A Purr-fect Storm

by Addison Moore

  Stephanie swats me as we clip-clop our way toward the icy sheet of death.

  “This is totally romantic.” She sighs. “You should bring Shep out here. Who knows? It might cast a spell and make him do something stupid like propose.”

  Tilly nods. “Shep’s been stupid before.”

  “I’m well aware,” I mutter.

  It’s true. Shep’s partner down at the Woodley Sheriff’s Department is the exact person he was stupid with before. Nora Grimsley. He said they just petered out and that their breakup was amicable and I believe him. Because unlike Johnny, Shep has never given me a reason to doubt what he says.

  “Oh, Bowie.” Opal adjusts her black satin gloves. “A proposal would be magical, but don’t buy into the buildup. We don’t want to set ourselves up for disappointment now, do we?” She’s wearing a thick velvet dress with some sort of a cage that sits under the skirt and makes her bottom jet out like a missile. The entire getup looks like a historical piece that should be caged in a museum lest the spirit that lives inside it possess a nearby human. I offered her a chance to change out of the frilly frock, but she assured me it was the perfect accouterment for ice-skating.

  I figure if Opal can squeeze the word accouterment effortlessly into a conversation she deserves to wear whatever she wants.

  “What do you mean, set ourselves up for disappointment?” I tip my ear her way. “Do you know something I don’t? Has Shep gone back to Regina?” I gasp. “Has he fallen in love with Nora again? Does he think my sausage fingers are too unflattering to house a diamond ring?” He might be right on that last account.

  “No, no.” She rolls her eyes. “See there? You’re already letting your mind wander.” She slaps me over the cheeks gently. “Pay attention to the task at hand. You’re here to take down a killer, not doubt your paramour’s affection for you. Now, let’s have some fun.”

  Opal glides onto the ice effortlessly, and a strange and perhaps beautiful aria escapes her lips. The crowd parts for her like the Red Sea, and a smattering of people break out into spontaneous applause from the sheer poetic nature she’s exuding. The song, the dress, her graceful technique on the ice—Opal really does have it all.

  “Look at her go.” Tilly shakes her head. “Everyone is looking at her. Do you know what that means, Lola?” She ticks her head to my sister.

  “That means we’ve got to sing for our dinner. And by dinner, I mean men.”

  They start to take off, and I pull Stephanie back.

  “Hey—what about Wendy? And, you know I can’t stand up on these razor blades on these rubber mats, let alone ice. The two of you can’t turn into a couple of singing divas and leave me alone. I’m liable to lose my two front teeth.”

  Tilly grunts, “Look.” She points across the pond where a familiar looking brunette stands talking to a couple of people before skating away from them at a quickened pace. “There she is, Bowie. You don’t want Lola and me tagging along while you shake her down. It might intimidate her.”

  “Nice try, Tilly,” I say. “But she’s a female wrestler. She’s the one who does the intimidating around here. Now, come on and help me get on the ice. Maybe the two of you can help me get over to her.” I glance back to the ice where Wendy is whirling around the rink so fast, it’s making me dizzy just to keep up with her visually.

  “Fine,” Stephanie spits the word out. “But don’t think we’re sticking around.”

  Opal might be wearing a vintage haute couture, but the rest of us are bundled in ski jackets, knit caps, scarves, and flannel-lined blue jeans—all of which impede our ability to display any sort of elegance. Of course, the fact my limbs are flailing in an effort to keep me upright isn’t exactly doing me any favors either.

  Tilly and Steph finally manage to yank me onto the ice, and immediately I feel my center of gravity take flight for far more stable pastures—without me.

  “Whoa!” The word springs from me like my very own aria, and yet not a soul parts in my honor. It feels as if they’re aiming to get in my way.

  “Would you hush?” Stephanie reprimands. “People are going to think you’re having a medical episode.”

  “I’m betting that’s an accurate description of what’s about to transpire. Maybe this whole chasing a suspect down on the ice thing was a bit too ambitious?”

  Something catches Tilly’s eye and she pauses, inadvertently pulling my left arm back while Stephanie glides off with my right arm.

  “Woo-wee!” She swoops ahead to catch up with the rest of me, and I do an odd little wiggle to keep from taking a seat on the ice so soon. “Check out those hotties at the far end. They’re smoking.”

  Sure enough, a couple of men who look prime for the picking, stand chatting while puffing on their cigarettes as a cloud of smoke surrounds them.

  “You don’t want those guys.” I’m quick to try to secure their allegiance to me. “Kissing them would be the equivalent of kissing an ashtray. Besides, nobody smokes anymore. It’s clear they didn’t get the memo. And believe me, you don’t want to be involved with men who don’t read memos.”

  Stephanie moans, and there might have been slight drool in there somewhere, too. “Dibs on the one with the leather jacket.”

  “Hey.” Tilly skates over at her. “No fair. I want the one in the leather jacket. Besides, I saw them first. That gives me automatic dibs.”

  Stephanie snorts. “Not if I get there first.” She plucks me away from Tilly and lands me in front of her. “Look, Bowie, here comes your suspect. Good luck with that!” She gives me a firm shove, and I go flying straight ahead while the two of them race off to the back of the pond, toward that plume of white smoke.

  “Hey!” I shout as my limbs flex every which way in a weak attempt to keep myself upright. “How dare you leave me! I hope you hit thin ice. And don’t expect me to pluck you to safety.” Each word pitches up and down like a roller coaster as I take a few rather elegant spins born of centripetal force before I do an odd little tap dance and land on my keester.

  “Ouch!” I call out as I hit the ice. It turns out, the frozen cold stuff is exactly as uncomfortable to land on as one would think.

  And just as I’m spinning like a top—ironically while on my bottom—the world around me grows strangely dim, and that all too familiar warm, fuzzy feeling takes over and I get a bad case of tunnel vision.

  A snowy field begins to form in the theater of my mind. Judging by the blue glow on the landscape, it looks to be evening, and I recognize the star of the show right off the bat as that fiery redhead, Leave ’em Moaning Simone. Her lips are painted the same crimson hue as her tresses, and there’s a fire in her eyes that gives them both a run for their fiery money.

  “You don’t get to sit here and threaten me,” she hisses at the person in front of her, but they’re too lost in the shadows for me to make them out properly. “Frisk might be dead, but that doesn’t give you the right to spew whatever you want about the two of us. You’re dead to me, just like Frisk. And if you don’t watch your back, you’ll be next. I’ll arrange for that myself.”

  “Bowie? Bowie Binx?” a voice shouts from above, and I blink back to life as the skating rink and all of its chaos comes into focus once again. I look up, only to find Wendy Manning offering me a helping hand and I take it.

  There are a lot more elegant, flattering ways to stand up after falling on your keester, but flailing with all four of your limbs while howling like a werewolf at a full moon isn’t one of them.

  The pretty brunette belts out a hearty laugh as she finally helps to stabilize me.

  “I take it you haven’t gone out for the Olympic trials yet?” she teases.

  I shoot her a look. “Aren’t you the funny one,” I say as my left arm jackknifes into the air unexpectedly. “It’s like I’m possessed in these things. I can’t believe people actually pay to torture themselves like this.”

  She chuckles. “So I’m guessing you’re not alone here. Did your party leave you?”

 
“Of course, they left me. Once they saw a couple of smokin’ men—and I mean that in the literal sense—they trotted off like two cats on a hot tin ice pond. And then there’s the crooning cat lady,” I say just as Opal glides by with that aria still streaming from her as if she was at the Royal Opera House.

  Wendy shakes her head as she watches Opal do her graceful, albeit a touch too loud, thing.

  “Who knew old lady Mortimer was a pro on the ice? My mom knew her way back when. In fact, my mom and dad own this slab of ice—they would be Nat and Joe. I’ve been trying to get them to sell it for years. It’s a huge liability. If just one lawsuit-happy idiot gets a bump or a bruise, my parents will lose everything,” she says while escorting us off to the side lest the teen scene run us over with their need for speed.

  “I’m sure they have insurance, though, right?”

  “Yup. But I’m telling you there are ways around everything.”

  “I’m sure there are.” I examine her for a moment in her cozy purple knit cap and matching stylish winter jacket that actually manages to show off her figure. “I’m really sorry about Frisk. Were the two of you close?”

  Close enough to blackmail him is more like it.

  “Of course, we were close.” Wendy pulls off her cap and shakes out her glossy dark hair. “Frisk was a very good friend of mine. He used to help me run tapes. You know, watch my matches and see where I needed improvement.”

  “That was really nice of him. I bet the two of you butted heads a lot because of it, too.”

  She makes a face. “Never. In fact, we were thick as thieves.” She gives a quick wink. “But Frisk fought with a lot of other people.” She sighs at the thought as she looks out at the skaters zooming around in front of us.

  “Oh? Like who?”

  “Everybody.” She rolls her eyes.

  “Like wrestlers?”

  “Especially wrestlers. Sometimes I think he hated wrestlers as much as he hated the sport. Everyone knows he came from a football background. But he couldn’t make it as an announcer, so he got shoehorned into announcing wrestling.”

  My mind swims with alternate theories. “What about the girls you were wrestling with the other day? Did he have any disagreements with them? You know, anger issues, volatile arguments—a hint of blackmail?”

  Her eyes widen a notch. “Yes, actually. A couple of them. There was Mallory, the blonde. She’s pretty ticked that he tapped me to fill his position. Everyone knows she was gunning for the job. It was sickening to watch her do her best to be his favorite. But I guess there’s no amount of brown-nosing that could have landed her the job.”

  “Did you want the job?”

  She ticks her head. “Not at first, but now that I have it, I think I’m going to really appreciate it. I mean, it gets me and my brand out in front of the fans. So that can’t be a bad thing. And I already told Mal that she could pinch-hit while I’m having a match. Suffice it to say, she didn’t take that very well. She looks harmless, but she’s a volcano that never hesitates to blow when she doesn’t get her way.”

  My lips knot up. “That volcano made an obvious play for my man the other day.”

  Wendy’s entire body vibrates with a laugh. “That’s just like her. She’s downright psychotic if you ask me.”

  That vision comes to mind. Simone mentioned something about Frisk being dead because of her. I can’t even fathom what that could be about.

  Wendy nods my way. “He didn’t get along with Simone either.”

  It’s as if she just read my mind.

  “Really?” I tip my ear her way. “How so?”

  “Simone was obsessed with the guy. She’s the feisty redhead. Her obsession was pretty sad to witness. We’ve all seen her go through one breakup after another, and it always boiled down to the fact she wanted Frisk to fill those boyfriend shoes. But he wasn’t interested. Don’t get me wrong. After his divorce, a bazillion years ago, he loved all the ladies he could. But for some reason, he didn’t reciprocate her affection. I think he knew she wanted something more than a one-night stand, and he wasn’t ready to go there.” She blows out a breath as she glances over my shoulder. “Don’t say anything, but Simone was pretty agitated with Frisk the night he died. I heard her giving him an ultimatum.”

  I suck in a quick breath. “Do you think blackmail was involved?”

  She blinks over at me. “Yes, in fact, I think it was.” Anger darkens her face. “I’m sorry to say this, because all of the women in my league are like my sister, but I won’t be surprised when the sheriff’s department hauls her away for questioning. Just saying.”

  Someone calls her name and she gives a wave toward the entry. “It’s an old friend from high school.” She laughs. “Do you want me to help you to the front?”

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll hitch a ride on the singing diva. Swing by the Mortimer Café sometime and I’ll give you a free cup of coffee and some cookies, too. It’s the least I can do for the helping hand. I’m the manager there.”

  “Ooh, sounds good. I’ll see you soon, Bowie.” She zips off, and I do an odd little spin in her wake.

  I spot Stephanie and Tilly getting frisky with a couple of smoking chimneys, and I decide to head in the opposite direction. My feet do a fancy little shuffle, and soon my arms are peddling backward just to keep from giving myself an inadvertent nose job.

  Opal glides by, belting out a high note just as I start in on that inevitable face-plant, but instead of accepting my icy fate, I dive for her caged derriere and end up latching onto the velvet skirt of hers just as she picks up speed. Opal rushes toward the back of the pond at an alarming pace, as her vocal cords hit a crescendo.

  After seven seconds of moving at the speed of light, two things happen.

  One: Opal makes a sharp left and I lose my grip on the train of her skirt.

  And two: I glide across the ice with my limbs splayed, spinning like a throwing star, and I take down both a couple of smoking hot guys and the wily women all too eager to have them.

  The four of them topple like bowling pins with the smokin’ men each landing over some cute little snow bunny, and Steph and Tilly dogpiling over me.

  “Way to ruin everything, Bowie,” Stephanie grunts as we do our best to untangle ourselves. “You’re nothing but a ball of bad luck.”

  “You owe us some men,” Tilly huffs as she spots the smokin’ duo skating off into the sunset with the snow bunny in question. “Valentine’s Day is coming, and who am I supposed to wrestle with at the big dance?”

  “They better be cute,” Stephanie grumbles as we haul ourselves to a sitting position.

  “They better be rich,” Tilly adds.

  “Oh please,” I say. “Those men were neither cute nor rich. They were nothing more than walking, talking carcinogens.”

  Tilly butts her shoulder to mine. “Well, we’ve upped our standards.”

  Stephanie nods. “And we’ve upped our timeline. We don’t want to wait until the fourteenth.”

  Tilly rocks back into me. “You had better deliver, Bowie, or else.”

  “Or else what?” I’m more than willing to call Tilly’s bluff.

  “Or else we trade you in for Regina Valentine.”

  “That’s right,” Stephanie says while getting up and helping Tilly to her feet. “I say we don’t wait. If you want friends, Bowie, you’re going to have to cough up a couple of cuties.”

  They skate off into the thick of the crowd.

  “Hey!” I shout after them. “We’re not friends, Lola. We’re sisters! And Regina will never have you, Tilly. She hates people!”

  A young girl no older than six swooshes by and dazzles the crowd with an airborne pirouette. And when she lands, she sends a wave of ice water spraying over my face, much to the delight of the crowd.

  I’m starting to hate people, too.

  And I especially hate whoever killed Frisk Foster and forced me into this skating debacle to begin with.

  The killer may have iced Frisk, but
they’re about to freeze with terror once I turn them over to the sheriff’s department—right after they experience the blizzard of my wrath.

  Chapter 8

  Stephanie and Tilly might be down a man, but I’ve got mine and I’m not letting Mallory Aspen or any other woman wiggle her way into his heart.

  “Frisk was certainly the ladies’ man.” Shep gives a wistful shake of the head as he studies his laptop while we snuggle up on his sofa in front of a roaring fire.

  Shep happens to own both his cabin and mine. His is more or less a grander, much larger version of my own. The furniture and flooring are dark and masculine, and yet vast and teeming with far more square footage than he’ll ever need. And my little Lincoln Log special was designed as a mother-in-law quarters. Or in my case, a fugitive girlfriend’s quarters. Stephanie lives with me and so does the cute little kitty named Pixie that I share with Shep.

  I pull Pixie between us. “What do you think, Pix?” I give her a kiss on her furry forehead. “Do you think I’m bad luck?” I blow over her triangular pink nose, which just so happens to blend in with her pink fur.

  “Of course, she thinks you’re bad luck,” Stephanie says, coming our way with a slice of tiramisu for each of us.

  “You’re not bad luck,” Shep is quick to tell me, although it probably should be noted his statement was lacking a certain conviction.

  Shep and I don’t waste any time in indulging in the creamy dessert before moaning in unison.

  Speaking of moaning in unison, why is Stephanie still here? Sure, we had dinner together—chicken parmigiana baked by yours truly. Okay, so I feel a fiduciary duty to make sure my little sister eats a good hot meal, but now that we’ve moved on to dessert, I’d like to move on to dessert myself.

  “What do you think?” She plants herself on the coffee table in front of us and gives a frenetic nod as she waits for an answer. Stephanie spent all day trying to perfect Nana Rose’s tiramisu recipe. It was truly unlike any other.