Клэр Донелли - Hiss And Tell

Sunny nodded. Carson had said something along the same lines.

“So I come up here, Carson’s told me how quiet and secluded the place is, and all I really want to do is sleep. I mean, I know I’m supposed to stand up for Carson on the wedding day, and I’ll do whatever they want of me. But my whole plan for coming up here was to veg out. With Eliza pestering me, I was kinda down to my last nerve, and the minute we got here, Eliza started getting on it.”

“Why do you think that was?”

He looked down for a moment, then up at her again. “I couldn’t say, but she was in a foul mood even on the way up here. Carson had one of his dad’s private planes fly us up from New York—Carson, Peter, me, and Eliza. I thought she’d be delighted at such a sweet setup. Instead, she was rude to the cabin steward and drank a lot. All I wanted to do was sleep. We were going to be in the air for about an hour and a half, and I intended to get some rest.”

“And?” Sunny asked.

“It seemed to drive her crazy that I wasn’t paying attention to her. Eliza insisted on talking to me, even when I was dozing off. She kept it up when we got to the compound. And when we were around the pool, she even got worse. She kicked me to wake me up, and I told her to knock it off. Instead, she jumped down my throat.”

Beau took a long, deep breath. “Maybe I could have handled it better if I hadn’t been so burnt out. But when she began screaming at me, I started shouting back.” His shoulders slumped. “It’s not as though I was the only one—just the one who got it the worst. Eliza also got into it with Carson and Tommy Neal, too. I thought I was pretty tightly wound up when I joined up with Carson to come here, but now I’m wondering if maybe Eliza was worse.” If Eliza was being blackmailed, Sunny thought, remembering Randall’s theory, that might’ve made her a little touchy.

Beau stood up. “So that’s the story. I liked Eliza—not an undying love thing, but she was cool, and pretty, and we had some good times.” He looked down at his hands. “It’s not like I had any reason to want to murder Eliza. Guess it sounds kind of corny, but the whole reason I wanted to become a doctor was to help people, not to kill them.”

“Well, you can’t help it if the police suspect you,” Sunny said, feeling a sudden surge of sympathy for the big guy. “I suppose they’ve been pretty careful with you, since you’re on a big shot’s home turf. They’d get a lot tougher if they had some strong evidence linking you to the crime. Don’t get yourself in trouble with them by telling them lies. And if they do start questioning you seriously, remember you’re allowed to get a lawyer. And stay quiet until one gets there.”

Beau Bellingham bent down to get the carton of food. “I didn’t think I’d be saying this, but thanks, Sunny.”

Don’t mention it, Sunny sourly thought as she collected the bags of chips. I do this for all the murder suspects I bump into.

*

Shadow absentmindedly lickedone paw. One of his claws had broken in his struggle to escape from Sunny’s bag. After being squashed, carried, and then left in a cold, dark place, he had wormed his way to the top of the bag. It had one of those open-close things the two-legs used, a little piece of metal on a long track. He’d dealt with them before.

But he’d never had to open one from the inside. Just getting hold of the little piece had been a struggle, and moving it had resulted in the painful break. Annoying, but not too bad. There wasn’t any blood.

He’d gotten the bag a little bit open, but then he’d been interrupted by sudden light, getting picked up, carried . . . and squashed down again.

He’d landed heavily on a bouncy surface—a bed—and heard Sunny’s voice. But by the time he’d gotten a paw out and opened the bag enough to squirm out, Sunny was gone.

Searching this new house had not been good. Everything was old and dusty, and even the air smelled dead. Even worse, he hadn’t found Sunny.

So Shadow found a way out and began exploring outside. There were fewer houses around here than at Sunny’s place—or was that Sunny’s old place? Was this Sunny’s new place? There was plenty of grass and some bushes, quite a few interesting smells that had distracted his search. But he only caught a few brief whiffs to show that Sunny had been in various places.

Then Shadow’s stomach began telling him it was time to eat. He’d walked a long way to some of the other houses nearby, hoping to find one of those bags that humans filled with old food. It might not be the best tasting, but it would fill him up.

The problem was, the two-legs around here locked those bags up in strong containers. He began to lose hope as he approached the back of yet another house to see a human female standing behind a glass door. When she saw Shadow, the two-legs knelt down to peer out at him.

Shadow stretched up, resting his forepaws against the glass to get a better look. Suddenly he watched a flurry of motion as another cat, a She by the size of her, appeared, flinging out her paws and raking at the glass with her claws.

This stupid She wants to scare me away, Shadow thought. He’d seen this before, cats who were very brave so long as there was a door or window between them. He could understand not wanting to share a special two-legs with some wanderer. Sometimes Sunny had annoyed him by feeding some passing freeloader. But no self-respecting cat should threaten what she—or he—couldn’t do. Claws were real . . . and so was blood.

Sure enough, when the human opened the door, the brave warrior-She disappeared. But happily the two-legs brought out a paper plate with some food on it. Shadow took a bite. It was unfamiliar, and rather rich. His stomach would probably make noises later. But he ate, taking small bites.

And as soon as the door had shut, those white paws and claws appeared again. He didn’t even bother to pretend-fight. As soon as he had enough, Shadow trotted along. It looked as though he’d be stuck around here for a while. He still had to find a safe place to rest.

*

As the dayprogressed, Sunny found herself looking forward to the clandestine beer pong tournament. If someone had told her a week ago that she’d be spending the day lounging beside the private pool in a million-dollar compound, she’d have had a hard time believing it. She’d have given this someone an even harder time if they’d suggested that such an R&R setting would get on her nerves.

The fact of the matter, though, was that she felt restless. She swam, she sat in the sun for a while, she chatted with the wedding party, she had something to drink—something non-alcoholic, she didn’t want to get a head start on the evening’s competition. Carson, Priscilla, and the others were perfectly nice—even though Beau was still mainly catching up on his sleep. But there were odd silences, sudden stilted moments that showed no one was really comfortable.

Then it was time to change for dinner. Sunny returned to her room to discover her travel bag still lying on the bed. She’d been so distracted, she’d forgotten to come back and hang everything up.

“Wonderful,” she muttered. “Everything is probably all creased now.” Would she be able to get hold of an iron?

But when she opened the bag, she not only found creases, but cat hair all over everything.

I guess keeping him out only worked so far, she thought, and this is the way Shadow punished me. That crazy cat! Now I’ve got to find one of those sticky roller gizmos before I can iron anything.

She hung up the garments, keeping them far away from her other clothes, then dressed for dinner and put on her company manners, and went to deal with the “grown-ups,” as Cale called them.