Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Rivalry

“Don’t worry about it, Dad,” said Odelia with a smile. “Max is a one-of-a-kind cat. He needs a one-of-a-kind pet door.”

I’m not sure what she meant by that, but judging from Diego’s knowing look it wasn’t good. ‘See?’ that look seemed to mean. ‘She’s going to get good money for you, Max. Paid by the pound… by the pound!’

Then again, if Odelia was going to sell me by the pound to the pound, why did she go to all the trouble of installing a pet door for me? I was going to have to thresh this thing out once and for all. The moment Diego was gone I was going to have a long heart-to-heart with my human. Was she or wasn’t she about to get rid of me? Inquiring minds needed to know!

Chapter 13

Odelia woke up in the middle of the night from a strange noise bleating away in the vicinity of her ear. For a moment she thought it was Max, whose breathing could get a little noisy from time to time, especially when he was having a bad dream. He would start to paw the air, as if running in his sleep. She’d asked Vena, her veterinarian, about it once and she said he was probably dreaming about chasing something or being chased himself.

The notion that cats could dream had been a new one for her, but it didn’t surprise her. In fact there wasn’t much about her cats that did surprise her these days. They were amazing creatures, and capable of so much more than most humans gave them credit for.

They were also very sensitive. As she was falling asleep earlier, Max had tripped up to her, carefully looking left and right, and had asked her if it was true that she intended to drop him off at the pound one of these days, and actually sell him by the pound. The idea was so outrageous that she’d laughed it off. But when he told her the story had been launched by Diego, it wasn’t all that funny anymore. It would appear that Diego had been feeding Max and the others a bunch of sensationalist stories, and scaring them witless in the process.

So she’d impressed it upon Max that she had no intention whatsoever to sell him to any pound, and vowed to have a long talk with Diego and tell him to stop this nonsense.

She reached out and took her phone from the nightstand and saw that it was Chase.

Picking up, she groggily muttered, “Mh?”

“Very eloquent, Poole,” Chase’s voice came. He sounded more awake than she was. “There’s been an incident at the Dieber place. Some lunatic placed a knife on Charlie’s pillow, and now he’s scared out of his feeble little mind and has been yelling for cops, cops, cops!”

“So? I’m not a cop. You go.”

“Outside. Five minutes. Oh, and Odelia?”

“Huh?”

“You sound sexy when you’re sleep-deprived.”

Five minutes later she was outside, trying to rub the sleep from her eyes, and watched Chase’s big pickup drive up, the engine rumbling pleasantly, the burly cop looking as fresh as a daisy. How did he do it? He gave her a big grin as he pushed open the door. She dropped into the seat and immediately leaned her head against the headrest and fell asleep.

A prod woke her up again. “Look alive, champ. We’ve arrived.”

She wrenched open her eyes and stretched her arms out as much as the cramped space in the cabin would allow. “So what’s this story about Dieber finding a knife?”

“That is the story. Dieber found a knife on his pillow.”

“So what’s the deal? Is it a threat? Was there a note? What?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out, babe.” He gave her a look of concern. “Are you sure you’re up for this? You look like you crawled out from under a steamroller.”

“Had a long talk with Max before nodding off,” she muttered before catching herself. “I mean—Max kept me awake half the night.”

“He probably wasn’t happy that he couldn’t fit through the pet door. Don’t worry. I’ll give your dad a hand tomorrow and we’ll fix it.”

She glanced over. “How come you’re so… chipper? What’s your secret?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “No secret. I tend to wake up at the drop of a hat ready to go. Always have.”

“You don’t feel like a zombie fresh from the grave?”

“Nope.”

“And you don’t need a gallon of coffee before you’re ready to start your quest for brains?”

“Nope. Though coffee would be welcome. I hope the Dieber got a fresh pot brewing.”

“You’re something else, Detective Kingsley.”

“Just your friendly neighborhood cop, always ready for duty, ma’am.”

They’d arrived at the gate to the Dieber compound, and the same guard who’d admitted them the day before was on duty. This time he recognized them, and waved them through without delay. Chase parked his rig in front of the house, and they trudged up to the front door. That is to say, Odelia trudged. Chase bounced athletically on limber legs.

Once inside, they were greeted by a scene of extreme pandemonium. No semi-naked girls prancing around in the pool this time, but guards and girls and staff members running around like headless chickens, and Charlie Dieber having a major freak-out in the living room—the one with the six Warhol-type portraits of his tatted-up torso.

“They’re trying to get me!” he was screaming. “But I won’t be gotten! Nobody can kill the Dieber. The Dieber is invincible. The Dieber is indestructible! The Dieber is bulletproof!”

“I hate it when they talk about themselves in the third person,” Chase said.

“Me, too,” she intimated.

The Dieber finally caught sight of the twosome and his face lit up. “Cops!” he cried. “I need cops, cops, cops!”

“Well, you got them, Charlie,” said Chase. “Now what’s all this about a knife?”

The Dieber dropped the vape he’d been sucking from into the hands of a plump woman dressed as a housekeeper, and stalked up to them. As usual, he was shirtless, wearing only Bermudas, and his bare feet slapped the marble floor. He tapped Chase’s chest with his finger, getting into the cop’s face. “Someone left a knife on my pillow. A frigging knife! So what are you going to do about it, huh? The Dieber could have died tonight!”

“I guess I’ll take a look at the knife,” Chase said with a tight smile.

The Dieber returned to pacing the living room, and Odelia didn’t know what was more unnerving, watching his Bermudas drop a little lower with every step and show a bare bottom that was as inked up as the rest of his body, or the fact that the killer had gotten so close to the star that he could have slit his throat if he wanted to.

Carlos Roulston was there, and so were the members of Charlie’s close protection team, and they escorted Odelia and Chase up a sweeping flight of stairs and into a bedroom that was easily as large as Odelia’s entire house. In fact it was safe to say Charlie’s bedroom was the size of a luxury suite and resembled one as well. The four-poster bed stood near the window, overlooking the ocean, and once again portraits of the pop star were the main decoration. The man was clearly in love with himself. There was also another white horse, rearing up with the Dieber seated on its back. Only this time the Dieber was in the nude.

She averted her gaze, suddenly feeling she’d already seen too much of the kid, and joined the guard detail around the singer’s bed, where the knife was still very much in evidence on the pillow, as indicated. Almost like a pillow chocolate, but with an edge.

“We talked to the housekeeper,” said Roulston. “She says that when the cleaners were in here there was no knife.”

“When was this?” asked Chase.

“This morning at ten, and again at ten tonight.”

“They come in twice a day?”

“Yup. Charlie is a neat freak. Wants fresh sheets put on his bed twice a day.”