“Tell me again what that’s supposed to be,” Andrew Milhone said, eyeing the mixing bowl on Katherine Harper’s kitchen counter with puckered lips.
“Tofu pumpkin pie.” Kat lifted up a lumpy spoonful. An orange chunk fell back into the bowl with a splat. “It doesn’t look very appetizing, does it?”
“Nope,” Andrew agreed. “Did you follow the recipe?”
“Of course.”
Matty, Kat’s yellow-and-brown tortoiseshell, jumped onto the far side of the counter. The feline took a tiny step toward them, sniffing cautiously as she approached.
“Matty doesn’t seem impressed either,” Andrew said.
“It’s vegan. Matty wouldn’t be impressed with any type of pie except the chicken pot variety.”
Kat reached over to shoo Matty away when the cat crept within two feet of the bowl. But Matty apparently didn’t plan to get any closer. Upon spotting what her human was up to, her whiskers twitched and she darted back the way she’d come. Kat heard the thud of an eight-pound feline hitting the floor.
Andrew chuckled. “I have a feeling tomorrow’s Thanksgiving guests will have the same reaction.”
Kat set the spoon down and planted her hands on her hips. “You realize I invited you over to help. If you intend to spend the morning criticizing, you’re welcome to go on back to your house.”
Andrew held up his hands. “Hey, I’m at your service. Just tell me what you need me to do.”
She picked up the bowl and thrust it at him. “Mix this until it’s smooth and creamy.”
He brushed his sandy hair out of his eyes before taking the bowl from her. “Given what I have to work with, that might take days.”
“You have exactly twenty-nine and a half hours. Imogene says dinner starts promptly at two o’clock tomorrow.”
Andrew placed the bowl back on the counter. Without another word of protest, he grabbed the spoon and started stirring.
A loud meow cut through the air. Kat looked down at where Tom, her brown-and-black cat, was peering up at them. He licked his lips, his tail swishing across the linoleum. Their mere presence in the kitchen had clearly given him hope that they might soon be opening a can of wet food.
“Dream on, Tom,” Kat said, crouching down to rub his ears. “You have dry food if you’re hungry.”
“Yeah, careful what you ask for, Tommy boy,” Andrew chimed in. “Kat might give you some of this pumpkin stuff. Then you’ll be begging for your kibble back.”
“You just keep mixing,” Kat retorted, ducking her head to hide her smile.
Tom rolled over onto his back, evidently deciding he was okay with settling for some belly rubs in lieu of more food. Kat obliged.
Although Kat had never been particularly fond of Thanksgiving, this year she was looking forward to it. Having grown up in foster care without a real family of her own around, she had always felt like an outsider intruding on other people’s festivities. She had been an extra place setting put out at the last minute, someone added as an afterthought. But Imogene Little’s dinner would be attended by a mishmash of people from Cherry Hills, Washington, most of whom weren’t related to one another. Plus, she thought, glancing up at Andrew and feeling that little flutter in her stomach that always materialized when she was reminded of their romance, this year she had someone to go with.
Even if he was currently doing an obscene amount of grumbling.
“The lumps aren’t coming out,” he said.
“Mix harder,” Kat suggested.
“What do you think I’ve been doing?” He paused. “How come you don’t buy a pie at the store?”
“This is tofu pumpkin. Every store-bought pie I looked at contained either eggs or milk or both.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Imogene’s event is all vegan.”
Andrew looked down at her, a grin forcing his dimples out. “I can’t wait to see how Chief Kenny reacts when Imogene starts serving dinner. He thinks the four food groups are beef, poultry, pork, and bacon.”
“One vegan meal won’t kill him.”
“You wouldn’t think that if you’d heard him complaining down at the police station all week.”
“He could have told Imogene he wasn’t coming.”
“After he admitted he didn’t have any plans?” Andrew snorted. “He’d never hear the end of it.”
Tom hugged Kat’s palm to his chest, giving the finger closest to his mouth a light nip. She withdrew her hand from his grasp and plucked a strip of cellophane out of the garbage to dangle in front of him. When Tom started biting, it was a sure sign his claws would soon be making an appearance too.
But before Tom could take more than two swipes at his new toy, a piercing shriek echoed throughout the kitchen.
Kat sprang off the floor just before the mixing bowl clattered two inches from where she was standing. Orange-and-white globules sprayed all over the linoleum and across the front of the cabinets. Tom scrambled to his feet and streaked out of the kitchen. Matty stayed close to his heels, the feline morphing into a golden blur as she sprinted after her brother.
“It’s the smoke detector,” Andrew shouted over the alarm.
Kat sucked in a breath. “My crust!”
She lunged for the oven and flicked it off. Smoke billowed around the door. She yanked it open, releasing a black cloud that filled her lungs and made her cough.
And, somewhere inside, was the pie crust she had worked so hard on earlier.
“We need to air this place out,” Andrew said. He opened the window above the sink before moving into the living room.
Kat grabbed a dishtowel off the counter and waved it below the smoke detector affixed to the ceiling, hoping it would shut itself off before she inconvenienced anyone else in the building. The only other person who rented an apartment on the third floor was spending this week with relatives, so there was a chance she could contain the disturbance to her own unit.
Thankfully, the alarm quieted down ten seconds later. Kat collapsed against the counter, relishing the silence.
Andrew strolled over to join her. “Sorry about dropping the bowl. The alarm startled me.”
“It’s okay.” She didn’t think the pie filling could have been saved even if it wasn’t currently sticking to every surface in her kitchen. If it were possible, the disgusting mixture actually looked as if it had more lumps in it than earlier.
Andrew reached over and tucked a lock of Kat’s brown hair behind her ear. “You’re not getting discouraged, are you?”
“How can I not?” She flapped her arm at the mess surrounding them. “This tofu pumpkin concoction looks like something one of the cats hacked up. And that pie crust that’s now ruined took me forty minutes to pound into submission.”
“What was it doing in the oven anyway?”
“The recipe says to cook it for ten minutes before filling it.”
“Huh.”
“Obviously, I forgot all about it.” She pressed the dishtowel she was still holding into Andrew’s hand. “Help me clean this up, will you?”
Andrew took the towel, but before either of them could start wiping anything down a scream ricocheted throughout the apartment.
Kat’s stomach lurched, and her eyes automatically moved toward Andrew’s.
“It came from outside,” he said.
He bent over the sink to look out the kitchen window. Kat started to do the same, but he spun around before she could see what was going on, nearly knocking her off her feet.
“There’s a woman in the alley,” he said, barreling toward the front door. “She might be hurt.”
Kat didn’t have time to ask any questions. She flew out of the apartment after him.
* * *
Click here to find the book at your favorite online retailer.
Books in the Cozy Cat Caper Mystery series:
Book 1: Murder in Cherry Hills
Book 2: Framed in Cherry Hills
Book 3: Poisoned in Cherry Hills
Book 4: Vanished in Cherry Hills
Book 5: Shot in Cherry Hills
Book 6: Strangled in Cherry Hills
Book 7: Halloween in Cherry Hills
Book 8: Stabbed in Cherry Hills
Book 9: Thanksgiving in Cherry Hills