Софи Райан: The Fast Аnd Тhe Furriest

Edison Hall’s house was a small white bungalow on the outskirts of town. It was usually a short trip over to Beech Hill Road, but a water main had broken on the street a few days earlier. Now it was being repaved, down to one lane for traffic. When it was our turn to go, I tried not to wince as the tires threw bits of pavement up against the undercarriage of the SUV. Elvis sneezed at the sharp smell of tar and when I looked in the rearview mirror he was making a sour face, despite Rose stroking his black fur.

There was a single-car garage at the end of the short driveway at the Hall house. I was happy to see the Dumpster I’d ordered sitting on a patch of gravel to the left of the garage. As I backed in, I caught a glimpse of the smaller recycling bins against the long right wall of the garage, on the old stone patio by the path to the back door, exactly where I’d asked Aaron Ellison to put them.

“Do you want to leave everything here and take another look around, maybe make a plan of attack?” Mac asked as he undid his seat belt.

I nodded. “Remember all those wine bottles that were in the basement?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Apparently Ethan moved them up to the kitchen. Stella left me a message saying they were supposed to all be moved out yesterday, but I want to make sure.”

I had told Stella that we didn’t have the expertise to handle her brother’s wine collection. She’d said that Edison’s son, Ethan, was planning on hiring someone to put a dollar value on the bottles so they could be sold.

Rose had already picked up Elvis and was getting out of the SUV.

I pulled the keys Ethan had given me out of the pocket of my jeans and climbed out as well.

I noticed the smell the moment we stepped in the front door. Mac looked at me and frowned. “Rat?” he asked.

I made a face. “Maybe.” It wouldn’t be the first time we’d shown up at an empty house and found a dead animal. A couple of times it had been mice, once a raccoon and once a seagull that appeared to have fallen down the chimney.

Elvis squirmed in Rose’s arms. She looked at me and raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“Let him go,” I said. “It’s the fastest way to find whatever it is that crawled in here and died.”

The cat was already making his way to the kitchen. There seemed to be a path more or less through the stacks of boxes. One thing I could say about Edison Hall: The house wasn’t dirty. Charlotte was right about there being dust bunnies everywhere, but there were no bags of garbage, no muddy footprints or bits of spilled food. The place was piled, but I had the same thought I’d had the first time I was in the house with Edison’s sister, Stella: The old man had had some kind of system for the boxes that were piled everywhere. The problem was, I had no idea what that system was.

Elvis meowed loudly. I couldn’t see him, but from the sound he was in the vicinity of the kitchen.

“I’ll go,” Mac said.

I shook my head and stuffed the keys back in my pocket. “It’s okay. I’ll go.”

The cat gave another insistent meow. “I’m coming,” I called. I made my way in the direction of the kitchen. There was a path through the boxes, although it was a bit like being in a tunnel made of cardboard.

“I’ll get the shovel and a couple of garbage bags,” Mac said.

The path widened at the kitchen doorway. Elvis had somehow climbed up onto a stack of cartons about shoulder height. He was looking down at the floor, but he turned his head and his focus to me as I reached the doorway.

“Mac, forget about the shovel,” I said, raising my voice so he’d be sure to hear me.

“What do you need?” he asked.

I hesitated and after a moment he appeared behind me.

“What do you need?” he asked again.

I moved sideways so he could see that the body lying on the kitchen floor didn’t belong to a mouse or a raccoon.

“I think we need nine-one-one,” I said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sofie Ryanis the author of the New York Times bestselling Second Chance Cat Mysteries. She also writes the New York Times bestselling Magical Cats Mystery series under the name Sofie Kelly.

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