by Tasha Black
“Nope, nope, nope,” she said to herself as she slipped under the steaming water.
But she suspected it might be too late for her.
She had talked with Spenser twice. Each time the air between them seemed to shimmer with the magnitude of their mutual lust.
She had walked away shaken both times, and hadn’t been able to think of much else for a long time afterwards.
“Focus,” she told herself. “Could be a big day today.”
The chief would be announcing the new Community First task force today.
Natalie loved the work she did with the kids in the community, both on duty and off. She knew she was young to head up a task force, but it felt like a great fit. And even if she didn’t get chosen to lead, the mere existence of the task force in the first place would be the culmination of a lot of lobbying on her part.
“A big day, no matter what,” she congratulated herself as she finished up her shower and headed back to her room to get dressed.
A few hours later, she was ensconced at her desk, a cup of coffee in one hand, and a phone in the other.
“What kind of cat is it?” she asked.
“I don’t know, just… a black one,” the lady on the other end said anxiously.
“A kitten? An older cat?” Natalie asked, jotting down notes.
“I guess kind of like a teenager,” the woman replied, sniffing. “I just got him at the shelter last week.”
“Like a young cat?” Natalie asked.
“Yes,” the woman said.
“Is he wearing a collar?” Natalie asked.
“No, I want him to be able to chase mice,” the woman said. “So I didn’t put anything noisy on him.”
Natalie managed to stifle her desire to give a lecture on why pets needed collars. The lady was clearly seeing the error of her ways.
“Is he micro-chipped?” she asked instead.
“Yes, he has a chip,” the lady replied.
“That’s great,” Natalie praised her. “It was really smart for you to do that. And I’ll bet when we find him we can find a lightweight collar that won’t slow him down when he’s chasing mice, right?”
“Yes, officer, absolutely,” the woman promised.
“Don’t worry, we’re going to do all we can to track him down,” Natalie told her. “And I will reconnect with you by the end of the day one way or the other.”
“Th-thank you,” the woman sniffed.
“That’s my job,” Natalie told her.
They hung up, and Natalie headed to the break room to refill her coffee. It was going to take time to call all the local shelters. If that didn’t work out, she’d head over to Arbor Avenue and search on foot.
She thought bitterly about the time she’d wasted trying to find the last crop of lost pets, when it turned out her own mentor had rounded them up and taken them for training without telling anyone.
Harvey Smalls was a good mayor, whose heart was absolutely in the right place. And he was usually a great mentor, especially since Natalie didn’t have much support from her family. She had no siblings, and she wasn’t close with her parents, so she appreciated the guidance she got from Harvey all the more. And he was usually right on the money with his advice, both career and personal.
But she had to admit that his recent efforts to singlehandedly make Stargazer into some kind of model town had been a bit misguided, at best.
And Natalie wondered if fewer skateboarders and barking dogs would really make any impression at all on the big corporation that was coming to Stargazer to look at opening an executive campus in town.
She shook her head as she poured out another cup of joe.
“Busy morning?” Lance, one of the other officers asked.
She wasn’t really what you would call close with any of her coworkers, but Lance was probably the one she would be most likely to call a friend. He was kind, and seemed to like the job almost as much as she did.
“Lost cat at 108 Arbor Avenue,” she told him.
“What color?” he asked.
“Black,” she replied. “Young cat, male.”
“Hey,” Lance said. “Do you think that could have anything to do with the black cat those people found at 110 Arbor Avenue?”
“Do I think the lost cat at 108 has anything to do with a found cat at 110?” Natalie asked, laughing. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it does. What’s the name of the homeowner at 110 again?”
“Lemme check,” Lance said.
She followed him to his desk.
“It’s Nuñez,” he told her, reading his notes. “I’ll call them.”
“Nah, it’s my lunch break anyway,” Natalie said. “I’ll stop by on my way to Burger Planet.”
“Suit yourself,” Lance said.
A few minutes later, she drove down Arbor Avenue and pulled over in the shade of a scarlet leafed street tree.
When she stepped up onto the porch of 110, she could hear the happy sounds of children squealing over something, presumably the neighbor’s cat.
She rang the bell.
A man opened the door, he was carrying a half of a peanut butter sandwich. A small toddler in a rainbow dress clung to his leg and looked up at Natalie with wide eyes.
In the background someone was chanting, “Cat! Cat! Cat!”
“Are you here about the cat?” the father asked hopefully.
“I’m here about the cat,” she confirmed.
“Thank God,” he said.
The chanting child appeared with the other half of the peanut butter sandwich. She looked nearly identical to her sister. This poor guy had more than he could handle.
A small cat trailed in the child’s wake, appearing to be more interested in the sandwich in her hand than in the girl.
“Who does it belong to?” he asked.
“Would you believe me if I told you it lives next door?” she asked.
He threw his head back and laughed.
“She just got it last week,” Natalie said, smiling. “Do you want me to bring it over?”
“No, no, the girls and I will bring the cat back to its owner, right girls?” he asked hopefully.
The girls took the news with good cheer, but in fairness, they probably didn’t know what he was talking about.
Natalie headed back out to her car and watched as the dad carried the cat over to the house next door, toddlers in tow, and presented the missing feline to its very grateful owner.
He waved to Natalie on his way back home with the kids.
“Thank you so much, Officer West,” the cat’s owner called to her tearfully.
“My pleasure,” Natalie called to them. “You all have a great day.”
Moments like these were the best part of the job. Unlike some of her colleagues, Natalie hadn’t gotten into this line of work for over-the-top excitement of any kind. She loved her town and wanted to help.
She hopped back in the car and had almost made it to Burger Planet when her radio crackled to life.
“Hey Merle,” she said.
“They need you over at the mayor’s house,” Merle said in a worried voice, abandoning any attempt at police jargon and just sounding like a person in distress.
“What’s up?” Natalie asked.
“Just get there as soon as you can,” Merle said, clicking off.
2
Natalie
Natalie stood in the mayor’s study, a pleasant, shadowy room where she had spent countless quiet hours talking with her mentor about her dreams for the community.
Today, the brocade drapes had been thrown open to let in muted sunlight from the shaded patio on the other side of french doors.
It would have been pretty, except that the prone, lifeless body of Harvey Smalls lay on the floor behind his desk.
Natalie wrapped her arms around her shoulders and willed herself to breathe.
“This looks open and shut to me,” Chief Roberts said. “He had a known allergy. There’s an open container of food on the desk. Looks li
ke he just didn’t have his epipen handy.”
“He always had it handy,” Natalie said automatically.
“Well, maybe not handy enough,” the chief replied.
“Check the top desk drawer,” Natalie said, turning to look out the french doors and into the mayor’s idyllic backyard to try and center herself.
She could hear someone rummaging around in the desk behind her.
“Nothing in here, Chief,” Lance said.
“That can’t be right,” Natalie said. “He always kept one near him, always. He was incredibly careful about his allergy.”
She stepped over and looked in the drawer herself.
Lance was right. There were sticky notes, pens and pencils, and a few papers. But there was no epipen.
She sighed.
In the next room, she could hear a low, animal whine.
“Barker Posey,” she said, remembering the mayor’s beloved dog.
“We put her in her crate,” Lance said. “She was kind of freaking out.”
Of course she was. The poor thing was probably confused and terrified. Natalie was feeling a bit of both herself.
“I’ll take her home with me,” Natalie said. “Is that okay, Chief?”
“Sure,” the chief replied. “It’s that or the shelter. He doesn’t have any family nearby that I know of.”
“Look, I’m going to deal with the dog for now,” Natalie said. “But please, promise me we’ll keep this case open. Harvey would never have eaten a bite of something without checking for nuts. And he definitely wouldn’t have been without an epipen. And the food right on the table, that feels too convenient to me. There’s something fishy about all of this.”
“Natalie,” the chief said. “Walk with me.”
She allowed him to take her arm and walk her down the hall to where the mayor’s dog shivered in her crate.
The enormous Saint Bernard looked almost small with fear. She gazed up at Natalie, her dark eyes filled with sadness.
I hear you, girl.
“Listen, I know how much the mayor meant to you,” the chief said kindly. “No one would blame you for having big feelings on this. But it’s clearly a terrible, tragic accident.”
“But Chief—” Natalie began.
“I’m going to have to ask you to let this go,” the chief said. “We’re not going to investigate this as a force, and I’m asking you not to investigate it on your own. You’re not thinking clearly right now, but I know you care about this community. You wouldn’t want to upset everyone over something that’s clearly not a murder.”
When he used the word murder it gave her a moment of pause. She had been thinking there was a little more to it. But would someone really murder the mayor?
“To make it easier on you, I’m giving you a week off with pay,” the chief went on. “Take some time and mourn. We’ll be here when you get back.”
“Thank you,” she heard herself say. Her voice sounded far away.
“This force is a family,” he said, thumping her once on the back. “Call if you need anything. And try to get some rest, and remember to eat. Margaret will stop by with a casserole.”
Margaret was the chief’s wife. She was famous for her numerous, inedible casseroles. And for her warm hugs.
“Thank you,” Natalie said again, grabbing Barker Posey’s leash. “I’ll just get her out of here.”
Thanks for reading the sample of Spenser!
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Tasha Black lives in a big old Victorian in a tiny college town. She loves reading anything she can get her hands on, writing paranormal romance, and sipping pumpkin spice lattes.
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