After a few more minutes, the lazy sod cruises through a sweet, green neighborhood. A sign with bold print framed by ivy-covered columns proclaims Killearn Estates, Tallahassee, Florida. As I pop my head further up to look around better, I appreciate the streets lined with giant live oaks dripping with gray Spanish moss and the well-kept brick homes. A good place to make my escape.
This wanker is too busy gobbling a candy bar to pay me any mind. In the cup holder beside him, an opened highboy of beer sits, sweating condensation. I slink forward for a broad view out of the front window. A four-way stop is coming up, with a lovely berm and lake to the left of the driver’s seat.
The idiot opens the window and tosses out the candy wrapper. Litterbug, I want to hiss, but keep my own counsel on his tawdry habits. I leap, with my claws out, deliberately knocking over the beer can and splashing beer over him and the seat. With as ugly and vicious a sound as I can make, I yowl as I jump on his chest, digging my sharp nails through his thin T- shirt and drawing blood. He yelps and screams, then slaps at me with both hands, losing control of the steering wheel and spinning into the berm.
The highboy can rolls under the brake pedal, splashing beer as it tumbles. With a jolt and a walloping noise, the truck slams into a sign post and abruptly stops. My catnapper moans and rubs his head before he unhooks his seatbelt. Given the slow speed of the truck, he’s probably not really hurt. Already I spy a biped on the sidewalk punching in numbers on his cell phone, no doubt 9-1-1. This nutter catnapper will have some explaining to do to the law enforcement officers who will soon be on their way, especially as both he and the vehicle now reek of beer.
Quite satisfied with myself, I retract my claws and soar through the open window and take off running. No need to look back.
What I need now is water, and, oh, maybe a filet of salmon. Seeking something cool and wet to drink and a bit of a nosh, I spot a lovely, petite young lady with red hair—just like Tammy’s— outside a small brick house watering a butterfly garden. She looks to be in her early thirties, she’s trim, and her face is heart shaped with full lips and her big eyes are vivid amber. She’s talking on a smartphone as she arches water over the flowers.
“I’ll do it, Delphine, I promise. Yes, tonight, yes, I will. I’ll get it done.” Her voice is loud, but not rudely so, earnest with a touch of angst, but not desperate. She says her goodbyes and slips the phone into a wide pocket in her billowy shorts.
Experience has taught me to be careful approaching bipeds who are holding watering hoses. I sneak closer but keep out of sight, all the while eyeing the water pooling on leaves. Just as my thirst nearly compels me to lick the leaves, the redhead sprays a stream of water into a blue tiled birdbath and turns the water off at the spigot.
The front door bangs open and another woman, taller and younger than the redhead, steps out. She has wild curling black hair and wears a long, flowered skirt and black tank top accented with beads and big gold hoop earrings. A retro-hippie style. It’s a look not just anyone can pull off, but on her it works. Yet she almost ruins it by smacking gum.
“Yo, Abby, are you really going back to the office, or should we open that bottle of wine?” Hippie Girl laughs.
I like her at once. I bet she’ll cook me a filet of salmon if I purr nicely. Slinking out from the bush where I’m hiding, ready to claim these two bipeds, I catch a shadow and flicker of movement at the far edge of the house—definitely dodgy, as if someone is ducking around the corner to hide.
The red-haired woman—Abby— hasn’t noticed, nor has Hippie Girl. I don’t bother trying to alert the young women to the intruder. They don’t know me, as Tammy would say, from Adam’s house cat, so how could they understand any warning I might give them? Instead, I dash around the corner to see what I can see.
“Oh, a kitty,” Abby sings out as I zip by, but I keep going until I can study the backyard. After prowling among the many bushes and trees, I spot no one, but catch a spicy scent of perfume or aftershave. Something like patchouli mixed with a light flowery sweetness.
I stroll back to the front in time to hear Abby calling the other woman by the name Layla. I purr, thinking how well that name fits her.
“I absolutely have to finish that brief for Delphine’s pre-trial hearing.” Abby wipes her hands off and heads back toward the front door.
Layla smacks her gum, her forehead creased by a slight frown, as she tags along. “Okay, okay, I’ll go back with you. I’ll do the research and you write. We can sneak in the back door so nobody will bother us.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Abby says.
“Come on, you took me in while they’re fixing my apartment from the fire. I owe you.”
My ears perk up. Layla’s apartment has been damaged in a fire? I creep forward to study her, checking her for any burns or wounds. I’m close enough to smell the minty tang of her gum, but keep low under the scrubs so she doesn’t see me.
“You don’t owe me. Having you here will be fun,” Abby says. But I hear a question mark in her statement—she’s not sure. Maybe the two women are not close friends? And I’m sensing something else. Someone was spying on them.
Instead of dashing into the house, I drink lavishly from the bird bath—glad to see Abby keeps it clean—and then jump into the open window of a Honda parked in the driveway.
Wherever this office is, I’m going with them. I have a feeling they’re going to need me. Call it a sixth sense if you will. But I know to heed it when I feel something is amiss.
Chapter Two
Abby clenched her jaw as Layla sped down Thomasville Road in her sparkling new Honda Civic. An empty diet soda bottle rolled out from under the seat and across Abby’s foot as Layla took the entrance ramp to the Capital Circle flyover far too fast. Abby wished she’d driven her own vehicle, but Layla’s car had been blocking her Prius and it had been easier to just let Layla drive. Abby swore not to make that mistake again.
She sighed. It was going to be a long night and fussing with her temporary roommate wouldn’t help anything. But Abby couldn’t help it, she had to say it. “Maybe you should go…slower.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve almost there. I want to get this done. Maybe if we can get home before midnight, we can still crack open that bottle of wine.”
Abby wished that her client hadn’t gifted her with that bottle of first growth Bordeaux Chateaux after she’d won a trial for him. Frankly, she’d rather have had the hundred bucks the wine had cost him. Even after four years of work at Phillip Draper’s law firm, she still had outstanding student loans from her three years at Florida State University College of Law, plus the mortgage on her little brick house. Sometimes she wondered if the legal ladder of success was really worth it. Maybe ambition was a curse. She could have stayed a librarian and not gone back to law school. Her days at FSU’s main campus library had been pleasant—and she hadn’t had to work eighty-hour weeks like she did now.
Layla said something else about the wine, words Abby barely processed.
“You’re not even supposed to drink wine,” Abby said, pulling herself out of her mope.
“Uh, why is it I’m not supposed to drink wine?” Layla asked, giving the Honda the gas as she pulled onto Park Avenue near downtown Tallahassee.
“You know, the diabetes.” Abby hadn’t known a damn thing about diabetes—she’d always been healthy as a horse as the saying went—until Layla moved in yesterday with her blood sugar monitors, insulin, and a host of pills and eating regiments. As Layla had packed the cheese drawer in the refrigerator full of insulin, all neatly kept in a plastic box with a blue lid, she explained that she was type one. Born that way. The genetic curse of a grandfather who had died young from the disease.
“Yeah, well, I won’t drink the whole bottle or anything.” Layla turned sharply into an alley that ran behind the law firm and parked the Honda.
Abby scanned the alley, looking up and down slowly, but she didn’t see anyone lurking. Then she turned around to the back seat
to grab her laptop and saw a black cat sitting on top of the orange and pink paisley backpack Layla used as a purse, medicine chest, and portable filing cabinet. The cat meowed as if saying hello as he stepped daintily onto Layla’s matching paisley laptop case.
“Oh, Kitty, how’d you get in here?” Abby reached out a hand toward the animal. “I bet you’re the one I saw in the front yard earlier.” The cat reached its head up to her fingers and sniffed. Abby scratched under his chin and the animal purred. “Aren’t you a beauty?”
Layla turned around and offered the cat her hand too. “No collar, but doesn’t look abandoned. Too shiny and well-fed looking.”
“Bet it’s from the neighborhood and just jumped into your open window exploring. You know how cats are. Curious.” Abby was thinking that she’d mentioned to Layla that she should roll her windows up and lock her doors, but Layla said the car would get too hot. Of course, Abby had also mentioned Layla should hang her clothes up and stop spitting her gum out into the potted plants in her house. Oh well, at least she wasn’t dropping the used gum into Abby’s aquarium of neon tetras and black mollies.
The cat rubbed his head against first Abby’s and then Layla’s hands. “Marking us, I see,” Layla said. “I bet this one’s going to be trouble.”
When Layla said “trouble,” the cat purred several decibels louder and hopped into the front seat and head-butted Layla’s shoulder. “Yes, sir, trouble,” Layla said. As Layla repeated “trouble,” the cat licked her chin, his purring louder still. Layla reached over and picked him up, putting the animal in her lap. “I think his name might be Trouble,” she said. The cat stretched up, putting its two front paws on her shoulders, one on either side of her head, and bobbed his head.
“I swear he’s nodding yes at me,” Layla said. “Trouble, isn’t it?” The cat licked her on the chin again, making her laugh. “That’s what we’ll call you, Trouble.”
“Well, don’t get attached, okay? We’ll have to find his owner. Put up posters, a photo on Craigslist.” Abby felt a strange jab of jealousy that the cat seemed to like Layla better. But just then, as if the animal had read her mind, he leapt from Layla’s lap into Abby’s, rubbing against her blouse and purring.
“Ah, so you’re my buddy too, are you?” Abby ran her fingers down his sleek coat. No evidence of wounds or ticks or fleas. She decided he was definitely not a stray.
Layla cranked up the windows. “Don’t want him dashing out in this alley.”
“Oh, he’s such a pretty kitty, so shiny.” Abby rubbed her nose across the cat’s face lightly, and wondered why she’d never gotten a cat. Her fish were great. She loved having an aquarium, but none of those tetras or mollies had ever purred against her like this cat was doing. “Aren’t you the softest, sweetest thing?”
“Now who’s getting attached?” Layla laughed. “Okay, I’ll go in and get some milk from the kitchen for him and we can decide whether we need to take him back to your house or not.” She studied the cat for a long moment. “Hold on to him when I open the door—we don’t want him running away downtown.” Abby hugged the cat closer to her as Layla grabbed her backpack and opened the Honda door and hopped out. As Layla hurried away, Abby bent her head down to the animal and rubbed her cheek along his soft fur, not paying any attention to Layla at all. “Trouble,” she crooned. The cat purred against her cheek again. Maybe she wouldn’t hurry to put up those found-cat posters.
Suddenly the cat—Trouble—tensed in her arms.
Layla’s scream reverberated through the alley.
Abby jerked her head up just in time to see a dark figure in a hoodie grab Layla’s backpack and put something shiny against her neck.
“Oh, no!” Abby screamed.
The man in the hoodie had what looked to be a knife at Layla’s throat.
Chapter Three
Victor sat glumly at his desk in his small rental house in Tallahassee and slammed shut his gift and estate tax textbook. That stuff didn’t make a lick of sense.
What the hell was he doing in law school anyway? He missed being in the Navy. Those had been good years and he’d gotten his college degree and valuable experiences. Before he’d resigned his commission, he’d been useful, he’d had adventures, and, most importantly, he’d served his country well.
Victor ran his fingers through his sandy-colored hair. Maybe he should have fought to stay in the Navy. But there was no going back now.
He had just turned thirty-five and considered himself in his prime. Maybe he could join a police department. Or get a job working construction. Better yet, become an electrician or plumber. They made good money and were highly useful individuals.
Anything but more law school.
Victor stood and paced to the refrigerator. Too early for beer, too late for supper.
Finally, he threw himself down on the floor and did thirty sit-ups. After that, he felt a little better. Almost clear-headed enough to tackle the gift and estate tax textbook again. He opened the book, read a page, slammed it shut.
He needed Layla. No question about it. He’d never have gotten through that truly hideous income tax class without her careful tutoring. She was the smartest damn student in the whole law school.
But he hated to ask for help from her again. Especially since she was officially mad at him. Furious in fact. And all he’d been trying to do was save her from a serious heartbreak and a bad reputation. Okay, maybe he used stronger words than that. Better to let her calm down some before he called her.
He did twenty jumping jacks and was glad he had a small rental house so he didn’t have to worry about a downstairs neighbor yelling about the thumping.
Breathing hard, he opened the textbook again.
This time he didn’t even make it through a single page.
Victor snatched up his phone and called Layla. They could just damn well get over being mad at each other.
The call went straight to voice mail.
“Layla, call me. Please.” He snapped his old flip phone shut, glancing for a moment at the scratches on the plastic cover. The rep at Verizon had made fun of him over it. “Man, get with it, get a smartphone,” the sales guy had said. But Victor had cut him off quick. The flip phone still worked and he didn’t have to worry about the battery exploding. Besides, he didn’t want to be addicted to a smartphone.
He slid the phone into his pocket and ambled over to his desk—a solid wood piece he’d gotten cheap off Craigslist—and opened a drawer. He pulled out a file with Layla’s name on it and flipped it open. For a long time, he sat and stared at the single photograph inside the file. Layla, laughing, as she pressed tightly against Phillip Draper, her boss. He had his arm around her waist and he was holding her close. The look on both of their faces was very telling.
Layla was in over her head, and with a married man. All Victor wanted to do was help her escape from that relationship with a minimum of damage. But he didn’t know if she’d let him.
Ever since that day he’d sat down next to Layla in the orientation for new students, she’d been his best friend in law school. Nothing more than friends though, as he wasn’t her type romantically. Truth was, she wasn’t his either—too flamboyant. But he loved her like a friend and wanted to do whatever he could for her.
But helping Layla was tricky, not just because of her independent streak, but because she was so mad she wasn’t speaking to him. Maybe that was his fault.
Once more he studied the photograph before sliding it back into the file. It wasn’t just the damn photo. He hadn’t forgotten that phone call. They’d been studying and her cell rang. As soon as Layla looked at the caller ID, she’d asked Victor to give her some privacy, which he did. But he’d managed to hear some of the conversation from the other room—something about keeping a secret and a reference to oil and gas exploration. The one thing he’d heard clearly was Layla saying she wouldn’t hide “them” at her apartment. Maybe she’d sensed Victor was listening because she’d lowered her voice after that. He caug
ht a muted reference to hiding “them” at “your” house, or the law firm—at least that’s what he thought she’d said.
Later, when she’d left the room, he’d checked her cell phone. The call came from the Drapers’ home phone. Phillip’s house.
Mulling that conversation over in his mind now, he began to fear that Layla might be into something deeper than just an inappropriate relationship with her boss. Yet he didn’t get the sense that Layla was hiding something from Phillip, but was concealing something Philip knew about and wanted kept private.
Victor jumped up and grabbed his car keys. “I have to talk to her,” he said to the empty room.
Chapter Four
I’m trapped in Abby’s car as Layla screams and Abby punches in 9-1-1 on her cell phone. The attacker wrestles the backpack off Layla and drops it to the ground as he continues thrusting what looks to be a knife at her throat. With things in shambles, there’s no time for 9-1-1.
I jump on the horn, sounding an alarm. The attacker swings around and looks at the car. In the Honda’s headlights, his red-rimmed eyes and three-day beard look like something out of a knackered bum’s mug shot.
I spot Layla’s key ring where she dropped it on the driver’s side seat and I pounce, my paw finding the panic button. I don’t know if it will scare off the assailant or not, but until Abby opens the door for me, I can’t do much else. A split second later, a loud audacious noise screams in my sensitive ears, the panic button at work. Despite the horrid sound, the assailant still holds Layla, even as she struggles against him.
I jump up to the window, my paws scratching at the glass. Let me out, I try to telepathically communicate to Abby.
Abby is ignoring me as she rifles through stuff in the glove compartment. I swing my head back and forth, looking from Layla to Abby, then back again. The assailant says something. I can’t hear the words, but I see his mouth moving. The panic button continues to shriek. Abby pulls out a tire pressure gauge as if it could be used as a weapon.
A Box Full of Trouble Page 39
