Final Catcall: A Magical Cats Mystery by Sofie Kelly Read Free Book Online Page A

Los Angeles, I’d get a cheesecake and try to lure her here.”
    “It would probably work,” I said with a laugh.
    They walked in the direction of the parking lot and I headed for the main doors. Marcus was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
    “Kathleen, do you have a couple of minutes?” he asked.
    “Of course,” I said. I pointed toward the stone path that curved around the building. “Do you want to walk?”
    He nodded. “Your arm hurts,” he said as we started along the walkway.
    I’d been rubbing my shoulder again and didn’t even realize it. “I’m all right,” I said.
    He continued to look at me but didn’t say anything.
    “Okay, so it aches, but just a little. I swear.”
    “Don’t overdo it, please,” he said.
    “I’m not . . . I won’t.”
    We followed the path back to the gazebo and over to the rock wall. Farther along the shoreline I could see the large warehouses, built from stone cut at Wild Rose Bluff, that had stored lumber for shipping downriver back in Mayville Heights’s heyday as a lumber town.
    “Thank you for my chair,” I said, watching a seagull floating on the surface dip his head below the water. “You did a beautiful job.”
    Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small smile on his face. “You’re welcome. Thank you for the cupcakes. I was the most popular person in the building for a while.”
    I’d sent a dozen chocolate peanut butter cupcakes over to the police station as a thank-you for the chair. And maybe as a small please-forgive-me.
    “I like Hannah,” I said, tipping my head back to look up at him.
    “Everyone does.”
    “Why does she use Walker instead of Gordon?”
    “Walker was our grandmother’s name. She and Hannah were close.” He hesitated. “I should have told you more about her.”
    I looked away and then back at him before I spoke. “I wish you’d told me something. You said you had a sister, but I only know her name because she came into the library today. You mentioned your father, but I don’t know if he’s alive or dead. Or your mother.” I cleared my throat. “Last night you said I didn’t trust you, but now I realize I don’t know anything about you. Are you sure you trust me?”
    I could feel his body tense.
    He swiped a hand over the back of his neck. “My mother and father are both alive and well.”
    I waited for him to say something about them. “My father’s a Supreme Court justice,” or “He grows organic soybeans on a commune in Oregon and my mother is a circus contortionist.” But he didn’t offer anything else.
    My chest felt heavy, as though an elephant had decided to use it as a footstool. “Marcus, I’m sorry about last night,” I said. I held up my hand before he could say anything. “I’m sorry that what I did made you feel like I didn’t have faith in you, or trust you. I think you’re a very good police officer. And a good person.” I took a breath and let it out. “I like you. And I think you like me, but we seem to be at an impasse.”
    For a long moment he just stared out over the water. I waited until he looked at me. “Can we be friends?” he asked.
    I didn’t want to be friends with Marcus. I wanted to be . . . something else. I wasn’t exactly sure what the something else was, or maybe I just didn’t want to admit it to myself. But right now, maybe friends was all we could manage.
    “I hope so,” I said. The sun was shining and what few clouds there were seemed to be floating in the sky, but all of a sudden I felt cold. “I need to get back to work,” I said. “I’ll . . . see you.”
    I went back along the path and some small part of me hoped that he’d come after me or at least call my name, but he didn’t.
    Susan returned from lunch at the food-tasting tents just before one thirty, smelling like caramel, with a dab of whipped cream on her nose and another on her ear.
    “I don’t even want to know how you got whipped cream on your ear,” I said, as Abigail came through the