What God and Cats Know

  Back Cover Copy

  There's no such thing as a "Purr"-fect murder…

  Rebecca Desjardin thought she had put her past behind her...until a dead "cat woman" appears on the front page of a local tabloid.

  Street-smart and sassy, Rebecca is a survivor. Outcast from her Felis family because she can no longer change shape, she’s adapted to the world of men, and is quite capable of taking care of herself in her sometimes challenging career as a private investigator. But for her success she pays a price, her heritage, which she must keep secret at all costs.

  Along for the ride, investigative reporter Brandon Hanover has his own troubled past. A photograph of the dead woman was supposedly slipped under his door, marking him as a possible suspect in the murder. Now all he wants to do is find the killer, clear his name, and get a good story…And maybe find out more about this mysterious woman he might be falling for.

  Content warning, violence, sexual situations.

  Highlight

  The alleys were dark, dank and smelt like fresh urine. I ran down one, paused at an intersection then turned on my heel to charge down the other, feeling the hot breath of a Hunter.

  Skidding around yet another corner, I lost my balance and slammed into the wall, hard. All I could do was flatten myself against it and hope my first strike would disable him, maybe even kill him.

  The Hunter was on me before I could catch my breath, straddling me with little effort. I stared up into the feline face, trying to recognise it even while I strained to force myself to Change.

  The mouth opened, the canines dripping with hot saliva. Arching his back, he screamed at the sky above us then dove down, aiming for my exposed neck.

  I had nothing. Not even a whisper of extra strength, my weak human body nothing more than a shadow of what it could be.

  Lunging forward, I smashed my forehead into the feline face.

  The tactic worked. Releasing my arms, he brought up both hands to cradle the injured nose, roaring his disapproval and pain.

  Then I woke up.

  He was still there.

  What Gods and Cats Know

  978-1-61650-112-9

  Copyright © 2009, Sheryl Nantus

  Edited by Nerine Dorman

  Book design by Brian Hunter

  Cover Art by Renee Rocco

  First Lyrical Press, Inc. electronic publication: January, 2010

  Lyrical Press, Incorporated

  17 Ludlow Street

  Staten Island, New York 10312

  http://www.lyricalpress.com

  eBooks are not transferable. All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission.

  PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  Published in the United States of America by Lyrical Press, Incorporated

  Dedication

  For my husband, who never let me give up on myself. And for Jazz, the bestest fuzzaloid around. You are still dearly missed.

  Chapter 1

  “Our character is what God and cats know of us.”—Thomas Paine

  I smelled the blood before I had a chance to look for it, the tangy dense scent landing on the back of my tongue. Opening the office door, I looked at the man sitting in the chair opposite my desk. He was clean, dressed smartly in a white dress shirt and dark blue pants. The plump fellow didn’t get up as I approached the desk, walking around the chipped wooden edges I had unsuccessfully tried to hide with walnut oil.

  “Ms. Desjardin.” Harry Cloches nodded as I sat down in the old oaken chair. “Sorry for being early, but I wanted to get the information I requested as soon as possible.” He waved at the door. “It was open when I arrived, so I thought I’d wait in here.” Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  My nose twitched as I rocked back, urging a creak from the worn old metal. A small box rested on the left side of the desk, something that hadn’t been there when I had gone upstairs last night after locking the doors and checking the windows, as per my routine. The brown paper wrapper encased the palm-sized box fully but moisture was already beginning to fight through the paper.

  Picking up the file folder from the top of the small pile to my right I opened it up, spreading the black and white photographs across the desk in a half-circle display. Cloches leaned forward, his pink tongue darting out across dry lips as he squinted to see the images.

  “Your wife is not cheating on you.” My finger tapped the image of the brunette exiting a coffee shop, latte in hand. “She’s actually working a second job.”

  His forehead furrowed. “A second job?”

  “Your ten-year anniversary is coming up in a few months. She’s saving up for a cruise.” I could smell the nervous sweat on him, mixed with the scent of another woman, post-coitus. It took a concentrated effort to stop my nose from twitching.

  “Oh.” Reaching into one pocket he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face dry, folding the fabric square up and tucking it away. “I just thought...”

  I sighed, trying not to show my disgust with the man. “She’s not having an affair, Mr. Cloches. Your fears were unfounded and your marriage secure.” At least on her end.

  Pulling the typed invoice out from the bottom of the file, I pushed it across the table at him. He stared at it while as I gathered up the photographs and closed the folder, tapping it twice to settle the contents. “This is my bill. Please send the balance due within thirty days.”

  The bald man mopped his face again, the damp fabric barely able to contain the moisture now. It stank of fear. I spied a small trace of lipstick just below his right ear. “It was... it looked like...” He shook his head, trying to grasp the reality I had tossed in his face.

  Getting to my feet I motioned toward the door, urging the overweight man out of his chair. He staggered to his feet, staring at my bill as if I’d tossed a live cobra into his hands. “She’s not having an affair, which is what you contracted me to investigate and find out. If you wish to engage my services for another matter we’ll have to discuss it later.” I glanced at my watch. “I’m sorry, but I have another client due any minute.” My cloying smile accompanied him out into the hallway toward the front door. “You understand, privacy issues and all that.”

  Cloches nodded, tucking the damp cloth back into his pocket. One hand tugged at the tie threatening to strangle him, pulling it loose. “It just seemed like...” The fingers waggled in the air as if he were trying to summon fairies to carry him away from this existence. He glanced down at the page in his hand, his eyes widening as they hit the bottom line. “Oh my.” The pink tongue flickered out again. “I didn’t know it would cost so much.”

  I pressed my lips together tight, suppressing the urge to start smacking the moron around. What he had wanted was for me to justify his own infidelity so he could obtain a quickie divorce and I hadn’t done so. Still, if he didn’t pay the bill I could and would drag him into court. I wasn’t wealthy enough to let welchers get away with it, and certainly not this bas
tard.

  “If you have any questions please have your lawyer contact me.” I moved closer, herding him out the door. “Good day to you.”

  Closing the door behind him I snapped the deadbolt across, locking both my office and my home. Some may find it awkward to live and work in the same building, but to me it was sort of comforting. There’s nothing like padding downstairs in your big fuzzy bunny slippers at three in the morning when you have a good idea and get to work early. Or breaking early for the day when there’s a rocking matinee down at the retro cheap theaters.

  Sitting at my desk I put my fingertips together and leant forward while I stared at the box. You don’t just rip a mysterious box open without inspecting it, especially when there’s something dead inside.

  The brown paper covered the box with enough clear tape securing it to cover the CN Tower and then some. It wasn’t enough to stop a small leak in one corner, just beginning to work through the tape and paper to spread across my desk. The crimson stain had begun to work upward as well, edging toward the top of the box. What wasn’t there was as important as what was.

  No return address. No stamps. So not only was it a nasty mysterious package, the person dropping it off had managed to carefully pick my front door lock, sneak in and drop it on my desk, leaving before I arrived, which in itself was quite a feat, considering I had been twenty feet away in my bedroom at the top of the stairs.

  It sure as heck wasn’t Cloches. He wasn’t smart enough. All he had wanted was validation of his affair. Besides, the guy couldn’t break into a loaf of bread without a chainsaw.

  Opening my desk drawer I pulled out my MacGyver knife—well, technically it was a Swiss Army knife, but had enough gadgets and things hanging off that I had renamed it after the first use.

  The blade slipped easily under the paper and sliced clean around the box as I peeled away the artificial skin. When it fell away I stared at the cardboard box and the larger scarlet stain by one corner. It wasn’t human blood. I knew that scent intimately.

  I flipped the lid up, holding my breath as the stagnant air escaped into the room. It stung my nostrils, bringing back old memories of early-morning hunts and of fresh-cut grass wet with morning dew.

  The rabbit’s foot lay on a bed of paper towels, the white fur stained with fresh blood. This wasn’t your regular rabbit’s foot, clean cut with a dainty little chain secured at one end with nothing at all to remind you this once was a living creature.

  This was a fresh kill. The nails were dirty with soil that smelt of fresh grass and hay, the foot suddenly shattered by a hatchet that cut through bone and sinew with a single blow. I sniffed the foot instinctively, trying to place the rabbit. It wasn’t a wild one. It had been born in a hutch and died in a barn. Also, I knew exactly which barn.

  The Farm. This was a call to come home.

  Great. As if my day hadn’t started off with enough bullshit.

  Picking up the knife I flipped the blade shut and stuffed it into my front right pocket of my jeans. The cellphone clipped onto my belt, sliding against my white blouse. It was as cheap a model as you can get—I didn’t need internet access or the ability to watch music videos. Call me a Luddite, but a phone is a phone is a phone. Besides, I lost enough of them to make it dangerous to spend any amount of money on them beyond the basic.

  The stairs up to my living area took only a few seconds to climb as I leapt over the rickety top step I liked to leave noisy as a cheap alarm system. I grabbed my black leather jacket off of the coat rack then started back down. My roommate paused at the top of the stairs as I descended, trilling her curiosity.

  “Jazz, you’re in charge until I get back.” I waggled my index finger at the thin white street cat. “Don’t let in any strangers.”

  She began to wash her face with the usual haughtiness I had come to expect from a younger sister. Shaking my head I checked the lock. Miniscule scratches on the metal spoke of a darned smooth hand, a professional. I locked the front door behind me, pushing once to make sure the deadbolt worked.

  My red Jeep Cherokee sat in the small parking lot behind the house, hidden from casual pedestrians strolling by on the street. I liked it that way, it kept the car safe from drive-by idiots who figured that if you were stupid enough to leave your car on a Parkdale street that you deserved to lose your CD player and whatever else of worth you had inside. It was a narrow and dangerous alley to get out of, however, and the numerous scrapes and dents on the brick walls and the matches on my car illustrated how many times I had miscalculated.

  Fortunately the traffic leading out of Toronto was light. I skipped onto the Gardner Expressway parallel to Lake Ontario and out to the 400 Highway with ease—a good thing, since my mind wasn’t on driving and I really didn’t need any more stress. Weaving out from behind a slow moving tractor-trailer and sliding into the slipstream of a black Porsche that saw the posted speed limit as a suggestion rather than the law I let my mind began to trip backward in time.

  I had been forced out of my home more than two decades ago and now they had sent the equivalent of a draft notice, calling me back. That couldn’t be good. The Pride was adamant that no contact be made with Outcasts and I hadn’t seen a whiff of that rule changing over the years, twenty years with nary a hint that just outside Toronto a whole community existed in secret for generations long before I had come on the scene. Now they wanted me back. That smelt worse than the rabbit’s foot.

  My stomach growled, indicating annoyance that I hadn’t filled up on my usual breakfast of steak and eggs before charging off into the unknown. I glanced at the pictographs for the next exit—I was in luck. A rapid sugar delivery system was coming up.

  The rest area on the highway held a Tim Horton’s and a hamburger stop, the flashing neon sign urging me to at least get a decent amount of caffeine in my system before charging onto the Farm. Pulling into the large parking lot I smiled, spotting a minivan filled with young hockey players spill out into the donut shop, the kids clamoring for their sugar fix.

  Now let me point out that I am, primarily, a tea drinker. To me there’s nothing better than the taste of a good cuppa tea in the morning, usually chai, followed in the afternoon by some nice herbal mix and a sweet hot peppermint cuppa for the evening to settle the stomach and send me into a hopefully dreamless state.

  However, I am crazy about Tim Horton’s coffee. Not Starbuck’s, not McDonald’s. Tim Horton or nothing. There was only a handful of people between me and a hot cuppa joe and a sweet, sweet, almost sickeningly sweet mouthful of fried donut. This was nothing I couldn’t wait a few minutes for, or make the Farm wait for.

  A few minutes later, a large double-double and a small bucket of Timbits in hand, I got back into my car and prepared to pull back onto the highway. Buckling up my seat belt I made sure the double cardboard cup was safe in its holder and...

  The hairs on the back of my neck began to quiver. Something was wrong, horribly wrong. I glanced out at the minivan I had seen earlier. My nose began to twitch uncontrollably—there was something in the air, something foul, putrid and definitely not just a bad egg-and-sausage breakfast sandwich rotting in the garbage bin.

  The boys huddled around one of their own who had collapsed on the ground, his oversized hockey jersey bunched up under his unconscious body. The coach knelt over the kid, both hands around the child’s head as he pushed his own jacket under the tiny skull.

  “David! David!” He touched the boy’s face, tapping lightly on the pale flesh. “What was he doing?” The man barked at the assembled kids, his face scarlet. “What were you doing?”

  “Nothing. We was doing nothing.” One of the older boys shook his head, tears already beginning to trickle down his face. “We just came back to the car, that’s all.” He stared down at the panicked child. “That’s all.”

  I bolted from the car, racing toward the sounds and smells of impending death.

  The blond kid’s face was white, his breathing laboured as his eyes darted back and forth a
round the circle. I knelt down and stared at him. My nose twitched—he smelt of something odd, something that wasn’t normal in the middle of sweat and soap and hormones...

  “There’s a bee sting, around his elbow.” I grabbed the kid’s bare arm, holding it up to display the red bump. “He’s probably allergic.” My gaze locked with the coach’s. “He’s got to have something in his kit, right?”

  “Yeah.” One of the boys sniffled, wiping his nose with his sleeve. “Hypo something.”

  The coach disappeared, diving into the back of the van. Duffle bags bounced onto the pavement, hockey equipment scattering across the concrete as he unzipped one bag and began to dig.

  I looked down at the child’s face, trying not to breathe in. The raspy inhalations were loud and terrifying as he stared at me with saucer-wide brown eyes.

  “You’re going to be fine.” I forced a smile, fighting back a surge of nausea at the rich smells pushing their way into my mind. He blinked and his mouth fell open, revealing a gap where his two front teeth should be. His hand fell into mine, squeezing tightly as he drew another pained breath. I looked around. Where the hell had that coach had gone to? Would 911 would be able to get here in time?

  Suddenly the coach appeared, pushing the boys aside with a sweep of his gigantic arm, displaying a pen-like instrument. Flipping the end off he slammed it into the semi-conscious kid’s leg, holding it there for a few seconds while the medical wand pumped its magic into the boy’s system.

  The man glanced up at me, the sweat running down his face as he forced himself to smile.

  “Good eye there. He’s allergic to bee stings. His parents briefed me on what to do if he ever got stung.” As if on cue the boy’s eyes shifted from being wide and scared to more relaxed, the small chest rising and falling with much less resistance. The coach put his hand on the child’s forehead. “It’s all good now, Jerry. All good.”

  “Yep, all good.” Turning away I moved back to the car, watching as the ambulance pulled into the parking lot beside the hockey debris. The paramedics leapt out, but the kid was already looking better with colour in his face and now whispering to the coach while holding his hand as the medical experts descended on him.