CatTails & Crowbars: A Midlife Cozy Animal Mystery by Lucia Kuhl

Author:Lucia Kuhl [Kuhl, Lucia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2024-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty

Jenna

My phone beeped continuously as we neared the top of the bluff. The sun was now in the west, dipping low and painting the sky in strokes of fiery orange and deep purple. The ticking clock wasn’t in our favor. Yet Mark continued to distract me with at least two dozen messages. If our roles were reversed, he’d hate me doing the same.

He wasn’t going to stop. I hated lying, but what could I do?

“Back 2 Back meetings. Call U 2Nite.” I sent in a text. It wasn’t a lie. Well, not exactly! The man clearly had control issues. That could be a deal breaker, but he’d stuck around and endured my family. Which said a great deal about his character. However, Bobby was our priority. I’d figure Mark out later.

As I looked up from my screen, a brown lump caught my eye in the water. “Please. No. I can only handle one corpse per day,” I muttered under my breath, half-expecting the whatever to wave at me. Just what I needed, another stiff. My week was turning into a macabre version of Where’s Waldo.

“What’s wrong?” Echo asked, following my gaze.

“In the water.” I pointed to a spot just beyond the first rock we’d encountered earlier.

“I see it. Is that another body?” Echo said.

Birch studied the shape. “It looks like Oak’s desk chair.”

A chair wouldn’t help us find Bobby, but it may provide evidence.

“You two stay here,” I said. “I’ll go down and retrieve it.”

Over the last minute or two, the wind kicked up, making the descent a bit trickier than our first trip, and forcing me to move a tick slower. Waves crashed in a rhythmic dance, sending sprays that cooled the late afternoon sun and dampened the path. I moved on the slick rocks with all the grace of a drunken ballerina. Every wave racing towards the shore moved the object a few feet closer to the beach. By the time I hauled the chair from the water, I was panting, drenched, and distinctly unamused.

Grabbing it firmly, I dragged it farther up the beach. One look and I knew how Birch had died. A hole about the size of a bullet sliced through the chair’s back. Someone shot him from behind while he rummaged through Oak’s credenza. No visible blood remained, and I sensed no human energy emanating from the wood.

“He shot me in the back and then used the chair to dump me over the edge,” Birch said, floating beside me, his spectral form flickering like a faulty lightbulb. “That’s cold even for Oak.” He turned and floated back up the path.

I couldn’t imagine his pain. Killed by your own brother.

By the time I reached the top of the bluff, Birch’s ghost had disappeared.

“Where’d he go?” I asked Echo.

She shook her head. “He raced inside the house and came back hollering, ‘He took it. I’m going to kill him.’ And then he floated away.”

Echo was quiet for a moment, allowing me to process before she asked,

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