Клеа Саймон - A Spell Of Murder

As it was, she was running late by the time she found the right street. She was tempted to blame Maddy. Her friend had kept her, going on about that nasty colleague—some woman her friend had a grudge against that she never fully explained. But Becca knew the delay was her own fault and was preparing to own up to it when she finally located the right address painted on a mailbox out front.

The bright morning had turned into a surprisingly warm day by then, and Becca was sweating slightly—her cheeks a healthy pink—as she jogged up the front steps. Someone cared for the building. In addition to that neat mailbox, the tiny front yard was neatly raked, with low blue flowers edging a lilac that had just begun to bloom, although the smell of fresh paint nearly overwhelmed that lovely, peppery scent. Somewhere, a radio was playing salsa. But the latch on the front door was old and resisted Becca’s jiggling and pushing.

“Here, let me help you.” A hand reached around Becca, dark with the sun, and she turned. The sandy-haired man who had come up so quietly behind her wasn’t much taller than she was, but he pulled the door open easily with one hand. The other was holding a bucket full of rags that smelled strongly of turpentine.

“You’re going in?” he asked, his voice soft.

She looked up. The dash of white paint on his right cheekbone made his skin look darker. Bronzed almost, with a slight glaze of sweat that added a warm and subtly spicy scent to the mix.

“What?” She blinked. “Yes, thanks. I’m looking for Suzanne Liddle. She’s in unit three?”

“The buzzer should be working.” He nodded into the foyer. “The electricians finished up last week.”

“Thanks,” said Becca, a little too breathlessly, and then turned and hurried in. Clara, who had been examining the flowers, slipped in behind Becca as the door closed. Luckily, both humans were too distracted to notice the calico, even if she hadn’t cloaked her brighter orange patch in a shadow summoning that made her as grey as a Grimalkin. But though she was on her guard not to be noticed, the cat pressed close to Becca as the young woman climbed the stairs. There was something off about this building—something that even the stinging odor of that solvent couldn’t explain—and although the compact cat certainly didn’t want to trip her person, she did want her to be wary. Especially when her phone rang before she had even reached the first landing.

“Oh!” She paused, looking at the number, and then, taking a deep breath, took the call. “Hi.”

Like the rest of her family, Clara was a witch cat, endowed with magical abilities above and beyond the usual feline mysticism. But that didn’t mean she had unlimited powers. Sure, she could pass through solid objects like doors and walls. Those powers were sort of related to how she could summon things, like Harriet did that pillow. And she could make herself more or less invisible, as all cats—even the non-magical ones—can, which is why humans trip over them so often. But although her ears were naturally more sensitive than any human’s, she couldn’t hear everything.

That’s why she was a tad alarmed when Becca stopped walking to listen, one hand over her ear to block out the music from outside. Something about the way her brows bunched together and her teeth came down on her lower lip made the little calico’s ears prick up, reminding her of those bad days two months ago. The days when all Becca had done—besides feed her cats, of course—was cry.

“Uh-huh,” she said at last. Her lip still showed the marks of her teeth, but at least she’d begun walking again, slowly mounting step after step. “Yes, she told me,” she said.

“No, I’m not home right now.” Becca had reached the third floor. The door was slightly ajar, and she turned away for privacy. “Look, I can come by your place,” she said. And then, taking another deep breath, she went on. “Okay, then what if I meet you someplace else in an hour, some place down by the river? I’m—no, really, it’s fine. I’m visiting a friend on Putnam. In fact, I’m at her door now. A new friend. Her name’s Suzanne. Suzanne Liddle.”

At that, she straightened up, and for a moment, Clara relaxed, thinking that her person was, in fact, doing better. But then her brows came together again and she shook her head. “What do you mean, Jeff? You don’t even know her. Look.” One hand went up to push the hair from her brow. “I’ll call you when I’m leaving, okay? Jeff?”

The hand wiped over her face and through her soft brown curls, and with a sigh big enough to deflate her, she shoved the phone back into her pocket. And with that she turned toward the slightly opened door.

“Suzanne?” she called. “It’s Becca.”

She rapped softly on the door, which creaked open further. Calling a little louder, to be heard over the salsa beat, she said again, “Suzanne? Are you there?”

As a cat, Clara didn’t require permission to enter any room. And while she could pass through a locked door, an unlatched one—especially one so temptingly ajar—read like a gilt-edged invitation. Only there was something about this room, this door. Something beyond the intense smell of the paint and the metallic rattle of the ladder outside.

“Suzanne?” Becca pushed the door further open and stepped inside. And so, despite an overwhelming sense of trepidation that had her guard hairs standing on end, Clara followed into a sunny room. As the door swung shut behind them and the latch caught with a click, she took in the warmth. The light from the big bay window. Two overstuffed chairs that Harriet would love crowded together on a deep plush rug, while a velvet-covered sofa, too big for the space, was pushed back against a bay window that stood slightly ajar. It was from here that the smell of the paint came in as well as the dust and the scrapings that had dappled the burgundy velvet with white.

It was also that sofa—more of a love seat actually—that had set all the cat’s instinctive alarms ringing. For reclining on the dark velvet, one arm hanging low toward the floor, lay Suzanne Liddle, the inlaid handle of her serrated cake knife extending straight up from bare white flesh of her throat.

Becca froze, leaving Clara to take in the sight of the woman on the sofa, the pooled blood from the awful wound collecting at her collarbone, where it was already darkening to almost match the burgundy of the upholstery. Time stopped—for a moment—and then jarred into movement with the clang of a ladder being collapsed. A boom box cut off in mid-song.

Somewhere, outside—in a different world—work was done for the morning. And then another sound, closer, made Becca turn. A key clicked in the door. The brass knob rotated, and Clara could hear her frightened gasp, as Trent—the handsome warlock—stepped in.

Chapter 6

A purr can mean many different things. Cats purr to express happiness, of course. But they also purr to comfort themselves or others, and that’s what Clara was trying to do an hour later—once the police let Becca go.

“Oh, kitties, it was horrible.” Clara would have thought, after all the questions, that her poor person would have been all talked out. But as she staggered into her apartment and collapsed onto her own lovely, clean, and beautifully unbloodied sofa, she began to rehash everything that had happened.

“I had just seen her Wednesday, three days ago. She was here. She was…alive.” Becca lay back with a sigh, one forearm thrown over her eyes, as the three sisters converged. Clara was a little breathless from having raced home—feline invisibility aside, she didn’t think hitching a ride in a police cruiser was a good idea. “I keep thinking of her…her throat and all that blood. And that knife. I’d cut cake with that knife…” Becca repeated as she kicked her shoes off.