Catnapped Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Teaser chapter

  About the Author

  “A well-plotted, multilayered story. . . .

  Legal investigator Sara Townley’s ingenuity and

  resourcefulness shine through.”

  —Linda O. Johnston, author of the

  Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mystery series

  Meeting the Informant

  Who did this guy think he was, Deep Throat?

  “Hello?” Adrenaline made my scalp tingle as I wrapped my hand more tightly around the keys. Sane people did not wander down dark alleys at midnight. I didn’t even have a damned flashlight. . . .

  “Hello?” I took two steps into the gray alley, away from the security of the streetlight. My good angel was whispering, Don’t be a fool—get out. My bad angel yelled, Chicken! Keeping my back against the wall, I edged down the alley. I reached the Dumpster, carefully skirting its hulking mass.

  “Is anybody there?”

  Two more steps . . . I nearly stepped on him. Him.

  OBSIDIAN

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  First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, September 2007

  Copyright © Gabriella Herkert, 2007

  All rights reserved

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  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  eISBN : 978-1-440-61921-2

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  To my parental units, Christ and Beverly Wendling—

  as usual, it’s all your fault.

  To Ed and Joe—

  I was normal until I met you.

  To Rolph and Kristen—

  you were normal until you met me. Bummer.

  To Marschel, Sherry, Teresa, Greg, and Polly—

  I’m hoping for a group rate at the home.

  And for Ker—

  I miss you.

  Chapter One

  “Do I appear to be kidding, Sara?” Well, he had me there. Senior partners at big Seattle law firms did not kid. They intimidated with pinstripes and Picassos. I’d be more likely to spot a grin on one of the presidents on Mount Rushmore and, in the case of my boss, Morris Allensworth Hamilton IV, more life in the eyes.

  “No, sir.”

  “I expect immediate results.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With a regal nod I was dismissed. I stomped down the three floors to my cubicle near the storage room. As the investigator for the law firm of Abercroft, Hamilton, and Sterns, I didn’t expect an invitation to the executive dining room, but for one wild moment I’d actually thought this missing millionaire was my ticket to the big time.

  I dropped into my desk chair and pulled my laptop closer, opening a new file.

  Name: Flash Millinfield. Age: 10 years. Description: Gray hair, brown eyes, 10 pounds, approximately 12 inches tall. Last known location: Masterson Estate, Mercer Island, Washington. Occupation: Cat. Resources: Sole beneficiary of $2 million trust left by his owner, Millicent Millinfield. Family: None. Reasons for fleeing: See occupation.

  After two hours of tedious phone work, my digits ached and I wasn’t any closer to finding my missing cat. I flipped through the thin file my boss’s secretary, widely known as Elizabeth the Evil, had deigned to let me copy. In it was a photo of my missing client lounging casually in a backyard hammock. If my life were to progress to lounging, I wouldn’t be missing. I took a Snickers bar from my desk, unwrapped the candy and took a bite, letting the chocolate and caramel swirl on my tongue as consolation for my frustrated professional ambitions.

  “I’d love one, thanks.” Joe Nelson said from the opening to my cubicle. He slouched across the room and slumped into my visitor’s chair.

  I tossed him a candy bar.

  “Joe, you’re going to have to stop sleeping in your clothes. You’re a Harvard graduate shar-pei.” He leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes. His perpetual associate pallor was an unhealthy compliment to eye circles that rivaled Spuds MacKenzie’s.

  “Mmm.”

  “And you might consider real food once in a while.”

  “I’m on that.” His eyes suddenly blinked open, a flash of navy blue. “What did the big boss want?”

  “He gave me an important ne
w case.”

  If I was going to lie, I’d tell whoppers.

  “A personal audience?”

  “Yeah. It’s a pretty big deal. Missing, uh, heir. Millionaire. In fact, I’d better get back to it.” I made a show of shifting papers on my desk.

  “Sure.” He pushed himself up and started to shuffle away. “If I were you,” he threw over his shoulder, “I’d start with the local cathouse.”

  “If you knew, why the heck did you ask?” I called to him.

  “I was making polite conversation.” He grabbed the top of the cubicle wall to peer over, his eyes dancing. “I consider it the cost of the candy bar.”

  He dropped out of view.

  “I hope you enjoyed it, because it’s your last, buddy.”

  His laugh floated to me. He was right, of course. My missing-cat case was a dog. Typical of my boss’s commitment to my career growth, but a blow to my ego nonetheless. Still, a visit to the pet-sitter would get me out of the office on a sunny day so my life didn’t seem so much like life imprisonment without parole.

  The drive to Mercer Island took two hours, but the house was worth it. It was magnificent; a gabled antebellum fantasy. The front door opened and a tall, silver-haired man stepped out. He was dressed in crisp white walking shorts and a purple short-sleeved shirt. Sort of a yuppie Weight Watchers Santa.

  “Ms. Townley? I’m Jeff Randall. Thank you for coming.” His smile warmed blue eyes. “Please come in.” He led the way into the house. I took off my sunglasses, blinking as my eyes adjusted. Okay, so I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Heavy carved furniture, plush carpets, gilded mirrors. I’d seen more user-friendly museums. All they needed were red ropes and KEEP OFF THE FURNITURE signs.

  Jeff gestured to a chair with spindly legs and brocade silk coverings.

  “Thanks, no. I know you’ve already searched, but I’d like a quick look around, if that’s okay.”

  He smiled warmly. “You’re a woman after my own heart. Straight to work it is. Shall we start in the kitchen?”

  “Great.” I followed him into a restaurant-sized kitchen. “When was the last time you saw the cat?”

  “Monday night.” He leaned against the counter, arms folded across his chest as I wandered around the room. I gestured toward one cabinet and he nodded.

  I circled the room, opening cabinets without any idea what I was looking for. Paw prints? Ransom note demanding catnip from a neighborhood tom with a bad reputation?

  “Does the cat have the run of the house?” I followed Jeff into a pantry, looking behind boxes and a bag of specialty cat food that leaned against the wall, a few morsels spilling onto the white linoleum. Must be the maid’s day off.

  “The doors upstairs are kept closed, although I’ve checked all the rooms since I realized he was missing. Other than that, he’s free to go wherever he chooses.”

  Returning to the living room, I checked behind drapes and couches, resisting the urge to trill, “Here, kitty, kitty.”

  “Has he ever gone missing before?” I asked.

  “He’s a cat.” Jeff shrugged. “I am, however oddly, responsible for his well-being. It feels like that should include finding out where he’s going; then I remember he’s a cat. Anyway, I felt I should inform someone, and here you are.”

  “Any chance he got out? An open door or window?” We moved to a sitting room decorated in the same heavy oak style of the living room.

  “The house has been vacant. The owner, Stuart Masterson, is away on business. None of the help lives in. Millicent Millinfield did while she was alive, but her position hasn’t been filled since her death. The cleaning girl only comes on Friday.” Jeff stood behind a hideous green armchair.

  “How did she die?”

  “Millicent?”

  “Yes.”

  “She was involved in one of those multiple-car pileups that inevitably make the ten-o’clock news.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I appreciate that, but I barely knew her and I’m sure it was quick.”

  “So, Millicent died and the cat stayed? That’s kind of funny.”

  “I never really thought about it, but I suppose it is. Millicent had lived in before her death. I guess being personal assistant to a billionaire requires around-the-clock attention. It must pay well, too. The trust was quite a surprise. Who leaves millions to a pet? The cat was hers, and . . . well, no one actually said anything about the cat, one way or another. I was already staying in the guesthouse. The trust company contacted me to take care of the cat.”

  “And Stuart Masterson didn’t object to the cat staying in the house without Millicent?”

  “No one said anything to me. Maybe Stuart Masterson is a cat person. Maybe he let the cat stay because they shared a banker.”

  “That’s a good deal.”

  “For me as well.”

  “What’s Stuart Masterson like?”

  “I haven’t actually met him.” Jeff shrugged. “It’s too bad, because from everything I’ve read, he’s quite a character.”

  “What do you mean?” I poked my head into a little library with beautiful first editions behind heavy leaded-glass bookshelves.

  “ ‘Eccentric’ is charitable, I suppose. He’s mercurial. He has been reported to disappear and reappear in dramatic fashion. The magazines say he’s made fortunes and lost them over his career, making headlines along the way.”

  “You said you haven’t met him?” I asked, reading spines. There was probably a fortune in this room alone.

  Jeff ran a finger along a Chinese vase sitting on a small table. “I suppose anyone can be a little starstruck.” He gestured toward the door and I preceded him.

  “I won’t tell,” I whispered.

  He winked. “I appreciate that.”

  “What about other people? Has anyone else been in the house recently?”

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t speak out of school, but . . .”

  I waited. People always talked if you waited. I’d seen it on CSI. Ten seconds of silence and nuns confessed. Still, Jeff seemed pretty casual. No fidgeting or eye twitching. Then again, he was a guy dedicated to finding a cat. Not exactly on America’s Most Wanted.

  “Mr. Masterson’s children have been here. His business partner’s been here as well.”

  “Is that unusual?” I peered into a small closet.

  “I don’t believe Stuart’s on good terms with either his children or his partner.” After checking a guest bathroom bigger than my living room, where a full cat dish and litter box appeared untouched, we climbed a marble staircase. Marble, for Pete’s sake. We walked the length of the hallway without opening the doors.

  “Why?”

  “The children—grown men, actually—have . . . well, problems.”

  “What sort of problems?”

  “Drugs, I believe. Flowing from that, money problems. I believe Mr. Masterson has adopted a tough-love approach that has caused a rift in the relationship.”

  “Cut them off, huh?”

  Jeff smiled. “Perhaps.”

  I followed him into a small sitting room. How many rooms did this mausoleum have, anyway?

  “And the business partner?”

  “Former business partner, recently disengaged from employment and resorting to that all-American sport, litigation.”

  That was a very classy way to say fired. He had style. I swallowed a laugh.

  “What does Masterson Enterprises do, exactly?” I asked.

  “Don’t quote me on this, but I believe it’s an IP trolling firm.”

  I stared.

  “They purchase or invent intellectual property. Patents, that sort of thing. Then they license them to different companies all over the world that actually incorporate the designs and products in their own products.”

  “So Masterson Enterprises doesn’t actually make anything?”

  “No.”

  “Which is why Stuart Masterson can run the thing out of his house, I suppose.”

  “Well, there a
re a couple hundred employees all over the world, of course. Inventors in their garages. Lawyers in fancy downtown offices. Accountants in home-office cubbyholes. But, yes, the main business is actually run from here on a virtual basis.”

  “Do any of these people have keys?”

  “Not the regular employees, certainly. The others, I don’t know. Henry Jepsen might. He’s the partner. Stuart and Sterling, the heirs apparent, have always struck me more as the unauthorized-entry types.” Surprised, I stopped, turning to look at him. His lips were pursed, his eyebrows raised. We laughed. “Of course, I’ll deny that if you repeat it.”

  I moved my fingers to my lips, turning an invisible key. Okay, it was a stupid case, but he was a nice guy and I should really just get on with it.

  “Have you checked with the neighbors? If he did get out, maybe someone’s seen him.”

  “I posted his picture and knocked on a few doors. No luck.” We left the house and stood on the wide porch, a faint breeze stirring the too-warm August air.

  “Do you mind if I see the picture?”

  “Certainly. This way.”

  I followed Jeff to the guesthouse. I waited at my car while he disappeared inside, returning a minute later with a color picture in a silver frame, and a black-and-white handbill. He gave me both.

  I looked at the picture first. It showed a too-blond middle-aged woman in a stylish suit holding a limp gray-and-white cat, dangling over one arm. Feline civil protestor carted off by the police.

  “I take it this is the infamous Flash?”

  Jeff smiled. “The limp gray one, yes.”

  I smiled back. “And his esteemed benefactress?”

  “Millicent, yes.”

  I handed the frame back to Jeff and looked at the paper. He’d used the photo to make the flyer, adding REWARD on top and a phone number at the bottom.

  “You get many calls on this?”

  “A few. Most of them seemed . . . how shall I put it . . . challenged? Or perhaps they were just kids.” He sighed. “What will you do next?”