Animal rescue is always risky business, but Liz Denton, owner of the Furever Pets, finds out it’s also dangerous when someone puts down one of her prospective pet adopters . . .
Liz is thrilled to find a forever home for her latest rescue, Sheamus, a Maine Coon cat. But on adoption day, she discovers Sheamus’s would-be owner, Joe Hitchcock, murdered in his study. Joe’s shocking death reveals an even more startling secret: his real name was Joe Danvers . . . a man accused of killing his wife thirty years ago.
Liz knows she should focus on finding Sheamus a new home, but this mystery already has its claws in her. So Liz begins vetting the clues from both investigations. But with a stalker sniffing at her heels and a rival swatting at her business, Liz’s curiosity may come at a hefty price . . . especially since Joe’s case has more lives than a cat.
Release date:
August 31, 2021
Publisher:
Kensington Books
Print pages:
320
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Eyes followed me as I made my way across the room. The small dog carrier sat in the corner, next to the dryer. Most cats didn’t need the bigger carrier, but Sheamus wasn’t like most cats. The eighteen-pound Maine Coon looked bigger than a lot of dogs, thanks to his long tail and fur. And while he wasn’t overweight, there was still a lot of meat beneath all the fluff.
I glanced back at Sheamus, giving him my best innocent smile. He was seated by the closed door that led into the rest of my house. His tail was curled around his clodhopper front paws, and his ears were slowly pinning back as the tabby’s greenish eyes moved from me to the carrier.
“It has to be done,” I said. “If you want to get home, you have to go in.”
A meow outside the door caught Sheamus’s attention long enough for me to snatch up the carrier without him seeing me do it. My calico, Wheels, was anxious to play with her newest friend one last time before the Maine Coon was whisked off to his furever home. I could hear her wheels rolling on the hardwood floor as she paced back and forth in front of the door.
I set the carrier down in the middle of the room and took off its top half. There was no way I was going to get the big cat through the doors. When I’d picked him up from an abandoned farmhouse over two weeks ago, I’d tried to do just that. He’d become all legs and claws, and I had the battle scars to prove it.
“It’s a necessary evil,” I told the cat as his gaze swiveled back my way. “Once this is over, you won’t have to look at another cat carrier again.” Or, at least, one of mine. With his health issues, Sheamus was going to need quite a few vet visits over the years, but he didn’t need to know that.
I took a step toward him, hands spread wide. All I needed was to get my hands on him, and gently lower him into the carrier. After that, it would be a quick ride in my van, and then freedom.
“Here, Sheamus,” I said, slowly reaching down for him.
That’s when disaster struck.
The door opened and my son, Ben, stuck his head into the room. “Hey, Mom—”
“Ben! The cat!”
Sheamus might be big, but he could move when he wanted to. The Maine Coon leapt to his feet and bolted for the doorway. By the time Ben realized what was happening, eighteen pounds of feline had already slammed into his shins and around him.
“Whoa!” Ben managed to keep his balance as Sheamus careened off of him and into the house. Wheels merrily gave chase, moving just as quickly as the bigger cat, despite her harness and wheels. The two of them were gone in seconds.
I closed my eyes and groaned.
“Sorry,” Ben said, flipping his hair out of his eyes. His grin said he wasn’t too sorry; he was amused. “Forgot about that.”
I’m not sure why, but the Maine Coon was terrified of carriers. Once you got him inside, he calmed down well enough, but before that, it was a fight.
“It’s all right,” I said. “It just means you get to catch him again.”
Ben winced and rubbed at his arm, which still had a Band-Aid on it. He’d taken Sheamus to the vet for his last checkup, and had been forced to retrieve the cat from behind the washing machine.
It hadn’t gone well.
“Wish I could,” Ben said. “But I can’t. I have to go.”
“Go? But we’ve got to take Sheamus to his new home.”
“Yeah, I know.” Ben rubbed the back of his neck. He might be in his early twenties now, but he still acted like a teenager sometimes.
“Is it important?” I asked him.
“It is.” He shot me a crooked smile.
I narrowed my eyes at him. I knew that smile for what it was. “Is there a woman involved?”
He pressed his hands over his heart. “Mom! I’m offended.” His grin widened. “But, yeah. A respectable young lady will be accompanying me in my endeavor on this fine day.”
“Do I know this respectable young lady?” Knowing Ben, I doubted it. It seemed like he had a new girlfriend every other week.
“No,” he said, confirming my suspicions. “But this isn’t a date or anything. I actually do have an appointment. I didn’t want to go alone, so, well . . .” He shrugged.
“All right,” I said, resigned. “Go. Have fun.”
“Thanks.” He stepped into the room and gave me a hug. “I’ll help out next time.”
“You’d better.”
Ben left the room, whistling under his breath. I looked at the carrier at my feet, and then, with a sigh, picked it up and lugged it into the dining room, where I set it down.
“Hey, Liz.” My husband, Manny, was sitting at the dining room table, a newspaper in front of him, and a glass of orange juice in hand. His brown eyes swiveled up from his paper to me when I entered. “Did I see Sheamus go tearing through here?”
“You did.” I moved to the foot of the stairs and raised my voice. “Amelia!”
“She’s not going to hear you.”
“I know, but it was worth a try.”
Manny chuckled and went back to his paper. “Good luck.”
Feeling only mildly stressed out, I tromped up the stairs to Amelia’s bedroom.
I’d had concerns about finding a home for Sheamus from the moment I’d taken him in, and was still worried that the plans would fall through. The first person I’d contacted was happy to take on the cat until she saw how big he really was. Turns out, she’d wanted a lap kitty, and was afraid the bigger cat might be too much for her to handle.
And then when she heard about his health issues, well, she sadly had to turn me down.
But this is what I do. My rescue, Furever Pets, specializes in animals that many deem unadoptable. I make sure to find each and every one of them a loving home. Whether the dog or cat is ill, or simply too old for most people, there’s a place for them out there.
Amelia’s bedroom door was closed. I could hear faint music coming from inside. Knocking would be pointless, so I pushed open the door, gave it a couple of seconds for her to react, and then poked my head inside.
Amelia was sitting cross-legged on her bed, earbuds in her ears. She was flipping through her phone, blue-tipped hair falling down around her face, so she didn’t see me. A pair of books sat on the bed next to her, but I couldn’t read the spines from where I stood to see what they were about. They looked bigger than her usual novels.
“Amelia!” She didn’t budge. “Amelia!” I reached into her room and flipped her light on.
Her head snapped up, eyes going wide. “Mom!” Her voice was loud as she tried to shout over her music. “Don’t do that!”
I mimed pulling earbuds out of my ear. Chagrined, Amelia tapped her phone, and then removed her earbuds so she could hear.
“I need your help,” I said. “Ben’s gone and I need to take Sheamus to his new home.”
Amelia’s gaze jerked to the books beside her. I knew they weren’t college texts—she was on summer break—so my next best guess was they were gifts from her mentor—and private investigator—Chester Chudzinski.
Her next words proved me right.
“I can’t go,” she said. “I’ve got to get these back to Chester.” She rested a hand atop the books.
“Can it wait?” I asked with just a hint of pleading in my voice.
“Not really.” She reddened slightly. Even though Manny and I supported her desire to become an investigator, she was still embarrassed by it. “He’s working on something really important and needs them back today. I’m kind of helping him out.”
“Oh.” My heart sank a little, but it wasn’t the end of the world. I didn’t actually need one of my children with me; I’d only wanted the company.
“I mean, if you need help packing everything, I can do that.”
“Actually”—I grinned—“I could use help getting Sheamus into his carrier. That is, if you can find him.”
Amelia groaned, but rose from her bed. “Fine. Where is he?”
“That’s the mystery!” I slung an arm around her shoulder and squeezed.
We headed downstairs together.
“It lives!” Manny said from his place at the table as we entered the dining room.
“Ha ha.” Amelia rolled her eyes. “So, where’s the cat?” A series of sneezes came from the living room. “Never mind.” She tromped off in that direction.
“Do you have the information I gave you?” Manny asked.
“I do. It’s with the paperwork.” Sheamus had a couple of upper respiratory ailments that caused the poor kitty to go on regular sneezing fits. He also spent most of his time sniffling and sounding like he had a bad cold, but it was nothing that would hurt his quality of life.
His teeth, however, would need constant monitoring. A variety of oral diseases meant his chompers were under constant attack from his body. As long as his new owner kept his teeth clean, and made sure to take him to the vet regularly, Sheamus should still have most of his teeth by the time he was ten.
“I gave him his vaccines, but his new owner is going to want to bring him in every few months to have him checked out.”
Manny was a veterinarian and took care of every rescue I took in. It meant that I often got to see the animals again, long after I’d found them new homes.
It was probably the only reason why I didn’t break down into heaving sobs every time I had to let one of them go.
“You sure you don’t want to come with me?” I asked. It was Manny’s day off and I knew he wanted to sit at home and vegetate. His dark hair hadn’t been brushed, and I doubted he planned on working a comb through his curls, but I was hopeful. “Both Ben and Amelia have begged off.”
“If you want me to, I can . . .” He looked down at his slippers with an expression of such longing, I broke immediately.
“Oh, all right.” I laughed. “Stay home. Enjoy being lazy.”
“Well, if you insist . . .” He stretched and leaned back in his chair.
“Ew!” Amelia strode into the room with Sheamus held out at arm’s length. “He sneezed on me!”
“It won’t hurt you.” I hurried and pulled the top off the carrier. Amelia eased Sheamus down into it. He tried to fight, but with the two of us working together, he stood no chance. We managed to get him safely inside with nary a scratch on either of us.
“There,” I said, snapping the lid back into place. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Sheamus meowed his displeasure. Amelia kept her arms out in front of her as she headed for the kitchen. “I need soap. And sanitizer. And maybe another shower.”
Wheels rolled into the room and bumped up against my leg. Her stunted back legs were kept off the floor by the harness that held her wheels. She wasn’t slowed in the slightest by her deformity, and although she couldn’t jump onto things like a normal cat, I often wondered if she even realized there was anything different about her.
“He’s got to go home now,” I said, running a hand down Wheels’s back. “I know you like him. We all do.”
She meowed at me, then rubbed up against the carrier. Inside, Sheamus sneezed.
I hoisted the carrier up with a grunt, grabbed the paperwork, and with a goodbye to my family, I headed outside with Sheamus in tow.
My van sat in the driveway with Furever Pets sprayed on the side, along with the rescue’s slogan, Purrfectly Defective. I wondered if I should spruce up the artwork on the side a bit, add something that really would make it stand out, and then decided against it. I’d let my work stand for itself.
I loaded Sheamus into the back, climbed into the front seat, and then we were off.
Grey Falls, Ohio, wasn’t a large city by anyone’s standards, but it would take me fifteen to twenty minutes to reach Sheamus’s new home, and that was if I avoided downtown. Because the town was once a farming village, it was spread out rather than up, which often meant longer travel times if I had to transport an animal from one side of town to the other.
I pulled my phone from the cupholder where I always left it—though I was trying to remember to keep it with me more often, in case of emergency—and gave Sheamus’s new owner a ring to let him know we were on the way. No one answered, however. I tried once more, just in case he hadn’t heard it the first time, and when no one picked up, I set my phone aside and turned my full attention to the road.
Joe Hitchcock lived on Ash Road, in a small home set behind a line of trees that gave the property some privacy. As I neared, I noticed the field across the street from Joe’s property was speckled with a dozen or so tents, but no one was within sight.
I turned into Joe’s driveway, vaguely wondering if the local Boy Scouts troop had camped out last night. My van shuddered over the gravel drive that was bare in quite a few places. I was forced to slow to a crawl to keep from bouncing my teeth from my head.
A stack of wood sat by the front stoop, though no smoke curled from the chimney. Not that I expected there to be any, mind you. It was going to be in the mid-eighties by the afternoon. A fire would be overkill.
I pulled up behind a red-and-blue pickup that looked to have been pieced together by quite a few other vehicles. Rust lined the bottom of the truck, and one of the tires was dangerously low.
But despite the downtrodden look of the truck and driveway, the house itself looked nice from the outside. It was a single floor, but appeared big enough for a man like Joe Hitchcock to live comfortably alone with his cat.
The door didn’t open, nor did a curtain part as I came to a stop. Since Joe hadn’t answered his phone, I was worried he’d forgotten our appointment and wasn’t home. Just because there was a truck in the driveway, didn’t mean he didn’t have another mode of transportation.
I left the engine running to keep the air flowing so Sheamus would stay cool until I saw whether or not Joe was home. There was no sense in dragging the cat out into the heat if I was going to have to bundle him right back up again.
A woodpecker was hammering away at a tree somewhere out back. A mower was running in the distance. The air smelled of nature. It was peaceful. I could already tell Sheamus was going to be happy here.
I stepped up onto the front stoop, and since there was no doorbell, I knocked on the outer storm door. The bang seemed out of place in the serene atmosphere. The woodpecker paused in his hammering, and then continued on.
I waited a good minute before knocking again, this time harder. When Joe still didn’t answer, I made my way back to my van, grabbed a Post-it out of the glove compartment, and scrawled him a note to let him know I’d stopped by. I returned to the stoop, opened the storm door, and slapped the note in place.
The front door creaked open.
I froze as a chill washed down my spine that caused me to shiver despite the warm day.
“Hello?” I called. There was no answer. “Joe? It’s Liz Denton of Furever Pets. I’m here with Sheamus, your new cat. Are you here?”
Still, no one answered.
I debated on pulling the door closed and walking away, but something about how it had been left unlatched bothered me. I’d met Joe a couple of times when we’d discussed Sheamus. He seemed like a genuinely nice black man. His clothing might have been a little outdated, and his shoes were scuffed and worn, but that meant little. You didn’t need to have a ton of money to be a good pet parent.
“Joe?” I pushed the door open a little farther. “Mr. Hitchcock?”
Feeling like an intruder, which I supposed I was, I entered the house. A pair of muddy boots sat by the door on a small dirty mat. I could see into the living room and kitchen from where I stood. A hallway ran between them, down to what I assumed were the bedrooms and bathroom. There was no dining room.
“Joe?” I eased farther into the house. The place was quiet, orderly. There weren’t a lot of furnishings, but there was enough for a single man. There were no photographs on the wall, which I found a little odd, but not entirely uncommon.
A mild worry worked through me. What if he’d had a heart attack or a stroke or something? Joe Hitchcock wasn’t too terribly old—maybe in his fifties or sixties—but that didn’t mean he didn’t suffer from some underlying illness.
Determined to make sure he was all right, and feeling like I was overreacting all the while, I moved to the hallway. There were three doors down there. The one at the end of the hall was open a crack, revealing Joe’s bedroom. To the right was the bathroom. It was small, and contained only the toilet, the sink, and a standup shower. No baths for Joe Hitchcock, apparently.
“Joe? It’s Liz.” I licked my lips, which had gone dry. Something in the air felt off. It wasn’t so much a smell as an ominous feeling. It was as if I knew what I was going to find when I opened the door to my left.
The door, like the front door itself, was hanging slightly ajar. I pushed it open with my foot, hands held at the ready, and glanced inside.
At first, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Folders and papers lay scattered on the floor. A corkboard hung on the wall immediately inside the room. Photographs were pinned in place, and lines of yarn connected them. A few papers were tacked beneath that. Writing was scrawled across many of them, but I couldn’t read it.
It looked like something you’d see on a cop drama, but Joe Hitchcock wasn’t a cop as far as I knew. I had no idea what any of it meant, or why he would have something like this in his house.
Across the room sat a desk. More papers were scattered atop it. It appeared as if that was where the rest of the pages that were now lying on the floor had come from. A computer monitor was facedown atop the desk, but the computer tower itself was missing.
And behind the desk, with eyes open and staring, lay Joe Hitchcock, in a puddle of his own life’s blood.
Flashing lights filled my vision. A pair of police cruisers sat in Joe Hitchcock’s driveway, as did an ambulance. I knew for a fact the paramedics wouldn’t be able to do anything for Joe, but still, I prayed that, somehow, I was wrong, and he was still alive.
My arms were wrapped tight around my chest as I leaned against the front bumper of my van. I’d refused to be looked at by the paramedics when they’d first arrived—I wasn’t the one who needed attention —yet I felt cold, despite the heat of the day.
Sheamus was still in his carrier in the van, but he would be fine since the air was running. Still, I wanted to get him back home as soon as possible. I would have left already if they’d have let me, but since I’d found Joe’s body, I was required to stick around to answer a few questions.
While I waited for someone to come out to talk to me, I mentally played over everything I’d seen, over and over again. Had I seen a car leaving the area? A person running or walking away? Did I hear anything out of place?
I was pretty sure the answer to all those questions was no, but was I positive? It wasn’t like I’d been paying that much attention when I’d arrived. Who expects to walk into a house and find a dead body?
The crunch of gravel brought my head up. A grim-faced Detective Emmitt Cavanaugh approached. His hair was still buzzed short, but I noted he appeared to have lost a little weight since the last time I’d seen him. He still looked like a former football lineman who’d let himself go, but he seemed to be on the right track to a healthier lifestyle.
“Mrs. Denton,” Cavanaugh said as he came to a stop in front of me. “How you holding up?”
“Okay, I guess.” I shivered. “Is he really . . . ?”
Cavanaugh nodded. “Shot once. Death was likely instantaneous, so he didn’t suffer.”
“That’s good.” I took a shuddering breath. “About him not suffering, I mean.”
“Did you know him?”
“Not well,” I said. “We talked a couple of times. Mr. Hitchcock was going to adopt Sheamus.” I jerked a thumb back toward the van. “Sheamus is a cat, if you’re wondering.”
“One second.” Cavanaugh spun and marched back to the house. He was inside for another five minutes before he came back out. He didn’t look happy.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Are you sure the man you saw in there was Joe Hitchcock?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Have you met him before today?”
A creeping dread spread from my toes, upward. “Once or twice when we discussed Sheamus.”
“And you’re sure the man you met those times is the same man you found today?”
I stood straighter. “Detective, what is this about?”
Cavanaugh paced back and forth in front of me a moment. He rubbed at his jaw, brow furrowed, as if he was trying to work through a rather difficult problem.
I waited him out, heart hammering. What had I walked in on?
Cavanaugh stopped pacing and turned to face me. His expression was dead serious. “I’ll need confirmation, but the man whose body you found wasn’t named Joe Hitchcock.”
“He’s not? Then who was he?”
There was a moment when it looked like Cavanaugh might not answer me. His mouth firmed, his eyes went briefly hard, before he softened. “His name was Joseph—Joe—Danvers. He . . . well, from what I kn. . .
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