Meow for Murder Mysteries Boxed Set

by Addison Moore

“Come to think of it, when I called you the other day, I asked you to invite your siblings and friends, but you said you didn’t have any siblings.”

  “And I don’t.”

  “Then why did you tell me at the library that day you had a sister?”

  “I never said that.” Her eyes grow wild as she turns to bolt and I snatch her by the wrist and yank her back.

  “Yes, you did. You mentioned that your sister was the big scrapbooker in the family and she told you about the event at the library. But that’s not true. Nicki, you’ve been working for Perry for the last solid year, haven’t you?”

  She pulls her hand free. “What in the world does that have to do with anything?”

  “Everything,” I say as I pull forward that heavy brass award of Perry’s in my hand. “Richard said that Perry had a crazed fan that was sending threatening notes, but that it all stopped about a year ago. Right when you came onto the scene. I bet you were thrilled the day Perry pulled you into his inner circle.”

  “So what?” Her chest heaves violently. “You can’t prove anything.”

  “This award in my hand might.” I hold it up for her to see and she closes her eyes with the sheer look of regret on her face. “You stole it. It had disappeared a long time ago, and yet you magically had it among his mementos tonight. Perry is dead. And my guess is you killed him. Why did you do it?”

  “It was Devin, I told you.” Her voice hikes up a notch and sends something fluttering out of the evergreens behind us.

  I take in a sharp breath. “Yes, you did. You said Devin wanted kids. And they fought because Perry wouldn’t give them to her.” I shake my head. “But Devin told me, point-blank, she doesn’t ever want children—that she’s not a fan of those pint-sized creatures. Nicki, you lied.”

  She starts to take off, and I snatch her by the back of her dress. Nicki trips and stumbles to the ground, taking me right along with her.

  “Get off of me!” she riots as she struggles to rise, but I manage to pin her down with my elbow. “So what if I lied about Devin? Who cares about that ridiculous girl?”

  “You did lie about Devin,” I pant as I search the ground as if looking for clues. “Oh my God, it was you who wanted children! You wanted to have Perry’s kids, and he wouldn’t give them to you. You were obsessed with him, and it wasn’t enough that you got to work alongside him. You wanted him as your own in every way.”

  “I did.” She closes her eyes and winces as if the truth hurt to verbalize. “I loved him. And I knew that he would love me. He said he tried, but that I wasn’t the one for him. I gave him everything. But he wanted Devin. She’s just using him. He came out for fresh air that night of his show, and I followed him. We had an argument. I tried to tell him that Bud is Devin’s boyfriend, not her brother, and he laughed at me. He said I was a nutcase. He said I couldn’t have him. He said I could never have him. I tried to hold him and he pushed me away. I went for him a second time and my hand hooked onto his gun. I was out of my mind with grief. If I couldn’t have him, nobody could. So I killed him.”

  A breath expels from me.

  A confession. I’m not sure why, but it’s more than I was expecting tonight.

  “You’re going to tell the detective exactly what you told me.”

  “I’m not speaking.” She gives a little laugh. “And unfortunately, you’ll be unable to say a single word—ever again.” She snatches the lumbering award from my hand and bashes me over the head with it before I can process what’s happening.

  A horrid groan comes from me as the pain ricochets long after she stops.

  I try to reach for the brass statue just as she’s about to crash it down over me once again, but I catch her wrist instead and we struggle for it.

  “You don’t knock me over the head and get away with it,” I grit the words through my teeth as we wrestle it out. Nicki turns me over and pins me to the ground. And just as she’s about to deliver another blow with that brass bruiser, I buck her off and the statue goes flying.

  I pop to my feet and land my foot over her back just as a small crowd thunders in this direction.

  “Bowie!” Shep roars as he reaches for his gun, and Opal, Tilly, and Richard Broadman come running out after him.

  “She confessed.” I take a stumbling step back as Nicki starts to crawl away on her hands and knees. But Shep has her in his arms and handcuffed before I can catch my next breath.

  “She killed Perry Flint,” I say as she turns my way, tears streaming down her face. “She was the stalker. She admitted everything. She used Perry’s gun to kill him.”

  Nora Grimsley appears with her weapon drawn, and in just a few minutes, the place is crawling with sheriff’s deputies.

  Opal shuffles over and lifts my chin with her finger. “You’re a keeper, kid. Don’t expect a raise.” She gives a little wink before heading back inside.

  Tilly hops over. “Don’t worry, Bowie. I know where she keeps the good stuff. You want me to pour you a stiff one?”

  I shake my head. “But thanks for the offer.”

  She pulls me in for a quick embrace. “You’re a tough cookie, Bowie Binx. I’m glad you’re one of the good guys.” She takes off, and I think about her words.

  I’m not one of the good guys.

  I’m one of the bad guys on the run.

  Nora takes off with Nicki, and I spot Richard talking to one of the sheriff’s deputies.

  Shep steps up with his hands in his pockets, and those eerie glowing eyes of his are pinned on mine.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m great.” It comes out without the proper enthusiasm. “I suppose you want me to apologize for interfering in your case.”

  He shakes his head. “No apology necessary. It’s over. I’m a big believer in forgetting the past and moving on.”

  I close my eyes a moment.

  My God, how I wish the whole world felt that way. But would I really want to go back to Hastings?

  When I arrived in Starry Falls, I thought this was the backward upside-down world. And now that I’ve spent a little time here, soaked in the freedom and the beauty of this place, I’m starting to believe it was the other way around.

  A hand warms my arm, and I open my eyes to find Shep’s lips curled as he nods my way.

  “Let me take you home.”

  Shep drives me back to the cabin and walks me to the door.

  “Bowie?” I look back before heading inside. “If you need anything, anything at all, I’m right next door. Come by anytime. Any hour.” He nods as if beckoning me to do so.

  “Thank you,” I whisper. “Goodnight, Shep.”

  I head inside, but I don’t go to bed. I can’t sleep, so I work all hours into the night on that little gift I’m making for my Uncle Vinnie and I finish the very last stitch just as dawn breaks.

  I’m safe.

  Meow.

  Chapter 19

  I did it.

  Less than a day after Nicki Magnolia’s arrest, I came up with an idea that landed both Opal and me swimming in a sea of green.

  I was in the library, holding Molly and petting King, with an entire swarm of attention-hungry kitties corralled around me, when a lightning bolt struck.

  Cats in the library.

  What on earth could possibly be more inventive than that?

  I would have paid money to spend time cuddling up with a furry friend. Curling up with a good book would simply be a bonus. And speaking of bonuses, instead of demanding a cover charge for our new event, the way Opal insisted, I suggested a donation jar to help care for the cats. And judging by the way it’s been filling up and overflowing, the cats, Opal, and I will all be taken care of nicely. The cats won’t mind sharing. It’s only fair Opal and I get our cut.

  So today, Opal has opened the doors to the manor library for its very first reading with cats program. For three hours every day, people of all ages are invited to sit and lounge in the manor library and chase down all the cute kitties while reading some good
books.

  We even went a step further and got the local library to bring out a couple of rolling carts of an assortment of books. The cozy mysteries seem to be a favorite among the Stitch Witchery crowd, and there are enough thrillers, young adult, and chapter books to appease just about everyone. But the real stars of the show are the furry creatures filling every nook and cranny of this place. Tails are whipping around with glee, while the sound of purring amplifies throughout the room.

  Flo and Mud are manning the literary fort, so I head back to the café where I spot Tilly talking to Lee.

  “Bowie Binx.” Lee grins, and ironically it’s the only time he actually doesn’t resemble his brother. Other than the sexy grin, they’re just about interchangeable.

  He pulls a set of keys out of his pocket and dangles them before me.

  “Your chariot awaits. I took her for a spin, and even topped the tank off for you.” He lands the keys in the palm of my hand, hot as flames.

  “Oh my goodness,” I say as I close my hand around them. “Thank you. How much do I owe you?”

  His shoulders jerk. “Seeing that my brother considers you a friend, I’ll let it slide this time. But be good to Wanda.” He gives a little wink. “And she just might be good to you.”

  “Thank you.” I blow out a breath as I look at the keys in my hand. Right now, they’re a portal to another universe entirely, and yet not a single part of me wants to go. I packaged up that pillow I made for my Uncle Vinnie and addressed it to the pizza shop he owns. I could drive to Woodley and mail it before heading up north and getting lost in Canadian mountains, thick with pines.

  Tilly snaps her fingers in front of my face.

  “Earth to Bowie?” she hums. “I said we’re bugging out. Lee’s taking me to Granby for dinner. Jessie is with her dad, and I am free for the entire weekend.” She takes up his hand and swings it. “We’re ducking out of the country for a little not-so-friendly getaway. Cover my shift, would you?”

  “Granby, Canada?”

  “Yeah, Quebec.” She frowns slightly. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh yes. A thought just came to me.” I nod her to the side. “Would you mind if I gave you something to drop in the mail for me once you got there? I’m sending an old friend a little something. And you know what? I bet they would be thrilled if it came all the way from Canada.” I pull a few too many bills out of my pocket. “Keep the change.”

  “You better believe I will.” She snatches it from me with glee as I quickly retrieve the package for her.

  They take off, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

  It’s happening.

  I’ve made my decision, and I’m not running off to Canada anytime soon. I don’t see the harm in staying in Starry Falls for a little while longer—maybe even forever.

  I head behind the counter, taking a few orders, and as soon as I finish up with the customers, Shep strides in, looking sharp in a dark blazer and a tie that matches his pale eyes.

  He’s heart-stopping in just about every capacity, and how I hate that my heart demands to stop in homage of his good looks.

  But it’s more than that. I like Shep as a person. And if I’m really honest with myself, I’m falling for him—hard.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t Shepherd Wexler,” I tease.

  “Well, well”—a slow spreading smile takes over his face just the way it did in my vision the other night—“if it isn’t Stella Santini.”

  The smile drops from both his face and mine.

  And just like that, I may never have anything to smile about again.

  Copyright © 2020 by Addison Moore, Bellamy Bloom

  Edited by Paige Maroney Smith

  Cover by Stunning Book Covers

  Hollis Thatcher Press, LTD.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.

  All Rights Reserved.

  This eBook is for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase any additional copies for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Copyright © 2020 by Addison Moore, Bellamy Bloom

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  Book Description

  A highly inaccurate psychic. A grumpy writer. And a corpse. Welcome to Starry Falls. Running from the mob can be murder.

  It’s turning out to be a long, hot summer. But when Shep takes me to his high school reunion as his date, things heat up more than ever. Suffice it to say, his old female classmates aren’t too thrilled to see he’s taken. And even though Shep is insistent on keeping up our couple’s ruse, one of his rusty, dusty, old girlfriends isn’t buying it. And when one of his good friends ends up biting the big one, all suspicion is cast upon the interloper among them. That would be me.

  Confession: I’m no psychic. But I can sort of see the future—albeit not accurately. And you better believe I’ve never let that little detail stop me from prognosticating my way into a pickle. So when I ticked off the mob, the feds, and my wily ex, I decided to take my Uncle Vinnie’s advice and start over with a new name and new hair color while relying on my old shtick—getting my psychic wires crossed and putting myself in danger.

  Chapter 1

  “Shep’s back!” someone shouts from the entry of the Manor Café and the words send a chill up my spine, terrifying me far more than should ever be allowed.

  My name is Stella Santini, or at least it was. I go by Bowie Binx now, and I’ve got long black hair, light brown eyes, stand at an average height of five-foot-five, and I can see the future.

  Okay, fine.

  Confession: I’m no psychic. Nor have I ever come close to predicting what the future might hold, not with any accuracy anyway.

  You see, ever since I was a little girl, I had what my Nana Rose called the shakes. Technically, it’s more of a shiver, and when you get down to it, there’s a warm, fuzzy feeling involved that makes me want to forget about the world around me for a moment and retreat to the dark recesses of my mind where a thought plays out like a movie and I see things. And trust me when I say I have been wrong about interpreting the things I see on more than one occasion.

  Take now for instance. No sooner did I arrive at the Manor Café this morning, where I’ve somehow stumbled into managing the place, than one of those otherworldly visions hits me. I see Shep himself—handsome, tall, built like a god, mind of Einstein, best-selling author, ex-homicide detective, and did I mention ridiculously handsome? He’s currently dominating the theater of my mind, talking to a man about his height and age—early thirties. The man peels back his suit jacket and exposes the butt of a gun and says, “This is what I’m going to kill you with.”

  It was ominous, dark, and darn right foreboding.

  “Table three needs more coffee,” Tilly Teasdale says as she whizzes by, leaving a scarf of thick sugary perfume in her wake. She’s shorter than me by three inches, older than me by three years, has brown hair with blonde chunky highlights, and loves to dress to impress the opposite sex.

  Tilly has been my new best friend ever since I ended up here in Starry Falls, Vermont—at the Mortimer Manor to be exact.

  The Mortimer Manor has the girth and appeal of a haunted mansion, sits crooked on a hill, and is crawling with a legion of cats, all adopted by the eccentric woman who owns this place.

  My visit here last month was more or less supposed to be a pit stop. It was sort of an accidental pit stop once my beat-up Honda, Wanda, up and died on me.

  I was actually on my way to Canada while on the run from both the feds and the mob.
Let’s just say my lavish spending sprees may have accidentally tipped off the FBI to the money laundering scheme I was taking part in, and now both organizations want me—dead or alive. I’ve already turned in my louse of an ex, the originator of that siphoning disaster. I can safely pin most of the blame for the things that went wrong for me in the last year square on Johnny Rizzo’s shoulders. Hopefully, his incarceration will be enough to keep the feds and the mob off my back for a while.

  The kicker? My Uncle Vinnie set up a new identity for me, complete with all the proper paperwork to make my incarnation as Bowie Binx both viable and believable. He’s the one who gifted me Wanda, too. And just a fun side note: Bowie Binx is a partial concoction of my Uncle Vinnie’s favorite singer coupled with a surname his three-year-old granddaughter came up with on the fly to gift her imaginary kitten. It truly is special to be me.

  But regarding those visions—I should probably highlight the fact I have a penchant to misconstrue those peepholes into the future more often than not. Just last month there was a body that I all but predicted with my hit-and-miss psychic abilities, and because of the tiny detail I was found holding the murder weapon, I landed myself the top spot in a homicide investigation as a suspect. Thankfully, I was able to plow through the real list of suspects and winnow out the killer. Suffice it to say, whether I understand what they’re trying to tell me or not, I take my visions quite seriously.

  Opal Mortimer, the owner of the ritzy manor, strides into the café with an orange frilly dress and a thick black feathered boa strung over her shoulders. It looks more like something you might wear in October as opposed to May, but in the short time I’ve been here I’ve learned that nobody tells Opal a thing about anything. Opal is somewhere in her mid-eighties, gorgeous, and as my Nana Rose used to say, “the woman has got hutzpah.”

  “Bowie.” She fans herself with her fingers. Her sliver hair is smooth and neatly coiled around her neck. Her makeup is a bit on the dramatic side each and every day, with lots of black kohl rimming her eyes, dark red lipstick, and a dot of blush on each cheek. “Do see about turning up the AC in this place. It’s a bit of a warm day and the cats don’t care for the heat.” She drawls out each word like only a true socialite can.