Boardwalk Betrayal: A Black Cat Cozy Mystery (The Maggie and Pepper Mysteries Book 1) by Wendy Ledger

Author:Wendy Ledger [Ledger, Wendy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wendy Ledger
Published: 2022-05-16T16:00:00+00:00

14

It felt like I slept for an eternity, but when I did wake up, it was still light outside, and the bedside clock let me know that two hours had passed. I tried to get up as quietly as possible without waking Pepper, but once my feet were on the ground, he scrambled up to his feet.

“You can keep on sleeping if you want to,” I told him.

He considered that for a moment. “Actually,” he said, “this is about time for my evening meal.”

“I thought cats only got fed once a day,” I said.

“It’s a good thing I’m here to educate you,” Pepper told me.

Ms. Reynolds was in the kitchen, making tea.

“Your mother should be back any moment,” she said.

While she worked on the tea, I attended to Pepper. He led me back to the pantry and this time pointed his tail at a blue label.

“I’m in a chicken sort of a mood,” he told me, and he purred appreciatively when I chunked up his food before I served it to him.

I refilled his water dish and then followed Ms. Reynolds back out to the dining room for tea. She bought out a tray with full mugs and cream in a small pitcher and sugar in a bowl. She handed me my mug, and I took a deep sniff of its aroma. Smoky. Mysterious. I took a sip of it without any adornment. It tasted delicious.

“Lapsang souchong,” Ms. Reynolds announced. “It’s deceptive. It tastes quite strong, but it’s surprisingly low in caffeine.”

After a few sips of her tea, she asked me how my day had gone. I closed my eyes and imagined taking all my sadness and hurt and formulating it into a well-drafted essay that Ms. Reynolds would reward with an A.

“I can tell you about it when Mom gets home,” I said, “so you won’t have to listen to it twice.”

She nodded and brought out a sheaf of papers from her briefcase.

“More work from the cast,” Ms. Reynolds told me. “Their fifteen-minute free write on how it feels to be their character, what’s changed about their character, what they’ve learned from their character,” she grinned. “We’re getting to depths that Mr. Taylor only dreamed about.” She looked up at me for a moment. “I really wish you could see my production. It’s going to be revolutionary.”

I imagined sitting in the dark, watching characters in a play, getting to believe in make believe for an extended period of time.

“I will if I can,” I told her. “It just depends on how everything goes.”

And she patted my hand and said that made perfect sense.

When my mom came home, she carried a familiar greasy white sack with Jimmy’s written across it.

“Cheesesteaks?” Ms. Reynolds said. “Well, now this is indeed different.” She told me, “We usually eat sensibly: a protein, vegetables, and perhaps some rice. We did have cheesesteaks for dinner when the book club came over, and I brought a whole sack home. But that was ironic. We were about to discuss a beach read.

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