Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Peril

This gave me pause. Needed here? Dooley, too, found this statement odd.

“Needed for what, Gran?” he asked.

One eye on her soap opera and one eye on Dooley, she said vaguely, “Odelia, of course. It’s obvious she’s gonna need the sage advice of a wise woman like myself.”

This could only mean one thing, and Dooley came right out and said it: “Babies?”

“Uh-huh,” said Gran absently. A particularly handsome doctor was now nuzzling the neck of a particularly pretty female patient, and so she shushed us when we said more.

Dooley jumped down from the couch and joined me for an impromptu emergency meeting in the kitchen, next to my bowls of filtered water, tasty kibble and prime pâté.

“Gran has moved in,” Dooley said, summing up the salient point succinctly.

“Yes, she has,” I said, nodding seriously.

“And she just admitted she’s here for the babies—plural.”

“Yes, she did.”

“You know what this means, Max.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Soon there won’t be a place for us here.”

“No, there won’t.”

We shared a look of extreme concern, one thought at the forefront of our minds.

“The pound!” we both bleated.

Chapter 28

“Where can she be?” Odelia asked annoyedly. She and Chase had been looking all over for Tracy Sting, but thus far the woman had eluded their dragnet. The rest of the Hampton Cove Police Department, too, had kept a watchful eye—but no luck there either.

They were back at the hotel, seated in the lobby, knowing that sooner or later the woman had to show up there. Her room was empty, that much they knew, and she hadn’t been in since right after the explosion that had taken her client’s life. So where was she?

“She might have returned home,” Chase suggested.

“Columbus, Ohio? Didn’t you put out an APB on her?”

“I did, but if she rented a car she might have slipped through.”

“Her clothes are in her room. Her luggage. Everything.”

“If she’s the one that did this she might have left regardless.”

Which meant they were wasting precious time in this lobby. It felt as if Odelia had spent days at this hotel already, which actually was partly true. She dug into the bowl with potato-covered peanuts the receptionist had been so kind to put out for them. Probably another bad idea. But they were seriously addictive and she’d always been a nervous eater.

“So did your grandmother get settled in all right?”

She gave Chase an ‘are-you-kidding-me’ look. “She took my Hello Kitty sheets.”

“Uh-oh.”

“And then she told me she’s going to stay with me permanently. As in for-e-vah.”

Now it was his turn to give her the look.

She threw up her hands. “I can’t just throw her out, Chase. She’s my grandmother.”

“We could… all move in together. You, me and Granny. That could be... fun. Right?”

He didn’t sound convinced. “You and me and my grandmother. In the same house.”

“Why not? How bad can it be?”

“Bad. Very bad.” She sighed. “We’ll just have to learn to live without, I guess.”

“Live without…” He gestured between them. “…this?”

“Uh-huh. She told me something about putting in her earplugs but I wouldn’t feel comfortable with my granny in the next room. Like you said, it’s something of a turn-off.”

“When you put it like that.”

“I don’t know how Mom and Dad have managed all these years.”

“Maybe they never do it?”

She grimaced. “Let’s not go there.” Imagining her parents like that was an even bigger turn-off than imagining her grandmother in the next room, listening to every noise she and Chase made. Then she brightened. “We could rent a room. Here. At this fine establishment.”

He placed an arm around her shoulder. “Or we could do it in my car. Or yours. I’m not picky.”

She giggled, snuggling into his arm. “I’d like that. Let’s steam up some windows.”

Just then, Chase’s phone chimed. When he placed it to his ear and listened, he arched an eyebrow, as if what he was hearing was a highly unusual piece of news. After he disconnected the call, he was silent for a few beats.

“Was that the station?” she asked.

He nodded automatically.

“Well, what did they say? Did they find Tracy Sting?”

“Oh, they found her,” he said in a toneless voice.

“Well? What are you waiting for? Go interrogate the lady.”

“It wasn’t just her they found.”

“What do you mean? She had an accomplice?”

“You could say that.” He seemed to shake something off. “A citizen called in a complaint about a display of public indecency. A couple were going at it inside a stationary vehicle. Going at it with some eagerness I might add. Steamed-up windows and everything.”

“Don’t tell me. Our Miss Nitro and her mystery accomplice?”

He turned to her. “Miss Nitro and your uncle, actually. Cops were dispatched and found them in flagrante delicto inside Alec’s police cruiser—both in a state of undress.”

They walked into the police station, and judging from the looks Dolores, the crusty receptionist, was giving them, by now everyone and their uncle were aware of what had happened. “I can’t believe my uncle the police chief would do such a thing,” Odelia said.

“I can’t believe he’d use the cruiser. Isn’t that misappropriation of police property?”

“Who cares about the car? He was canoodling with a felon!”

“Maybe she’s one of those femme fatales,” he offered. “Those are hard to resist.”

They arrived at interview room number one, where the entire Hampton Cove police force stood staring through the little window at the woman locked inside. She was a striking beauty, no doubt about it. Flaming red hair, perfect features, a chest Odelia would have given her eyeteeth for. At least she was dressed, which hadn’t been the case when they arrested her, as the arresting officer loudly explained to his fascinated audience.

“Where’s my uncle?” asked Odelia.

They all pointed to interview room number two. Odelia took a glance through the window and saw her uncle fuming silently inside, pacing the small space. She grimaced. Awkward. Chase had followed her and placed a hand on her back. “I’ll interview the woman first. See what she says. And then I’ll deal with your uncle.”

She watched as Chase entered the interview room along with a colleague, and folded her arms across her chest. She noticed how every cop standing there with her did the same, all settling in for what promised to be a most entertaining show.

“Miss Sting,” said Chase as he took a seat, his colleague, a female officer named Sarah Flunk, rifling through some notes as she shot not-so-friendly glances at the suspect. “Are you aware that there are laws in this state against public lewdness?”

Miss Sting made an annoyed gesture. “We were in a private vehicle parked in a back alley, hidden from view or so we thought. Can I help it if some nosy parker peeping tom pervert do-gooder decided to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong? And isn’t the chief of police exempt or something?”

Chase coughed into his fist. “Where did you and the Chief meet?”

She leveled an icy look at him. “Why don’t you ask him?”

“I’m asking you.”

“I met him in a bar. He accused me of being a cold-blooded murderer so I invited him to dinner. That’s when he came after me and invited me into his car. Things kinda took off from there.” She made a gesture of annoyance. “Look, we’re consenting adults, officer—”

“Detective.”

“Whatever. None of your business what your boss and I were doing in his car.”