If you love Moss’s cattitude, then you should meet the OG kitty detective, Octo-Cat. Read on for a special peek of KITTY CONFIDENTIAL, the first book in my Pet Whisperer P.I. series…
I was just your normal twenty-something with seven associate degrees and no idea what I wanted to do with my life. That is, until I died… Well, almost.
As if a near-death experience at the hands of an old coffeemaker wasn’t embarrassing enough, I woke up to find I could talk to animals. Or rather one animal in particular.
His full name is Octavius Maxwell Ricardo Edmund Frederick Fulton, but since that’s way too long for anyone to remember, I’ve taken to calling him Octo-Cat. He talks so fast he can be difficult to understand, but seems to be telling me that his late owner didn’t die of natural causes like everyone believes.
Well, now it looks like I no longer have a choice, apparently my life calling is to serve as Blueberry Bay’s first ever pet whisperer P.I while maintaining my façade as a paralegal at the offices of Fulton, Thompson & Associates.
I just have one question: How did Dr. Dolittle make this gig look so easy?
KITTY CONFIDENTIAL is now available.
CLICK HERE to get your copy so that you can start reading this series today. You can also turn the page to read the first chapter… Enjoy!
I woke up on the conference room floor. Funny, I couldn’t remember passing out, yet there I was.
My heart womped a million miles an hour, but most of my body had become fuzzy and tingly. I tried to move my arms, but they seemed content to lay splayed out at my sides. One by one, my senses started to come back online.
Pop!
Mrs. Fulton’s shriek was the first thing I heard, then others in the room began to murmur amongst themselves. Some voices I recognized, but others were completely unfamiliar.
Bethany said, “It’s probably time we threw that old thing out.”
Mr. Fulton ignored her as he rushed toward me. “Angie… Angie…” His panicked voice grew closer until he’d arrived right at my side. “Are you okay?”
Meanwhile, Mr. Thompson mumbled something about liabilities and workman’s compensation—exactly as anyone who knew him would expect him to do in such a situation.
I was still trying to remember what had happened when an unexpected weight pressed down onto my chest and made it quite difficult for me to breathe. The overpowering smell of tuna filled my nostrils, and the sudden intensity of it brought on a coughing fit.
A voice I’d never heard before hovered over me. “Well, how about that? This one had more than one life, after all. People, pssh. So fragile.”
“Oh, she’s breathing!” Diane shouted.
“Of course, she’s breathing, honey,” her husband responded with a note of relief in his previously panicked voice. “She’s also coughing.”
“And here I thought the car trip wouldn’t be worth it,” that same unfamiliar voice chimed in, pairing the words with an unkind chuckle. “That was, paws down, the best entertainment I’ve had all week.”
Finally, my eyes flew open, and I found a gleaming amber gaze watching me from just a few inches away. Wait… Why was there a cat in the office, and why was it on me? I struggled to sit up, but my limbs were still too heavy to lift on my own.
“Oh, honey,” that voice drawled again. “If you expect to keep walking, then you probably should have landed on your feet.”
I let out a loud groan. I could feel the activity humming all around me, but the only thing I saw was the danged cat who was definitely intruding in my personal space right about then.
“What happened?” I asked before coughing again.
“I think the coffeemaker electrocuted you when you tried to plug it in,” Diane revealed. Her shaky voice made it obvious she’d been crying. I felt so bad that my clumsiness put her through that.
“Oh, jeez. This one’s even stupider than the first. I’m really looking forward to living with her while the rest of the family figures out where to dump me. Such a pity. They don’t know greatness when it’s staring them in the face.”
I moaned and attempted to lift my head to get a better look around the room. “Who is that?” I demanded.
“It’s me, Angie,” Mrs. Fulton said, squeezing one of my hands in earnest. “You asked what happened, and I told you about the coffeemaker.”
“No, the guy who just called both of us stupid.” I wished I could sit up to see past this annoying cat, but he was the only thing that filled my vision in that moment. Of course, I had lots of questions about the coffeemaker and how such a tiny old appliance had managed to zap me unconscious, but the need to identify the unknown speaker weighed on me much more heavily.
A cruel snicker sounded nearby. “I called you stupid, because you are stupid. Honesty is the best policy, the truth will set you free, yada yada, and all that other nonsense you humans like to say.”
If I hadn’t known any better, I’d have sworn that strange, lilting voice was coming from the cat. Man, how hard had I hit my head when I fell?
The cat leaned in so close that his whiskers tickled my face. His unnervingly large eyes moved frantically from side to side as if stalking some kind of prey. Oh, how I hoped I wasn’t that prey. I’d barely escaped the coffeemaker. If something sentient set out to hurt me today, I wouldn’t even stand a chance.
“Did you… Did you really hear what I said?” the voice asked again, and again it really sounded like it was coming from the cat. Did he eat a tiny human or something? None of this made any sense.
“Yes, I hear you, and I think you’re rather mean,” I answered with a huff, giving the best attitude I could, considering my prone position.
“Angie, who are you talking to?” Diane asked with words that sounded unsure and just as worried as I felt myself.
“I’m not sure who it is, but he keeps insulting me.” I closed my eyes tight, then slowly opened them again.
The cat seemed to smile, but not in a friendly way. Once again, I wondered if he considered me easy prey. Heck, I considered me easy prey, too.
“No one’s insulting you,” Mr. Fulton insisted. “We all just want to make sure you’re okay.”
The cat smiled again, bigger this time. “Ooh, ooh, me! I’m insulting you, you big, stupid bag of skin.”
“He just called me a big, stupid bag of skin! Can you really not hear him?” I blinked half a dozen times, then pinched myself. Nothing seemed to change.
“Russo, I think maybe you should take the rest of the day off and a trip to the emergency room,” Mr. Thompson commanded after clearing his throat loudly from somewhere near the door.
“Wow, you really can hear me,” the voice said again. “By the way, hi, I’m Octavius Maxwell Ricardo Edmund Frederick Fulton, and I have some demands.”
I was having a difficult time keeping track of all the threads of conversation. I knew the partners were worried about me and about themselves, but I still couldn’t identify the mystery speaker or figure out what he wanted. “Octavius Maxwell… who?”
“Honey, are you talking about the cat?” Mrs. Fulton asked, picking the tabby off from my chest.
My straining lungs thanked her, and immediately I felt stronger.
In a cutesy baby voice, Diane held the cat up to her face and cooed, “Are you trying to help our Angie feel better? You’re such a sweet fuzzy wuzzy.”
The cat turned to me and narrowed his eyes into slits. “Heeeeelp meeeee.”
Energized at last by my need to find out what the heck was going on, I managed to sit up and look around the room.
“Oh, good. Now that you can move again, Peters will take you to the hospital,” Thompson decreed.
Bethany sighed but didn’t argue the point.
“Wait!” The tabby cat trotted up to me the second Diane set him back on the floor. “What about my demands?”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. There was absolutely no way…
The cat flicked his tail and emitted a low growl from deep in his throat. “I know you can hear me, so how about doing the polite thing and keeping up your end of the conversation, huh?”
“What do you want?” I whispered, but still everyone in the office could see and hear the crazy lady talking to the cat she’d just met.
“My owner was murdered, and I need you to help me prove it. Also, of equal importance, I haven’t been fed in hours. Maybe years.” His ears fell back against his head and his eyes widened, making me feel inexplicably fond of him despite his bad attitude.
Then the first part of what he said hit me, and I gasped. “Murdered?”
Bethany tittered nervously and grabbed me by the arm. “Okay, let’s get you to the hospital. Hallucinations are not a good sign.”
“But…” I began to argue. That argument fell away when I realized I had no sane or valid reason to resist.
“Murdered!” the cat shouted after me dramatically. “She was offed before her time, and now that I know you can hear me, you’re going to help me get her the justice she deserves. It’s the least I can do to thank her for all the years she spent feeding me and arranging my pillows just as I like them. Also, did you hear the part about me needing to be fed?”
KITTY CONFIDENTIAL is now available.
CLICK HERE to get your copy so that you can start reading this series today. You can also turn the page to read the first chapter… Enjoy!