Announcing Kate & Blake vs The Cat Heir!
The Second book of the Kate & Blake mysteries
Coming Soon!
Kate thinks she's got just what she wanted: a regular lawyer job, dealing with rich old people's wills. No ghosts. No murders. No attempts on her life. Nothing weird.
Except the old lady leaves her estate to her cat, and dies the day after Kate meets her under mysterious circumstances the cops won't investigate. And the rich lady's house is haunted. AND the ghost might have its eyes set on Kate, if she doesn't find who killed the woman and fast.
KATE, WELCOME TO YOUR NEW NORMAL
Kate & Blake vs The Cat Heir
And as a sneak preview, enjoy the first chapter from Kate & Blake vs The Cat Heir, coming soon:
Chapter 1
Nothing works like you think it’s going to in your mind. Your mind is a magical place where you’re always funny, those jeans always fit just right and the only thing anyone ever says to you is, “Gosh, I’d never thought of it that way. You’re so smart, Kate!”
Well, maybe your head doesn’t call you, “Kate” but mine does and it paints lovely pictures of the world as it should be. That’s great, but then I go and do something stupid like opening up my eyes to see the “real” world.
In my mind, I sit in an office with dark oak shelves crammed with enormous, leather bound law books (all appropriately creased in the back because I’ve read and understood them.) There’s a slight hint of lavender, maybe - I am a girl lawyer, after all - but mostly it smells like old brown leather and good, clean justice.
The door opens, and my secretary (a man, maybe even too handsome and with a clear crush on me that, alas, must go unrequited) lets in a humble but wealthy client with a problem. Or, even better, an extremely humble and un-wealthy client who has a problem with somebody with deep, deep pockets.
I sit behind my desk, with a sly smile on my face, fashionable glasses pushed down to my nose, and a look of such overwhelming confidence and intelligence that I’m hired on the spot. Then we go to court, and win, and everything is both hunky and dory.
“Ms. Becker will see you now,” are words I hear in real life, and when I open my eyes everything piece of that wonderful world in my mind gets replaced by sad, sad reality.
I am in my law office, and I probably look very confident and intelligent (though I don’t wear, or need, glasses - maybe I should get a pair just for the image.) However, I do not feel confident, or intelligent.
There are no stained oak shelves in my office, just plywood and metal. My male secretary (on his first day on the job) might be handsome, but I can’t tell because he only ever looks at his feet, and when I do get to see his face, he looks at me like he’s forgotten his homework, and he thinks I’m going to flunk him out of class.
And there are no massive doors to open to get into my office, because the only space I can afford is basically one room (and a tiny restroom in back). When I decided to hire a secretary, I knew I couldn’t just sit across from him, two desks side by side. First, I’m young, and a woman, and I know some clients would immediately assume a man, however terrified he looked, was probably the lawyer they were coming to see.
Second, a lawyer needs a space to privately talk to her clients. Unfortunately, the best I could afford for privacy was a cheap partition that cut the already small office in half, so that my too big desk went from one edge to the other, and I had to leap over it like a hurdler to get out.
It wasn’t an arrangement built to last. Everything about it reeked of the temporary, and that’s just how it was supposed to be. I’d gotten in good with a mysterious power broker in my small town of Whispering Pines, a man of intrigue, secrets, and (so I’d thought) great wealth.
He’s only known as the Landowner, and he’d brought me in to his very small circle… I assumed it was small, because the only person I know who was in it was myself. And he promised, without explicitly saying so, that working with the Landowner meant moving in high society, doing important public things, maybe even dealing with stuff that most people don’t understand or believe in like ghosts, or town spirits, or whatever mumbo jumbo nonsense he was eccentric about.
Of course, on top of all of that would be big checks for so much money that you had to take it into the bank because you couldn’t trust an ATM with it.
Except so far, working for the Landowner had consisted of taking a couple of phone calls, and one time, two weeks ago, waiting at the tiny airport outside of town to give somebody a lift. I waited for two hours, a plane landed, one person got off. They weren’t who I was waiting for.
And no big checks.
Meanwhile, in perfectly understandable anticipation of a flood of new work, I’d hired this shoe-gazing secretary and bought a partition and even paid to have my number and face put on a public bench. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but Whispering Pines is a small place. There are not too many public benches. Competition for the advertising space is fierce.
The owner and proprietor of Manny’s Shoe Repair, whom I beat to that bench, still drives by my office once a day just to glare at me.
Without Landowner money to pay for it, I’ve had to throw my net a little wider than usual to catch some clients. I was a beggar, and could not chose.
If I could, I definitely wouldn’t choose the fellow who walked in just that moment, following my secretary around the partition. He hobbled on a crutch and wore a neck brace. He also had a bandage on the top of his head, a big boot on one foot, and looked like the perfect victim an ambulance chaser would love to have as their client.
Except he looked too perfect. Like he’d copied something he’d seen on TV, some show where a shyster lawyer had dishonest clients and bilked people out of things. I don’t even know what bilking entails. I just know I’m not a bilker.
“How do you get out of there?” he said, taking in my enormous desk. It made me feel like I was a convenience store clerk and not a highly educated and semi-successful lawyer lady.
“It isn’t easy,” I said, with as much verve as I could muster. I wasn’t the verviest. “I’m Kate Becker.”
“Darnell Holder,” he said, trying to edge around my secretary, who examined his own shoelaces like they were really something to see.
I stood up and held my right hand out, smiled awkwardly for a second, then switched hands. His right arm was busy with the crutch while he hobbled toward me. He took two steps, cleared his throat, and glared at my secretary, who stood directly in his way.
I joined the glare, and then eventually said, trying hard not to raise my voice, “Thanks, Jayden.”
“Oh, sure,” he said, not getting the hint.
“You can go back to your desk.”
He looked up at me for a second, then at my prospective shady client, let out a little sigh and walked without a word back around the partition. Before he was even out of sight, Mr. Holder said with a grunt, “Hell kind of name is Jayden?”
I forced a smile as he hobbled toward me, my hand still out. I leaned against the large desk to reach out far enough, and the hard wooden edge cut a painful crease into my thigh that I would feel for hours.
When the client did finally get within handshake distance, he placed a limp, warm fish of a hand in mine and kind of let it dangle.
I let go, smiled, and said, “Do you need help sitting down?”
“Not from Jayden. And much as I’d like to see you crawl across the desk…” Holder said, with a wink that made me sure he’d meant that in the grossest way possible. Then, with surprising deftness from a man so bandaged up, he slipped into the single chair I had waiting on the other side of the desk. It was a comfy one, and he settled into it with a sigh.
“Okay,” I said, sitting down with the fakest smile I’d ever faked in my life, and spread my hands out in an ingenuous, “tell me your troubles, friend” kind of way. “How can I help you?”
“I wanna make out a will,” he said, sneering.
“Um… okay, well, then I’ll just need a few statements from you, and I need to find some forms…” I began searching through my desk when he snorted.
“What, are you stupid? I wanna sue the negligent SOB who did this to me.”
The negligent SOB who did what? Put you up in that obviously fake get up, like you were auditioning for Victim #1 in a shady lawyer’s TV ad?
“Okay. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
“All right,” he said, leaning forward. A second later, as if he’d just been prompted by his stage manager, he let out a groan. “Ugh, hurts moving around, don’t you know? Anyways, I was just walking down on Forest. You know the street?”
“Forest street, yes.”
“And they’re doing all the construction there, right?”
This was factual. All kinds of new developments were coming to Whispering Pines since the resort hotel and historical park had started construction on the site of Crestgold ghost town. That had been after a long, drawn out bidding war that ended up with murder, scandal, and won me my own relationship with the Landowner. Since the plans for the resort had been approved, other businesses were gearing up for the presumed influx of tourists and new workers for the resort. Change would come to Whispering Pines.
I didn’t approve of all of this, though at least the development going on on Main Street and in Crestgold was being monitored carefully to make sure that everything fit into the spirit of our town as it exists. On Forest, which is a couple blocks up from the main thoroughfare, apparently anything went, including a nasty looking strip-mall that had all of the rustic charm of a cinder block. That’s what it was, basically, a giant block with spaces being carved out of it for a fast food restaurant, a massage parlor, and that bane of my existence, the thing I hated most of all in the world, what I’d escaped from San Francisco and came back to my home town to avoid:
FroYo.
Frozen Yogurt stores are murdering small town America.
“So you got hurt at a construction site?” I said, leaning forward and giving Mr. Darnell Holder my undivided attention.
“That’s right. I was walking down the street, minding my own business. This was at about 5 o’clock Tuesday, so it was already dark.”
I typed everything he said into my computer. This might have been the sort of thing you wanted a secretary for, but I didn’t think that poor Jayden was up for it.
“Now, I’m a careful guy, and I watch where I’m going. But you think if they’re going to dig an enormous hole right in the sidewalk, they’re gonna rope it off or put some cones around it, right?”
“You fell into a hole?” I said, trying to imagine how one did that on accident. It wasn’t easy.
“Yep, I fell into a hole. A giant 10 foot deep hole, and broke my leg, crunched my neck something awful. Got concussion, too. I got doctor’s reports. Doctor Tarjarian,” he said, pulling a file out his jacket. It was a little bent from where he’d been keeping it, and he groaned as he handed it over, an even less convincing performance than he’d put on sitting down.
I skimmed through the file, saw the appropriate X-rays, saw the name of the doctor. Tarjarian, M.
“Hmm,” I said, nodding while I tried to think of the best way to get this guy the heck out of my office.
There were two Dr. Tarjarians in Whispering Pines, Michael and Arman. Arman owned a floor of a building on main street, was a specialist in nerve functions and worked a couple of days a week in a local clinic, giving four star treatment to people who could barely afford the co-pay. Michael, who was a brother or a cousin or maybe no relation at all and just took the name, had an office space even smaller than mine, and was rumored to have sets of x-rays and medical tests for sale for any occasion, especially for workman’s comp cases.
“Mm-hmm,” I said, looking again at the potentially fraudulent file. “And where exactly did you fall? I mean, the address. Who was responsible for the hole?”
“Briggs Contracting and Construction. They’re building the whole complex, and I hear they’re co-owner of that yogurt place coming in.”
FroYo.
I took another look at his file, trying really, really hard to believe it was legit. Briggs was one of the biggest local construction companies. I think I knew one of the Briggs kids when I was in grade school. Local high school basketball big shot. I think he teased me when I was a little girl in pigtails ‘cause me and my sister Susan were poor. Or I might have made that up in my head, because I wanted a reason to hate him.
Either way, I didn’t want to pass up a chance to punch the chin of Big Yogurt. All that pretense of being a healthier frozen desert, but then they put candy bars and Oreo cookies and gummy bears on top and turn it into a super-caloric high fructose corn syrup nightmare. Only… I couldn’t go to court on a lie.
I was about to find the most diplomatic way to tell Mr. Holder to take a hike when my front door flew open. It clanged against it hinges, and familiar, heavy footsteps clomped in.
“Oh, excuse me,” Jayden’s meek voice came easily through the partition. “Sir, do you have…”
But the newcomer didn’t wait to be introduced, and didn’t even say hello when he turned the corner.
Blake Spanner, my big handsome hunk of a fiancee, my sheriff’s chief deputy and the last person I wanted to see while contemplating minor fraud on our court systems.
“I don’t believe it,” he said, which was not the sort of hello I’d expected after close to a year of being engaged. But he didn’t look at me. He had a heavy brow hanging over ocean blue eyes that give me a bit of a quiver every time, and they were directed at my maybe client.
I don’t think Darnell Holder got the same feeling I did, though, because he folded his arms and pouted.
“You call this cop on me? Or did Jayden? Hey, kid!” Darnell shouted.
Jayden, his hands at his sides like they’d been tied there, looked around the corner with a sort of mounting terror from Blake to Darnell to me, and then he shrugged.
“He kinda forced his way in?” he said, turning up his sentence to a question right at the last syllable. Such a weak way to talk.
“Blake, I’m with a client,” I said.
“You’re with a crook,” Blake said. Now, that was a proper declarative sentence. My baby was being all strong and manly, and it made me want to throw a book at him.
“Whoa, that’s slander. Or libel. Which is it?” Darnell said, looking at me.
“Slander,” I said, and I could have told him the various legal reasons it wasn’t slander, but I wasn’t in much of a mood to be on Blake’s side at the moment.
“Well, whatever it is, he’s wasting your time. Darnell, out of here,” Blake said.
“Wait one minute!” I said, sliding around the top of the desk in a maneuver that was completely not awkward (except my nice, tall shoes flew off to the side as I did it, so when I got to Blake’s face I was barely up to his chest level.) I pointed at him, and said, “This is my office, I can take any client I want.”
And, with nothing coming from the Landowner, I had to take any client I could get.
Blake did not roll his eyes, but I think he started to before he thought better of it.
“Mr. Holder, come back to see me tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll have drafted a letter to Briggs Construction, informing them of our intent to sue if they don’t provide reparations for your injuries.”
Darnell got up, gave Blake a smirk, and squeezed between us to get out from the partition. Did he brush up extra close to me in a way that should have earned him a slap? Attorney-client privilege, I can’t say one way or the other.
I was glad he was gone, though, and sad that he was my client, because it was a big step down from where I thought I’d be, just a month or two ago. But mostly, I was furious that Blake thought he could charge in here like some kind of sheep dog and roust out MY client.
“Honey, you’re gonna regret—” Blake started, but I wouldn’t let him finish.
“No, ‘honey’, you are going to regret barging in here like Lord King Blake the Duke of Whispering Pines and ordering me around. This is my office, this is my business, and I take on anyone who needs a lawyer. I don’t pre-judge like a mean old pre-judging cop type.”
“Would you like to know how often this cop type has arrested Darnell Holder, and for what? You wouldn’t like it.”
“I don’t care!” I said, and I stamped my foot. In my nice wedge shoes that would have made a healthy clumping sound on my decent looking (and completely fake) wooden floors. But in my leggings it made less noise than a cat stomp. Hopefully, the same feeling was still conveyed. “You can’t say somebody doesn’t get their fair day in court just because you don’t like them. Or even just because they’re a crook, if this isn’t for something crooked.”
“It’s not?” Blake said, with just enough of a smile that now I really wanted to throw a book. Maybe it was crooked, I didn’t know, but I wasn’t going to pre-judge the man based on his appearance, and his past. Blake was a cop, and that’s how cops thought. I liked him, as well as loved him, but this was his most annoying quality.
In the front room, the phone started to ring, and Jayden let it go three times before he finally remembered it was his job to pick it up.
All I needed now was for my gardener to show up and turn on his leaf blower in my office, then every man in my life could be annoying me as much as possible.
“Blake, is this all you came here for?” I said, not quite kicking him out, but angling him toward the other side of the partition.
“Yeah. Woody saw him coming in and got me over the squawker to take care of it,” Blake said, walking backwards away to the edge of the partition.
“Unacceptable!” I said, finger in the air, pointing right at the unacceptability.
“Shouldn’t this Landowner jerk be sending you something better than this?”
Yes, he should, and hearing it from Blake just made it worse. Ever since I’d told him about the deal the Landowner made, and the few odd jobs I’d done for him (apparently unpaid jobs) he’d gone from skeptical to outright hostile about it. I knew better than to take it personally, but every time it came up it felt like I was being called a dummy by my man, and my best friend.
Besides, as far as I could tell, the arrangement wasn’t working out.
I gave Blake one of my looks, one I can’t describe but that he could read perfectly well. He was out the door in a flash, just giving me a quick peck on the cheek and a whispered, “Dinner out, Sicily’s,” before disappearing.
I sighed, and watched him go. Everything was so hard.
I turned just in time to see Jayden hanging the phone up. He looked very confused, and stroked his too-stylish beard while crinkling his face behind his glasses. They looked cute on him.
“Hey,” I said. “Who was that?”
“Some real estate weirdo. I told him you’re a lawyer, you’re not buying any land.”
I nodded, headed to my partition, then did a double take and whipped back.
“What? Did he give you a name?”
Jayden laughed. “No, I said, he was a weirdo. I’m a Landowner, I’m a Landowner. Like, dude. Who cares? I told him not to call back.”
I stared, open-mouthed. It was a conspiracy. These men were all working together, to drive me insane.
