Джанет Кантрелл - Fat Cat At Large

No, it wasn’t all caffeine. Part of her shakiness was anger and adrenaline. She could count on one hand the physical confrontations she’d been involved with over the course of her thirty-two years. It would be fine with her if she went another thirty-two years without another one. Or more.

Her mind strayed to her poor pet. She knelt on the floor and stroked him gently, avoiding the leg with the IV. He was dopey, but he lifted his elegant head and gave her a hoarse purr. She hoped he knew she was doing all this for his benefit. Would a cat know that, though? Was anyone harboring good feelings toward her at the moment?

A tear strayed down her cheek. She was taking care of Quincy. Anna was taking care of Laci. But who was taking care of Chase Oliver?

THIRTY-SEVEN

Anna stole up behind Chase so quietly, she didn’t hear a thing.

“I sent Laci home,” Anna said.

“Well, that’s good, since I just fired her.”

“Charity, darling, we have to talk about these things before you go off on a cockamamie spree.”

“Me? I was cockamamie? Did you see what they were doing? They were attacking each other. All the customers left. This is no way to run a business.”

Anna stuck two cups of water into the microwave to make tea for them. “You’re right. We need to hire someone else, or two someones. I’ll put ads in the paper and online as soon as I finish this.” The timer dinged and she dunked bags of Earl Grey into the hot water. She sat beside Chase for moment, sipping, then sprang up. “No, I’ll do it now.”

She disappeared into the office to use the company computer. Chase swiped at the lone tear on her face, grateful that no more were following it. She hated people who wallowed in self-pity. This wasn’t like her, and she was determined not to give in to her incipient feelings of depression.

Ticking off the points on her fingers, she counted her blessings. She’d read once that it was an antidote to depression.

One: Quincy was home and would recover.

Two: Anna and Julie were her good friends, her beloved family, and they were loyal and true. Almost all the time.

Three: A handsome man had taken her out to dinner. (At this point, Detective Niles Olson’s deep blue eyes intruded, but she shut them out.)

Four: Four? She pondered. She was healthy and half owned a business that was doing nicely.

Five: Surely she could think of one more.

“There, that’s done.” Anna bustled into the kitchen. “Now I have to finish the batch I was baking.” She picked up the icing tube and squeezed vanilla drizzle on the latest batch.

Chase felt the stabbing pain in her back, a dull pounding in her head, and another ache deep inside. She must have winced because Anna noticed.

“You don’t look well, dear.” Anna switched off the mixer and started the oven preheating. “Would you like to go upstairs and have a nap?”

“How can I? Someone needs to be out front.”

“Why don’t we close for the rest of the day? You’ve had too much piled onto your thin shoulders. We own the place, right? We can close up if we want to.” She squeezed Chase’s hand. “There should be some advantage to owning your own business.”

“Oh, Anna!” Chase wailed. She buried her face in Anna’s aproned chest and sobbed.

Chase lifted her head when she heard the back doorbell. Anna went to let in Mike Ramos.

“Hi,” he boomed, full of joviality. “I’ve come to see my favorite . . .” His face grew solemn when he saw Chase. “Is this not a good time?”

“No, it’s a good time.” Chase sniffed.

Anna handed her a tissue.

“I must look awful,” Chase said.

“Well, you look . . .”

“We’re having a bad day,” Anna said. “We just had to fire both of our employees.”

Chase was glad Anna said “we” fired them. It made her feel more like a teammate.

Anna went into the office and left Chase to tell Mike about the fight between Vi and Laci.

“I don’t see that you had a choice,” he said after she’d related the details of the incident. “But I’m sorry you’re going through that.”

If she hadn’t just cried herself out on Anna’s bosom, she might have considered doing it on Mike’s broad chest. But she found herself regaining her composure. “I guess you should look at Quincy.”

Mike gave Quincy a going-over and pronounced him on the mend.

“I’ve taken out the IV, and the anesthetic should begin to wear off soon.”

As he left, he promised to call her the next day and arrange a date.

He actually used the word date , Chase noted. So, they were dating. That was official. She called to Anna that she was going upstairs now for a lie-down.

An hour later, Chase came downstairs, feeling more refreshed than she would have anticipated. Anna had flipped the sign on the door to “Closed” and was still baking. She gestured to a small heap on the counter. “I picked those things up, from the floor and the top of the display case.”

A half-dozen bobby pins lay in a pile with two satin-covered buttons.

“The debris from the knock-down, drag-out,” Chase said. She fingered one of the blue buttons. “You know, I wonder how many people sew designer buttons onto their blouses.”

“Vi does, often.” Anna was taking hot, loaded baking pans from the oven. She’d made several batches, four at a time in the large oven, while Chase had been napping. The kitchen was filled with the mouthwatering aromas.

“Yes, but do you notice other people doing it much?”

Anna closed the door and switched off the oven. “Not too much. It’s an old-fashioned effect, isn’t it?”

“I wonder . . .”

“Yes? You know, I think they’re used on wedding dresses, mostly, aren’t they?”

“I wonder how easy they are to get.” Chase went to the office computer and did a couple of searches. “That’s what I thought,” she mumbled to herself.

She returned to the kitchen and picked up her cell phone to call Detective Olson. It rang in her hand. After almost dropping it, she answered the call from Julie.

“How’s the trial going?” Chase asked.

“It should wrap up by the end of the week. I asked Jay to look up a record for you. Guess who Torvald took out the restraining order against?”

“Gabe Naughtly?”

“No. Violet Peters.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

“Speak of the devil,” Chase said, carrying her phone into the office to sit in the chair there. It was easier on her poor back than the stools in the kitchen.

“Vi is the devil?” Julie asked. “Look, I have to go, but maybe we can get together tomorrow night. If the jury goes into deliberations, I’ll be freer than I have been since this trial started.”

“That’ll be great. We need to get some more bike rides in before it starts to snow. How does it look for your team?”

“It’s hard to tell. Everyone on the jury has such a good poker face. I think we’ll convict, but don’t quote me. Poor Grandma. She’s not talking to me about this.”

“She’s seeing, Bill, though. I’m sure that’s helping him, and probably her, too.”

“Hey, wouldn’t it be nice if they got together?”

“They aren’t together now?”

“You know what I mean. Maybe . . . move in together . . . get married?”

“Now, that would be fun!”

“Don’t you dare tell her I said anything about this. Now I really have to go.”

“My lips are sealed.” Chase smiled for the first time that day as they ended the conversation.

After she hung up with Julie, she completed the interrupted call to Detective Niles Olson, he of the incredibly dark blue eyes.

Keep your mind on what you’re doing, not on how good looking the cop is, she told herself, waiting for him to pick up.