by Ritter Ames
A thump under the seat reminded the women they were not the sole passengers in the van.
“Is there a reason you had me put the cat carrier in the back, but you didn’t actually put the cat inside?” Meg pressed the point.
Kate felt a furry nudge at her ankle, and she reached down to push the cat’s head back before moving forward again into traffic. “Robin-Hero doesn’t like the carrier. It’s probably too small for him. He’s a big cat after all.”
“I’ve seen him inside it when Keith and Gil trucked him in for the follow-up visit at the vet.”
The driver’s seat wobbled again as the more-than-medium-sized cat wiggled out the back. He leapt gracefully onto the boot between the two front seats, and Kate scruffed the orange and gold fur atop the animal’s head. “He climbs into the carrier for Keith, but not for me. So, I’m taking it with us to give to Jane and George in case they need it handy while we’re gone camping.”
“You know the only reason he gets in for Keith, but not for you, is because he knows you’re a pushover.”
Yeah, I kinda am.
As the van moved onto the grandparents’ street, the cat raised his face to look closer out the windshield. Kate scratched under his chin, and bit her lip. “I think he knows something is up.”
“Yeah, he probably does.” Meg folded the map and slipped it under the visor, then pulled the big fellow into her lap and took over the head massages. The cat purring kicked up in volume.
Kate slowed as they neared the elder McKenzies’ neat ranch style home, then she pulled into the driveway and braked. The garage door slowly rose, and she could see George’s khaki-clad legs appear from the ankles and trend upward.
“You know calling this cat Robin-Hero is going to leave people thinking you mean Robin Hood,” Meg said.
“Oh, let them. The name was a compromise to settle an ongoing argument between Sam and Suze. If something brings peace between a couple of eight-year-old sisters’ squabbles, I’d agree to practically anything.”
Kate removed the key and opened her door. The cat leapt from Meg’s lap and into his owner’s arms. “Well, guess I’ll be carrying you in, huh, guy?” The cat’s diesel-volume purr was her answer.
Loaded down with feline, Kate headed toward her father-in-law, now fully visible in the wide doorway, with Meg bringing up the rear.
“Hey, Robin, boy, how are you?” George called out, and ruffled the cat’s fur. “But the girls keep reminding me you have that even longer name I’m supposed to get used to.”
“I take it you’ve heard the tale,” Kate said.
George grinned. His eyes were so like his son’s that despite his shaggy gray brows Kate got an inkling of what Keith would look like in another thirty years.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “In great detail. Those girls could make marvelous lawyers with the amount of evidence they can funnel into a conversation.” He laughed and motioned the women toward the door into the house. “Jane’s in the kitchen helping the girls pack homemade trail mix for the campout. Go on in and grab some coffee and I’ll get Robin-Hero’s food and extras from the van.”
“Thanks, everything is in the back.”
The women headed inside. A smiling Jane McKenzie stood on one side of the work counter, slim hands in constant movement. Kate had noticed lately a few gray hairs touching her mother-in-law’s short, dark curly ’do, but no more than she had not iced in her own blonde bob. The two girls were on their knees perched atop high stools on the other side of the counter from their grandmother. Between everyone stood plastic sacks partially filled with trail mix, along with a half-filled bowl and a handy scoop conveniently placed beside them. Kate’s blonde twins slipped off the stools, and ran over as soon as they saw their mom.
“Look what we made!”
“Gramma taught us how!”
“We can survive for weeks in the woods!”
“But we have to have water too!”
Their blue eyes shined with enthusiasm, and Kate felt her heart swell a little.
Jane’s smile turned into clear laughter. “Girls, slow down. Let you mother get into the room for heaven’s sake.”
“Looks like everyone has been busy,” Kate said, setting the cat on the floor so she could hug each girl. She noticed the cat jump onto the wide window sill near the table. Her mother-in-law kept a collection of bird feeders filled in the backyard. That spot would undoubtedly become a favorite cat perch for the weekend. Kate peered into the bowl on the counter. “What’s in here?”
“Homemade granola!” The girls chorused.
“Is this dried cherries, I see?”
Jane nodded. “And dried cranberries, too. We roasted the pecans, walnuts, and almonds. And George toasted the coconut for us earlier. We mixed everything with the grains I prepared yesterday and baked it all together. Now we’re loading it up.”
Samantha was so excited her blonde pigtails vibrated. “We’re scooping it into bags so everyone can carry it in our backpacks when we hike.”
“First, we had to wait for it all to cool,” Suzanne added, the more precise twin of the pair. “If we packed it too soon, steam would have stayed in the plastic bags and made everything all mushy and moldy.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” Kate said, as Meg coughed to cover a laugh.
After a round of goodbye hugs, a few promises to be careful and have fun, and with the back floor of the van covered with goodie sacks full of granola, the women and the twins made their way home to the cul-de-sac. Keith’s Jeep Cherokee was backed up to the garage, and the large pile of supplies they’d left was considerably reduced.
“You guys are wonderful!” Meg leapt out of the van and ran toward her men, with the twins jumping out and following her lead. “I’ll bet we can fit the rest of that in my Camry, and then I can drive instead us always using Kate’s van.”
Keith opened the driver’s side door and slipped an arm around Kate’s shoulders as they made their way more slowly inside. “Sounds like a plan. Katie always prefers riding to driving. Right, honey?”
“Absolutely.”
As Meg left to get her car, and the Berman guys moved toward the remaining gear, Keith spoke into Kate’s ear, “Everything okay with the cat and...all?”
She looked up at his face and knew he was actually worried about her. The year had been a bit more traumatic than anyone expected, and while everyone else was looking forward to this as a relaxing getaway, Kate knew her husband realized she was moving out of anything resembling her personal comfort zone. “Everything, and everyone, is fine,” she said, crossing her left middle and index fingers behind her back as she reached up with her right hand to pat the hand he rested on her shoulder. “I need to run inside and grab a couple of things from the kitchen. Be back in a sec.”
It took a few minutes to grab the oatmeal and chocolate cookies from the freezer that she’d made for the trip. With high protein, high fiber treats like the cookies and the trail mix Jane sent, the snack side of things was well covered for the weekend. The daypack carrying her emergency supplies and first aid kit hung on the peg by the door, and she grabbed it on her way out.
Expecting everyone in the garage by the time she went back, Kate was surprise to find only Keith and the kids.
“Where’s Gil?”
“Dad went to find Mom,” Mark said, tossing a softball to his younger brother.
Kate raised a questioning brow at Keith, but he just shrugged. She turned back to the kids. “Why don’t you all go out and play catch in the front yard until Meg gets here with the car.”
“Yeah! Let’s go,” Ben cried. Since he had the ball, the rest followed his lead, though older brother Mark did a little foot dragging along the way.
One good stride put Keith next to his wife. They watched the kids spread out across the small yard and take turns tossing it underhand. He asked, “What are you thinking?”
“That if Gil doesn’t grow up and take charge of their ‘guest,’ Meg may kill Paul Gaines before
we can get him back to the forest,” she replied. The couple had talked the previous night after Kate got home, so Keith had a good idea about the tension growing in their neighbors’ home and marriage. She took another minute to brief him on the morning’s happenings, which made Keith start laughing. “
“Yep, Mount Meg is about to blow,” he said. “I’m surprised she didn’t dump cooked oatmeal on top of him when he was still in bed.”
Kate shook her head. “She’s much too practical for that. Oatmeal makes too much of a mess. She would have used a pot of coffee.”
“Remind me never to make her mad at me.”
“You and me both, buster.”
Mark sent a long toss toward Sam, and they watched as their tomboy twin backed up to catch the ball, and blindly stepped off the curb.
“She won’t cry, but I need to check on her,” Keith said, moving forward.
“Wait a second. Take this.” Kate tossed her daypack. “The first aid kit is in there in case she has a scrape. That asphalt is mean.”
He caught it one handed and kept going. A second later he had Sam smiling and nodding as he used one of the anti-bacterial wipes on her right palm. When no bandage was pulled out Kate let herself breathe again. She knew it hadn’t been any kind of bad fall, but Sam was her baby, and worrying is what a mom does. At that same moment, the Berman’s garage door rumbled open, and Meg backed out the Camry, staying in reverse as she moved into the McKenzie driveway.
The trunk popped up before Meg exited the car, but when Kate saw the fury on her friend’s face she contemplated climbing in and hiding until the storm passed.
“You would not believe what he was doing!” Meg’s voice was at a deadly quiet volume, her hands fisted on her hips as she stood next to Kate and fumed.
“You mean Paul?”
“Absolutely right I mean Paul!” Meg bit off each word as she spoke. Her right hand shot up to rub the back of her neck, a sign she was under extreme stress. “He was yelling—” She stopped, took a deep breath, then started speaking softly again, yet her tone seemed even heavier. “That idiot was calling a mob enforcer from my house. Can you imagine anything so stupid?”
Kate had to swallow hard before she could ask, “From your phone?”
“No. His cell. But he had the blasted thing on speaker, and I heard the guy at the other end tell Paul he had his GPS pegged, and they were coming for him.”
“What did Paul do?”
“Kept yelling back!” Meg started pacing the garage. “I yelled at him to turn off his phone, and about then was when Gil walked in. I was screaming at Paul and the mob guy was hollering on the phone, and Paul simply stood there with a stupid smile on his face, pointing to show that he was recording the whole thing. The guy is a nut!”
Meg finally stopped and leaned against the back of the Camry. As tears fell, Kate grabbed her friend in a hug.
“Gil will get him sorted out, don’t worry.” Kate let go as Meg pulled away to wipe her eyes.
“I know he will. Once he figured out what I was yelling about he took charge and told Paul to hang up, and that’s when the idiot finally cut the connection. But now our house is known to someone in the mob. Our house, Kate! All because Paul Gaines is a narcissistic idiot who wants to be a big wheel author.”
Kate chewed her lower lip. “You don’t think he did anything like that when he was at the cabin? So they know the location there, too?”
“I already asked that. Shook up my husband good when I did, I have to tell you.”
“What did Paul say?”
“He said he hadn’t. There’s lousy cell service there, and he’d had to always go away from the cabin to get a connection. He swore we’re all safe.” Meg made a hrmph sound, then added. “I would have preferred they knew the cabin’s location instead of my home. How can anyone be so stupid?”
Keith walked up then. Sam was back in the game. “Who’s stupid?” he asked.
Before Kate could clue him into the latest developments, however, they heard the kids shout and looked to see Gil jogging up to the driveway. He slowed as he entered the garage, and spoke to his wife, “The guy was bluffing on the phone. Paul has some kind of electronic gizmo to make his phone ping like it’s all over the planet. No need to worry.”
Meg’s eyes widened in disbelief. “I don’t have to worry? I walk into my house and hear that kind of conversation going on, and I don’t have to worry? You’re as clueless as he is!”
“Shh,” Gil said. “Keep your voice down.”
“You’re right. The kids.” Meg crossed her arms and stepped away from her husband.
In the distance, Kate watched Paul exit the Berman’s garage, and wave as he walked to his green Jaguar sitting at the curb. Gil waved back, and Keith shot the women a puzzled look, then raised his own hand in an abbreviated farewell. The kids took Paul’s departure as a cue to run back into the garage, all of them talking at the same time.
“Are we leaving now?” Mark asked.
“I want to ride with Mommy,” Ben said.
“Can I ride with you, Daddy?” Suze asked.
“Remember the cookies, Mom,” Sam said.
Keith held both arms high in the air. “Stop, everyone.” Once the voices hushed, he said, “Kids, start grabbing stuff from the pile that’s left. Meg and Gil, you load up the trunk. Kate and I have a few things to grab from the house, and then we’ll take off for the cabin.”
The assembly line started with quick precision, and Keith grabbed his wife’s hand. Once they were in the kitchen, a closed door between them and the kids, he said, “Okay, now tell me what was going on out there.”
In a few words Kate told the story and all of Meg’s concerns. She watched as Keith’s face darkened. “All I have to say is Gil better be right and whatever doohickey he was talking about better work, or Paul will have a lot more to worry about than the mob. I’ll kill him, myself.”
“Calm down.”
“Why are you smiling?” Keith asked.
Yes, why was she smiling? Kate could only imagine it was because her normally calm husband was suddenly a bigger worrier than she was. And it felt kind of good to be the calm one for once. Still, she didn’t think Keith would appreciate the humor in the situation. “I’m just glad we’re rid of him, and we can head out for our family weekend. Come on, they should have everything loaded.”
“You’re right.” Keith grinned and pulled a couple of extra flashlights Kate kept in a drawer in the kitchen desk. “Camouflage for why we had to come in here,” he said.
“I have a feeling Meg and Gil know exactly why we came in here.” She grabbed the Choco-Chunks Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies from the freezer.
Keith wrapped an arm around her. “And I have a feeling Gil and I are going to be discussing his friend this weekend. A lot.”
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Also by Ritter Ames
Organized Mysteries
Organized for Murder
Organized for Homicide
Organized for Scheduled Sabotage
Organized for S'more Death
Organized for Masked Motives
Watch for more at Ritter Ames’s site.
About the Author
Ritter Ames is the USA Today bestselling author who writes the fast-paced suspense Bodies of Art mystery series and the cozy Organized Mysteries series. She focuses most of her time and writing energies on globe-trotting the world via her keyboard to create memorable characters and fascinating fiction novels for readers.
> Read more at Ritter Ames’s site.
