Lykoi Larceny Read online

  Lykoi Larceny

  Marjorie’s Cozy Kitten Cafe Book Three

  Katherine Hayton

  Copyright © 2019 Katherine Hayton

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Contents

  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

  Also by Katherine Hayton

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Marjorie Hardaway ducked her head as she walked into the community centre, avoiding the low hanging string of tinsel across the doorway. “Do you need me to hold the ladder?” she asked the scowling teenage boy who was fixing it to the wall. “You don’t seem very steady.”

  She grabbed hold of the base of the stepladder, though the boy had responded to her offer with stony silence. With three clicks of a staple gun, he turned and dismounted, jumping from the third step up to avoid her hands.

  “I’m fine. It’s only a metre high.” He slouched over to a cardboard box and pulled another string of tinsel out, this one tangled around a set of Christmas lights.

  “Careful,” Allie Wilson said, emerging from the back room. “If you jerk those too hard, you’re sure to break a bulb and then you’ll have to locate it in the row of fifty identical lights.”

  “I don’t know why you can’t just buy new packets,” the boy grumbled even as he obeyed and unpicked the tangle with more care. “They’re only a few bucks down at the Christmas warehouse.”

  “It must be nice to be made of money,” Allie said, rolling her eyes at Marjorie. “But unless you’re picking up the tab, we’ll make do with last year’s.”

  Marjorie hid a smile as the teenage boy muttered under his breath. “I’ve dropped by to pick up the approximate numbers for the Christmas party. Esme said you’d have the final tally.”

  “Well, as final as it gets with this sort of thing,” Allie said, curling her finger for Marjorie to follow and heading out the door. “There’ll always be extra turning up on the day when they discover there’s a lot more to entertaining young ones than letting them watch the telly. Likewise, confirmed attendees will wake up at noon, forgetting there’s anything special on at all.”

  “A guesstimate is fine with me.” Marjorie tucked the note into her pocket and peered around the door as the teenager began his jerky ascent of the stepladder once again. “Should he be doing that?”

  Allie snorted. “I’m just glad to find Jon Roscoe working at anything. The first few days of his community service, the kid wouldn’t lift a finger. It wasn’t until I threatened not to sign off on his hours that he finally came around.”

  “Perhaps it’s the magic of Christmas.” Marjorie twiddled her fingers, imagining sparkles. “He’s found the spirit of giving.”

  “He’s found the spirit of his free time jeopardised, more like.” Allie put a hand on her hip and sighed. “I’ve always been happy to assist with the young offender’s program and I’d rather they were in here, helping out, than on the streets or in a jail cell, but honestly?” She shook her head. “It gets harder every year.”

  Marjorie was about to dismiss the sentiment as the same nonsense complaint she uttered every couple of weeks when her mood was low, then saw the tiredness etched in the older woman’s face. Allie was always so full of positivity and warmth, she usually appeared young. Right now she looked every one of her sixty-seven years.

  “Hey now. If you need some help, I can order the lad about for a bit,” Marjorie said, giving the woman a firm hug. “He can’t be any worse at listening to me than my kittens are.”

  Allie sniffed away a tear and shook her head again, this time accompanied by the hint of a smile. “No, you’re alright. I’m just letting everything get to me lately. And the lad’s not so bad. He coated over some graffiti on the front wall that stood six feet tall. I’d never have been able to do all that.”

  “Who would tag the community hall?” Marjorie’s voice shot up the register with indignation.

  “A father who thinks because we host the foster kids Christmas party, we’re the ones responsible for him losing custody of his son. I called the police down here and they seemed to know who it was, so hopefully, they’ll get it sorted.”

  “I guess it’s a hard time of year for some people.” Marjorie tried to imagine her kittens being taken away and having none of them to share the festive days ahead. Awful. And even as a crazy cat lady, she had to admit it would be nothing as bad as being separated from your child.

  Allie cleared her throat and tsked as Jon leaned to the left, rocking the legs of the stepladder. “Sometimes I think this is a younger woman’s game.”

  “Hardly.” Marjorie glanced at Allie’s tight grey curls and neat outfit, then stared in dismay at her own fur-covered jeans and shirt. “Anyone younger would either mother him or let him walk all over her. What they need is an old lady with an iron rod for a spine who doesn’t put up with any of their feeble excuses.”

  The older woman snorted. “Iron lady, am I?”

  Marjorie was about to answer when Jon poked his head into the room. “I’ve hung the tinsel. What’s next?”

  “Untangle the lights and make sure they work,” Allie said promptly. “And feel free to refer to the list I gave you this morning if you need a reminder.”

  The young man walked away, and Marjorie coloured to think he might have overheard their conversation. “How long is he here for?”

  “Six weeks, so that’ll take us up to the end of January. Once he gets through the Christmas rush, though, there won’t be nearly as much work.”

  “I can’t imagine he’ll complain about that.”

  But Allie’s expression changed to one of concern. “Idle hands…”

  “The library is always asking for volunteers to read during story time. If you need a break, send him over to Glynis and let her deal with him for a few hours.” At the thought of the horror that would cross the stern librarian’s face if Jon appeared, slouching and scowling, Marjorie giggled. “And you never know, he might enjoy it.”

  A loud honk from a van outside interrupted their conversation and the two women hurried outside to see what had prompted the toot.

  “I’ve got a load of pressies for you,” Felix Corwin called out, giving them both a wide smile.

  “For the kids, you mean,” a disgruntled voice said from the side door. When Marjorie followed the sound, she found Dotty Woodrow standing in front of a huge stack of gifts, all unwrapped.

  “Oh, my goodness. The community’s been so generous!” Marjorie stared in wonder at the different toys on offer. The model trains, planes, and automobiles she remembered from her childhood had been massively upgraded with remote controls and powerful engines. No pushing a matchbox-sized tin car around a plastic track for the new generation.

  A man appeared out of the depths of the van, giving her a start. Then she saw it was Braden with an amused grin that showed he knew full well his sudden appearance had given her heart an extra thump.

  “Are you staying around to help us wrap these up?” Braden asked, jumping down into the carpark and dusting the front of his trousers. “Felix and I will do our best but… You know… Clumsy male fingers.”

  “Amazing how you can rewire second-hand electronics and get th
em working as good as new, but you can’t apply sticky tape to paper.” Marjorie smiled. “One could almost be misled into thinking it’s a lame excuse to get out of work.”

  “How many did we lose?” Allie said, ignoring the men and talking directly to Dotty.

  “Only a dozen or so. We’ve got some we had to unwrap after the donators painstakingly gift-wrapped them for us but a few on the route baulked at that and kept the presents. The rest were wrapping-paper free already.”

  “Why are you unwrapping them if you’ve just got to wrap them up again?” Marjorie asked in astonishment. “It seems like a lot of extra work.”

  “It is, which is why we ask for any donations to come as is,” Allie said, pinching her nose. “But not everyone follows instructions.”

  “We have to see what the gift is,” Dotty explained further. “If we don’t know what’s inside, there could be a disaster on Christmas when we’re handing them out.”

  Braden gasped and held his palm against his chest. “You mean, someone might get the wrong Barbie?”

  “Someone might get a box without a doll in it at all,” Dotty said with her mouth pressed in a thin line. “We didn’t come up with the policy for fun. Some members of our community have a twisted idea of pranks.”

  “Who would prank a child?” Marjorie was overcome with horror. “Especially a foster kid who’s already having a rough time.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Dotty muttered darkly before Allie clapped her hands together.

  “How about we move the conversation onto a more pleasant topic?” she said, smiling at the group. “Braden, did you repair all the donations?”

  For the past year, he’d been accepting gifts of broken electronics with the sole focus of repairing them to an ‘as new’ state for Christmas. Game consoles could stay at the community centre for use by anybody dropping in, while others would be sold via online auction to raise money for the following year’s event.

  “A few were determined to stay broken,” Braden admitted with a sheepish grin. “But we’ve got a half dozen consoles in working order for the games room and bids are coming in thick and fast for the rest.”

  “Excellent.” Allie gave him a quick hug that had Braden blushing. “It’ll be great for the teens to come and play here when things are rough at home.”

  “Not just the teens,” Braden said with a cheeky grin. “I’ve been thinking of arranging a competition for people of any age to join. It’s a sport, you know.”

  “Of course, it is,” Marjorie said, trying not to giggle as Dotty gave an exaggerated eye-roll.

  “I’d better get this truck back home,” Felix said, making an exaggerated show of checking his watch. “If there’re any more donations that get called in from now until the party, tell them I’ll pick them up on Christmas Eve.”

  “Not so fast.” Allie stepped between him and the van door. “Thank you for collecting the presents but they still need to be wrapped and labelled.”

  “But I—”

  “You volunteered for the whole shebang, not just the fun bits. Now get on in there, or I’ll have Dotty drag you by the ears!”

  Felix took a few dragging steps towards the community centre entrance, then slyly slipped a hand around Braden’s wrist as he too tried to sidle away. “Not so fast. You heard the lady.”

  Allie shook her head as Dotty herded the men inside. “Between them and young Jon, I think I’d rather supervise a young offender any day.”

  “I can stay if you want the extra help,” Marjorie offered. “The kittens have an hour until they expect feeding and I can put the rest of my chores off until tomorrow.”

  “Not if one of those tasks is getting the ingredients you need for the Christmas day baking. Won’t the wholesale warehouse be a madhouse the closer it gets to the big day?”

  Marjorie had to agree. “Everything will be. I don’t understand why two days’ holiday cause so much havoc. When I was growing up, every shop shut for the weekend and nobody was panicked into mass buying goods.”

  “We appear to have lost the art of planning ahead.” Allie jerked around as a crash sounded from inside the centre. “I’d better get back to it.”

  Marjorie made a commiserating noise, but Allie had already rushed indoors, out of sight. The fresh paint on the side of the building caught the afternoon sun and reflected it back, turning the car park gravel yellow. If she squinted, a message was still visible, a faint shade darker than the covering paint. It would need another coat before the job was done, but she supposed Jon needed to wait until the first layer dried.

  “Whatever happened to the Christmas spirit?” she said under her breath while walking back to her car. With volunteers ensuring the less fortunate members of the community received a hearty Christmas meal and presents, there should have been happiness and excitement in the air. Instead, everyone was frayed around the edges.

  Putting the dismal thoughts aside, Marjorie headed back to her café. Although it was already past five o’clock, she groaned to see the builders were still dotted about the section in front of hers.

  They were laying the foundations for the next-door building, with the actual construction to take place next year. Although she was glad to see progress being made, the raucous language hurled about made her uneasy for her customers. The sooner they were gone, the better.

  “This one of yours?” a man called out as Marjorie fumbled with the keys to the entrance. “He looks in a bad way.”

  She rushed over, hearing a piteous mew from underneath a tarpaulin covering up a sheaf of metal rods. “Here, kitty.”

  “Ugly thing,” the man said, sniffing and wiping his nose on the back of his arm. “It looked half dead.”

  “If you were half dead, I’m sure you’d look ugly too,” Marjorie snapped, lifting the edge of the cover and spying reflective grey eyes.

  “You want a hand with that?” The man stepped forward and yanked the entire sheet off the pile, exposing a tiny kitten to the sunlight and setting the rods clanging against each other. “What a sight, eh?”

  “Come on,” Marjorie said, clicking her tongue in encouragement as the kitten eyed her warily. “Wouldn’t you like something to eat?”

  “I’ve got a bit of sandwich leftover from lunch if you want to try that.”

  But it wasn’t needed. The kitten pounced on Marjorie’s outstretched hand and rubbed along her arm, before running into the shelter of her crouching legs. “Hey, now. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” She picked up the small cat, cradling it against her chest.

  “Where’s it hurt?” the builder asked, pointing at the sticky crimson smudge the kitten had left on Marjorie’s arm. “You need a lift to the vet?”

  She stared at the smudge, turning so it was in full sunlight.

  Blood.

  Chapter Two

  Marjorie gave a shiver and closed her eyes, willing her stomach contents to stay put. She turned to the builder, accepting his offer to drive with gratitude as her head became giddy. “The closest vet is on Jollies Pass Road. Do you know where that is?”

  “Sure do,” he said, opening the car door while she struggled inside with her new charge. “We’ve got accommodation along the same road.”

  The man kept up a constant stream of chatter during the short journey, informing Marjorie of his name, occupation, family, and money woes—Barney Baxter, builder, wife and one son, and never enough, was there?

  Although she only listened with one ear, Marjorie was grateful for the one-sided conversation. The kitten cradled in her lap trembled from the moment the car started, and she was too squeamish to search for obvious signs of injury herself. All she could do was hope and pray.

  “Emergency,” she called out, entering Kitcare Veterinary Services at a trot, Barney close on her heels. “We’ve got an injured kitten.”

  The receptionist hurried out the back and soon the vet—Walter Argyle—emerged with a worried expression on his face. Marjorie thrust the small cat into his arms and stepped back, wri
nging her hands.

  “Did he get hit by a car?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, glancing at Barney who also shook his head. “We just found him like that. Will—?” she broke off as her throat clutched and waited a few seconds before trying again. “Will he be okay?”

  “I’ll take him into the office and get him cleaned up enough to see the damage and we can work from there.” Walter left the room and Marjorie collapsed into a chair, her shoulders shaking.

  “Are you alright if I head off now?”

  She jerked back in surprise, staring at Barney through wide eyes. “But you’re staying, aren’t you? I don’t have my car.”

  “It’s knocking off time.” The builder made a big show of checking his watch. “Or ten minutes past, already.”

  Marjorie bit back on a retort about how, if she’d known, she’d have taken her own vehicle. It wasn’t true because even in the chair she felt lightheaded. Even so, it was the principle of the thing.

  “Can’t you make this your good deed for Christmas?” Marjorie patted her pockets, feeling the keys to the café and her phone but no bulge to indicate her wallet. She’d probably left it upstairs at home since she’d only been popping into town to check in at the community centre. That ruled out a taxi and Hanmer Springs hadn’t quite got the hang of Uber just yet.

  It left her with shanks pony, then.

  Barney hadn’t answered so Marjorie shrugged. “If you need to be somewhere else, don’t let me stop you.”

  As the builder cheerfully waved goodbye Marjorie didn’t know if she felt more miffed at herself for saying something so passive-aggressive or for it not having any effect. She crossed her arms and the tackiness on them was a grim reminder of the blood on the kitten.