Read Online The Cat, the Mill and the Murder: A Cats in Trouble Mystery by Leann Sweeney - Free Book Online Page B

about what will happen in a few minutes.”
    I nodded and looked at Jeannie. “You’re hurt and we need to help you. What that means is you will have to go to the hospital.”
    Jeannie, who was lying on her right side, covered her ear with a blue-veined hand. “No, don’t you be tellin’ me that. No. They don’t let cats in the hospital. When my mama died, I found that out right quick. Now that Boots is back, I can’t leave her. And I can’t leave here. Who will do the watchin’ out?”
    I tugged Jeannie’s hand away from her face and held it in both of my own. “I promise you, Candace and I will make sure nothing bad happens while you’re gone. And I’m betting they’ll let Boots go with you.” It wasn’t really a lie; the hospital didn’t allow cats, but they couldn’t stop a cat they couldn’t see from coming in. The poor womanneeded to calm down, so why not offer what little reassurance I could?
    She gripped my hand and said, “You think they will?”
    “I’m pretty sure. And just so you know, they’ll take special pictures of your hip where it hurts. You might need it fixed.”
    “How they gonna fix it?” she asked.
    Thank goodness I didn’t have to get into an explanation of surgery if indeed her hip was broken, because just at that moment the two Mercy paramedics, Marcy and Jake, wheeled a stretcher our way. These two had been smart enough to put lights on their caps, freeing up their hands.
    “Are they cops?” a panicked Jeannie said. “They look like cops and I don’t want nothin’ to do with them.”
    “They’re not cops. They work for the hospital and they came to help you.” I held her hand tighter when she tried to pull away. “Let them, okay?”
    She looked up at Marcy and Jake, then back at me. “You swear they’re not cops?”
    Candace took a step back farther into the shadows. She was a young woman who had a hard time not coming out with the blunt truth, so she must have figured she’d remain out of this part of the conversation.
    Marcy smiled down at Jeannie. “We are not the police. I’m Marcy and this is Jake. We’ll be talking to the doctors on this radio.” She pointed to her shoulder. “That way we can help them figure out how to help you.”
    Jeannie said, “Somethin’s busted. How’s that gonna get fixed?”
    Marcy knelt beside me, so I stood, allowing her room to work. She snapped on gloves and Jake knelt opposite his partner, Jeannie between them. He opened his medical kit.
    I turned to talk to Dustin and Candace, but Dustin seemed to have disappeared. I couldn’t blame him. Theguy came here to do a job and I’d had him cooling his jets all day at the Pink House. And now we had a medical emergency. Bet he wished he’d never been assigned to this job.
    I heard Marcy asking Jeannie what hurt, but she kept saying, “It’s busted,” over and over.
    “Her left hip,” I said. “She fell.”
    “Said she was running from someone,” Candace added. “Y’all got this under control? Dustin took off and if someone is lurking around like the woman told us, there might be trouble.”
    “We’re on this,” Jake said. “Go.”
    Candace disappeared into the darkness beyond.
    Jake mumbled into his radio and a staticky reply I couldn’t make out had him nodding. He stretched out IV tubing while Marcy began her examination. When she touched Jeannie’s hip, the older woman’s cry echoed through the building.
    “Jeannie,” Jake said, rubbing a thumb on the woman’s hand, “can you tell me the last time you ate or drank?”
    She ignored him and looked at me when she replied. “Had water a couple hours ago. Don’t go out for food until the night—after the Piggly Wiggly closes. I was thinkin’ today is the day they usually toss the cinnamon rolls and donuts. Was lookin’ forward to that.”
    Marcy held up a blood pressure cuff and raised her eyebrows at me.
    I’d become the conveyor of information and said, “Marcy has to take your blood pressure,”