Миранда Джеймс: Claws For Concern

Berkley Prime Crime titles by Miranda James

Cat in the Stacks Mysteries

MURDER PAST DUE

CLASSIFIED AS MURDER

FILE M FOR MURDER

OUT OF CIRCULATION

THE SILENCE OF THE LIBRARY

ARSENIC AND OLD BOOKS

NO CATS ALLOWED

TWELVE ANGRY LIBRARIANS

CLAWS FOR CONCERN

Southern Ladies Mysteries

BLESS HER DEAD LITTLE HEART

DEAD WITH THE WIND

DIGGING UP THE DIRT

FIXING TO DIE

BERKLEY PRIME CRIME

Published by Berkley

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

Copyright © 2018 by Dean James

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BERKLEY is a registered trademark and BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the B colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: James, Miranda, author.

Title: Claws for concern / Miranda James.

Description: First edition. | New York : Berkley Prime Crime, 2018. | Series: Cat in the stacks mystery ; 9

Identifiers: LCCN 2017042198 | ISBN 9780425277782 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780698182004 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Cold cases (Criminal investigation)—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | Librarians—Fiction. | Cats—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Traditional British. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

Classification: LCC PS3610.A43 C58 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042198

First Edition: February 2018

Cover art by Dan Craig, Inc./Bernstein & Andriulli

Cover design by Katie Anderson

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Version_1

This book is dedicated with great respect and admiration to Bill Scruggs, truly an inspiration.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks as always to my wonderful and enthusiastic editor, Michelle Vega, also an inspiration. I am grateful for all the help offered by Jennifer Monroe and the team at Berkley Prime Crime with every book. My agent, Nancy Yost, is always looking out for my best interests, and I couldn’t have anybody feistier or funnier in my corner. Thanks also to the rest of the team: Sarah E. Younger, Natanya Wheeler, and Amy Rosenbaum. Y’all are the best!

Most of all I want to thank the many wonderful readers who are such ardent fans of Charlie and Diesel. I am truly humbled by your response to these books, and I will always do my best to create stories that you will want to continue reading. Thank you for giving me so much in return.

CONTENTS

Berkley Prime Crime Titles by Miranda James

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

About the Author

ONE

I couldn’t stop checking the clock on the wall nearby. “Come on, three o’clock,” I muttered under my breath. “Get here already.”

The wretched clock refused to cooperate. It read two forty-seven, and the second hand seemed to be taking way too long to sweep around the clock’s face. Thirteen minutes until I could pack up and head home.

Diesel, my Maine Coon cat and near-constant companion, warbled anxiously from the area next to my feet under the reference desk. He always picked up on my emotions, and I forced myself to calm down. There was no point in getting a nearly forty-pound cat all wound up. Nor myself, actually.

“It’s all okay, boy,” I told him in a low voice before I reached under the desk to scratch his head. “We’ll be home soon.” I think the cat knew what—or really, who—was waiting for us at home, and he was as eager as I to be there.

Clock check . Only eleven minutes to go. I could leave now if I really wanted to. I volunteered at the Athena Public Library. I did not earn a paycheck from the place. I knew, though, how much the director, Teresa Farmer, and the other staff appreciated my help on Fridays, and I wasn’t going to cut my time short. I settled back into my chair for the remaining minutes and glanced around me.

On this late July afternoon, the only people I saw in the library were adults, mostly my own age or older. Some, no doubt, sought relief from the punishing heat. The soaring temperatures taxed air conditioners, and there were many elderly people in Athena who couldn’t afford to cool their houses. I knew most of those who came into the library to get relief, at least by name.

One man was a definite stranger, however. I first noticed him a week ago. Tall, a bit stooped, with a shambling gait, he looked to be about ten years older than me, so that put him in his midsixties, though he might have been older. I’d not had any interaction with him last week, and he had not come near the reference desk today. He had glanced my way a couple of times, his expression a puzzled frown.

I wondered whether he knew me or thought that he might. I had never seen him before that I could recall, though there was an elusive familiarity about his face. Maybe I had run across him thirty years ago, I mused, before I left Athena to move to Texas for graduate school in library science. I couldn’t place him, but I hadn’t spent much energy trying. I had learned over the years to let such things resolve themselves on their own schedule. The answer to this particular puzzle, if I knew it, would occur to me in due course.

Earlier today I had thought about approaching him and simply asking him who he was, but I hesitated to follow through on that. He appeared reserved and perhaps shy, and I didn’t want to intrude if he truly had no desire to talk to people. I glanced his way again, and he looked up for a moment. Then he dipped his head down, focused once more on the book in his lap, and I read that as a clear signal that he did not want to be interrupted.

Diesel chirped and laid a large paw on my knee, as if he were asking me the time, and I checked the clock. Two minutes to three. Bronwyn Forster, one of the full-time librarians, should be here to relieve me any moment now. Sure enough, when I looked toward the area where the offices were, I saw her emerge from the doorway and head toward us.

After we greeted her, and she and I exchanged places, Diesel stayed with Bronwyn while I went to gather my things. He had to be sure to get his full quota of rubs on the head and under the chin before we left. Bronwyn, like the other staff and many of the patrons, never hesitated to oblige him. No wonder he loved coming to work with me.