His Purrfect Mate(7)
She hung up quickly, and then a sudden, traitorous thought struck her.
She was absolutely not ever supposed to call the only-in-dire-emergency number she had for her grandmother. Sophronia had withdrawn from the world decades ago. Sometimes she travelled for months or years, sometimes she stayed in her turn-of-the-century mansion deep in the woods, but wherever she was, she had made it very clear that she did not want to talk to her family. To Chloe, her grandmother was just an odd, almost fictional character, someone who’d unmoored herself from her family and floated off to live as a castaway. Chloe had accepted this long ago, and never called.
But damn it, she needed answers.
Leaning on the wooden porch railing, she dialed the number.
She hadn’t spoken to her grandmother in over a decade, and then it had only been for a few minutes. She was almost surprised when, after seven rings, her grandmother actually answered the phone.
“Hello?” she said.
“Grandmother?”
“Is my daughter dead?” Sophronia asked, in a voice that was more curious than upset.
“Ahh…no,” Chloe said, taken aback. “She’s fine.”
“How can you be sure?” The voice on the other end was so strange. It was barely human. It was devoid of normal inflection, drained of emotion and life.
“Well, I just talked to her on the phone a couple of minutes ago. She was at her shop. Unless a meteor hit the shop in the last 60 seconds, I’m pretty confident that she’s still among the living.” Good lord, Chloe had forgotten just how crazy Sophronia was. And from what Chloe had been told, Sophronia had been completely normal, a sweet, funny, charming girl…until she got engaged to Barrett Chamberlin.
“Then why are you calling me?” her grandmother’s voice was dull and uninterested now.
Chloe felt a flare of temper. “Because Kenneth Chamberlin keeps calling me, and I don’t know why, and my mother won’t tell me anything more about what happened between you and his grandfather.” There. She’d broken the two biggest family taboos she could think of.
Called her grandmother…check.
Mentioned the unmentionable…check.
“What does he want?” her grandmother’s voice suddenly changed completely. She went from world weary and a million miles away to very, very alert.
I just told you – I don’t know. He claims he wants me to come work for him to help catalogue some art collection of his. Staying at his house with him. But why me, of all people, and why has he suddenly started bombarding me with phone calls for the past few weeks, pestering the dean of my department-”
“Take the job,” her grandmother’s voice was crisp and business-like now.
“What?” Chloe’s jaw dropped.
“You heard me. Take the job.”
“But…I thought the Chamberlins were terrible people. Not to be trusted. Back-stabbers. Thieves. Breakers of promises. Ruiners of lives.”
“They are all of that, and more. And you will take the job. Listen, do you really want answers? Come to my house tomorrow at noon.”
And then there was a click and the line went dead.
“What just happened?” Chloe’s head was in a whirl. This was crazy. Her grandmother actually wanted to see her?
She wondered if she should call her mother back and ask her advice. No, her mother would flip. Sophronia had left Hilary with her father when Hilary was a baby, barely speaking to her only child over the years, and any conversation about Sophronia caused her mother pain.
A car pulled up in front of her house, and Henry parked and climbed out. Great. Her reluctant date to the ball. Be still my beating heart, she thought, and walked around the side of the house to greet him. At least he would be able to help her put together her outfit.
Chapter Three
Playa Linda, California
While Kenneth prepared for the ball in New York City, two of his employees in Playa Linda were in the most decrepit neighborhood in the city, pursuing a different agenda.
Bobbi Simpson, a coyote shifter who worked for Shifters, Inc., was dressed to vanish into the darkness. Black t-shirt, black jeans, boots, no makeup, hair pulled back in a pony-tail. When necessary, she could easily don a five thousand dollar evening gown, pile her hair up into an elegant updo, and accessorize right down to the jewelry, heels, and hair ornaments. Tonight, however, she wore her preferred outfit, the clothing she put on when she was ready to kick ass and then turn tail and run without taking any names.
Her best friend Pixie was dressed the only way she ever dressed: cheap faux black leather jacket, multiple facial piercings, flat-ironed hair a shocking shade of pink which faded at the end to tips of blue, combat boots, black holey leggings, t-shirt with a highly incongruous picture of a cartoon kitten on it.