Mint Cookie Murder (20 page)

The two babies snuggled against Philby as she licked them vigorously. One kitten was black and the other all-white. At least it would be easy to tell them apart.

"So I have three cats now?" I asked. "Oh my God. I'm a crazy cat lady."

Rex grinned. "I'll tell you what. When they're eight weeks old, I'll take the black one."

I brightened a little. "Deal. Kelly or Riley? The white one's up for grabs."

Riley shook his head. "No way. I'm out of the country half the time. It wouldn't be fair."

I looked at Kelly expectantly. "Robert's allergic, remember?" She looked like she wanted to say more but changed her mind.

"Okay, so you're taking the white one." I ignored her dirty looks. "But what are we going to do about that SD card? We need that to deal with Bobb."

Philby hissed weakly. The two kittens gave tiny hisses. They were definitely Philby's.

"Couldn't you do it?" Riley asked Kelly.

She looked at Philby for a long moment. "I don't know. I've done minor extractions. But even then, she won't be up for it for at least a week. I don't think we can risk it."

I looked at the clock. It was well after 11:00 at night. No way we could cancel with Dr. Rye. I'd have to call first thing in the morning. Meanwhile, Kelly found a box in my garage and lined it with towels. Very gently, she and Rex put Philby and her babies in there.

"I'm still going to yell at the vet," I said.

"In all fairness, he never told you what she was, and you didn't ask," Riley said. "And maybe she delivered early. Maybe he thought he could still do the surgery."

"Or maybe he just thought she was fat. Like you guys did," Kelly said.

Philby was purring as her now clean kittens snuggled up to eat. Wow. I had a family now! Sure, it consisted of cats but still a family and mine!

Kelly mumbled something about having to talk to Robert about something, so she left. I walked Rex to the door, kissing him on my front stoop and watching until he made it to his house across the street. I was just turning to go inside when something where the base of the stoop met the house glinted in the porch light.

I bent down. It was some sort of folded piece of paper. But it was wedged between the concrete and the siding so well it would be tough to get out.

"Riley!" I shouted through the doorway.

He appeared wearing sweat pants and a T-shirt. Huh. When did he have a chance to change?

"Quiet! Philby and the babies are sleeping!" he whispered.

"Look!" I pointed at the paper.

Riley bent down and tried to pry it out while I went inside to get a flashlight and a flat-tipped screwdriver. I got down in the bushes next to the stoop and shone the flashlight.

"The light must have caught on the staple." I said. "How is it possible we didn't notice this before?"

"We haven't really looked, I guess. Neither did the police." Riley jammed the screwdriver into the tiny gap and tried to pry a bigger gap in the cement.

"The paper's the same color as the siding. I didn't even see it when I was cleaning up Lenny's blood."

"Do you have a mallet? Or a small sledge?" Riley asked.

I ran into the garage and found only a regular claw hammer. It would have to do. We were approaching midnight, and I didn't think we could get a contractor here now. I certainly didn't want to leave it out all night if it was a clue.

Riley hit the screwdriver a few times, hard. A chunk of cement broke and I was able to pull the paper out.

"Get it inside," Riley said quickly, looking around.

I was beyond tired. But there was no way I was going to bed without seeing what this was. Riley locked the door and closed all the curtains as I unfolded the piece of paper on the breakfast bar.

"Do you understand it?" I pointed at the columns of numbers on the green ledger sheet. "It makes no sense to me." There were just strings of five-digit numbers and a couple of times were the letters
LS
and
SS.
What did it mean?

"It's some kind of code." Riley frowned and rubbed his eyes. "It all looks so blurry. I need some sleep."

I nodded. "Let's divide and conquer. I'll take the cats to bed with me. You take the clue."

"Good idea." He kissed me on the forehead. "See you in the morning." And with a wink, he was gone. For a moment I wanted to run down the hall after him and tell him there'd be no more kissing. That I was with Rex and not him. But the door to his room closed, and I had kittens mewing behind me. Tomorrow. I could tell him tomorrow.

I lugged the box to my room and set it on my bed. I decided to sleep in sweats in case I needed to get up. I'd grabbed my gun from the basement earlier and had it on my nightstand. I turned off the light and curled my body around the box. No way anyone was getting to these cats tonight. Philby's purring immediately put me to sleep.

My alarm woke me up at 8:00 a.m., and I called Dr. Rye immediately. I told him what had happened the night before.

"Pregnant? Well, you're right. We can't operate for a little while then. How are the kittens?" he asked. I toyed with chewing him out for not mentioning Philby being a girl or pregnant but decided against it. I wasn't sure how hard it was to find a vet. Maybe it's like trying to find a doctor who takes your insurance. Or maybe it's worse.

"They look fine, I think," I said as I looked the sleeping kitties over. "I'm really not sure, actually."

"Why don't you bring them in anyway? I can at least do the first checkup, and you'll feel a lot better," Doc said.

"That's a good idea." I was really nervous about this and had a lot of questions. "Same time?"

"Same time," Dr. Rye said. "See you soon."

Riley got up when he heard me speaking and agreed that this was a good idea. We quickly got dressed and wrapped the box in blankets before carrying it to the SUV.

"I'm still shocked that Philby had kittens," Riley said as he drove.

"I'm still shocked that Philby is a girl," I said. I kept checking the kittens every two seconds. "I know how to pick 62 different types of locks. I can dismantle, clean, reassemble, and load any gun in five minutes. I know the names of every terrorist sect and sub-sect in the world. But I know nothing about cats."

"Thank God for Kelly and Rex," Riley said as he pulled into the parking lot. I felt a twinge of guilt at the mention of Rex. But now was not the time to talk to Riley.

We carried the box in and checked in with the receptionist who took us to the exam room.

Dr. Rye burst into the room and handed me a bunch of pamphlets. "About kittens, Ms. Wrath."

He examined Philby and each kitten. He did his usual staring silently for a long time.

"I want to weigh them and check their stool samples. This will take a little while. Why don't you sit in the waiting room?" the doc finally said.

"Is something wrong?" I asked. Please don't let something be wrong…

Dr. Rye smiled and shook his head. "No. Nothing like that. I just want to get their measurements, observe them feeding, all basic stuff. Too many people in here will distract Mama."

Riley put his hand on my shoulder. "Come on, Merry. Let's get this over with." He guided me out the door and down the hall to the lobby, where we sat.

"It shouldn't take too long," I said. "We're the only ones here."

Riley nodded. "Let's take our mind off it by thinking about this." He pulled the ledger page out of his pocket, and we stared at it in hopes something would magically appear and explain it.

"It doesn't look like orders for something," I said, pointing to the columns. "I thought that was it at first, with columns for dates, quantity, etc. But I think it's something else." And by
think
, I meant that I had absolutely no clue.

"These numbers are all five digits long," Riley mused. "Could they be commercial codes?"

"Huh." I took out my cellphone and went to the browser. I typed in the first number and hit search. "That's weird."

Riley looked at my phone. "Wait…try another one."

I typed in another number and the same thing came up.

"No way," I said as we looked at each other.

The receptionist came back to the desk and sat down, startling us. I heard mewing at the end of the hall. How long had it been?

"Dr. Rye's a good vet, right?" I asked her.

The woman looked up at me quizzically. "What?" She was in her early 30s, blonde hair pulled back severely into a bun. Her nametag said
Anna.

Riley must've been worried too. "We're just a little nervous. These are our first kittens."

"Oh." She frowned like she was thinking of something. "I don't really know. I'm just a temp."

"Okay." I said. "Can I talk to one of the nurses?"

"You mean Vet Assistants? We don't really have nurses." She seemed confused even when correcting us.

"Okay," I said. "One of those. Can we speak to them?"

"You could. If they were here. I'm the only one right now, and I don't really know the others."

Riley and I exchanged looks. "You don't know the other people who work here?"

She shook her head. "It's a really new office."

A chill went through me. "How new exactly?"

The woman shrugged, and I jumped to my feet, running down the hall toward my cat with Riley hot on my heels.

I threw open the door to see Philby, alone and covered in blood, with the kittens mewing loudly from their box. I checked my cat. A savage cut tore across the back of her neck and she was barely breathing.

"My cat!" I cried.

"The chip!" Riley growled as he drew his gun and took off.

I called Kelly, putting her on speaker and tried to bandage my cat's neck.

"Please don't die!" I said over and over as I wrapped her in a blanket to keep her warm. Philby looked at me and laid her head back down.

"Who's dying?" Kelly's voice asked.

I told her what had happened, and she said she'd meet me at a veterinarian's office about five minutes away.

The receptionist wandered in, and I demanded she grab the box of kittens and follow me. Riley was nowhere to be found, but because he'd carried the cats' box, I'd had his keys.

I've driven in some bad circumstances before. The worst had to be the Death Road in Ecuador—a muddy, barely single lane road that crumbled over a horrible chasm—while being chased by drug runners shooting AK-47s in my direction. At night.

This was worse. It was rush hour, and I wasn't totally sure where the vet's office was or if they were open. Philby's breathing was growing shallow and the kittens were protesting loudly. I swerved to the right roughly, apologizing to the cats, and came to a screeching stop outside a building with a huge plastic parrot over the door.

Was it just a bird doctor? What kind of vets just did birds?
Well, birds are just cats with feathers, right?
I thought frantically as I grabbed the box and ran for the door. It was unlocked. The waiting room was full of people with various animals, but I ran up to the counter and showed Philby to them.

"Come on back!" A woman dressed in scrubs insisted, and I followed her. She set me up in a room, and a tall, thin, middle-aged woman came in seconds later. She had a kind face, which was good, or I would've shot her.

"I'm Dr. Glen," she said without looking at me, because she was examining the cat. "Someone cut her open," Dr. Glen said. "She's lost a lot of blood."

I told her everything while she gave Philby a shot and nodded occasionally. Kelly burst into the room and stood there, staring at the mess.

"Dr. Rye has been on medical leave for two weeks," the vet said. "His practice was supposed to be closed except for boarded animals."

Kelly's jaw dropped open.

"I just figured that out," I said sadly. How could we have been so stupid? And yes, I was including Riley in the
we.
See how bad it is when a couple works together? We were
so
over. And his concern for the chip instead of Philby? Oh yes. This talk was going to be easier than I thought.

Finally the vet looked at me. "Go to the waiting room. I need to get some more of my staff in here to help."

Kelly snatched the box of kittens and we went back to the lobby.

"Too many people," I said, and she nodded, following me out to the SUV. I ran the engine to keep the kittens warm and took a deep breath.

"What the hell happened?" Kelly shouted. "Where's Riley? Who did this to Philby?"

"The fake Dr. Rye did this to my cat," I said, holding back my anger. "Riley should be shooting him in the balls about right now. If not, then I'll be shooting him in the balls later."

I should've known something was off when Rye didn't tell me the cat was female and pregnant. I was seriously losing my touch. Things were starting to come together in my mind, but I didn't have it all figured out yet. I needed Riley to put the last few pieces together.

"Who is the fake Dr. Rye?" Kelly asked.

I shook my head. "I don't know, but he's not a vet. In fact, I'm pretty sure he's a spy."

"So Angela's a spy, and the vet is a spy, and Bobb is a spy?" Kelly asked while Philby's tiny progeny hissed in unison.

"No, Angela's not of the same caliber. I think she and Bobb work for the same person, and all of this ties in to the beginning with Lenny Smith showing up to die on my stoop." The kittens hissed more weakly this time. I'm sure they were hungry.

"And Midori?" Kelly was stroking the kittens. "Could this have to do with her?"

"I've no idea." Bits and pieces of the puzzle were filled in, but not the whole picture.

My cell buzzed, and I read the text.

"Riley wants me to meet him at the safe house," I frowned. "I can't leave Philby and the kittens."

Kelly opened the door to the car and got out with the box. "Go. I've got this."

I hesitated but another text came through. All it said was,
Hurry Finn!!

"All right." I said as I put on my seat belt. "Let me know the minute you talk to Dr. Glen."

Kelly nodded and took the box back into the vet's. I pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street. I would go meet Riley, but first, I was going to stop at my house and get my gun.