Free Borrowed Crime: A Bookmobile Cat Mystery by Laurie Cass Page B

sat at the kitchen table, watching while she sliced bread off the loaf she’d baked the day before, then watched while she made grilled cheese sandwiches at the same time that she put together a salad of spinach, mandarin oranges, and walnuts.
    “Some people,” I said, “say that cooking is therapy.”
    Aunt Frances raised one sardonic eyebrow. “Obviously those people haven’t seen you at work in the kitchen.”
    “Hey, I can cook.” I thought about that and amended it a little. “If I have to.”
    “And how often do you have to?”
    She had a point, and I was not about to argue with a woman who said she loved me too much to let me eat my own cooking while I lived under her roof. In the summer, I lived on breakfast cereal, peanut butter andjelly sandwiches, and take-out meals, along with a healthy dose of leftovers from Kristen’s restaurant.
    I grinned at my aunt. “Often enough to remind myself that I’d rather wash someone else’s dishes than cook my own food.”
    “Not today,” she said. “After what happened yesterday, you’re going to let me take care of you from sunrise to sunset.” She glanced out the kitchen window at the backyard. “So to speak, anyway.”
    I looked out at the gray sky. It was one of those days of low, thick cloud cover, a day during which it would be hard to wake up completely. The temperatures had risen, and the white world was turning into a dripping, sodden mess. It was a day made for reading in front of the fireplace and maybe watching a movie or two.
Movies . . .
I sighed.
    “What’s the matter, my sweet?” Aunt Frances asked. “You never did say why you got home so early last night.”
    I shook my head, not wanting to talk about it. Tomorrow, maybe. Or the next day, after I got things figured out.
    “Mrr.” Eddie jumped onto my lap, pushing aside my elbows on his way up. He turned once, twice, and flopped down into a tidy meat-loaf shape, his chin resting on my arm. “Mrr,” he said quietly.
    “Don’t we have a rule about no cats at the table?” my aunt asked.
    I rested my hand on Eddie’s back. “You do, and I do, but I’m not sure he’s signed the agreement.”
    “Well.” She put the bread onto the sizzling griddle. “He can stay until the food’s ready. We have to draw the line somewhere.”
    I looked down. “Did you hear that, pal? You’ll haveto—” My cell phone, which I’d laid on the table after texting Kristen, buzzed and rattled. I picked it up and read the screen. A text from Tucker. I blinked, looked out the window at the soggy afternoon, then steeled myself to read the text.
    You were right,
it said.
Got back at two a.m. I was wrong and I’m sorry.
    I texted back,
I’m sorry, too.
    Tucker:
Can we be sorry together sometime soon?
    Me, smiling
: I’ll have my secretary get with your secretary.
This was our code for saying we’d check our schedules and make plans for a date as soon as possible.
    Tucker:
On it. See you ASAP.
    My observant aunt eyed me and said, “Good news, I take it?”
    I wrapped my arms around Eddie and hugged him until he gave a squeak of protest. “Very good.”
    *   *   *
    The next day I donned my bright red, hooded raincoat and squelched my way over to the library. The grayness of yesterday had evolved into an even grayer today, complete with a rain that, if it continued, would melt the weekend’s snow within a few hours.
    “November at its finest,” I said to the wet sidewalk. The sidewalk didn’t answer, which was okay, and perhaps even preferable, because I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what a sidewalk would have to say.
    It probably wouldn’t be concerned about its hair, which would make it different from me. Curly hair and rainy weather are not good friends. By the time I got to the library it would be Frizz City, and there was nothing I could do about the situation except drive instead of walk, and that seemed silly for a commute of less than a mile.
    I kept my head down and my attention