Nothing about this view suggested that my ex-husband might lurk, ready to pounce.
I flicked the curtain closed and turned, heading into the incubator room—empty of kittens.
A folded piece of paper sat atop the incubator, a single word scrawled across the front.
Charlotte.
Nausea beset me.
I’d recognize that handwriting anywhere. It was from Kyle. He’d gotten into the inn again and left me the letter. Of course he had. He was trying to taunt me. Unsettle me and punish me for having outed him to the NSIB.
The window in the incubation room was shut tight and locked, and I had checked the back door was locked earlier as well. He was getting in somehow, and it wasn’t through the traditional entrances and exits.
Then how?
I brought my phone out and shot a text off to my grandmother.
Come to kitten foster center. Bring gloves and particular masks. N95s?
I couldn’t be too careful. It would be just like Kyle to leave a note laced with a biological weapon in here, expecting me to pick it up as I had the wedding ring.
Gamma unlocked the adjoining kitten foster center door and entered, wearing a full hazmat suit. “Where’s the danger?” she asked through the face shield.
“Good heavens,” I laughed, despite the situation. “I had no idea you had one of those.”
“Always be prepared, Charlotte.” My grandmother tried to tap her nose but wound up bonking her finger against the face shield instead. It was the clumsiest move I’d ever seen from her, and consequently hilarious. It helped dissolve some of the tension from having received a note from Kyle.
“He left something.”
“Hold on,” my grandmother said, and stomped out of the room. She returned with a pair of tongs, a bucket, and a bottle of disinfectant. “There’s an N95 out there. Go put it on, Charlotte.”
I did as she’d told me, ensuring a tight fit, then returned to stand nearby.
She lifted the letter off the incubator with the tongs, placed it in the yellow biohazard bucket, then pressed it open. My grandmother cleared her throat. “I’m coming for you,” she said. “That’s all. Not going to win any Pulitzers soon, is he?”
I peeked at the letter over my grandmother’s shoulder. “He was never particularly eloquent,” I said. “But good at manipulating people.”
“Not for much longer, Charlotte. When this is all over, the only thing he’ll be manipulating is his toilet seat in prison.”
I smiled underneath my mask.
My grandmother spritzed the paper with disinfectant—70% alcohol—liberally, then shifted the bucket and tongs aside and headed into the incubator room. “I’ll wipe everything down in here and then we’ll dispose of this hazmat.”
“I doubt he actually laced the note with anything,” I said.
“Me too, Charlotte, but we have to be careful.”
I stood back, my arms folded, and watched as my grandmother carefully cleaned surfaces with the spray.
The door opened again, and Brian strode toward us. “What’s going on?” he asked.
I told him, briefly, and his expression darkened.
“He’s looking for a reaction out of you,” Brian said.
I removed my mask now that the danger had passed and tossed it into the yellow bucket. “I know he is. He wants me to get sloppy. Make a mistake. But I’m not going to be making any mistakes. The only thing that’s bothering me is how he’s getting in and out without being seen. It’s got to be one of the tunnels into the inn, right?”
“You don’t know all of them?”
“No,” Gamma replied, from inside the incubator room. “Unfortunately, not. We have a map of some entrances and exits, but there are others we haven’t yet found. Charlotte and I have been marking the ones we find on the map.”
“Smart move,” Brian said. “Can I get a look at this map?”
“Meet me in the dining room in five minutes. I need to finish up the last of this,” my grandmother said.
I followed Brian out into the hallway, my insides churning. Though I had Gamma and Brian for support, I couldn’t shake the feeling that things were going wrong.
Where was Hannah Greerson? How had Dr. Briggs escaped justice? And why didn’t Kyle stop the games and show his face. What was he waiting for?
In the dining room, I plopped down at an empty table and stared out of the front windows.
“Charlie,” Brian said, taking a seat opposite me.
“Yeah?”
“It’s going to be all right. We’ll catch him.” But even he didn’t sound that sure. Kyle had made me feel out of my depth. We’d solved a little of the puzzle surrounding Jordan’s disappearance, but the fact that Jordan may have been on Kyle’s side all along had me sick with anger.
He had betrayed us, and it was our fault for letting him in. But Jordan had played the part of a homeless man who needed help, perfectly.
If we’d never found him hiding out in the walls in the inn, would he have used that ploy? I doubted it.
“We’ll find him and stop him,” Brian said, once again unsure. Maybe he was saying it to convince himself, too.
I didn’t comment but accepted a quick squeeze of Brian’s hand.
Gamma strode into the dining room ten minutes later. “Everything’s disinfected and disposed of,” she said, and brushed off her cream silk blouse. She swung her purse off her shoulder—must’ve fetched it from her room—and placed it on the floor next to our table. Gamma took her place with us and emptied out the purse’s contents.
A pistol, a box of ammunition for it, then a box of shotgun ammo, followed by cable ties, a short length of tightly coiled rope, duct tape, a bottle of clear liquid that might’ve been poison or nail polish, and finally, a square of brown paper folded neatly.
“Ah, this is the one,” she said, and opened it for us to see. “We’ve marked ten new entrances and exits, but I’m sure there have to be more.”
“Have you closed them off?” Brian asked.
“Yes. Every entrance or exit has been blocked or sealed,” my grandmother replied. “The only ones left open
