Unknown - 23_Cat_In_A_Vegas_Gold_Vendetta

“Once Violet dies, the people around her have no stake in honoring her wishes. She used to be shrewd in business, and I’m sure she has some money socked away in mutual funds and insurance, but she’s hardly a Rockefeller heir. I just don’t get why she has this cadre of suspicious people around her.”

“Let’s go find out.”

“Let us?”

Matt checked his wristwatch. Temple’s eyes saucered to see it was new, like his Jag, not only expensive but exquisite. Those producers were heavy seducers, but she doubted Matt even knew what the watch was. A Rolex would have tipped him off. Clever people. She needed to meet them. He was a babe in the woods, but he was her babe.

“Sure,” he said, the laugh lines around his brown eyes making rays like the kind kids draw around suns.

She watched him, soothed, satisfied, blissed out.

“You’ve got me, babe,” he said, “from eleven to eleven—Eleven A.M. to eleven P.M. That’s not counting any sack time you commandeer. So use me. We’ll go over to Violet’s house and figure out together what’s what.”

“I love you,” Temple said, following it up with a long, luxurious kiss. “Give me five to hop downstairs and get changed into kitty-litter-kicking shoes.”

“For a moment I thought you were going to say ‘Kitty the Cutter–kicking shoes.’”

Temple didn’t hesitate for a second. “That too.”

Chapter 35

Candle in the Wind

Temple got out of her Miata across the street from Violet’s house, resigned when she saw Savannah’s Sky parked right in front and the fishnet leggings and corset-attired actress returning from the house to the curb.

“You do remember Savannah Ashleigh?” she quietly asked Matt as he unpretzeled from the car’s passenger seat.

He wasn’t entirely naive. He’d been wearing his usual Timex when he’d come to collect her for this investigatory outing.

“She’s all revved up about something,” Temple told him. “The animal shelter people want Violet to give them a bequest.”

“Are you sure Savannah Ashleigh’s motives are pure?”

“Um, normally I’d say she’s too stupid to be crooked, but I’m beginning to think her eternal starlet act is crazy like a fox.”

Matt eyed the silicone-enhanced vision on six-inch platform heels heading toward them. “She is such a fox.”

“I didn’t know that you knew that expression.”

“I mean the ‘sly’ version of the word. You’re the only true fox on my horizon.”

“Purr,” Temple said. “Speaking of which, prepare yourself for cats.”

“And you’re not speaking of Savannah Ashleigh this time?”

“Why are women always compared to animals?”

“A man can be called a ‘wolf’ and a just plain ‘animal.’”

“True,” she said. “It might be interesting to see Savannah interact with Violet’s estate suitors.”

But first the Scarlet Starlet had to interact with Matt, whom she greeted with a snarky grin.

“Say, Mister Midnight. I saw you bossa nova–ing on Dancing with the Celebs. Lookin’ good. And bad.”

“No bossa novas,” Matt said. “They’re a dated dance.”

Temple watched Savannah’s seductive facade glaze over and crack. She wasn’t used to impervious.

“What’s the excitement about?” Temple asked.

“There’s some cat shelter hoping to get Violet to sign on the dotted line, at least for a bequest if not the whole schmear. Violet is so confused, the place reeks and—” Captain Jack’s masked face popped up from Savannah’s purse, shocking the heck out of Matt. “—and that big longhaired cat inside named Maverick showed an unnatural interest in eating Captain Jack,” Savannah went on in her usual sultry but aggrieved way.

“If,” said Matt, “‘Captain Jack’ is that marsupial in your purse, I can see why.”

“Jack is no … Mar-soopial. He is a fixed ferret, but still not about to take kindly to pushy other males. Not even,” she told Temple, “your fixed alpha cat.”

“Thanks to you,” Temple said. “If you recall, Louie is sterile, not impotent. And speaking of kitty-food commercial spokecats, how are Yvette and Solange these days?”

“You know darn well.” Savannah stamped her solid-steel spike heel in the heat-mushy asphalt, where it stuck. “I wanted to smuggle the poor things out in my purse, but they’re hiding somewhere inside that hellhole. I can’t find them.”

“Maybe they’re hiding from you,” Temple suggested, as Matt knelt like Prince Charming to free Savannah’s impaled heel. She simpered prettily and balanced a hand on his shoulder while cooing, “Ummm.”

“Are ferrets pursebroken?” Temple asked. “Captain Jack seems to be making too many happy wiggling motions for a fixed male.”

“He’s upset, and why not? Violet’s place is a circus.”

Meanwhile Matt had freed her heel and stood, leaving her without support.

Savannah staggered, trying to pull Captain Jack from her purse. As she extracted the wriggling form, it dribbled on the pavement.

“Eek!” Savannah struggled to hold Jack as far from her as possible and still keep standing on her fashionable stilts.

Matt took pity and stabilized her flailing elbow while Temple pulled Savannah’s expensive purse free of the ferret’s aiming range.

“When have you last given him a bathroom break?” Temple asked.

“He’s trained!”

Matt picked up Savannah’s wrist with its glitzy watch. “Six o’clock? Is that A.M. or P.M.? Your watch has stopped. It’s only one P.M. I don’t think the cats inside will appreciate ferret markings. You’d better get home for a makeover. Leave the lowly chores to us.”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Savannah stood still except for limp-wristed, taloned hands shaking off ferret pee as if she were a slasher-movie beauty queen ridding herself of drops of blood. “Captain Jack has been a bad, bad boy. We will have to wait for the sun to dry us before we go in Mommy’s pretty car.”

In the desert heat, that wouldn’t be long.

Matt and Temple headed up the cracked concrete walkway.

“This may be tricky without Savannah by our sides,” she told him. “I’ve only met Violet twice.”

“On the other hand,” he said, opening the rickety screen door that covered the heavy wooden door, “we might find out a lot more without Savannah there.”

A knock produced a harried-looking Rowdy Smith, running a nervous hand over his crew-cut head and focusing on Temple.

“You’re Savannah’s friend,” he identified her, frowning. “Where’d Savannah go?”

“She had to attend to a small animal crisis,” Matt explained.

“And who’s this guy?” Rowdy asked Temple, as if they were old friends.

“Matt Devine.” Matt captured his hand for a quick shake and also managed to get into the darkened house by taking Temple’s elbow in the other hand and ushering her inside. “I do counseling work. Maybe I can help with the insistent visitors.”

“I was just here cleaning cat boxes. Violet’s getting pretty confused. She thought Savannah was Alexandra today.”

“I imagine there’s a family resemblance,” Temple said.

Rowdy blinked hard. “Uh … maybe so. Maybe so. Alexandra was so young and pretty, though, nothing fake about her. Meanwhile, the crystal con man and some old friend of Violet’s are both here, selling themselves as the ones to move in and keep the house and cats going after she’s gone.”

*

The usual suspects were gathered around the island that was Violet these days.

“Mister Midnight!” the sick woman exclaimed when Temple introduced Matt Devine.

“You know my radio program?” he asked, taking her frail hand.

“Oh, I listen to you every night you’re on. Tell Ambrosia her voice and the music she plays just float the pain away.”