Молли Фитц - Kitty Confidential

“That’s right,” I grumped. “And I don’t need you for this. Go stay with Nan and wait for me to come back.”

His tail flicked wildly back and forth as he regarded me with hurt reflecting in his eyes. “You’re really mean sometimes. You know that?”

“And you’re really annoying all the time,” I yelled back while silently begging for him to give up the fight. The last thing I needed was for him to be in danger, too. Despite my better judgment, I’d really come to love the little nuisance.

“Whatever,” he said with a growl, staring me down. When at last I opened the car door, he hopped right in despite my consistent objections.

So, I did the worst possible thing I could think of. I picked him up by the scruff of his neck and marched him straight back to the house.

“Let go of me,” Octo-Cat cried as he twisted violently in a futile attempt to escape my grip. “This is not okay!”

Without saying anything more, I tossed him into the house and slammed the door shut before he could regain his bearings. As much as I’d miss my sassy sidekick, it was better this way. Besides, if I brought him with me, Diane might suggest I leave him with her. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing my new friend—but I also knew I wouldn’t be strong enough to refuse if she asked.

I still didn’t know how to convince the extended, non-murdering side of the Fulton family to let me keep him, but I’d have time to figure that out later. Right now, I had to save Diane from meeting a fate similar to Ethel’s.

Although we probably wouldn’t see each other much anymore, considering the divorce and the likelihood of her ex eventually ending up in jail, I still cared about her and wanted her to be all right. At the end of the day, I wouldn’t wish death on anyone, not even Brad and especially not poor Diane who had been through so much already.

I owed her at least this much in honor of the brief, reality-TV based friendship we’d shared these past few months.

I’d only been to the Fulton’s home once before to attend a company potluck over the holidays, but I still remembered the exact location of their fancy McMansion. After all, Blueberry Bay wasn’t that big of a region, and our town of Glendale was even tinier.

I pulled up outside the white vinyl facade, which was offset by a massive front lawn, and cut my engine. Perhaps a call to announce my arrival would have been in order, but I didn’t want to risk Mr. Fulton finding out I was headed here before I at least had a chance to warn Diane about the dangers that lurked right in her very own broken home.

Marching right up to the front door with far more confidence than I felt, I tried the handle without first ringing the doorbell to announce myself. Of course, since this was small-town Maine, the door stood unlocked. I let myself in, hoping that I wasn’t too late to make a difference.

Inside, the house was dark as dusk settled over the land.

“Hello? Diane?” I called, groping about for a light switch but coming up short.

I padded toward the living room but turned abruptly when I heard the sound of a floorboard creak from a few paces behind me. There, within the pale light of the large bay window, a tall shadowy figure stood with its arms stretched high overhead.

“Diane?” I asked, squinting at the figure and praying it was my friend rather than her husband. I didn’t have long to puzzle it out, though, because…

CRACK!

A tremendous pain radiated from my forehead, and before I had the chance to figure out what was going on, I crumpled to the floor, having once again lost consciousness.

When I came to, every inch of my body screamed with pain. I looked to my left and saw a massive fire roaring in the fireplace less than a foot away. It was too close. My skin had already begun to turn red from the excessive warmth. Struggling to move out of its range, I realized then that both my hands and my feet had been bound together in front of me.

“You think you can just break into somebody’s home?” my captor rasped, moving into the light. I fully expected to see Mr. Fulton standing before me, but no. It wasn’t him at all.

It was Diane, my friend. My attacker? What?

“Diane,” I wheezed. “It’s me, Angie. We need to get out of here.”

“I know who you are. What I don’t know is why you couldn’t leave well enough alone.” The contempt that filled her eyes as they combed over me was so blatant I could hardly recognize the kindly woman I’d come to consider a friend.

My head pulsed with pain, making it hard to think straight. Why was she acting like this? Had Mr. Fulton lied to her about everything? Did she somehow think I was to blame for all of this?

None of this was adding up.

“Ethel was murdered!” I screamed at her. My throat ached just like the rest of me, but I didn’t care. “We have to tell someone.”

Diane groaned and paced the room in search of something. “Keep quiet,” she warned. Maybe this was all an act. Maybe she was scared, too, and trying to convince Mr. Fulton she was on his side so that he wouldn’t harm her.

“Let me go,” I pleaded. “It’s not too late. We can go to the police, and—”

She rushed back toward me and stooped down so we were at eye level. “Nobody’s going to the police,” she said in an eerie whisper before slapping me right across my face.

As this new pain stung my cheek, I finally saw the truth that stood right before me. Mr. Fulton had never been guilty—not of murder, not of this.

“It was you the whole time,” I spat.

She smiled a wicked grin and rolled her eyes. “Obviously. Don’t act like you didn’t know. I couldn’t believe my dumb luck when you woke up at the will reading talking about a murder. I’ve heard about psychics before, but I had no idea you were one of them.”

“You think I’m a psychic?” I hissed. Everything hurt, but most of all my heart. I’d been so naive, blindly trusting Diane because we liked the same TV shows. Now this oversight could very well cost me my life.

“How else would you explain your inexplicable knowledge of Ethel’s murder? At first I thought maybe you were playing some kind of joke and had just accidentally blurted out something true without even knowing it, but then you kept turning up everywhere.”

I shook my head and struggled against my bonds to no avail. It made sense that Diane thought I had psychic powers. In a way I did, just not in the way she’d assumed.

“The viewing, Ethel’s house…” Diane continued, kicking me back when she saw that I was trying to untie my feet.

“Oh, don’t look so shocked. Of course Anne told me about that. The one thing I couldn’t piece together is why you hadn’t gone to the police to turn me in. But then when you tried to break into my house, I realized you actually planned to take me out yourself. Well, great job, you did.” She laughed an evil villain laugh that seemed so at odds with the sweater-set-wearing, pearl clutching housewife I knew.

“But why? Why would you kill Ethel?” I choked out. As much as I wanted to hear the answer, I needed to keep her talking until I could figure out a way to escape. For all I knew, she planned to kill me after our little talk here. Clearly this madwoman was capable of anything.

Diane snarled like a wild animal, baring her teeth and sending another chill straight to my gut. “Didn’t you figure that part out when you helped my philandering oaf of a husband serve me with a petition for divorce today?”

I gasped, a response she clearly appreciated.

“So he was sleeping with Bethany!” I said, playing it up to keep her talking as long as possible. I’d been wrong about our killer, but right about the affair. Whether or not the bra belonged to Bethany, she was still guilty.