A Dreadful Meow-ment (MEOW FOR MURDER Book 2)

up next to my make-believe man—“one of his good friends just passed away. I don’t think he’s in the mood to trot down memory lane.” I look to the handsome man before me. “Shep, are you okay?”
He takes a solid breath. “Yeah, I think so.” He sighs as he looks to the thirsty woman beside us. “Hilary, it was Craig.”
“What?” A genuine horror overtakes her.
Wait a minute. Didn’t she just look down the hall a few minutes ago? I mean, it’s dark, but it’s not that dark. For some reason, I’m having a hard time buying that shocked look on her face.
“Okay.” She shrugs it off. “Now what?”
Shep and I exchange a glance.
“Now we mourn,” I tell her.
She makes a face. “I get that. What I meant was should we call somebody? Like his parents?”
“Lloyd is on it.” Shep nods. “I’m sorry, Hilary. I know you were close.”
She sucks in her bottom lip and her eyes begin to water on cue. It looks as if good old Hilary here found an easy inroad to Shep’s heart—by way of grief.
“This is going to be really hard for all of us.” She lifts her chin. “I suppose that means we’ll be seeing a lot more of you.” She’s right back to tugging at her curls and staring him down.
“And you’ll be seeing a lot more of me,” I’m quick to tell her, but her gaze is unbreakable.
Lloyd comes this way, as does James. Both men look a little shaken, and understandably so. Craig was their friend.
James sweeps his eyes up and down my body. “What’s going on here?”
Shep winces at the sight of the bloodstain running down the front of my dress.
“We were headed out to inspect a loud noise.” He zeroes in on the crimson mess on my chest. “Bowie tripped. She fell over him.”
Lloyd leans in, his crystal blue eyes pinned to mine. “Bowie, did you see anyone back there with him?”
“No. It was just Shep and me. We were dancing. We heard a noise and I thought it sounded like a gunshot.”
Lloyd lifts a brow. “Have you heard a gunshot before?”
I exchange a quick glance with Shep.
“No, actually,” I blow out a breath along with the lie, “I don’t believe I have.”
“Don’t worry about anything.” Lloyd nods to the blood on my dress. “Why don’t you get cleaned up? I’m clearing the two of you to go home.” He looks to Shep with a stern expression. “What did you see?”
Shep glances back to the dark hall as men with jackets with the word coroner emblazoned over the back head on in.
“I didn’t see anyone.” He gives a hard blink. “God, I wish I did. But just like Bowie said, we heard a gunshot.”
James steps in, his dark brows furrowed as if he were mildly confused.
“So you knew exactly where to go.” He shakes his head with disbelief. “Shep, I’m sorry to have to ask, but did you have a falling-out with Craig Walker?”
“Never.” Shep doesn’t miss a beat.
James ticks his head to the side as if he were appeased with that. “And what about your date? Did she ever leave your side?”
“No.” Shep’s features sharpen with what looks like anger. “I appreciate you doing your job, but neither of us was involved.”
“What’s this?” a female voice pipes up from behind and we turn to see Shepherd’s ex-fiancée, homicide detective Nora Grimsley. She’s pretty in a no-nonsense way, shorter in stature than me by half a foot, brown hair, large brown eyes with no fanfare as far as cosmetics go. She’s a sharp cookie with the badge to prove it, and right now she’s looking at the entire lot of us as if she’s about to put us through the wringer.
She takes a step in. “Shepherd, tell me this new friend of yours isn’t wearing the blood of the victim as an accessory yet again.”
By yet again, she means we’ve been in this exact same awkward accouterment predicament before. About a month ago, I stumbled upon a dead country singer in the courtyard of the manor. It was a mess. But Nora is badly mistaken about that whole blood on my accouterments thing. I don’t recall any blood on me the last time. I was merely holding the murder weapon.
Hilary shudders. “She’s not his friend. She’s his fiancée.” She gives an odd tip of the head to the woman, the kind that says what do you think of them engaged apples?—and Nora’s mouth rounds out with surprise.
“Well then.” Nora’s eyes widen as she turns her attention to Shep. “That escalated quickly.”
That’s what I said.
“All right.” Nora folds her arms over her chest. “Start at the beginning.”
And Shep does just that. It takes a little convincing, but soon she sees the bloody light and determines that Shep and I are clear.
“If I need to find you”—she squints my way, and I’d swear on all that is holy I can feel venom exuding from her every pore—“don’t you dare leave town. Are you both still in Starry Falls?”
Hilary gasps as she elbows Shep. “So that’s where you’ve been hiding out?”
Shep nods before turning to his other ex. “Don’t worry, Nora. You’ve got my number if you need to reach me.”
“Either of us,” I add. Not that I want Nora and her big bad badge to come a knockin’. As far as I’m concerned, she’s the feds-light. And as much as I don’t want the real thing after me, I don’t want the diet version either.
Nora looks to the hallway as the circumference around it is quickly cordoned off with caution tape.
“I’d better get over there.” She looks my way. “If you remember anything, anything at all, I want you to give me a call.”
A thought comes to me. “I do remember something. A gold tube of lipstick—SMACK lipstick to be exact.”
“Lipstick?” She blinks up at me as if I were having a cosmetic brain malfunction.
“Yes.” I lean in as Shep and his friends huddle and begin to whisper amongst themselves. “I saw