by Paige Sleuth
“Hi, Ron,” she said.
Ron paused from sorting envelopes. “Morning, Kat.”
“Why, hello there.” Maybelle sashayed across the lobby. “You postal workers don’t get Christmas Eve off?”
“No, ma’am.”
Maybelle’s lower lip jutted out. “That’s atrocious.”
After witnessing how Maybelle had acted around Andrew and Larry, Kat knew she shouldn’t be surprised by her coquettish behavior, but somehow she never would have pegged Ron as her type. With pale, almost translucent skin, the tall man was thin to the point of being sickly.
“You know what I ought to do?” Maybelle said, setting one hand on her hip.
“What’s that?” Ron asked.
“I ought to write my senators and tell them it’s just shameful the way they work you civil servants to death. If anybody deserves a day off, it’s you folks. Delivering mail through rain, sleet, and snow is bad enough.”
Kat sighed. “Maybelle, why don’t we go upstairs and let Ron do his job?”
Maybelle pivoted around to face her. “That’s my whole point. He shouldn’t have to do his job on the day before Christmas.”
“I’m all right, ma’am,” Ron said. “I’ll be off tomorrow.”
“I should hope so!” Maybelle replied. “Tomorrow’s Christmas.”
Kat took a step toward the elevator. “Let’s go, Maybelle.”
“Oh, Kat, you might want to take that with you.” Ron pointed to a thin, rectangular box on the floor.
“What is it?” Maybelle bent down, presumably to inspect the package although Kat wasn’t one hundred percent positive she wasn’t simply offering Ron a better view of her cleavage.
“Dunno,” Ron replied, his attention on the envelopes in his hand.
“Are you expecting anything?” Maybelle asked Kat.
She shook her head. “I ordered a . . .” She trailed off, deciding her mother wouldn’t appreciate the gift she had purchased for Matty and Tom. “I ordered something, but I missed the deadline to have it shipped before Christmas.”
Maybelle twisted around to study the package from another angle. “Maybe it came early.”
“That box is too small to be what I’m expecting.”
“It was here when I got here,” Ron piped up. “There’s no shipping label on it, just your name, Kat.”
Creeping closer, Kat saw he was right. ‘K. Harper’ was scrawled across the top, but both her address and a return address were conspicuously absent.
Her skin tingled. Whoever had left this had to have been inside her building.
“I wonder what it is,” Maybelle said, reaching for it.
“Wait!” Kat shouted.
The force of her exclamation sent Maybelle jumping back. Ron fell against the mailboxes, the envelopes in his hand scattering across the floor as his fingers flew to his throat.
Kat took a deep breath to calm her nerves. “I’m not sure we should touch it. It could be something dangerous.”
“Like what?” Maybelle asked.
“I don’t know. A bomb, maybe.”
“A bomb?” Ron screeched.
Maybelle’s eyes brightened. “I bet it’s from your secret admirer, the one who sent you those Aplets and Cotlets.” Before Kat could stop her, Maybelle picked up the box. “It’s light.” She held it up to her ear and gave it a shake. “Sounds like clothing.”
Ron relaxed, but Kat didn’t. She hoped it wasn’t lingerie.
Maybelle hugged the package to her chest. “Come on. We’ll open this upstairs.”
“Or, we could throw it away,” Kat suggested.
“Now you’re just being silly.” Maybelle flashed Ron a smile over her shoulder. “You have yourself a Merry Christmas.”
“You, too,” Ron replied before crouching down to gather up the dropped envelopes.
Kat and Maybelle didn’t speak as they took the elevator up to the third floor. The anxiety Kat had felt all throughout breakfast was back. As she walked down the corridor to her unit, she kept darting uneasy glances at the box in Maybelle’s hands.
Both Matty and Tom were lounging under the Christmas tree when the humans entered the apartment. The minute they saw Maybelle their eyes grew big and they sprang to their feet. Staying low to the ground as if that would prevent the enemy from detecting them, they scampered off to the bedroom.
Maybelle slid the box on the coffee table, kicked off her heels, and took a seat on the sofa. “Open it,” she said to Kat, practically bouncing up and down.
Kat sat next to her mother, but she didn’t reach for the box. “I should call Andrew first.”
“Oh, now. You’re not still stuck on that crazy bomb notion, are you?”
Given that the package had yet to explode, Kat was no longer concerned about a bomb. Still, opening a secret admirer’s gift without Andrew around felt tantamount to cheating on him.
Maybelle grabbed the box and dropped it in Kat’s lap before shoving her hand into her purse. “I’ve got a nail file in here you can use to cut through that tape.”
Kat sighed. Her mother obviously wasn’t going to give up.
Taking the nail file, Kat held her breath as she severed the tape. When she was able to lift the lid away from the box, a mass of tissue paper burst free.
Maybelle stuck her head closer, flooding Kat’s nasal cavity with her perfume. “What is it?” she asked.
Kat folded the tissue paper down. “Some pink fabric with flower blossoms on it.” She pulled it out and placed the box on the floor.
Maybelle snatched the fabric from Kat’s hands. “It’s a pashmina.”
Matty and Tom must have decided they didn’t dislike Maybelle enough for her to keep them away from a new box and a sea of tissue paper. They emerged from the hallway, making a beeline for the discarded gift packaging.
Maybelle pulled her legs up to her chest. “What are they doing?”
“Playing.”
Maybelle watched as Tom marched across the paper and Matty climbed into the box. “I thought they were charging at me. That big one looked like it was going to attack.”
If you keep calling him an ‘it,’ he just might, Kat thought.
Matty’s weight proved to be too much for the box. The sides collapsed underneath her. Undeterred, the tortoiseshell dug her claws into the bottom, turning it into a makeshift cat scratcher. Meanwhile, Tom had his head stuck under a section of tissue paper. After looking around, he shook the paper aside, exposing a cream-colored envelope.
Kat’s breakfast congealed in her stomach. “Look, another card.”
“What does it say?” Maybelle asked as she set her feet back on the floor.
Kat picked up the envelope and pulled out the card, reading the words aloud. “‘Seeing you is like spotting a spring blossom in the winter, something to keep me warm during the long, cold nights.’”
Maybelle clasped her hands together. “Oh, that’s delightful.”
“Don’t you mean disturbing?” Kat said, tossing the card onto the coffee table.
“For someone who was worried about receiving a bomb, you don’t seem very happy.”
“I’ll admit this is a smidgen better than a bomb.”
Maybelle grinned and held up the pashmina. “So, what are you going to do with this?”
“Give it to Andrew,” Kat replied.
Maybelle looked appalled. “You can’t give your boyfriend a pashmina for Christmas! This is for girls.”
“That’s not what I meant. There might be evidence on it.”
“Evidence? Evidence of what?”
“You know, fingerprints or microfibers, something that will tell us who left it here.”
“You mean hunt down your secret admirer?” Maybelle frowned. “But that would ruin the fun.”
Kat decided not to tell her this was only fun for one of them.
Maybelle yanked her purse into her lap and started rummaging through it. “I’ve got to text Stephanie. She’ll love this.”
; Still bothered by the reality of having a secret admirer, Kat barely felt even the slightest blip of jealousy when her mother proceeded to pull out her cell phone and once again ignored her in favor of texting Stephanie.
CHAPTER FIVE
Kat felt guilty for fleeing the apartment without inviting her mother along, but she needed a break. The way Maybelle had kept going on and on about Kat’s secret admirer made her want to scream. When Maybelle had actually draped the pashmina around her shoulders and proceeded to prance around the living room, she knew she had to get out of there.
Besides, it wasn’t as if she were going to stay out all day. She just needed an hour or so for herself. Matty and Tom would never forgive her if she left them alone with Maybelle for longer than that.
Kat drove aimlessly, her heart heavy. She had pictured this visit unfolding so differently. Was it possible too much damage had been done to her and Maybelle’s relationship to ever repair it? When she was growing up, she used to be envious of the foster kids who saw their parents regularly, even when they came home from visitation days spewing complaints. If she had fully understood what her own mother was like back then, maybe she would have been more sympathetic.
Kat played through the few childhood memories she had of Maybelle. Try as she might, she couldn’t remember all the flirting, makeup, and exuberance. Had she suppressed everything, or could a person really change that much in twenty years?
The Cherry Hills Police Department appeared up ahead. Although she hadn’t left the apartment with any particular destination in mind, she made a quick decision and veered into the parking lot. She wanted to tell Andrew about her newest anonymous gift anyway.
“Hey, Kat,” the officer manning the front desk said when she walked into the station. “You here for Andrew?”
“Yeah, is he in?”
“Sure is.” He nodded toward the door that led to the inner office. “Head on back if you’d like.”
Kat crossed the lobby. “Thanks.”
“Happy holidays.”
“You, too.”
The door to Andrew’s too-small office was open. She knocked once to announce her presence. “You accepting visitors?”
Andrew tore his eyes away from the computer monitor, a grin forcing his dimples out. “For you? Always.”
Kat worked her way into the lone visitor chair, angling her legs so her knees weren’t pressed against the front of the desk. “Sorry to barge in on you like this, but I needed a break from Maybelle.”
Andrew chuckled. “She can’t be that bad.”
“She’s worse.”
“Give it time. It might take a while before you’re comfortable around each other.”
“Well, if it doesn’t happen soon, it probably won’t ever happen.” The reality of her statement sparked an ache in Kat’s heart. “Tomorrow’s Christmas, and the next day she heads back to Estacada.”
“You realize you actually have to spend time with her if you want your relationship to improve, right?”
“I have spent time with her. All of yesterday evening and this morning.”
“That’s less than twenty-four hours,” Andrew said. “That’s hardly long enough to make up for the twenty years you were apart.”
“You’re right, I know.” Kat sighed. “I just thought this would be easier. I mean, we get along fine on the phone. I don’t understand how she can be so different in person.”
“Your phone conversations last for five minutes, during which you talk about the weather and what Matty and Tom did that week.”
“That’s another thing.” Kat sat up, feeling a burst of indignation. “Before yesterday she never once mentioned she hates cats.”
“I don’t think she hates them,” Andrew hedged.
“Oh, she hates them. Didn’t you hear how she kept calling Tom an ‘it’?”
“I doubt her intent was—”
“You know what really bugs me?” Kat interrupted, all of her pent-up frustration bubbling to the surface. “She lets me go on and on about the cats during our calls. And she laughs when I talk about them. She laughs. Then she gets here and acts like Matty and Tom are the devil incarnate. Was she even listening to what I was saying all those times on the phone, or was she just pretending?”
“I’m sure she—”
“And I’ll tell you another thing. I’m getting awfully tired of hearing about Stephanie. You’d think she only came back to Cherry Hills to see her old friend. In fact, if I hear that name one more time, I swear I’m going to lose it.”
Andrew gave her a soft smile. “Sorry things aren’t going better for you.”
“Me, too.” She sagged against the back of the chair. “Between putting up with Maybelle and getting another gift from this secret admirer, this is shaping up to be the worst Christmas ever.”
Andrew stilled. “You got another gift?”
Kat nodded. “A pashmina.”
“A pashmina?”
“It’s like a shawl. The box it came in was sitting by the mailboxes when Maybelle and I got home from breakfast. Whoever this person is, he had to have delivered it himself. It wasn’t postmarked, and my address wasn’t printed anywhere.”
Andrew half rose from his chair. “This guy was in your building?”
Kat lifted one shoulder. “Either that or he left the package outside the door and Larry or someone brought it in.”
Andrew didn’t reply, but Kat could tell from the set of his jaw that he wasn’t happy. He would probably like what she had to say next even less.
“There’s something else you should know,” she began.
Andrew sank back into his chair, his hands balling into fists as they landed on the desk. “What’s that?”
“A silver truck followed my mother and me around this morning.”
“You get a license plate number?”
She shook her head.
“Can you describe the driver?” Andrew asked.
“He stayed too far back. But Maybelle said she saw the same truck yesterday.”
“So Maybelle was the one being followed, not you?”
Kat frowned. “I’m not sure. Do you think he’s the person who’s been leaving me gifts?”
“Not necessarily. But we can’t rule it out either.”
Kat straightened, something clicking in her brain. “Now that I think about it, neither one of those gifts had my first name on them. They just had the initial K. What if they weren’t meant for me?”
“Who else would they be for?”
“Maybelle.”
“Then they would have been addressed to M. Harper.”
“K could stand for Kelly, the name she goes by down in Oregon.”
Andrew’s forehead furrowed. “But doesn’t she also go by a different last name there?”
“Watson,” Kat confirmed. “But this secret admirer might not know that. If he followed her to my place yesterday, he could have looked at the names on the buzzer, seen that a K. Harper lived there, and assumed it was her. I don’t think anybody else in the building has the same first initial as me.”
They stared at each other, unease swirling in Kat’s stomach. She pictured her mother throwing that pashmina over her shoulder and running her hands over the box of Aplets and Cotlets, pure joy stamped on her face.
“She liked the gifts,” Kat murmured.
“What?” Andrew said.
“Maybelle liked both of the gifts this guy left for her. No, scratch that. She loved them. It’s almost like her secret admirer is familiar with her tastes.”
“That would suggest she knows him.”
A chill made its way down Kat’s spine. “Either that or he’s been following her around for a lot longer than a day.”
CHAPTER SIX
Maybelle was sitting on the couch staring at her phone when Andrew and Kat walked into the apartment. She had plugged in the Christmas tree lights, and Kat had to admit the effect of all those twinkling red and white lights made the place seem more festive.
/> It was too bad Kat’s mood was anything but.
Maybelle looked up from her phone. “Kat, you’re home. And you brought your stud.”
“His name is Andrew,” Kat said, shutting the door a little too hard.
“I know what his name is.” Maybelle winked at Andrew.
Kat sat down on the couch opposite her mother. Matty jumped into her lap and gave her a look that Kat interpreted as the feline equivalent of a glare. Clearly the tortoiseshell hadn’t appreciated being left alone with their anti-cat houseguest.
Kat rubbed Matty’s ears, hoping there were no hard feelings. “Maybelle,” she began, “I was talking to Andrew about the pashmina and the candies.”
“Aren’t they wonderful?” Maybelle asked Andrew.
“No,” Kat interjected. “They’re not wonderful at all.”
Maybelle jerked back, and Kat realized she might have spoken more forcefully than she’d intended.
Andrew took a seat next to Kat. “Maybelle, we have some serious concerns about the items that have shown up here recently. For one thing, we have reason to believe they were meant for you and not Kat.”
Tom, who had been hunched in the box the pashmina had come in, lifted his head. A second later he scrambled to his feet and tiptoed away from the packaging, almost as if he wanted nothing to do with anything meant for Maybelle Harper.
“The items were addressed to K. Harper, but we were thinking the K could stand for Kelly instead of Kat,” Kat said.
“You mean this is mine?” Maybelle swiped the pashmina off of the coffee table and held it against her cheek.
“No,” Kat said. “I mean, yes, it was meant for you, but you can’t keep it.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s from somebody who could be dangerous. By accepting his gifts you’re encouraging him, and his behavior may escalate.”
Tom turned toward Maybelle and meowed, as though to drive home Kat’s point.
Andrew cleared his throat. “Maybelle, have you received anonymous presents in the past?”
She shook her head. “This is a first.”
“Whoever sent you these items appears to have an idea of what type of things you like,” Andrew said. “That suggests you might know each other.”