If timing was everything, my future looked bleak. I could be counted on to pick the worst possible time to do anything. So naturally, an epic ice storm would start while I was driving to my parents’ house to feed Mom’s snotty Siamese cats and do some work for Dad. I should’ve turned around and gone home to crawl under a blanket like everyone else in St. Louis. I’d have avoided a load of trouble if I had.
By the time I got to the house, sleet was coming down in great sheets of grey misery. Ice particles hit my parents’ back door, ricocheting off and beaning me in the face as I slid around, trying to get ahold of the ice-coated doorknob thanks to Dad. My parents used to have a complete back porch until six months ago. Dad discovered dry rot and tore the old porch off. He promised to get another one put back on before winter set in and had got the porch itself back up. Before he could get the roof going, he got a big case and that was the end of that. My father was a private detective and not especially diligent at working on the house. Mom had threatened to call a contractor, but Dad distracted her with a trip to a spa. He’d get to it eventually and that was why I was standing on the naked porch freezing my ass off trying to stop shaking long enough to stick the key in the lock.
I lunged at the knob and got it, but fell to my knees in a puddle of slush. The key went in after some persuasion and I let myself into the butler’s pantry, shaking the ice out of my hair and peeling off my coat. I took an embroidered tea towel out of a drawer with a brass plaque engraved Everyday and squeezed the water out of my hair. Even at twenty-five it seemed very posh to have a butler’s pantry, even if there hadn’t been a butler in residence for fifty years. The pantry was bigger than my living room with floor-to-ceiling cabinets that held all manner of goodies. I snooped around through cubbyholes and the secret drawers, which I’d discovered as a child, for Dad’s cookies or Mom’s chocolate stash. I found a can of Ghirardelli’s Double Sweet Chocolate behind some dusty port bottles and grinned.
I went into the kitchen that wasn’t much warmer than the pantry and cranked up the thermostat. The Siamese, Swish and Swat, sat in the middle of the room, eyeing me with distain. I was their servant and they never let me forget it.
“Yes, I’m here to feed you. How about some appreciation? I could’ve been killed driving over here.”
Swish snorted in derision. He actually snorted. If something happens to Mom, he’s the first to go.
“One of these days I’m going to feed you 9 Lives and see how you like that.”
I didn’t though. I gave them the special fancy-pants cat food Mom buys at a pet store so exclusive you need a background check to get through the door. I think the food was made of filet mignon and black truffles. Surprisingly, I wasn’t required to serve it in a starched white apron.
The cats ate, their long, skinny tails stuck straight out. I so wanted to step on one. Instead I mixed up a pot of hot cocoa and yelled, “Anybody home?”
I didn’t expect an answer, but you never knew who might be loitering in the attic. It’s been host to more than a few odd characters over the years. On that day, my parents were out of town on a case/vacation. They’d been hired to track down my mother’s former boss’s son. Stevie Crown had boosted his mother’s Jaguar and credit cards. Using the cards, my Uncle Morty tracked him to Florida and my parents went to reel him in and take in some warm weather while they were at it. I had the house to myself, not that I wanted it. There was always more paperwork when Dad traveled and somehow I’d ended up being his secretary, unpaid of course.
I was supposed to transcribe case updates while I was over feeding the cats and update clients. Dad had three other detectives in his stable and they’d been generating paperwork like crazy. I’m a nurse, but Dad
By the time I got to the house, sleet was coming down in great sheets of grey misery. Ice particles hit my parents’ back door, ricocheting off and beaning me in the face as I slid around, trying to get ahold of the ice-coated doorknob thanks to Dad. My parents used to have a complete back porch until six months ago. Dad discovered dry rot and tore the old porch off. He promised to get another one put back on before winter set in and had got the porch itself back up. Before he could get the roof going, he got a big case and that was the end of that. My father was a private detective and not especially diligent at working on the house. Mom had threatened to call a contractor, but Dad distracted her with a trip to a spa. He’d get to it eventually and that was why I was standing on the naked porch freezing my ass off trying to stop shaking long enough to stick the key in the lock.
I lunged at the knob and got it, but fell to my knees in a puddle of slush. The key went in after some persuasion and I let myself into the butler’s pantry, shaking the ice out of my hair and peeling off my coat. I took an embroidered tea towel out of a drawer with a brass plaque engraved Everyday and squeezed the water out of my hair. Even at twenty-five it seemed very posh to have a butler’s pantry, even if there hadn’t been a butler in residence for fifty years. The pantry was bigger than my living room with floor-to-ceiling cabinets that held all manner of goodies. I snooped around through cubbyholes and the secret drawers, which I’d discovered as a child, for Dad’s cookies or Mom’s chocolate stash. I found a can of Ghirardelli’s Double Sweet Chocolate behind some dusty port bottles and grinned.
I went into the kitchen that wasn’t much warmer than the pantry and cranked up the thermostat. The Siamese, Swish and Swat, sat in the middle of the room, eyeing me with distain. I was their servant and they never let me forget it.
“Yes, I’m here to feed you. How about some appreciation? I could’ve been killed driving over here.”
Swish snorted in derision. He actually snorted. If something happens to Mom, he’s the first to go.
“One of these days I’m going to feed you 9 Lives and see how you like that.”
I didn’t though. I gave them the special fancy-pants cat food Mom buys at a pet store so exclusive you need a background check to get through the door. I think the food was made of filet mignon and black truffles. Surprisingly, I wasn’t required to serve it in a starched white apron.
The cats ate, their long, skinny tails stuck straight out. I so wanted to step on one. Instead I mixed up a pot of hot cocoa and yelled, “Anybody home?”
I didn’t expect an answer, but you never knew who might be loitering in the attic. It’s been host to more than a few odd characters over the years. On that day, my parents were out of town on a case/vacation. They’d been hired to track down my mother’s former boss’s son. Stevie Crown had boosted his mother’s Jaguar and credit cards. Using the cards, my Uncle Morty tracked him to Florida and my parents went to reel him in and take in some warm weather while they were at it. I had the house to myself, not that I wanted it. There was always more paperwork when Dad traveled and somehow I’d ended up being his secretary, unpaid of course.
I was supposed to transcribe case updates while I was over feeding the cats and update clients. Dad had three other detectives in his stable and they’d been generating paperwork like crazy. I’m a nurse, but Dad