The Black Cat Steps on a Crack

by Kay Finch

  Not your business, Sabrina.

  I moved farther from the office so I couldn’t hear them if I tried. Ty didn’t like Bryan’s criticism of Jane. His comments had me wondering about the wisdom of meeting with the woman tonight, and that might be Ty’s whole problem. Jane had offered to help me market my book, and Tyanne knew I could dearly use the help. She didn’t want Bryan’s criticism to give me an excuse to back out of this marketing collaboration. After all, Jane had time to help between now and the official opening of the new library.

  Satisfied that I’d figured out the relatively trivial reason for the couple’s conflict, I collected my cat when the reading ended. We headed out into the pleasant spring sunshine to walk the three blocks to Get Crafty. Hitchcock trotted along, distracted here and there by a falling leaf or a buzzing bee.

  My phone pinged, and I pulled it out to see a text from Jane Alcott.

  Here’s a great website sample.

  She’d included a link, but I wanted to stay on task so I could get home and spend the rest of the afternoon writing. I’d check out the site later.

  I thought about Bryan’s comments again. I didn’t want the librarian to distract from my writing time—Lord knew it didn’t take much to pull me off task. The important thing was that Jane would be a great help in spreading the word about my book. I’d bet Bryan’s problem was he didn’t like women telling him what to do. Except for Tyanne, that is.

  We had reached the craft store when my phone pinged a second time.

  Jane again. This time, she shared social media tips, complete with more links to websites.

  Take a break, girl.

  Maybe I should do some social media work when I got home. By tonight I could truthfully report to her that I’d checked off some of the boxes on her list. She would realize she didn’t need to be on me every minute, right?

  I looked through the front window of Get Crafty at the rows upon rows of little doodads and turned to my cat.

  “I have a feeling they won’t appreciate you strolling around in there. How about we get you into the tote?”

  “Mrreow.” He’d heard this before and understood. Though he wasn’t excited about the prospect, he went willingly. I looped the tote—a lot heavier than it was a second ago—over my shoulder.

  I didn’t want to waste any time in the store, so I enlisted a clerk to help me find exactly what Aunt Rowe had on her list. Half an hour later we pulled in at the Around-the-World Cottages sign and passed the decorative split-rail fence surrounded by bluebonnets. I drove straight to my aunt’s house and parked in the driveway.

  “We’ll drop Aunt Rowe’s supplies off before I head home to work.” I pushed my car door open, and Hitchcock leapt across my lap to get out. I tried to catch the end of the leash as it slipped by and missed. I grabbed the Get Crafty sack and followed him. If I had to guess, I’d say he was on his way to beg some treats from Glenda in the kitchen.

  As I rounded the house and headed for the back door, I spotted Hitchcock creeping through the flower bed behind the shrubbery.

  Then I saw a woman in a denim skirt and floral knit top walking by herself in the yard. She appeared to be admiring the scenery, but when she turned my way she stopped and stared. I glanced toward the bushes to check on Hitchcock, but he wasn’t in sight.

  “I see you’ve been shopping at my store,” the woman said.

  My brain took a second to catch up, and I realized she was staring at the sack I held.

  “Oh.” I held up my purchases. “We just came from Get Crafty.”

  “We?” she said.

  “Me and my cat. He’s playing in the bushes.”

  “That’s not a very good idea,” she said.

  I didn’t see why she would care what Hitchcock did, but maybe she meant it wasn’t a good idea to have taken the cat to her store. I decided to ignore the comment. “Does Get Crafty belong to you?”

  “Sure does.” She came my way. “I’m Marge Boyd.”

  “Very nice to meet you.” I introduced myself and explained that I lived in the Monte Carlo cottage.

  “You working on a project?” She continued to eye the sack.

  She could say that again, but I knew she didn’t have my novel in mind.

  “My aunt is.” I pulled Aunt Rowe’s list from my pocket. “She asked me to pick up a few things for her.”

  Marge glanced at the piece of paper and read aloud the words Aunt Rowe had written.

  “Album. Cardstock—multicolor. Patterned paper. Adhesive. Trimmer. Embellishments—use your judgment.” She frowned. “You didn’t buy very much.”

  I shrugged. “The clerk helped me fill the order. I got what was on the list.”

  “That’s the problem.” Marge spoke sharply and slapped her thigh. “Those gals can’t get anything right. I drill them ’til I’m blue in the face on how to increase sales. We have a thousand things in the embellishments category, and your aunt would have enjoyed a bigger selection to choose from.”

  Hey, be glad for the business.

  I was too polite to say what I was thinking, so I said, “I don’t even know what she’s working on, and your store is close enough for her to go back often and make more personal selections.”

  “True.” Marge tipped her head. “Is she with the Crop Shop Crew?”

  “The what?” I screwed up my face.

  “The scrapbooking group,” she said. “The ladies from San Antonio.”

  “No,” I said. “Aunt Rowe lives here. These are her cottages.”

  Marge looked over her shoulder to scan the yard as if she expected Aunt Rowe to materialize before her eyes. “Rowena Flowers is your aunt?”

  I nodded. “She is. And you’re here because . . .” I paused and waited. If Marge lived in Lavender, then she most likely wasn’t one of our guests.

  Marge turned back to me abruptly. “I’m here to get them started on their project. The Crop Shop Crew, that is. They picked my favorite theme, too.”

  I was having a hard time picturing Aunt Rowe trimming cardboard stock and using a glue stick, not to mention decorating with glittery bric-a-brac.

  “You should join the group,” Marge said. “Scrapbooks are all the rage.”

  “I’m into a different kind of book,” I told her. “I write fiction. Matter of fact, my first mystery is coming out later this year.”

  “Good for you,” she said. “You could scrapbook on that theme if you want. Haven’t ever seen it done, but you’re a creative type so you could come up with something interesting. You wouldn’t have to go with the same theme as the rest of the group.”

  “What is their theme?” I said because she seemed to want to talk about this topic at length.

  She grinned. “Bucket lists. Said they’re gonna spend the week checking off items on their bucket lists and make scrapbooks to memorialize the week.”

  I’d never heard Aunt Rowe utter the words bucket list, and I was almost afraid to know what she had on hers.

  Marge turned away from me to look across the yard again and belted out, “Sparky. Sparky, where are you?”

  Uh-oh.

  “Do you have a dog?” I said.

  “I do. Cutest terrier mix you ever saw. Now all I have to do is find the little bugger.”

  “You might want to watch out for—” I began, thinking of a clash between a little dog and my cat. If that happened, I feared for the dog.

  “There’s still time to sign up for the skydiving trip,” Marge said. “My nephew is bringing a van to take the ladies out to the airstrip.”

  Good Lord.

  “Please tell me they’re planning to watch skydivers and not jump out of a plane themselves.”

  Marge shrugged. “Could go either way. I didn’t get the details.” She went back to calling her pet. “Sparky. Sparky? Where is that girl?”

  I heard a yappy little bark in the distance. Then a fluffy white dog wearing a jeweled collar raced around the corner of the house and headed straight toward the bushes where I’
d last seen Hitchcock.

  “You’d better stop her,” I said, but Marge didn’t seem to be listening.

  “There you are,” she told the dog.

  I worried about Hitchcock’s leash getting caught on the bushes and trapping him when the dog got close, but Hitchcock wasn’t about to sit and take chances. The cat sailed out of the bushes and darted through the cat door, leash and all.

  “That was a close one.” I ran for the door. “Nice to meet you.” I slipped inside, glad to be away from Marge and her talk of bucket list activities. I needed to have a word with Aunt Rowe.

  I rushed into the kitchen and expected to find Glenda, but no one was there. The tantalizing scent of her delicious pot roast simmering in the Crock-Pot reminded me I’d missed lunch. No time for that now. I peered into the attached garage and saw Aunt Rowe’s car was gone.

  Maybe she was with this Crop Shop Crew or whatever the heck they called themselves. How did Aunt Rowe get mixed up with these people anyway? Just because she rented cottages to them didn’t mean she needed to sign on for whatever crazy thing they planned to do. Certainly not skydiving. Glenda was bound to know more about what was going on.

  “Glenda?” I checked the utility room, then walked through the living room and toward the bedrooms. “Glenda?”

  No response.

  Back in the kitchen, I found the cat crunching on dry food in the bowl Glenda kept for him. I unhooked his leash and refilled his water bowl, then looked out the window.

  Glenda was across the lawn three cottages away from the house and taking a pile of fresh towels from the golf cart she used to move from cottage to cottage. The midafternoon room checks.

  I watched her enter the Paris cottage.

  I left Hitchcock and exited the front door to avoid running into Marge and Sparky again.

  My mind was intent on Aunt Rowe and whatever kind of daredevil activities she might have planned for herself when I walked past the Barcelona cottage. I was hardly aware of the vehicle parked beside the cottage until I glimpsed the man standing on the cottage deck. Was this another guy with a beard or the same one I saw earlier? This man had a phone to his ear and wore charcoal slacks with a gray dress shirt and tie. He was stocky with coal black hair slicked back and reminded me of some actor who used to play on The Sopranos TV show.

  I slowed and tried to look nonchalant as I glanced over my shoulder to check out the car. A black sedan—like the one parked in front of the bookstore earlier. The coincidence of seeing this stranger in town and now here raised my hackles.

  The desire to know who he was and what he was doing here momentarily overshadowed my concern about Aunt Rowe’s plans. I caught up with Glenda at the golf cart as she stowed dirty towels in a basket.

  “Hey, Sabrina,” Glenda said. “What’s the scowl for? And shouldn’t you be writing?”

  “Yes, I should and I planned to be, but there’s never a dull moment around here. It’s hard to focus.”

  “You’re just now figuring that out?” she said.

  I ignored the sarcasm. “Who’s the guy in Barcelona?”

  She thought for a moment before answering. “Fred Costello, or something like that. Frank, maybe, I’m not sure I remember. Why do you ask?”

  “I saw him outside the bookstore today. He sat out there in his car like he was doing surveillance on somebody.”

  “That’s crazy talk.” She waved a hand. “Use that in a book, Sabrina. He’s a plain old man. You can rest easy. Unless you’ve done something that would cause someone to follow you. Have you?”

  “No, I mean I don’t know. I don’t think he’s following me, but I can’t be sure. Like you can’t be sure he’s not up to no good. He looks suspicious, doesn’t he?”

  Glenda glanced toward the Barcelona cottage. “Not really.”

  “When’s the last time somebody wearing a tie stayed here at the cottages?” I said.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s happened. He could be in town for a funeral, and that’s why he’s dressed up.”

  “Maybe.” I peered in the guy’s direction. “This man gives me a bad vibe.”

  “You’re being silly. What kind of bad vibe?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” I said, “but you have to admit he looks more like a hit man than the usual Texas Hill Country tourist. I don’t think he’s here to have his picture taken in a field full of bluebonnets.”

  Chapter 3

  I told myself to quit wasting time thinking about the man in the Barcelona cottage. He might be a sales rep for a local winery or visiting a relative for all I knew. Aunt Rowe was a different story. I wanted to talk with her immediately to ask about her bucket list and to make sure she wasn’t considering jumping out of a plane. I couldn’t ask her now because, according to Glenda, Aunt Rowe was out sightseeing with the scrapbookers. I could call, but interrupting her to nose into her business wouldn’t go over well.

  A cooling-off period was probably a good idea. When the group returned, they’d be busy with Marge Boyd. I didn’t want to get involved with scrapbooking—I had a more important book to work on. My discussion with Aunt Rowe would have to wait.

  At home in the Monte Carlo cottage, I grabbed a quick lunch then got comfortable at the kitchen table that doubled as my desk. As Hitchcock napped on the sofa, I opened my manuscript—book two of the Special Agent Carly Pierce series, as yet untitled. I’d first written book one as a woman-in-jeopardy story that my agent and editor suggested I revise to make the FBI agent my main point-of-view character. Who was I to argue with their collective experience?

  I read over the last few pages I’d written to refresh my memory and continued from that point. As I wrote, my phone continued to ping with text messages—all from Jane Alcott. The woman probably had some worthwhile marketing tips, and I appreciated her interest in my potential book sales, but I sure wished she’d take a break. After a few minutes of listening to the annoying pings, I got up and carried the phone to the kitchen counter and lowered the volume.

  Hitchcock raised his head and looked at me.

  “I know she’s only trying to help,” I said, “but seriously, I’d prefer getting this advice in bite-sized pieces. You can relate to that, can’t you?”

  “Mrreow,” he said.

  I grabbed a bottle of water and went back to my desk, then got into the groove of the scene and finished the chapter an hour or so later. By now it was early evening. I fed Hitchcock, then warmed up some leftover taco soup and ate it while scrolling through social media posts. I’d have to get over being a lurker if I wanted to generate book sales.

  Not tonight.

  Before long we’d have to leave for the meeting with Jane at the library. I wasn’t fond of having my picture taken, but it would practically be dark by then. I spent a few minutes on hair and makeup and decided I looked presentable enough. Then I attacked the bigger problem—what to wear.

  Hitchcock sat on the corner of the bed like a department store wardrobe consultant. I inspected the meager possibilities in my closet and chose dark leggings with a khaki tunic. If Jane wanted me to hold Hitchcock, the cat’s dark fur would show up nicely. I didn’t know what kind of dirt I might be dealing with on the construction site and decided on a pair of ankle-high boots.

  I checked myself in the tall mirror on the back of the closet door and added a red paisley scarf.

  I turned to Hitchcock. “What do you think?”

  “Mrreow.”

  I stroked the cat’s head. “I wouldn’t be one bit surprised to learn you’ve already made a tour around that new library on one of your jaunts.”

  I heard my phone ringing out in the kitchen and felt a pang of irritation. Until, that is, I picked it up and saw Luke Griffin’s name on the screen. My lips turned up in a smile.

  I answered the call. “Hi there.”

  “Hey,” he said. “How’s your day?”

  “Better, now that I’m hearing from you,” I said. “Earlier, Hitchcock had a nice time being read to by some el
ementary school children at Tyanne’s bookstore. Things went downhill from there.”

  “How so?”

  I told him about Aunt Rowe and the bucket list group, then mentioned text-a-holic Jane Alcott.

  “I’ve heard of Jane,” he said. “Never met her.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “Some of the guys working on the library got out of hand. You know, with the whistling, leering, hitting on her. I believe Sheriff Crawford got called in to give them a talking-to.” As the local game warden, Luke was sometimes privy to law enforcement conversations.

  “I can believe that. Jane’s very attractive, even though she doesn’t seem to care much about clothes or makeup.”

  “Guess they acted like college kids who’d never been away from home. Men often do, even when they’re old enough to know better.”

  “You’d never act that way,” I said with a giggle.

  “No, ma’am.” He laughed. “But there was a time. You’d be surprised.”

  There was a lot I didn’t know about Luke Griffin, though we’d dated for the past few months. I hoped we’d have time for me to learn everything there was to know about the man.

  Luke cleared his throat. “Hey, reason I called, I know it’s short notice, but have you had dinner yet?”

  “Sorry, I have. I’m going to the library tonight to meet Jane.”

  “I didn’t think the building was open yet.”

  “It’s not. She has a marketing plan that involves taking pictures of me and Hitchcock.”

  “In the dark?”

  “Yeah. I see where she’s coming from—you know, the mystery writer, eerie full moon, black cat.”

  “Guess that makes sense,” he said. “What time are you meeting her?”