Bougainvillea by Heather Graham

Author:Heather Graham
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781459291690
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 2011-07-26T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

* * *

Devastated, Kit cradled Whitney and strode purposely to the main house, entering with her beloved pet. The compound lights gleamed around the lagoon, but they were soft, and shadows from the foliage edging the path and beachfront fell heavily all around her. She took no notice of them.

They were gathered in the family room, where the wide-screen television was showing something done by the History Channel. Kaitlin, Lenore, Michael, and Josh were there, all engrossed in the show. But when Kit entered, carrying her dead pet, Michael instantly turned the volume down and sprang to his feet. “Kit! What happened? He didn’t wander off the property and get hit, did he?”

She shook her head, tears in her eyes, staring at them all. “There’s nothing wrong with him at all,” she began.

“Dead does seem to be wrong,” Kaitlin told her drolly.

She flashed the woman a furious glance. “He hasn’t been hit by anything. There’s not a mark on him. He’s just dead and stiff. I’d say he’d been poisoned.”

“Good heavens, dear! Are you suggesting that one of us would poison your cat?” Lenore said indignantly.

“No, but I’d like to know what did happen,” Kit said, wondering if she had come ready to accuse one of the “witches” of killing her cat.

“Poor thing,” Josh said, stroking Whitney’s cold back. “He must have gotten into one of the storage sheds and eaten something. I’m so sorry, Kit.”

“There’s fertilizer for the plants, all kinds of stuff in the storerooms—rat poison,” Michael said. “He might have gotten into anything, I’m afraid.”

“We have a little pet burial ground…it’s very nice,” Josh told her, smiling with sheepish sympathy. “My canary is there, an old one-eyed stray we took in once, and Shelley’s Pomeranian. It just died last year.”

Bury him. Of course. That was what you did with creatures that died.

She didn’t want to bury Whitney. She wanted David to be there, and she wanted to cry her heart out, because suddenly it didn’t seem fair that her father and her cat had died.

“I should find out how he died,” Kit said, her anger taking root with her pain.

“You want to autopsy the cat?” Kaitlin said, and laughed.

“What good will it do you?” Michael reasoned gently. “I’m afraid that I agree with Josh—he got into poison. And as I said, we do have it in the storeroom, down by the docks. We’ve never had an animal get into it before, but then, we never really had pets here before.”

He was right, and she knew it. She could autopsy the cat, and find out that it had died from rat poison. She couldn’t find out if Whitney had been given poison on purpose or not.

“We’ll find you another one,” Lenore said impatiently. “There are always stray cats out by that marina shanty where the guys go for lunch every day. We’ll just replace him.”

She didn’t want to discuss the loss of a loved pet with people whom she doubted could really even understand the loss of a human being.

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