The 9 Lives Cozy Mystery Boxed Set

by Louise Clark

  He looked up at the sound of her footsteps—a good-looking man on his way out of middle age into his senior years. His eyes were an intense gray fringed with black lashes. Sharp and clear, they inspected her without apology. Christy smiled at him, not at all put out because she was inspecting him in much the same way.

  He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and his silver hair, still shot through with black in places, was worn long and tied back in a ponytail. Between his gardening and his clothes she guessed he must be retired, able to do and dress as he pleased.

  "Hi," she said, holding out her hand. "I'm Christy, your new neighbor two houses down."

  His handshake was little more than a brush of skin touching skin, then it was over. Strange, she thought. That was a woman's handshake. "Roy Armstrong," he said.

  "Nice to meet you." She looked around her and gestured vaguely. "What a lovely complex this is."

  Roy looked around too, his expression rather critical. "Modern and suburban," he said. "Good for bringing up kids. You have one, I'm told."

  Christy stifled a little gasp. "Boy, news travels quickly around here."

  Roy grinned. "If you know the right people. Now, our on-site manager lives in that house over there—" He pointed to a townhouse across the road from where they were standing. "—and he likes to share his news whenever he gets it. Since I'm on the neighborhood watch and usually around, I tend to be the first person he fills in."

  "Oh," Christy said, feeling rather overwhelmed.

  Roy noticed a decaying blossom and plucked it off of the tangle of Shasta daisies that were growing with wild abandon in his planter box. He grinned at the dubious note in her voice. "We're a small complex, so we tend to know each other pretty well. You'll get used to it."

  "I suppose so." Wanting to get his enquiring mind away from her, who she was, and what her aspirations for the future were, she searched for a new topic of conversation. "Armstrong. You know, that name sounds familiar."

  He shrugged in a nonchalant way, but she could have sworn that he tensed. "It's a common enough name."

  "That's true, but I'm sure I've heard it fairly recently. Armstrong, now where—" She broke off to look at him more closely. He met her gaze levelly, but with a trace of resignation in his expression. "Your face seems familiar too." She laughed in a self-depreciating way, aware that she was making him uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, don't mind me. I have the most lamentable memory. I've probably seen you at the grocery store and not realized it."

  He raised one still-dark brow. A faint smile curled his firm lips.

  There was something about that smile, something Christy couldn't pinpoint, an amusement that said he knew where she'd seen him, but he wasn't telling. "Well, I guess I should be going. I've still got loads of unpacking to do. This is Noelle's—she's my daughter, in case you need some info for the on-site super—first day of school so I want to make good use of my quiet time before she gets home."

  Roy nodded and smiled. "Nice to meet you, Christy."

  "And you too." It came to her suddenly where she'd seen his face and why she knew his name. "Oh!" she said, smiling with excited pleasure. "You're Roy Armstrong, the writer! I've seen your picture on the dust jackets of your books."

  "You caught me," said Roy.

  He smiled in what she guessed was his I'll-be-polite-to-fans smile and she decided she'd wait until she got to know him better before she started asking him what it was like to be a Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author. But she couldn't go without expressing how much she enjoyed his writing. "I really love your books, Mr. Armstrong. It's a privilege meeting you."

  "Thank you," he said in a dignified voice. The door to his townhouse opened and a man stepped out. Roy looked over, frowning. Much younger than Roy Armstrong, the man held a bowl in one hand and a bag of dry cat food in the other. On the porch he crouched down to put the bowl at the edge of the top stair. He was concentrating on his task and apparently didn't notice Christy and his father standing on the sidewalk chatting.

  But Christy noticed him. Oh boy, did she notice him. She stood frozen in place, goggling at him with complete horror.

  "My son," Roy Armstrong said to Christy. "Quinn," he said to his son, "I told you, the cat isn't coming back. There's no sense in putting out food for him. You'll just attract every stray in the neighborhood."

  "The cat will come back," Quinn said, dogged determination in his voice. "He's used to coming to us for his food. He'll be hungry. He'll be back." He shook food into the bowl.

  Roy advanced to the porch, shaking his head. "Quinn, listen to me. He's on a mission. He's not coming back."

  Quinn made a disgusted sound in his throat. "Come off it, Dad. Cats don't go on missions. They chase mice and climb trees and eat packaged cat food when it's offered, then they find a warm place to sleep because they like their comfort." He looked up at Roy. "He'll be back—Well, well, well. Who is this?" he said in a tone that was somewhere between gleeful and smug.

  Roy glanced from his son to Christy. He frowned as he made the introductions. "Quinn Armstrong, this is our new neighbor, Christy... I'm sorry, I didn't catch your last name."

  Quinn started down the porch stairs. "It's Jamieson, Dad. Christy Jamieson."

  His use of her name released Christy from her horrified trance. "Nice to meet you," she said. "Gotta go. See you!" She sprinted for the relative safety of her townhouse feeling Quinn Armstrong's eyes burning into her back every step of the way.

  Chapter 3

  At two thirty Christy wiped her hand over her sweaty forehead and blew out an exhausted sigh. She'd been unpacking since she'd run from Quinn Armstrong hours earlier. Her clothes were put away and Noelle's toys arranged in the family room off the kitchen. The kitchen itself was still a mess, but she'd leave that until tomorrow. For now she'd done a terrific job and it was time to quit so she could go over to the school to pick up Noelle.

  She changed out of the shorts she'd worn while she worked into a pair of vivid blue cropped pants that were cool, but a little more respectable than the comfortable cut-off shorts. She quickly brushed her hair, then, satisfied she looked neat, but not overdressed for an excursion to the school, she ran lightly down two flights of stairs to the door. There she paused long enough to put on her sandals before she headed out.

  And stopped dead.

  Quinn Armstrong was sitting on her porch steps, peeling the bark off a stick. He didn't look up when she emerged, but he said, "Nice trick you pulled, telling me you weren't available, expecting me to respect your privacy, then moving out of your home without leaving a forwarding address."

  Standing behind him, Christy was unable to judge his expression. She could see his long fingers as they tore at the bark, though. They were beautiful fingers, narrow and agile. She wondered if his relentless peeling of the twig was a satisfying way for him to rid himself of the frustration her actions must have caused. "I didn't—don't!—want to talk to you."

  "Yeah," he said, tossing the twig aside. "I kind of got that one."

  She tried to brush by him. "Excuse me, I have to—" He caught her ankle in one hand, stopping her cold. "Let go."

  "Not so fast, sweetheart. We've got a conversation to finish."

  She tugged cautiously, testing his hold. Those long, surprisingly strong fingers tightened, keeping her still. "I have to pick up my daughter."

  He looked up at her, his expression thoughtful.

  Her breath caught as their gazes met. His dark gray eyes, fringed by black lashes and marked by arched, black brows, set off the hard angles of his face. Shaken, she ripped her gaze away and tugged her leg again. Quinn Armstrong was a good-looking man, but he was a reporter, a member of a profession she disliked on principle. She could not—would not!—be attracted to him.

  Quinn released her and stood in one fluid motion. "I'll come with you," he said. "We can talk as we walk."

  Christy squared her shoulders, avoiding his eyes as she brushed past him. "I told you I don't want to talk to you. I'm
not giving you an interview."

  "Sure you are," he said, falling into step.

  Incensed, she looked over at him. He was smiling at her, the jerk. She tossed her head in defiance and denial. "No, I am not."

  "Like I said, sure you are. You just don't know you are. Yet."

  In the ten years she'd been married to Frank Jamieson, Christy had learned a few survival skills that she'd never needed as plain, ordinary Christy Yeager. One of them was how to ignore people who would hound a person for a cause, for help on a committee or two, or for the endorsement of an event or a product. Worthy people, nice people, decent people, all demanding more than one individual could give, because all of them assumed they were the only ones who wanted something.

  Sometimes an explanation that her time was fully committed or she didn't do endorsements, or that the Jamieson Trust handled all of the charitable donations worked and she'd be left alone. Other times a polite explanation just wasn't enough. Then she'd learned to walk with her head high and pretend the person harassing her wasn't there yapping at her like a small dog endowed with too much testosterone.

  That's what she did to Quinn now, marching along with eyes straight ahead, arms swinging by her sides as if she was walking over to the school all on her own.

  "You might as well talk to me," Quinn said in a conversational way.

  Christy pretended to ignore him, even though she couldn't shut him out. She was very much aware of his big body beside hers as they walked and she could feel his eyes watching her.

  "I'm not going to stop pestering you until I get an interview."

  Christy glanced at her watch. She was in good time to get to the school before classes were dismissed. She did not want to be late picking Noelle up on her first day.

  "I can do it, you know."

  Christy paused at a crosswalk, waited until the crossing guard indicated it was safe to walk, then headed onto the road. The school was within sight now. She had two or three more minutes of pretending she was alone and then she'd be at her destination.

  "I know where you live."

  Quinn's final thrust bit cleanly, threatened danger. No, promised danger. Her sanctuary was being violated, the new home where she planned to sort out her life, where she assumed she would be just another suburban mom, invisible to intrusive reporters like Quinn Armstrong.

  On the far side of the street she stopped. As she faced him, she once again reacted to the impact of those intense gray eyes. She pushed the shiver of awareness aside. "What you are describing is harassment," she said crisply. "Try it and I'll have my lawyer slap a restraining order on you so you won't be able to come within five hundred feet of me." She whirled away to continue at her previous brisk pace.

  He followed. "You won't get an order like that. You'd be evicting me from my own house. Think of the kind of damage this could do to neighborhood relations."

  Christy heard amusement in Quinn's voice as he made the last statement. It was almost her undoing. She wanted to laugh at the rueful comment, but she knew she couldn't. If she did, Quinn Armstrong would consider it a crack in her defenses and he'd slither inside before she could stop him. "Like I care about neighbor relations when one of the neighbors is the reporter who's harassing me," she said, shooting him her 'Stern Mom Disciplining Rowdy Child' expression.

  "You wouldn't be sorry if you talked to me. I've got lots of dope on Frank Jamieson. I know that he's the one who embezzled from the trust, which makes you a victim of his crime, not his accomplice. I'd write the article with that point of view."

  Just outside the door to the school, Christy stopped again. "Mr. Armstrong, please allow me to be clear. I do not trust reporters. I do not want to be profiled in the media. What my husband is doing and has done is his business, possibly mine, but certainly not yours. I will not be giving you an interview, now or in the future. Please accept that and save us both a lot of trouble." She turned away without waiting for his reply.

  As she pulled the door open, he said, "Not a hope, sweetheart."

  The only indication she gave that she'd heard him was the faintest of pauses and the tremor that ran through her body. She entered the school, childishly pleased when the door slammed behind her with the finality of a shotgun blast.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, the phone rang. Noelle was sitting in the breakfast nook, reluctantly coloring in a nameplate for her desk at school. The handset rested on the counter nearby.

  Christy eyed the phone warily and let it ring. She half expected the caller to be Quinn Armstrong with another pitch for an interview, and she wasn't prepared to discuss the issue with him.

  Noelle looked up. "Are you going to get the phone, Mom?"

  A month ago she would have let one of the staff answer. Then, she didn't have to worry about fending off pushy reporters or aggressive sales pitches. She hadn't realized how pampered she had become until now when the support of a household of servants was gone.

  She and Noelle stared, fascinated, as the phone rang again. "Mom?"

  The phone had call display. She picked up the handset, but the number wasn't one she knew. It was a local number, though. What if it was Quinn Armstrong calling to pester her about an interview?

  "You're going to let it go to voicemail?" Noelle said. "Cool! I get to pick up the message."

  They hardly ever got phone calls, so voicemail was still a fascinating novelty for Noelle. What if Quinn Armstrong left a message and mentioned Frank? Noelle would ask questions. Questions Christy didn't want to answer.

  She punched the answer button and caught the call before voicemail clicked in.

  "Am I speaking to Christy Jamieson?"

  The voice belonged to a woman, not Quinn Armstrong. She knew those tones, but couldn't quite identify whom they belonged to. "Who's calling, please?"

  "It's Detective Billie Patterson of the Vancouver Police Department. I have further questions regarding your husband's disappearance, which I'd prefer to discuss in person. Will you be home in the next hour or so?"

  Christy thought about dinner routines and Noelle coloring at the kitchen table. If Billie Patterson came over now dinner would be late. Already cranky about her new school, Noelle would be looking for negatives. Their townhouse was fairly large, but it was a townhouse, not a mansion. If Noelle wanted to listen in on what her mother and their visitor said, she could, no problem. She'd hear every question Patterson asked, whether it related to her dad or attempted to implicate her mom. That was a trauma Christy wasn't prepared to have her eight-year-old daughter endure.

  Then she thought about Billie Patterson's car, parked out in front of her house. Most of her new neighbors might not guess that it was a police vehicle, but she'd bet Quinn Armstrong would. He'd take one look then he'd start to ask questions. She had a sneaking feeling that she'd crack before he would.

  She didn't want to give him any more ammunition.

  Altogether it would be better to take the meeting elsewhere, even though she was desperate to know the latest on Frank's disappearance.

  "Now's not a good time," Christy said. Her voice was husky, filled with emotion she knew would keep her awake most of the night. "Can we get together tomorrow morning?"

  * * *

  The meeting place was a coffee shop near the police station. Christy figured that was good, that Patterson didn't intend to haul her off to jail—right now, anyway. Still, she was nervous as she stood in the doorway of the bare-bones café looking for Billie Patterson.

  The main police station was located in the downtown east side, an area of prostitutes, runaway kids, drug dealers, and decent people struggling to make a living and bring up families in the poorest section of the city. The café reflected the reality of an area where life was lived on the edge of survival and there wasn't any extra for pretty nothings. The walls were painted a glossy green that had faded to a mere shadow of color. A row of booths lined one wall, while practical Formica tables and chairs with cold, steel frames and tired leatherette seats
filled the center of the small room. Two waitresses buzzed through the maze of tables with a competence born of experience.

  Packed with large men and tough-looking women drinking coffee, eating meals full of greasy protein, or buying takeout coffee and donuts, the place was doing non-stop business. Just inside the door was a counter where a burly man with sharp, inquisitive eyes manned the till and organized the take-out orders. As she hesitated in the doorway, scanning the room for Billie Patterson, he looked her over.

  Christy could feel herself blushing. Even though her outfit was gray, lightweight pants, a blue shell, and a black cloth jacket, the fabrics were finely woven and the garments were designer. Together, she guessed the clothes had cost as much as most of these people earned in a month. She worried her bottom lip. This was not her kind of place and everyone in the café knew it.

  Still, the man said politely, "Would you like a table?"

  Christy swallowed hard, fighting down panic born of worry and anticipation. "I'm here to see someone."

  The cashier's eyes narrowed, then he shrugged. "You're welcome to take a look. Grab a seat if your meet isn't here yet."

  Christy swallowed, smiled. "Thanks." Cautiously, she penetrated deeper into the room, scanning it. She had chickened out of parking nearby. She couldn't afford to have her new GM car stolen or vandalized while she talked to Billie Patterson, so she'd parked closer to the center of town and walked. Now she was five minutes late.

  She saw Patterson seated in a booth at the far end of the room. She slipped through the close-packed tables, ignoring the looks she could feel burning through her. It was a cop's job to notice and observe. She just wished they wouldn't observe her.

  Sitting with her back to the wall, facing the doorway, Billie Patterson didn't move as she watched Christy thread her way through the tightly packed tables. She nodded when Christy reached the booth. "Thanks for coming."