Ник Сайнт: Purrfect Heat

Purrfect Heat The Mysteries of Max 4

Nic Saint

Puss in Print Publications

Contents

Purrfect Heat

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Epilogue

Excerpt from A Tale of Two Harrys (Ghosts of London 4)

About Nic

Also by Nic Saint

Purrfect Heat

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The peace and calm of Hampton Cove is brutally disturbed when celebrity chef Niklaus Skad, famous for his show Kitchen Disasters , is found cooked in his own oven. The chef wasn’t a well-liked man, and there are plenty of suspects to go around. Odelia Poole, Hampton Cove Gazette reporter and civilian consultant to the police department, teams up with Detective Chase Kingsley to catch the killer, but soon finds this proves a lot harder than she thought.

Max, Odelia’s blorange tabby, would love to help out, but is faced with a cat emergency when Odelia takes in a new stray. Diego soon proves to be a handful, and when he sets his sights on Harriet, it’s war in the cat menagerie. With Dooley fearing he’s contracted a wasting disease, and Brutus in a funk because Diego stole his girlfriend, Max has his hands full. Good thing he still has time to ferret out clues and chase suspects, or Odelia would never be able to crack the case.

Will Diego become a permanent fixture in the Poole household? Will the celebrity chef’s killer ever be found? And what’s going on with Gran’s crush on the mysterious Leo? Find out in Purrfect Heat , the new installment in the funny cozy cat mystery series The Mysteries of Max .

Prologue

Erin Coka arrived bright and early for work. It was her day to open Fry Me for an Oyster and she didn’t want to be late. As a newish employee of the restaurant, she had everything to prove and everything to lose. Not that her employers, Brainard and Isabella Stowe, were terrible people or anything. They just ran a tight ship, and expected all members of their staff, from the dishwashers to the chef, to do the work and show up on time.

Lately, things had been even more hectic than usual, with the famous celebrity chef Niklaus Skad in town, subjecting Fry Me for an Oyster to his usual grueling treatment. He’d been all over the place, a camera crew in tow, criticizing the menus, the seating, the decorations, the presentation and even the way the staff dressed and behaved. It seemed nothing was good enough for the Great Niklaus, and Brainard and Isabella had been on edge all week. Kitchen Disasters could make or break their business, though by the looks of things, Niklaus was leaning more toward destroying them.

Erin opened the door and stepped inside. The air was stale and musty—redolent with cooking scents. She stuck her nose in the air and sniffed. Yuck. Something smelled awful. Had Hendrik been working on one of his notorious creations again? Cooking up something special for Niklaus? Going for a last-ditch attempt to save his career and the restaurant?

She walked through to the kitchen. “Chef? Chef, are you in here?”

Sometimes, when the mood struck him, Hendrik Serarols liked to come in at the crack of dawn to try out a few new recipes he’d dreamed up. She walked past the bar and through the swinging doors into the large kitchen at the back. Here Hendrik created his masterpieces, which had put Fry Me for an Oyster on the map in Hampton Cove and far beyond.

“Yuck,” she muttered, as her eyes scanned the squeaky clean kitchen.

All gleaming countertops and scrubbed pots dangling over the stoves. Everything perfectly clean, as it should be. Niklaus Skad was big on hygiene, his pet peeve. The stench seemed to be coming from one of the ovens, the biggest one, where they baked pizza and other large dishes. Hendrik had once joked you could fit a man in there, even one as big as him.

She walked over to the oven and saw that it was switched on. “Chef?” she repeated. “Are you cooking something in here?” No reply.

She peered in through the oven window. Whatever it was, it had been cooking for so long that smoke was curling out through the vents. Had Chef put something in last night and forgotten to turn off the oven? He had so much on his mind lately he was starting to get a little frazzled. And who could blame him? With Niklaus on his case all the time, even yelling and screaming, and the camera crew in his face while he tried to keep it together and run the kitchen, a lesser man would have fallen to pieces.

She flicked on the oven light, and that’s when she saw it. Her lips parted on a silent scream. There was a man in there, baked to a crisp!

Chapter 1

I was luxuriating in my all-time favorite spot: at the foot of Odelia’s bed. I’m blessed with a smallish human, which means I’ve got the foot of the bed all to myself. I’ve heard horror stories of other cats, whose owners stretch out all the way to the edge of the bed, and then wriggle around all night, making it absolutely impossible for any cat to get any sleep.

In that sense, Odelia is the perfect human. Well, not just because she’s short, but also because she’s super nice and sweet. She always makes sure I’m well fed and well taken care of, never stingy on the cuddles and the strokes, and she keeps my blorange fur looking nice and shiny by giving me a vigorous grooming every week without fail. She’s even installed a pet door so I can come and go as I please. A nice, big door, as I’m big-boned.

Odelia is a reporter for the Hampton Cove Gazette, and if there’s one thing that sets her aside from most humans, it’s that she speaks feline. Yep, she and I have a perfect understanding—literally. She takes care of me, and in return I collect gossip from all over town and give it her hot off the griddle. All the news that’s fit to print, straight from the cat’s mouth.

Odelia stirred, and I pricked up my ears. I can tell when she’s about to wake up, which is my cue to snuggle up to her and bury my nose in her armpit for an extra cuddle. It’s our morning ritual, and the start of our day.

This morning, however, things were going to prove different, and the first sign I got was when Dooley and Brutus came barging into the bedroom, looking excited, but not in a good way.

Dooley is my best bud, a gray Raggamuffin who belongs to Odelia’s Gran. Brutus is a black cat and… not exactly my buddy. He belongs to Chase Kingsley, a cop and occasional kissmate of Odelia’s. Yes, I know kissmate isn’t a word, but how else can I describe Chase and Odelia’s relationship? They’re not a couple, they just… kiss… sometimes. And flirt a lot, I guess. I know, it’s disgusting, but what can you do? Humans are weird that way.

“Max!” Dooley cried. “Terrible news! Terrible, terrible news!”

I reluctantly heaved my head from the soft blanket. “What is it?” I murmured, then yawned cavernously. Dooley is one of those overexcited cats who get their tail in a twist just because their human got them a new brand of kibble or a new smell of cat litter.

“A new cat,” Dooley said, still panting. “There’s a new cat in town.”

I looked from Dooley to Brutus, who was, at least in my eyes, still the new cat in town, even though by now he’d been here a couple of months.