The Cat, the Wife and the Weapon: A Cats in Trouble Mystery (29 page)

Karen was leaning away from Hilary, her expression one of pure terror.

“Don’t hurt him,” Finn said. “I’ll tie him up.”

Hilary was glancing around and locked on to the pantry door in the kitchen beyond. Then she looked at me. “Is that a broom closet?”

“Walk-in pantry,” I said.

“That will do.” Hilary stood. “Put him in there. Now.”

Finn started to reach into his jeans pocket.

“What are you doing?” Hilary leveled the gun at Finn, her voice bordering on hysteria.

“Getting his leash,” Finn said. “Or he might charge you,
Mom
.”

“Go ahead.” Her face relaxed a tad, but her eyes were shifting left and right. She was thinking hard.

When Finn bent to attach the leash on Yoshi’s collar, I said, “I’ll hang on to him while you fasten the leash.”

I bent over, in unison with Finn, and carefully slipped my phone into his back pocket. He turned slightly to acknowledge my action.

Hilary said, “Those two working together just warms your heart, doesn’t it, Karen? She’d be a much better mother to Finn than I ever was.”

“I—I’m frightened, Hilary,” Karen said. “I don’t understand why—”

“You
caused
all this,” Hilary said. “If you hadn’t waited until after Tom and I were divorced to tell me you planned to share money with Finn, I would never have left your son.” She looked at Finn. “Put the dog away. Now.”

Finn smartly held the leash in his left hand, covered his back pocket with the balled-up leash and took Yoshi to the kitchen.

“This is my fault. You’re right,” Karen said, tears beginning to stream down her face. “What do you want? I can give you money. How much do you want?”

“Bob tells me there’s a million dollars in the account you set up for Finn—and here Nolan and I were only imagining maybe a hundred grand.” She paused and waved the gun in Finn’s direction. “Get back in here where I can see you.”

I heard the pantry door close and Yoshi started barking immediately.

Finn returned to the sofa and said, “You will never get away with this. I’ve watched plenty of crime TV and the mothers who kill their kids don’t do too hot in jail.”

Hilary surprised us all by laughing. “There is so much you don’t know.” She looked at me. “I assume you have a computer?”

I nodded, though I didn’t want to give her even that much information. But a gun tended to force compliance.

Hilary narrowed her eyes in thought, seemed to be working through a plan in her head.

What bothered me more than anything, even more than the gun Hilary held, was Finn. Fear is an almost palpable thing and I didn’t sense any fear coming from him. I remembered my thought from earlier this week—how fear is a gift we all need to protect us. No. Finn wasn’t afraid. He might do something, might risk his life to vent his anger at his mother. Anger that was now so clearly justified. Why hadn’t I believed what he and Tom had said over and over about Hilary’s character? But there was no time for regrets, for the magic time machine to supply do-overs. I should have seen she was capable of murder.

Yoshi kept yapping and I could tell this was distracting to Hilary. Her face was flushed beneath her ivory makeup and she seemed to be getting angrier by the second.

Then my fear turned up a notch when Merlot came sauntering into the foyer like nothing was wrong. I took a deep breath, my own very real fear now centered on him. The only good thing about his arrival was that Hilary couldn’t see him.

Stay there,
I tried to telegraph to my big boy.
Please stay there.

Hilary’s back was to him and I was relieved when he sat where the foyer tiles met the wood floor. As he’d done when Hilary was here before, he sniffed the air. Did he smell the fear I felt for all of us? My fear we would all be killed?

“All right,” Hilary said, her expression one of intense determination. “Here’s what’s going to happen.” She turned to Karen. “But first, you know I’ll use this gun, don’t you?”

Karen nodded, abject fright still in her eyes.

Hilary pulled a folded piece of paper from her left pocket. “I was told I’d find this on the floor in your house. Someone who was very upset with you wadded it up.”

The savings account statement. The one Bob had thrown at his mother.

Hilary went on, saying, “Bob isn’t happy with you, Karen, so he made a deal with me. Or he thinks he did. I’d get my hands on the money—a college fund was something we knew you’d fall for—then I would share with him. Too bad I’ll be gone before he can cash in.”

Karen’s eyes were wide as she kept nodding her agreement. “You can have the money. All of it. Just don’t hurt anyone else.”

“I plan to take you up on your offer,” Hilary said. “Problem is, those two over there will stand in my way. Especially Finn, since he has a stronger dislike for me than anyone I know.” The smile she directed at him was truly malevolent.

“You’re plain evil.” Finn’s words carried the full force of his hatred for her. “You couldn’t hide it from me or from Tom.”

She smiled and said, “Your dog is making a lot of noise. And so are you. Both of you better shut up. Now.” She refocused on Karen.

As Hilary kept the gun trained on us while speaking to Karen, Finn reached around to his back pocket.

No,
I thought.
Not now. Not yet
.
She’ll see
. I had no doubt Hilary would use the gun if she were threatened in any way.

But from the corner of my eye I saw he’d lifted the phone just enough to silence the ringer.

Whew. Good idea
.

“You understand what I want you to do, Karen?” Hilary said.

I was so intent on Finn I hadn’t heard. What was about to happen?

Karen stood and picked up the handbag she’d brought with her. She was so wobbly, she nearly fell. She said, “May I use your computer, Jillian?”

So polite. So like Karen, even when she was obviously terrified.

Merlot stood as well and slinked to the left side of the foyer where a potted silk fern hid him.

“It’s in my office down the hall,” I said. “I’ll have to log on. I assume you plan to have Karen transfer funds?”

“You are
such
a bright woman,” she said sarcastically. “I had the foresight to set up an account in the Cayman Islands. Got the number right here.” She tapped her temple with her free hand. “Problem is, there are three of you, too many to handle with only two eyes and one gun while we make the transfer. We’ll need something to tie up Finn. Something in the house, because I won’t be foolish enough to let you near a door to the outside. Stockings? Belts? What have you got?”

“Quilt bindings will work,” I said. I figured she wasn’t about to let go of the gun, so I would be the one tying up her son. Quilt bindings were flexible enough for what I had in my mind. I just wished I could telegraph my thoughts to Finn.

Hilary got up. “Come on, then. Get up and lead me to this office of yours. We have work to do.”

We all started for the hall, Hilary behind us. I still feared Finn might do something crazy, like try to take his mother down. But I never expected what happened next.

Thirty

I heard a slight rustle behind me and turned around in time to see Merlot bounce from behind the fern and streak right in front of Hilary’s feet.

She fell forward and I heard her yelp in pain.

Finn started for her, but she hadn’t let go of the gun and quickly pointed it up at him. “I don’t need you anymore. Take one more step and I’ll prove it.”

I grabbed Finn’s arm. “Don’t. She won’t get away with this. You know that.”

“Aw,” Hilary said as she got to her feet. “Aren’t you good at playing Mommy already?”

She shook her left hand and I saw her wrist was beginning to swell. But she just said, “Keep going.”

I stopped at the door to the sewing room. “The bindings are in there. Can I get them?”

“Bindings. I like the term. Karen, Finn, why don’t we stand in the doorway and watch? Make sure Jillian doesn’t have any tricks up her sleeve.”

She sounded so confident—and so nasty. My concern for our safety was starting to transform to anger. I grabbed a handful of my quilt bindings, the ones my cats love to play with. I always sew them up ahead and have them on hand for when I finish a quilt.

We walked farther down the hall. My office is a small room and we were all close together until Hilary directed Karen behind my desk and told her to sit. She went around and stood over her shoulder.

She pointed the gun at me and said, “Have him sit on the floor and you tie him up. Tight. No fooling around. I’ll check your work.”

Finn was breathing hard, but I knew he was seething inside. I only hoped he could think clearly through the rage.

Hilary said, “Hands first. Behind his back.”

I hoped Hilary Roth had just made her first mistake.

Finn glared at his mother as he put his hands behind his back. I began to tie them together, and when I did, I slipped the phone from his pocket and shoved it under his right butt cheek, making sure his fingers could reach it. I came around and bound his feet under Hilary’s watchful eye.

Karen, still sounding petrified, said, “Is this really necessary, Hilary? We’ve cooperated completely and—”

“Shut up,” Hilary snapped. I could see pain in her eyes and glanced at her wrist. The swelling had grown. She was definitely injured.

And perhaps vulnerable.

Hilary walked over to Finn and me. “Stand on the other side of him where I can see you,” she said to me.

I wasn’t close enough to the bookcase where a heavy hardback might be reachable and useful to bash this horrid woman over the head.

Holding both the gun and her stare on me, she tested Finn’s bonds with her left hand. With each tug, I heard a sharp intake of air. She was definitely hurting.

She then walked back around to face the computer. Poor Karen was visibly trembling now and I sure hoped she didn’t have a heart condition.

“Come over here,” Hilary said to me.

I did so, but as I passed the open door, I saw four cats sitting by the entry, two on either side. By the time I made it to the desk, Syrah and Merlot were already in the room.

“More cats?” Hilary practically shouted. “What are you? A crazy cat lady? Get them out of here.”

But before I could make a move, Chablis and Dashiell entered the room, too. I said, “Do you know how hard it is to herd cats?”

Syrah, my bravest boy, made a graceful leap onto the desk from at least five feet away. Karen was so startled, the wheeling chair she sat in moved back about a foot.

“Get it off of the desk,” Hilary said through clenched teeth.

I gathered Syrah in my arms, afraid for him now. He’d jump on this woman given half the chance and she wouldn’t hesitate to throw him across the room.

Hilary said, “Tell her how to boot up your computer—and hurry. I’ve wasted too much time here already.” Hilary was definitely distracted by Syrah, whose low growl directed her way sounded ominous.

But I noticed with a furtive glance in Finn’s direction, the other three cats were behind him, their interest in the quilt bindings obvious. Or perhaps their interest was in Finn’s fingers moving on my phone. I sure hoped so.

I set Syrah on the floor and gave Karen directions on how to boot up my computer and click on the browser. Unfortunately, her hands were shaking and she was so upset, the process took far longer than the impatient Hilary could tolerate. She kept muttering, “Hurry up, old woman.”

I said, “I could handle the transfer if I had Karen’s account password.”

“You keep thinking I’m some clueless Southern belle,” Hilary said. “If I let you do this, I doubt I’d end up with a red cent. Karen can do this if she’d just
concentrate
.”

“Hard to concentrate when someone is waving a gun around,” Finn said.

From where I was standing, I could detect movement behind him. But was it from the cats inspecting the bindings or from Finn using my phone?

Hilary removed the paper with Karen’s account information from her skirt pocket with difficulty. Her wrist might actually be broken.

She set the paper on the desk next to Karen and said, “You told me at your house you have an online account.”

“Yes,” Karen said, her voice wavering, “but Ed always helps me get to the site. I don’t think I can do this without him.”

“You can and you will,” Hilary said. “If you don’t, Finn might not make it out of this house alive.”

My growing anger turned to fury with this latest verbal assault on her own child. It made me sick. “You’ve gotten the browser up,” I said to Karen, hoping my anger didn’t spill into my tone. “I can read you what you need to type into the bar at the top of page.”

The Web site URL was at the bottom of the crumpled paper and I picked it up. I slowly read each letter and punctuation mark and Karen typed with one trembling finger. After what seemed an eternity, she leaned back in the chair and looked up at Karen. “There it is. This is the screen I always see.”

“You’ll probably need a password,” I said, glancing at Finn. He definitely was concentrating on something himself.

“I keep them written down in my little day planner,” she said. “It’s in my purse.”

“You don’t remember your password?” Hilary said.

“N-no. Let me get it.” Karen opened her bag and I noticed Hilary’s breathing had quickened. This drawn-out process was wearing on her patience—or maybe her pain.

I sure didn’t like our chances with an impatient, gun-wielding sociopath in the room. It certainly wouldn’t make any sense to kill us—how would she get her money then? But could I count on this terrible person to think through what she was doing? No way.

A good thirty seconds later, Karen entered the password. But because of added levels of security, she had to answer several questions before her account finally appeared on the screen—all one million plus dollars.

Syrah had been sitting by Finn, watching the other cats, but suddenly he snapped to catlike attention, listening to something. He ran out of the room and the three other felines rushed after him.