Ник Сайнт - Purrfectly Hidden. Purrfect Kill. Purrfect Boy Toy

“Yeah. Yeah, that might not be such a bad idea. Anything to keep this out of the press.” She shook her head as Gran hurried out. “I don’t believe this. Suzy. I trained her myself. I thought one day she’d take over from me. She’s got it, you know, whatever it is. Bright, charismatic, beautiful, and she genuinely likes the job.”

“You were grooming her to take over?”

“Yeah, well, not officially, but she’s best suited for the job.”

The door opened and Gran walked in with Suzy, who sported a smile from ear to ear.

Opal cleared her throat and sat up a little straighter. “Suzy. Take a seat, please.”

“Did I get the job?” asked the girl, who was, indeed, very vivacious, Odelia thought.

“Well… see the thing is…”

“You’ve been caught red-handed, my dear,” said Gran, who didn’t believe in beating about the bush.

“Red-handed?” asked Suzy, turning to Gran. “What do you mean?”

“Let me handle this, Vesta,” said Opal. “Look, Suzy. There’s no easy way to say this, but—”

“You thought you could get away with it, didn’t you?” said Gran. “Couldn’t wait for Opal to retire so you decided to speed things up a little. Bump her off. Well, you were careless, young lady.”

“Vesta,” said Opal. “I’ll handle this, all right? Suzy, I’d hate to call the police and have you arrested, so if you come clean now, maybe there’s a way we can deal with this without involving the law. But you have to tell me everything.”

“I don’t understand,” said Suzy, her eyes playing ping-pong between Odelia, Gran and Opal. “What’s all this about bumping you off?”

“First you cut her brake lines, then you poisoned her coffee, then you dumped a light fixture on her head, and yesterday you tried to have her killed by Botox overdose!” said Gran, pointing an accusatory finger in the young woman’s face. “Confess, you murderous vixen! Confess!”

“Vesta!”

“I don’t—brake lines? Poisoned coffee? I have no idea what you’re talking about!” said Suzy, her smile having vanished and been replaced with a look of utter confusion.

Either she was a very good actress, Odelia thought, or she really had no idea what was going on.

“You tried to kill me, Suzy,” said Opal. “Several times. Why?”

“Yes, why did you do it—confess!” Gran cried.

“I didn’t do it!” said Suzy. “I didn’t try to kill you. I never came near your car, I never poisoned any coffee, and I have no idea what you mean with death by Botox!”

“Oh, bullshit,” said Gran, and gestured to Odelia. “Play the recording, Odelia. Play it!”

And Odelia played it.

“That’s me,” said Suzy. “That’s my audition tape.”

“Your voice was formally recognized as belonging to the woman who phoned my beauty salon yesterday,” said Opal, “instructing them to administer a Botox dose that could have been fatal.”

“You phoned the salon!” said Gran. “You did that! Not smart, young lady! Not smart at all!”

“But I never called anyone! Whoever called the salon, it wasn’t me.”

“Suzy Parker,” said Opal in her best authoritative voice. “If you don’t confess now, there’s nothing more I can do for you. I’ll have to hand this matter to the police.”

“But I promise you, Opal,” said Suzy, on the verge of tears now. “It wasn’t me!”

“Oh, playing coy now, are we?” said Gran. “You weren’t so coy when you dumped that cyanide into Opal’s coffee, were you?”

“I never came near Opal’s coffee!”

“That’s probably true,” said Opal with a frown. “I was poisoned at the house, and Suzy has only been at the house once, to deliver some documents.”

“She could have snuck in,” said Gran. “Not hard to do. Not hard at all.”

“Unlikely,” said Opal, shaking her head. “I have pretty good security. If she’d tried to sneak in, she would have been caught.”

“See!” said Suzy. “I didn’t do it, Opal. I swear to God!”

“Okay, fine,” said Opal. “I believe you. But then who did?”

“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t.”

“You’re not going to let her off the hook that easily, are you?” asked Gran, sounding disappointed. “She did it!”

Opal seemed to be of two minds about Suzy, and to be fair, Odelia couldn’t blame her. It was hard to see in Suzy a hardened killer. Frankly she didn’t think she did it, either.

“Haven’t you noticed anything out of the ordinary lately?” asked Opal. “Someone saying something weird, acting suspicious?”

Suzy was shaking her head. “Nothing. We all love you here, Opal. We adore you. We wouldn’t do anything to harm you. None of us.”

“Well, someone did,” said Opal, “and if it wasn’t you, it was one of your colleagues.”

“I vouch for them,” said Suzy, lifting her chin. “I vouch for each and every one of them.”

“Oh, hell,” said Opal, leaning back. “This is a nightmare.”

Just then, her phone sang out a tune, and she picked it up. She listened for a moment, then her eyes widened and she put the phone on speaker. “Can you say that again?” she asked in a shaky voice.

“I said, I have your friend Marilyn,” a metallic voice spoke. “And if you want to see her alive again, you will come to Bluff Point at midnight, with a million dollars in cash. Alone. No cops.”

“But… I don’t have that kind of money!”

The metallic voice broke into a menacing laugh. “Yeah, right. Billionaire Opal Harvey doesn’t have a million dollars. That’s chump change for you, lady. I suggest you do as you’re told, or else I’ll mail you back your friend in pieces, starting with her fingers!”

“No, wait!” Opal cried, but the line had already gone dead.

Chapter 30

We were all back at the house. Once again Opal had ignored Odelia’s urgent advice to call in the police, but at least this time she’d allowed her to call in the help of Chase and Uncle Alec.

Opal was pacing the floor of her study while Odelia and Gran, Marge and Tex, Chase and Uncle Alec, and of course Harlan sat around, biting their nails as the hours crept by.

At midnight Opal was to deliver the sum of money to the kidnapper, and even though she’d told the man she wouldn’t be able to raise the money, she had managed anyway.

“Tough to raise a million dollars on a Sunday,” Brutus said now.

We were, as usual, on the sidelines while the humans talked back and forth about the terrible ordeal Marilyn Coyn must be going through. This time we weren’t ensconced beneath the desk, but had managed to secure ourselves a position on the windowsill. A real window seat it was, too, and very comfortably outfitted with very soft cushions.

“Opal always keeps cash in the house,” Prunella said. “She likes the security of knowing her money is close.”

“Doesn’t she trust banks?” I asked.

“No, she doesn’t. Ever since a couple of banks collapsed some years ago, she keeps a big chunk of her money in her safe.”

“Must be a big safe,” said Brutus, “to keep all those billions.”

“She’s not a billionaire, silly,” said Prunella.

“She’s not? But I thought—”

“That’s just more media nonsense. They print a lot of lies about Opal. She’s a millionaire a couple of times over, but hardly a billionaire.”

“So where does she keep her money?”

Prunella pointed to a painting of Opal that was suspended on the wall behind her desk. “It swings open,” she said. “Behind it is her safe, where she keeps stacks of cash, jewelry, gold bars, and cigars.”

“Cigars? You mean, like, gold cigars?”

“No, real cigars. They’re Harlan’s, and he’s always afraid someone will steal them.”