by Paige Sleuth
Valentine’s in Cherry Hills
A Cozy Cat Caper Mystery
Book 15
Paige Sleuth
Copyright © 2017 Marla Bradeen (writing as Paige Sleuth)
All rights reserved.
Published by Marla Bradeen.
This book or portions of it (excluding brief quotations) may not be reproduced without prior written permission from the publisher/author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), actual businesses, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If this ebook copy was not purchased by or for you, please purchase your own copy before reading. Thank you for respecting this author’s work.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
DROWNED IN CHERRY HILLS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
“Aargh!”
The thin walls and poor insulation of Katherine Harper’s apartment didn’t do much to muffle the frustrated outburst that could only have come from her lone third-floor neighbor, Lucy Callahan. Kat was debating over whether to see if Lucy needed help when the sound of something knocking against her door cinched her decision to investigate.
She set the book she had been reading on the empty couch cushion beside her and rested her hand on the snoozing yellow-and-brown tortoiseshell nestled in her lap. “Looks like I’m going to have to disturb you, Matty.”
Matty responded by flipping onto her back and stretching across Kat’s legs. Kat gave her downy stomach a scratch, having to give the little creature credit for knowing how to lay on the guilt.
“I’ll make this up to you later,” Kat said, lifting Matty off her lap and setting her aside.
She stood up and opened the door, spotting a bottle of wine lying on her doorstep. Her eyes moved down the corridor and landed on Lucy. The pretty, twenty-something redhead was squatting outside her own apartment, a torn plastic bag in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other.
“Want some help?” Kat asked, picking up the wine bottle.
Lucy flashed her a grim smile. “Thanks. This serves me right for forgetting to bring my canvas bags.”
Kat started gathering up items, taking inventory as she went. Chips, cookies, candy. “It looks like you bought out the Food Mart’s supply of comfort foods.”
“Yeah, well, I’m single and Sunday is Valentine’s Day. And, believe it or not, food shopping is my one exciting adventure for the week.” Lucy made a face. “How sad is that?”
“That’s not sad. I love grocery shopping, too.”
“But I bet you don’t plan your Friday nights around it.”
“Okay, you have a point there.” Kat tied one of the broken bags around the groceries she had collected. “But if you’re looking to meet men, maybe the Cherry Hills Food Mart isn’t the best place to spend your weekends.”
“You’re assuming there are any decent, single men left to meet in this dinky town. Have you seen the available guys out there? They’re single for a reason.”
“It’s been a while since I’ve looked,” Kat admitted. “I guess I got lucky with Andrew.”
She expected Lucy to agree, but instead the redhead averted her gaze and focused on gathering up her stuff without a word in response.
Kat frowned. What was that about? Did Lucy not approve of Andrew Milhone, Kat’s boyfriend since August? Kat had never sensed any friction between the two of them before, but they didn’t spend much time together either.
Before she could ask, Matty strolled into the corridor. Her pupils dilated as she took stock of the items scattered everywhere. Kat wouldn’t doubt the tortoiseshell viewed the chaos as a cat playground set up for her enjoyment.
Not one to be left out, Kat’s other cat, Tom, came barreling out of the apartment. When the black-and-brown feline spotted Lucy, his green eyes lit up and he trotted over to her, meowing the whole way.
“Hey, Tom.” Lucy scratched the big cat’s head as he rubbed against her knee. “You come to help me clean up this mess?”
Tom obliged by batting at a pint of ice cream with one paw.
Lucy grinned before scooping up the container. “At least you’re trying. Matty isn’t even making an effort.”
Kat snapped into action when she saw the gusto with which Matty was chewing on a bag of heart candies. She hurried down the corridor and swiped the package away from the inquisitive tortoiseshell.
“Sorry,” she said, handing the bag to Lucy. “It has some teeth marks around the edges, but I don’t think she broke through the plastic.”
Lucy added the package to the pile in her arms. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to share my snack stash with a cat. See these corn chips? Tabitha loves them. I only have to look at the bag before she’s begging for a nibble.”
Kat laughed. “They can be demanding little things, can’t they?”
“They sure can.”
Kat blew a piece of her brown hair out of her eyes as her light mood faded away. “Lucy, do you have a problem with Andrew?”
Lucy stilled. “Andrew?”
“It seemed like you kind of clammed up when I brought up his name earlier. Do you not like him or something?”
Lucy ducked her head down, but not before Kat spied the flush on her face. “I like Andrew just fine.”
“You’re not acting like it.”
“It’s just . . .” Lucy heaved a sigh. “Never mind. I guess I’m just jealous and feeling sorry for myself. All I seem to attract are losers.”
With Lucy’s outgoing personality and good looks, Kat found that hard to believe. But she didn’t want to get off track. “Are you sure that’s all there is?”
“Well . . .” Lucy shifted the groceries in her arms as she stood up. “I don’t know. It’s probably nothing.”
“What’s probably nothing?”
Lucy didn’t respond, and anxiety blossomed inside Kat’s chest. Whatever Lucy was thinking, Kat had a feeling she wouldn’t like it.
Still, she wanted to know. “You can tell me.”
Lucy’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “I saw Andrew outside the Food Mart today.”
Kat’s breath caught. “Did something happen to him?” Andrew worked as a detective for the Cherry Hills Police Department, and the possibility that he might one day be injured in the line of duty was never far from her mind.
“He’s fine,” Lucy said before Kat’s imagination could run wild. “But he wasn’t alone.”
“Who was he with?”
“Some woman.” Lucy shifted her weight between her feet. “And, Kat, they were both in his car—and leaning pretty close together, I might add.”
Kat’s insides tightened with an emotion she couldn’t identify. Jealousy? Except she had never considered herself to be the jealous type. Then again, she’d never had anyone tell her they’d spotted her boyfriend with another woman.
Lucy peered at Kat as though trying to gauge her reaction. Kat did her best to slap a neutral expression on her face but, judging from the concern in Lucy’s eyes, she wasn’t buying it.
“I wasn’t sure if I should say anything. I mean, this is Andrew. He wouldn’t cheat on you.” Lucy wrinkled her nose. “That
would be ridiculous, right?”
“Right,” Kat said, hating how strained her voice sounded.
“She’s probably just a friend.”
“Probably.” Kat perked up as another possibility occurred to her. “Or, she could have been under arrest. He could have caught her shoplifting or something. She probably didn’t realize he was a cop since he doesn’t wear a uniform.”
Lucy pursed her lips. “I don’t know. Wouldn’t somebody under arrest be in the back instead of the passenger seat?”
Kat had to concede that point. “Did you see what she looked like?”
“Kind of, although her hair was covering part of her face.”
“What color is her hair?”
Lucy lifted one shoulder. “Kind of a blondish brown.”
Kat had been hoping she’d say gray. “How old did she look?”
“Around your age, I guess. Early thirties.”
Kat ignored the knot growing in her stomach and pushed on. “Was she attractive?”
Lucy hesitated before nodding.
Pressure against her leg distracted Kat from firing off any more questions. She glanced down to see Tom leaning against her.
Taking a deep breath, she scooped up the big cat. The softness and warmth of his body loosened some of her tension, but even Tom couldn’t completely erase how untethered she felt right now. Only a conversation with Andrew could do that.
She kissed the top of Tom’s head and gestured toward Matty, who was licking the condensation off of a can of whipped cream. “I should put these two back inside.”
Lucy bit the edge of her lip. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”
“No,” Kat assured her. “I appreciate it.”
Lucy didn’t seem certain, but she nodded. Adjusting the groceries in her arms, she took a step toward her apartment door. “Well, I’ll see you around then.”
Before Kat could reply, the elevator dinged. Matty stood at attention, and her tail started swishing back and forth. Well aware of how the mischievous feline enjoyed outdoor romps, Kat tensed for the inevitable escape attempt.
But Matty didn’t move when the elevator doors parted. Instead, both humans and felines watched in silence as a woman stepped off, a couple plastic grocery bags dangling from her hand. She looked startled to see so much activity in the corridor, but her steps didn’t falter. She offered them a slight nod as she stepped around the whipped cream.
“Hi,” Lucy said.
The woman didn’t break stride. “Hello.”
Matty tipped her nose in the air and sniffed. Kat tried to get a look at her grocery bags to see what had captured Matty’s attention, but all she saw was the outline of a box of hair coloring. Evidently, the next time anyone saw this woman, she might be a Ravishing Raven.
Tom meowed and stretched his paw toward the stranger as she breezed by. She ignored him.
Kat absently bestowed a few consolation strokes upon Tom, the bulk of her attention devoted to seeing where the woman was headed. In light of the fact that the two units across the hall from her and Lucy had been vacant for months, she expected the interloper to figure out she was in the wrong place and turn around any second now.
Yet she didn’t stop. And when she fitted a key into the unit across the hall from Kat’s, Kat realized she must actually live there.
The woman didn’t spare them a second glance before ducking inside the apartment. The sound of the deadbolt sliding into place punctuated her dismissal.
“I guess we have a new neighbor,” Kat commented.
Lucy didn’t reply. When Kat peeked over her shoulder to make sure she was still there, the sight of Lucy’s mouth hanging open caused her heart to skip a beat.
“That’s her,” Lucy hissed in a low voice, her eyes locking with Kat’s. “That’s the woman who was with Andrew.”
CHAPTER TWO
After bidding Lucy goodbye and corralling Matty and Tom back inside, Kat stood behind her front door and stared through the peephole at the unit across the hallway. Should she go over there? Her new neighbor hadn’t acted as though she would welcome an interruption, but curiosity burned inside her. She had to know what the woman had been doing with Andrew. Were they romantically involved? Was Andrew gearing up to end things with Kat at this very minute? She was hoping Valentine’s would be the day Andrew finally told her he loved her, not the day he dumped her back into the singles pool.
Cold tendrils of fear snaked through Kat’s insides. Although she considered herself to be independent, she also still harbored a deep-seated fear of abandonment, a carryover from a childhood spent in foster care. If Andrew broke up with her . . .
Kat shook the thought from her head. She had no proof that Andrew planned to leave her, and she was going to drive herself crazy if she continued to speculate. What she should do was call Andrew. Get an explanation directly from the source.
She just wished she wasn’t so terrified of what that explanation would be.
Tom broke into her thoughts with a meow. She looked down to see him eyeing the door. He probably figured Kat standing sentinel meant a potential stomach scratcher was due to arrive any minute.
She crouched down to pet him. “I hate to be the one to break this to you, Tom, but if our new neighbor does come over, I don’t think she’ll be interested in giving you any belly rubs. She didn’t strike me as a cat person.”
Tom’s eyes widened in apparent disbelief.
“How a person can’t like cats is beyond me, too,” Kat commiserated. “But you saw how she walked right by you when we were out in the hallway.”
Tom flopped onto the floor and curled his front paws close to his chest, peeking at Kat with his trademark ‘Aren’t I the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?’ look.
A flashback of Tom shooting Andrew the same look popped into Kat’s head. Andrew could never resist Tom’s pleading eyes. In fact, he had turned into one of Tom’s favorite people to hit up for attention.
The reminder of how fond Andrew was of Matty and Tom made the notion of him being charmed by her cat-snubbing neighbor seem ridiculous. At any rate, it gave Kat the boost of courage she needed to call him.
Springing to her feet and storming past a startled Tom, Kat snatched her cell phone off of the coffee table and plopped down on the couch. Tom leapt up to join her, watching as she pressed the speed dial for Andrew’s number. From the tilt of his head, he seemed to know something was up.
Kat tapped her foot on the carpet as she waited for Andrew to answer. After four rings, voicemail picked up. She hung up and tried again with the same result.
“It looks like we’re going to have to seek out our new neighbor for answers,” she told Tom, jumping up and tucking her phone in her jeans pocket.
Tom’s ears pricked as he rose to join her.
“Except maybe I’d better go alone,” Kat amended, giving him a few head pats. “Don’t worry. You’ll get a full report when I return.”
Tom seemed content with that plan. He dragged his cheek over her fingernails, a low purr rumbling from his chest.
With a goodbye scratch to Matty, Kat grabbed her keys and headed into the hallway.
She stopped outside the door across the hall, taking a deep breath to compose herself before depressing the doorbell. While she waited, she worked out how best to broach the subject of Andrew. ‘Keep your hands off my man’ struck her as a tad too confrontational and would likely result in a slammed door in her face, which was the last thing she wanted. No, if she hoped to walk away with an explanation, she would need to remain civil.
It seemed to take forever for the door to open, and when it did it was only a crack. Kat could barely make out the woman’s face through the gap.
“Yes?” the woman said.
“Hi.” Kat scrounged up a smile. “I came over to introduce myself. I’m your neighbor across the hall.”
The woman didn’t move. Was that because she knew about Kat’s ties to Andrew? She probably hadn’t expected Kat to confront her directl
y.
“May I come in?” Kat asked, doing her best to sound friendly and nonthreatening.
The door shut, prompting Kat to wonder if she’d just been dismissed. But then she heard the scrape of a metal chain lock being unhooked. When the door opened a second time, the woman was smiling. The sight caused Kat’s stomach to clench a little. With smooth, ivory skin and full lips, her new neighbor really was pretty.
“I’m Sheila,” she said, motioning Kat inside.
Kat stepped over the threshold. “Kat.”
Sheila scanned the hallway before securing the door. Kat found it interesting that she flipped the deadbolt and slid the chain lock back into place. She had figured Sheila wouldn’t want any barriers slowing her down when it came time to banish Kat from her apartment.
Sheila gestured toward the living room. “You’re welcome to sit.”
The apartment’s layout was a mirror image of Kat’s own one-bedroom unit. However, with only two rather beat-up folding chairs occupying the living area, the space looked much larger. There wasn’t even a coffee table or television present, let alone any items that might hint at Sheila’s personality. Although, Kat considered, Sheila’s lack of possessions might actually be a reflection of her personality in itself.
Kat thought about sitting in one of the chairs but dismissed the option when Sheila leaned against the wall. Having Sheila towering above her during this conversation wouldn’t help to banish her nerves.
Needing some distance, Kat crossed her arms over her chest and wandered over to the opposite side of the room. “So,” she said, “you’re new to Cherry Hills, huh?”
Instead of answering, Sheila asked, “How long have you lived here?”
“I grew up here.” Kat left out how she’d moved away after high school and had only returned this past summer. If Sheila intended to reveal as little about herself as she could get away with, Kat wasn’t going to volunteer anything she didn’t have to either.
Sheila crossed her ankles. “You must know everyone in town then.”
“I know quite a few people.” There were also quite a few townspeople whom Kat didn’t know, but she didn’t feel compelled to point that out. “You know how it is in small towns.”
