Клеа Саймон - A Spell Of Murder

As if on cue, the device in Becca’s hand let out a chiming tone.

“Don’t!” Maddy reached for the phone.

“It’s okay.” Becca stepped back and was already looking at the device. The commotion had finally woken Harriet, who yawned wide enough to show all her teeth and then sat up. “It’s Larissa, from the group. She probably just heard.”

“Becca, you don’t have to­—”

“So annoying!” Beside her, Laurel stretched, unimpressed by Maddy’s soft pleading. “Maybe I should get rid of her.” She stood, her tail stiff at attention and her blue eyes beginning to cross.

“ Don’t you dare!” Clara turned on her, a warning growl in her voice. She knew what that look meant: Laurel was concentrating. Hard. And that meant magic was brewing. Between the crazed look those crossed eyes gave her and that mental “suggestion” that cats were dangerous, the slim seal point had scared off several would-be adopters at the shelter before Clara could stop her. Clara didn’t even want to guess what other thoughts her sister could implant in a susceptible human’s mind.

“Settle down.” The middle sister sat and coiled her tail neatly around her cocoa paws. “ You’re such a…scaredy-cat.”

“I’m practical.” Clara glared at her, ears still partly back. The little calico wasn’t sure what any of them could do with something the size of a person—and Maddy was a pretty big person at that. Nor did she particularly want to find out. “Besides, anything you did would get Becca in more trouble, and then where would we be?” Clara remembered the shelter, even if her sisters didn’t.

“ We could eat her,” said Laurel with a flick of her own ears. That got Harriet’s attention, and she looked from Laurel to Clara.

“No.” Clara didn’t even bother trying to disguise the growl that had crept into her voice. Clara might be the youngest of the litter, but neither Laurel nor Harriet wanted to expend the energy for a fight.

“Hello, Larissa?” Becca turned away as she answered, her voice tentative. “Yes, I know, I was…I know.”

Maddy looked on, glum. From the sofa, the three cats watched, transfixed.

“I…yes, you’re right.” Becca seemed to be listening more than talking. She looked up at her guest and raised one finger. “Here’s fine. Okay, let me know. And, Larissa? I’m sorry.”

A moment later, she put the phone down. “It’s the coven,” she explained. “They think we should meet to talk about Suzanne. To mourn, I guess,” she said.

“Or because someone wants to strategize.” Maddy sounded so dour that Becca grimaced.

“Oh, come on,” she said in a tone rather like Laurel might use if cats spoke the way humans do. “You can’t think one of us…” She stopped and swallowed hard.

“I don’t know, Becca.” Maddy stepped forward again. “That’s the problem. I mean, someone killed your friend just as she was going to tell you something about your Wednesday witches, right? And didn’t you say the door was open?”

“That doesn’t mean anything.” Becca was shaking her head. Laurel, meanwhile, had tilted her blues eyes toward Clara, her whiskers raised inquisitively. This was a detail she’d forgotten to pass along.

“ Later ,” Clara murmured. She wanted to hear what their person had to say.

“We’re not—the coven isn’t like that. It’s more likely someone followed Suzanne home, or the door could have been forced.” Becca was enumerating possibilities, but there was something off about her voice. “Maybe she opened it for a delivery person, or she left it off the latch. I was running late, so it could have been that she thought it was me—” She stopped, the reality of the situation catching up to her.

“Or it could have been someone she knew.” Maddy finished the thought. “Maybe someone you know too, Becca. I’m just glad that you didn’t get there a few minutes earlier. They might have killed you too.”

Chapter 9

If Becca’s friend had meant to comfort her, she’d failed miserably. After she left, Becca was as agitated as, well, as a wet cat. Even when exhaustion drove her—and the cats—to bed, she tossed and turned to the point where the feline sisters had to abandon their usual post at their person’s feet.

“If she doesn’t settle down, I’m going to swat her.” Laurel watched from her perch atop the bureau as the morning sun crept around the bedroom blinds. “I bet she won’t even remember to feed us.”

“Really?” Harriet looked up in dismay as Becca yawned and roused. Weekends meant little to the felines—and little to Becca since she lost her job. But breakfast meant everything to Harriet. “ She wouldn’t!”

“She’ll remember.” Clara jumped to the floor in her role as peacemaker, and began to weave around Becca’s ankles as she sought her slippers. “If not, you can sit on her, Harriet.”

“Huh.” Harriet turned away, insulted, but Laurel chortled in glee.

“Oh, no!” Becca ran over, catching Laurel around her café au lait torso. “Are you having a fur ball?”

Laurel’s laugh was, at best, disconcerting. But Becca’s misguided query did at least have the advantage of distracting Clara’s older sisters, and Laurel obligingly hacked up a nugget of felt, which she deposited on the floor at Becca’s feet. Furballs are the easiest summoning there is, which is why all cats do it, even when spring shedding doesn’t necessitate it.

“ Disgusting… ” Harriet sauntered into the kitchen, following Becca, who had gone for a paper towel. “ But now that she’s here…”

Clara knew she should have interceded. Harriet had already been fed, hours before, when Becca had woken from a nightmare. They all had, but poor Becca was so distracted that when she saw Harriet sitting by her bowl, she succumbed—once she’d cleaned up Laurel’s mess. Clara didn’t know if her oldest sister had used any mind control tricks—that one was Laurel’s specialty. That pleading look in her round yellow eyes was probably all she needed.

One thing none of them had mastered, however, was that human device called the phone. Becca’s began buzzing almost as soon as the three had finished breakfast, long before what her ex-boyfriend would have called “a decent hour.” The first call was from Maddy, who sounded determined to try once again cheer up her friend. And while Becca had refused the other woman’s offer of brunch, hearing her old friend talking about something other than collusion seemed to do her good.

It was the other calls that began to weigh on her. Kathy had been her usual self—as bouncy as a rubber ball—when she called, acting for all the world as if the upcoming meeting were a treat. But Marcia had grown so teary that Becca had ended up putting aside her own complicated feelings to comfort her and ultimately found herself asking for Luz, Marcia’s roommate, to calm the distraught paralegal down.

Becca’s mother was next, and even from the other room, the cats could hear her insisting that Becca leave the city and “come home,” wherever that was. Of course, any mention of moving made the felines uneasy, and Laurel took it out on Clara, batting at her as she tried to nap. Larissa—Clara believed she could almost smell her perfume over the line—had gone on so long about some personal tangent that Becca had laid the phone down on the counter and begun to clean as she rattled on. After that, Becca had turned the device off to read, pulling her notes on that old history again, the one that named her great-great-something grandmother as part of some long-ago witch trial.