California Schemin' by Kate George Read Free Book Online

about the litter clogging the septic. The
thing smelled much better after a good cleaning, and I let it drip
in the sink while I went to see my elderly pony.
    Lucky turned his back the minute he saw
me.
    “Hey, buddy. I’m home.”
    I slid back the bolt and pushed open the door
to his stall. He stood stubbornly with his head in the corner
pretending to ignore me. I walked up to his rump and put a hand out
to scratch above his tail, a tactic that had always worked in the
past. A rear hoof whizzed past my leg, barely missing my knee. I
grinned. I knew if he’d wanted to connect, he would have.
    “Okay, I get it. You don’t like it when I go
away.” I spoke quietly, working my fingers up his spine through his
shaggy winter coat. “But I’m back now, and I’m sure Max took good
care of you while I was gone.” I went on talking nonsense and
assuring him there was no better pony in the world until he
relented and turned his head to me, resting his muzzle in my palm.
I scratched between his eyes and around his ears. He puffed through
his nose, giving me what I’d always thought of as a pony kiss,
before I threw him some hay and went to check on the other
animals.
    All seemed right with the world in the barn.
I closed up and took the cat box back to the house. I refilled the
litter and went in search of Annabelle. I gave up when she didn’t
come to her name. She’d come out when she figured I’d been
adequately punished, but I kept an eye out for her as I climbed the
stairs, thinking I could coax her out if I knew where she was.
    The smell hit me half way down the hall to my
room. Normally my room was my favorite spot in the house. It was
filled with light and little else besides the bed and dresser. I
looked through the open door with more than a little apprehension.
I had a feeling I’d be sleeping in one of the other bedrooms
tonight. Sure enough, the bed was covered with anything a cat could
possibly deposit. Not only had she used it as a litter box, there
were dead mice, hairballs and vomit littered over my beautiful blue
and white quilt. A dead snake was gracing my pillow. At least I
hoped it was dead.
     

Chapter Three
     
    I closed the door and walked away. Crap. Not
what I’d wanted to come home to. I checked the rest of the rooms,
but my bed was the only place where Annabelle had seen fit to
notify me of her displeasure. I held my nose and went back in to
open the windows. Then I went to the bed, used a wire hanger to
remove the snake from the pillow and folded the whole mess up in
the quilt.
    I dragged the quilt downstairs and dumped the
contents out behind the barn. Then I hung the quilt on the line,
hoping that it would either rain or snow soon and wash some of the
grossness away. If it didn’t I’d wrap it in a plastic garbage bag
and take it down to the laundry. If a couple of go rounds in the
industrial washers didn’t clean it up then I’d have to give the
quilt up as a lost cause.
    I was dragging my three-ton suitcase up the
stairs when the phone rang. I left it on the landing and jogged
back to the kitchen.
    “You made it home safe.” The sound of Beau’s
voice hit me in the stomach and made me long for him.
    “Yeah, no problems. Did Fogel ever find out
who it was I fished out of the river?” I hated the thought that she
might remain anonymous, her family never knowing what happened to
her.
    “Yeah, but hang on, Fogel wants to tell you
himself. I’ll pass you over.” There was some shuffling on the other
end of the line. I leaned back and put my feet up on the kitchen
chair next to me waiting for Fogel to get to the phone.
    “The woman is Lily Carver Wallace, wife of R.
Carl Wallace, member of the state senate.” Fogel sounded
distracted.
    “Wow. How’s he taking it?”
    “Publicly devastated. Privately, not so much.
Resigned I’d say, but not overly emotional.”
    “The wife of a state senator. That opens a
can of worms, doesn’t it? Is he liked? Not that it’s any of