Nine Lives Read Online Free

uncle many times over.
    A short while later, he drove into the parking lot of his apartment complex. His steps were dragging as he entered the building. When he got inside his apartment, he dropped his smokey clothes in the floor of the utility room, turned up the thermostat and headed for the shower. As soon as he was clean, he dressed in an old pair of sweat pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, then moved to the kitchen. He hadn’t eaten all day, except for a Coke and a package of cheese crackers he’d gotten from vending machines in the hospital, and he was hungry for real food.
    The contents of his refrigerator were slim, but there was enough to make a decent-sized cheese omelet—one of his favorite quick meals. He finished it off in front of the TV, watching an old Chuck Norris movie and washing it down with the last of the Coke.
    Remembering the pile of dirty clothes he’d left in the utility room, he went to put them in the washer. As he was going through the pockets, he found the cat charm again. Fingering it lightly, he set it on a shelf, poured in the soap and started the machine.
    The phone rang as he was going to the bedroom. He could tell by the ring that it was a call being forwarded from the office. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d been called back to some jail to bond someone out, and he frowned as he answered.
    â€œMcKay Bail Bonds.”
    â€œUm…hey, Wilson, old buddy. It’s me, Shooter.”
    Wilson’s frown deepened. “Well, old buddy, you better not be in jail again, ’cause if you are, then you’ve just wasted your free call.”
    Shooter Green shifted to whining.
    â€œAw…now, Wilson…it ain’t like you think. They’ve got me on a bad rap and—”
    â€œI’m serious,” Wilson said. “You and I aren’t doing any more business. The last two times I bonded you out, you let me down. The first, you were a no-show. If your public defender hadn’t sweet-talked the judge on your behalf and gotten you a second appearance date, you would have cost me my money. Then, the second time I bond you out of jail, I have to go after your ass…remember?”
    â€œYeah, but—”
    â€œNo buts, Shooter. Sleep tight, and don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
    Shooter was still begging as Wilson hung up the phone.
    Â 
    Cat slept fitfully through the night, reliving the trip down the stairs with Brownlee over her shoulder so many times that her legs were actually aching when she woke up. She rolled over on her side and opened one eye just enough to see that it was after ten in the morning. With a sigh, she sat up in bed and ran her fingers through her hair. The urge to lie back down and sleep away the day was strong, but there were a couple of things she’d been planning to do, and one of them was taking her best friend, Marsha, out to lunch.
    There weren’t many people that Cat Dupree called friend, but Marsha Benton was one of them. She and Marsha had been fostered to the same family just before their seventeenth birthdays and had become fast friends. Their bond had lasted, even after they’d been processed out of the system.
    Cat and Marsha often laughed at how different their lives had become once they’d been on their own. For the past eight years, Marsha had been a private secretary for Mark Presley, CEO of a company with worldwide distribution rights for farm implements, while Cat chased down bad guys with a taser and a gun.
    Marsha was a little over five feet tall.
    Cat was almost six feet in height.
    Marsha was a curvy redhead who loved to eat.
    Cat often forgot to eat, which accounted for her lanky build.
    But they spoke the same language, laughed at the same jokes, and were the only family each other had.
    Cat stretched languidly and then reached for the phone, punching in the number for Marsha’s office from memory. She was already smiling to herself as she waited for