Grave Mistake Page 3

  A pursuit of any kind of love life hadn’t been my motivation for moving to Arizona, but if that’s what it took to get things to make a turn for the better, I supposed I’d roll with it. I tried to imagine what kind of guy I’d even meet in Globe. Some sort of cowboy type, maybe. There were still working ranches in the area. Or a biker…one of the pictures I’d pulled up in my Google search of Globe had been of a downtown bar called the Drift Inn that had an impressive lineup of Harleys parked in front of it.

  Both cowboys and bikers had been in pretty short supply in my life. I hadn’t really imagined myself with either type, but if that was what the universe wanted to throw at me….

  Feeling far more hopeful than I’d been a few minutes earlier, I reshuffled the Tarot deck and slid it into its protective velvet pouch. That task done, I stood up and surveyed my living room once again.

  This was going to take a lot of work. I had to hope I was up to it.

  3

  Cats and Curses

  Josie Woodrow turned out to be a plump bundle of perpetual motion, topped by fiery red hair cut into a messy bob. She beamed as she handed the keys of my new home over to me.

  “I had my own cleaning gal go through and give everything a once-over, since the place has been sitting empty so long,” she said, standing off to one side as I stood in the center of what would become my store.

  To my relief, the place looked even better in person. Or maybe it was only that now I was there in the flesh, so to speak, I could breathe in the vibes of the building, could feel it welcome me to the space. Some people might have said that was my imagination and nothing more, but I knew better. I’d always been sensitive to the vibrations in houses and buildings, and this one was no exception. People had been happy here during the building’s long life.

  I had to hope I would be, too.

  “It’s hard to imagine someone giving this place up after all the work that was put into it,” I remarked, and Josie let out a sad little sigh.

  “I know. But Alison — the owner — had to move back to Rhode Island after her mother’s stroke. At first, she thought she might rent out the place, but then she decided it would be too much work trying to manage a rental property from all the way across the country. So she put it on the market.”

  I walked toward the back wall, already envisioning it covered in shelves filled with jars of herbs and essential oils. “What was she going to do with it?”

  “Oh, she was going to make it into a tearoom — you know, someplace where you could come and have finger sandwiches and little desserts, that sort of thing.” Another of those expressive sighs, and Josie’s pudgy shoulders lifted slightly. “I was looking forward to it…not that I don’t think your shop sounds very nice,” she added quickly, obviously not wanting to offend me by allowing me to think she didn’t approve of a New Age shop in the middle of Globe’s downtown.

  “I hope it will be,” I said. “First, I’ll get the apartment settled, and then I’ll work on putting the shop together.” Pausing there, I inspected the faux-washed, warm-hued walls and frowned a little.

  Josie’s expression immediately shifted to one of concern. “Is there something wrong?”

  “No,” I replied. I definitely didn’t want her to think I’d found fault with the place. “It’s just that I was thinking of calling the shop ‘Once in a Blue Moon,’ and so I’m not sure these red walls are going to work.”

  “Oh,” she said, and let out a relieved little chuckle. “I know a very good painter. I can text you his contact information.”

  I reflected that it was helpful to have made contact with the one person who seemed to know everyone in Globe. Not that I couldn’t have tackled the painting myself if necessary, but it was probably better to let an expert handle it so I could focus on ordering display items and inventory for the store.

  “That would be great.”

  She fished an oversized iPhone out of her purse — a brand-new one, from what I could tell, several generations newer and fancier than mine — and typed a quick text. Almost immediately, my own phone pinged from within my purse.

  “Brett Woodrow?” I said, inspecting the text after I’d extracted my own iPhone.

  Her cheeks flushed a little pinker under the blush she wore. “My nephew. But he really is the best house painter in town. And I know he just finished up a big project at a ranch just over in Miami, so he should be available.”

  I’d have to take her word for it. But then, it wasn’t as if I knew anyone else in Globe. I would’ve had to resort to Yelp or Angie’s List to find a painter in town, so I might as well go with Josie’s recommendation.

  “Sounds perfect,” I told her, then slid my phone back into my purse. “I’ll get in touch after I’m a bit more settled.”

  “I’ll let him know to expect a call from you,” she replied. “And speaking of getting settled in, I’ll leave you to it. If you have any problems or questions, just text or call.”

  “I will,” I promised, although I didn’t foresee any issues arising. Everything looked to be in perfect order, and I’d bought a homeowner’s warranty just to cover my butt in case the furnace decided to blow up or something.

  Josie shot another smile at me, then went ahead and let herself out. The door to the shop closed behind her with a quiet snick, and I took a deep breath in as I looked around.

  For better or worse, I was home.

  I’d put what I could in my Beetle — clothes and personal items — but everything else had been shipped directly to the new place. The expense had been pretty cringe-worthy, although I told myself that putting my books and crystals and art and all the other items I couldn’t leave behind in plain brown boxes and sending them via UPS had been really the only way to keep my move on the down-low.

  The only person who knew where I was going was my mother. Telling her had been a calculated risk, but it wasn’t as though I could just take off for the wild west without letting my only living relative know where I was going. I wouldn’t fool myself into thinking that Lucien Dumond didn’t know who she was and where she lived — and I wasn’t too happy that his compound in the Encino hills stood only a few miles away from the sprawling house in Sherman Oaks that my mother shared with her husband — and yet I tried to convince myself that Dumond had no reason to go after her. I’d been the main thorn in his side, and since I’d plucked the thorn and removed myself from Southern California, he could live happy in the knowledge that no one would be competing with him when it came to peddling his services to desperate starlets.

  My new loft apartment was now littered with boxes. All I had to sleep on was an inflatable mattress I’d ordered from Amazon just so I wouldn’t be lying on the floor while I waited for my new furniture to show up. All that had been ordered online as well, and would be arriving in dribs and drabs over the next few days.

  Looking at all those boxes could have been overwhelming, but I’d done a quick reading right before I got out of the car, and the universe still seemed to be telling me that all systems were go. Yes, I had a lot of work in front of me. Still, it wasn’t as if I had any sort of timeline for when everything needed to be in place, so I could feel my way through it and get things done in my own time.

  In a way, it was oddly satisfying to think that I didn’t have a schedule ruling my life, that I could completely call my time my own. Oh, I’d loved working with my clients, and had experienced quite a few pangs of guilt as I let all of them know I was closing down my practice, even as I’d done my best to guide them to new practitioners, but it still felt as though an invisible weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

  I’d brought my teakettle with me and made sure it was in a clearly labeled box. After fetching the pair of kitchen shears I’d left out on the counter, I sliced through the tape holding the box shut and got out the ocean-blue Le Creuset kettle that had been one of my splurges a while back. Soon enough, it was whistling away happily on the stove, and not so long after that, I had my first cup of tea — Assam
— in my new home.

  The same feeling of peace and harmony that I’d sensed down in the store space filled the loft apartment as well, and I pulled in a deep, calming breath, letting myself relax into my surroundings. I walked through the space, ignoring the chaos of boxes around me and instead doing my best to focus on the way the light tracked along the gleaming wood floors, the way the dust motes danced in the sunlight that filtered through the tall windows on the east side of the living room.

  That stillness was abruptly broken by a scratching noise coming from somewhere toward the back of the space, followed by a peremptory meow.

  What the…?

  I set down my mug of tea and hurried toward the back bedroom — the master bedroom, I supposed, since it was the larger of the two and had its own balcony overlooking a not-so-scenic empty lot.

  Standing on the balcony and staring through the French door that opened onto it was a large gray cat. It glared at me with huge yellow eyes and meowed again.

  Obviously, it wanted in.

  Growing up, I’d had a big black and white kitty. Star Ruby, a name my five-year-old self had thought was just perfect for a male cat. Star had been my constant companion all the way up to my senior year of high school, when he passed away after a long and happy life. I’d wanted to get another cat after I moved out, but a series of overly strict landlords had kept that from happening. Over time, I’d gotten used to my cat-less existence, and yet I’d always secretly hoped that one day I’d be living someplace where I could have a cat again.

  Well, it seemed as if a cat had literally just turned up on my doorstep.

  It doesn’t necessarily mean anything, I told myself as I went over to the door. This could be a neighbor’s cat just poking around.

  Possibly, except I didn’t really have any neighbors. Oh, there were businesses to either side — a furniture store and an antique/junk shop — but Josie had told me that no one lived in the apartments above those stores, that the shop owners used them for storage.

  Still, cats could range a good ways if they were in the mood.

  I opened the door, and the cat immediately entered the bedroom, tail held high, walking as if he owned the place. Smiling a little, I watched as he strolled toward the doorway that opened onto the hall, then paused to rub up against the frame, getting in a good back scratch, marking it with his scent. Afterward, he continued toward the living room before he stopped in the middle of the chaos, eyes narrowing.

  Was that cat judging me?

  I followed him, then paused, hands planted on my hips. “Hey, I just moved in,” I said. Back in the day, I’d always talked to Star like he was a person, and I saw no reason to change that behavior now. “It’ll be great when I’m done.”

  Could a cat arch an eyebrow? His tail flicked from side to side, and then he said in bored tones, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  My eyes widened. Had that cat just talked to me?

  No, I had to be imagining things. I’d been up since five that morning, wanting to get out of L.A. before the traffic turned truly hideous. I was just tired.

  “I assure you, I am talking,” he went on, as if in response to the surprised look I must have been wearing. Definitely a male voice, too, slightly contemptuous, as if he just couldn’t be bothered with my incredulity. “My name is Archie. And you are?”

  “S-selena Marx,” I stammered, wondering if the strain of the move had all been too much. Did you know you were having a psychotic break while you were having it?

  “Hello, Selena,” he said. “I was hoping someone would move in here. It’s been quite dull loitering around here and depending on handouts.”

  Since it seemed I was going to have a conversation with the cat, no matter how crazy such a prospect might have seemed, I figured I might as well roll with it. “This is your house?”

  “I’ve made it my house,” Archie replied, which didn’t seem like much of an answer at all.

  Probably better not to press him on it. “Do you talk to anyone else?”

  “No one else in this town is a witch,” he said. “Therefore, I can’t talk to them.”

  He made his situation sound so plausible. Maybe it was.

  “Good to know,” I said lightly. “So…why can you talk to witches? Because I used to have a cat, and I know for a fact that he never talked to me, as much as I might have wanted him to.”

  “Because I’m not really a cat,” Archie responded, now sounding slightly irritated. “I was cursed to be a cat. And let me tell you — spending your days scrounging out of garbage cans and licking your own rear end is definitely a curse.”

  Somehow, I managed to clamp my lips shut before a snicker could escape them. “I suppose I can see that,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “So, you used to be human?”

  “I’m still human inside,” he returned pointedly. “I just look like a cat.”

  Of course. Then again, I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of having a human man trapped inside a cat’s body hanging around my new house. The situation could be awkward, to say the least.

  The Goddess only knows what my face looked like right then. My expression must have shifted, because Archie went on, now sounding downright irritated, “I certainly would have no designs on your person even if I were still in my human form. My interests lie elsewhere.”

  “You’re gay?” I asked, figuring that would be just about par for the course. Naturally, I’d end up someplace haunted by a cat that used to be a gay man.

  “I am asexual,” he said primly. “Not that we had such a name for it back in the day. I only knew that I wasn’t interested in anyone…which is why I ended up in this ridiculous predicament. The witch who put this curse on me didn’t want to believe I couldn’t be enticed by her charms.”

  That must have been a hell of a curse. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I would have believed such a thing was possible…except that I was standing in the middle of my new living room, having a conversation with a cat.

  “What happened to the witch?” I honestly did want to know, because everything I’d read and every belief I held dear about the craft dictated that casting curses was a very bad idea, that whatever evil you put out into the world would come back to you threefold.

  “She was run over by a Packard,” Archie replied, then added before I could comment, “I have been a cat for a very long time.”

  Apparently. When was the last time people regularly drove Packards? Long before either I or my mother was born, that’s for sure…and probably before even my grandmother was born.

  But the curse-casting witch’s fate seemed to tell me that my beliefs about casting hexes were valid. At the same time, I had to feel sorry for poor Archie, consigned to an animal’s body for decades and decades.

  “Well, you’re certainly welcome here,” I said, knowing I wasn’t going to cast him out into the cold, even if I had never planned on having a talking cat as a companion. The poor guy needed shelter, a place he could call his own. “But I suppose that means I’ll have to go out and get you some supplies. I don’t have a litter box or anything.”

  “An indoor bathroom,” he said then, and looked almost wistful. “That would be a nice change of pace.”

  Well, I’d been planning to go out and get stocks of toilet paper and Kleenex and other odds and ends anyway. “Any pet stores in town?”

  “I don’t believe so. There’s a Walmart.”

  Back in L.A., I would never set foot inside a Walmart. I’d always been a Target girl. But now that I was in Globe, I realized I didn’t have a lot of options…unless I wanted to drive all the way into Queen Creek or Mesa, two of Phoenix’s most southeastern suburbs.

  I tried not to sigh. “Okay. Do you want me to get you a bowl of water before I head out?”

  “And some salmon treats?” he asked hopefully.

  “The cupboard is bare,” I said. “I was planning to go to the store after I did some work here.”

  “Water will have to do, then.”

&nb
sp; Luckily, I’d brought along a few odds and ends of dishes to tide me over until the ones I’d ordered showed up. I got out a bowl, rinsed it off, and then filled it with water. As soon as I set it on the floor, Archie ambled over and began to drink. He seemed relaxed about the whole thing, but I could tell he must have been pretty thirsty.

  How long had he been out on the balcony, just waiting for me to show up?

  Poor guy.

  I resisted the impulse to reach down and scratch him behind the ears. After all, we didn’t know each other that well yet.

  “Be back soon,” I promised him, and he yawned and headed out to the living room.

  “Get me a bed and a scratching post, too.”

  Hmm. I was starting to get the impression that Archie had a bit of an entitlement complex. However, since I’d already agreed to take him in, I figured there was no point in arguing.

  After all, it wasn’t as if I couldn’t afford to get him a few odds and ends.

  I let myself out, wondering all the while what else Globe had in store for me.

  The trip to Walmart turned out to be fairly uneventful, though, and I was back at my new home within the hour. It took a while to lug all my purchases up to the second floor, but eventually, Archie was gifted with the requested cat bed and scratching post, and had wolfed down a bowl of Special Kitty dry cat food. Thus fortified, he curled up in a ball and promptly went to sleep in a patch of sunlight slipping through the window of the second bedroom, the one I planned to turn into an office.

  While I was out, I’d gotten a text from the place where I’d bought my living room furniture that delivery had been updated to the next day. Perfect. I didn’t know why the schedule had been shifted by three days, but I wasn’t going to argue. I hadn’t been looking forward to sitting on a folding chair until my new furniture showed up, and now I wouldn’t have to worry about it.