Nine Deadly Lives Read online

  SECOND NATURE—LIVIA J. WASHBURN

  As a Hollywood stuntwoman, Beth Hallam follows in her famous dad’s footsteps. But can she measure up as a private eye, as well? When Lucas Hallam is away, it falls to Beth to solve a case of attempted murder—on a cat! It’s her first case, and she has a lot to learn, but she’s never admitted defeat—and she’s not about to start now!

  SHOES, SHADES, AND FAERYDUST—DEBORAH MACGILLIVRAY

  When Dominique won a pair of red leather Gucci pumps at a Halloween festival, she felt like she had put on Dorothy’s ruby slippers. Little did she know those shoes would carry her to where her heart wanted to be––to sexy Bran MacKenzie. But dare she hope the girl everyone shunned could win the love of the most popular guy in town? Take red shoes, a pair of sunglasses and sprinkle liberally with golden faerydust, and you have a magic spell in the making…

  MR. FRED’S TREASURE BOX—CHERYL PIERSON

  Lovey Villines has mysteriously died, with only her cat, Mr. Fred, as a witness. As her greedy siblings squabble, Brady Rowe, a veteran police officer, tries to keep the peace and learn what truly happened. The key to Mr. Fred’s Treasure Box is hidden in a most unlikely place, and Officer Rowe must have it to solve what could be murder—and find out what will become of Lovey’s feline companion, Mr. Fred.

  CAT’S CRADLE—MOLLIE HUNT

  When cat lady Lynley Cannon discovers a stray kitten trapped in a gym bag, she finds herself pursued through Portland’s warehouse district by gun-wielding thugs. Lynley has no idea what the shooters want, but she’s not about to give up the kit to those crazies, so the race is on.

  THE NERD IN SHINING ARMOR—ISABELLA NORSE

  Abby needs a hero. Ryan needs an assistant. Can a battle-scarred tabby with a penchant for quoting from Star Wars bring them together?

  THE CAT ON COOGAN’S BLUFF—ROCHELLE SPENCER

  A Harlem detective delves into the mysteries surrounding his neighborhood in this intriguing tale about baseball, cats, and murder. Will he be able to solve the mystery of an old-time baseball celebrity’s death in a fall that wasn’t accidental? The clues are scarce, and hinge on Harlem’s mysterious residents, a blue-eyed Persian, and an old love gone bad.

  MISSING LYNX—CLAY MORE

  It is 1926 and the world mourns silent movie heart-throb Rudolph Valentino who has suddenly and tragically died at the age of thirty-one. His secret lover, the movie star Kay du Maurier, is bereft, but must keep her secret hidden from the world and especially from her husband, the famous adventurer and big game hunter, Colonel Fenton Carlyle. Rudolph’s death is only the first in a series of tragedies in this supernatural feline murder mystery tale from the silent movie era.

  DREAM WEAVER—C.A. JAMISON

  Mary Lynn Price moves to California to take a job as a secretary for a screenplay writer she has never met. On her first day at work, she has a chance encounter with an unforgettable stranger she can’t put out of her thoughts. Given the impossible task of reading three romance novels in three days, Mary is in disbelief when her newly-adopted cat has her dreaming the actual outcomes of the stories—and taking part in the books. The handsome blue-eyed stranger is the hero in each novel, and Mary has no idea she is falling in love with her new boss.

  CLAWS FOR JUSTICE—MARIAH LYNNE

  Two spunky shelter cats, Shurlock and Wattson, learn their time at the shelter is up. The furry duo finds a clever way to escape their fate, only to find their caretaker, Robby, dead. They now must make it their mission to find Robby’s killer and bring him to justice before they get caught again.

  WHO LET THE CATS OUT?—FAYE RAPOPORT DESPRES

  When a mysterious fire tears through the main house of the Jane S. Dooley Cat Shelter, Adalyn, the shelter’s director, vows to keep the shelter open. Thankfully, the cats who were housed upstairs got out and escaped the fire. Now, Adalyn has two mysteries on her hands: Who set the fire, and who let the cats out?

  THE CALICO—BRANDY HERR

  After Larry's wife walks out on him, the sudden arrival of a mysterious calico cat appears to be just what he needs to lift his spirits. But appearances can be deceiving.

  ANGEL—ANGELA CRIDER NEARY

  An enchanting cat named Angel and a series of suspicious fires has a Colorado sheriff wondering if cats really do have nine lives—and trying to figure out who the next victim will be.

  THE EASTER CAT—BILL CRIDER

  When Hollywood private-eye Bill Ferrel gave a ride to the Easter Bunny, he thought he was just doing a friend a favor. How was he to know he’d wind up chasing a cat through the jungle and trying to prevent a murder?

  NINE DEADLY LIVES

  An Anthology of Feline Fiction

  Livia J. Washburn

  Deborah Macgillivray

  Cheryl Pierson

  Mollie Hunt

  Isabella Norse

  Rochelle Spencer

  Clay More

  C.A. Jamison

  Mariah Lynne

  Faye Rapoport DesPres

  Brandy Herr

  Angela Crider Neary

  Bill Crider

  Nine Deadly Lives by Fire Star Press

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright© 2015 Fire Star Press

  Cover Design Livia Reasoner

  Fire Star Press

  www.firestarpress.com

  All rights reserved.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed 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 book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Nine Deadly Lives is a work of fiction.

  Though actual locations may be mentioned, they are used in a fictitious manner and the events and occurrences were invented in the mind and imagination of the author except for the inclusion of actual historical facts. Similarities of characters or names used within to any person – past, present, or future – are coincidental except where actual historical characters are purposely interwoven.

  Second Nature Copyright © 1994 Livia J. Washburn

  Shoes, Shades and Faerydust Copyright © 2013 Deborah Macgillivray

  Mr. Fred's Treasure Box Copyright © 2015 Cheryl Pierson

  Cat's Cradle Copyright © 2015 Mollie Hunt

  The Nerd In Shining Armor Copyright © 2015 Linda Ward (w/a Isabella Norse)

  The Cat On Coogan's Bluff Copyright © 2015 Rochelle Spencer

  Missing Lynx Copyright © 2015 Keith Souter (w/a Clay More)

  Dream Weaver Copyright © 2015 Cynthia A. Moore (w/a C.A. Jamison)

  Claws For Justice Copyright © 2015 Mariah Lynne

  Who Let The Cats Out? Copyright © 2013 Faye Rapoport DesPres

  The Calico Copyright © 2015 Brandy Herr

  Angel Copyright © 2015 Angela Crider Neary

  The Easter Cat Copyright © 1996 Bill Crider

  Table of Contents

  Second Nature—Livia J. Washburn

  Shoes, Shades and Faerydust—Deborah Macgillivray

  Mr. Fred’s Treasure Box—Cheryl Pierson

  Cat’s Cradle—Mollie Hunt

  The Nerd In Shining Armor—Isabella Norse

  The Cat on Coogan’s Bluff—Rochelle Spencer

  Missing Lynx—Clay More

  Dream Weaver—C. A. Jamison

  Claws For Justice—Mariah Lynne

  Who Let the Cats Out?—Faye Rapoport DesPres

  The Calico—Brandy Herr

  Angel—Angela Crider Neary

  Th
e Easter Cat—Bill Crider

  Second Nature

  Livia J. Washburn

  Can Beth Hallam make the cut as a private eye?

  Beth Hallam took a deep breath and tried to ignore the fear in her belly. Then she stepped out into empty space, fighting off the impulse to close her eyes against the terrifying nothingness beneath her. She had to keep her eyes open so she could see where she was falling. Otherwise, she might miss the net stretched out beneath her.

  The wind of her fall tugged at the cap secured tightly on her head. The cap had to be tight, or it would have come off and let her long red hair stream up and out around her head. Since she was doubling for a twelve-year-old actor—a boy—having her hair come loose would have ruined the gag. In the ragged shirt and baggy pants she wore, the curves of her body were well hidden, and she and the kid were within an inch of each other in height. Beth had doubled for him in his last picture, too.

  The net was hidden in a cluster of large boulders at the foot of the bluff, where the cameras couldn’t see it. Beth hit it cleanly, perfectly, knowing that the director would be shouting, “Cut!” right about now. The net gave under her, then sprang back up, tossing her into the air. A wave of exhilaration swept through her, as it always did at moments like this. In all of her twenty years, she had never experienced anything like the feeling of a dangerous gag that had gone just as planned.

  She bounced up and down a few times in the net, then rolled to the edge and swung down from it. The second-unit director, an old-timer who had spent a quarter of a century staging stunts like this since coming to Hollywood in the early Twenties, hurried over to her and clapped a hand on her shoulder.

  “Great job, Beth,” he told her. “I never saw your daddy do any better.”

  Beth tugged the cap off, letting her hair spill free. There wouldn’t be any second takes. She looked up at the rim of the bluff, which was a good three stories above her. “Lucas never jumped off a cliff like that,” she said with a laugh. “Not even with a horse under him.”

  “Well, that’s true. Not for the camera, anyway. I don’t know what he might’ve done back when he was just a young buck. I’ll have to ask him about it someday.”

  “Don’t get him started,” Beth said, and laughed again. “Not unless you’ve got plenty of time to listen to his stories.”

  “Speak of the devil.” The second-unit director pointed toward the road that wound along the canyons of this rugged area that, for all its seeming isolation, was only a few miles from the intersection of Hollywood and Vine.

  Beth looked where he was pointing and recognized the car bouncing along the road. Her father had driven a black flivver for years, and he was still of the opinion that all cars ought to be painted black, even in this modern day and age. And Lucas Hallam was nothing if not stubborn, as Beth knew from long experience.

  “You need me for anything else, Yak?” she asked the second-unit director.

  “No, you go on ahead. Say hello to your dad for me.”

  Beth waved at him and moved off through the hustle and bustle of a movie company on location. There were quite a few trucks and cars parked around the area, and trailers had been set up for the stars to use as dressing rooms. The army of flunkies that went hand in hand with moviemaking hurried here and there, seemingly aimlessly. Beth knew it all made sense if you knew what you were looking at. She had no desire to get that well acquainted with the process. She knew stunt work, and that was enough. It was second nature to her, something that was in her blood. And she came by it honestly, since her father was Lucas Hallam, who had performed gags and worked as a riding extra all through the Twenties and well up into the Thirties.

  As Hallam stepped out of the roadster that he had parked by some of the equipment trucks, he looked like he could still swing up into a saddle and gallop off with a make-believe posse after a gang of celluloid owlhoots. He was a big man, his frame shrunken a little by age but still powerful. His leathery face had been craggy and lined as far back as Beth could remember, and as the years passed, the lines just seemed to get deeper. The mustache drooping over his wide mouth was iron gray, as was the rumpled thatch of hair under the broad-brimmed brown hat. He leaned against the fender of the roadster and crossed his arms as he watched his daughter come toward him.

  “Elizabeth, you look like some sort o’ hobo,” he greeted her.

  She glanced down at the ragged outfit she was wearing. “I’m supposed to. The kid’s playing a tramp in this picture. Of course, he’s really the heir to a fortune and doesn’t know it, or some such claptrap.” Beth jerked a thumb toward the bluff behind her. “I just jumped off that cliff for him.”

  “Yeah, I remember you tellin’ me about the gag you had lined up. How’s he supposed to get out of it?”

  Beth shook her head. “He doesn’t. He’s already done his death scene. They showed me the rushes of it before I did the stunt.” She grinned. “It’s a corker. There won’t be a dry eye in the house.”

  “Any problems with the gag?”

  “No, it went fine.” Beth frowned a little. “What are you doing out here, Lucas? I thought you were going to be in the office all day.”

  Ever since his bones had finally gotten too brittle to do stunt work or stand up to the constant pounding of long days in the saddle, Hallam had concentrated on the one-man private detective agency he had built up over the years. He thumbed his hat to the back of his head and said, “I got a call from a feller over in Palm Springs who wants to see me about a case. He’s promised me a thousand bucks just for hearin’ him out, so I reckon I’ll drive over there and see what he’s got to say. Just wanted to let you know where I was goin’ and make sure it won’t be a problem.”

  “You could have left me a note,” Beth said.

  Hallam shrugged his wide shoulders. “Yeah, I reckon.”

  Beth smiled slightly to herself. Her father wasn’t the most demonstrative man in the world. But she knew him well enough to realize he had come out here to the location just so he could say goodbye in person.

  Beth had never known her mother. Lucas had raised her from an infant, somehow juggling the responsibilities of parenthood with his busy career. And Beth loved him dearly. She stepped over to him, came upon her toes, and brushed a kiss across his cheek. “You go on to Palm Springs,” she told him. “I’ll be fine.”

  “All right,” Hallam said. “I’ll give you a call and let you know how things are goin’ and when I expect to be back. You got a ride back into town?”

  “Sure. I came out on one of the trucks.”

  “Well, I’ll see you in a day or two, more’n likely.”

  Beth watched him get back in the roadster and drive away. As fathers went, he was a mite unusual, maybe—but that was all right with Beth. She liked to think she was a mite unusual herself.

  o0o

  She got back to the apartment she shared with her father on Fountain Avenue in West Hollywood not long after dark. The telephone was ringing as she unlocked the door, and Beth muttered to herself as she hurried across the living room to answer it. She scooped up the receiver and said, “Hello?” as she tossed her purse onto a chair.

  A woman’s voice said, “I need to speak to Lucas Hallam, please.” The words had a brisk, businesslike tone.

  “I’m afraid he’s not available right now,” Beth said. “Could I take a message?”

  “Well, hell. I really wanted to talk to the old coot.”

  Beth blinked in surprise. She’d had the caller pegged as a potential client. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Oh, don’t mind me, dearie. I knew Lucas back in the old days. My name is Delores Banning. I called his office and his service gave me this number. I need to see him right away.”

  “I’m sorry, but—”

  “It’s a matter of life and death.”

  Beth wanted to stare at the phone. She had never actually heard anybody say that before—except in the movies. She wondered if Delores Banning was an actress.

  If s
o, she was probably a good one, because there was a definite note of urgency and sincerity in her voice. Beth hesitated only a moment, then gave in to an impulse she had felt before.

  She said, “I’m Mr. Hallam’s associate. Perhaps I can help you.”

  Well, why not? she thought. She had been around while Lucas was working on some of his biggest cases. It wasn’t like she didn’t know anything about the detective business.

  “You’re a gumshoe, too, sweetie?” Delores Banning said.

  “That’s right,” Beth said. She felt a little nervous about lying like that, but Lucas was out of town and Delores Banning sounded really troubled about something…

  “Well, come on out to the house. It’s on DeMille Drive, over in Los Feliz.” Delores Banning gave Beth the number and told her how to find the place. “Make it quick, before something else happens to Chester.”

  “Chester?”

  “That’s right. Somebody’s trying to murder him.”

  That made Beth’s eyes widen. Delores Banning hadn’t been kidding about it being a matter of life and death.

  “Maybe what you’d better do is call the police.”

  “I tried that, honey. They don’t care.” For the first time, Beth heard something besides brassy self-assuredness in the woman’s voice. “Nobody cares about Chester but me.”

  What would Lucas do in this situation? Beth couldn’t remember him ever turning his back on anybody who was really in trouble. In the Old West that Lucas Hallam came from, a man just didn’t do that.