A Claw-some AffairMeow for Murder 3
Addison Moore Bellamy Bloom
Contents
Book Description
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
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Books by Addison Moore and Bellamy Bloom
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Copyright © 2020 by Addison Moore, Bellamy Bloom
Edited by Paige Maroney Smith
Cover by Stunning Book Covers
Hollis Thatcher Press, LTD.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.
All Rights Reserved.
This eBook is for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase any additional copies for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Copyright © 2020 by Addison Moore, Bellamy Bloom
Created with Vellum
Book Description
A highly inaccurate psychic. A grumpy writer. And a corpse. Welcome to Starry Falls. Running from the mob can be murder.
Fall is in the air, and to celebrate, there’s a masquerade ball at the Mortimer Manor, where socialites and dapper men abound. But when someone drops dead in the middle of the dance floor, fingers are pointed at everyone—including the deceased.
Shep is as ornery as ever. Whoever keeps sending me those threatening notes has grown far more brazen, and my insights to the future have not only increased, but I’ve just seen a glimpse of something that I want no part of. With my luck—that will be the only vision that comes to fruition, just the way it’s threatened to.
Living in Starry Falls is proving to be deadly.
Chapter 1
“We’ll need two to three bartenders and all waitresses on deck to rove around the ballroom serving canapés. I’ll make sure this is one masquerade ball no one will forget.” Opal Mortimer presses out her very best smile, one that looks as if she’s just sucked on a lemon as she strokes the back of the brown and black spotted Bengal cat named King.
Any conversation that starts off with hard liquor has the power to pique my attention. Not that I drink. I can’t with my condition. And no, I’m not in the family way. But you could say that my family got me in this supernatural predicament to begin with.
My name is Stella Santini, or at least it was until I got caught up in one heck of a hot mess that involved both the feds and the mob, not to mention one rather idiotic boyfriend. I’m known as Bowie Binx now, and I’ve got long black hair, light brown eyes, stand at an average height of five-foot-five, and I can see the future.
Okay, fine.
Confession: I’m no psychic. Nor have I ever come close to predicting what the future might hold—not with any accuracy anyway.
You see, ever since I was a little girl, I had what my Nana Rose called the shakes. Technically, it’s more of a shiver, and when you get down to it, there’s a warm, fuzzy feeling involved that makes me want to forget about the world around me for a moment and retreat to the dark recesses of my mind where a thought plays out like a movie and I see things. And trust me when I say I have been wrong about interpreting the things I see on more than one occasion.
“Consider it done, Opal.” I nod over to the older woman with all of the confidence I don’t have.
I’m the manager of the Manor Café, and it’s my responsibility to make sure anything to do with this quirky eatery works like a well-oiled machine. The café itself has seen better days, with its red Naugahyde booths and chairs, the chipped tables, and dizzying black and white square floor tile. But we have our fair share of regulars and I take their culinary happiness personally.
Opal burst into the Manor Café this morning and let me know that her son is hosting a ritzy masquerade ball this evening, and the venue in which he was to host the event flooded due to bad plumbing. So he did what any red-blooded American would do. He called up his mommy and demanded the use of the ballroom in her manor.
Opal Mortimer is an eighty-something divorcee with gray wiry curls that sit over her shoulders, and wears what some might say is a dramatic amount of cosmetics on her face. She has dark kohl ringed around her eyes, traffic cone orange lipstick, and wears a paper-white foundation that gives her that unearthly glow I’m not sure she was shooting for. But my favorite part about this eccentric, kindhearted woman is the fact her accouterments tend to lean toward the avant-garde. I’ve never seen so much lace, leather, and spikes worn by a woman of any age, let alone all at once. It’s inspiring.
It turns out, Opal’s ex-husband took her for a financial ride and left her with nothing but this manor and the couture clothes that take up the entire second story. The manor itself looks as if it was pulled brick by brick from England and sits crooked on a tiny hill at the end of Main Street right here in Starry Falls. And it just so happens to be home to well over a hundred cats.
Opal is a self-professed cat lady who not only cares for the cats of the manor, but every feline stray in the great state of Vermont as well.
Tilly bounces on her heels as she stands by my side. “Bowie and I have it all under control. Don’t worry, Opal. Your billionaire
