The Cat Sitter’s Pajamas by Blaize Clement Read Free Book Online Page B

in.”
    “I’m not a criminal lawyer.”
    As if she’d heard a musical cue, Briana stepped forward with her hand out, elegant and assured as all hell. “Thank you so much for seeing me, Ethan. I’m Briana.”
    Ethan quirked an eyebrow again.
    I said, “Briana only uses the one name, like Cher. She’s a famous model.”
    In Briana’s aura, I felt dumpy and used up, like the mother of a homecoming queen.
    Ethan took a deep breath, and I knew he was feeling that I only thought of him as someone to solve a problem or provide sensible direction. That wasn’t true. I thought of him in plenty of other ways that I didn’t want him to guess, but I understood why he’d think that.
    He gestured toward the chairs facing his desk. “Tell me the situation.”
    Briana and I took seats, but it was Briana’s situation, and I waited for her to talk.
    She said, “This is difficult.”
    Neither Ethan nor I said anything to make it easier, so she straightened her back and tilted herself slightly forward toward Ethan as if to make her words more intimate.
    “The truth is that I went into a house without the owner’s permission. I knew he and his wife were away, and I went in and walked around inside his house. I should not have done that, but I did not steal anything, and I had no motive except to be in the home of a man I’d known when I was very young. While I was there, Dixie came into the house.”
    She turned and looked at me with those yellow-brown eyes. “I suppose Dixie has a key.” The inflection said she wasn’t at all sure I had a key, and that perhaps I’d broken in the same way she had.
    I spoke to Ethan. “I’m taking care of the cats in the house. The house, by the way, belongs to Cupcake Trillin. He’s an—”
    Ethan completed my sentence, as if everybody in the world, not just sports fans, knew who Cupcake was. “Inside linebacker for the Bucs.”
    He digested that bit of information and nodded for Briana to continue.
    “Dixie left, and I knew she would call the police, so I ran to the bedroom and got dressed.” She allowed herself a faint smile. “I was more or less nude when Dixie came in.” The invitation to Ethan was almost spoken: Imagine me naked!
    Ethan’s face didn’t change. His dark eyes were flat. Briana looked down at her twisted hands as if she were unaccustomed to getting no response from a man.
    In a rush, she said, “When I went back to the living room, a woman was on the floor. Her throat had been cut and blood was gushing out. Blood was all over her, all over the floor, it was terrible. I was terrified. I ran. I didn’t see anybody else, but somebody else had to be there. I ran out of the house. I ran to my car. I waited out of sight until I saw Dixie’s car leave the gate into the neighborhood, then I followed her. I knew I would be a suspect. I didn’t know what to do. Reporters will want to talk to me, photographers, everything I’ve been trying to escape. Dixie stopped at a light, and I got out and ran to her car and begged her to help me. She was an angel. She met me and I told her my story and she believed me.”
    Ethan’s eyes flicked to me, and my face went hot.
    “She left out a good bit of the story, but I believed enough of it to advise her to get a lawyer and turn herself in.”
    He said, “Good advice.”
    Briana said, “Can you keep this out of the press? It will be hell if it hits the news!”
    Ethan raised that eyebrow. “A murder in the home of a famous athlete?”
    She said, “I meant about me.”
    Ethan leaned toward her, but not in the intimate way she’d tilted herself toward him. His was more like a ship’s prow aiming at a curl of froth thrown up by a sea wave.
    “I’m afraid you lost any right to anonymity the moment you broke into the Trillins’ house. You might as well get prepared to give some straight answers to solid questions. And you can begin by providing your last name.”
    “I didn’t kill that woman! I swear to God I didn’t kill