Free Final Catcall: A Magical Cats Mystery by Sofie Kelly

Kathleen,” he said. “Come with me. Watch the sunset. See the pretty colors.” He reached for my hand. “Please?”
    He was extremely annoying, but I knew the sunset would be gorgeous from the lookout and there really was no big hurry to get back to the library. Friday was almost always our quietest night.
    “Fine,” I said.
    Andrew gave me a self-satisfied smile and pulled me toward the steps. It felt odd, holding his hand again, and I let go of it to grab the railing.
    “You getting soft?” he teased. “Do you need to hold on to pull yourself up?”
    I stopped a step below him. “Who are you calling soft?” I challenged. Andrew had always brought out my competitive side. “Seems to me I heard a lot of heavy breathing while we were unloading that piece of staging.”
    He leaned forward, raising one eyebrow in a leer. “That heavy breathing was just because I was so close to you.”
    I rolled my eyes. “What a load of . . . lumber,” I said. Then before he knew what was happening, I faked left, darted around him on the right and tore up the steps.
    “Hey!” he yelled.
    I took the stairs two at a time, glad that I had long legs because I could hear him gaining on me, his feet pounding on the weathered wooden treads.
    I lunged for the top step, sticking my arm out to the right so he couldn’t dart past me the way I’d done with him. When I looked back over my shoulder, he was maybe a couple of steps behind me, laughing and breathing hard. I reached blindly for the top of the railing that ran along the edge of the lookout and stumbled over something I couldn’t see clearly in the waning light. Instead of landing on wood, weathered smooth by rain and snow, my hand landed on something soft.
    Hair. Skin.
    I jerked away and Andrew banged into my back, grabbing my shoulders to steady himself.
    “Whoa! You okay?” he said.
    I nodded, and took a second to catch my breath.
    Then Andrew saw what I’d fallen over. “Is that . . . ?” He didn’t finish the sentence.
    I nodded. “Yes.”
    It was Hugh Davis.
    It was pretty clear that he was dead.

5
    A ndrew sworeunder his breath and fumbled for his cell phone. “We need an ambulance.”
    I caught his arm. “No, we don’t,” I said. “We just . . .” I swallowed. “We just need the police.”
    The color drained from his face. “Is he dead?”
    I nodded. “Yes.”
    Andrew was already punching in 911 on his phone.
    “Tell them we’re at the first lookout on Spruce Bluff,” I said.
    He swallowed and put the phone to his ear. “Okay.”
    I looked at the body—Hugh’s body—again. It was half sitting, slumped sideways against the lookout railing at the top of the stairs, almost as though his legs had given out after climbing up and he’d had to sit down fast. His eyes were closed and I could see what looked like blood on the collar of his jacket. There was some kind of ragged open wound just below his left ear.
    I leaned over for a closer look. Was it a bullet hole? My stomach clenched and I could taste something sour in the back of my throat.
    Had Hugh been shot? He’d left the library no more than about three hours before. What could have happened in that amount of time that had ended with him up here with a bullet hole in the side of his head? I shivered.
    Andrew put a hand on my shoulder. “They’re coming.”
    We moved a few steps away from the body. “Do you know who it is?” he asked.
    “It’s Hugh Davis,” I said.
    He frowned. “You mean that director from the theater festival?”
    I nodded.
    “He seemed like a bit of a control freak. He must have come over to check out the stage. You think he had a heart attack or something?”
    I could hear the sirens wailing in the distance. I shook my head. “I . . . No.”
    “So? What? You think he fell?” Andrew stared up at the jagged rock face of the bluff rising above us.
    “I think someone might have shot him,” I said quietly.
    “Shot him?” His grip on my shoulder tightened.
    I dug