Thanksgiving in Cherry Hills Read online

  Thanksgiving in Cherry Hills

  A Cozy Cat Caper Mystery

  Book 9

  Paige Sleuth

  Copyright © 2016 Marla Bradeen (writing as Paige Sleuth)

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Marla Bradeen.

  This book or portions of it (excluding brief quotations) may not be reproduced without prior written permission from the publisher/author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), actual businesses, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If this ebook copy was not purchased by or for you, please purchase your own copy before reading. Thank you for respecting this author’s work.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  FROZEN IN CHERRY HILLS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Tell me again what that’s supposed to be,” Andrew Milhone said, eyeing the mixing bowl on Katherine Harper’s kitchen counter with puckered lips.

  “Tofu pumpkin pie.” Kat lifted up a lumpy spoonful. An orange chunk fell back into the bowl with a splat. “It doesn’t look very appetizing, does it?”

  “Nope,” Andrew agreed. “Did you follow the recipe?”

  “Of course.”

  Matty, Kat’s yellow-and-brown tortoiseshell, jumped onto the far side of the counter. The feline took a tiny step toward them, sniffing cautiously as she approached.

  “Matty doesn’t seem impressed either,” Andrew said.

  “It’s vegan. Matty wouldn’t be impressed with any type of pie except the chicken pot variety.”

  Kat reached over to shoo Matty away when the cat crept within two feet of the bowl. But Matty apparently didn’t plan to get any closer. Upon spotting what her human was up to, her whiskers twitched and she darted back the way she’d come. Kat heard the thud of an eight-pound feline hitting the floor.

  Andrew chuckled. “I have a feeling tomorrow’s Thanksgiving guests will have the same reaction.”

  Kat set the spoon down and planted her hands on her hips. “You realize I invited you over to help. If you intend to spend the morning criticizing, you’re welcome to go on back to your house.”

  Andrew held up his hands. “Hey, I’m at your service. Just tell me what you need me to do.”

  She picked up the bowl and thrust it at him. “Mix this until it’s smooth and creamy.”

  He brushed his sandy hair out of his eyes before taking the bowl from her. “Given what I have to work with, that might take days.”

  “You have exactly twenty-nine and a half hours. Imogene says dinner starts promptly at two o’clock tomorrow.”

  Andrew placed the bowl back on the counter. Without another word of protest, he grabbed the spoon and started stirring.

  A loud meow cut through the air. Kat looked down at where Tom, her brown-and-black cat, was peering up at them. He licked his lips, his tail swishing across the linoleum. Their mere presence in the kitchen had clearly given him hope that they might soon be opening a can of wet food.

  “Dream on, Tom,” Kat said, crouching down to rub his ears. “You have dry food if you’re hungry.”

  “Yeah, careful what you ask for, Tommy boy,” Andrew chimed in. “Kat might give you some of this pumpkin stuff. Then you’ll be begging for your kibble back.”

  “You just keep mixing,” Kat retorted, ducking her head to hide her smile.

  Tom rolled over onto his back, evidently deciding he was okay with settling for some belly rubs in lieu of more food. Kat obliged.

  Although Kat had never been particularly fond of Thanksgiving, this year she was looking forward to it. Having grown up in foster care without a real family of her own around, she had always felt like an outsider intruding on other people’s festivities. She had been an extra place setting put out at the last minute, someone added as an afterthought. But Imogene Little’s dinner would be attended by a mishmash of people from Cherry Hills, Washington, most of whom weren’t related to one another. Plus, she thought, glancing up at Andrew and feeling that little flutter in her stomach that always materialized when she was reminded of their romance, this year she had someone to go with.

  Even if he was currently doing an obscene amount of grumbling.

  “The lumps aren’t coming out,” he said.

  “Mix harder,” Kat suggested.

  “What do you think I’ve been doing?” He paused. “How come you don’t buy a pie at the store?”

  “This is tofu pumpkin. Every store-bought pie I looked at contained either eggs or milk or both.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Imogene’s event is all vegan.”

  Andrew looked down at her, a grin forcing his dimples out. “I can’t wait to see how Chief Kenny reacts when Imogene starts serving dinner. He thinks the four food groups are beef, poultry, pork, and bacon.”

  “One vegan meal won’t kill him.”

  “You wouldn’t think that if you’d heard him complaining down at the police station all week.”

  “He could have told Imogene he wasn’t coming.”

  “After he admitted he didn’t have any plans?” Andrew snorted. “He’d never hear the end of it.”

  Tom hugged Kat’s palm to his chest, giving the finger closest to his mouth a light nip. She withdrew her hand from his grasp and plucked a strip of cellophane out of the garbage to dangle in front of him. When Tom started biting, it was a sure sign his claws would soon be making an appearance too.

  But before Tom could take more than two swipes at his new toy, a piercing shriek echoed throughout the kitchen.

  Kat sprang off the floor just before the mixing bowl clattered two inches from where she was standing. Orange-and-white globules sprayed all over the linoleum and across the front of the cabinets. Tom scrambled to his feet and streaked out of the kitchen. Matty stayed close to his heels, the feline morphing into a golden blur as she sprinted after her brother.

  “It’s the smoke detector,” Andrew shouted over the alarm.

  Kat sucked in a breath. “My crust!”

  She lunged for the oven and flicked it off. Smoke billowed around the door. She yanked it open, releasing a black cloud that filled her lungs and made her cough.

  And, somewhere inside, was the pie crust she had worked so hard on earlier.

  “We need to air this place out,” Andrew said. He opened the window above the sink before moving into the living room.

  Kat grabbed a dishtowel off the counter and waved it below the smoke detector affixed to the ceiling, hoping it would shut itself off before she inconvenienced anyone else in the building. The only other person who rented an apartment on the third floor was spending this week with relatives, so there was a chance she could contain the disturbance to her own unit.

  Thankfully, the alarm quieted down ten seconds later. Kat collapsed against the counter, relishing the silence.

  Andrew strolled over to join her. “Sorry about dropping the bowl. The alarm startled me.”

  “It’s okay.” She didn’t think the pie filling could have been saved even if it wasn’t currently sticking to every surface in her kitchen. If it were possible, the disgusting mixture actually
looked as if it had more lumps in it than earlier.

  Andrew reached over and tucked a lock of Kat’s brown hair behind her ear. “You’re not getting discouraged, are you?”

  “How can I not?” She flapped her arm at the mess surrounding them. “This tofu pumpkin concoction looks like something one of the cats hacked up. And that pie crust that’s now ruined took me forty minutes to pound into submission.”

  “What was it doing in the oven anyway?”

  “The recipe says to cook it for ten minutes before filling it.”

  “Huh.”

  “Obviously, I forgot all about it.” She pressed the dishtowel she was still holding into Andrew’s hand. “Help me clean this up, will you?”

  Andrew took the towel, but before either of them could start wiping anything down a scream ricocheted throughout the apartment.

  Kat’s stomach lurched, and her eyes automatically moved toward Andrew’s.

  “It came from outside,” he said.

  He bent over the sink to look out the kitchen window. Kat started to do the same, but he spun around before she could see what was going on, nearly knocking her off her feet.

  “There’s a woman in the alley,” he said, barreling toward the front door. “She might be hurt.”

  Kat didn’t have time to ask any questions. She flew out of the apartment after him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Kat thought her heart might beat out of her chest as she sprinted after Andrew. She managed to stay fairly close behind him during their race down the third-floor corridor, but she started losing ground in the stairwell. She had only just reached the second-floor landing when she heard the metal door that exited outside bang open.

  Cold air blasted her in the face when she burst through the door herself ten seconds later. She hadn’t bothered with a coat, and the drop in temperature caused goosebumps to break out over her skin. The frigid air stung her eyes, forcing her to blink several times before she could make out where Andrew had squatted next to a thin, dark-haired woman sitting cross-legged on the pavement. She looked to be in her early to mid-forties.

  “He just came out of nowhere and took all of my groceries,” the woman said. She jutted her chin toward a plastic bag with its contents spilled on the pavement. “Except that one. It broke when he tried to wrestle it from my hands.”

  The bag was pinned underneath a frozen turkey. Next to it lay a package of carrots. A few feet away, a dented can of cranberry sauce had tipped on its side. Kat gathered from the items scattered around that the woman had been out shopping for tomorrow’s holiday.

  Andrew regarded the woman, his eyes reflecting his concern. “What about you? Are you injured?”

  She shook her head, her hair fanning around her face.

  Kat walked up to them, rubbing her hands up and down her arms in an effort to keep warm. “What happened?”

  Andrew looked at her over his shoulder. “She was mugged. Guy showed up and filched her groceries.”

  Kat shivered, although she wasn’t sure if her reaction was in response to the cold or Andrew’s words.

  Andrew turned his attention back to the woman. “I’d like to take your statement.”

  She blinked up at him. “My statement?”

  “I’m a detective with the Cherry Hills Police Department,” Andrew explained.

  The woman’s brown complexion turned a shade lighter.

  “The sooner we know what this guy looks like, the sooner we can have people out searching for him,” Andrew told her.

  “Bu—but I don’t remember anything about him.” She pressed her fists against her thighs, glancing off into the distance as if she might spot the man who had robbed her hovering behind the recycle Dumpster. “Everything happened so fast, I didn’t get a good look at him.”

  “You might remember more than you think,” Andrew said. “At any rate, I’ll still have to file a report.”

  The woman bit her lip, seeming to ponder that. Kat’s heart went out to her. She had probably figured she’d be spending the day before Thanksgiving the same way Kat was, cooking in excited anticipation of tomorrow’s celebration.

  Or, Kat thought, thinking of the orange substance coating her kitchen floor and the burnt pie crust smoldering in her oven, perhaps this woman hadn’t expected to spend Thanksgiving Eve exactly as Kat was.

  “I’m Detective Andrew Milhone, by the way,” Andrew said. He pointed at Kat. “And this is Kat Harper.”

  “Sylvia Garcia,” the woman murmured. “But I don’t really have anything to tell you.”

  “We can start with how you ended up here.”

  Kat supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised when Andrew pulled a notepad and pen from his breast pocket. Although he wasn’t currently on duty, maybe a police detective wasn’t ever actually off the clock.

  Still, she wished he had suggested going back to the warmth of her apartment before taking Sylvia’s statement. Already she could feel her fingers going numb from the cold.

  “I was grocery shopping over at the Cherry Hills Food Mart,” Sylvia said, pointing in the general direction of the store Kat often shopped at herself. “CHATS had sent me to stock up on Thanksgiving items for tomorrow.”

  Kat tilted her head. “CHATS?”

  “The Cherry Hills Assistance and Transitional Shelter,” Sylvia explained. “It’s a homeless facility.”

  “And you work for them?” Andrew asked.

  Sylvia nodded as she shoved her hands into her coat pockets.

  Andrew adjusted his notepad. “What is your position there?”

  “My title is Special Events Coordinator, but I do whatever they need. There’s only four of us on staff, so our functions aren’t as defined as they might be with a bigger organization.”

  “Isn’t CHATS located on the other side of town?” Andrew asked.

  “Yes.”

  Andrew tapped his chin using the end of his pen. “They’re only a couple blocks from Hank’s Grocery, correct?”

  “They are,” Sylvia concurred. “But the Food Mart doesn’t charge as much, at least not for the items on my list. CHATS is on a limited budget, so I thought saving them a few dollars was worth the effort.”

  Andrew frowned. “You couldn’t have walked this far.”

  “I drove. By the time I’d finished shopping, my car battery had died.”

  A breeze blew through the alley. Kat hunched her shoulders closer to her ears, the cold like icicles stabbing at her skin. She was about to propose they continue this discussion inside, but Sylvia started speaking before Kat could.

  “I don’t live too far from here. When my car wouldn’t start, I figured I would walk to my place on Maple Street and get my brother Armando to give me a ride back to CHATS.” She lowered her head. “Naturally, I never expected to be mugged on the way.”

  Andrew blew a lock of hair out of his eyes and looked around. His gaze landed on the broken grocery sack. “Are those the only things the mugger left behind?” he asked.

  Sylvia nodded.

  Andrew pointed to an object wedged next to her thigh. “You’re lucky he didn’t have time to grab your purse.”

  Sylvia’s eyes followed the direction of his finger. She jerked back a little when she spotted the purse nestled beside her, as if she were startled to see it there. “I—I guess I had it hooked to my shoulder. He must not have wanted to bother.”

  “You did the right thing screaming. There’s no telling what he might have done if you hadn’t scared him off.”

  Kat knew Andrew had made the comment to put Sylvia at ease, but she didn’t look any more relaxed than she had a second ago. Kat couldn’t blame her. Getting mugged would shake anyone up.

  Kat peered around the alley, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling. She hated the thought of a mugger lurking so close to where she lived. Although he was probably long gone by now, just the fact that he had been preying on a woman out shopping for the holidays made her uneasy.

  Kat wrapped her arms around h
erself. “Do you want to go upstairs? You can call for someone to come get you from my apartment, if you’d like.”

  Sylvia smiled at her. “Thank you.”

  While Andrew helped Sylvia up, Kat crouched down to collect the spilled food. Somehow, holding the destruction left behind by the mugger made her heart feel all the more heavy.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “You’re sure you don’t want me to drive you back to the Food Mart and give your car a jump?” Andrew asked as he, Kat, and Sylvia piled into Kat’s apartment.

  “I don’t need to inconvenience you any more than I already have,” Sylvia said.

  Andrew shut the front door and locked it. “It’s no trouble. I keep cables in my car.”

  “No, really. I can have my brother do that.”

  “Then let me drive you home,” Andrew offered. “You said you live on Maple Street, right? That’s only a few blocks from here.”

  Sylvia pulled her cell phone out of her purse and started punching buttons. “Armando lost his job recently. That’s why he’s staying at the house with my family and me. He won’t be busy this time of day. He can come get me.”

  Kat set what was left of Sylvia’s shopping expedition on the coffee table, wondering why Sylvia hadn’t phoned her brother when she first realized her car wouldn’t start. Wouldn’t calling Armando to come pick her up at the Food Mart have been easier than trying to walk the distance home, even if it was only a handful of blocks?

  Or maybe she was just being polite so as not to put Andrew out.

  “My brother says he can be here in five minutes,” Sylvia said, holding up the text message.

  The cats emerged from the short hallway that led to Kat’s bedroom. They leapt onto the coffee table, circling around the turkey as if it were the most fascinating thing they had ever laid eyes on. Kat could only figure they had picked up on its scent. It was frozen solid, but the packaging was torn from when it had hit the ground.

  Kat slid the ripped grocery bag around the turkey to shield it from the curious felines. “I should put this in the freezer until your brother gets here.”