Black, White, and Red . . .

“Mrrorwr!”

Again with the scary howly noise. If I showed him that the place was empty, maybe he’d come to his kitty senses and we could be on our way. “Let’s go around the back, okay, Eddie?”

He bounded past me and streaked off.

Well. “Must be you want to check out the backyard,” I said, following him once again.

“Mrr!”

“Okay, okay.” I scanned the tall grass for signs of Eddie. “I can take a hint if I’m beaten over the head with it. I’m really pretty smart, you know. Did I ever tell you what I got on my SATs? Bet my score was a lot higher than yours, and—oh!”

For a brief, eternal second, I didn’t move. Didn’t think. Didn’t breathe. Because my black and white cat was standing next to something completely unexpected—the figure of a man. He was lying on his back, one arm flung across his chest, his face turned away from me, so all I got was the impression of age, frailty, and the absence of any life. But maybe . . . maybe there was breath. Maybe there was a chance.

I rushed forward. “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Do you need help?” I was kneeling, checking for a pulse, feeling the cool skin, knowing I was far too late, but looking for life anyway. “Can you hear me? Can you—”

My hand, which had been on the man’s wrist, came away slightly red and wet. Blood. What on . . . ?

I swallowed. The blood had come from a small hole in his shirt, right where his heart was. A small, bullet-sized hole.

Lending a Paw

A BOOKMOBILE CAT MYSTERY

Laurie Cass

AN OBSIDIAN BOOK

OBSIDIAN

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

New York, New York 10014

USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

penguin.com

A Penguin Random House Company

First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

Copyright © Janet Koch, 2013

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

ISBN 978-1-101-63001-3

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Version_1

Contents

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

For Jessica Wade, who asked for a cat book

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This is going to be a long set of acknowledgments, so please bear with me. Heartfelt thanks go to the following:

The bookmobile ladies of LaGrange County Public Library of Indiana. Not only did Kitty Helmkamp and her intrepid assistant let me tag along for a day of bookmobiling, but I got the insider’s tour of their gorgeous library. Thanks so much to the entire staff!

All the bookmobile manufacturers I contacted were helpful, but Barb Ferne of OBS went over the top. Thanks for all your help, Barb.

The Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services (ABOS). My membership with ABOS has been invaluable and I am constantly impressed by the dedication and commitment of bookmobile folks.

My fellow PlotHatchers, authors Janet Bolin, Peg Cochran (also writing as Meg London), Krista Davis, Kaye George (also writing as Janet Cantrell), Daryl Gerber (also writing as Avery Aames), and Marilyn Levinson. Having the support of people who understand the writing life is more precious than I have room to describe.

And Krista Davis deserves a special mention. Though she claims not to remember, it was during a conversation with her that I dreamed up the idea of a bookmobile cat series. Thanks, Krista!

Additional thanks go to:

Author Darlene Ryan, aka Sofie Kelly, aka Sofie Ryan, who has the magical ability to make me laugh at things that shouldn’t be the least bit funny.

Author Peg Herring, who is always there when I need Thai food and/or information about Michigan schools.

The staffs at my local hangouts, the Central Lake District Library and the Bellaire Public Library.

Thanks always, always, always to my husband, who kept me fed and watered throughout the writing and editing of this book. You’re the best, sweetie!

To my amazing agent, Jessica Faust, and the entire BookEnds staff.

A huge thank-you goes to my outstanding editor, Jessica Wade. Not only was she the impetus behind the book’s entire concept, but she also took the mess that was the original manuscript and (oh-so-gently) helped me shape it into what you now hold in your hands. If you hear people say that books aren’t edited these days, send them to me.

And last, but certainly not least, I’d like to thank the real-life Eddie for allowing me to write about him. While the fictional Eddie and the real version are not exactly the same, most days it’s hard to tell the difference. Thanks, pal. You’re the best Eddie ever.

Chapter 1

When I was a little girl, I dreamed of growing up to be the president. Failing that, an astronaut or a ballerina.

My presidential aspirations were quashed when I found out that the president did not, in fact, get to do whatever he (or she) wanted. The astronaut idea faded when my mother told me that even people in space suits could get motion sickness, and my ballerina phase lasted only until I actually took a class and discovered that I had no aptitude whatsoever. Even at six, I knew what the ballet teacher’s headshaking meant.

With those career paths closed off, I went to my alternative tier of professional choices, determined in large part because I’d had the great good fortune to grow up within walking distance of a public library. By the time I’d turned ten, I knew that I would be one of three things: a librarian in a big city, a librarian in a large town, or a librarian in a small town.

Big cities give me the heebie-jeebies, so that was out. A large town would have been okay, but a few short years after receiving my master’s degree in library and information science and a few short weeks after the end of a long-term relationship, I found a posting for an assistant director position at the district library in Chilson, Michigan.

Chilson! I stared at the listing so long that my eyes dried out. Chilson was a small tourist town in northwest lower Michigan. It was where I’d spent childhood summers with my aunt. It was my favorite place in the whole world. Could I really be this lucky?

When the library board voted to hire me, I was deliriously happy. I was young, footloose, fancy-free, and, since I’d given up any hope of my height reaching five feet and had become resigned to the fact that my curly black hair was never going to straighten, things were working out just the way I’d crossed my fingers that they would.

But three years after my move to Chilson, not long past my thirty-third birthday, life took an abrupt turn.

I woke on that fateful Friday morning to the beeping of my alarm clock and a cat-shaped weight on my chest. Eyes closed, I thumped off the clock and spoke to the weight.

“Eddie, it’s time to get up.” I opened my eyes, then immediately shut them. “Why do you have to sleep so close to my face?” If I opened my eyes again, I’d see late-May sunshine streaming through the gap in the white curtains and illuminating my cat’s furry face, which was maybe an inch from my chin. Soon after Eddie had followed me home last month, I’d learned his preferred mattress was a human one.

As there’d been no feline reply, I tried a second time.

“Eddie, get up.”

A faint rumble spread into my chest.

“No purring.” I gave him a gentle shove that was meant to instigate a move. It did nothing. “I have to go to work. Sorry, pal, but you have to get off.” I rolled onto my left side. Eddie, still purring, slid off my chest and landed on my arm. “No,” I told him. “Really off.”

He opened one eye.

I pulled my arm out from underneath him. “What do you want me to do, stay in bed all day?”

He stopped purring and opened both eyes.

“Not a chance,” I said. “I have to go out and make a living so I can support us in the style to which you’ve recently become accustomed.”

He settled deep into the covers. With my freed arm I scratched his chin, earning more purrs. Then, grunting a little with the effort, I carefully moved him aside and got up to start the first day of the rest of my life.

Halfway to the bathroom I looked back at Eddie. My first cat. My first pet. My parents hadn’t encouraged household animals—my dad was allergic to pet dander—and until I met Eddie I’d never felt the lack.

Eddie yawned wide, laying his ears back against the sides of his head and showing me far too much of his pink tongue.

“Cover your mouth when you do that, will you?” I asked.

“Mrr,” he said sleepily.

“That’s what you always say,” I said. “You’d better learn some etiquette by October. Aunt Frances is a sweetheart, but she doesn’t tolerate bad manners.”

All winter I lived with my aunt in her old and large house, but come May she good-humoredly kicked me out to make room for guests who paid a lot more than I did. That was when I moved down the hill to the small houseboat I’d bought from an elderly couple when they’d moved to Florida. The month of April involved a lot of cleaning and prep before the guys at the marina moved the boat out of the warehouse and into the water, but I didn’t mind the work.

Friends shook their heads at my living arrangements. I heard a lot of “Don’t you want your own house?” and “You should be building up more equity,” and “Your aunt is awesome, but isn’t it a little like living with your parents?”

My reply was a smile and a shrug. It worked for me and it worked for Aunt Frances, who didn’t like to live alone. Maybe someday I’d want my own lawn to mow, my own furnace to repair, roof to fix, and plumbing to worry about. Maybe. For now, I was happy. And so was Eddie.

Six weeks ago, on my last pre-Eddie day, I’d been spending a gloomy Sunday on the houseboat, scrubbing and washing. Come midafternoon, a slice of blue sky had appeared through the partially open warehouse doorway. I’d wandered outside to see. Not only had the low gray clouds vanished, but the temperature had gone from stay-home-with-a-book to I-need-to-get-outside-or-I’ll-die.

I looked at the cloudless blue. At my boat. At the sky.

It’d be okay to take a short walk, I told myself. After the long winter we just had, it’d be criminal not to take advantage of this weather. A short walk, then I’d get the galley cleaned up, see that my neighbor Rafe hadn’t passed out from paint fumes in the house he was rehabbing, meet my friend Kristen for dinner, and still have plenty of time to clean the bedroom before heading back up to Aunt Frances’s place to sleep.

It didn’t turn out that way.

My short stroll through the streets of Chilson turned into a long ramble through a nearby park, which became a wandering walk through an old cemetery.

No one knew that I like to spend time in cemeteries. Not my friends or relatives, and certainly not my coworkers. The single time I’d suggested walking through a cemetery to someone (my very-ex-fiancé), he’d made me feel like such a freak that I’d decided then and there to keep my cemetery inclinations to myself. I found cemeteries peaceful and calming in a poignant sort of way, and I always left from them eager to get things done.

The appropriately named Lakeview Cemetery was perched on the edge of a hill, overlooking the sparkling waters of the twenty-mile-long and two-mile-wide Janay Lake. That April afternoon I sat on a bench next to the headstone of Alonzo Tillotson (born 1847, died 1926) and enjoyed the pleasurable sensation that comes from skipping out on chores.

“I should get back,” I said to the view, not meaning a word of it. “There’s a lot to do.” Which was true, but Aunt Frances wouldn’t mind if I stayed in her house for another week. Her summer boarders wouldn’t show up until after Memorial Day—there was plenty of time for me to move to the houseboat.

I slid down into a slouch and lifted my face to the sun. “Lots to do,” I murmured lazily. “Finish the inside, wash down the deck, call the marina to schedule—”

“MRR!”

I leapt up. Small animal noises eeked out of me, little bleats of panic that made me sound pathetic and small and frightened. All true, but still. I grabbed on to an arm of the bench, sucked large amounts of air into my lungs, and tried to pretend that I was a fully functional adult.

The cat at my feet didn’t look impressed.

“Did you make that awful noise?” I asked.

He—maybe it was a she, but the cat’s attitude felt decidedly male—looked at me. Unblinking yellow eyes stared into my brown ones. His markings were black and white stripes with a chest and paws that probably would have been white if they’d been clean. A small pyramid of whitishness had its peak between his eyes, spreading down to touch the outside corners of his wide mouth. The pale triangle gave him a face so expressive I almost felt as if he were talking to me.

“Mrr.”

Then again, maybe he was.

“Hello,” I said. “My name is Minnie Hamilton. And before you ask, yes, it’s short for Minerva, and no, I don’t know what my parents were thinking.”

“Mrr.”

The cat was sitting up straight, studying me intently. I didn’t care for the look. “Don’t you have a home?” I asked. “Someone’s looking for you, I’m sure.”

Without visibly flexing a muscle, he moved forward three inches.

“Yup,” I said, “there’s someone coming, without a doubt. You stay here and wait, okay?” I nodded. “Nice talking to you.”

I took one step away from the bench.

The cat didn’t move.

I took another step.

He still didn’t move.

Good. He wouldn’t follow me home and beg to be fed and housed and cared for. Or was it only dogs that begged? Everything I knew about pets I’d learned from watching America’s Funniest Home Videos.

I walked down the hill, not dawdling, but not hurrying, either, because being chased out of the cemetery by a cat was ridiculous.

So I headed back toward the marina with a light heart, thinking about the coming summer. My walk took me through the outskirts of town with its clapboard cottages, past the brick post office, past the stucco city hall, and through downtown with half its shops still closed for winter.

Throughout my journey, the sun shone and people smiled. I smiled back, happy to be alive, happy to be me. Then white-haired Mr. Goodwin, a regular library patron, said, “Hello, Minnie. Who’s your little friend?” He pointed behind me.

I closed my eyes. “Don’t tell me it’s a cat.”

The elderly man chuckled. “Okay, I won’t. Hope you and your friend enjoy the rest of this fine day.” He and his dapper cane moved off.

I kept my eyes closed for a moment longer. Mr. Goodwin had a vivid imagination; he was always telling shaggy-dog stories that kept you riveted until the final pointless ending. Sure, that was it. Another story. Just a really, really short one.

“Mrr.”

I turned and there he was. The cat. Who looked remarkably proud of himself.

“Why did you follow me?” I asked, frowning. “And quit looking at me like that.”

“Um, Minnie?” Another library patron was standing on the sidewalk, holding one small child by the hand and an even smaller one on her hip. “Cats don’t like that tone of voice,” she said. “If you keep talking to him like that, he’s never going to answer.”

“He followed me, that’s all. He’s not mine.”

“Are you sure?” Laughing, she walked off.

I looked at the cat. He looked at me.

“You do have a home, don’t you?” I asked.

He walked straight to me and gave me my first-ever fuzzy head butt, right on the boniest part of my shin.

“Ow! That hurt!”

He butted me again. This time it was gentler, almost a caress. Then he was winding around my ankles in figure eights, around and around and around.

I sank into a crouch and patted his head. He turned his face away, making my fingers slide under his chin. “You like that, do you?” I scratched his chin with one hand and petted his long back with the other.

His purrs were loud and rattling and . . . and comforting.

“Well,” I said, “maybe you could stay with me until we find your real home.”

“Mrr.”

•   •   •

That day had been almost two months ago. I’d taken the cat to the town’s veterinarian until the boat was ready, and the vet confirmed that the cat was a male, that he weighed thirteen pounds, had ear mites, needed to be wormed, was roughly two years old, and hadn’t been reported as missing.

I’d run the obligatory ad in the paper and talked to the local animal shelter, but no one came to claim my little buddy. His name had been the inspiration of a bemused coworker. “Sounds like an Eddie kind of a cat,” Josh had said after I’d told the story.

“What kind is that?” Holly, another coworker, had asked.

“Just . . . Eddie.” Josh had shrugged. “You know what guys named Eddie are like.”

And just like that, my cat had a name, because I knew exactly what Josh meant. Guys named Eddie spoke their minds, didn’t waste time when they knew what they wanted, and were deeply loyal. They were the classic average good guys. At least that’s what the Eddies I’d known were like, and the name fit my new friend as if it were tattooed on his furry forehead.

I looked at him now. He was squirreled into the covers of my bed, and he still looked like an Eddie. And he still looked like he wanted me to stay home and nap with him all morning.

“Can’t do it. It’s the big day, remember?”

He half opened his eyes. “Mrr.”

It was an invitation that had, more than once, tempted me to whack the snooze button on the alarm clock. Not this time. I ignored him and headed to the shower. Half an hour later I was dried, clothed, breakfasted, and had done my best to make the bed around the sleeping Eddie.

I also kept a promise I’d made to my mother and left a note on a whiteboard I’d tacked up in the kitchen about where I was going and when I was going to return. Mom worried—a lot—and my vow to always leave a note of my whereabouts comforted her. How leaving a note for myself would help anything, I didn’t know, but she said it made her sleep easier.

So I scrawled a note and gathered up my backpack, but halfway out the door, I screeched to a halt. I’d forgotten to pack a lunch.

The panic of potential lateness seized me. I ran back inside, opened the tiny microwave that was now called the Eddie Safe, as it was one of the few places safe from the bread-loving Eddie, and pulled two pieces of bread from a loaf. In thirty seconds I’d slapped together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and shoved it into a plastic bag. I found an apple in the back of the small refrigerator, grabbed a half-empty bag of tortilla chips, filled a plastic bottle with water, and dropped it all into my backpack.

“See you tonight, Eddie!” I ran out of the house and walked across the boat’s deck, unlatched the railing door, hopped onto the marina’s dock, and started trotting up the hill to the library.

Never once had I been late for work. Never. I always arrived on time for appointments and I’d developed such a reputation for arriving at the stated hour to parties that my friends routinely sent me invitations with a different starting time. Now, with so much riding on what happened today, there I was, skimming the edge of lateness.

I hurried up the hill and away from the marina, practically running through the narrow side streets. The library, a handsome L-shaped brick building, sat on the far side of downtown. To my left, I knew the majestic Lake Michigan would be an inviting horizon of blue, and behind me the adjacent Janay Lake would be glittering in the sunshine, but I didn’t have time for my normal backward glances of appreciation.

“Morning, Minnie.” The owner of the bakery was putting out his sidewalk sign. OPEN. FREE SMELLS. “Say, did you know—”

“Talk to you later, Tom, okay?” I waved as I went past. “Running late today.”

After three blocks of antique stores, art galleries, clothing boutiques, and the occasional bookstore, fudge shop, and coffee shop, I reached the library. But instead of using my keys to let myself in the side door as per usual, I went around back. Then around the back of the back, past the employee parking and past the bins for cardboard recycling and trash. There, on the far side of the auxiliary parking lot, which was used only when famous authors came to speak, was the thing that was going to make or break my career.

The bookmobile.

Though it was inside a brand-new garage, I could almost see its wavy blue-painted graphics in the bright morning sun, its bright white letters emblazoned across its sides: CHILSON DISTRICT LIBRARY BOOKMOBILE. All fresh and spanking clean and waiting for me to . . . to what?

With a sudden and unwelcome rush, anxiety and dread darkened the shiny morning. Doubts assailed me from every direction. There was no way I’d be able to—

“Stop that.” I took a firmer grip on the straps of my backpack. Hearing the words out loud made me feel better, and since there wasn’t a soul around to hear, I kept going. “I haven’t been carsick in years. I’ve taught myself how to read maps and bought a GPS, and since the bookmobile was my idea, I’m the one to run it. I can do this. And I’ll do it right.”

The night before, I’d slid the driver’s daily checklist into my backpack. In ten minutes I was scheduled to be driving out of the parking lot and to my first stop on the opposite side of the county. It was time to hurry.

I unlocked the garage, climbed into the driver’s seat, tossed my backpack onto the passenger’s seat, started the engine, and backed the bookmobile out into the sun. Though the library director had grudgingly agreed to have a garage built for the bookmobile, it wasn’t any bigger than it had to be. Doing the pretrip check outside would be much easier. I turned off the engine, pulled the hood release, and went outside. “Water level, oil level,” I muttered, checking off the list as I went. “Good, and good.” I hurried back inside and started the engine. Gauges, all good. No weird engine noises. Very good.

Back outside to check tire pressure, back in and back out to check the lights and turn signals. Back inside to check a dozen other things. Fellow drivers had assured me that it would get to be habit within a matter of days, that soon I wouldn’t need the checklist. I almost, but not quite, believed this.

I ticked off the last item (“loose books secured”), shut the door, and slid into the driver’s seat.

The bookmobile’s dashboard clock stared at me accusingly. “Yes, I’m a minute late,” I told it as I buckled myself in. “If you don’t tell Stephen, I’ll give you a good vacuuming tonight.”

I could have sworn I heard a sniff.

First day as the bookmobile driver and I was already hearing things. Outstanding.

As I put my hand on the gearshift, a rush of excitement prickled my skin. It was actually happening. The bookmobile was real, and I was driving it. I was going to bring books back to the small towns who’d had their branch libraries closed. I was going to bring books to schools and senior centers and people who were homebound. This outreach program was going to make a difference. I was going to make a difference.

A happy grin spread wide across my face. It was a beautiful morning, the finest in months, maybe the finest ever, and this day was going to be one of the best ever and—

“Mrr.”

Chapter 2

I blinked. Had I heard what I thought I’d heard? No. Absolutely not. Insanity was far preferable. “Eddie?” I asked tentatively.

He sat up, yawning, revealing himself from where he’d been lying behind the backpack I’d tossed onto the passenger’s seat.

“Eddie, what on earth are you doing here?” I was almost shouting. “How did you . . . ?” Then I remembered. I’d left the houseboat door open when I’d run back inside to make my lunch. And I remembered that Tom had been looking behind me when he’d tried to say hello. And that I’d left the bookmobile door open while I’d run through the preflight check, giving Eddie plenty of time to sneak aboard.

“You are a horrible cat,” I told him. “What am I supposed to do with you? I don’t have time to take you home.”

The dashboard clock ticked forward. Now it was two minutes past eight.

Eddie and I glared at each other. At least I glared. He looked bored.

I glanced at the bookmobile’s interior. Custom shelves and cabinets contained everything a miniature library could want. Two desktops, one front and one back, held laptop computers for checking out books. There was a wheelchair lift behind swinging bookshelves. A carpeted step that ran along the base of the shelves for stepping and sitting. An adorably cute refrigerator and even tinier microwave behind a fabric corkboard. Electric heaters. Roof-mounted air conditioners. Pop-up skylights for cross-ventilation. All that, but no room anywhere for an extraneous cat.

Three minutes past eight.

I scowled at Eddie. “You haven’t left me much choice. But you’d better be good today.”

He closed one eye and slowly opened it again. Though I’d been a cat caretaker less than two months, I knew what that wink meant. It meant he was a cat and he’d do whatever he pleased, when he pleased, and if I didn’t like it, that was just too bad.

I dropped the gearshift into drive and put my foot on the accelerator. The Chilson District Library Bookmobile began its maiden voyage. Me, three thousand books, one hundred DVDs, a dozen jigsaw puzzles, two laptop computers—and one Eddie.

•   •   •

For forty-five minutes, as I drove to the east side of the county, I ignored the lake-filled and hilly countryside in favor of imagining what was going to happen to me when my boss found out I’d brought a cat along on the bookmobile. The most likely scenario was that Stephen would fire me for . . . for feline interference.

I mentioned this to Eddie, who was sleeping on the passenger seat, rounded into a big Eddie-ball. If his snores were any indication of his concern, he didn’t seem to think it likely. I’d never known cats could snore, let alone snore as loud as Eddie. The first time his raspy breaths woke me up, I’d been sure there was an intruder in my bedroom, breathing hard through his face-covering ski mask. But, no. It was just Eddie.

“What happens, wise guy,” I asked him now, “if I get demoted? What if I have to take a pay cut? What if I have to work longer hours?”

Eddie opened his eyes briefly.

“Sure, I already work weekends and lots of evenings, but that’s because . . . because there are things to do.”

Eddie started snoring again. It was easy to see why. There was no way his nasal passages could be happy in that position. How any creature could find it comfortable to be half upside down and half right side up with his face smushed into the side of my backpack, I had no idea, but what did I know about being a cat?

Then again, maybe I could learn a lot from cats. Eddie didn’t seem to worry about anything and I hadn’t come across anything that disturbed his sleep. There was a definite lesson here somewhere, but if it required a diet of cat food, I wasn’t sure I wanted to sign up for the course.

Eddie’s snores faded to a dull roar. Four minutes to nine and we were still miles from where I was supposed to be meeting Suzanne Slade, the library volunteer who’d gone all giddy at the chance of riding along with the bookmobile. “Oh, it’ll be such fun!” Her white-blond curls had bobbed as she’d clapped. “Going on the first voyage. What a treat!”

I’d pushed aside my concerns of spending hours with that much perkiness in what was essentially a very small room, and we’d made arrangements to meet Friday morning in a church parking lot. Suzanne would get a ride back with a friend who worked in Chilson. “It’ll work out wonderfully,” she’d said.

I hoped Suzanne wasn’t allergic to cats. For that matter, I hoped that no one who was going to board the bookmobile was allergic to cats. Or afraid of cats. Or mean to cats.

The GPS unit I’d bought came to life and said my destination was one quarter mile away. I could see the white steepled church, and I could also see an empty parking lot.

I steered into the large gravel space, which was big enough that it eliminated the need to back up the bookmobile. We were a little late. Could Suzanne have grown tired of waiting and gone home? I tapped the steering wheel, slid open the side window for some fresh air, and watched the clock tick away two more minutes.

“You know,” I told Eddie, who, judging from the way his ears were rotating, was at least partially awake, “I should check my phone and see if she’s left a message. Excuse me, okay?” Gently, I rearranged parts of his black-and-white fuzziness—which started purring—and reached into the backpack for my cell phone. I’d been commanded by Stephen not to use it while driving upon pain of death (or words to that effect) and hadn’t even turned it on that morning.

Just then a sedan sped into the parking lot and came to a sliding stop right in front of the bookmobile. Suzanne flung open the driver’s door, jumped out, and came over to my open window.

“I’m so sorry I’m late.” She sounded weepy and distraught. “Minnie, I hate letting you down like this, I’m so sorry.”

“Well, we’re only a few minutes late.”

“No, no,” she cried. “It’s my mother. Downstate. A tree fell on her house. I have to go help sort things out—there’s no one else. I’m so sorry—she called just half an hour ago and I had to pack and I’m so sorry to abandon you like this.”

I hurried outside and came around to Suzanne. “We’ll be fine,” I said, giving her a big hug. “Don’t worry about it. Your mom is what’s important right now.”

She sniffed and gave me a weak smile. “You’ll manage?”

“Sure. Will you?”

“I’ll be okay.” She rubbed at her eyes. “I may look a mess, but I have a long drive to pull myself together.”

I watched as she sped away and hoped she’d be all right. Another volunteer was scheduled to start next week, but still . . .

“Mrr!”

I whipped around. Eddie was poking his face out from where I’d opened the window. No, not just his face. A white foot was sneaking out, then the elbow. . . .

“Eddie!” I marched over to the window and stood on my tiptoes to push—in a nice way, of course—his various parts back inside. “Now stay there.”

By the time I got in the bookmobile, he was half out the window again. I grabbed him by the midsection, pulled him inside, and shut the window. “What’s with you, anyway?” I rubbed his fuzzy head and sat down with him on my lap. “I thought you were going to be a good cat today. And no purring. You know how that makes me forgive you anything.”

He purred and snuggled his head into my armpit. I rubbed his ears. “You truly are a horrible cat.” I picked him up, feet dangling, and deposited him onto the passenger seat. “If you stay at this level of horrible, we’ll be fine. But if you—”

My phone rang. I looked at the screen. “It’s Stephen,” I told Eddie. “Think I should answer?”

Eddie had no opinion, so I took the call.

“Good morning, Minnie. How is it going so far?”

“Oh, not bad.” Certainly things could be worse. I could have run out of gas. Or hit a deer. Or made a wrong turn that ended two miles later in a dead end with no way to turn around the thirty-one-foot bookmobile.

“I would have hoped that by now you’d be on the way to your first stop, but since you’re answering the phone, I know the bookmobile is stationary.”

“Just ready to leave this minute.”

“And you have a volunteer with you?”

“Volunteer? Well, about that . . .”

“Minnie, you can’t be out there by yourself,” he said. “The library board was quite insistent that you not be alone on the bookmobile.”

“I know.” I knew all about the board’s concerns, issues ranging from insurance costs to liability to maintenance responsibilities. I’d done the research on running a bookmobile; I’d found grant money to pay for the first year of operations; I’d even convinced one of the richest men in town to contribute money for the purchase of this grand vehicle.

Through it all, Stephen had been looking over my shoulder, quick to point out the smallest flaw in my plans. And through it all, I’d known perfectly well that a sizable minority of the library board supported each of his criticisms. If this maiden voyage went wrong in any way, the minority could become a majority and that didn’t bear thinking about.

“Tell me you aren’t alone on the bookmobile,” Stephen said.

I looked at Eddie. “I’m not.”

“Then why . . . ? Never mind. You’ll tell me when you come in.” He hung up and I turned off the phone. There wouldn’t be decent coverage in most of the places I was going, anyway.

“Mrr.” Eddie had draped himself over my backpack, his two front legs spread wide.

“Don’t look so pleased with yourself,” I said. “I would have figured a way out of the two-on-the-vehicle thing if you hadn’t been here.”

“Mrr.”

“Would too.”

“Mrr.”

Cats. They always had to have the last word.

•   •   •

The morning sun sent shafts of sunlight between the maple leaves and onto the two-lane road. Driving through the dappled light, I kept my eyes moving, looking for wildlife, checking the mirrors to make sure I was staying in the middle of the lane, eyeing the dashboard gauges, trying to remember everything I’d been taught about driving the bookmobile.

Twenty minutes later I saw a cluster of homes around a small school. The school’s library budget had been slashed to the bone a few years ago. For a while they’d borrowed new books from a nearby branch of the Chilson District Library, but budget cuts had closed that down tight. It was the closing of that much-loved library that had spurred me to assemble an ad hoc committee, its purpose a feasibility study of a Chilson bookmobile. Which had ended up to be a committee of me, but everything had turned out just fine.

Mostly.

I flicked the turn signal and looked at Eddie. Though I couldn’t tell for certain over the road noise, I was pretty sure he was snoring again. “First stop, coming up,” I said loudly.

Slightly left we went, Eddie, the bookmobile, and me. Then a slow, wide sweeping right turn into the weed-infested gravel parking lot, a gentle braking to a soft stop, and we were there. The inaugural stop of the Chilson District Library Bookmobile had begun.

I slid open the side windows, then rotated the driver’s seat to face the computer desk, and stood. I pushed the one-step stool from its home behind the passenger seat and stood on it to reach the fan installed into the ceiling. I’d turn on the air-conditioning if I had to, but that would mean turning on the generator and that was a dull roar I’d just as soon do without.

“And now what do I do with you?” I asked my cat. After this stop we’d take a short break at a county park just down the road. I’d get him some water and a nice out-of-the-way, sandy spot for him to do anything he needed to do, but for now . . .

“Mrr.” Eddie half closed his eyes and settled into a comfortable slouch.

For now, what was I going to do with him? In the time between leaving Chilson and arriving here, I’d come up with zero ideas. There was no cat carrier for him, I wasn’t wearing a belt that might be turned into a leash, and I was not about to take off my bra and fashion it into an Eddie restraint.

Knock knock.

No time to think, no time for anything but action. “Just a minute!” I opened the cabinet door that held a tidy arrangement of filing and cleaning supplies, gathered them up, dropped them onto the floor in front of the passenger’s seat, grabbed Eddie, shoved him in the cabinet, and shut the door. “Sorry, pal,” I whispered. “I’ll let you out as soon as they’re gone.”

I hurried down the length of the bookmobile, almost tripped in my rush to maneuver the steps, and pushed open the door.

A small group of children stood outside. “Hi, come on in. Welcome to the bookmobile!”

The six kids ranged from age five-ish to ten-ish, three boys and three girls. They stood there, glancing at one another, shifting from foot to foot. None of them made a move.

I grinned, made waving come-on-in motions, and did my best carnival barker imitation. “We have books, all sorts of books. We have Curious George, we have Hardy Boys, we have Amelia Bedelia, we have Indians in the cupboard, we have books about horses, we have books about baseball, we have books about cats and kittens. We have books with stories about far-off lands and castles and dragons and princesses and kings and queens and—”

“Princesses?” a girl asked, her eyes big and round. “You have princess books?”

I smiled at her. “We sure do. Come aboard and I’ll show you.”

She ran up the two outside steps, jumped onto the first stair on the bookmobile and turned around. “I’m going to get princess books,” she told her compatriots. “I’m going to be first to get a bookmobile book.” She whirled back around and bounced up to my side, her face bright and shiny. “Can I see them now? Where are they?”

“They’re right over—”

My words were lost in the pandemonium of five children trying to get up into the bookmobile simultaneously. In no time at all, I’d guided the smallest to the picture books, and shown others the locations of biographies, nature books, and, of course, princess books. While I was guiding one of the girls to the Boxcar Children, a deep male voice boomed up into the bookmobile. “Hey, you kids! You were supposed to wait for me!”

They froze. Except for the princess-fixated girl. She was so focused on the golden-haired pictures on her lap that she probably wouldn’t have heard lightning strike the ground next to her.

A big, bearded man came up the steps and glared at the kids one by one, starting with the oldest boy. “Trevor. Rose. Cara. Patrick. Emma. Ethan. What do you have to say for yourselves?”

“It was here, Dad,” the smallest child said. “And you were going to be on the phone a long, long time.”

Dad glanced at his watch. “Five whole minutes is indeed a long time.” He sent me an amused look. “But you knew you were supposed to wait for me.”

“It was here,” the princess girl said. “And look!” She brandished the book at him, a cover of pinks and purples and gold.

“Again with the princesses.” He shook his head. “Why am I not surprised?”

“It’s good!” She pulled the book to her chest. “It’s my favorite!”

He patted his daughter on the head and held out his hand to me. “Chad Engstrom. And, yes, they’re all mine. Three sets of twins, what are the odds?”

“Minnie Hamilton,” I said, shaking his hand. “They were hesitant to come on the bookmobile. Now I think I understand.”

“Kids,” he said, sighing. “Can’t live with them, can’t leave them out on the street for someone else to take.”

“You’re stuck with us,” Trevor said, his nose buried in a biography of Thomas Edison.

Chad made a deep, menacing, growly noise. “And you’re stuck with me. What do you think of that?”

“We think we love you,” they chorused.

I laughed out loud. A scene like this would never have happened inside a library. If this was what driving a bookmobile was going to be like, I was hooked.

A hand tugged at the hem of my cropped pants. “Do you have a book about a puppy?” A girl—Cara? Or was it Emma?—looked up at me, her small face full of hope and expectation.

“You bet,” I said promptly. For two months I’d done little except get ready for this day. I knew every inch of the bookmobile. I knew how many steps it was from front to back, I knew the mechanical systems inside and out, and I knew every single book on the shelves. “Right over here.”

As soon as she was settled, another hand tugged at my pants. Big blue eyes filled with question marks looked up at me.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Miss Minnie. What’s your name?”

“Ethan.”

“Hi, Ethan. How can I help you?”

“My dad said you’d show me the bookmobile.”

“Absolutely,” I said just as a quiet thump came from inside Eddie’s cabinet. “Why don’t we start at the back?”

I showed Ethan and his father the wheelchair lift, spent some time over the strapped-in book carts that I’d soon be wheeling into senior centers and day cares, and told him how the books and DVDs and CDs and magazines were arranged. The top half of my brain was engaged with being a bookmobile librarian. The bottom half, however, was running around in frantic circles. How long could Eddie stay in the cabinet undetected? I knew he’d survive the day if he didn’t eat anything, but by noon he’d start complaining that he was starving to death. Loudly.

“What’s in there?” Ethan pointed at the critical cabinet.

“Storage,” I said. “Paper towels. Glass cleaner. Nothing interesting.”

Eddie gave the door a thump. I gave it a light whack, hoping the child would think I’d made the noise both times.

“Mrr,” Eddie said.

“Shhh,” I whispered.

“Sorry?” Chad asked.

“Shoot,” I said quickly. “I forgot to bring a book your children might have enjoyed.”

“Oh? What?”

Four years of undergraduate work in library science, two years of graduate school, nine years of working in libraries, college summers working in a children’s bookstore, not to mention my own book-filled childhood, and my brain was dry of any suggestions. I gave a sheepish smile. “Afraid I can’t remember the title. I’ll try to—”

“Dad, look!” Ethan pointed. “The cabinet’s moving!”

“Leveling,” I said, putting my heel firmly against the door. “The bookmobile must not be completely level, so the door is opening on its own.” Or it would have, if there hadn’t been magnets holding the door closed, but there was no need to bother these nice people with that little point. I braced my heel against the bottom of the door, trying for a casual pose. “Do you have any other questions?”

His brother Trevor, sitting on the carpeted step at the base of the shelves, snorted. “Bet he has more than one.”

“Answering questions is why I’m here,” I said. “What do you want to know, Ethan?”

He pointed to the driver’s seat. “Why does the library have a steering wheel?”

“Because this library is on wheels. You saw me drive up, remember? And if something has wheels, you need a way to steer it.”

He nodded, then pointed to a shelf of books. “If the library moves, why don’t those fall on the floor?”

“You have bookshelves at home, right? And I bet yours are flat, like this.” I held my hands out in front of me. “If books on the bookmobile were like that, they would fall off when we hit bumps on the road.” My hands made bouncing motions. “But these shelves are different. Do you see how?”

Ethan looked at my hands, looked at the shelves, and frowned deep enough to put crinkles in his forehead.

Trevor sighed heavily, but otherwise kept quiet.

Finally, Ethan pursed his lips and nodded firmly. “They tip.”

His father clapped him on the shoulder. “Way to go, kiddo! You figured it out all by yourself.”

But Ethan wasn’t done asking questions. He pointed at the laptop computer on the counter behind the driver’s seat. “What’s that for?”

I moved away from the cabinet and showed him the RFID scanner and the wiring connecting it to the computer. “We use these to keep track of where all the books are.”

Ethan was roaming, running his fingers over the shelves, his intelligent eyes hunting for things he didn’t understand. More questions were clearly imminent.

Chad watched his son. “You’ve done a great thing here.” His other five children had piles of books at their feet.

“Thanks,” I said. “We had a generous budget, but even a great big pile of money runs out at some point.”

“That’s right, you had a donation.” Chad snapped his fingers. “I remember reading about it. Some guy who grew up around here?”

I nodded, smiling as I thought of my elderly friend. “Stan Larabee. He’s about seventy now. He moved away after high school and got into Florida real estate development. When he retired a few years ago, he moved back up here and—”

There was a click that sounded a lot like the click the cabinet doors made when being opened. I looked up. Froze solid. Half a nanosecond later, my mouth started to open, but I was far, far too late.

“Hey, look!” Ethan said, pointing.

Princess jumped to her feet. “It’s a kitty cat!”

“Mrr,” said Eddie.

Chapter 3

“A cat?” Chad looked at me.

I sucked in a large breath and blew it out. “Your kids aren’t allergic, are they?” Because now all six of them were sitting or standing or kneeling in front of the cabinet, giggling and pointing.

Chad snorted. “Those kids are so healthy, my wife and I have been tempted to inject them with a flu virus so they know what it’s like to be sick.”

“Can I pet him?” Ethan asked.

“Why do you have a cat in the cabinet?” Trevor asked.

“He’s beautiful,” Princess cooed.

The middle girl asked, “What’s his name?”

“Eddie,” I said, sighing. “His name is Eddie.” I made my way through the children and crouched down. The troublesome one had retreated so far into the cabinet that his fur was sliding up against the back wall. “We’ve been discovered, pal. You might as well come on out.” His yellow eyes stared at me. “Come on,” I said, “the natives are friendly.” I danced my fingers on the front edge of the shelf. He inched forward, sniffing, and finally came forward far enough to let me swoop him up.

I kissed the top of his head, then turned around to make the introductions. “Eddie, this is Ethan. And Trevor. And Mr. Engstrom. And . . .” I looked at the other kids. “And what are your names?”

“Rose,” said Princess Girl.

“Emma,” said the youngest girl.

“I’m Patrick,” said the middle boy, “and she’s Cara.”

“Hi, Eddie,” Cara said in a voice so quiet I almost didn’t hear her. “You’re a pretty cat.”

“Mrr,” he said, and then the total and complete ham started purring. I rolled my eyes and the kids crowded closer, all reaching out to pet him. Eddie sighed and let them.

“I take it Eddie wasn’t a planned feature?” Chad asked. ...