Purrfect Secret Read online

  Purrfect Secret

  The Mysteries of Max 8

  Nic Saint

  Puss in Print Publications

  Contents

  Purrfect Secret

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Murder Motel (The Kellys Book 1)

  About Nic

  Also by Nic Saint

  Purrfect Secret

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  When Dick Dickerson, notorious editor of the National Star, is found drowned in duck dung, the investigation quickly gets mired down when trying to figure out who’s behind the attack on the tabloid kingpin. Politicians, movie stars and captains of industry consistently found themselves in Dickerson’s crosshairs, but who would stoop so low as murder?

  While Odelia Poole and Detective Chase Kingsley conduct their investigation, Odelia’s cat coterie is up in arms when a newcomer turns the peaceful town of Hampton Cove into a soap opera of gossip, scandal and secrets. Soon the ‘Fab Four’ (Max, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus) are duking it out, their friendship in ruins, Max’s reputation in tatters.

  It doesn’t help that Grandma Muffin is waging a personal vendetta against her son-in-law’s new receptionist Scarlett Canyon, determined to get rid of her long-time nemesis once and for all. Against the backdrop of all this bickering, backstabbing and strife, is it any wonder Max starts to wonder if Dickerson’s killer will be the one that got away?

  Prologue

  Dick Dickerson slipped his feet into his red velvet slippers and groped around on the nightstand for his glasses. Fumbling a little to put them onto his face, he glanced before him confusedly. Why was he sitting up in bed in what felt like the middle of the night?

  Picking up his phone, he saw it was only a little after three. Too early to get up. And then he realized what had awakened him: loud music blasting from the speakers downstairs.

  He drew a hand through his grizzled mane, got up with a groan and put on the white boxing robe that Sylvester Stallone had worn on the set of Rocky IV, Dick’s favorite movie.

  He moved out of his ornate bedroom, along his equally ornate hallway, down the no less ornate marble staircase, to arrive in his ostentatiously ornate entrance hall, where he only had to follow the music still blasting away to locate its source: his private study.

  He couldn’t remember having left the music on. Then again, lately he’d had so much on his mind he probably could have. As usual he took a Sonata before laying down his head, then some Provigil in the morning, along with a line of coke and his usual Prozac tablet. The Sonata knocked him out pretty good, so he might not have noticed leaving the music on.

  Then again, if he heard correctly this was What Goes Around… Comes Around, the Justin Timberlake song. Not exactly Dick’s taste. He liked Michael Bublé. He liked Michael Bublé a lot. In fact Michael Bublé was all he listened to lately.

  With a sigh, Dick shuffled into his office, and that’s when he saw it: the door to his giant walk-in safe was wide open. Dammit! Anyone could have just walked in!

  “Dick, Dick, Dick,” he muttered to himself. “You’re losing it, pal.”

  Even though Doctor Mueller had told him to take it easy on the pills, and the coke, he couldn’t help himself. He needed a little pick-me-up from time to time, and he was a firm believer in the old saying ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ And since the coke hadn’t killed him yet, or the pill-popping or even the vodka, it stood to reason it was making him stronger, right?

  He shuffled to the safe door and peered inside. Odd. He’d even left the light on.

  Shaking his head, he shuffled into the steel contraption. The moment he had, though, he saw that there was something seriously wrong with this picture: the countless stacks of files he kept in there, neatly organized in alphabetical order… they were all gone!

  His jaw dropped as he stared at the empty shelves. Only a single file folder remained. He picked it up, his hands trembling, and opened it. Inside, there was a single picture. A picture he immediately recognized, and which sent his blood pressure rocketing skywards.

  He gulped as he held onto the wall to steady himself.

  This wasn’t happening!

  Just then, the giant steel door slammed shut with a thumping clang!

  “Noooo!” he cried, pounding the door. But to no avail, of course.

  And that’s when things started to get even weirder. And a lot scarier!

  A strange odor suddenly permeated the small space. Dick wrinkled his nose as he took a sniff. It smelled like… poop.

  Had he just pooped himself? No way. He wasn’t that far gone. He was only sixty-two, for crying out loud. And he didn’t have problems in that area. Yet.

  And then he saw it: some species of sludge was pouring into the safe through a vent in the ceiling. He sniffed again. Yup. Definitely poop. Horrible, liquid, greenish poop!

  And then panic really set in. The song, the picture, the poop.

  Oh, God. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening to him!

  “Hey!” he screamed. “Let me out! I’ll give you the files! Just let me out of here!”

  But of course no response came. This wasn’t a scare tactic. They had the files. They’d taken them along with all of the other secrets he’d assiduously collected over the years.

  They weren’t here to scare him off or send him a message.

  They were here to kill him. Drown him in poop.

  If he hadn’t been so scared he might have laughed at the irony.

  The poop was up to his knees now, streaming in at a steady clip.

  The stench was unbearable and he was retching, wading in the toxic stuff.

  And as he screamed in horror at the fate that was awaiting him, a voice came from the other side of the door—muffled, of course.

  “Little message for you, Dickerson. What goes around, comes around!”

  “I’m sorry!” he bellowed. “Don’t do this to me. Have a heart!”

  “Yeah, right. Like you had a heart, huh? Screw you, Dickerson!”

  The poop was reaching his waist now, ruining his nice Rocky boxing robe. And then he got an idea. He quickly took it off and waded over to the hole where the sludge was pouring in, then shoved the wadded-up robe into the hole, trying to stem the deadly flow.

  In the process he got poop all over him. The yucky stuff got into his eyes—into his nose—into his mouth
! But he would prevail. No one got the better of Dick Dickerson!

  He shoved the thing home and held it in place in spite of his retching.

  There. He’d done it! He was like that little Dutch kid who plugged his finger in the dike and saved his entire frickin’ village!

  Unfortunately Rocky’s robe was no match for this particular hole. The pressure was too great, and soon the stuff was seeping in again. Pretty soon the safe was filling up so fast not even an army of little Dutch boys with little Dutch fingers could have stemmed the flow.

  And the worst part? Dick knew exactly what he’d done to deserve this.

  Chapter 1

  I opened a lazy eye when some sort of light tapping drove away the slumber I’d enjoyed for the past couple of hours. I know what they say about cats: that they’re never really asleep. That they take ‘catnaps’ and wake up in the blink of an eye, ready to fight or take flight when danger lurks. Poppycock. I’m a cat and I like to sleep. In fact I can sleep so deeply not even the sound of a cannon can wake me up. Not that I’ve ever heard an actual cannon being fired in my vicinity. Do people even still use cannons? Somehow I doubt it.

  But whatever. The thing that woke me up wasn’t a sensation so much as a nuisance. An annoyance. A burden, a plague, a pest or even a pain in the neck, if you catch my drift.

  For I found myself staring into the impudent eyes of the latest intruder to invade my household: Milo, the cat that belongs to Odelia’s across-the-street neighbor Mrs. Lane.

  He was grinning at me now, the white menace. Grinning like a regular fiend.

  I closed my eyes again, hoping he hadn’t noticed he’d managed to wake me up. But to no avail. He simply tapped me on the head again with that infuriating cheek he possesses.

  “Wakey, wakey,” he said. “Rise and shine, old man.”

  “I’m not old,” I growled at him, and now he was grinning even wider—a regular Cheshire grin if ever I’d seen one.

  “Oh, you are old,” he said. “Ancient. In fact before I met you I didn’t even realize cats could get that old. You even have hair growing out of your ears, did you know that?”

  “You have hairs growing out of your ears.”

  “Yeah, but they’re tiny and they’re soft. Like fuzz. Yours are long and hard. Like the hair on the back of a pig.”

  I would have snarled at him, lifting my upper lip like a dog and actually snarled, but I’m a cat, and cats don’t snarl. Instead I produced a soft hissing sound, hoping to indicate my displeasure. It only made him grin even wider, the annoying little runt!

  “So how old are you, Max? If I’d have to make a guess I’d say you’re pretty ancient. So you were probably around before humans drove around in cars, right? Did you see the horse and buggy? Were you alive during the Civil War? Were you here when the English were bopping around Long Island, creating trouble for Washington and the Colonists?”

  I didn’t even dignify this last jab with a response. Instead, I hopped off the couch with as much dignity as I could muster under the circumstances, and strode off, my tail high—and a little fluffed-up because of the residual annoyance—and was just about to take the stairs to the second floor to wake up my human when that human came stumbling down those same stairs, looking like death warmed over and almost tripped over me and fell.

  “Max,” she muttered. “Sorry, dude. Hey, there, Milo. Settling in all right?”

  “Settling in just fine, Mrs. Poole,” said Milo, now scratching his unhairy ears.

  “Just call me Odelia, will you?” said Odelia. “I’m too young to be Mrs. Poole.”

  Milo cocked an eyebrow, indicating he thought Odelia was pretty ancient, too, and very deserving of the moniker he’d just awarded her, but then strode off in the direction of the kitchen, where Odelia had put out an extra bowl for our latest guest, and dug in.

  I kept a keen eye on him, as Milo had been known to dig into my bowl, too, and even drink from my milk.

  “What are you doing up so early?” I asked my human.

  She gave me an ‘Are you kidding me?’ look and gestured with her head to the backyard, where Grandma Muffin was digging into the soil, dressed like a regular gardener.

  “Oh, right,” I said delicately.

  Ever since Gran moved in with Odelia things have been a little rocky. Grandma has a way of doing things, and Odelia has a completely different way of doing things, and the twain are hard to reconcile. Like the fact that Gran loves her soap operas and her reality shows while Odelia prefers a good movie from time to time. And then there’s the fact that Gran doesn’t approve of Odelia’s boyfriend hanging around all the time, and even sleeping over. She feels that Chase should just go ahead and propose and make an honest woman out of her granddaughter so she can get all this ‘fooling around’ over and done with.

  I doubt whether Odelia approves. She probably feels she’s too young to get married just so she can have her boyfriend stay the night from time to time. And since I’m a modern cat—in spite of what Milo might think—I heartily approve.

  My name is Max, by the way, but I guess you already figured that out from the way Milo keeps addressing me. I’m a blorange cat—a very tasteful combination of orange and pink—while Milo is one of those horrible white cats with the bristly, stiff hair. He’s also very young and was obviously raised by a woman who doesn’t know the first thing about cats. She probably never taught him manners which has turned him into an obnoxious monster.

  But enough about Milo. I’m sure he’ll only be around for a few days—until Mrs. Aloisia Lane returns from her trip to Florida and is ready to assume command once again.

  Just then, Dooley wandered in through the sliding glass door, followed by Harriet and Brutus. Those three are my best friends in all the world—yes, cats have best friends—don’t you believe everything you read on the Internet about us being loners and curmudgeons and all that nonsense. We like our fellow felines just fine thank you very much.

  “Hey, Maxie, baby,” rasped Brutus by way of greeting, holding up a paw.

  I high-fived him, then low-fived him, then hooked my nail behind his, gave a little tug while we both blew raspberries, then we paw-bumped and shared a hearty guffaw.

  Once upon a time Brutus and I were mortal enemies but those days are long gone. Nowadays we get along like gangbusters, whatever a gangbuster might be. Brutus is a strikingly butch black cat, by the way, and Harriet, a gorgeous white Persian, is his girlfriend.

  “Hey, Max,” said Dooley, looking like he wasn’t fully awake yet. Dooley is a Ragamuffin, which in his case means he’s on the small side and has a thick gray coat. He’s also very fluffy, which makes him very popular with his human, Grandma Muffin, and a little less popular with Marge, who has to vacuum the carpets and couches at least twice a week.

  Milo returned from the kitchen, and immediately my eyes were drawn to the drop of liquid on his chin. It was milk, and I knew for a fact that Milo’s milk bowl had been empty. I pointed an accusing paw at him. “You stole my milk!”

  “I did not, sir,” said Milo, quickly wiping away the incriminating evidence.

  “I saw you! You had a drop of milk on your beard! Didn’t he have a drop of milk on his beard, Dooley? Tell me you saw that!” I turned to my friends for corroboration but they appeared less than excited to wade into the argument.

  “For your information, cats don’t have a beard, Max,” said Milo calmly. “Except for you, of course, but that’s because you’re ancient. Like Methuselah. He had a beard. At least I think he had. What do you think, Dooley? Did Methuselah have a beard? You’re the expert.”

  Dooley stared at the young whippersnapper. “Huh?” he said finally.

  “Odelia tells me you’re a very smart cat. Smartest one she knows, in fact. A real know-it-all. So I’m asking you: did or didn’t Methuselah have a beard just like Max?”

  “I don’t have a beard!” I cried. “You’re just trying to confuse the issue!”

  “And what is the issue, Max?” asked M
ilo kindly, like one addressing a feeble-minded old fogey.

  “The issue is that I just caught you stealing my milk!”

  Milo tsk-tsked mildly, probably the first time I’d ever seen a cat do that. “Mi casa es su casa, Max. Which means my milk is your milk and vice versa. Now what can I offer you guys?” he continued, this time addressing Brutus, Harriet and Dooley. “I’ve got milk, kibble, some excellent Fancy Feast Seafood and of course the always-tasty Cat Snax.”

  “Those are mine!” I cried. “Those are my Cat Snax and my Fancy Feast Seafood!”

  “Oh, don’t be a miser, Max,” said Harriet as she strode right past me.

  “Yeah, sharing is caring, pal,” said Brutus as he did the same.

  “Thanks, Max,” said Dooley cheerily. “I love those Cat Snax of yours.”

  And then they were all digging into my bowls, snacking on my favorite food!

  Sharing is caring my furry butt!

  I sank back on my haunches, haughtily draped my tail around my buttocks, and gave them all the stare. And the first one I directed my fearsome stare at was Milo, who was overseeing the feast as if he was the one who’d personally arranged all of it, the impudent jerk!