Poisoned in Cherry Hills (Cozy Cat Caper Mystery Book 3)

by Paige Sleuth

  The way Tasha’s eyes flitted sideways when she said the words sent a tingling sensation crawling up Kat’s back. “You weren’t headed anywhere in particular?”

  Tasha’s gaze drifted to the back seat. “Champ wanted to go out.”

  Kat glanced at Champ, who had his nose pressed against the back window, his tail wagging. She’d never had a dog, but she suspected they preferred to roam around when they were outside. They didn’t typically beg to be loaded up into a car that would then be parked on the side of the road, did they?

  She reasoned that Tasha could have been in the process of driving Champ to the park, but that still didn’t explain why she was now stopped with no green areas in sight.

  Kat stilled as her eyes locked on to a white, plastic bottle on the floor of the back seat. From this distance, she could barely make out the words ‘super cleaner.’

  Every hair on the back of her neck stood up. She thought back to what Andrew had said about the poison responsible for Heidi’s death. The container in Tasha’s car certainly looked like the type that might hold an industrial-strength cleaning solution.

  “You just went really pale,” Tasha said, wrenching Kat back to the present. “Are you feeling okay?”

  Kat didn’t reply, her mind a whirl as she recalled the extent of Tasha’s distress after Heidi had died. Not long after their encounter in the women’s room, Kat had found that empty vial almost on top of the garbage can. She could kick herself now for not suspecting that Tasha had thrown it away herself.

  “You’re not going to faint or anything, are you?” Tasha said.

  “No.” Kat tried to muster up a smile but found she couldn’t. “I’m fine.”

  “You certainly don’t look fine.” Tasha reached across the passenger seat and pushed the door open. “Sit down for a second.”

  Kat had to strain to hear Tasha’s words over the blood rushing through her ears. Her overworked heart combined with the August heat had made her a little woozy. If she didn’t sit down there was a very good chance she might pass out.

  Besides, if she could keep her composure this might be her chance to coerce Tasha into blurting out something that would confirm her suspicions.

  She opened the door the rest of the way and perched on the edge of the seat.

  Champ leaned his head over the console and licked her face. Kat nudged him away, the sensation of warm dog saliva on her skin doing nothing to help her building nausea.

  “Close the door,” Tasha said. “I’ll turn the AC on until you cool off.”

  “I’m okay.” Kat didn’t make any move to pull her dangling legs inside. She wanted to be ready to run if the need arose.

  “I said, close the door.”

  The sharpness of Tasha’s voice prompted Kat to turn around. That was when she saw the gun pointed at her.

  Time seemed to stop, and every muscle in her body tensed. After an indeterminate number of seconds had passed, she somehow managed to lift her tongue high enough to stammer, “Wh—what are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m covering my tracks.”

  “What tracks?”

  Tasha rolled her eyes. “Don’t play dumb. I saw your expression when you spotted that bottle in the back.”

  Kat pried her mouth open to deny it, but realized there wasn’t much she could say. Even if she hadn’t seen what Tasha thought she had, with Tasha holding her at gunpoint there wasn’t much chance of walking away now.

  “I should have tossed it earlier, but I thought it might come in handy again,” Tasha went on. She looked Kat right in the eye. “For when I needed to get rid of your little cop pal.”

  The air caught in Kat’s lungs. “So it was Andrew you meant to kill last night.”

  “Yes. Last week I overheard somebody saying how he was going to attend the 4F dinner. That’s when I bought my own ticket and filched that bottle of cleaner from the janitor’s closet where I work. I made sure to carry some in my purse in case I found the opportunity to use it.” Tasha’s face fell. “I never thought I’d end up killing the wrong person.”

  Kat wrapped her arms around herself as a shiver traveled through her body. The extent of Tasha’s premeditation turned her blood cold.

  Tasha jabbed the gun into Kat’s ribs. “Now get in the car.”

  Kat reminded herself to breathe as she pulled her legs into the vehicle, despite how each inhale seemed to bring the gun’s muzzle that much closer to her skin. Her motions felt rigid and unnatural, as though she were learning to move again after spending months in a coma.

  “Good. Now close that door,” Tasha ordered.

  Kat reached for the door handle, briefly entertaining the wild idea of throwing her body onto the sidewalk. But when her brain kicked into gear a moment later, she realized how pointless such an attempted escape would be. Even if she somehow managed to make it out of the car alive, Tasha would undoubtedly either run her over or shoot her before she could get far enough away.

  Kat pulled the door closed, a sickness spreading throughout her insides when she heard the locks engage.

  “That’s better,” Tasha said.

  Kat forced her gaze to the driver’s side, trying not to panic. She looked out the window, scanning the outside of the police station in search of someone she could signal for help. The parking lot was empty.

  Her eyes traveled downward to Tasha’s hands, and she wondered if she should make a pass for the gun. Given how it was pressed up against her rib cage, she didn’t dare risk it.

  As much as she hated the thought, her best option seemed to be to do whatever Tasha wanted until a better opportunity to escape presented itself. Meanwhile, maybe she could keep Tasha talking, giving her more time to think of a way out of this situation.

  “I don’t understand,” Kat began. “What do you have against Andrew?”

  Tasha’s face darkened. “He put Jake away.”

  “Your fiancé,” Kat filled in.

  Tasha nodded. “All he did was drive home drunk once. Nobody deserves to go to prison for that.”

  “But he killed two people,” Kat reminded her.

  Tasha’s head reared back as if she’d been slapped. “Not on purpose! And it was snowing. Anybody could have lost control of their car in those conditions.”

  “The snow was all the more reason why he should have called a cab, or you,” Kat argued, a spark of anger penetrating her fear. “Even if the weather did contribute to the accident, his reflexes were compromised.”

  “I know that,” Tasha spat. “And I’m not saying he wasn’t in the wrong. But to be convicted of homicide?” She shook her head. “That was completely unnecessary.”

  “What kind of punishment do you think he deserved instead?”

  “Something like community service. Revoke his license or whatever. But not prison. That’s going overboard.”

  Kat didn’t say anything. She couldn’t help but recall how stricken Rebecca had looked this morning. Kat was pretty sure that from her point of view, Jake couldn’t possibly receive a sentence severe enough to fit his crime.

  “And your cop pal Andrew is the main reason why Jake’s been sent away to rot,” Tasha continued, her voice hard. “If he hadn’t been so gung ho about building that case, Jake would have gotten a sentence more in line with his crime. Then I wouldn’t have been left all alone.”

  Kat stared at Tasha, the pain etched on her face illuminating her motive with crystal clarity. Tasha wasn’t as upset about Jake serving time for vehicular homicide as she was about how she had lost her fiancé as a result. In her mind, she was the one being punished for a crime she had no control over.

  “What about you?” Kat said, jerking her chin toward the cleaning solution in the back. “What kind of sentence do you think you deserve for deliberately murdering somebody?”

  Tasha glared at her. “What I’m doing is making sure justice is served.”

  “Justice?” Kat scoffed. “You killed an innocent person.”

 
“That was an accident. If Andrew had been sitting where he was supposed to, she never would have died.”

  Kat’s hands curled into fists. If it weren’t for the pistol jammed into her side, she would be sorely tempted to reach across the console and strangle the woman seated next to her.

  “You know Andrew and Jake used to belong to the same bowling league?” Tasha said. “This was years ago, but my point is that he knew all about Jake’s good qualities too. But did he bother to include any of that in his case report?”

  “No matter what his relationship with Jake was, he has to present the case as he sees it.”

  Tasha snorted. “Please. He was the lead detective. He could have convinced the D.A. or the police chief or whoever to go for a lighter sentence. He could have shown Jake some leniency. But did he bother to do any of that? No.”

  Kat didn’t say anything. She knew no matter how she tried to defend Andrew it wouldn’t matter. To Tasha, it wasn’t a question of whether Jake had deserved his sentence. It was whether she had deserved how that sentence affected her.

  Tasha sighed. “We were happy, you know.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Tasha said softly. “He was the only guy I’ve ever loved.”

  Kat realized the gun was no longer pressed as firmly against her body. If she could distract Tasha with talk of Jake, perhaps she could wrest her weapon away.

  “Tell me about him,” Kat said, sitting back as if they were just two girlfriends settling in for a chat about relationships.

  “He was great. I’d never met anybody like him.”

  “How’d you meet?” Kat asked, shifting a millimeter closer to the door.

  “He rescued me. My car broke down when I was on my way to Seattle. I managed to pull over to the side of the road, but my phone had died, I didn’t have a clue what was wrong, and everybody just kept driving by.” Tasha smiled. “Then there was Jake, pulling up behind me like a knight on a white horse.”

  Although Tasha’s eyes were on Kat, she didn’t seem to be really looking at her. Her face now had a dreamy expression on it, as though she were getting lost in her memories.

  “After he fixed up my car, he asked for my number,” Tasha said. “He called me later that same day, and that weekend he took me to this fancy restaurant in Wenatchee called . . .”

  Kat tuned out as her gaze drifted to the gun. Tasha was no longer gripping it with enough force to cut off the circulation in her fingers. Kat was tempted to make a grab for it, but her palms went sweaty whenever she noticed how close it still was to her ribs. If the gun went off during a struggle the bullet would most likely hit her, even if Tasha didn’t have time to aim at anything in particular.

  “I mean, he had his faults,” Tasha was saying. “Everybody has their faults, right? I wasn’t perfect either. But when I was with him everything just seemed easier.”

  Kat almost jumped out of her skin when Andrew slid into view outside the window.

  “Don’t move,” he said, his voice low and gravelly.

  Tasha gasped, her head whipping around. She blanched when her eyes alighted on the service weapon Andrew had aimed squarely at her chest.

  Kat choked down a cry of relief. She didn’t think she had ever been more thrilled to see anyone in her entire life.

  “Wh—what are you doing here?” Tasha stammered.

  “Arresting you.”

  Deciding to take advantage of the situation, Kat fumbled for Tasha’s now abandoned gun. She somehow managed to pick it up and toss it through the passenger window in spite of how badly her fingers were trembling.

  Andrew didn’t even glance in her direction. Kat wasn’t sure if he already knew about the gun, or if he was too focused on Tasha to notice what she was doing.

  “You need to exit the vehicle,” he said. “Slowly.”

  Tasha’s eyes grew wider, but she dutifully reached for the door lock. Her hands were now shaking as violently as Kat’s were.

  Champ barked and tried to clamber into the front seat. Kat reached behind her and held onto his collar. If Andrew ended up discharging his weapon, she would hate for the Labrador to be injured incidentally.

  Andrew took a step backward as Tasha’s door creaked open. “Move slowly, and keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Tasha did as he instructed. The fight seemed to have left her body. Her shoulders were slumped as she unfolded herself from the vehicle.

  “Okay, now turn around and put your hands on the roof of the car,” Andrew commanded.

  Tasha set her palms on the roof. “How did you know it was me?”

  “I didn’t until I saw you out here holding Kat hostage.” Andrew slipped his firearm into his shoulder holster and exchanged it for a set of handcuffs, which he wasted no time securing around Tasha’s wrists.

  Confident that she was finally safe, Kat threw the passenger door open and leapt out of the car, gulping in deep breaths of air. Champ scrambled after her, barking as he tried to run to the other side of the vehicle. Kat slipped his leash around her wrist and leaned against the sedan, unsure whether she would be able to restrain him otherwise.

  Andrew looked at her over the top of the car. “Backup is on its way.”

  Kat nodded. Seconds later she saw two uniformed officers charging out of the station. They sprinted through the parking lot and across the street in record time.

  Andrew handed over Tasha. “Read her her rights, and I’ll meet you all back inside.”

  “Roger that.”

  Tasha stole one last mournful glance at Champ as the officers led her away, perhaps already sensing she would never see him again. For that one second, Kat actually felt sorry for her.

  Now that the immediate danger had passed, Kat realized exactly how close she’d come to joining Heidi in the morgue. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed against the car.

  “Hey,” Andrew said softly, steadying her with a hand under one elbow. “You’re okay. You’re safe now.”

  Kat looked up at him, feeling a surge of gratitude. “You showed up just in time.”

  He grinned. “Lucky for you, I finally broke for lunch. I’ve been so swamped I didn’t have time to eat earlier.”

  “You have no idea how glad I am right now for your heavy workload.”

  “You can thank Chief for that. I’m taking back everything I said yesterday about him not being a slave driver.”

  Kat laughed. Although she still felt weak, some of her strength was returning.

  “Did you catch anything Tasha said in the car?” she asked.

  “Just enough to get the gist of things.” Andrew looked around before his eyes landed on hers again. “I’ll fill in the blanks when I take your statement. Afterward, why don’t you come to Jessie’s with me? I’ll buy you a milkshake.”

  She glanced at Champ, who hadn’t stopped whimpering since Tasha had disappeared into the police station. He kept pacing back and forth, his eyes fixed on the station entrance.

  Kat’s heart went out to the dog. “I’d love to, but I need to attend to Champ,” she told Andrew. “He’s pretty agitated.”

  “What are you going to do with him?”

  “I’ll call Imogene so we can place him with a foster home.” She frowned. “Assuming Tasha won’t be able to care for him anymore, he’s now officially homeless again.”

  “If you’d like, I’ll give you both a ride to Imogene’s.” Andrew regarded her, his head slanted in concern. “You don’t look like you’re in any shape to be driving at the moment.”

  She couldn’t argue with him there. With the adrenaline rush rapidly wearing off, her knees felt as if they were made of jelly.

  “Then I’ll take your statement and buy you that milkshake.” His eyes twinkled. “Maybe I’ll even convince Jessie to add a little shot of something to the mix.”

  She smiled, holding onto his arm as she took a step forward. “How can I refuse an offer like that?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Kat was enjoying a quiet even
ing at home that night when her cell phone rang. She was all set to ignore it until she glimpsed Andrew’s name on the caller ID.

  “Hi,” she answered, muting the television.

  “Hi, yourself,” Andrew replied. “Are you busy?”

  “Right now?” Kat glanced at Matty and Tom curled up next to her on the sofa. “Not really.”

  “I’d like to come over and personally thank you for solving my case,” he said. “If it weren’t for you, who knows what Tasha might have tried when I left the station this afternoon.”

  His statement sent a shiver down Kat’s spine. She dreaded to think of what Tasha had planned for Andrew when she’d camped out in front of his place of employment with a gun in the front seat and a bottle of toxic cleaner in the back.

  “I’m only a couple blocks from your apartment,” Andrew continued. “Mind if I stop by?”

  “No.” Kat reflexively patted her hair into place. “Come on over.”

  They disconnected, and she threw her phone onto the coffee table before flying into the bathroom. She was able to give herself a two-minute makeup refresher before Andrew rang from downstairs and she buzzed him in.

  Her stomach fluttered as she waited for him to make it up to her unit. She itched to open the door so there would be no delays when he did arrive, but thought that might make her seem too anxious.

  As Kat strained to detect any sounds from the hallway, Matty watched her with one eye open, clearly wondering if her human had gone bonkers. Tom had evidently decided her restless energy was good for something and ambled over for some attention.

  Kat only managed one scratch between Tom’s ears before a knock on the door made her jump two feet into the air. She spun around and swung the door open.

  Andrew smiled at her as he stepped inside. “Hi.”

  “Hey.” She shut the door behind him.

  “Hi, big guy,” Andrew said, reaching down to rub Tom, who rolled onto the floor to expose his belly.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Kat offered.

  “Nah, I just wanted to stop by for a minute since I was in the neighborhood.”

  “Oh.” Kat tried to push her disappointment aside.