Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(9)

Doctor Bailey flips on the light in an exam room the size of a small walk-in closet. All business again, he looks at his watch and then at Bella, gesturing at a chair. “Here, sit and hold her. I only have a couple of minutes. I’ve got a puppy in the next room about to wake up from anesthesia after emergency surgery, and I can’t leave her alone for long.”

“What happened to the puppy?” Max wants to know.

“Someone found him in the woods and brought him to me a little while ago. His leg was badly hurt.”

“How?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Whose puppy is it?”

“I’m not sure,” Doctor Bailey says again, unperturbed by the questions but clearly focused on the cat now.

He kneels beside Bella—so close she can smell his soapy scent—and gives the cat a brief once-over, which mostly seems to consist of patting her here and there and letting her nuzzle his hand.

“She’s pregnant all right.”

“How many kittens are in there?” Max asks.

“Quite a few. And they’re due pretty soon.”

“How soon?”

“I’d say within the next week or so. But other than that, she seems perfectly fine. Here, I’ll scan her.”

“We’ll leave the room,” Bella says quickly. The word scan brings to mind futile, difficult days seeing specialists with Sam. He endured endless CAT scans and PET scans and bone scans, with progressively bleak results.

“No, you can stay. It only takes a few seconds.” He picks up an electronic wand and waves it along the cat’s head. “See? All done. She has a chip.”

“A chip?” Bella echoes. “A bone chip?”

“Maybe a chocolate chip,” Max suggests. “I like chocolate chip ice cream.”

Doctor Bailey smiles at him and then, for the first time, directly at Bella. “She has a microchip. In her ear. That’s what I was scanning for. Whenever someone brings in a stray, I check for one. Most pet owners have them implanted in their pets’ ears so that they can be traced if they wander. Which is what our gal here must have done.” He reaches into a plastic container, grabs a handful of kibble, and holds it out to the cat, who nibbles greedily from his hand.

“So you know who the owner is?”

“I have the microchip number. I’ll see where it traces. Be right back. You can be on treat duty, Max.” He hands over the container and disappears.

Max looks at Bella. “Should I feed her some of these?”

“Sure. She’s eating for two. Or maybe for five or six . . . or more.”

“How many babies do cats have at once time?”

“A lot.”

“Like a hundred?”

She laughs. “No, not that many.”

“Twenty seven?”

“Not that many either,” she says, sensing that they’re on the cusp of a conversation where he’ll throw out arbitrary numbers until she agrees with one of them.

She changes the subject back to ice cream until Doctor Bailey returns a few minutes later, harried. “I have to get back to the dog. She’s regaining consciousness.”

“What about—”

“Here you go.” He holds out a piece of paper. “Her name is Chance.”

“Chance the Cat,” Max says.

“Exactly.” Doctor Bailey flicks a glance at Max and hesitates, as though he wants to say something, but doesn’t. “She belongs to someone named Leona Gatto. I tried to call her, but it bounced into an electronic recording that the voicemail box is full. That’s her address—she’s over in the Dale—so you can just bring the cat there.”

“To . . . the Dale, did you say?”

“Lily Dale.”

“Is that a town?”

Something flickers in his eyes. “You’ve never heard of it? Where did you say you live?”

She didn’t. He never asked.

“We don’t live anywhere anymore,” Max informs him. “We have to sleep in a tent because my dad is dead and my mom lost her job and we don’t have a house and we don’t have any money and we—”

“Max!”

“Is that true?” Doctor Bailey asks Bella.

It is, but . . .

“We’re in the process of moving,” she explains, avoiding his gaze, “and we’re making a little vacation out of it, so we’re going to camp out tonight over at Summer Pines. That reminds me—”

“Where?”

“What?”

“Where are you camping?”

“Oh. Summer Pines. The campground. It’s right near here.”

“It can’t be.”

“Why can’t it?”

“Because I’ve never heard of it.”

Resisting the urge to remind him that he can’t possibly know everything about . . . well, everything, she plucks the piece of paper from his hand. She was about to ask him about service stations, but forget it. She’ll ask Leona Gatto.

“How far is Lily Dale from here?”

“Only about twenty, twenty-five minutes. I’d take her myself, but I don’t like the looks of my puppy pal in the next room.” He rakes a worried hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end above his forehead much like Max’s cowlick, and Bella forgives his arrogance.