Cat Got Your Cash

by Julie Chase

  She wanted me to find happiness with Chase? It probably didn’t hurt that the Hawthornes’ money was as old as Mom’s family money, or that the Hawthornes owned the most powerful law firm in the state—possibly the entire south.

  “Chase and I are just friends. Also I don’t like it when you talk about kindling my fire. I know what you mean by that.”

  She dotted the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “It’s basic biology and logic. Chase is a wealthy, educated, handsome, and strapping young man. No woman in her right mind would turn him down.”

  “Jeez. Don’t say it like you’ve noticed.” My gumbo threatened to make a reappearance.

  She guffawed. “Honey I’m old, not dead.”

  “And married. Old and married.”

  “Anyway,” she brushed over my silly complaint. “Your union would overthrow every local grab for power. You’d be royalty.”

  “Don’t say union.”

  “His family put a stop to that awful lawsuit last summer. You remember? When you ran over that stranger’s foot.”

  “That man tried to carjack me!” I folded my hands in my lap and crossed my ankles under my chair. “I agree. Chase is a good catch, and I liked him, but he left again, and that can’t be helped. Also I’m not trying to catch anyone.” End of weird discussion.

  Mom resumed her smug face. “Did you know that if you and Chase hit it off, you and Scarlet could be real sisters like you’ve always wanted?”

  Scarlet’s husband was Chase’s older brother, Carter. “Yes. We’d be sisters-in-law.” The thought had crossed my mind, stupidly, back in high school when I was a senior and far too cool to talk to a lowly sophomore. No matter how hot I’d thought he was.

  My phone buzzed to life, and I scrounged it out of my bag. Jack’s face lit the screen. Speaking of handsome heartbreakers. “Hello?”

  “Lacy? Where are you?” He was out of breath and uncharacteristically worked up. “Are you okay?”

  “I was, but now I’m a little worried.” I flopped my napkin onto the table and stood to pace the room. “What’s happening?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at my parents’ house. I brought Annie’s kittens here for safekeeping. Her ex-husband came to the shop today looking for them.”

  He swore under his breath.

  “Talk,” I said. “You never call unless something’s wrong. What is it?” I sorted through a ready list of possible worst-case scenarios. “Are you hurt?” I looked around me. My parents, Penelope, Annie’s kittens, and I were safe. “Is it Imogene? Scarlet?” Oh, my goodness! Pain radiated through my chest. “Did something happen to Scarlet or the kids?”

  “No. No. No.” He slowed his speech into the easy southern drawl I recognized as cop mode. Emotions were locked safely away. “Nothing like that. I just needed to know you were safe.”

  “Why?” He might’ve gotten his stuff together, but my emotions were climbing the charts. “Am I in danger? Was there a threat made on me? My family? The kittens?”

  There was a long stretch of silence.

  “No threats, but there was an attempted break-in at your house.”

  I closed the distance to Mom’s table and fell back into my seat. “Again? Was it Charlie?”

  “No. We set him loose around five, but he went to work from there. His boss confirmed that he hasn’t left since he clocked in. His alibi for Annie’s death holds up too.”

  “How’s my house?”

  Mom froze. She turned wide blue eyes on me.

  Jack exhaled deeply. “Fine, as far as I can tell. The door’s still secure. A little dinged up, but we can fix that. A neighbor walking her dog called in a report of strange behavior. She saw a man she didn’t recognize trying to get in through your back door. I heard it on the scanner, recognized your address, and came over.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute. Don’t leave, okay?” I kissed Mom’s cheek and took her folder.

  She caught my hand in hers. “What’s happening?”

  “I’m not sure. Jack’s at my place. I’ll call and fill you in as soon as I know more.”

  I stuffed Penelope into her carrier. “Who needs sleep when I can have fear and anxiety instead?” I mumbled on my way out to the car.

  Chapter Seven

  Furry Godmother’s life lesson: When playing cat and mouse, don’t be the mouse.

  By midnight, I was curled under a blanket on my couch, freezing. Two break-ins in two days. Sure, one attempt hadn’t been successful, but that didn’t make me feel any more secure. In fact, it made me feel like whoever tried and failed would be back to finish what he started. My teeth rattled together. My body’s unfortunate response to extreme emotional circumstances.

  Jack lowered his powerful frame onto the cushion beside me and set a steaming mug on the coffee table. “I made tea. Decaf so you can rest. I considered adding a shot of bourbon for good measure, but you don’t have any.”

  I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders. “I can’t get warm.”

  “It’s the anxiety. Your body is preparing for fight or flight, redistributing blood flow and otherwise dealing with your day.”

  I lifted the tea and inhaled bitter tendrils of steam. “I know how the human body works,” I crabbed.

  “Then why’d you ask?”

  “I didn’t.” I frowned over the top of my mug.

  Jack’s expression was grim. “I’m sorry this is happening to you.”

  I swallowed more tea, and the chill slowly faded from my bones. “You’re sure it wasn’t Charlie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then who? Why?”

  Jack untucked his shirt and exhaled. “I don’t know. Charlie said he took the cats as some sort of statement to his online world. He was saving the poor abused and neglected felines. He was going to be a hero.”

  “Dumb.”

  “Yep. I doubt another activist would attempt the same crime on the same day, and he hadn’t posted about his plan yet. He wanted to make a surprise announcement.”

  I twisted a loose blanket thread between my fingertips. “I’m glad your guy was so quick to fix my door. No one else would’ve gotten it done already, and the second burglar could’ve walked right in.” A pang of shame coursed through me. “I didn’t get to thank him properly.”

  Jack toed off his boots and kicked back. “I thanked him plenty.”

  “Maybe I can send him a card.” My teeth cracked and bounced against one another, jumbling the words.

  “Do not send a thank-you card. Try to relax before you have a panic attack and scare yourself half to death.”

  “That would make me twice as lucky as Annie.”

  Jack adjusted a throw pillow behind his head and ignored me.

  “Charlie has an alibi for her death, but are you looking at all her other online haters?”

  “Yes.”

  I doubted that was possible, but I lost steam and changed direction. “Should we assume whoever tried to break in tonight was after the kittens?” As long as the burglar wasn’t after me, he could have anything he wanted, besides Penelope and Buttercup.

  “I don’t assume anything.” He checked his watch.

  “Will you stay with me tonight?” The words were through my lips as quickly as they came to mind. So much for finding a casual way to deliver the invitation.

  He rolled his head in my direction and tented his brows.

  I backpedaled. “You don’t have to. I mean, I understand if you can’t. You’re obviously under no obligation to babysit me, and you probably have to work in the morning. My spare bedroom only has a squeaky twin pullout.” Nothing like I imagined the master suite at the Smacker mansion. He probably had a king-sized bed on a pedestal, smothered in black satin sheets and loaded with puffy pillows in shams that matched his pajamas. I stole a sideways glance at him. He didn’t strike me as the sort to wear pajamas.

  “I don’t.”

  “What?” I jerked my chin in his direction.

  “I don
’t have to work in the morning. I go in at eleven.” He hitched his cheek into a lazy half smile. “What did you think I meant?”

  I shook my head in the negative and finished my tea.

  “For what it’s worth, I don’t think the latest break-in attempt was about you. I think someone is looking for something.”

  I made a face. “What? The kittens?”

  Jack stretched long legs out before us. “I don’t know yet.”

  “Well, what do you know?”

  “I should’ve put liquor in your tea.”

  I hoisted myself off the couch and sloughed the blanket onto the empty space behind me. “I have to bake. It helps me think. Plus, the oven will heat the house.” I rubbed my gooseflesh-covered arms. “You don’t have to spend the night. I’m going to cook instead of sleep.” I punched the buttons on my stove, preheating it to a toasty three-fifty.

  Jack followed me to the kitchen and dropped a bit of dried bloodworm into Buttercup’s tank. Penelope watched, ever protective of her little sister.

  I filled cupcake tins with paper liners and wished my pajamas didn’t have peaches all over them.

  Jack checked the back door. “My guy did good work.” He trailed his fingers down the new doorframe and over the replacement locks. “It’d take a battering ram to get through here now.”

  I tied an apron around my pajama pants and refocused my erratic emotions. “You haven’t told me what I owe you for that.”

  He cast me a strange look. “Let me think about it.”

  I wasn’t sure if the electricity zipping over my skin was dread or excitement.

  I released a controlled breath and rolled my shoulders, loosening knots of tension that had been collecting since yesterday. “Doggy Divas placed an order for twenty dozen peanut butter pupcakes. They’re including one in every party bag at their spa event this week. A reporter from Devoted to Dogs magazine will be there, and I’m hoping to get some good press for Furry Godmother.”

  Jack made a noncommittal noise. Much like the ones I made when Mom prattled on and I wasn’t listening. He checked his phone for the fortieth time.

  “What’s wrong?” I slouched. “Don’t say nothing because there’s something.”

  He gave me a face.

  “What? I’m nosy. Maybe you were right to avoid me these last few months. I want to know what’s bothering you. I can tell it’s not about this case, so don’t try to misdirect me.”

  He set his phone on the island. “I’m pursuing a personal thing. It isn’t relevant to Annie’s investigation.”

  I lined bags and bottles on the counter beside a pile of measuring cups and spoons. “Go on.” Two hundred and forty pupcakes would take me two hours to complete, and it was already twelve thirty. I dumped measured ingredients into a deep bowl and gave it a shake. Whole wheat flour, rolled oats, baking powder, baking soda . . .

  “Don’t you need a recipe?” Jack asked.

  “Not anymore. I could make these in my sleep. Sometimes I think I do.” Eggs. Applesauce. Vanilla. Peanut butter and bananas. “Don’t change the subject.” I slid the bowl under my mixer and plugged the beaters in. “I’m not going to stop asking you what you’re up to, so you might as well fess up. I’ll give you three to five minutes to decide.” I rocked the beaters forward, plunging them into the bowl, and powered the mixer on. The machine whirred to life, spinning the bowl’s contents into a delicious-smelling batter. I drove my gaze in a steady circuit from the clock, to the batter, to Jack. “Time’s up.” I clicked the mixer off and removed the bowl. “What’s it going to be?”

  He rested his forearms on the counter in a move of clear indecision.

  I scooped batter into paper liners. “If you tell me your problem, maybe it will take my mind off this day for a while. No promises, but maybe.”

  He joined his hands and bobbed them against the island several times. “I’m looking into my grandpa’s death.”

  I stopped midscoop. Grandpa Smacker had died a year ago. Why look into it now? What had changed? I raced mentally backward through my time with Jack. One thing came to mind. His grandpa’s live-in girlfriend. “You think Tabitha had something to do with what happened. That’s why you didn’t make her move out when you moved in. You’re keeping tabs on her.” I recalled the kiss Jack had planted on my cheek at the Animal Elegance Gala, when he pretended to be my boyfriend for two minutes while she watched. I filled the last row of pupcake liners and slid the trays into the oven. “Are you going to fill in the blanks, or should I continue speculating?”

  He didn’t answer.

  I repeated the batter-making process for batch number two, giving him a few minutes of my silence as I measured and scooped.

  “You only make two trays at a time? No wonder this takes all night. You need a bigger kitchen.”

  “I might have a double oven installed when I remodel.” In my dreams, I’d also buy a pony.

  “Why not bake at your parents’ house? Their kitchen is massive.”

  I wiped the dusting of flour off my countertop. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that.”

  Penelope leapt onto Jack’s lap and purred. He rubbed her head. “Have you heard any more from your ex?”

  “No. He sent a couple nasty e-mails and texts after I picked Penelope up from the airport, but I ignored them, and he lost interest.” I beat the next batch of batter and covered it with plastic wrap until the first round finished in the oven. “You were saying something about your grandpa’s death,” I prompted. “You might as well tell me willingly.”

  Jack laughed. “Fine. Grandpa was in good health when he died. He was seventy-eight and incredibly fit. He walked every morning. He ate well. Had regular checkups and no history of heart disease. Yet he had a heart attack.”

  “Heart attacks happen all the time to people without a history of heart problems. Most attacks come without warning. When there are warning signs, people ignore them—especially people who are otherwise healthy.”

  His gaze drifted away. “Do medical examiners usually find traces of GHB in the blood of healthy heart attack victims?”

  “Your grandpa was roofied?”

  “Yeah. Not an overdose, but there was evidence of the drug along with dinner and red wine.” His voice was crisp and clear. A recitation of fact. A small vein pulsed in his neck, betraying his careful expression.

  I couldn’t imagine what he was feeling. I ached to comfort him, but what could I say? “Go on.”

  “The medical examiner said there was evidence of ongoing use, but my grandpa would never have taken drugs intentionally. The examiner knew it. I know it. So what was going on?”

  “I hate to play the devil’s advocate, but how well did you know him when he passed?”

  Jack’s cool blue eyes turned fierce. “Well enough to know he didn’t do drugs.”

  “Right. Sorry.” I removed the first round of pupcakes from the oven and turned them over on a wire rack. I righted them with quick fingers. “How’d you keep this out of the papers?” Allegations of drug use would’ve flattened the Smacker empire like one of my soufflés.

  “The medical examiner was a friend of Grandpa’s. I promised to look into the GHB, and he agreed to keep the details under wraps for as long as he could. I’ve been searching for breadcrumbs for months, and all I know for sure is that Tabitha was Grandpa’s main companion. According to his friends, neighbors, and board members at Grandpa Smacker, they were inseparable. Grandpa told me about their walks and rituals. They baked together. Traveled. They had a glass of red wine in the courtyard every night before bed. Normal stuff. Aside from the huge age difference, they were a regular couple.”

  So that explained the wine in his stomach. “Do you think Tabitha was drugging him? Why GHB? That’s a date rape drug.”

  Jack looked lost. “I don’t know.” He covered his face with one hand. “He loved her. I’m sure their relationship was consensual. Nothing weird like that.”

  “Okay.” I filled the muffin tins
with fresh papers and batter. “What do you know about Tabitha?” I reset my timer and pushed the pans into the oven.

  “Not much. I know she’s only forty-five. Just ten years older than me. More than thirty years younger than Grandpa. She has no job but never needs money, and she’s about as high maintenance as women can get. Weekly nail and massage appointments. Facials. Hair appointments. An expensive gym membership. I can’t get into her financials without a warrant, so I don’t know where the money comes from, but she never runs out. Could be extensive credit card debt, but I’m not convinced. The only details I found online were past phone numbers and addresses. She’s a ghost. No social media. No arrests. Not even a parking ticket. I went to her old addresses and asked about her. The few neighbors who remembered she existed didn’t know anything about her. They all thought she seemed like a nice lady.”

  “Maybe she is.” I whipped plain cream cheese, peanut butter, and extra-virgin olive oil in a bowl for pupcake frosting. “Someone else could’ve slipped him the GHB earlier in the day. It lasts several hours. Maybe you’re on the wrong path.”

  “No way. She was with him all the time. She put the drug in his wine. I know it. What I don’t know is why.” He dragged heavy hands through dark hair before resting them on the back of his neck.

  “Oh, yuck.” I stuck out my tongue in a faux gag. “She sent food to my shop after the break-in this summer. Would I know if she drugged me?”

  Jack made a face. “You? Probably not.”

  “Ha. Ha.” I pushed the conversation around my crowded head a moment longer. “What if she used small doses of GHB? Not enough for him to feel drugged. Just enough to loosen his tongue. GHB would lower his inhibitions, so she could prod into his business affairs. Your grandpa’s trade secrets could bring in a lot of money. I’ll bet the right inside information would sell for a fortune to a rag magazine.” I dropped my spatula and snapped my fingers. “I could help you gather intel. I can make friends with her, maybe spy.” There was a hopeful note in my voice I hadn’t expected.

  Jack washed up at the sink. “I think your life is full enough without adding any of my burdens. Besides I think Tabitha is on to me. She started talking about moving out.”