Crazy Like a Fox (Lil & Boris #3) (Lil & Boris Mysteries) Read Online Free Page B

raw blisters thrown in. Roger nodded with sympathy. “Good news is, feeling it that much means there’s not likely permanent damage. Bad news is, it hurts like that.”
    I squeaked in my throat. I’d tried to move my hand. The left one wasn’t bad, but the right one was doing a fair imitation of raw hamburger all the way to the elbow.
    “Infection,” Roger supplied. “You’re on antibiotics.”
    I yawned enormously. I considered my options. I fell back asleep. When I opened my eyes again, it was to a yowling, howling aria of woe that made Pavarotti sound like an amateur hack. Only one creature on the face of the earth makes that noise: an unhappy cat.
    I shot up in bed. “Boris!”
    Bobbi bustled in. Behind her came Rajiv Vidur, her hubby and Crazy’s new veterinarian. An Ohioan of Indian descent, Raj had fallen hard for Bobbi, and they’d married the previous October, to mutual joy and much local consternation. Raj was Boris’s vet. By default, since Dr. Mitchell refused to ever treat Boris again. I didn’t blame him. He’d neutered Boris for me. Boris took it badly. To the tune of Dr. Mitchell getting stitches. Raj had a more lenient view of feral rage, and he held the carrier in both arms despite the fact Boris was rocking it back and forth in his fury.
    I held out my bandaged hands. “Gimme!”
    Raj set the carrier on the foot of the bed. A nurse hurried in, harried, flustered. “We don’t allow animals!”
    Bobbi gestured. Raj turned and started talking to the nurse about the invaluable nature of a companion animal in recovery from trauma, and got her out of the room, shut the door behind them. Bobbi opened the carrier. “There you go, you big baby,” she told Boris, who lurked in the depths. “What a pain in the butt,” she told me. “Complain, complain, complain, it was like having Ruth to supper.”
    “Boris!” I cooed. “Boris, c’mon, sweetie!”
    It’ll tell you how good a friend Bobbi is that I will coo to my cat in front of her. And that she’d put up with him.
    It’ll tell you about Boris that he slunk out of the carrier, ears flat, eyes huge, fur fluffed, until he had crawled safely near my face. Then, having sniffed me all over, he voiced a long series of indignant chirps and growls before he head-butted me bruisingly in the chin. Honor satisfied, he flopped across my chest, and started making happy starfish-paws into my shoulder, his mismatched eyes glowing one gold, one green as he purred.
    Arms curled around him, I sighed. “Thanks, Bobbi.”
    “No trouble. He’s fine, by the way. He was bouncing off the walls at your place, and Raj thought it’d be best to keep him with us till you came home.” Her smile wobbled. She gave me a gentle half-hug. I felt her tremble. “Oh God, Lil, what we were thinking…”
    If I hadn’t been heavily and pretty happily drugged, I’d have asked a lot of questions. Instead, I said again, “Thanks. For bringing Boris.”
    Bobbi reached out and tickled Boris’s chin. The tag on his collar jangled. It was a five-pointed star, just like a deputy’s star, that Aunt Marge had long ago gotten him. “Hon,” she said, “what makes you think he gave me a choice?”
    ***^***
    The nurse chased out Bobbi, Raj and Boris, but not without a fight. Boris twisted, squirmed, wriggled, yowled, howled and wailed his way to the elevator at such a volume I thought he’d rupture something.
    Worn out, I lay dozing until Tom arrived, bringing with him Punk, and, to my surprise, the county police chief from one county down and over, Kurt Danes. I’d met him in passing, which is to say, we’d traded phone calls a few times to exchange information on this or that law-breaker. He was a sand-colored guy: hair, eyes, weathered skin. Affable. But his smile never hit his eyes.
    “Now I know where I was,” I said after we’d greeted each other. “So maybe you can tell me who had me there.”
    Tom and Punk traded glances. They nodded to Kurt, as the one who had