A Game of Dons Read online

  Chapter 36

  “Alice?”

  “Mh?”

  “Nine letters. Likes to play outside.”

  Alice frowned. “Earthworm?”

  Fee jotted the word down. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  They were both home, enjoying a nice quiet evening. Reece was in LA, prepping for his Hercule Poirot movie, and Rick was in Brazil, writing an article about the environmental impact of lava bean production on rainforest regeneration.

  Ed Sheeran sang from the speakers, Gaston was purring on the couch, but otherwise all was quiet and peaceful at Casa Alice and Fee.

  “Fee?”

  “Mh?”

  “Can we switch on the TV?”

  Fee uttered a whoop. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  They’d accepted a challenge from Reece: that they couldn’t last a single night without watching TV. At least they’d lasted half a night, Alice thought as she switched on the set and turned up the sound. She settled on the couch while Fee went into the kitchen to prepare a batch of popcorn. There was leftover cake on the coffee table and for a moment Alice hesitated. She was reminded of the dead man popping out of the cake. But then she decided to be strong. She was not going to allow Vic Grabarski to ruin her love of cake.

  Fee arrived and said, “What do you want to watch?”

  Alice shared a look with her friend. They both laughed. What a silly question!

  She selected Jane the Virgin from the Netflix queue. They’d been binge-watching all the seasons and had only a couple of episodes left.

  Just then, the doorbell rang out its cheerful tune. They looked up.

  “Are we expecting company?” asked Alice.

  “Nope,” said Fee, then got up and moved to the hallway to open the door.

  “Virgil!” she cried. “What a surprise. And Deanna!”

  “Hey, you guys,” said Deanna, taking off her coat. “Sorry to barge in like this.”

  “Yeah, blame me if you have to,” said Virgil. “It was my idea to drop by.”

  “What’s wrong? Did something happen?” asked Alice, also getting up. Jane the Virgin would have to wait.

  “It’s just that... I wanted you to meet someone,” said Deanna, and stepped aside. From behind her a lookalike blond-haired woman stepped, smaller and younger than Deanna.

  “Hi,” she said, a little shyly. “My name is Roxana. I’m Deanna’s sister.”

  “Hey, Roxana,” said Alice, wiping at her face, where she was sure cake crumbs were still stuck.

  “I wanted to thank you both for what you did for me,” said the young woman.

  “We didn’t do much,” said Fee. “In fact Virgil did most of the heavy lifting—literally. And Johnny and Jerry and Deanna, of course.”

  “I know,” said Roxana, “but I still wanted to thank you both personally, and offer you this.” She took two envelopes from her pocket and handed them to Alice and Fee.

  “Oh, no, you shouldn’t have,” said Alice. She loved presents. Loved them.

  “What is it?” asked Fee, opening her envelope. She stared at its contents.

  “A… cruise?” asked Alice. Ooh! She loved cruises. Loved them!

  Roxana nodded happily. “A token of my appreciation. Before he retired, Dad was a captain on the Princess Star Line. He managed to pull a few strings and get us a bunch of tickets for a great price.” She handed them two more envelopes. “For Rick and Reece.”

  “Thank you so much,” said Alice, her eyes sparkling. “Oh, Fee, you know what this means?”

  “That we’re going on a cruise!” Fee cried, then hugged Roxana. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ve always wanted to go on a cruise!”

  “And now you will,” said Deanna.

  “So nice to get away,” said Alice.

  “You’ll feel right at home,” said Roxana.

  Virgil held up a ticket. “I’m going, too, and so is Mom.”

  Alice’s smile wavered. “Marjorie is going?”

  “And so are Bettina and Alistair, Bianca and Peter, and of course Johnny and Jerry, Chief Whitehouse and Demetria, Chazz and his daughter and son-in-law…”

  And as Roxana rattled off the names, Alice felt her mood drop, and from the look on Fee’s face, she wasn’t all that happy that all of Happy Bays seemed to be going on this cruise either. Finally, Roxana and Deanna and Virgil left. They had more cruise tickets to dispense, to Mabel and Mark, and Mayor MacDonald and his wife. Even Moe got to go.

  Alice and Fee shared a look, then burst out laughing.

  “Looks like the best place to be will be right here at home!” said Alice.

  “Yeah, with the whole town out at sea!”

  It was still a nice gesture from Roxana and her parents. And as Alice plunked herself down on the couch, and tickled Gaston’s belly, she thanked her lucky stars that they’d survived another adventure. And this time Chazz had turned out to be the big hero! Chazz!

  Sometimes miracles did happen.

  And then it was time to find out if Jane and Rafael were finally getting married.

  But first there would be drama, mystery, suspense, adventure, action, a little comedy, a lot of twists and turns and… hopefully… the happy end.

  THE END

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  Excerpt from Purrfect Betrayal (The Mysteries of Max 11)

  Prologue

  The taxi pulled up at the entrance and Camilla got out. The driver darted a curious glance at the gate and cocked an eyebrow in Camilla’s direction. “Are you sure about this, honey? Doesn’t look like they’re expecting you.”

  He was right, Camilla thought. The gate was closed and the place looked less than inviting. But she’d always known her ex-husband was an eccentric, and it was just like him to invite her to some weird destination for their big reconciliation.

  “No, I’ll be all right,” she said, suppressing a little giggle.

  “I guess you know best,” said the driver dubiously.

  As he drove off into the dark night, she suddenly felt giddy. Nervous, yes, but also excited about the prospect of finally seeing Jeb again. So much had happened in the past couple of months, but if Jeb’s texts were to be believed, he considered all of that just water under the bridge.

  And she had to admit that when she got those texts, she’d been both surprised and relieved. Surprised that Jeb, after the things she’d accused him of, and the acrimonious battle in the divorce courts, wanted to meet. Relieved that he wasn’t holding a grudge, and knew she’d said all of those things simply to get his attention and to make him change his ways. And how else could she have done that than by dragging his name through the mud?

  The important thing was that her plan had worked.

  He’d finally realized he needed to make a change or lose her forever.

  And now she was ready to throw herself into his arms and love him again.

  She took a deep breath and stepped up to the gate. And as she did, it swung open with a little click and she directed a smile at the camera mounted on top. Jeb had been watching her. He’d anticipated her arrival as eagerly as she’d anticipated this fated reunion.

  She straightened her shoulders, tugged at her silk Donna Karan blouse, and stepped through the gate.

  As she did, the gate noiselessly closed behind her and she paused for a moment, getting her bearings.

  A driveway led to a hulking mansion that rose up spookily in the distance, backlit by a rising moon. To her immediate left, a smaller brick structure was visible. Inside, the lights were blazing. She smiled. It was just like Jeb to organize their first meeting in months at a place like this. A gamekeeper’s lodge, probably, or a renovated custodian’s house. She knew why he wanted to meet her here and not at the manor. Nosy staff could spoil their reunion before it even started. Butlers and hou
sekeepers and maids would spread the news, and even before Jeb had opened his arms to clasp her to his bosom, the whole world would know that the divorce of the decade was about to lead to the romance of the century.

  It was for the same reason she hadn’t used her real name when getting a cab, just like Jeb had advised in his last text, before she boarded her plane at LAX. Tabloids had spies everywhere, and neither she nor Jeb needed some nasty pap suddenly sticking his nose in.

  She walked up to the front door of the lodge and held up her hand to knock on the door. Even before it landed on the coarse wood, the door swung open, and she found herself staring at that familiar face.

  Jeb woke up with a groan. His head was pounding and his eyes were sore. He rubbed them then stretched. Instantly, he regretted not having stayed perfectly still. The room was spinning so fast he felt like he was on a merry-go-round and about to fall off. His poor suffering stomach lurched, anxious to regurgitate its contents and deposit it on the bed.

  He opened his eyes to glare at the offending sun, which had had the gall to intrude upon his fitful sleep.

  Sleep, or near-coma.

  It had been another long night, and as he sat up in bed he brushed aside an empty bottle of Smirnoff. It fell to the faux sheepskin rug below with a dull clunking sound.

  The ashtray was filled to overflowing with cigarette butts and roaches and his bong was still firmly lodged between his thighs.

  He was dressed in only his boxers, his fifty-five-year-old body displaying so many tats it was as if a mad tattoo artist had been given free rein to fill up the canvas as he saw fit.

  On the nightstand a mirror still held a line of coke, which he now snorted up eagerly, rubbed the remains into his gums and washed it down with a swig from a bottle of Bud.

  It was only then that he noticed his hands were covered in some type of weird substance. He stared at it. A dark, reddish brown. Henna? He brought his index finger to his nose and sniffed. In spite of the coke wreaking havoc on his nasal cavities, he frowned when he got a hit of a coppery odor. He gave his finger a tentative lick. Huh. Tasted like blood.

  Had he suffered a nosebleed last night? He picked up the mirror, blew off the remnants of white powder and held it up in front of him. Nope. No sign of a nosebleed.

  He stared at himself. Once he’d been handsome—every teenage girl’s dream. Now he looked like a garden gone to seed. Wisps of dirty grayish hair covered the lower portion of his haggard face, and the eyes that stared back at him were heavy-lidded and tired.

  He grinned at himself, and thought not for the first time that he should really pay a visit to the dentist.

  As he got up, suddenly something fell to the floor.

  He stared at it numbly.

  It was one of those big butcher knives.

  And it was bloodied.

  Weird. Had he cut himself last night? But then why wasn’t he in any pain?

  He quickly checked himself for holes in his corpus and found none.

  Nope. Everything was still as it should be.

  He then stumbled out of the bedroom and into the living quarters of the modest lodge he now called home.

  And that’s when he saw it—or rather, her: lying spread-eagled on his living room rug was the body of a woman. And not just any woman. He instantly recognized her as the woman he’d once loved and had recently divorced in one of the nastiest divorces in Hollywood history.

  What was worse, from the way Camilla’s lifeless eyes stared back at him, and the spots of dark crimson covering her torso, it was pretty obvious that she was dead.

  And that’s when the pounding on the door began. And even before he could rouse himself from the sense of stupefaction that had descended upon him, the door slammed open and a fat cop burst through. The copper took one look at the dead body, then at a bedraggled Jeb, hands bloodied and eyes unfocused, and his expression turned grim.

  “Jeb Pott, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of your ex-wife.”

  Chapter One

  I woke up from the sound of distinct mewling. Not so unusual, you might say, since I live in a house occupied by no less than four cats—though technically three of those cats live next door, even though they do spend an awful lot of time at Odelia’s. But this mewling was different than the usual sounds my three feline friends Dooley, Harriet and Brutus make. This was more like the mewling of... kittens. And since to my knowledge Odelia has not and hopefully will never take in kittens, this struck me as particularly odd.

  Discounting the sound and ascribing it to a bad dream, I attempted to go back to sleep, turning over to my other side at the foot of Odelia’s bed, closing my eyes once more.

  But the mewling persisted.

  With a frown, I pricked up my ears.

  No mistake. It definitely was mewling, and it seemed to come from downstairs.

  With a sigh of extreme reluctance, for I love to sleep, I dragged my blorange self up from the soft, warm, comfy comforter, and dropped to the hardwood floor below.

  My human wasn’t up yet, judging from the even breathing, only interrupted by an occasional snuffle, coming from the tousled head on the other end of the bed. And neither was my human’s significant other, police detective Chase Kingsley, who was sleeping in the buff, as usual, and had wrestled free from the comforter to display his chiseled torso while his equally chiseled face was frowning. It would appear that even when sleeping Chase was solving crimes and apprehending criminals. The lone warrior of the law never sleeps.

  Nor do cats, actually. Not completely, anyway. There’s always a tiny part of our consciousness that stays wide awake, ready to pounce on prey, or thwart a natural enemy.

  Or track strange mewling sounds where no strange mewling sounds should be.

  As I plodded down the stairs, I was already figuring out ways and means.

  It could be Odelia’s smartphone, which had adopted a new ringtone.

  It could be Nickelodeon, launching into its daily programming.

  Or it could me, hearing things that weren’t here. Though that was highly unlikely.

  Behind me, Dooley sleepily muttered, “Wassup, Max. Why you up?”

  “Go back to sleep, Dooley,” I said. “It’s probably nothing.”

  I may not be one of those guard dogs humans like to keep, but I do possess a certain sense of responsibility, and like to think that in case of danger I’m ready to sound the alarm.

  The noise seemed to come from the modest hallway, where Odelia keeps her small cabinet containing knickknacks, her key dish, and an assortment of cat toys locked up safe and sound inside. I know how to jiggle the door, so each time I want to lay my paw on some rubber duck or plastic mouse, it’s right there for me to find. Not that I’m all that interested in rubber ducks or plastic mice, mind you. I mean, how old do you think I am? Six months? I’m a grownup, and rubber ducks lost their strange and fascinating appeal a long time ago.

  I trod up to the door and put my ear against it. On the other side of the plywood I detected the distinct sound of cats mewling. And not just any cats, either. Kittens. Perhaps the foulest creatures in existence, though that particular and dubious honor should probably go to puppies.

  I frowned. What were a bunch of kittens doing on Odelia’s doorstep?

  “What do you want?” I asked therefore, not making any effort to conceal my disapproval at what amounted to an early-morning raid.

  But the mewling continued unabated.

  “Oh, stop it, you whiny little pests,” I sternly declared. “Just go away and don’t come back. This house has plenty of felines and no use for more.” Especially—gasp!—kittens.

  And then I stepped away from the door and fully intended to retreat upstairs and put in another couple of hours of invigorating and refreshing sleep.

  You may think me unnecessarily harsh, but you would be wrong. Kittens are a menace, plain and simple, and if you don’t believe me just try adopting one. They may seem deceptively appealing, with their cute little faces
, and their cute little gestures, and their cute little noises, but I’m here to tell you they’re pure, unadulterated evil. Once they get past those first natural defenses, humans will take them in and give them a place, not only in their homes but in their hearts, and soon they won’t be able to get rid for them. And since I already have three other housemates to contend with, this was simply a matter of survival.

  But as I turned on my heel, I almost bumped into Odelia, who was rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

  “Wassup?” she muttered, taking a leaf out of Dooley’s book.

  “Nothing to concern yourself with,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”

  “No, but I heard something. Is that... a cat?”

  “Nope. Not a cat,” I said. “Not a cat at all. And I should know, being a cat and all.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. Let’s go back upstairs. You and I both need our beauty sleep.”

  But I could tell the strange fascination the kitten exerts was already working its pernicious magic, for Odelia stepped to the door, arm outstretched, going for the knob.

  “Noooooo!” I yelled, but too late.

  Already her hand was turning the knob and opening the door.

  And there they sat: three kittens, in a carton box, right on our doorstep.

  “Oooh!” said Odelia, crouching down. “Oooooooh! Look at those cuties!”

  Crap. Even before I could intervene, the poison had entered the bloodstream.

  Odelia had spotted the kittens and had gone kitty gaga.

  Chapter Two

  “Who could have put them here?” Odelia asked.

  I could very well have asked her the same thing. I, for one, had never given permission to have my home infested by the pesky little pests.

  “Isn’t there a letter or a card?” I asked.

  Odelia, who’d taken the box inside and closed the door, checked for a sign of ownership of the threesome.

  She took out a tiny slip of paper and read the message it contained. “I hope you will take good care of my babies. For reasons I cannot disclose, I no longer can. I’m sorry.”