Молли Фитц - Kitty Confidential

Trying not to show my disappointment, I floated into the office with my oversized tray of coffees and a bright smile on my face.

“Good morning,” I sang, passing by the front desk where I normally sat to greet any visitors who happened to drop by the firm.

Only silence greeted me.

“Hello?” I called, knowing for a fact I’d seen their cars. As I moved down the hall toward Mr. Fulton’s office, I flicked on the overhead lights.

“Mr. Fulton?”

The door opened abruptly, causing me to jump back. Thank goodness the hot coffees didn’t spill down my front or I’d have found myself in the hospital with a wicked work injury a second day in a row.

Once I regained my balance, I glanced up at my boss. The poor man was almost unrecognizable. Mr. Fulton appeared almost comically disheveled. His normally well-pressed shirt was wrinkled, and his tie hung askew. His eyes focused on the ground, meaning it took him an extra moment to realize I was standing right in front of him.

“Good morning, sir,” I said carefully. “Is… Is everything okay?”

He glanced up at me and plastered on a polite smile, which I saw right through. “Oh, yes. Yes, I’m fine. Is this coffee for me?”

After I handed him a latte, he retreated back into his office and slammed the door behind him without so much as a thank you , a good morning , or an I’m glad you didn’t die at the hands of that coffeemaker yesterday.

Strange. Definitely strange.

Shrugging it off, I headed toward Bethany’s office next. The room sat dark and quiet even though I could have sworn I’d seen her car in the lot, too. Maybe I really had lost my mind, or maybe it was everyone else who had gone crazy.

Either way, I had the strange feeling of being watched. Did the killer know I was on to him, or was some other dark danger looming?

Danger, phfff. I was just being silly.

It was still my plain, old boring office, only a little bit earlier in the day. Mr. Fulton had just lost a relative and had a complicated estate to manage as well, so of course he was out of sorts.

As for Bethany, she often liked to escape outside to grab some fresh air, which also made sense seeing as a chemical fog hung in her office from more than a year of overzealous essential oil use. In fact, she was probably hanging around in the yard now, which would give me the perfect opportunity to talk with her in private before the others arrived.

Having talked myself down from that near fright, I set the tray of coffees on my desk, grabbed one for me and one for Bethany, then headed outside. I took a lap around the entire building, but only found a shifty looking squirrel staring at me suspiciously.

Where could Bethany have gone?

Returning to the parking lot, I glanced into her car, but it also stood empty. When I turned around, I caught a flash of gray disappearing behind the building.

“Bethany?” I called, jogging after.

But again, nothing was there.

Giving up at last, I went back inside and found Bethany waiting for me beside my desk. “How did you…?”

“What?” she asked, pawing at one of the coffees before at last picking it up and holding it between her two hands awkwardly. “I was here the whole time,” she offered with a shrug when I didn’t say anything more. If that was true, then it meant she was more than likely in Mr. Fulton’s office with him. Her office had definitely been empty, and none of the others had been opened yet for the day.

But why the secrecy?

Had I stumbled upon a new mystery altogether?

No, Mr. Fulton would never have an affair. Not in a million years. And especially not with harsh and brassy Bethany, who was so much his wife’s opposite. Thanks to Octo-Cat, my imagination had run away with me, plain and simple.

Now it was time to stop speculating about my coworkers and start gathering intel about Ethel’s murder. Seeing as Bethany was already a tad harried, maybe she would slip and tell me more than she would have otherwise intended.

I had to give it a shot.

“So…” I said, setting one of the coffees down and taking a small sip of the other. “Yesterday was crazy, huh?”

Her face jerked toward me as if she’d only just remembered I was there, and then a serpentine smile slithered across her face. “Seriously crazy,” she agreed.

“Did you miss much because of taking me to the hospital?”

“Oh, no. I don’t think so. When I got back they’d only just made it to the part about the cat.” She tucked her light blonde hair behind her ears and offered me a placating smile.

“I heard Ethel left a lot of her estate to Oct… I mean, her cat. That really had everyone up in arms, I bet.”

She settled into our conversation, becoming less stiff as we gossiped. “How would you feel if you’d been denied your inheritance because of a common house cat?”

“I hear he’s part Maine Coon,” I said, wondering why I felt the need to defend a cat I’d known less than twenty-four hours and didn’t really even like all that much, anyway. Bethany was right. I still didn’t know how much Octo-Cat had inherited, but judging from the house we visited yesterday, it had to be a pretty penny, indeed.

“Well, whatever the case,” she said with a frown. “I don’t think that woman is going to be remembered favorably after this. At least not by her family.”

“Did they like her before?” I wondered aloud, trying not to show my rapt interest in her answer as we finally got to the meat of this juicy tidbit.

Bethany shrugged. “Who knows?”

When she turned to walk away, I blurted out the first thing that popped into my head. “Do you know how she died?” I practically shouted. “Is it possible someone in the family, you know, helped her along to get a shot at their inheritance early?”

Bethany froze in place. A few awkward seconds passed before she burst out laughing. “Really, Angie? It seems you’ve been watching a bit too much TV. People die every day. Very few of them are murdered.”

I forced a chuckle, too. “Oh, you’re right. I stayed up late reading last night and then woke up early because of the cat. I’m afraid my brain is a bit fried.”

She seemed interested in this. “The cat. Yes, you took him in, didn’t you?”

“Yup, I wanted to help the family during this difficult time, and this seemed like the easiest way.”

Bethany stalked back toward me with slow, deliberate steps. Dropping her voice to a husky rasp, she whispered, “You better be glad those murder mysteries are only in your head, because whoever gets the cat gets the money. If he stays with you too much longer, you could be next on the killer’s list.”

A chill crept from my fingertips all the way to my heart, and the little hairs on the back of my neck also stood tall and on alert. I was just about to ask what she was insinuating when Bethany exploded in laughter once again.

“You should have seen your face,” she crowed, turning on heel and strolling back to her office. Her laughter bobbed along after her, leaving me alone with my mostly full tray of coffees.

If I hadn’t known better, I’d swear Bethany was trying to get a rise out of me—or extend a warning. Did she know something I didn’t? Could she be at least partially to blame?

Suddenly I didn’t feel so safe anymore.

CHAPTER TEN

About half an hour later, the other attorneys began to trickle in to the office. By then I’d already decided I would never show up early ever again. Mr. Thompson sent me out for coffee when he arrived, but at least this time he gave me the cash to cover my purchase.

When I returned with a fresh tray of hot beverages in hand, I found Diane Fulton sitting in the small waiting area with a magazine folded over her crossed legs.