Never Tease a Siamese: A Leigh Koslow Mystery by Edie Claire Read Free Book Online Page A

it?" The startled personal assistant, wearing exactly the same jeans and T-shirt she had had on at the clinic earlier, greeted the odd twosome curtly.
    "It's not time for me to be here yet, I know," Leigh explained quickly, cursing herself for being intimidated by a woman who weighed less than a Saint Bernard. "I'm sorry. But I didn't get a chance to talk to you again after the police came, and I need to. It's important."
    Nikki looked up at her skeptically, but her gaze was not unfriendly, and Leigh found herself wondering just how old the woman was. She appeared to be somewhere in her mid twenties, yet somehow she seemed wise beyond her years. "All right," she answered, swinging the large door wide. "But you'll have to talk while I get ready."
    Adith chortled with delight, brushing past Leigh's shoulder and scuttling inside.
    Leigh threw her hostess an embarrassed smile. "Um, this is my friend Adith," she explained weakly as she followed. "I was—well—obliged to bring her." Perhaps the aunt story would have made more sense, but Leigh had enough batty aunts already. Nikki threw the older woman a brief but critical look, then, much to Leigh's relief, simply shrugged her shoulders.
    The spacious tiled foyer, which was dominated by a splendidly carved wooden balustrade, looked elegant—and fairly normal. But when Leigh glanced at the library and parlor to either side, she couldn't help but feel as if she had walked into an industrial cleanroom. The hardwood furniture and flooring were rich and beautiful, but without a single rug on the floor or curtain on the windows, it all looked disturbingly stark.
    Adding to the bizarre milieu was the tremendous cacophony that rattled from every direction—a mixture of howls, mews, and cries that put one in mind of a medieval torture chamber. Leigh suppressed a shudder as the kitten-eating nightmares tried to fight their way back into her consciousness.
    Nikki looked back at the other women's faces and laughed out loud. "Yeah, I know," she chuckled. "Weird, isn't it? They're not always this loud, but I had to shut up the free-rangers in the bedrooms. You should hear them when the exterminator comes and they all have to go in the kennels with the toms. That really ticks them off."
    Leigh smiled self-consciously, aware that there was no good reason a big old house full of Siamese cats should cause the hair on the back of her neck to stand at attention. Nevertheless, Hitchcock could have made a fortune off the place.
    Nikki pressed back toward the large kitchen where she began pulling glass tumblers out of a cabinet and onto the gleaming black-marble countertop. The floor, too, was of marble tile, though its gleam was somewhat compromised by a thin coating of white fuzz. As Adith began buzzing about, peering into cabinets unabashedly, Leigh attempted to hold her hostess's attention.
    "I need to talk to you about whatever it was that Number One Son swallowed," she began somewhat nervously. She had only met Nikki a few hours before and had no good reason to consider her an ally, but given that the woman already had access to Mrs. Murchison's cats 24/7, it hardly seemed likely she would involve herself in an elaborate plot to steal one from the vet clinic.
    "Okay," Nikki answered, struggling to flip open the safety latch on a large, shallow drawer of dish towels.
    Leigh halted, impressed. "I can't believe how much trouble Mrs. Murchison has gone to to keep that cat away from cloth," she remarked.
    "Oh, Number One Son's not the only one," Nikki responded. "Auntie Em has a taste for it too, though she hasn't swallowed anything so far. Ms. Murchison fixed up the house a long time ago for some cat named Abbott. He's dead now, but she always has at least one wool sucker to watch out for."
    A light dawned. "They're named after characters from old movies," Leigh realized aloud.
    "Yep," Nikki answered distractedly, "Radio and television too. Ms. Murchison named a few that way when she first started