A Stitch in Time (A Stitch In Time #1) - Kelley Armstrong Page 0,5

for this room, and I have to remind myself I’m looking for a mother cat . . . or some way a kitten could get in. Even then, of course, I notice everything, the disrepair hidden by shadow. Two large windows, one overlooking the moors, the other the old stables. My narrow bed and double dressers, and something I’d almost forgotten—a small vanity with a padded stool and mirror, a surprise from Aunt Judith and Uncle Stan when I’d returned at fifteen. My gaze slides over my own collection of makeup and creams, and my eyes mist until the room swims.

I blink hard. This isn’t solving the kitten mystery. I circle the room, studying the walls. They’re in perfect repair without a baseboard gap big enough to let in a mouse. I look behind the dresser and vanity and bed. No holes there.

I walk to the windows. They’re shut tight, the smell in here guaranteeing this room wasn’t aired out with the rest of the house.

I turn to look around again, and I spot the kitten peeking from under the bed. I lower myself to the floor. When she mews, I stay where I am and dangle my fingers. A pause. Then she takes one tentative step. Another. She makes her way across the floor until she’s sniffing my fingers. Then she rubs against my hand. When I go to stroke her head, she hops right onto my lap and purrs up at me.

I chuckle under my breath. “Not a stray, are you?”

She is adorable, a puff of long, soft fur, her back and head abstract stripes of black and orange, her belly and paws snow white. As I pet her, she rubs against my hand. A house cat, then, raised with people and a mother who trusted those people to handle her babies.

I lift the kitten as she motorboat purrs. She really is tiny with an oversized head and huge blue eyes. I know kittens are born with blue eyes, so does that mean she isn’t old enough to be weaned? Either way, I’m sure she’s not old enough to be exploring on her own. So, where did she come from?

As I pet her, I lift my phone in my free hand and thumb to the browser to see how old kittens are when their eyes change color. When I get a message that I’m not connected to the internet, I glance at the signal strength icon. It’s flat. I had a signal on the drive here, but I haven’t checked my phone since I arrived at Thorne Manor.

I push to my feet. I hold the kitten just tight enough that she can’t jump to her doom. I needn’t have bothered. She isn’t going anywhere, and when I tuck her into the crook of my arm, she snuggles onto the convenient boob perch.

I take the kitten downstairs and give her a plate of water. There’s a cold chicken in the fridge, and I tear off tiny bits, which she ignores. When the grandfather clock chimes, I expect it to be three or four in the morning. Instead, it gongs twelve.

Only midnight? How early did I go to bed?

Maybe I didn’t fall asleep at all. Or not as deeply as I thought. That might explain that phantom touch. One explanation for ghosts is hypnogogic and hypnopompic hallucinations, where you think you see something while you’re falling asleep or waking up, but you’re actually asleep and dreaming without realizing it.

Overtired and unsettled by a long day of travel, I’d fallen into a restless sleep and thought I woke to someone leaning over my bed . . . but it was the dream-hallucination that actually woke me. And the dream itself was precipitated by the eerie sound of a trapped kitten.

Even with the explanation, I’m not eager to return to the master suite. Also, it makes a fine excuse to reclaim my former bedroom. I find the old mattress wrapped in storage and drag it in while the kitten watches in fascination. I put the oversized master suite sheets and comforter on my narrow bed. One corner sags, but I can fix that tomorrow. For now, I settle the kitten into a blanket-filled cardboard box, and by two a.m., I’m drifting off to the music of tiny kitten snores.

I wake to the call of a mother cat. As I surface, I catch scents that don’t belong in my bedroom—the perfume of sandalwood, and the musk of horse and the tantalizing aroma of