You've Got To Be Kitten: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Cozy Mystery

by Corrine Winters

  She hoped even more he would be alive when she did.

  Twenty-Two

  Ruby spotted dark shapes moving about on the deck of the forcibly dry-docked yacht. She admired her own precision; the hull remained lodged between the steep cliffside and a rocky outcropping, perfectly level.

  She called upon her Hyrdromancy Talent and summoned a fog to mask her approach. The wave below her slipped silently along, bearing her aloft as gently as an angel’s hand. She heard voices growing louder as she approached behind her fog of war.

  “…what good it will do us to get the yacht back in the water. There’s a whole in the hull I can put my foot through. I thought you checked the weather report?”

  “I did! It was supposed to be a maximum of two-foot swells on the Sound. That was a freak occurrence.”

  “Was it, now?”

  Ruby drew close enough she could have reached out her hand and touched the hull. She listened intently, recognizing one of the voices as Troy’s.

  “One rogue wave is chance, two is coincidence…you know what we call three or more?”

  “Um, three or more?”

  “No, moron, we call it enemy action. Don’t you read?” Malone heaved a sigh. “God, what a disaster. Everything was going fine until that stowaway got on board.”

  “I swept the yacht top to bottom. I don’t know where he was hiding.”

  Malone spat over the railing. It hit the beach below with a wet slap. “Doesn’t matter now. We just need to figure out what to do with him.”

  “I thought we were going to dump him out in the open ocean? In shark territory?”

  “He’s the Chief of Police. If he disappears, it’s going to be like kicking the hornet’s nest. The likelihood of our profitable little operation continuing to function without detection drops down toward slim to none.”

  “Then what do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know. Bring him on board, maybe. It would cut down on profits but then we’d have another set of eyes and ears in law enforcement.

  Another set? Do they have a mole in the Fiddler Cove police department?

  “In any event, we can’t do much of anything until Jonas gets here with my other yacht.”

  “I don’t want to take the risk of bringing him on board,” said the other, as yet unnamed man. Judging from his voice, he was around Malone’s age. “I’d rather just eliminate him.”

  “Slow your roll, man. Bodies always stir up a lot of questions. If we can’t appeal to his greed, we’ll appeal to his fear. Let him know what can happen to his family if he doesn’t cooperate.”

  “Does he even have family? Guy’s a loner.”

  “He’s got his bowling buddies; he has to care about them a little…I also think he’s sweet on that Ruby Rivers woman.”

  “The MILF you used to date?”

  We never dated! It was one, sweaty mistake and that was that.

  Ruby whispered the arcane syllables of a spell, one which would toxify the mist surrounding the dry-docked yacht. Not enough to kill, but more than enough to render anyone on deck unconscious.

  The men didn’t seem to notice at first as she seeded the air they breathed with sleeping potion.

  “She still looks pretty good. I’d do her.”

  Ruby rolled her eyes, face contorting in an ugly grimace. She had no idea what the man speaking to Malone looked like but, even if he were an Adonis, she’d never consider taking him to bed after that statement. Not in a million years.

  Besides, he sounded ugly.

  “Yeah, she looks pretty…” Malone yawned hugely. “…pretty fine indeed. Jonas needs to hurry up. I’m getting sleepy.”

  “We should be on the Atlantic, doing blow and doing hos, and instead we’re stuck on this rock.” He, too, stifled a yawn. “I sure hope another one of those freak waves doesn’t come along.”

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t…” Yawn. “I wouldn’t worry about that. Think I’m going to sit down for a minute.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Ruby waited until she heard their shallow breathing even out. She dismissed the anesthetic quality of the fog and commanded her wave platform to lift her higher. Ruby rose above the level of the deck, then stepped carefully off her waterspout and onto the yacht.

  Her platform twisted and undulated in the air behind her like a three-foot-thick serpent. It slithered along through the air in her wake. If she ran into trouble, she wanted a handy weapon to defend herself with.

  Ruby stepped over the two slumbering men on the deck. “I was right, he is ugly.”

  She made her way across the fog-slickened polished timbers of the yacht deck until she reached a door. The mist had found its way inside, and she encountered more slumbering passengers. Two bikini-clad women lay slumped against each other on the sofa. One man lay in an ungainly position across the coffee table, his rear thrust in the air and his face buried in a pile of white powder.

  Ruby noted two large men laying on the floor, both of them with guns holstered at their sides. Malone’s muscle? She didn’t recognize either of the men, who she pegged as being in their early twenties.

  No sign of John. They talked about him like he was still alive, but where is he?

  Ruby saw a set of stairs leading up. She took them slowly, using hands as well as feet like a child. She thrust her head up into the small bridge deck, which was barely large enough for a pilot, his seat, and the control console. The radio crackled with comm chatter, most of it from the coast guard.

  Ruby hoped that Malone hadn’t called for help from the Coast Guard. Most likely, he had not, but explaining her and John’s presence might be awkward.

  She headed back down the steps to the main deck, and found an as yet unexplored hatch. Ruby grasped the metal wheel and twisted it to the side. A heavy clunk heralded the door unlatching.

  Ruby shoved it open and looked down on the floor to find John laying in a heap. She gasped at the sight of blood running down his face.

  “John?” she knelt down beside him and checked for a pulse. She felt it beneath her fingers, steady and strong. His skin felt a bit cool to the touch. Other than that, he seemed fine. The ill-fitting clothing he wore suggested he’d mugged one of Malone’s guards upon getting on board.

  Ruby winced at the sight of the large knot on the back of John’s head. It had oozed blood down over his scalp and down his face while he lay chest-down inside the tiny supply room. It looked almost like a flesh volcano, puffed out and furrowed with a red caldera of rawness.

  “I’m not a doctor, but this doesn’t look good, John.” Ruby sighed. “Look, I’m an ethical witch. Water is the element that brings life, but I’m really not supposed to alter your body with magic unless you give me permission. It’s one of the rules they teach us at the academy.”

  She glanced about, searching for a first aid kit, but didn’t spy one in reach. “Look, John, I think I’m going to fudge on the rules just this one time, okay? I mean, you said we were friends, right? That sort of qualifies me to make medical decisions on your behalf. It’s not like I can call up the Undersea Kingdom and ask to speak to one of your relatives…assuming you even have any.”

  Ruby brought her tendril of water down into the room until its terminus hovered over John’s wrent scalp. She willed the amorphous blob down to envelop the wound. She expended much of her eldritch reserve, feeling it drain away as she poured healing energy into John’s head.

  She watched as the familiar miracle took place. The knot subsided, the angry red seam knitting itself together until only a dry scab remained. When the magic faded, his wound looked at least a week or two old, with no signs of infection.

  “Huh?” John struggled to sit up. His eyes focused on Ruby and he spoke in a slurred voice. “Ruby? Just a second, I’ve got to take off my clothes and swim over to Malone’s boat.”

  “Um, John,” she said, pulling his hands away from his purloined clothing. “You’re already ON Malone’s boat.”

  “I am?”

>   He winced, holding the back of his head. “what happened?”

  “Near as I can tell, you snuck on board, knocked out a guard, and stole his uniform, but somebody hit you over the head from behind.”

  “I don’t remember any of that.”

  “Not uncommon in the case of a concussion. Sorry, I repaired the physical damage, but your memory may or may not come back on its own.”

  “No, I’m getting flashes of it…I think I remember hearing someone’s footsteps behind me, then…” John winced again, then struggled to his feet. “If we’re on Malone’s ship, we have to be wary—”

  “It’s okay. Everyone else on board is asleep.”

  “What?”

  “They should stay asleep for a good while, so long as we don’t disturb them over much.” Ruby grinned. “Now I don’t know about you, but I’d love to find out what Malone has been smuggling. Shall we?”

  Twenty-Three

  John bent over to inspect the yacht’s deck closer. The shirt stretched past its breaking point and split down the middle of his back.

  “Settle down, Lou Ferrigno,” Ruby quipped.

  John chuckled as he sank to one knee for a closer look at the deck. “Did you know he’s deaf?”

  “No, I didn’t. I’d still give him my bar stool.”

  John laughed. “Me, too. Met him once at an airport. Real nice guy.”

  He slid his fingers along the wooden slats until they sank in slightly. John pried until an entire three foot section of the deck came up and away like a lid.

  “Jackpot.” John reached into the hole and felt around. A moment later he came back with a plastic wrapped bundle the size of a grocery bag. He tossed it on the deck and whipped out his pocket knife.

  “What is that?” She watched as John thrust the blade of the knife into the wrap, gently prying it away from the contents. “Is that coffee?”

  “The coffee is just to throw off drug-sniffing dogs.” John opened a package of beans and spilled it out onto the deck. A rolled up plastic bag thick as her wrist flopped out when he shook the mostly empty bag. “Heroin. Can’t tell the quality yet, but, based on the amount, it’s midgrade at least.”

  “How much do you think he can fit down there?”

  “It’s surprisingly spacious,” John said. “One way to find out.”

  It soon became apparent John wasn’t able to fit all the way inside the secret cargo hold. He looked back at the main cabin, his eyes narrowed with thought. “I think the girls were here for more than just the obvious reason. They’re both on the petite side. Can probably fit all the way back there.”

  “And next you’ll tell me there’s a practical reason for their bikinis?”

  “Actually, there is,” John said with a laugh. “No pockets for them to hide drugs in. Keeps them honest.”

  Ruby cocked her eyebrow. “I can think of a couple places I could still hide something…except I’d be way too embarrassed.”

  John’s face reddened a little. “Um, well…” he let out a helpless laugh. “My second year of beat patrol, my partner and I accidentally stumbled onto a cocaine refinement operation in Stanford. The girls working there were fully nude and got an inspection by a female doctor at the end of every shift.”

  “So you stumbled upon a bunch of naked women,” Ruby said. “You dog.”

  John’s eyes went wide. “It was my job to look at naked women—I mean, it was part of my job—in the course of my job.”

  “Did you handcuff the poor, terrified, naked girls?”

  “What? No! We gave them tarps to cover themselves with.” John paused, then closed his mouth. “You’re totally messing with me right now, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe…” Ruby flashed a grin. “Here, since the girls are still slumbering, allow me to use my humble magic to retrieve the rest of the illicit cargo.”

  Ruby drew on a ley line and the still-present moon to avoid taxing her eldritch reserves. A minor incantation brought the packages floating gently out as if carried aloft by phantom hands.

  Once the packages were accessible, John used his knife to open each one. Besides the heroin, they found some bags contained high-grade prescription painkillers, and some things Ruby couldn’t identify.

  “Cancer drugs,” John said grimly. “Looks like Malone was padding his bank account with a shotgun blast of smuggling. Illicit drugs, prescription drugs, Cuban Cigars...”

  “How much money you think he could make on all of this?”

  “This haul alone is half a million. Street value is a lot higher, but that’s how much Malone probably stands to make in total after costs. If he’s doing this once a week…”

  Ruby shook her head. “No wonder he didn’t need to take out a second mortgage like the rest of town. You think Roger was involved with this, too?”

  “The evidence is shaky. On the other hand, it seems pretty likely to me. It would be strange if Roger didn’t at least know what Malone’s been up to.”

  “They were talking about killing you, you know,” Ruby said in a low growl.

  “They were?” John seemed to take it in stride.

  “You’re not freaking out?”

  “I probably should be, but no.”

  “That makes one of us!” Ruby shuddered. “I can’t believe I had to sit there and listen to them casually talk about murdering you, threatening, bribing, it’s just too much. Blair seems comfortable in this world with these type of people, but I don’t.”

  “Blair?”

  “My…friend, I guess. A younger witch, untrained. Madwand.”

  John’s eyes went wide. “In Mehra culture, Madwands are put to death on sight.”

  “Oh? They’re kind of frowned upon here, but a lot of that is sour grapes. Madwands tend to be powerful.”

  “And you never wondered at the source of that power?” John’s eyes held a note of fear, something Ruby was not accustomed to seeing.

  “Well, no, actually. I always figured they were just really gifted. Like an Albert Einstein or a Michael Jordan.”

  “My progenitors believed quite differently,” John said. He looked out nervously at Malone and his unnamed companion, but both men continued to slumber. “They believe that Madwands all carry a bit of demonic heritage in them.”

  “Demonic heritage? Like…getting down and nasty with a devil?” Ruby shuddered. “Who would even…? That’s just gross.”

  “Repugnant,” John agreed. “I’m sure your friend is a nice person, but I would be careful.”

  “Do you believe it? That she has demonic heritage?”

  “I’m not sure that I do, but I do know that the Mehr people are very sessile. Like bedrock. They don’t take actions lightly, so, if they do something drastic, like kill Madwands on sight, there must be a very compelling reason. Demonic blood or not.”

  Ruby sighed. “Great, John, like I needed more to think about. I’ve been accused of a murder I didn’t commit, the victim is my Ex-Fiancé, wanna- be gang bangers are holding me up at gunpoint, my old friends all hate my guts, and now I’m sitting on an unnamed island in the middle of Long Island Sound sifting through contraband instead of sleeping like a sensible person my age. You’re going to have to cut me some slack sooner or later.”

  John’s mouth formed a downward U. “I’m sorry, Ruby. I’m the one who dragged you out here in the middle of the night, for my own selfish ends.”

  “Well, thank the Goddess that you did, otherwise you might be fish food by now.” Ruby glanced out over the moonlit crests as a breeze stirred her hair. A distant sound of engines grew more distinct as the seconds ticked by. “I think Jonas, or whoever, is on his way with the backup yacht. Who has a backup yacht, anyway?”

  “Someone who makes half a million a week, tax free.” John glanced her way. “Do you think you can get us out there?”

  Ruby grinned. “As long as you’re not afraid to get a little wet.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “I’m a merfolk.”

  “Oh, right.”

&nbs
p; “But I want to remain in my human form, so I can’t be immersed in seawater.”

  “I get you.” Ruby pursed her lips, speculating what his transformed body might look like. Her curiosity was overridden by urgency; Jonas’ boat grew ever closer. “Alright, I can manage that. Just stand near me and try to keep your knees bent. It’s a lot like surfing.”

  “What’s a lot like—whoop!”

  A wave heaved up onto shore and broke over them, parting in a perfect seam to avoid getting so much as a drop of water on either of them. It bubbled up under their feet, the mass transferred into a rising platform which bore them out over the Sound.

  “It is like surfing,” John said, grasping onto Ruby’s shoulders as he stared down at the water ten feet below. “But won’t they see us coming?”

  “Not likely.” Ruby flashed him a grin and summoned up another fog. The wave carried them near the aft deck, where they simply stepped out. John came upon the pilot, a thirty-something, bearded man with bloodshot eyes and stubble suggesting he’d been roused from slumber recently.

  “Police,” John said in a loud, strong voice. “Shut down the engines and put your hands on your head.”

  “You’re making a big mistake,” the man said, a quiver in his voice.

  “Yeah, that’s what they all say. Awful late night for a boating trip, isn’t it?”

  “Um, it’s like six o’clock in the morning.”

  “Hey, John?” Ruby looked about sheepishly. “Um, does this look like a yacht to you?”

  “Yacht? I wish. Just a lobster trawler, man.”

  “Carry on, sir,” John said. “Quick, take us back to the island.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “What? Where are you going?”

  They ran back to the aft deck and mounted the moving platform of water once more. Ruby made all haste, pushing the speed as much as she could.

  When they reached the island, they found no trace of the contraband, Malone, or his flunkies.

  “Great,” Ruby muttered, kicking a seashell into the water. “We went after the wrong boat!”