Linda Miller - Deadly Gamble

Another meow, this one a little less patient than the last.

Tentatively, I touched his head. Warm. Solid. Soft.

I saw a flash of crimson in my mind. The cat—this cat, lying on his side, dead, shot through with an arrow. I swallowed a rush of bile and sat back on my haunches, still on the landing, still clutching the Death card in my left hand. I had to take four or five deep breaths before I could be sure I wouldn’t either faint or vomit.

“How did you get in here?” I asked.

Like he was going to answer.

The way things had been going, he might have. I had definitely tumbled down the rabbit hole at some point. Let’s just say, if I saw a bottle marked Drink Me, I wasn’t planning to take a swig.

Chester gave his bushy tail another twitch, turned and strolled regally back into the apartment.

I heard the side door open downstairs and, afraid somebody would see me kneeling on the landing and ask a lot of questions I didn’t want to answer, I scrabbled inside, with considerably less grace than the cat had exhibited, and hoisted myself to my feet.

My mind was racing.

I remembered what Bert had said earlier, about how his aunt Nellie had seen her dog, gone to Bingo and died.

I peered at the Death card again, then made my way into the living room. Chester was perched on the back of the couch, delicately washing his right forepaw with a pink tongue.

“Nick?” I demanded. “Is this your idea of a joke?”

No answer, of course.

Chester paused in his ablutions and regarded me with pity.

“This is not funny,” I told him.

“Meow,” he agreed.

I looked around the apartment. No one had a key except Bert; I’d had the locks changed after Tucker and I called it quits—not because I was afraid of him, but as a statement, as much to myself as to him—and besides, he’d never have pulled a mean trick like this. Even if he’d been so inclined, he couldn’t have known about Chester.

“Get a hold of yourself, Sheepshanks,” I said aloud. “This can’t be the same cat.”

“Meow,” said Chester, sounding almost indignant.

I saw the blood again. The arrow sticking out of the animal’s side.

I ran into the bathroom and dry heaved until my empty stomach finally shriveled up into a tight little ball and stopped convulsing.

“I thought you’d like him,” a familiar voice said mildly, from the doorway.

I whirled from the sink, my face still dripping water from the frantic splashing, and there was Nick, in his funeral suit, leaning casually against the doorjamb.

“Y-you—”

Nick’s mouth quirked at one corner, and he nodded his head. “It’s me, all right.” He wasn’t glowing, I noticed fitfully. Must be a nighttime phenom.

“This cat—where—?”

“I found him wandering in the train station,” Nick said.

I stared at him, goggle-eyed. My stomach threatened more mayhem.

“What train station? What the hell are you talking about?”

Chester arrived on the scene, wound himself, purring, around Nick’s ankles.

“It’s a kind of cosmic clearinghouse,” Nick explained. “On the other side.”

“Right,” I agreed. “You just head for Platform 9 and ¾ and catch the Hogwarts Express.”

Nick looked blank. He’d never been much of a reader.

“Forget it,” I said. I pushed past Nick, noting that he was neither cold nor nebulous. Maybe the bone-freeze was a night thing, too.

Maybe I was out of my freaking mind.

“He was your cat when you were a little girl,” Nick wheedled, following me. “I thought—”

I made it to the kitchen, wrenched open a cupboard door and ferreted around until I found a can of tuna with a fairly recent expiration date. “Do dead cats eat?” I asked, furious with confusion.

“I don’t know,” Nick said uncertainly. I jumped when I realized he was standing directly behind me, peering over my shoulder into the cupboard. “Are those Oreos?”

I grabbed the package of cookies off the shelf and thrust them at him. “Yes. They’re old, but what the hell. It’s not like you could be poisoned.”

“You could be a little kinder,” Nick pointed out, affronted. But he took the cookies.

“Excuse me,” I snapped.

He stuck his nose into the Oreos, sniffed with decadent appreciation. His eyes rolled closed in ecstasy, the way they used to do when we had serious sex.

“Delicious,” he said.

The can opener whirred jarringly as I opened the tuna. I dumped the contents onto a saucer, crumbled them with a fork and set the whole shooting match down on the floor.

Chester nosed the food with interest, but didn’t eat.

I looked up at Nick.

He was holding a cookie in one hand and staring at it as though it had just tried to bite him.

“Damn,” he muttered.

I glanced at the cat again, partly to make sure he was still there and partly to see if he would eat.

“Problem?” I asked, shifting my attention back to Nick.

“I bit into the thing, and nothing happened.”

“I’d like to see that,” I said. “Do it again, while I’m watching.”

Nick did his ironic look. “This is not a performance designed for your amusement,” he told me.

“Duh,” I shot back. “I am definitely not amused.”

Just then, a familiar knock sounded at the outside door.

Nick arched an eyebrow. “Company?”

“Disappear or something,” I whispered. “It’s Tucker!”

Nick folded his arms. “Oh, well, if it’s Tucker—”

“I mean it, Nick. Go back to the train station or whatever it is.”

He didn’t move.

“Boogie!” I ordered, and made for the hallway.

Tucker let himself in, since I’d forgotten to lock the door when I encountered Chester on the mat, and we practically collided. By that time, I was wishing I hadn’t told Nick to get lost. I would feel a lot less crazy if somebody else witnessed the dead-husband demo.

“Come in,” I said cordially. “I was just about to whip up a grilled cheese sandwich.” The last thing I wanted to do was eat, but I knew if I didn’t, I’d get sick. My stomach needed something to digest besides its lining.

Tuck looked surprised by my reception. He’d clearly expected a rebuff, given our agreement to take a step back, not to mention the bristly meeting downstairs, and he’d probably had some speech all prepared, like Ten Reasons Why We Should Have Sex.

No way was I doing the deed with the Great Decease-o watching.

Sometimes I wish I were a little less principled.

The biker-cop followed me into the living room, and I waited for him to acknowledge Nick, who was standing in the middle of the room, his arms still folded, grinning like an idiot.

Tucker didn’t react. Not to Nick, not to the cat.

They might as well have been invisible.

“He can’t see us,” Nick said.

“Shit,” I said.

Tucker gave me a wounded look. “I didn’t expect you to be glad to see me,” he said, “but you don’t have to swear.”

This from a guy who hung out in a biker bar when he wasn’t on duty.

“He’s right,” Nick said smugly. “It’s very unladylike to curse.”

“Shut up!” I snapped.

Tucker squinted. “What?”

I felt heat sting my cheekbones. “Never mind.” I glanced at Chester, who was grooming himself again. I won’t go into the details. After all, I wouldn’t want to come off as unladylike or anything.

“Never mind?” Tucker retorted. “First you ask me in for a grilled cheese, then you—”

“Just never mind,” I said, rubbing my temples. “You didn’t drop off a cat earlier today, did you?”

“Drop off a cat?”

I was losing patience, and possibly hemorrhaging brain cells at the same time. “Can we just stop doing the echo thing?”