Cats on the Prowl (A Cat Detective cozy mystery series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

that height without hurting himself,
she could, too. He wouldn’t expect her to do it if she couldn’t do it safely.
She took another deep breath and jumped.

    She hit the ground on all four paws,
and the shock woke up some part of her cat soul she never knew she had. So this
was how the other half lived. The cats who didn’t have owners and police
detectives putting food out for them and turning on the heater on winter days
had to jump and climb and hunt for their living.

    She stepped forward with a new
confidence in her gait, but she stopped dead when she spotted Nat on the other
side of the dumpster with two other cats. One was a dishwater grey Persian, but
he wasn’t a Persian like her. His face crunched up in a sour expression so he
looked ready to bite anybody’s head off that came too close. Dirt and rotten
food caked his fur, and he didn’t have any whiskers at all that Willow could
see.

    The other cat was a microscopic little
scrap of a tortoise-shell Abyssinian. She looked like a kitten, except her head
wasn’t big enough compared to the rest of her body. What could make a cat so
small, in spite of being a fully mature adult? She wasn’t a miniature, either,
only a tiny adult cat.

    Willow almost lost heart again. Her
mother always told her to stay away from alley cats. They didn’t have the
breeding of house cats, and they were smelly and dirty. That Persian certainly
was, although the Abyssinian looked all right. Still, they were liable to do
anything.

    Nat sat down and looked around. “This
is the new police station cat, Willow. I’m showing her around until she gets
the hang of things.”

    The Persian scowled at Willow. She
fidgeted. The Abyssinian bounced straight up in the air and landed on the very
rim of the dumpster. Willow stared at her. How could any animal accomplish such
a feat? Not even a cat could make that jump, and this cat didn’t look big
enough to jump out of a tea saucer, let alone up to the top of that dumpster.
She didn’t even crouch to spring first. She levitated straight off the ground
like a puppet on a string.

    The Abyssinian spoke down to Willow in
a high-pitched squeak, and she spoke so fast Willow had to concentrate to catch
every word. “You show ‘em, girl. This town needs another police cat. You’ll be
the next wonder of the animal world before you know it.”

    Nat sniffed at a pile of something
sticky on the pavement next to him and curled up his nose. “This is Chester, Willow.
He looks terrible, but he’s got his paw on the pulse of this town. Nothing
happens in this town that he doesn’t know about.”

    The Persian made a horrible face and
turned away. Willow never met a cat she wanted so much to have nothing to do
with. But she couldn’t back out now without disappointing Nat. He brought her
here. He must have some reason for introducing her to these two oddities.

    Nat flicked his ear at the Abyssinian.
“This is Bella. Try to speak slowly, Bella, so Willow can understand you.”

    “I am speaking slowly,” Bella squeaked.

    Nat turned back to Willow. “I’ve known
these two since I was a kitten. At least, I’ve known Chester since I was a
kitten. I’ve known Bella since she was a kitten.”

    “How long ago was that?” Willow asked.

    Bella let out a shriek that raised the
hair on Willow’s back on end. She hissed back at the tiny cat. Then she
realized Bella was laughing.

    “She’s three years old,” Nat told her.
“She suffered terrible malnutrition in her first year, so she never grew any
bigger than your average kitten. She’s still like a kitten in a lot of other
ways, but she’s as sharp as a tack. She knows as much about everything in this
town as Chester does, and that’s saying something, considering he’s almost four
times her age. They can help us with the case.”

    Chester faced Nat. “So it’s another
case, is it? I suppose you’re out to help Naya Wesley again, along with that
dump of a partner of hers. Well, tell