”
Charles sighed. “He didn’t make the best first impression on me, either. But, unfortunately, we do need the help.”
“Can’t we find somebody else?” I whined, not caring how pathetic it made me sound. Charles needed to understand that this was so much more than bad first impressions.
Charles pinched his brow and fixed me with an exasperated stare. “People aren’t exactly lining up to work here given, um… our recent history.”
Oh, right. The small fact that the other partners continued to leave under less than savory circumstances. All the extra clout we’d picked up after our near-impossible win on the Calhoun case had quickly dropped by the wayside when…
Never mind, best to focus on our current problems instead of dwelling on the past.
“If we’re really that spent, I could come back full time for a while.” I enunciated each word while keeping careful eye contact. “Just until we find someone better than Peter, I mean.”
Charles shook his head again. “I wish I could, but Bethany is my partner. We make decisions together now. If you just give Peter a chance, I’m sure he’ll grow on you.”
I rose to my feet and put my hands palm down on his desk, then leaned in as close as I dared. I wanted to slap him and kiss him in equal measure. Stupid Charles.
“I think he knows about me. About what I can do.” I widened my eyes, refusing to so much as even blink until I was sure he understood.
“About you and,” He gulped before continuing. “Animals?” When I nodded, Charles leaned back and let out a slow breath. “Well, that’s not good.”
I straightened to my full height once more. Whether or not we had a romantic connection, Charles and I had always seen eye to eye. I knew he’d get it. I knew he’d find a way to protect me.
That is, until he said…
“But it’s also not possible. I’m sure it’s all in your head.”
“All in my head?” I demanded, throwing a hand on each of my hips. “You can’t be serious!”
He glanced toward the far corner of the room instead of looking at me. “What do you want me to do, Angie? Fire him based on a suspicion? One that has nothing to do with what we actually do here, by the way.”
I threw myself into his line of his vision. I was not just some problem that could be ignored. I was a real person and had a problem that demanded a satisfactory conclusion. “Yes, that’s exactly what I want you to do,” I practically shouted.
He cleared his throat again and shifted his gaze toward his keyboard on the desk. “Sorry, that’s something I just can’t do. Not without a valid reason to let him go.”
I crossed my arms over my chest defensively and charged back toward to door. There were many things I wanted to say and do—chief among them quitting on the spot—but I simply walked out without another word.
I had to stop fast to avoid running straight into Peter who stood right outside Charles’s office door, munching on a granny smith apple. “Trying to get rid of me?” he asked with a neutral expression, keeping his eyes fixed on the fruit in his hand. “That doesn’t seem very welcoming.”
“Why are you here?” I asked with a deep scowl.
Peter crunched into the apple again, and a spray of juice hit me on the cheek. He reached up with his thumb to wipe it away, but I jerked out of reach.
After swallowing everything down, he smiled and said, “Why do you think I’m here? It’s to get close to you, Angie. To uncover your secrets and expose them to the world.”
I took a step back, panic settling in my chest like a lead weight. I could scarcely breathe, let alone say anything in response to that.
Peter closed the distance between us and set a heavy hand on my shoulder. A smile broke out across his face and then he laughed. “Whoa, you really need to learn how to relax. Did you honestly just buy that garbage?” He shook his head as if dealing with an imbecile. “I’m here to make some money and help out my cousin. Okay? I mean, seriously, Angie.” He continued to laugh as he breezed his way past me back toward our shared desk.
I stood rooted to the spot as I watched him go. How much had Peter heard of my talk with Charles? And how much did he already know? Moreover, why?
And how?
If he was on to me, there had to be others as well. Maybe Peter was just some kind of henchman and the big bad had yet to reveal himself or his plan. I’d never hurt anyone, and I’d become much more careful when it came to concealing my strange ability.
If someone was on to me, then what could I possibly do to keep Octo-Cat and myself safe? And why would they ever want to hurt or scare us as Peter’s mannerisms seemed to suggest?
Suddenly, it felt as if nowhere would be safe. That, even if I ran, there were people out there who knew, who would always know.
What was I going to do?
Chapter Three
I couldn’t escape the office fast enough that day. Physical distance, however, did little to calm my already frayed nerves. The whole drive home I kept looking over my shoulder, half expecting to see Peter following me in some kind of old junker. I knew I didn’t have any real hard and fast proof, but still, something within me screamed that he was out to get me, that we were quickly headed somewhere bad.
Very, very bad.
Sure, he could have been some harmless and ordinary, run-of-the-mill weirdo whose goal was simply to score a few laughs at my expense. He totally could have been. And yet…
Ever since I’d gotten zapped by that old coffee maker and woken up with the ability to speak to Octo-Cat, my intuition had also been dialed up to at least a nine. I’d been wrong about some things, of course, but that was mostly when I let my personal feelings cloud my judgment. Whenever I stopped and listened to that still small voice, it led me straight to the answer I needed.
And right about now, that tiny voice was practically hoarse from shouting beware over and over again the past several hours.
As much as I hated it, this wasn’t just about Peter moving in on my job and messing things up at the office. This was about keeping those I loved safe—and that now included the tabby cat who’d entered my life and turned it upside down again and again. How could someone I’d only just met already know the one very private thing I hesitated to share with anybody?
How could Peter have possibly figured me out when so few people knew what I could do and most of them were related to me?
I mean, Charles knew, but despite my disappointment in his response today, I trusted him not to tell a soul. Did that mean someone else at work had figured things out? Sometimes I slipped up and talked to my cat around others, but most people wouldn’t just jump to the conclusion that we could communicate with each other. The normal thing would be to assume I’d gone wicked crazy. That didn’t bother me since most days I was halfway there already.
I turned onto the secluded driveway that led to my huge manor house in the woods. The summer sun hung high in the sky, and my gardens were in full, beautiful bloom. In a lot of ways my life
was pretty perfect—giant estate, wonderful family, cool cat, and a monthly stipend from his trust fund. So, then, why couldn’t I just let this thing with Peter go?
“You look like you’ve had a rough day,” Nan said, greeting me at the door when I entered our shared home just in time for a freshly prepared lunch. She and Octo-Cat both waited for me right in the foyer whenever I came home from work. Nan usually had a kind word and a hug. Sometimes, a joke.
Octo-Cat generally had a complaint. Today, he stretched out his toes, showing off his impressive claws, and moaned, “The sun is not bright enough today. It’s hard to keep my schedule when my warm spot disappears halfway through the morning.”
I shrugged off his concern, especially considering the sky had felt just as bright as ever during my return commute. “Sorry, nothing I can do about that.”
I’d long debated getting him a heat lamp, precisely because of how often I heard this particular complaint, but that kind of felt like rewarding bad behavior. Ah, who was I kidding? It was just a matter of time before I’d ultimately cave. Heck, maybe I’d get him one for Christmas. Today, however, I had other things to worry about.
I took a long, appreciative sniff as Nan and I headed for the kitchen. Ever since we’d moved in together a couple of months ago, she’d taken it upon herself to cook up three square meals per day, finding a passion for the culinary arts a bit late in life but not lacking an ounce of enthusiasm nor, thankfully, talent.
“French onion soup,” Nan revealed with sparkling eyes, which seemed to grow as she made this revelation. “Have a seat and I’ll bring it right out.”
I wanted to help, to give her a bit of a break, but she always pushed me right out of the kitchen and told me to hold my horses before they galloped on away without me.
“What’s got you so down in the dumps?” she asked, setting a steaming hot bowl before me, then returning to the kitchen to grab a second for herself. My nan always knew when something wasn’t right. She had the gift of intuition, too, but I suspected that came more from being a mother than from a near-fatal run-in with a coffee maker or some other such mildly supernatural experience.
“They hired a new intern,” I explained, pushing my spoon through the thick layer of perfectly melted cheese and allowing it to fill up with broth, then shoving it appreciatively into my mouth. Mmm. So good.
Nan smiled when she saw how much I enjoyed what she’d prepared. Rather than taking a bite herself, however, she folded her hands before her and said, “Well, I’m guessing we don’t much care for this new person.” That was another thing about my dear, sweet Nan—she always took my side. She didn’t even need to hear a single detail before she was ready to jump into the fray and fight for my honor. Heck, just a couple months ago, she’d hit a police officer multiple times for attempting to cuff me.
“We most definitely do not,” I answered, preparing a second mouthful of gooey goodness, complete with onion and cheese this time. “Not only is he creepy, but I also think he knows about me. You know, about what I can do.”
Nan shook her head and sucked air in through her teeth. “Well, that’s not good. Not good at all.” Finally, she dug into her soup, choosing to eat one of the broth-saturated croutons first.
“What are we going to do?” I asked after giving her a play-by-play of the awful day I’d had.
“That Charles deserves a good scolding,” Nan said with a grimace. “After all we’ve been through together, he won’t even stand up for what’s right.”
I shrugged and let my spoon clatter to the bottom of my bowl. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being oversensitive about the entire situation.”
“Hey, I didn’t raise you to talk like that,” Nan shouted so loud and so abruptly, it made me jump with surprise. “We don’t discount or apologize for our feelings. We’re not robots. Right?”
“Right,” I agreed with a sigh. “Then what should I do about Peter Peters and all the weirdness?”
Octo-Cat hopped up onto the table and strode down the center line. As he did, loose hair floated off his body and a piece or two wound up in my soup. Guess that meant I was done.
“If I may,” he said grandly, halting right in front of me and gesturing to himself with a paw. “I believe I have the solution to this problem.”
“He says he has an idea,” I translated for Nan, who smiled and waited for more. She loved watching the two of us talk, even though she needed a bit of help understanding Octo-Cat’s side of the conversation.
“Not an idea,” he corrected with a huff. “The idea.”
“Well, what is it?” I asked impatiently. Sometimes his dramatics could be adorable, but this wasn’t one of those times. I was far too stressed to sit and watch a show. I needed real-world solutions here delivered in a real-time fashion.
“You need to pull a stray cat on this guy,” my tabby said plainly.
This, of course, meant nothing to me. “Come again now. What?”
“A stray cat. Not that I’ve ever been stray.” He shuddered and flicked his tail. “But I’ve seen enough of them to know their modus operandi. They’re free agents—strays—and most want to stay that way. But a cat can get real sick of eating trash when Fancy Feast is an option, you know? So, sometimes they have to make their eyes big, raise their tails, and do the pretty meow when a human is nearby. It hurts inside to fake it with a human—that much, I do know from experience—but it’s just a couple moments of cringiness to get a full belly of food. Get it?”
I thought about this for a moment, ignoring the fact that he’d probably just insulted me. His cat-based analogies often took me a bit of finagling to truly understand, but they often did offer good and surprisingly relevant advice. I recapped Octo-Cat’s speech for Nan, who seemed to understand instantly without even awaiting the full translation.
She nodded her approval to Octo-Cat, then turned back to me with a newfound fierceness burning in her eyes. “Operation: My Enemy is My Friend’s an official go,” she said in a low, husky voice that I assumed belonged to her tough guy persona.
Still, no matter how much I wanted to find out what Peter knew and, moreover, what he wanted, I wasn’t sure I could find a way to fake nice with someone I already despised so much.
Despite Nan’s Broadway past, I hadn’t inherited even one iota of her acting talent. So then, how was I going to trick Peter into revealing his motives here?
Chapter Four
I wish I would have been surprised when Nan showed up at my work the next day wearing an all-black satin gown and bolero jacket combo. She kind of looked like she was ready to attend an elegant society ball and then rob its hosts on her way out. She’d even done her makeup much more heavily than normal to match today’s bold style. Yes, winged liner and a smoky eye currently topped off my grandmother’s day-time look.
I knew she sometimes missed the glory days of singing, dancing, and acting her heart out on the Broadway stage, but sometimes she took her real day-to-day life in Blueberry Bay a bit far. I still fondly remembered how she’d donned a black and white checked bodysuit to accompany me to my driver’s test, or how she wore a cap and gown of her own to my high school graduation. Her wardrobe probably stretched all the way to Narnia for all the crazy outfits she kept hidden away until they were needed.
Was I embarrassed? Nope, not one bit.
I loved my nan and was long past feeling the need to apologize for her eccentricities. They were just as much a part of her as her loving, generous heart, and I wouldn’t trade either of those things for the world. Still, I did have to wonder what she had up her sleeve—or rather, her gloved arm—with this one.
“Hello, good people of Longfellow, Peters and Associates,” Nan declared, strolling into the office like she owned the place. In her hands she clutched a sealed Pyrex dish, which she promptly uncovered to reveal freshly baked apple turnovers.
Of course—apple because I’d mentioned the creepy episode with Peter outside of Charles’s office yesterday. What I couldn’t tell wa
s whether this whole display was meant as a power play or rather a way to ingratiate herself as part of our so-called Operation: My Enemy is My Friend.
With Nan, you just never knew what was going on inside that wonderfully whacky brain of hers.
“Hi, Nan,” I said, rising from the small corner of the shared desk that I’d claimed as my own. “What are you doing here?”
Peter stayed seated but kept his eyes on us while offering up a cool, casual smile.
“Hello, dear.” Nan gave me air kisses instead of a hug, further proving that she’d decided to play some kind of character role today. Even her voice sounded grander, surer, as it reached to the far edges of the room.
“Well, of course, you know how I’m planning that fabulous dinner party later this month. I’m testing out some gowns and some recipes ahead of time to lessen the burden of all the choices I’ll have to make as we get closer to the big day.” She paused and dipped her head, after tossing me a quick wink. “Now tell me. How do I look?”
She spun in a slow, graceful circle as if there was absolutely nothing for either of us to be embarrassed about. The thing that made her a great actress, I knew, was that she truly lived every single role. Granted, she was simply playing a farcical version of herself today, but that didn’t stop her from owning it one hundred percent.
“You look beautiful,” I said with a big smile. I may not have always agreed with her methods, but I had to admit that no one even came close to the space Nan occupied in my heart.
“Thank you,” she said primly. “And, now, how do these taste?” she added, shoving the open Pyrex dish into my face with a desperate, needy look.
I plucked one of the desserts from the top of the stack and took a nibble. “Absolutely delicious,” I answered honestly after swallowing down the perfect mix of sweet and tart. Part of me wished she would have discovered this newfound passion for baking when I was younger so I could’ve enjoyed these talents longer. My waistline thought differently, though. I’d already had to go up one pants size this month, and I was not keen to go up another.
