Purrfect Crime (The Mysteries of Max Book 5) Page 18

  “It wasn’t a contest,” Dooley muttered, eyeing me uncertainly. “You heard Odelia. We all worked together. Played our part. We’re a real team. Odelia’s fierce feline team.”

  “But you played a bigger part than the rest of us,” Brutus said. “So you should get the credit.”

  “Oh, I don’t know…”

  Brutus slapped him on the back and Dooley hiccuped. “Sherlock Dooley. Got a nice ring to it.”

  “I was just messing about online,” Dooley said nervously. “No biggie.”

  “You made us all look good, buddy. Respect.”

  “Thanks. I guess.”

  “And you, Max, have completely lost your touch. I think it’s all that weight loss. It’s affected your brain. I knew this would happen.”

  “You did?” I asked, wondering where he was going with this.

  “Sure. You lose weight, you lose brain cells. And you, my friend, have lost so much weight you must have lost half of your brain. It’s a miracle you can still think straight. Quick, how much is nine divided by three?”

  “T-three?”

  He grinned at me. “You weren’t sure, were you? Admit it, Max. Your brain resembles a big chunk of cheese. Swiss cheese. With a big bunch of holes in it. More holes than cheese.”

  I gulped, the vivid picture Brutus was painting affecting me powerfully. “You think?”

  “Of course!” He shook his head sadly. “Good thing Dooley’s brain is as sharp as ever, or else Odelia would have to trade you in for a new model. Can’t have a cat sleuth with Swiss cheese for a brain.”

  He was right, of course. I had been feeling a little weak lately. And after allowing Odelia to walk off into danger like that, it was obvious I was slipping and slipping badly.

  “Don’t listen to him, Max,” said Dooley. “Your brain is fine.”

  “But I have lost a lot of weight,” I said, gesturing at my flabby belly.

  “Brains aren’t muscles,” Dooley said.

  “Are you sure?”

  He hesitated. “Reasonably.”

  I shivered from head to toe. I could see my brain shrinking even more. Soon there would be nothing left!

  “You know what I’ll do?” asked Brutus.

  “What?”

  “Just out of the goodness of my heart, mind you.”

  “What is it?”

  “From now on why don’t I assume a leadership role in this small outfit of ours?”

  I found myself nodding even before he’d finished the sentence. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Dooley will be the brains of the operation—obviously. Harriet will be the pretty face. And I will run the outfit.”

  “And me?” I asked in a feeble voice.

  He eyed me sternly. “Why don’t I appoint you my assistant?”

  “I would like that,” I said, still thinking about my cheesy brain. “But do you think I’m up to the task?”

  “We’ll just have to wait and see,” he said. “Somehow I doubt it, Maxie baby, but I’m willing to take a chance on you. That’s the kind of cat I am. Kind-hearted and generous to a fault. Isn’t that right, babe?”

  Harriet, still focused on the end of the garden, murmured her assent.

  “What are you looking at, sweet cakes?” Brutus asked, annoyed now.

  But Harriet didn’t respond. Instead, she jumped down from the swing and picked her way along the humans, who were all gathered around Doctor Tex, toasting his lovely wife Marge.

  “What’s the matter with Harriet?” asked Dooley.

  We followed Harriet with our eyes, and when she finally reached the hedge, she plunked down on her haunches and just sat there. At least, that’s what I thought. When I looked closer, I saw her lips were moving. She was talking to someone, and that someone was partially obscured by the boxwood hedge.

  “Oh, my God,” said Dooley.

  “What? What?!” Brutus cried.

  “It’s… Diego.”

  We all goggled at the scene, and when the orange cat finally emerged from the hedge, and rubbed noses with Harriet, we all gasped in shock.

  Our mortal enemy Diego had returned.

  “What do we do?” asked Dooley, panicking. “Brutus? What do we do?!”

  But Brutus, our newly self-appointed leader, had been struck dumb. Finally, he turned to me. “Max!” he bleated like a sickly sheep. “What do we do?”

  “But I thought you were our leader!”

  “I can’t be the leader! This is Diego we’re talking about! And he’s stealing my woman! Again!”

  “Well, I can’t be the leader. I have Swiss cheese for a brain!”

  “I was just joshing you! Your brain is fine!”

  “See?” asked Dooley. “Brains aren’t muscles. They’re… something else.”

  A feeling of resolve stole over me as I regarded Diego, who’d casually draped a paw across Harriet’s shoulder and was looking more smug than ever. Then I said, “Winter is coming, fellas.”

  “What does that even mean?!” Brutus cried, desperately shaking his paws.

  I shrugged. “No idea. But it’s got a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

  Just then, Diego blew us a kiss, his face splitting into a particularly cheeky grin.

  Brutus, Dooley and I watched him stoically. This meant war.

  THE END

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  Excerpt from Ghost of Girlband Past (Ghosts of London 5)

  Prologue

  London Borrow of Hackney, August 26, 1997

  Five women stood staring down into the freshly dug hole. They gazed dispassionately upon the body of the man they’d just killed and unceremoniously dumped into the hole. Rain was lashing the earth with a dull thrumming sound, stirring up a musty scent that filled their nostrils, rivulets of muddy water flowing into the pit. They were soaking wet and streaked with mud, but they didn’t care.

  “Is the monster dead?” asked Janell. Her red hair was plastered to her skull and she was shivering violently. “Is it really dead?”

  “It is,” said Carrie, the sporty one amongst the five friends. “We’ve slain it.”

  “I can’t believe it,” said Janell.

  “What can’t you believe?” asked Amaryllis. “That it’s dead or that we killed it?”

  “Both.”

  “Better believe it,” grunted Courtney. Rain was streaming down her face, which now resembled a raccoon’s, her mascara creating black streaks across her cheeks.

  “And now it’s time to make sure it stays dead,” said Perpetua, and flicked an amulet on top of the body.

  Five pairs of eyes followed the silver amulet as it described a perfect arc through the air, then landed on the monster’s chest, where it would make sure it would never rear its ugly head again.

  Five shovels dug into the pile of dirt next to the hole and dumped the wet earth onto the body. The fifth and final shovelful was thrown down by Amaryllis, the youngest of the bunch, and the one who’d suffered the most at the hands of the man. She hesitated before tossing the soggy soil onto their victim. They should have closed his eyes. It was way too creepy staring into those dead eyes. They were fixed on her, an accusing expression gleaming in those dead orbs. As if ready to rear up, and attack them again. Finally, with a brave whimper, she flipped the shovel blade and the muddy sod dropped down, plunking down onto the man’s face.

  “Well done, Amaryllis,” said Courtney. “Now let’s pray this is the end.”

  “This is the end,” they all murmured softly, before digging their shovels in again.

  They worked in silence, as more and more of the black earth covered the dead man, soon completely obscuring him from view. When the hole was filled up, they flattened the earth with their shovels, then rolled the plaque back into place. And as they walked away, their deed done, lightning sl
ashed the night sky, and lit up the plaque. It read: Cardinal Yardley Roman Catholic School Time Capsule – Not To Be Opened Before 2067.

  London Borrow of Hackney, Present Day

  There was a full moon out, which made the work that much easier. Of course, it also meant they could easily be seen from the road by anyone walking their dog.

  “Come on, Doug,” said Ricky. “No one in their right mind walks their dog at this time of night. They’d be completely mental!”

  “They might,” Ricky said, anxiously glancing up and down the street.

  The two friends had come down to the front lawn of the Cardinal Yardley School, their alma mater, to do something they’d been wanting to do since they were little kids. Now, since reaching the ripe old age of twelve, no longer boys but men, they’d decided finally to screw up their courage to the sticking point and raise the capsule.

  “Do you think it’s heavy?” asked Doug Adams, the fair-haired one of the two. He shoved his shovel into the ground and took out a first chunk of turf and dumped it to the side.

  “I don’t think so,” said his best friend, dark-haired Rick Curtis. “Most of these capsules are quite small.” He was staring pensively and a little trepidatiously at the ancient stone walls of the school’s main building. It looked medieval, with its fortified battlements, thick masonry and heavy oak entrance door. It reminded him more of a dungeon than an actual school. He shivered. “This place gives me the creeps,” he confessed.

  “Which is exactly why we need to dig up this capsule,” said Doug, his tongue sticking out while he stuck his spade into the ground again.

  They’d had some trouble removing the heavy bronze plaque and dumping it to the side, and the deeper they dug, the more Rick was having second thoughts about this endeavor. “What if they put some kind of protection in place?” he asked. “You know, like in those Indiana Jones movies?”

  “Are you kidding? This isn’t some ancient treasure, Ricky. Just a bunch of old crap.”

  “If it’s just a bunch of old crap, why are we digging it up?” he asked heatedly.

  “There might be some fun stuff in there,” said Doug, always the more adventurous of the twosome.

  “Like what?”

  “Like Mrs. Rampart’s knickers.”

  Rick grinned. He would like that. He hated Mrs. Rampart’s guts. Ever since she’d punished him for accidentally aiming a soccer ball straight through the library window, she’d had it in for him. “We could fly her knickers from the school flagpole!”

  “Or we could boil them down and make Mrs. Rampart Knickers Juice! We could bottle it and sell it and make a fortune!”

  “Or we could stick it on the head of Cardinal Yardley himself!”

  They both looked up at the statue of the old cardinal, which stood sentinel in front of the school, his eyes staring manly up at the sky, his long beard brandishing in the wind, his funny-looking hat slightly askance, as if he’d dipped into the sacramental wine again. Both boys’ eyes gleamed. Yeah, this was a right great scheme: dig up Mrs. Rampart’s knickers and stick them on the head of that old fruitcake Cardinal Yardley.

  With renewed fervor, they dug their spades in. It was hard going, and the capsule proved to have been buried a lot deeper than they’d anticipated when they’d concocted this wild scheme, but finally Rick’s spade hit something solid. His eyes went wide with excitement. “I think I’ve got it, Doug!”

  “Go on, then. Don’t stop now,” Doug urged. And as they cleared away the dirt, Rick saw something glimmering in the moonlight. It looked like… an amulet.

  “Hey, look at that!” said Doug. “We found treasure after all!”

  Rick reached down and picked up the amulet. He removed the caked earth and twisted the precious find in his fingers.

  “I think it’s silver,” said Doug, his voice reduced to an awestruck squeak. “Regular silver!”

  “There must be more,” said Rick, and started removing the dirt with his hands.

  He felt it before he saw it. There was something mushy under his hands. Something soft and squishy. And when he finally reared back, a scream stifled in his throat, Doug asked, “What is it? What’s wrong, Ricky?”

  He gestured at the face of the man he’d just uncovered. “It’s—it’s—it’s a body, Doug! There’s a dead body down there!”

  And then they were both screaming.

  When they’d finally recovered their sangfroid, Doug said, “We have to bury it again. No one can know we were here.”

  Rick quickly agreed. He could just imagine what his parents would say if they found out that instead of having a sleepover at Doug’s place, he was digging up dead bodies in the middle of the night.

  They quickly shoved the dirt they’d removed back into place, then placed the clumps of turf on top of them and rolled the plaque to cover up the damage they’d done. When they were finished, no one could see that the site had been disturbed. And as Rick threw one final glance at their handiwork, a glint caught his eye. And then he saw it: Doug was throwing the silver amulet in the air and deftly catching it again.

  “Did you take the amulet?!” he cried, aghast.

  “Of course I did. It’s ours. We found it fair and square.”

  He had to agree that his friend had a point. “Well, I found it, actually.”

  “We both found it.”

  And as they walked away, dragging their shovels behind them, they agreed that they would share ownership of this new and exciting treasure. Doug would get to keep it one week, Rick the other. That was only fair.

  “Who do you think that body belongs to?” asked Rick.

  “Old Yardley, of course,” said Doug. “Who else?”

  Ricky shivered. “I hope he won’t put a curse on us.”

  “No, he won’t. We buried him again, didn’t we? Trust me, Ricky. It’s fine.”

  “Do you think we should have called the police?”

  “Are you nuts? For digging up the cardinal? We’d be expelled!”

  As usual, Doug was right. And as Rick palmed the amulet, his nails removing some of the dirt, he asked, “How much do you think this amulet is worth?”

  “Millions,” said Doug knowingly. “Maybe even billions.”

  His face lit up. “You think?”

  “Of course. We’re rich, Ricky.”

  “How rich?”

  Dough thought about this for a moment. “At least as rich as David Beckham.”

  “Wow,” said Rick, his eyes wide as saucers. “We’re super rich, Doug!”

  “Yah,” said Doug with a wide grin. “Super duper rich!”

  And as they walked home, he quickly forgot all about Cardinal Yardley’s body. They were rich like Beckham!

  Chapter One

  We walked the hallowed halls of the Natural History Museum, our feet sounding hollow on the stone steps as the sound reverberated in the vaulted space. As I looked around, I thought the museum resembled a cathedral more than an actual museum, and was more than a little spooky. Great place for a ghost to make a nuisance of himself.

  Jarrett seemed even less comfortable traversing the hallways of this ancient place than I was. Then again, Jarrett hates both mummies and dinosaurs, so that might have had something to do with that slightly worried look on his face.

  My name is Henrietta McCabre and I’m a ghost hunter—though we like to call ourselves wraith wranglers, as it sounds a little—or a lot—cooler. My associate Jarrett and myself have been doing this work for a little while now, and are usually called in when some poltergeist or other ghostly guest kicks up trouble. It was the first time we’d actually been called in to clear a museum of its ghosts, though.

  “I don’t like this, Harry,” said Jarrett, his eyes flitting up at the gigantic skeleton of the dinosaur at the heart of the museum hall. “I don’t like this at all.”

  “Relax, Jarrett. It’s just a bunch of old bones.”

  “It’s a dinosaur. Have you seen what they can do? I’ve seen Jurassic Park. And Jurassic Wo
rld—you just have got to love that Chris Pratt. He’s got the finest bum I’ve seen in the movies recently.”

  “Focus, Jarrett,” I said. “We’re here to do a job, not talk about Chris Pratt’s bum.”

  Jarrett craned his neck to take in the enormity of the dinosaur. “That thing’s huge! Where is Chris Pratt when you need him?!”

  “It’s a dead dinosaur,” I reminded him. “It’s not going to do anything. So we don’t need Chris Pratt.”

  “You don’t know that,” he said. “It might come alive again. And one can always do with a bit of Chris Pratt. That man is fine.”

  “Will you just focus?” I asked through gritted teeth.

  “Oh, all right,” he grumbled, patting his hair to make sure it was still in place. Jarrett is fair-haired, slender and one of the richest men in the country. Or at least his father is. Jarrett simply sponges off the old man. As for me, I’m not rich nor come from money. I pushed at my blond bob, smoothed my pink T-shirt around my lithe form, adjusted my jeans, and walked up to the man we were here to meet.

  “Hello, Mr. Goodfellow,” I said. “Henrietta McCabre, but everyone calls me Harry. And this is my associate Jarrett Zephyr-Thornton.”

  “The Third,” Jarrett added petulantly.

  “So what can we do for you?”

  Julian Goodfellow was younger than I’d imagined and rocking a sexy bookish look, with a pair of horn-rimmed glasses on a well-shaped nose, his handsome face creased into an engaging smile. When he gripped my hand and shook it, there was power in those fingers.

  “So nice to finally meet you, Harry. Your reputation precedes you. And you, Jarrett.”

  “H-hi,” said Jarrett, slightly taken aback. “You’ve got a-a firm grip, Mr. Goodfellow. Do-do you work out?”

  I rolled my eyes. When Jarrett starts stuttering, it’s usually because he’s spotted prey. It’s part of his Hugh Grant impersonation, which he figures will add to his charm.

  “I do work out, yes,” said the museum director after a pause. “It’s important to stay in shape.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” said Jarrett. “I work out myself, of course. Not a day goes by that I don’t spend in the gym. And the sauna, of course. Nothing like a nice sauna after a hard, hard workout.” He gave the other man an appraising look, but the director ignored him.