by Paige Sleuth
Kat absently stroked Bubbles as she considered that. It made sense for a mugger to stage a quick getaway. Had he stalked Sylvia from the Food Mart, then left his car in front of the apartment building when he saw she was headed for the alley?
“Did you happen to get a good look at the man?” Kat asked Janice.
“No. I was already across the street at the time. Honestly, I wouldn’t have noticed him at all except Bubbles started barking.”
Kat thought about the man back at CHATS. “Did he have a beard?”
“I’m not sure. I really only saw him from the back. He was facing away from me when he got in the car. I could tell from the way he had to angle his legs that he was tall though, if that helps.”
Had the man from CHATS been tall? Kat just remembered his intimidating build and unnerving stare.
Janice took a step toward the elevator. “Well, I should get Bubbles back upstairs.”
Kat grabbed her groceries. “I’ll ride up with you.”
Bubbles seemed delighted to have two people inside the elevator to dote on him. He darted back and forth between them, as though torn between whom he should be standing next to. His antics made Kat laugh.
Janice grinned. “I should have let him run off some more energy, but my fingers were starting to freeze. He’ll have to wait until daylight.”
The elevator dinged, and the doors parted. Janice waved as she and Bubbles stepped off.
“Tell Andrew what I saw if you think it will help him catch the guy,” she said.
“I will.”
Kat rode the elevator up to the third floor. Tom greeted her as soon as she stepped into her apartment unit.
“Hi, Tom,” she said in reply to his frantic meows. “I missed you too.”
He rubbed his chin against her ankles, then craned his neck to sniff at her groceries.
“I didn’t get anything for you,” she told him, setting the bags on the floor so she could take off her coat. “Just more tofu pumpkin pie ingredients.”
Tom didn’t pay her any heed, opting to inspect the contents himself. He used one of his front paws to bat a sack of sugar out of the way.
Matty, who had been lying on the couch, lifted her head when two pumpkin cans clattered together. Her ears pricked, and she jumped off the couch to get a better look at what Tom was up to.
“You two are the most curious creatures I’ve ever met,” Kat said. She thought about her compulsion to take another look in the alley and added, “Although I guess I’m not really one to talk.”
Tom somehow managed to fit his hindquarters inside the bag. Several tofu containers tumbled onto the carpet as he wiggled his rump in an effort to get situated, but once he cleared enough space to sit down he looked as though he could roost there for the rest of the night.
Kat laughed. “What is it with you and bags, Tom?”
Her cell phone rang. She fished it out of her jeans pocket, noting that the number wasn’t in her contact list.
“Hello?” she answered.
“You were watching me earlier,” a raspy male voice said.
“Who is this?”
“My name’s Howard.”
Kat’s stomach flip-flopped, and her chest suddenly felt too tight. “How did you get my number?”
“Marissa’s desk.”
Kat remembered leaving her number with Marissa, but she had never expected the residents to have access to it. She certainly had never expected the bearded man to get ahold of it. She wondered if the CHATS residents had permission to enter the staff offices or if Howard was prone to burglary as well as robbery.
“Why were you watching me?” he said.
“You were the one watching me.” Kat had to fight to get the words past her constricting throat.
When Howard didn’t respond right away, Kat’s eyes snapped to the kitchen window. Where was Howard right now? Marissa had said the residents were free to come and go as they pleased. He could be standing outside her building this very minute, trying to catch a glimpse of her through the windows.
The thought turned every cell in her body cold.
She zigzagged around the room and started pulling blinds closed. “Why are you calling me?” she said, hating the way her voice squeaked.
“I heard you and Marissa were talking about Sylvia.”
Kat froze on her way to her bedroom. “Do you know something about her getting mugged?”
“No.”
She swallowed hard. “Howard, did you attack her?”
“What? No!”
“If you did it, you could save yourself a lot of trouble by turning yourself in. I can give you the number for someone in the Cherry Hills Police Department.”
“You ought to give Sylvia that number.”
Kat searched her bedroom, grateful to note the blinds were drawn. “She already talked to the police this morning.”
“Yeah, but I bet she didn’t tell them everything.”
Kat reached out and set her palm on her dresser. Her legs felt shaky. “What do you mean?”
“She’s been stealing, from CHATS.”
“How’s that?”
“She takes money from them.”
“You mean the petty cash she took this morning?” Kat asked. “That was to buy food.”
“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about earlier. At the last CHATS event, she put a few of the cash donations in her own pocket.”
Kat frowned. “How do you know that?”
“I see things.”
“You attended the fundraiser?”
“I watched, through the window.”
Kat pictured him peeping at her getting into her car, and a shudder ripped through her body.
“I told Marissa, but they don’t listen to me,” Howard said. “They think I’m mentally unstable.”
Kat didn’t think Marissa was far off the mark.
“If you ask me, Sylvia getting mugged was karma,” Howard went on. “Or, it would have been if the food hadn’t been for us.”
Kat made her way over to her bed and sat down. Matty materialized not two seconds later, draping the front half of her body across Kat’s lap as if to help stabilize her human.
Kat buried the fingers of her free hand into Matty’s fur. “Howard, I’m not sure why you’re telling me this.”
“Because you’re honest.”
His words took her aback. “Why would you say that? You don’t even know me.”
“I can tell.”
Kat wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the details of how he had come to that conclusion. Right now, her main goal was to end this conversation as quickly as possible.
“Look, Howard, I appreciate your concern, but if Sylvia is stealing from CHATS, you really need to tell somebody there. I can’t help you.”
“I thought you could come back here tomorrow and talk to Marissa about it yourself. She likes you.”
So that’s what this is about, Kat thought. Howard was trying to lure her back to CHATS so he would have another opportunity to spy on her. Fat chance of that happening.
“I can’t help you,” she said, hoping she sounded sufficiently firm. She disconnected the call before he could issue another protest.
Drawing in a deep breath, she let the phone drop to the mattress and focused on petting Matty. She needed her hands to stop trembling if she wanted to have any hope of getting that tofu pumpkin pie made before tomorrow.
Needless to say, as excited as she’d been this morning over this year’s upcoming Thanksgiving festivities, her enthusiasm was rapidly fading.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“You should have told me that last night, right after you hung up the phone,” Andrew scolded, mixing the pumpkin pie filling with more force. “I could have gone over to CHATS and talked to this Howard guy myself.”
Kat patched another hole in the pie crust she was working on. “If I thought I was in danger I would have called you. But after I calmed down I realized Howard doesn’t have any way of knowing wh
ere I live.”
“How can you be so sure he didn’t follow you back home after you dropped off Jessie’s food?”
“Because he was watching me from the window when I drove off.”
Andrew stopped stirring to gape at her. “He was watching you?”
Kat bit her lip. She must have forgotten to tell him that part, too busy attempting to find a good balance between being open and not confiding so much that she caused Andrew unnecessary concern.
Andrew reclined against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “I should go over there right now, you know that? I should go over there and give this guy a lesson on why it’s a bad idea to go around frightening women.”
Kat blinked. She had never seen Andrew this fierce before. “He didn’t threaten me. He was just staring.”
“Well, he obviously scared you.” Andrew’s face flushed. “I ought to chew him out for that alone.”
“There’s no time. We have to be at Imogene’s in two hours.”
“I can be there and back in one.”
Kat paused from working on the pie crust to give Andrew her full attention. “I really don’t think that’s necessary. And maybe he wasn’t as creepy as I’m making him out to be. I could have just been oversensitive because of what happened to Sylvia.”
“Don’t discount your instincts. If this guy gave you the willies, he’s undoubtedly had the same effect on other women. The CHATS staff should be told to keep an eye on him.”
“Maybe, but can’t we deal with that later? It’s Thanksgiving. We’re supposed to be enjoying the holiday. I don’t want Howard to ruin that.”
Andrew pursed his lips. He had that stubborn look on his face that Kat had seen many times before. To be fair, she probably had a similar look on her face right now too. Neither one of them liked to capitulate to the other. She supposed it was a byproduct of growing up without parents. They were both used to making their own decisions without regard to anyone else.
Kat exhaled. “Look, we’re going to be together all day, right? On the off chance that Howard somehow tracks me down, he won’t try anything with you there. So, please, can we just forget about him for today? Then tomorrow you can go talk to him if you still think that’s wise.”
Andrew studied her for a long moment. Finally, he blew a piece of hair off of his forehead and nodded. “All right, but if this guy calls again, I don’t care what day it is. I’m going straight down there.”
“Fine.” Kat waved her hand at the mixing bowl sitting idle on the counter. “Now, we have a pie to focus on.”
Andrew turned back around. “You know, this might be easier if I weren’t using a regular spoon.”
“What else would you use?”
“A blender.”
“I don’t have a blender.”
“What about an electric mixer?”
Kat shook her head.
“A whisk?”
Kat looked around her kitchen, as if a whisk might magically appear.
“Even a wooden mixing spoon would be better,” Andrew said. “This one here is more like what you’d eat cereal with.”
Kat squinted at him. “Why didn’t you suggest any of this earlier?”
“You told me my job wasn’t to criticize, remember?”
She tamped down the spark of irritation that flared in her belly. She wasn’t really annoyed with Andrew, she reminded herself, just with how this pie was turning out.
She refused to even think about how Howard’s phone call might be affecting her emotional state.
“I probably shouldn’t have said anything just now either,” Andrew said, adjusting his grip on the spoon. “It’s too late to buy a blender even if you wanted to. Nobody’s open on Thanksgiving.”
“I’m sure I could find one store that’s open.”
“Not in Cherry Hills.”
Kat brushed crust crumbs from her fingers and reached for a paper towel. “I’m going to check this week’s ads to see if any stores made a note about being open today.”
“You must’ve forgotten how Cherry Hills operates during your fifteen years away. I’m telling you, nobody is open.”
Instead of replying, Kat snatched this week’s circulars from the recycle bin and carried them over to the dining room table, where both of her cats were sitting. They had been perched there all morning, having fled the kitchen when Kat had started pulling pie ingredients out. Evidently they both remembered how yesterday’s baking attempt had turned out and were determined to stay well out of harm’s way today.
Kat made sure to choose a seat with her back facing Andrew. She would show him. She was going to find a store that would sell her a blender today if she had to drive all the way to Seattle to do it.
On second thought, she amended, checking the clock, that wasn’t entirely true. She really only had time to make a sixty-minute round trip if she hoped to get this pie cooked before Imogene’s big event.
Still, she was determined to prove Andrew wrong.
She spread out the top advertisement, setting the others off to the side. Tom padded over. After rubbing his cheek against one corner of the newsprint, he tucked his front paws under his chest and lowered himself onto the stack. Tom liked to lie on paper almost as much as he loved to climb inside bags.
Kat reached over to pet the feline, hoping he could help to bring her blood pressure back down to a normal level. She felt as if she were wound up tight, her insides knotted with frustration. It didn’t help that in preparation for consuming a huge meal later she hadn’t eaten anything since last night. Hunger always made her more crabby.
She pressed her fingertips against her temples and forced herself to focus on the ad in front of her. She found the sale dates printed at the bottom—along with a note that this particular store was closed for Thanksgiving.
She nudged Tom aside to grab another circular. Tom didn’t seem to mind. He settled down on the table, making sure to keep one paw on the newsprint. Pretty soon his eyes started slipping closed as if he’d just located the ideal spot for a morning snooze.
Matty took advantage of Tom’s inattention to sniff at his hind leg. Tom’s eyes flew open, and he twisted around to swat at his sister. Matty returned the gesture, and pretty soon the cats were engaged in a full-blown slapping match. They rolled around on the table, the newsprint crinkling beneath them.
“Hey,” Kat said. “I’m trying to do something here.”
The cats dashed off to chase each other around the apartment.
Kat sighed and worked on straightening out the mess the animals had made. She made it through two more circulars—both dead ends—before she became aware of a rustling behind her. She didn’t know what Andrew was doing, but she didn’t turn around, loath to start another argument.
She pressed her hands over her ears and drew her face closer to the page in front of her, this one for Hank’s Grocery. She tried to focus, but the rustling persisted, grating on her nerve endings. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore.
She spun around in her chair. “If you don’t . . .”
The rest of the reprimand died in her throat when she saw it wasn’t Andrew who was making a ruckus but Tom. Apparently he’d tired of playing with Matty and was now lying on the floor while chewing on the edge of a long slip of paper he’d found somewhere.
His ability to find joy in something so simple made Kat grin. “Tom, you sure do make a lot of noise.”
He glanced at her as if to say I know, what’s the problem? She shrugged in response.
Tom turned back to his paper, kicking at the bottom corner for a second before rolling over. When he came to rest on his other side, Kat saw he was holding a receipt from the Cherry Hills Food Mart.
Kat figured Sylvia must have left it yesterday. Kat’s own grocery receipts were never that long—even when she bought enough items to, theoretically, make a half dozen tofu pumpkin pies.
Her eyes landed on one of the line items. The frozen turkey listed had cost 85 cents per pound.
She twisted back around to peruse the ad she had just been looking at. Hadn’t Hank’s Grocery advertised frozen turkeys for ten cents cheaper?
She found the item she remembered on the first page. Sure enough, frozen turkeys were only 73 cents per pound at the Food Mart’s rival store, assuming the shopper’s total purchase fell over $50. Sylvia’s total had been much higher than that.
“Andrew,” she said, her heart beating a little faster, “didn’t Sylvia Garcia claim to be shopping at the Food Mart because their prices beat those at Hank’s Grocery?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “Why?”
“Because they charge more for frozen turkey.”
“Maybe everything else is cheaper.”
Kat reached down and eased the receipt out of Tom’s grasp. He batted at it while she pulled it away, obviously thinking she had decided to join in on the fun. As much as she hated to disappoint him, right now she had something she needed to do.
She spread out the ad for Hank’s Grocery and started running down Sylvia’s receipt from the top. Not every item was listed as a featured sale, but four out of the first five products she located had a lower advertised price at Hank’s than what Sylvia had been charged at the Food Mart.
Kat sat back in her chair. The excuse Sylvia had given them for shopping so far away from the homeless shelter was that she wanted to save CHATS money. Except the evidence laid out on Kat’s dining room table indicated that Sylvia had actually ended up spending more by patronizing the Food Mart.
“I wonder if she’s loyal to them,” Kat murmured.
“What’s that?” Andrew said.
She lifted up one of the pages. “According to this ad for Hank’s Grocery, Sylvia lied about them having higher prices than the Food Mart.”
Andrew stopped stirring and leaned one hip against the counter. “Maybe she was mistaken.”
“Or maybe she’s more comfortable shopping at the Food Mart. Since she lives close by, she probably does her personal shopping there.”
“Could be.” Andrew paused. “Where are you going with this, anyway?”
“I’m just wondering what her reason was for driving across town if it wasn’t to save CHATS money.”