Read The Cat Sitter’s Cradle for Free Online Page B

and rubbing itself against his ankles.
    “And this,” Mrs. Harwick said, waving her arm at the cat dismissively, “is Charlotte.”
    I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Siamese cats. They’re smart as a whip
     and intensely loyal, and their origin is steeped in mystery. Some historians believe
     they were a favorite of the kings and queens of ancient Siam, where their name meant
     “moon diamond.” All it took was one look in Charlotte’s sparkling azure eyes to know
     why. She was long and sleek, with a dark, silver-tipped chocolate coat.
    “We call her Queen B,” said Mrs. Harwick.
    I knelt down and held out the back of my hand for Charlotte to sniff—my standard cat
     greeting. She took one step back and hissed.
    “The B does not stand for beautiful.”
    I grinned. “Are you saying Charlotte has a bit of an attitude?”
    “That’s one way of putting it.”
    Mr. Harwick said, “Don’t take it personally. She’s that way with everyone.”
    He scooped Charlotte up in his arms and cooed to her, “And the B stands for baby, because that’s what she is, my baby.”
    I had to chuckle at the sight of a grown man in a business suit babbling like a little
     girl at a fluffy Siamese cat. Animals have an uncanny way of bringing out the sweet
     side of even the most hard-edged customer.
    Mrs. Harwick shuddered like a minister finding a roach clip in the collection plate.
     “That cat is not your baby.”
    Charlotte chose that moment to hiss again. She squirmed out of Mr. Harwick’s arms
     and ran into the kitchen without so much as a “nice to meet you.” I feel that way
     myself sometimes, so I didn’t take offense.
    “Bit of an attitude problem,” Mr. Harwick said. “I’ll show you where we keep her food.”
    The first thing I noticed about the kitchen was that it was twice the size of my entire
     apartment. There was a center island as big as the king-sized bed upstairs, made out
     of what looked like one solid piece of snow white marble. Dangling over it was a pair
     of crystal chandeliers, these twice the size of the one in the bathroom, and there
     were two ovens set side by side in the wall. I barely know what to do with one oven,
     but apparently the Harwicks needed two.
    As I looked around the kitchen, making small sounds of delight like I was at a fireworks
     display, I realized there were actually two of everything: two refrigerators, two
     ovens, even two dishwashers. It was the Noah’s Ark of kitchens. At one end of the
     island were two stainless-steel sinks, and dozens of gleaming copper pots of all shapes
     and sizes were hanging everywhere.
    “My brother is a cook,” I gushed. “He’d love your kitchen.”
    “Well, Tina here is the chef in the family,” Mr. Harwick said as he pulled up a stool
     and spread several official-looking files across the island. “Although these days
     she only uses the kitchen for special occasions.”
    I said, “Special occasions, you mean like holidays?” I wondered if there wasn’t another
     kitchen somewhere that Mrs. Harwick used for nonspecial occasions.
    “No,” Mr. Harwick said, “I mean like when the pool boy is hungry.”
    He pushed one of the files toward me. “This is the emergency file. It has numbers
     for my office and my secretary’s home number, along with the telephone number and
     address of the hotel where we’ll be staying and my personal cell phone number. You’ll
     find contact numbers for the alarm company, the housekeepers, the plumber, the electrician,
     and so forth. Of course, if there’s anything wrong, you’ll call me directly first.”
    I wondered why, if I was supposed to call him first, he wanted to give me all this
     information, but I could tell Mr. Harwick was the kind of man that liked to cover
     all his bases. I could appreciate that kind of thoroughness. In my police training,
     I’d been taught to anticipate danger before it happens, and that comes in handy every
     once in a while. In fact,