THE HOUSE THAT VANITY BUILT by Nancy Cole Silverman

Author:Nancy Cole Silverman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Henery Press;cozy mystery series;cozy mystery;women sleuths;amateur sleuths
Publisher: Henery Press
Published: 2020-01-29T17:06:08+00:00

Chapter 16

How Bossypants got outside, I may never know. She may have snuck out when Romero left the night before. Bossy’s an escape artist, an indoor-outdoor mouser well into her seventh or eighth life. I’m not sure which. She came to me, as spirits do, embodied as a mature feline, set in her ways and in need of little more than food and shelter. We had an understanding. I supplied her with her creature comforts, and she supplied me with the occasional leg rub, brushing up against my tired calves, or whatever seemed to please her. I always felt her spirit was that of a former working girl, who, for whatever reason, the universe had returned, which explained her need to cat-about late at night and to drag home the oddest of creatures.

Which she did, the very next morning.

I was in the kitchen, prepping my tea when I heard a knock on the door. Not the kind of soft knock a client might use early in the morning, but a heavy banging, like a jackhammer. A pounding so strong it shook the entire house. Whoever it was wanted my attention, and they wanted it now.

I shuffled to the door, and Wilson poked his head out from the study. “What’s up?”

I shrugged. I had no idea. Only that as the pounding continued, my caller sounded ever more insistent.

Wilson fell in behind me. I opened the door, the screen between myself and a beastly looking man who held my cat in his arms. Bossy struggled to escape. The man was short, square bodied, and dressed unseasonably in a gray raincoat with gloves and a scarf about his neck that covered his mouth and nose. On his head, he wore a low-fitting baseball cap, which made his face and eyes hard to see.

“This your cat?” The man’s voice matched his husky appearance.

I opened the screen. “Yes, it is.”

Bossypants sprang from the man’s hands and scurried inside like she’d been shot from a cannon. It didn’t take being psychic to know this was no Good Samaritan returning my cat. The hat, the heavy raincoat, and the gloves hadn’t been so much to hide the man’s appearance, as it was to assure Bossy wouldn’t claw him.

I pulled the screen door shut, a thin barrier between us. “Who are you?”

“Just a messenger, ma’am. Here to tell you to keep an eye on what’s yours and leave alone what doesn’t concern you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I pushed the latch on the screen to the locked position and put my hands on my hips. I’d been threatened before and wasn’t about to let this derelict get the best of me.

“I think you know damn well what it means, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave the girl alone. I’d hate to have to come back and finish the job. Have a good day, Ms. Dawn.”

I slammed the door, something I seldom do. I hoped the sound of it returned a message to this heartless middleman that I wasn’t scared, and that I wasn’t about to abandon my mission to help Amy.

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