by Terry Spear
Chapter 11
Blake suspected Clay was going to be trouble no matter what they did. Give him a room. Don’t give him a room. But Blake liked that Nicole was willing to allow the guy the opportunity to remain there and do his investigation. Hopefully, Clay would stay out of Nicole’s way. Blake knew Nicole would love to complete the task, and he and his brother and sisters would do anything they could to aid her in finishing it. He thought the world of her for being good-natured enough to be okay with Clay solving the case so she could spend more time with Blake.
Besides, staying with her while the guy was here was definitely a good thing. At least he hoped so. He remembered going on a trip with his siblings to Grand Cayman Island once, and Roxie talking to a middle-age couple about why they were there. Was it a honeymoon? Anniversary?
She learned the couple had dumped their spouses and were doing a trial vacation in paradise. They were each paying their own way, but this was like a honeymoon before the marriage, if it went that far. Blake wasn’t surprised Roxie would talk to the woman. She was always so interested in what was going on around her, and she thought the couple looked so happy. Blake and his brother and sisters were out on the beach walking one afternoon as a family when Roxie saw the woman by herself, not with the dream guy, and asked her how it was going.
“He hogs the bathroom, stinks it all up, won’t put the toilet seat down after he uses the toilet, leaves toothpaste all over the sink. He’s a total grouch until he’s had his fourth cup of coffee. and sometimes even after he’s had that. I can see why his wife wasn’t really happy with him. There are two sides to the story. I’m seeing the wife’s side now.”
Blake and his siblings had laughed about it later. From the sound of it, even a trip to paradise wouldn’t fix the troubles those two were bound to have.
But he hoped sharing close quarters with Nicole wouldn’t prove to be a disaster. Then again, if things didn’t work out between them, it was better to know sooner than later.
“You look like you could use a hot cocoa,” Blake said to Nicole.
“I could, thanks.” They took seats on the deck and ordered hot cocoa and saw Clay coming. “Oh, brother.”
Blake smiled at her.
“Hey, thanks, Nicole, Blake. I know you gave Landon the go-ahead to allow me to have a room. Believe me, I really appreciate it, and I’ll share anything I find on these guys with Nicole.”
“Thanks,” Nicole said, but Blake swore she didn’t trust him.
Probably because of the issue with Clay doing his disappearing act. He seemed like an opportunistic wolf. Blake didn’t blame her.
Then Blake saw Jake Silver’s wife, Alicia, coming to see them, holding her five-year-old daughter’s hand. Both were dressed in blue jeans and matching blue sweaters featuring a snowman family: momma, daddy, and baby. Alicia’s long hair was dark-chocolate brown and curly. Her daughter’s hair was the same color, but little blue bows tied up her hair in long pigtails. She reminded Blake of his sisters at that age.
“That’s Jake Silver’s wife, a former bounty hunter, and more newly turned. Jake’s our subleader, Darien’s next older brother,” Blake told Nicole. When Alicia and her daughter joined them, he said, “Alicia, Carly, this is Nicole Grayson, our guest at the lodge for a week. Hopefully for more.” He smiled down at her.
Nicole was smiling back. That sure gave him hope that she might consider sticking around longer.
“Hi, Nicole.” Alicia shook her hand. “I’m Alicia Silver, and this is my daughter, Carly. I know you are busy with important work of your own, and we would love for you to stick around longer too. Carly has something to ask of you.”
“Daddy said the sheriff is too busy taking care of car accidents ’cuz of the snow. My cat went missing, and he can’t come up here to look for her. Uncle CJ can’t either. He’s a deputy sheriff. But Daddy said you look for missing things and you’d find her.” Carly’s eyes were brimming with tears.
Nicole crouched down in front of Carly, took her hands in hers, and looked her in the eye. “I do, Carly, and I sure will help you find her. What’s your cat’s name?”
Blake thought the world of how Nicole was handling this.
“Mittens, ’cuz she has all white paws, but she’s black, caramel, and white.” Carly showed Nicole a picture of the cat wearing a blue doll’s dress.
Nicole smiled. “She’s cute.”
Carly frowned. “But she’s missing.”
Alicia said to her daughter, “Show her Mittens’s dress.”
Carly pulled the little blue dress the cat had been wearing in the photo out of her small purse and handed it to Nicole so she could pick up her scent.
“When was the last time you saw her?” Nicole smelled the dress, then handed it back to Carly, and she tucked it in her purse.
“I’ll see you around,” Clay said with a smirk. Then he left them alone. He went out to the parking lot to a dark-blue pickup truck.
Looking cross, Carly folded her arms, her dark-brown eyes narrowed. “Mittens was sleeping with Rosco. They are best friends. But a little kid ran at Mittens and Rosco, and then Mittens got scared and ran away. We looked all over for her.”
Through the windows, they could see Clay pull out a couple of bags, and then he walked through the parking lot to the lodge.
Blake gave the wolf a caustic look.
“She went missing a couple of hours ago, and we’ve looked everywhere,” Alicia confirmed, rubbing her daughter’s back in a comforting way. “We’ve usually just let Rosco and Mittens sleep together at the Wolffs’ house when we’ve been over to have dinner. And Rosco does the same thing with Mittens at our house when we’ve had the brothers over for a meal. The sisters weren’t here yet. This was the first time we tried letting Rosco and Mittens be together at the lodge. Jake is up here taking photos for the collection he showcases at art galleries. He thought it might help to promote the lodge after all the Wolff family has done in showcasing his photography. We couldn’t have been more thrilled.”
“But Mittens is missing,” Carly said as if the adults forgot that part. She handed Nicole a five-dollar bill. “That’s my birthday money to pay for finding Mittens. Daddy said you have to get paid to do a search job.”
“Okay,” Nicole said, returning the five-dollar bill. “I don’t charge for locating a cat that’s friends with Rosco. I’m friends with Rosco, too, so friends help friends. Do you want to take my hand, and we’ll see if we can find her together?”
“We looked all over,” Carly said plaintively.
“Right. But this is the kind of work I do all the time.”
“Okay.” Carly didn’t sound as though she trusted Nicole to help find Mittens if Carly couldn’t while she looked for the cat with her mom.
Blake sure hoped she could locate the cat. He knew Carly and her two brothers would be heartbroken if she didn’t.
Nicole took Carly’s hand, and Blake dumped their empty cocoa cups and followed behind Nicole and Alicia’s daughter, Alicia walking beside him.
“Cats like to hide when they get scared. Where does Mittens like to hide when she gets scared at home?” Nicole asked.
“Under the bed,” Carly said. “Or sometimes in the closet. But she hides under the couch too. When she’s not hiding, she likes to get inside a laundry basket filled with clothes. Momma said she can’t when the clothes are clean ’cuz she sheds. She loves boxes too. And once I found her in a Christmas bag. She loves to bat Christmas ornaments off the tree, and she curls up in it to sleep.”
“She sounds like a fun cat. Take me to where she was when she ran off.”
Carly led her to where Rosco was, and he wagged his tail at them.
“Would Rosco be able to find Mittens?” Nicole asked Blake.
Carly leaned over and gave Rosco a big hug.
“Uh, I’m not sure. He can find his dog toys, and we used to have him fin
d us when he was younger, playing hide-and-seek with him. He does rescues of avalanche victims, but I’m not sure if he would know how to search for the cat,” Blake said.
“Come on, Rosco, you’re going to help us look for Mittens,” Nicole said, looking down at him. “This will be your first cat rescue mission. Where did Mittens go?” Rosco wagged his tail even harder. She chuckled.
Smiling, Blake shook his head, but he thought that wasn’t a good sign that Rosco would be of any help.
“Can you let him smell Mittens’s dress?” she asked Carly.
Carly pulled out the doll’s dress and showed it to Rosco. He smelled it.
“Find Mittens,” Nicole said.
But Rosco just continued to stand there, wagging his tail as if they were going to take him on a walk.
Nicole and the others followed the cat’s scent, knowing that it wouldn’t have left one at any other time here, so it should be easy to follow. Which made Blake wonder why Alicia and her daughter hadn’t located Mittens already. He worried the cat had gone outside, with so many people coming and going from the lodge. The doors were opening and closing all the time.
He saw Clay coming in with his bags and heading for the elevator. He looked just as amused as before to see Nicole offering to search for a missing cat. The guy didn’t have an ounce of decency in him.
Landon smiled at Blake, and he assumed his brother had told Alicia and her daughter where Nicole and Blake were so they could request their assistance.
The more they searched for Mittens, the more Blake realized the cat had gone everywhere! One way, then another, probably attempting to avoid guests.
“Where’s Mittens?” Carly asked Rosco. He wagged his tail and brushed her hand with his nose. She petted his head. “I don’t think he knows.”
The door to the stairs was closed, unless the cat had slipped up them when guests opened the door. They went in that direction, but they didn’t smell Mittens’s scent near the stairs. Luckily, their sense of smell really helped in cases like this.
“She went in the direction of the elevator,” Nicole said. “It doesn’t mean she went up in it, just that she went to it.” But when she pushed the button for the elevator and it returned to the first floor, she smelled that the cat had been inside it. “Okay, she took the elevator somewhere.” The lodge had three floors, so they took it up to the second floor but found no scent of the cat there. They took the elevator to the third floor and that was where she’d gone.
“She hadn’t gone to the elevator when we came looking for you to help us,” Alicia said.
“No,” Carly said, shaking her head.
“She must have come out of her hiding place and hurried into the elevator afterward,” Nicole said.
They all got out on the third floor where Nicole’s room had been. Then they turned left and began to follow the scent. That was when they saw a maid’s cleaning cart at a room, the door propped open, and Blake wondered if the cat had slipped into the room and was hiding under a bed.
“She better not be under the bed in there,” Carly said.
But the cat’s scent disappeared before they reached the cart. Maybe she had slipped into the room before that. The cat’s scent just stopped at the room.
“I’ve got a master key,” Blake said and knocked on the door first. “Housekeeping,” he called out.
No one answered, and he opened the door. “Housekeeping!” he said, just so no one would be alarmed to see him in their room if they hadn’t heard him at the door. The room was all straightened up already, but the cat hadn’t been in the room.
Nicole eyed the cart, and Rosco headed for it. “Is Mittens in the cart, Rosco?”
He ambled toward the cart and poked his nose at the dirty towels and wagged his tail vigorously and woofed.
“Mittens?” Carly said.
Nicole and Carly, standing on her tippy-toes, peered into the bag with the dirty linens.
“Well, hello, Mittens,” Nicole said. “You’ve worried everyone. What did you find?” She slipped her arms into the dirty linens and pulled out the pretty calico cat. She had her claws dug into a paper cup and teeth marks on the rim. “Uh, Blake,” Nicole said, sounding excited and worried at the same time, “can you reach in my jacket pocket and get the plastic evidence bag from there?”
“You’re not going to put Mittens in the bag, are you?” Carly asked, frowning.
“No, just the cup.”
Blake found the bag and carefully slipped it around the coffee cup. Alicia gently pulled Mittens’s claws from the cup. But he smelled that Eli had been using the cup. Where in the world had the cat picked it up?
Nicole handed Mittens to Carly, who hugged her to pieces. Rosco was standing next to her, his tail wagging like crazy.
“Thank you,” Alicia said with heartfelt gratitude.
“You’re so welcome. I know how difficult it is to lose a beloved pet.” Nicole gave Carly and Mittens a hug. “Now you stay with Carly and don’t go wandering off again, Mittens.”
“She’s staying home from now on,” Alicia said.
“Unless we go to Rosco’s house.” Carly sounded worried that the cat would be forever locked up at home.
“Yes, where no other little kids will scare her off. The lodge is way too big. It’s too easy to lose her.” Alicia eyed the cup. “That’s something important, I gather?”
“Possibly. I just wish I knew where Mittens picked it up. She might have helped solved part of our case for us.”
“Does that mean she gets paid for it?” Carly asked.
Blake and the women laughed.
Alicia ran her hand over her daughter’s hair. “No. It means that’s payment for Nicole for being so kind to look for our cat for us. Let’s go. Your daddy will be up here forever taking pictures, but we need to get home to your brothers. The lady who’s watching them didn’t expect us to lose our cat and be up here for so long.”
“Okay, thank you.” Carly gave Nicole a hug.
“She’s a good cat, but with all the strange people around, it’s easy for her to get scared. She’s so pretty. Take good care of her,” Nicole said.
“I will.”
“Thank you,” Alicia said again, and then they all took the elevator to the first floor.
“I need to get this to the lab to see if we can get any DNA off it other than Mittens’s,” Nicole said to Blake.
Alicia chuckled and said goodbye, then took her daughter outside to their vehicle.
“I can ask our sheriff to handle it. Peter and our deputies—including CJ Silver, who is Jake’s cousin—are eager to help in any way they can.”
“Thanks.”
After leaving Rosco off at the fireplace, Blake and Nicole went to the privacy of their office. Blake got ahold of Peter and told him about the cup. “There will be domestic cat saliva and hairs on the cup, but we’re looking for the DNA of the man who was drinking from it. He’s one of the three people Nicole is investigating.”
“Three? I thought there were only two. The cousins.”
“We believe we also have the younger brother who supposedly drowned.”
“Whoa, two dead brothers, both alive? That’s a record. Okay, I’ll send CJ to pick it up, and we’ll get it processed for you as soon as we can. Landon said you also had fingerprints from the gun. He can get those too.”
“Thanks, Peter.”
Nicole was smiling, taking a seat on one of the chairs.
“We don’t know if we can get any evidence off it yet or not.” Blake didn’t want her feeling bad if this didn’t pan out.
“I know.” But Nicole’s smile didn’t falter.
“What?”
She laughed. “Well, if it does, it’s a good one on Clay. He was smirking about me helping Carly.”
Blake smiled. “I like your way of thinking.”
“I can inform the insurance company that paid out on Eli’s life insurance policy that he appears to be very much alive, even though the policyholder is dead. I’ll also let Taggart know about it, as it can show evidence that Oscar/Rhys followed in his mother’s footsteps of obtaining life insurance proceeds for a pretend drowning victim.”
“Sounds good to me. It’s about lunchtime. Did you want to grab a bite as soon as CJ picks up the evidence?”
“I do. I sure wish I knew where the cat picked up the coffee cup.”
“I was wishing the same thing. Though it might have been a fluke. Just a lapse of good judgment on Eli’s part. He dumped it or dropped it, and the cat got hold of it.”
Landon came into the office. “Your loaner car is here, Nicole, from the Silver Town Auto Body Shop. You made a great impression on Carly, Alicia, and Jake. They’re beholden to you for finding their cat. Especially Jake, because he said you would be able to, and he didn’t want to explain to his daughter that it could be hard finding lost pets.”
“We got lucky.” Nicole smiled, holding up the bagged coffee cup.
“That’s not Rhys’s, is it?” Landon sounded hopeful.
“Eli’s. But if our luck holds up, we’ll have some DNA and more will be on file with a database, and we can confirm he’s one and the same. Even though Rhys called him Eli, I’d still love to have some physical proof.”
Landon eyed the cup in the bag. “It looks a bit chewed up.”
“Mittens was using it as a chew toy. She probably liked the cream and sugar Eli had in his coffee.”
CJ Silver knocked on the door.
Blake hurried to introduce CJ to Nicole. “She hopes we can get some DNA off this pretty quick before these guys take off.”
“I was already on my way up here for the gun fingerprints when Peter called and said you had a cup too.” CJ took the bag and eyed the cup. “Mittens’s claw and tooth marks, Peter said.”
Nicole smiled. “Hopefully, the cat didn’t mess up the DNA if Eli left any on the cup.”
“We’ll sure do our darnedest to learn the truth as soon as we can. Nice to meet you. I met my cousin Jake on the way in here, and he said you located Mittens for them. They’re one happy family, believe me.”
