Kitty Litter Killer Read Online Free PDF

wessy,” Hayley said and then straightened and looked at me. “Mr. Lee tends to spread cat litter all over. I’m not sure why. It annoys my husband.”
    It would annoy me, too. Mr. Lee began rubbing his face on my ankles. There was indeed cat litter on the floor.
    Great. I hoped our new cat didn’t have the same habit. I gently tried to shove him away with my foot, but he stuck like glue, and I was afraid to push the issue, given what Hayley said about his attack tendencies. “Being liked isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” I mumbled at her.
    Hayley laughed. “Oh, wow. You really are funny. Angelica tells me that all the time. Now I understand what she means.” She looked down at Sammie. “Okay, now let’s go pick out your kitten.”
    I didn’t think Hayley had the right idea about what my mother-in-law meant when she said I was funny, but I wasn’t going to explain.
    “Angelica is one of the nicest people I know,” Hayley said over her shoulder. “She’s been good to me. We play tennis regularly. It’s just like her to do something sweet like buy a kitten for Sammie.”
    I wanted to ask her if she had the right Angelica. But she did, of course. Hayley was the kind of woman my mother-in-law had wanted Max to marry. The kind of woman he was married to the first time around. When he married me, Angelica wasn’t happy and had always let me know I wasn’t quite good enough, thus leading to our present impasse.
    On my truly honest days, I admitted to myself that though Angelica’s attitude bothered me, I did crave a better relationship with her, but I was clueless as to how to go about getting it.
    The cat kept wrapping himself between my feet, and I was having trouble walking.
    “Cacacacaca,” Chris said, staring at the cat and beating in rhythm with his heel on my leg.
    “He’s adorable,” Hayley said. “I really want children. . . but. . .anyway, maybe someday.”
    She sounded so wistful that I couldn’t help but wonder why they hadn’t had any.
    We finally reached the back of the house and entered what might have been a family room or a great room— emphasis on “great.” Mr. Lee was still pasted to my ankles, but I was momentarily distracted from his attentions by the floor-to-ceiling windows and French doors that covered the wall in front of me. Doors framed by long, striped, sateen curtains led outside to a pool. Well, pool is too mundane a word to describe what I saw. This was an artistic creation. Abstract shape, rocks, a waterfall, and a Jacuzzi. I was wowed.
    “Mommy, look!” Sammie squealed. “What a pretty pond.”
    “Swimming pool,” I murmured.
    Chris squirmed in my arms. “Down,” he said firmly, using one of five words he says very clearly.
    “No,” I told him with an equally firm tone. That was one of his other words, and he learned it from me.
    “But it’s got rocks,” Sammie said. “How can it be a pool?”
    “That’s part of the decorating.” Hayley was staring out the windows. “We just had that put in.”
    “It’s beautiful.” As Chris squirmed in my arms, I thought how nice it would be to have a Jacuzzi to relax in and a pool for the kids.
    “I’ve always wanted one,” Hayley said. She pointed to a stack of shiny house-decorating magazines and books sitting next to a leaded-glass vase filled with red roses on a glass and iron coffee table. “Leighton did it for me. I wanted to landscape around the pool. See?” She picked up a heavy book, the front of which was illustrated with a pool very similar to hers, surrounded by a garden that would take at least some kind of part-time help to maintain. “Isn’t it great? I bought this book last weekend to show Leighton what I want to do with the landscaping.” Her eyes moved from the pool back to me. “I hope we don’t have to move. Anyway, the kittens are in the laundry room.”
    Chris whimpered in frustration, and I jiggled him up and down on my hip as I followed her. Then I noticed the spectacular