Purrfect Model, page 1
PURRFECT MODEL
THE MYSTERIES OF MAX 52
NIC SAINT
CONTENTS
Purrfect Model
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
About Nic
Also by Nic Saint
PURRFECT MODEL
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Anyone Can Paint
When Jay met Laia, it was love at first sight. But when Laia’s parents met Jay, disaster struck. To such an extent they forced her to choose between her family and her fiancé. Laia chose her fiancé, and that’s when the trouble started. The young couple soon became the victims of a harassment campaign, which led them to Odelia, who promised she would find the vicious stalker intent on their destruction.
And then of course there was the whole art class fiasco. I’d tell you more, but sometimes it’s best to find out for oneself. Also, I still haven’t fully recovered. Let’s just say that a sudden wave of artistic fervor swept across our family, affecting first Marge and Harriet, then Gran, then Tex, and finally even Grace, the most recent addition to the family roster. Suffice it to say, things soon turned ugly. Very ugly.
CHAPTER 1
It should have been the happiest day of Laia’s young life. The day she was to introduce her future husband to her parental unit. And it probably would have been the day that all the world waited with bated breath to see who Mr. Lucky was, if it hadn’t been for one small snag: the response of Mr. and Mrs. Twine, which wasn’t as ecstatic as it could have been. In actual fact, it was anything but.
And it had all started so well. She’d phoned Mommy and told her she had a nice surprise in store. She should have known not everything was as it should have been, for Mommy’s response had been remarkably lacking in the kind of warm excitement a future bride likes to see. But she’d ignored it and had ascribed it to Mommy being in a bad mood, as tended to happen more often lately.
Jay must have realized something was amiss, for he’d immediately said, “Maybe we should postpone, my blossom.”
“No, we’re doing this now,” she had told him. They’d waited long enough, in her estimation. They had, after all, been engaged for all of two weeks, and had known each other exactly three months, which meant something. She’d never been with one guy for longer than a couple of weeks before, so three months told her that Jay was for keeps, and was to be the man next to whom she wanted to wake up for the rest of her life. The man whose face she would see looking back at her across the breakfast table, asking her to pass the maple syrup and strawberry jam. Like Mommy and Daddy, who’d been happily married now for twenty-five years.
It was the kind of eternal bond she had always envisioned for herself. The kind of marital bliss she’d always known would someday be in the cards for her as well.
On the drive over, Jay remarked, “Maybe you shouldn’t tell them we’re engaged. Maybe introduce me as a good friend instead. Then we can gradually work our way up to being boyfriend and girlfriend, and eventually spring the marriage thing on them.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” she said as she steered the car along the familiar route. “My parents are modern people. They have always raised me to be independent and follow my own path. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to hear I’m getting married.”
“If you say so,” her fiancé murmured, clearly not entirely convinced.
The little car hurtled along the road, and she wondered if her parents would buy her a new car now that she had reached this milestone in a young girl’s life. Or maybe even a new apartment?
They still thought that she was living in her own flat, for which they paid rent, but the truth was that she had given up the flat and had moved in with Jay, pocketing the rent herself and spending it on some necessary repairs that had made Jay’s loft more suitable for a young couple in love. Minor things like a working gas heater and decent plumbing. And of course mending that hole in the roof. The incessant cooing of a family of pigeons who had come to regard part of the loft as their personal home had been a romantic notion at first, but not so much when it rained and she’d woken up from a cold shower one morning.
Jay was an artist, of course, and artists don’t care about such minor practical inconveniences, focusing on their art first and foremost, and probably not even noticing things like a leaky roof. But Laia, who’d grown up in outrageous riches, had found the sudden descent into the bohemian life jarring to say the least.
It was one of the reasons she’d decided to come clean, and admit that she was to become Mrs. Jay Green very soon now. She wanted to return to the kind of lifestyle to which she’d grown accustomed, and even though she knew in her heart of hearts that it was only a matter of time before Jay would become a star and money would start pouring in, just for the present the impecunious young couple could use a nice big influx of cash. The kind that only Daddy could supply.
They finally arrived at the trusty old homestead, and Jay’s response to seeing the old pile was simply endearing.
“Jeez—exactly how rich are your parents?”
“Moderately rich,” she said with a touch of satisfaction as she steered the car down the long drive, Twine Manor gleaming robust and proud in the distance.
“No, but I mean, are we talking millionaire or billionaire?”
“Not billionaire, I don’t think,” she said. She glanced over to her betrothed, giving him a critical once-over and trying to see him as her mother would. For the occasion she’d made him wear a decent pair of pants, and the nicest sweater in his possession. She’d even sent him to get a haircut, and he’d never looked better. With his natural boyish charm, and the floppy flair that was a hallmark of his artistic persona, and which had attracted her to him in the first place, she was absolutely convinced he would appeal to Mommy and Daddy.
Even before she’d rung the doorbell, the door swung open and the lady of the manor appeared, with Daddy by her side. They both seemed pleased to see her, but when they caught sight of Jay, that initial excitement quickly made place for a look of confusion.
“Mommy, Daddy,” she said proudly, her voice wobbly with excitement, “I want you to meet Jay.” She had planned to wait, but she was bubbling over with such a sense of pride that she suddenly blurted out, “We’re engaged!” And with a flourish, she held up her hand, on which a very modest ring featured. It had belonged to Jay’s mother, and was the best he could do on such short notice.
She’d pictured her parents’ faces many times when confronted with the big news, though she had to admit that in her imagination they’d never looked like they did now. Instead of glowing with pride and effusively sharing her happiness, they looked stunned. Too stunned for speech, though that didn’t take long.
Matilda Twine was the first to recover from the shock. “Have you lost your mind!” she screamed. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, as endorsements go.
Jay now stepped to the fore, anxious to make a good impression and possibly feeling that things weren’t going according to plan. “My name is Jay Green,” he said, with outstretched hand. “And can I say how happy I am to finally make your acquaintance?”
“You have got to be kidding,” said Algis Twine. Like his wife, he now appeared intensely displeased with his daughter’s surprise announcement.
“No, I’m not,” said Laia. “Jay is my fiancé, and we’re getting married.”
“All I want to say is that—” said Jay, but Daddy talked right over him.
“He’s an artist!” Daddy cried. “And a penniless artist, no less.”
“He’s not penniless,” said Laia.
“He lives in a dump!”
Laia stared at her parent. “How do you know Jay is an artist, and how do you know where he lives?” And then the horrific truth came home to her. “Oh, my God! Have you been spying on me?!”
But Daddy waved her emotional outburst away. “He doesn’t have a cent to his name. He doesn’t even own the apartment where he lives, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve been using the rent we pay to support the both of you.”
“You have been spying on me!”
“Of course we’ve been keeping an eye on you! What do you expect?”
“All I want to say,” Jay repeated, “is that—”
“This is outrageous,” said Laia. “You’ve actually gone and hired a detective?”
“A friend of ours had seen you,” said Mommy. “In town, with this…” She gestured to Jay, giving him a distinct look of distaste. “This… loafer!”
“He’s not a loafer,” said Laia,
“You must be mad,” said Mommy in response. “Absolutely stark-raving mad!”
“Madly in love, you mean.”
“Can I just say,” said Jay, trying once more to put in his two cents. “That I love your daughter very much and—”
“He already has you living in that dump you call an apartment!” Mommy cried. “Between the cockroaches and the rats!”
“Like I said, Jay is an accomplished and very talented artist,” said Laia. “And it won’t be long before he makes a name for himself and breaks into the big time.”
“Oh, honey, just dump the guy,” said Daddy. “He’s obviously a flake.”
“He’s not a flake!”
“I asked Martin, who owns a gallery on Hudson Street, and he says he’s never even heard of the guy. And if Martin doesn’t know him, I can tell you no one does.”
“It’s true that he isn’t a household name yet,” she admitted reluctantly, “but he will be once the world realizes what an amazing talent he is.”
“He’s a nobody!”
“Oh, honey, just snap out of it,” said Mommy, “and move back home. This is just one of those things, don’t you see?”
“Yeah, one of those phases,” Daddy agreed.
“Look, can’t we come in and talk about this like grown-ups?” she said, since they still hadn’t moved past the threshold.
“You can come in,” said Mommy, “but not… him.”
“Jay is my fiancé,” she insisted. “And I’m not going anywhere without him.”
Jay cleared his throat. “I just want you to know how pleased I am to finally meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Twine, and I can assure you—”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to choose, Laia,” said Mommy, her expression hardening. “Either you come in alone, or you don’t come in at all.”
“Okay, so be it,” said Laia, who could be as stubborn as her mother. “Then I won’t come in.”
“Fine,” said Mommy.
“Fine,” said Laia.
“Then I guess we’re done here. Come, Algis.”
And before Laia’s astonished eyes, the door was slammed in her face!
Jay frowned. “What just happened?”
Laia took him by the arm, her initial disappointment and dismay quickly morphing into a sort of righteous rage. “I think they just kicked me out.”
“Kicked you out? But they’re your family.”
“Yeah, well, looks like you’re my family now.”
She stared at the closed door for a few seconds more, vaguely hoping her parents would change their mind. But when that didn’t happen, she gave the door a vicious kick, uttered a scream of frustration, then stomped off.
Once they were both inside her little car again, her future husband said, with a sort of stunned look on his face. “So now what?”
“Now we go home and start our life together,” she said simply.
“But… what about your parents?”
She frowned at her childhood home, which all of a sudden had developed an air of foreboding. “I don’t have parents anymore. From now on I’m an orphan.”
They arrived home about twenty minutes later, to find that the postman had dumped another couple of parcels in the hallway.
“More junk we didn’t order,” said Jay, angrily checking the pile of boxes.
“And that we’ll have to pay for with money we don’t have,” she said as she picked up a box with the logo of a familiar gaming company. “Have you filed a complaint with the police?”
“I have, but they didn’t seem to take me seriously.” He shook his head. “Who’s doing this to us?”
“Could be my folks,” she said slowly. It hadn’t occurred to her before that they could be behind this recent deluge of unwanted and unsolicited parcels, but now it was obvious they might hate Jay so much they were trying to teach her a lesson.
Just then, the doorbell rang, and Jay uttered a curse. He yanked open the door. At his feet, a burning paper bag was lying.
“Christ,” he said, and immediately started to stomp on it to put out the flames.
He probably shouldn’t have done that, for the bag contained a pile of a sort of brownish substance that could only be described as excrement.
And as Jay stared at his shoe, now covered in the stuff, as was their doorstep, Laia knew for sure that this was her parents’ doing.
In some kind of twisted joke, they’d put actual excrement all over Jay’s nice shoes—the only pair of nice shoes he had.
Since it was now obvious her parents were completely out of control, something needed to be done, and quickly, too!
But what?
And as Jay tried to remove the smelly substance by scraping his shoe across the sidewalk, her eye suddenly fell on a copy of the Hampton Cove Gazette. On the front page, an article was printed about a recent murder case that had taken place at some swanky hotel in Paris. The authoress appeared to have solved the murder, together with her husband, who was a cop. And as she scanned the article, she remembered how Dan Goory had once said Odelia Kingsley was simply the best.
And suddenly she knew exactly what to do.
CHAPTER 2
It had been a pretty busy time for us, and so when the opportunity arose for me to take a prolonged nap, I didn’t hesitate and took it. One learns from these experiences, you see. When one is adopted by a woman who fashions herself to be a reporter-slash-sleuth and is married to a cop, it’s imperative one learns to take the rough with the smooth, and take one’s naps whenever and wherever one can.
In other words: I was tired so I slept. And I would have slept more, if Harriet hadn’t decided to stir me from my slumber.
“Max,” she said, shaking me when I didn’t immediately react. “Max, hellooo!”
Of course she had me at hello, but I decided to ignore her, hoping she’d soon go away. When that didn’t work, I finally yawned and said, “What?” Hoping to convey the sentiment that I’d rather be left in peace, you know. A sort of gentle hint, if you will. A subtle reminder of the sacredness of nap time. Unfortunately Harriet isn’t one for subtlety, or for taking hints.
Instead she gave me a beaming smile and said, “Look!”
I looked, and when I didn’t see, I said, more or less unhappily, “What is it I’m supposed to be looking at?”
“My painting, of course!”
“Painting? What painting?”
“I’ve made a new painting!” she said, still with that pretty excitement that has made her so popular with a certain type of male.
This time I decided to look where she was pointing, and lo and behold, she had indeed created a new chapter in her career as a budding artiste.
Next to me, my friend Dooley also stirred. “What’s going on?” he asked, only now becoming aware of these exciting goings-on in our backyard.
“Harriet has made a new painting,” I said. “And she wants us to take a look.”
“Oh,” said Dooley, without much enthusiasm. You see, Harriet has been trying to get her career going for quite a while now, and the problem is that when an artist sets out to make the world a better place by spreading some sweetness and light by honing their craft, at first they are simply not very good. It takes time to become a better artist, and in some cases a lot of time indeed.
But all the while, the beginning artist insists on imposing on their nearest and dearest with the imperfect products of their newfound hobby. So imperfect, in fact, that it hurts the eyes just having to look at the stuff.
