Page 12 of Catnapped

She gestures weakly to the nearest drooping flower, this one with some sort of curling black foliage around it. “Mousey said they’re Mrs. Farrol.”

“What?” I look at the painting, not understanding. “Mrs. Farrol painted it?”

She closes her eyes. “No. They’reallMrs. Farrol.”

Mousey stares at me, her expression–if a cat can have an expression–slyly amused. I look at the painting again. It takes about half a second before realization sets in. They aren’t droopy flowers at all. And the curly black foliage isn’t foliage at all. It’shair. The paintings are Mrs. Farrol’s droopy flower. Over and over again. My stomach lurches.

First a missing cat investigation and now a roomful of vaginas. Goddamn, rich people are so fucking weird.

8

MAY

“That’s a lot of pussy in one room,” Mousey deadpans, making me burst into laughter. I cover my face with my hands.

“What?” Carson questions why I'm laughing so hard. “What did she say?” I drop my hands from my face. “You’ve turned a pretty pink.” He brushes a piece of hair out of my face that escaped from my bun. I have more hair than I know what to do with. Though if I knew I would be meeting Cece, I might have dolled myself up a touch.

“She’s terrible.” I shake my head.

“Come on. Tell me.”

I understand what it's like to feel excluded. I don’t want to do the same to Carson, so I give. “She said it’s a lot of, ah”—I duck my head, my cheeks burning with heat—“pussy… in one room.”

A bark of laughter leaves Carson. The sound sends a tingly feeling through my body. I can’t help but giggle along with him.“We should get back to work.” I clear my throat, trying to get myself together. I still can’t believe I said ‘pussy’ out loud.

He schools his expression, though there’s still a twinkle in his eye. “If he went out the window, we should go search the grounds.”

“Do we go out the window?” It’s not too far off the ground, but I’m not a cat and know I won’t land on my feet. It doesn’t help that I’m kind of a klutz. Climbing out the window does not mesh well with that.

“We can use the door.” Carson puts his hand on my back to lead me out of the room. His touch is warm to my back. If I was a cat, I’d purr. I’m not sure what is happening between the two of us, but whatever it is, I want it. Even if I’m a little scared by it. I mean, can you blame me? It’s not like I have a ton of experience in the man department. The fact that I can have conversations with cats doesn’t really have men lining up to date me. Not to mention, Ijustmet Carson. We don’t know anything about each other. This magnetism between us is—I don’t even know how to explain it or if I should trust it.

Carson opens the back door for me. I step out into the cold air, the flurry growing thicker. Mousey is waiting for us outside the window from earlier. She is a clever little thing.

“There is a lot of land out here.” It looks like it stretches for miles. It’s pretty intimidating if you ask me.

“A lot of trees too.”

“I just don’t see this fancy cat leaving to go out and be in the wild. Fitzy is used to being pampered, not roughing it.”

“He’d never make it on his own.” Mousey agrees with me. “Never once has he caught a mouse.” I don’t miss the huffiness in her words.

“Here.” Carson pulls out a flashlight. It’s not dark out, but he points it down at the ground, showing a small indentation of cat paws in the slushy parts of snow.

“They're not Mousey’s.” The second I saw them, I knew. “She’s polydactyl.”

“Poly what?”

“Dactyl.” I laugh. “She has six toes on each paw.”

“All the better to scratch you with.” Mousey does a stretch, flexing them out to give Carson a nice view of them.

“Show-off.” I shake my head at her.

“Then they must be Fitzy's.” I nod in agreement. “Come on. We need to follow them before it starts to snow more and we lose them.” Mousey comes along with us. I keep my eyes on the ground, but I can see the indents as well as Carson can.

“Did you used to be a cop or something?” I notice whenever we enter a room, his eyes roam over every inch of it, not missing a thing. Even when he was questioning the staff he watched them closely too. He’s very observant. I’ll need to remember that. Not because I’m doing anything to get myself in trouble, but because I have no control of my body when I’m around him.

“FBI.”

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