Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Cut

“I can’t believe you were cooped up in there—with that rat!”

“I know!” he said, his eyes wide as saucers.

We both glanced up to the second-floor window of the room we’d just escaped from, and saw to our elation that Pussy was sitting there, looking down at us. And she was smiling!

She held up her paw in greeting, and Dooley shouted, “We’re coming back for you, Pussy! We won’t leave you there to die!”

Pussy gave us a cheery wave, and then we were off at a trot. Unfortunately we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, still not fully ourselves after our harrowing ordeal, and before long we found ourselves not on the road to Hampton Cove where home and safety lay, but back in the petting zoo.

“We’re back where we started, Max,” said Dooley, who’d come to the same conclusion.

“It sure looks that way. Oh, well. I guess all roads lead to Rome,” I said.

“They do? And how does that work, exactly?”

“It’s just an expression. I don’t think all roads literally lead to Rome.”

“They’d have to cross an entire ocean, which I think is a little tricky.”

And on this note of wisdom, we entered the petting zoo. Any place was better than the Flake house, which had turned out to be a house of horrors.

Chapter 24

Lauren Klepfisch and Zak Kowalski had been staking out the Flake house long enough to know that the place was practically a beehive, with people coming and going at all hours. First a bunch of black SUVs had passed through the gates, probably transporting a US government contingent, or maybe SEAL Team Six, then Odelia Poole had arrived with her cop sidekick, had come and gone, only to return a little while later with her grandmother, before passing out again.

“Something is definitely going on in there,” said Lauren, with her reporter’s nose for a scoop.

“No shit, Sherlock,” said her cameraman. They’d been out there for too long, and Zak was getting a little antsy. He was also hungry for some real food, and not the pizzas they’d had delivered about an hour before.

“I say we move in for a closer look,” Lauren suggested. She tapped her nose. “I have a nose for these things, Zak.”

“Yeah, like you had a nose for barging into the police station this afternoon and getting kicked out?”

“I may have reacted a little hastily that time.”

But she was so sure that they would find a great little scoop there that she’d decided to go for broke and barge into the place. It hadn’t worked out so well, and their exclusive interview with Gabriel Crier or Chief Alec or both had been a bust. And now they were forbidden from ever setting foot inside the police station ever again. And after Chief Alec had called Lauren and Zak’s boss at WLBC-9, he’d chewed her out and told her in no uncertain terms he was unhappy with her behavior. And if she ever pulled a stunt like that again, she was off the story and off the air. And when she told him she had another scoop, and that Odelia Poole could talk to cats and she could prove it, he’d called her a long list of opprobrious names and slammed down the phone.

Looked like the world wasn’t ready to learn Miss Poole’s secret yet…

“Let’s get the inside scoop,” she said. “Something is going on in there and we need to know what it is.”

Zak groaned, but he wasn’t saying no. A scoop would put food on the table, and maybe even propel him to the next level: a fixed contract. Anything was better than the piecemeal stuff he did now—being paid as a freelancer.

“Let’s go for it, Zak,” she said. “And if it doesn’t work out, I’ll tell them it was my fault. I’ll take full responsibility.”

“Like you will take all the credit if we hit the jackpot, huh? No way, Lauren. We share the credit this time. And no buts.”

“Sure. Fine,” she said, glad he was willing to follow her into the lion’s den. She eyed the fence with a keen eye. “So how high do you think that thing is?”

Leonora Flake was staring out across the grounds that backed the estate. It was dark out, so there wasn’t a lot to see. She didn’t mind. She needed to put all of her ducks in a row. The words of that horrible old woman kept ringing in her ears: you’re going to destroy this company with your stupid ideas.

Could she be onto something? Was the reason Leonidas Flake had been as successful as it was, the wedding of two minds: her son and his boyfriend’s?

She’d always thought the company was going down the drain, and had tried to save it from Leo’s incompetence many times, even if it turned him against her. She’d always justified her actions by arguing she was doing Leo a favor. And now this woman had offered her a completely different view.

She decided to take a little ride through the grounds. It always gave her a fresh perspective to go for an evening stroll, even if stroll wasn’t exactly the word that applied to the wheelchair-bound sojourn she liked to undertake.

She lived in her own villa, not far from her son’s estate, and also had an apartment in Paris, from where she’d launched her campaign to convince the board that she was the better choice to run the company. It hadn’t worked that time, but now it finally had, even if the price was high: the death of her son. It was something that weighed heavily on her mind. She knew she’d miss him, that stubborn mulish man. But she also knew it was all for the best.

At least that’s what she’d always thought. She wasn’t so sure now.

The numbers didn’t lie: Leonidas Flake was in a bad way. But was it in a bad way because of her son’s mismanagement, or because of her actions?

She took off along the little dirt path that wound its way through the rolling parkland that stretched out for half a mile in every direction. She soon arrived at what she considered emblematic of her son’s silliness: the petting zoo. And as she pushed the wheelchair along the path, she found herself listening to the sounds of the animals. They were soothing sounds, and she had to admit that perhaps there was something to be said for the zoo.

Leo had always told her it calmed his frayed nerves after a long day when surrounded by his little flock, and maybe he had a point. She heard the soft snorts of a horse, the quiet braying of a donkey, and the rustling of straw as the hog dug its snout into its trough. She even heard the grunting of rabbits.

Nice, she thought, and felt her mood improving with leaps and bounds. She’d wanted to get rid of the zoo the moment she took over the house and the company, but now she reflected that maybe she would keep it instead. She’d fired the zookeeper that afternoon, along with the rest of Leo’s staff, and had called a local farmer to pick up the animals the next day. Now she might hire a new zookeeper, or rehire the old zookeeper and tell him that she’d made a mistake, and did he want to stay on at half his salary? If he refused, she’d tell him that the animals were all going to the slaughterhouse. He’d quickly agree, as apt as these half-witted animal lovers all were.

Take that stupid cat Pussy, for instance. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could love a cat the way Leo and Gabe had. And a pretty hideous cat the creature was at that. With those horrible claws and that terrible cat smell. At least for now, though, she needed to keep the foul beast around. To parade in front of the world’s media at next week’s press conference, and for the board of directors. But as soon as she didn’t need the stupid little bag of bones, it was off to the vet for a lethal injection. Or maybe she would put the thing down herself, and have Pussy buried somewhere on the grounds right next to those other two cats, Max and Dooley. Stupid names for stupid beasts. At least if Chris managed to catch them, which he better had, or else there would be hell to pay. Maybe she’d better ask Helga. Her trusty nurse never messed up.