Faux Paw: A Magical Cats Mystery by Sofie Kelly Read Free Book Online Page B

pretty much every weekday lunch rush. She set the coffeepot she was carrying back in its place and turned to me. “Did I just hear you say you wanted takeout?” she asked.
    “Please,” I said. I looked over at Susan, thinking that the soup really did smell delicious.
    “How about a couple of containers of soup and a couple of multigrain rolls?” Claire asked.
    I nodded. “Sounds good.”
    It took Claire only a few minutes to get my order ready. “I put in two real spoons,” she whispered. “Just drop them off next time you’re in.”
    I thanked her and paid for lunch, adding a generous tip.
    Susan waved her spoon at me. “I’ll see you Saturday morning. Call me if you need anything before that.”
    “I will. Thanks,” I said.
    Ruby was just coming out of the building when I got to Riverarts, so she held the door for me. As I came out of the stairwell on the top floor I caught sight of Maggie in the hallway. She was wearing her favorite red hooded sweatshirt and she was deep in conversation with a woman in a jean jacket and black leggings. It was Rena Adler, I realized.
    “I appreciate this,” Rena said.
    Maggie nodded. “I’ll e-mail you everything later this afternoon.” She turned to look at me. “Hi,” she said. “Did Ruby let you in?”
    I nodded. “She did.” I smiled at Rena. “Hi.”
    “Hi, Kathleen,” she said, pushing her backpack a little higher on her shoulder. She was wearing her dark hair loose, just brushing her shoulders. Her fingers on the strap of her leather bag were long and slender, like Maggie’s, the nails clipped short, buffed but not polished. And like Maggie often did, Rena had a smudge of paint on one finger, a bit of cerulean blue on her index finger. “Is the library closed now for the day?” she asked.
    I nodded. “The artwork from the museum arrived”— I checked my watch—“about an hour ago.” I knew there was enough soup in the two containers to feed three of us. “Can you join us for lunch?” I asked.
    “Yes. Can you?” Maggie echoed.
    “I’d like to; thanks,” Rena said, “but Ruby and I have a class in about”—she checked her watch—“half an hour. I’m just going to grab some tea.”
    “Next time,” Maggie said.
    “Absolutely,” Rena said. “I’ll watch for your e-mail.” She smiled at me. “And I’ll see you Saturday, Kathleen.” She headed toward the stairs, pulling her phone out of her pocket as she moved.
    “So how was your morning?” Maggie asked as we moved into her studio. I handed her the brown paper take-out bag and took off my jacket, dropping it on one of the stools pulled up to the center workspace.
    “Margo decided we had to change all the light bulbs. Again. She didn’t like the color of the light from the LEDs. She thought they gave everything a faint blue cast.”
    Mags gave an almost imperceptible nod.
    “Wait a minute,” I said. “You agree with her.”
    She opened the bag and took out the two containers of soup. She’d already made tea. “Yes, I agree with Margo about the light. I know she can be a little obsessive, but it’s all those small details that add up to a successful show.”
    I swallowed down a grin. Maggie could be a “little obsessive” about things herself.
    “So what happened with the lights?” she asked.
    “Larry managed to find enough incandescent bulbs for all the fixtures.”
    “Burtis,” Maggie immediately said.
    “Burtis has a stash of old-style light bulbs?”
    “Burtis has a stash of all sorts of things.”
    “And you would know this because?” I teased with a sly smile.
    Her cheeks grew pink. “I know things,” she said, just a little too defensively.
    Maggie and Brady Chapman had been casually seeing each other for the past few months. The relationship may not have been serious, but I’d noticed that neither one of them was spending time with anyone else.
    Brady was Burtis Chapman’s oldest son. Burtis was a self-made businessman. Some of his enterprises were