There was a lot to untangle here and even though I was highly dedicated to the case, I also had to remind myself that I wasn’t being paid to do all this. Not that I expected payment - I didn’t do this for the money, I helped Xander because I cared about this community, about helping to keep it safe from harm. And I did it because of my raging, insatiable curiosity. That was all well and good. But I did, in fact, have a day job. And that meant it was high time for me to hurry home and check in with how things were going at the Moonlight Cove Manor. I had a feeling that my guests, who were young and energetic folks, were probably out exploring for the day, but I still needed to tidy up and say hi to my familiar.
Especially because Luna was still adjusting to life with Lucy around. Lara’s fluffy white familiar cat, Lucy, was beautiful and elegant. She looked like a princess in cat form, and she tended to carry herself like one, too. Luna, on the other hand, was a sleek, black, sassy cat who did not take well to being challenged or condescended to - which just happened to be Lucy’s modus operandi. The two of them were actually much more alike than either of them wanted to admit, and sometimes I actually caught them tolerating each other’s presence to the extent of taking cat-naps in the sunshine together or playing with a ball of yarn together. Lara had recently taken up knitting, so the cats were forever sneaking into her crafts box to steal yarn and drag it throughout the house, causing mayhem and chaos as they were wont to do.
It didn’t take me long to make it across town to the Manor, and I found myself once again grateful that my broom was still functioning despite my whacked-out magic. That was still nagging at the back of my mind; what was going on with my powers? Why had I suddenly reverted back to elementary-school screw ups? At my age, there should have been no question of whether I could handle simple household spells. It should have come as naturally to me as folding my laundry or combing my hair. Just another little skill tucked into my tool belt of adult capabilities. I wondered who I could even ask about this issue. I had no idea.
When I got home, I could feel the tension radiating from the Manor before I even made it all the way up the front steps to the entrance. “Oh boy,” I sighed as I fit the key in the door and turned the knob. As soon as I pushed the door open, I was met with a cacophony of hisses and low growls - not directed at me, exactly, but just kind of in general. I quickly shut the door and followed the sound into the living room area, where I found a most distressing scene unfolding.
On one end of the couch was Lucy, her plush white fur puffed out and sticking up. She was crouching down and glaring, her blue eyes narrowed to hateful little slits. A low, eerie, warning growl emitted from her throat. On the other end of the couch perched my own familiar, Luna, whose short, glossy black fur was also puffed out along her spine, her tail looking as though she had been electrocuted or something. She was kneeling down, her wiggly butt up in the air and her claws gleaming in the light, as though she was approximately one millisecond away from pouncing on her opponent. And in the middle, leaning with one knee on the couch and both arms outstretched like a referee sans whistle and striped shirt, was Lara.
“What in the name of the moon is going on here?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips. Immediately, both cats whipped around to look at me, still glaring. Their stares were so sharp and intense that I could swear I almost felt it like a rush of needles to the heart. They were pissed.
Lara sighed exhaustedly and gave me an exaggerated shrug. “Honestly? I don’t even know. They’ve been growling and hissing at each other all morning. I haven’t even gotten halfway through my painting yet because I keep getting interrupted by these two,” she explained.
“Well, if little Miss Priss would stop putting her stupid feet on my personal stuff I wouldn’t be so angry!” Luna sneered, pulling back to sit primly on the back of the couch, still glaring daggers at the other cat.
Lucy snarled back at her and, though I could not understand her, Lara could. Lara’s eyes went wide and her mouth fell open in a scandalized gasp. “Lucy! Don’t talk like that! I did not raise you to be such a potty mouth,” Lara quipped, shaking a finger at her familiar like a henpecked mother with an unruly toddler.
“What did she say?” I asked, mostly just out of curiosity.
Lara rolled her eyes. “Trust me, it was nothing worth repeating. I don’t know where she learned to be so crass. I’ve never heard Lucy say such things about anyone. Maybe I should start limiting her exposure to violent TV programs or something,” she wondered aloud.
Lucy looked at her in such an offended way that even I could understand what she meant, but Luna’s response cemented my suspicions. “Miss Priss can’t handle her true crime like the rest of us can. I guess she’s just too much of a kitten. Maybe she would be better off just watching cartoons like a human child would,” she sneered.
“Lu, come on. You guys have got to stop arguing all the time. Are the guests still here? What if they overhear you? They came here to relax and have a good time, not to hide in their rooms having to listen to a literal cat fight all day long,” I scolded.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Lara broke in with a smile. “I gave them all kinds of ideas on how to spend their day. I think they went to the park down by the shore or something. Or a broom tour. Something like that. Either way, I got them out of the house.”
“Thank you so much. I owe you one,” I replied, feeling relieved that at least my guests weren’t having to deal with the feline fistfight about to go down here.
“Hello? Can we focus on me for once?” Luna whined. “I’m not just picking a fight with her for no reason, here. I have a legitimate complaint and nobody’s listening to me.”
I rolled my eyes and came over to sit down on the couch, leaning my elbow against the couch cushions and facing Luna almost nose to nose. She was twitching her tail in annoyance, but I could tell she was pleased to have my undivided attention for the time being. She could be such a brat.
“Okay, fine, Lu. Tell me what’s going on so we can fix this because I’m tired of walking in to hear you two screeching at each other like banshees,” I said.
“Well, first of all, I don’t very much appreciate your accusatory tone,” she began snootily. “But the real problem is that Lucy here keeps touching all my stuff.”
“Like what? What stuff?” I prompted.
She groaned. “You know. My stuff. All my stuff. The stuff in this house.”
“You can’t be more specific than that?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No! I shouldn’t have to be specific. What, do you want me to list off every single item in this house right now?” Luna complained.
“Wait, you’re trying to say that everything in the Manor belongs to you?” I said, deadpan.
She nodded. “Yes. Geez. Finally, you get it.”
“Luna,” I began with a sigh, “I really feel like I shouldn’t have to say this, but did you buy any of the items you see around you?”
She cocked her head to one side, frowning. “I fail to see the pertinence of that question.”
I rubbed my temples in exasperation. “Of course you do.”
“What’s she saying?” Lara asked in a stage whisper.
I turned around to tell her, “Well, apparently Luna has decided that everything in this house belongs to her exclusively, as if she’s the one who pays the bills and takes care of repairs and all that.”
“Ah,” Lara said, nodding slowly. She looked over at Lucy, who gave a little hiss and mew which made Lara wince. She turned back to me and said, “And Lucy’s problem with that is that she wants to settle in and get comfortable here since it’s kind of her home now, but she can’t settle in if Luna insists on claiming everything is hers.”
“So, yet again, it’s my cat who’s the problem child,” I lamented. “Of course.”
“Hey!” Luna yowled, clearly offended that I wasn’t instantly on her side.
“Look, Lu. You’ve got to learn how to share. Come on. You’re not a kitten anymore. You’re smart
enough and mature enough to know that sometimes, you have to do things you don’t want to do. Including make space for a friend to get comfortable,” I lectured.
Luna wrinkled her nose in disgust. “A friend? Who’s a friend? Her? Miss Priss?”
“Yes. You and Lucy are friends just like Lara and I are friends. Am I mad at Lara for living in the Manor and touching my stuff? No. I’m not,” I said.
“Thanks for that, by the way,” Lara said quietly, leaning over. I smiled and nodded.
Luna was now craning her neck to glare at Lucy around me. “I don’t like it when her smell is all over the place. It used to smell like me,” Luna pouted.
“Get used to it, Lu,” I told her with a shrug. “I hate having to be so hard about it, but you’re old enough to not make a scene about another cat hanging out in your house. Wait, I mean my house,” I added pointedly.
Luna looked utterly offended. “Oh, so just because you have thumbs and know how to use a credit card and a bank account and call a repairman that means it’s your house?”
I nodded. “Yes. It kind of does. Plus, my name is on the title. In fact, it means I get to set the house rules, too. So from here on out, until you two can work out your differences, the house is going to be split in half. The upstairs will be Lucy’s domain, and the downstairs will be yours. Got it?”
Both cats started arguing back with their hisses and mewls but I held up a silencing hand and shook my head, standing firm. “No argument. Case closed.”
“But the whole house used to be mine. I need more than half!” Luna whined.
“Nope. That’s final. Not until you guys can learn how to coexist without attacking each other every hour on the hour,” I said, standing up. Luna scoffed and went bounding out of the living room to the kitchen, presumably to pout and huff about in peace. I looked at Lucy and Lara and said, “I’m sorry for all that. My cat is a little bit of a diva.”
Lara smiled, petting Lucy’s head. “It’s okay. I get it. I know how cats are.”
Chapter 8
It was time to have a chat with Florence if I was going to get any further in this investigation. I’d made enough visits to the hospital by now for this kind of thing that the staff was either going to be more lenient or more strict, because I was pretty sure I’d used up all my made-up excuses about being related to the patients somehow. They probably had a picture of me behind the front desk with the label “DO NOT LET IN.” If anyone actually close to me got hospitalized, I’d be in trouble.
I headed out the front door to get my broomstick, but I hadn’t made it ten paces before I heard a voice from behind me.
“Ahem.”
I paused and turned to see Luna sitting on one of the windowsills, pointedly looking away from me with her nose turned up as if she hadn’t just tried to get my attention. I rolled my eyes and pretended to keep walking, and sure enough, I heard Luna’s tail flicking irately against the window.
“Ahem!” she reiterated. I held back a sigh and turned around to approach her, hands on my hips.
“Yes, your majesty? More trouble on the warfront?”
Luna put her ears back, annoyed.
“You’re terrible,” she said. “Being smarmy when I can’t even go to Lara for sympathy? I should call animal control on you. Then at least I could go to some warm, loving home I have all to myself, and get fed delicious chicken twice a day.”
“I could leave you with my parents so mom can take you surfing, how about that?” I threatened, smirking, and Luna’s eyes widened.
“Let’s put a pin in that, then. Where are you going?”
“The hospital, to see the victim’s wife. She was poisoned, and last I saw her, she was getting hauled out on a stretcher.”
“Uh oh. She didn’t try any of your cooking, did she?”
“That only happened once, and it was because they didn’t tell me they were lactose intolerant!” I protested, face flushing. “There’s even a box for lactose intolerance specifically, I can’t be held accountable if they-” I stopped myself, taking a deep breath and pinching the bridge of my nose. “You’re just trying to get a rise out of me.”
“Yeah, you kind of walked right into that one, I expected it to be harder than that,” Luna mused smugly. I narrowed my eyes at her before grabbing my broomstick and getting comfortable on it. A moment later, Luna hopped up on the end, and I scowled at her.
“And just where do you think you’re going? Want to annex the neighbor’s house?”
“I could use some fresh air; I’m far too stifled by drama at the Manor right now,” she said proudly, grooming herself. I rolled my eyes.
“Fine, just don’t expect me to try to smuggle you into the hospital. I’ll have enough trouble getting in there without your help.”
“Oh, that’s even better; the hospital grounds have the best squirrels.”
The ride to the hospital was a little busier than I might have expected. It was right around lunchtime by now, so there were dozens of people out milling around the streets or gliding by on their own brooms, albeit without feline passengers. Any animal could be a familiar, technically, but even so, the sight of a cat riding on the back of a broomstick wasn’t that uncommon.
“You know, since you’re working on renovations already,” Luna said as we passed a few singing birds that caught her attention, “you should really think about branding the business with something a little more representative of who we are, you know?”
“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.
“Oh, I just think, what with Lucy being around now, it might be good to find ways to make it clearer that this is really a one-cat show. I was thinking we could replace the coffee mugs, for starters. I’ve looked over your shoulder while you’re on your laptop, I know they sell mugs with black cats on them.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I was thinking I’d look good on the welcome brochures, too,” she said, stretching out. “You know, a little black cat sitting on the header. It would be very on brand.”
As much as I didn’t want to humor Luna’s vanity, she had a point: that would be unbelievably cute. But now that she’d had the idea, I’d have to wait for her to forget about it before thinking about trying it.
“You’d have your face on all the dinner plates if you had your way,” I pointed out.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing!”
Before long, I was guiding the broom down to the front of the hospital and hopping off. Luna did the same before my feet even touched the ground, and she rubbed up against my leg. I stuck out a warning finger to her.
“You had better not actually catch any squirrels,” I said.
“Do I look that uncivilized?” she said indignantly. “Everyone knows I can catch them, I just choose not to.”
“Right,” I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. Luna was one hundred percent an indoor cat, and I was almost completely certain that she wouldn’t be able to catch a squirrel even if she wanted to. She enjoyed chasing them, but she never actually caught any. Luna flicked her tail and trotted off into the bushes as I made my way toward the hospital entrance. The sterile air that normally greeted me was mitigated a little by the fresh scent of flowers all around the lobby. It looked like they were really trying to spruce the place up, which I could certainly appreciate.A single nurse sat behind the desk at the entrance, a squat woman with shoulder-length hair and big round glasses. She looked up at me as I approached and smiled. She didn’t look familiar, so I held out a little hope that she might be a new hire.
“Hey there!” I said, leaning against the counter.
“Good morning, ma’am, how can I help you?” she asked in a kind voice.
“Well, I’m here to see someone,” I said innocently. “Her name is Florence Klein, I think she would have been admitted sometime early this morning. Middle-aged woman, dark hair, might have been moaning something like ‘I’ve been poisoned.’ Don’t suppose you know which room she’s in?”
“Ahh,” the nurse said in understanding, looking me up and down. Her smile was fading a bit. “Yes, you must be Ms. Mani. The senior nurses warned me you might be dropping by.”
My heart sank. They couldn’t just turn me away, they had to pit me against the sweet new nurse I couldn’t dream of bringing myself to be curt with.
“I don’t suppose they warned you that I’m helping out with a police investigation and should be granted permission to go see her?” I ventured, wincing. She sadly shook her head.
“I’m sorry, but she can’t see any visitors right now, regardless of any unofficial ties to the police they might have.” Oh, come on, that wasn’t necessary. “I can give you a status update on her, though.”
“That would just make my day,” I said, putting on the best smile I could.
“First of all, Ms. Klein is going to be just fine,” she said. “She was the one who called the emergency line, and not a minute too soon. She got a dose of the same poison her husband had, but she should make a full recovery from it. She’s a very lucky woman, but between you and me, I’d be worried about her blaming herself for not getting help in time to save her husband.”
I frowned sympathetically and nodded.
“That would be hard on anyone.” I felt bad enough accidentally giving my guest lactose poisoning. Really though, that wasn’t my fault!
“But rest assured, I’m sure she’ll want to talk to you when she’s released,” the nurse said with a smile. I nodded slowly, my mind reeling as I tried to come up with some kind of excuse to distract the nurse for just a second. But just then, I watched her eyes flit to the window, and her eyes went wide. “Oh... oh my goodness!”
She stood up in a hurry and started making her way to the window, where I saw Luna sitting on the windowsill, adorably swatting at a butterfly that was just out of reach.
“That is the most precious cat I’ve seen in months!” the nurse gushed, hurrying to take out her phone and snap a few pictures. “Oh, just look at her!”
Beat Around the Broom Page 6
