Page 17 of Under His Skin

Meaning Waverley Abbott was the trifecta of everything he could never have.

He glanced up at the clock. He still had half an hour until his next appointment came in, giving him enough time to finish one piece of business as he grabbed the phone and dialed Ernie Homer’s number so he could give him that update.

Chapter 6

Waverley stopped at a telephone pole later that night to adjust her right boot even though it seemed futile at this point seeing as how the blister had already formed and popped at the back of her heel, leaving the raw skin to rub up against the leather with every step she took.

She really needed to invest in a good pair of walking shoes since she was going to be without a car for the foreseeable future.

Reaching into her purse, she grabbed the last flyer and plastered it to the pole like she had the dozen others she’d passed on her walk tonight. It had made sense that she would limit her search for Mrs. Dolowitz’s poor Oscar to a two-block radius for the first night, and with this last flyer, she’d done that and was back where she’d started, just a couple houses away from Mrs. Dolowitz’s.

The idea was that wandering the area on foot would give her the chance to look for and listen for the feline that had been missing for a week now. And since she was already out and about, she figured she might as well post pictures of the kitty around the neighborhood, pictures that Mrs. Dolowitz had been more than happy to send to her.

Well, sent to Cavanaugh Investigations anyhow, since, as far as Mrs. Dolowitz knew, Reynolds had decided to take her case after all, and it was his request for the photos that Waverley was following up on.

It wasn’t that Waverley was trying to be deceitful, but she could hear the desperation in Mrs. Dolowitz’s voice in their first conversation, and she hadn’t the heart to call her back and tell her the answer was still no.

Besides, how hard could it be to find the feline? There weren’t that many places a cat could hide in this town. She’d also made a call to the local pound before she left the office to double-check that the cat wasn’t already being held—which he wasn’t.

Waverley did a mental calculation of how much longer she’d have to walk to get back to her own apartment. More than she’d like.

When she’d started out, it had still been sunny and a little breezy, but more than an hour later, it was dark and close to freezing, or at least that’s how it felt to her.

Some movement in the bushes behind her stopped her. “Oscar?” she called softly, not exactly sure if she expected anyone or anything to answer in the darkness.

There was a tiny mewl.

No way. It could not be that easy.

She crept closer to the bushes and leaned down. “Here, kitty, kitty.”

That sounded pretty stupid even to her. She changed tactics, using more of a clicking sound with her tongue.

Oh, wait. She had that those cans of cat food that she’d brought just in case. After pulling one from her purse, she lifted off the lid.

Ugh. That was pretty rank. She clicked her tongue again and bent down to set the can on the ground. Instantly there was a shrill cry that resonated down the block, and a fat cat with gray and white stripes crept out from some bushes.

Not Oscar.

A hissing sound from across the way had her whirling around in time to see another cat, this one with spots of orange and white on its back, peering out at her.

Before she could process what was happening, the two cats darted toward the can of food she gripped in her hand, hissing and mewling as their backs curled up in aggression.

That wasn’t good.

She dropped the can to the ground, sending its smelly contents flying everywhere, including the tops of her boots, and she jumped back just as the cats descended on the contents.

The sound of the cats fighting sent up a flurry of barks from the neighborhood dogs, and she quickly realized that she’d better get clear of this before someone thought she was a burglar or something and called the cops. She winced as she tried to hurry her pace, only slowing down once she was a couple blocks away from the scene.

She was not going to count this as a failed venture. Nope. She had learned where Oscar was not hiding, right? Tomorrow she’d try again.

It took almost another half an hour before she finally was in the last stretch of her walk home, her crumbling apartment complex half a block away.

The dark brown bricks of the place had definitely seen better days as most of the bricks were in serious disrepair and either crumbling, cracked, or missing. The property surrounding it was looking just as bad, with dirt and weeds and garbage where grass should have been.

She couldn’t really fault the tenants inside for the sad state of the place since, in the few days she’d lived here, she’d discovered that most of the dozen or so tenants were elderly, with few options on their fixed incomes. Mr. Miller, the tiny old man who was in the apartment below her, only ventured out once a day to collect his mail and to let in the grocery delivery guy. Dolores Castillo, her next-door neighbor, was a little more spry and seemed to prefer the early-morning hours to venture out for her power walk. As far as Waverley could tell from the few faces she’d seen so far, she was the only tenant under forty who lived there.

She had just reached the entrance when a soft mewling sound caught her attention.

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