Molly Fitz - Himalayan Hazard (Pet Whisperer P.I. Book 8)

“So it’s a family thing, but you said yourself that Rhonda was family.” I crossed my arms over my chest and waited, hoping my words had the incendiary effect I wanted. If so, they could blow this whole thing open and finally get Sariah to reveal the identity of her mysterious partner, the he.

“No.” She closed her eyes and her cheeks turned red, but still she spoke. “Her family took everything from us. And it was a cold, hard slap to the face when Father gave the necklace to her instead of one of us.”

I didn’t say anything, hoping Sariah would volunteer more on her own. When she didn’t, someone else stepped in.

“How did her family hurt yours, sweetie?” Mom asked from her spot beside the sobbing witness. Most of her tears had dried up now, however, anger taking their place.

“When I was five, my father left to start a new family. He said he had fallen in love and the lady was pregnant, so he had no choice. But he did have a choice! He just didn’t choose us. He left and he took everything from us. All of the money and privilege that should have been our birthright went to the new family, went to Rhonda. So, when he told me his plan to get our necklace back, of course, I wanted to help. Wouldn’t you?”

“I understand where you’re coming from,” I said, nodding along. “I also believe that even though you hated Rhonda, you hadn’t planned for her to die.”

She straightened and sat taller on the bed. Some of the tension drained from her fists and tightly set jaw.

There, I’d given her something important. Now she had to help by providing that final piece we so desperately needed. “Can you do me one last favor and tell me whose plan it was? We need to know who hurt Rhonda so that we can make sure you and everyone else on this train stays safe.”

“He’s not going to lay a finger on me. I’ll kill him first,” Sariah said between clenched teeth, and I believed her.

“But who is he? Who’s he, Sariah?” I practically begged now.

“He is our brother. Jamison.”

Chapter Sixteen

All eyes were on Sariah, including mine.

“There,” she growled at Melvin, who still held his weapon at the ready. “I’ve told you everything I know, so how about you stop threatening me with that gun or knife or whatever you have in there?”

Melvin snickered and pulled the weapon from his jacket, causing us all to flinch as he tossed it onto the bed beside Sariah. “As they say, the pen is mightier than the sword.” The smug grin on his face showed just how clever he felt he’d been.

Sure enough, a gold-tipped fountain pen lay on the comforter, shining in the light cast down from overhead. A pen!

Crazy Melvin had proven useful, after all.

“Gotcha!” he cried, and I half-expected him to break out into an endzone-style victory dance.

A collective groan rose throughout the room.

Sariah sneered at the false weapon, then picked it up and threw it back toward Melvin. “Figures.”

“How did you stop the train?” Dad asked, pointedly ignoring Melvin.

The writer withered when he realized we wouldn’t spend the rest of the night applauding his clever ruse. But our investigation was far from over. We still hadn’t caught the killer.

“That’s easy for a mechanical engineer,” Sariah answered with a casual shrug.

“No one has been able to get the engine going again, but they were able to get power back,” Dan added from his place beside Dad.

Our witness chuckled wearily. “Lights, that’s electrical engineering. Not my area.”

Clearly, this woman was very educated. Being abandoned by a parent definitely sucked, but did she really end up having such a bad life? Were things truly bad enough for Jamison to murder Rhonda as a way of paying for their father’s sins? Everything in me screamed no.

My own family had a twisted backstory, one Mom and I had only recently discovered and still didn’t quite understand. But I would never in a million years hurt someone for answers—or for revenge.

I guess that’s why I was the P.I. and not the murderer. And thank goodness for that!

“Have you seen Jamison since the train stopped?” I asked, remembering my role.

“No. Like I said, he never turned up at our meeting spot. The jerk probably made a run for it without me.”

“He was probably trying to frame you for it,” Melvin pointed out. “That’s what I would do if I had to write a character like that. As a novelist, I mean.”

When still no one gave him the attention he craved, Melvin cleared his throat, then quieted again.

“We did find a bit of blood outside the train,” Dad offered, bringing all eyes to him.

Sariah sighed and fell back on the bed, making us all tense. “Well, then, there you go. Betrayed by both my siblings in one night. Yay me.”

“Sariah,” Mom said gently. “I don’t think Rhonda ever meant to hurt you. It’s not her fault, what happened with your family. Things were probably hard for her growing up, too.”

“She was lonely all the time,” Grizabella said softly from her spot by the bathroom. “My poor, poor mistress.”

Since Sariah couldn’t understand Grizabella’s words, she spoke over them. “Well, whatever the case, I’m sure the cops are on their way to arrest me, and meanwhile Jamison gets away with the whole thing.”

“He’s not going to get away with it,” I promised. “We know it was him, and I’m sure the police will agree.” We’d solved the murder. Catching the bad guy should be the easy part, right?

Sariah sat up and shook her head bitterly. “Yeah, but he’s gone. He got away.”

“Not necessarily,” Octo-Cat piped up as he crossed the room to stand at my side. “Remember how cats are superior to humans in pretty much every way?”

I wanted to respond to that—if only to set the record straight, lest he later claim I had agreed with him—but we had a room full of people who didn’t know my secret. Instead of asking him to explain himself, I widened my eyes at him, willing him to explain.

Thankfully, he understood. “Yeah, yeah, you don’t want to talk in front of the others. Anyway, cats are awesome. Cats are the best, and this cat can find that killer who’s on the loose.”

“Yes!” Grizabella cried in delight. “Yes, we can sniff him out. Brilliant idea, my darling.”

Octo-Cat became stock still, turning only at his neck to stare at the Himalayan with bright, beseeching eyes. “Your darling?”

She nuzzled him and purred. Everything about her softened. “And my hero.”

Octo-Cat melted like a giant slab of butter. “Oh, Grizabella. I’m so glad you love me back! I will devote all my lives to you. At least all the ones I have left. I will never let you down. I—”

“Will you help avenge my mistress?” Grizabella asked pointedly.

“Oh, yeah, baby.”

The cat soap opera playing out before me would have been cute under any other circumstances, but right now, we had a bad guy to catch.

“Sariah, I have an idea,” I said, eager to get on with it.

“Sure, it was your idea,” Octo-Cat scoffed, then immediately went back to cuddling and licking his new girlfriend.

“What I told you before about watching Grizabella because I have a cat, too, that was true. But I didn’t tell you that my cat is also a highly trained stunt cat. We were, uh, on our way down to Georgia to do some work on an upcoming film before all this happened. Anyway, Octavius here is extremely well trained, and I think if we give him something of Jamison’s, he could use it to track the scent and find our guy.”

Sariah studied Octo-Cat as if trying to decide whether he was up to the task. In the end she frowned and said, “Great thought, but Jamison’s probably made it pretty far by now. What’s the point?”