Free His Purrfect Mate by Georgette St. Clair Page B

furniture smelled moldy and everywhere they ran, clouds of dust flew up from their feet and floated in the sunbeams that shot through the windows. 
    They ended up in the kitchen, where a great pool of blood, already drying, spread out across the tile floor. Chloe stared at it, judging its size, trying to decide if somebody could survive the loss of that much blood.  Flies buzzed around the pool and skated on the surface of the thick red pond.
    “ Is that her blood? She told me to meet her here at noon. Where is she? The lion shifters didn’t take her, we would have seen her with them when they ran out the back.”
    “ There’s a lot we don’t know about your grandmother,” Kenneth said.   “I need to tell you some things I found out yesterday.  My grandfather didn’t leave your grandmother for another woman. After things ended between him and your grandmother, he waited five years before marrying again.”
    “That doesn’t make sense,” Chloe protested. “If he didn’t break off his engagement for a woman, why would he break it off?”
    “Very little about this makes sense,” Kenneth said. “And it’s all the more reason for you to come work for me. Help me catalogue the artwork.  There’s some mystery revolving around those specific pieces that were stolen, something that might help us figure out what happened all those years ago. Did you know that your grandmother repeatedly tried to break into my grandfather’s house after they broke things off?  Did you know she ended up going to jail for it, and losing her job at the university?”
    “ Why would my grandmother lie to my mother about all that?”
    “Well…”Kenneth said delicately , glancing around the kitchen.  A teetering mountain of dirty, moldy dishes piled in the sink, thick gray dust coating the counters like fur…”Your grandmother clearly had some…issues.”
    “ She was normal before she met your grandfather. Everyone says so.  You know, forget it, I don’t have time to argue about this.   Damn it, I can’t even call the police from here because my cell phone doesn’t work,” Chloe said, frustrated.
    Kenneth nodded at a phone on the kitchen counter. “Oh,” she said. “I forgot about landlines.” She grabbed the receiver and held it up to her ear. 
    “No dial tone.  The intruders must have cut the phone line,” she said with a shudder, imagining the lions creeping through the grass and slashing the lines.
    She was glad Kenneth and his chauffer were still there.   The house felt lonely and haunted.  She wished she could turn to Kenneth for comfort, to let him wrap his arms around her – not, of course, because she wanted him, as much as she wanted to feel his warmth and strength wrap around her.
    If they found Sophronia alive somewhere, she thought, she would insist that she seek professional help.  It was horrifying that Sophronia had lived like this for as long as she had.
    “Let’s get out of here,” she said, heading for the front door and glancing askance at the pool of blood.  Kenneth and the chauffer followed her.  “I’ll follow you into town to make sure that you’re all right,” Kenneth said. “Then we can-“
    “There is no ‘we’,” she cut him off quickly. She had to stop him talking because she felt weak and scared and she wanted his help more than anything, and she didn’t dare to depend on him or trust him.   How had he known to follow her?   Was he really there just to help, or was Alfonse right – did he have his own secret agenda? The last time a woman from her family had depended on a Chamberlin, things hadn’t ended well at all.   “Right now my only concern is the safety of my grandmother and my mother.   \.”
     
    * * *
    “Mother, you need to tell me the truth about Sophronia.”
    The day after her grandmother’s disappearance, Chloe had done research all morning and then driven to Syracuse, to her mother’s antique shop. They sat in the store at a Victorian