Last Supper in Cherry Hills by Paige Sleuth

Author:Paige Sleuth [Sleuth, Paige]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: small town adventure, feline detective, female amateur women sleuth, cat cozy mystery, fun humorous novella, murder mystery whodunit
Publisher: Marla Bradeen
Published: 2019-05-10T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Soon after Kat left Jelkie Insurance and returned to her own office, she discovered an email from an April Stravinsky in her inbox. It took her a moment to realize the April in question was the same one she’d met at the Masons’ house.

Kat, the email began, sorry to contact you out of the blue, but I really need to talk to someone. As soon as possible. Please stop by today, before six, if you can. Or call me. The message concluded with an address and phone number.

Kat’s curiosity was definitely piqued. She wondered what April wanted to discuss, and why she’d reached out to her of all people. Was it because she was dating a police detective? She had to presume April had summoned her to discuss Bernard. It was the only connection they shared that justified the urgent tone of her message.

Unfortunately, Kat would have to wait until the end of the workday to find out for sure.

She shot back a quick reply communicating that she would stop by after she left the office at five. Then she got back to work.

But, as hard as she tried, Kat couldn’t concentrate. She kept picturing April’s look of utter disgust when Bernard had come on to her on Friday. Could he have annoyed her so much she’d decided to tamper with his food as punishment? Maybe she hadn’t really meant to kill him. Maybe she thought he’d simply suffer from an upset stomach for a couple hours—just long enough to spend the rest of the dinner party in the bathroom instead of pestering her. And now that she realized what she’d done, the guilt was eating her up. She could have figured it would be easier to confess to Kat than to the police.

Except, April hadn’t looked particularly guilt-stricken at the vigil. And Kat couldn’t recall ever seeing her near the castor bean plant on Friday. Then again, she hadn’t been paying close attention to everyone’s whereabouts. But wouldn’t April, a garden center employee, know just how lethal castor beans were? That pretty much nixed Kat’s theory of the beans being used to knock Bernard out of commission for a little while.

But it didn’t mean April hadn’t deliberately set out to kill him.

At five o’clock on the dot, Kat jumped out of her chair, grabbed her things, and raced out of the office. She nearly tripped a couple times in her haste, but pretty soon she was in her car and headed toward the address April had given her.

She slowed as she neared the run-down, two-story apartment complex. Unlike her own secured-entry building, everything here was open. The concrete staircases and walkways didn’t require a code or key to access, and they led straight to the individual unit doors. Kat found April’s apartment number on the second floor around back.

April didn’t waste any time answering Kat’s knock. “You came!”

“Is everything okay?” Kat asked.

April shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. “No, nothing is okay.”

Kat automatically scanned what she could see of the apartment from the doorway, her senses on full alert.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.