Claws for Alarm Read online

  Praise for

  MEOW IF IT’S MURDER

  “Nick and Nora are a winning team.”

  —Rebecca Hale, New York Times bestselling author of How to Catch a Cat

  “Nick and Nora are the purrfect sleuthy duo!”

  —Victoria Laurie, New York Times bestselling author of the Psychic Eye Mysteries

  “A clever debut featuring a wild and furry sleuthing duo . . . A big ‘paws-up’ for Meow If It’s Murder! . . . A fast-paced cozy mystery spiced with a dash of romance and topped with a big slice of ‘cat-itude.’”

  —Ali Brandon, New York Times bestselling author of Plot Boiler

  “An absolute delight and Nick and Nora make a purr-fect mystery-solving team! I couldn’t put it down!”

  —Michelle Rowen, national bestselling author of From Fear to Eternity

  “[A] fabulous new crime-fighting team on the cozy crime scene . . . A triple-decker sandwich of murder, danger, and delight . . . Nick so brims with street smarts and feline charisma, you’d almost think he was human . . . An exciting new series.”

  —Carole Nelson Douglas, New York Times notable author of the Midnight Louie Mysteries

  “[A] lighthearted and engagingly entertaining whodunit . . . This was a great read and I can’t wait to read the next book in this wonderfully terrific series.”

  —CozyChicksBlog.com

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by T. C. LoTempio

  Nick & Nora Mysteries

  MEOW IF IT’S MURDER

  CLAWS FOR ALARM

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  CLAWS FOR ALARM

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2015 by Toni LoTempio.

  Excerpt from Of Crime and Catnip by Toni LoTempio copyright © 2016 by Toni LoTempio.

  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.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME design are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information, visit penguin.com.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-63851-4

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / November 2015

  Cover illustration by Mary Ann Lasher.

  Cover design by George Long.

  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.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  Version_1

  For Larry Marshall and Mary Lou Ricciardi

  Always in my heart

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Once again I would like to thank my fabulous agent, Josh Getzler, and his assistant, Danielle Burby, for their encouragement, hand-holding, and prompt answering of all my questions and concerns even when they’re trivial! I would like to thank Faith Black for believing in Nick and Nora from the start. I would also like to thank my new editor, Kristine Swartz, for stepping in to take over Nick and Nora and for all her help and encouragement, and the entire editorial staff at Berkley Prime Crime for the fabulous job they do. A special thanks to the fabulous copyediting team, who managed to keep this manuscript on track, and a big shout out to Mary Ann Lasher for another fabulous cover. (Although ROCCO thinks Nick’s a bit too thin—but that’s a discussion for another day!)

  I would also like to thank all the fabulous authors that I have come in contact with through the years via ROCCO’s blog. I’ve learned so much from all of you! Special thanks to Carole Nelson Douglas, who’s always there with a word of encouragement. (And Midnight Louie, too!) A huge thank-you to Emily Hall and Laura Roth, who graciously consented to beta-read CLAWS for me! Your comments were much appreciated.

  Finally, an author owes a lot to their readers, and I would like to thank each and every person who bought and read Meow If It’s Murder, and who follow ROCCO’s blog. Your support means the world to me, and I hope you are looking forward to the future adventures of Nick and Nora as much as I am!

  CONTENTS

  Praise for Meow If It’s Murder

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by T. C. LoTempio

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  From Nora’s Recipe Book

  Special Excerpt from Of Crime and Catnip

  PROLOGUE

  When he pulled out of the circular driveway of his beautiful English Tudor home that morning, Professor Thaddeus C. Pitt had no idea he was in the last hours of his life.

  A robust man in his late fifties, he could easily pass for ten years younger. His thick, curly hair was still a striking jet-black, with nary a gray strand in sight. His health was quite good—it had been ages since he’d seen the inside of a hospital—and for that he credited his sensible diet, sparing consumption of alcohol, and the Gold Crown membership at his health club. Money had rarely been a problem for him: He’d amassed a considerable fortune over the years, partly due to his own talent as an artist and, in the later years after the arthritis had made it impossible to continue painting, through his art acquisitions. It was well known he had one of the largest collections of rare paintings and sculptures on the West Coast. Why, only last month Donald Trump and Sylvester Stallone had offered him millions for the rare Cezanne he’d recently acquired. It had given him enormous pleasure to turn them down cold.

  He liked having things other people wanted.

  One thing he was certain several people wanted was the young, beautiful, blond wife he’d acquired a few years ago. Giselle couldn’t tell a Cezanne from a Renoir, had not the faintest idea who Leonardo da Vinci was (“Isn’t he the guy who was in that Wolf of Wall Street movie?”), but her other—ahem—attributes more than made up for her lack of polish. Yes, he was a lucky man indeed.

  He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up on the bridge of his aquiline-shaped nose and cast a wary eye at the stack of student portfolios left to grade that teetered on the edge of his cherrywood desk, threatening to spill over onto the thick shag carpeting. Even though
teaching was a profession foisted upon him because he could no longer hold a brush in his hand for more than ten minutes, he had to admit to a certain satisfaction from nurturing his more talented students, inspiring them on to bigger and better things. The less talented ones—well, most of them, he feared—appreciated neither his candor nor his bluntness. Only the passage of time would most likely heal the wounds his words, perhaps cruel in tone but not cruelly meant, inflicted.

  He leaned back in his chair. The glove leather felt like butter against his skin, and he let out a sigh of contentment as he reached for the top folder. He’d done half already, given them back in today’s class. Not one student had gotten higher than a C—and none of them deserved any higher, in his opinion. Several of them had expressed their displeasure both verbally and visually, and his blasé attitude at their fury only served to add fuel to their fire, which he could only hope and pray might manifest itself in future works. One student in particular had not taken his criticism well at all—although if he were to be perfectly honest, Lacey Charles wasn’t quite as hopeless as the others. Her portrait work was quite good, actually, but even so, she was certainly no Anne Rowe or William Branson. Lacey’s problem was, surprisingly, a lack of confidence. All she needed was a fire lit under her—that was why he’d told her to come to his office after her last class today.

  One thing he was very, very good at was lighting fires.

  His eye fell on the photo of Giselle in the silver frame square in the center of his desk, reminding him he still had yet to answer her about going to that damned fund-raiser. He leaned back in his chair, trying to think of a worthy excuse, and as he did so his gaze fell upon an object tucked on the shelf on the far wall. He abruptly straightened in his chair and reached for his phone, brows drawn together as he punched in a number. The frown deepened as voice mail kicked in, and when the beep sounded, he said, “It’s me. You didn’t call as you were supposed to. Avoiding me won’t change anything. As I told you this morning, I’ve discovered the flaw—the dirty little secret of what you sold me, and since I don’t take lightly to abuse of art in any form, unless this matter is resolved—and quickly—I’ll be forced to take further action. Oh, and for the record, I don’t bluff.”

  That done, he rose, stretched, and made his way over to the well-stocked bar at the other end of his office. He poured himself a glass of port and stood in front of the bay window, sipping and looking out at the dimly lit street below. After a few minutes he began to feel groggy. He put his hand to his head, rubbed at his temples.

  You’re getting old, Thaddeus, my man. You can’t drink like you used to.

  He held the glass aloft, swirled the liquid, and took another sip. He held the glass out, frowned. Was it his imagination, or did the liquid seem a tad cloudy?

  Impossible. I drank from this decanter only last night and everything was fine, just fine.

  His knees started to wobble, and the wineglass slid from his hand, landing on the carpet with a soft thud. The room seemed to spin crazily, and his vision blurred. His dimming gaze fixed on the bottle of wine as the shudder ripped through his body.

  Good God. I’ve been drugged.

  His legs went out from under him, and he fell upon the soft carpet, his head lolling to one side like a broken doll’s. So dulled were his senses that he was oblivious to the creak of the office door as it opened, or the soft footfalls that signified the presence of an intruder. Pitt never felt the sharp blade of the knife as it entered his body and pierced his heart. He let out one long, shuddering gasp as his lungs started to bleed into his chest cavity, and his last conscious thought as the life slowly ebbed out of him was that, even had he been a praying man, no amount of it could help him now . . .

  ONE

  “Chérie, I don’t think you have a choice. You have to get rid of him.”

  I brushed an errant auburn curl out of my eyes and squinted at my friend. “There’s always a choice,” I said. “But I guess you’re right. He’s got to go.”

  “Ow-owrr!”

  We both burst out laughing as the large black-and-white cat rose from his post in front of my refrigerator, stretched his forepaws out in front of him, and then sat back on his haunches, regarding the two of us with catly disdain. He lifted one large paw and waved it imperiously in the air. “Ow-owrr,” he said again.

  “Relax. Not you, Nick,” I said. I reached out and tapped at the large blackboard that hung just to the left of the store counter. “Brad Pitt. See?” I pointed to the list of specials on the blackboard and the Brad Pitt All-American Hero that was wedged in between the Jennifer Aniston Garden Salad and the Angelina Jolie Tuna Club. “Chantal’s right. Some die-hard Aniston or Jolie fan will be sure to complain.”

  My BFF, Chantal Gillard, knelt down beside the stocky cat and petted him on the white streak behind his left ear. “Ah, Nicky, do not worry,” she crooned. I stifled a grin. Chantal loved to speak in an affected French accent, so it came out sounding like, Ah, Neekey, do naht worree. “Nora would never get rid of you. Where else would she find such a charming store mascot—and where would I find as handsome a model?”

  At the word model, Nick’s eyes flew open. He got up, turned, and marched, his tail straight up, back to his post in front of the refrigerator where he squatted, his back to us.

  “Mon Dieu,” Chantal said. “And here I thought he enjoyed modeling my collars.”

  Chantal and her brother, Remy Gillard, co-ran Poppies, the local flower store. Chantal had also turned a portion of the store into a combination New Age store slash tearoom, where she also read tarot cards (my friend has psychic abilities), and recently she’d branched out into a new venture: homemade jewelry. This included a line of pet collars, for which she’d drafted Nick as a model—a chore the feline wasn’t particularly fond of.

  I chuckled as I picked up the eraser. “Nick would probably rather solve mysteries than model collars—after all, his former owner was a PI. It’s in his blood.”

  Nick’s ears perked up and he let out a soft meow.

  “It’s in yours, too, Nora Charles,” my friend said, waggling her finger. “You can’t turn your back on a good mystery, either—as the Grainger case proved.”

  “Maybe not,” I admitted. “But Cruz is a quiet little town. How many mysteries can it have?”

  “You’d be surprised,” said a deep voice behind us.

  We both started. We’d been so deep in our conversation neither one of us had heard the shop door open. The newcomer walked over to my counter and leaned his elbows on it. Lance Reynolds was six-four, built like a sumo wrestler, and the guy who escorted me to my senior prom in high school, even though everyone knows he’s always carried a torch for my younger sister, Lacey. After getting a degree in business from UCLA he tried accounting for a while, but it soon became evident that being a nine-to-fiver wearing a suit and tie was most definitely NOT up his alley. His brother, Phil, felt pretty much the same, so the two of them pooled their resources and opened the Poker Face, a quaint tavern about a block away from my shop, Hot Bread. Now he grinned at me and said, “You’ve got a mystery right here, under your very nose.” He inclined his head toward where Nick squatted. “The mystery of the missing owner.” He paused. “Or have you succeeded in finding him?”

  I shook my head. “No—but then again, I haven’t tried all that hard.”

  My tubby tuxedo formerly belonged to a PI, also named Nick—Nick Atkins. Feline Nick is a cat of many and varied talents, some of which may or may not have been taught to him by his former owner, which also include a flair for detective work. The story of how our association began is a long one (recounted elsewhere, for those who are interested—even for those who are not) that ended with my routing out a hired hit man and preventing two more deaths in the process—and with Nick saving my hide from the aforementioned murderer.

  “Nora couldn’t care less if Atkins ever turns up,” Chantal said with f
eeling. “She’s gotten quite attached to Nicky—as have I.” Chantal slipped her oversized tote bag over her shoulder and blew the cat a kiss. “I have to get going for my shift at Poppies, but tomorrow, Nicky, I will bring along those new collars. You will love them.”

  Nick put both paws over his face and let out a soft grr, then wiggled his portly body underneath the table at the rear of the kitchen. Once Chantal had disappeared out the door Lance turned to me and chuckled. “I swear, sometimes I think that cat’s part human.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not the only one. So—what can I get you? A nice Thin Man Tuna Melt? Or maybe you’d like to try out the Brad Pitt All-American Hero? Baloney, ham, American cheddar, tomato, hot peppers, and shredded lettuce with mayo and oil and vinegar on a long roll.”

  “Yum.” He made smacking sounds with his tongue. “I’ll take two to go. Phil and I have a long evening ahead of us, and we need something to see us through.” He pulled a face. “Annual audit. I’m hoping Phil has all the receipts labeled this time. You have no idea what we went through last year. For an ex-accountant he’s horribly disorganized.”

  I bit back a chuckle. Neither Lance nor his brother were particularly organized.

  Lance leaned across my counter and rested his chin in his hands, watching as I removed two long rolls from the breadbasket, sliced them, then spread them liberally with mayo. “So,” he asked casually, “heard from Lacey lately?”

  I shook my head as I pulled the Virginia ham out of the glass case. “Not for a few weeks. This is midterm time at that art school she’s attending. Aunt Prudence said that she’s been so immersed in her work, she’s hardly seen her, either.”

  Lance chuckled. “Immersed in work, eh? Now there’s a phrase I’d never have associated with your sister.”

  “Me, either.” I arranged the ham on the bread, wiped off the slicer, and turned back to the case for the baloney. “She has had her share of jobs over the years. and I, for one, hope this passion of hers continues. I was beginning to wonder if she’d ever find anything she liked to do for more than five seconds.” I finished slicing the baloney, arranged it on top of the ham, then returned to the case for the cheddar. “Mom always used to worry that Lacey would just shuffle aimlessly through life.”