I felt a thrill of satisfaction as the door closed. Perfect. Everything was going exactly as planned. I rested my hip against the examining table as Frankie got to work with the cats. He had a way with animals, it seemed, but his innate distaste for getting fur on his clothing was quite hilarious to watch as he maneuvered the cats at arm’s length from the table to the weighing station in the corner. He raised a brow as he dropped Pussy onto the scale. “The other two seem okay, but this one looks a little chubby, doesn’t he?” Pussy’s eyes narrowed into hazel slits as Frankie reached to squeeze a roll of the cat’s flesh. “Are you a little lardy cat, huh? Too many tootsie rolls from Agatha since I left, right?”
“Did anyone tell you their names?” He asked as he sat on the rolling doctor’s stool and slid over to the computer to begin setting up their files.
“Uh, yeah,” I lied. “Agatha’s old friends dropped by this morning and told me who everyone was. The big scruffy black one is Fluffy, the ginger is Muffin, right?” I asked, trying to sound casual. I paused and eyed the cats, suppressing a laugh. There was no way in hell I was going to speak Pussy’s real name aloud. “And I’m changing the tabby’s name to Pumpkin.”
Frankie spun on the stool to face me, his eyebrow raised as he chuckled. “You didn’t like Agatha’s choice of name for him?”
I shrugged as I joined in with his laughter, releasing the tension that had been building since I arrived. “Yeah, not so much. I can’t exactly picture myself standing on the doorstep and hollering for Pussy last thing at night.” Frankie’s face creased and tears of amusement welled in his eyes. I smirked. “Maybe Agatha was trying to tell somebody something? You never know what might have been going on with a lady like Agatha Bentley.”
“You can say that again,” Frankie muttered before returning to his computer to hammer away at the keys.
I took a deep breath and tried to look casual. I was cool, calm, and collected. “So, Frankie,” I croaked, clearing my throat. “Thrift store worker to veterinary assistant, that’s quite a career change?”
Frankie nodded, eyes fixed on the computer screen. “I trained to be a veterinary technician straight out of college, but I left Tracy’s to follow my dream to be a fashion blogger. When that… didn’t work out, Tracy was kind enough to take me back.”
“So, you were working for Agatha while you blogged?” Frankie’s fingers froze on the keyboard. I rushed on, the words falling from my lips in a breathless jumble. “What was she like? I mean, here I am living in this dead woman’s house, and I feel bad because I didn’t even know her, you know? I’d love to get to know her better if you have any stories you’re willing to share with me.”
Frankie raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Oh, I have stories all right. The stories I could tell you would make your toes crawl, girl. That woman was one loony old bat. Well, you’d have to be, I guess, to run a thrift shop like that. She always had a thousand wild tales to tell, but I honestly never knew which ones were true and which ones were made up. And the kind of things she’d bring back with her from her travels were beyond fascinating, until she stopped going anywhere.” He chatted away as he expertly tapped on the computer keyboard, setting up the three files for the cats. When he was finished, he turned to face me, his face unexpectedly solemn. “So, you really didn’t know her at all? I mean, everyone knows she left the store to a total stranger, but I thought maybe you were some long-lost relative or something? I mean, to have inherited everything from her, everything...”
Frankie’s eyes glowed with an intensity I couldn’t quite get the measure of, and I couldn’t tell if he was being sly or judgemental or if there was something else entirely hiding in the molten chocolate depths of his stare. I fiddled with the hem of my shirt, feeling the cats’ attention on me as I took a moment to answer. “No, we’d never met. I lost my business in a fire a few months ago, and I parted ways with my fiancé a few weeks ago, so I just needed to get away from the city and everything that reminded me of my old life. Salem was far enough away that I could afford the bus ticket and the rent here is affordable, so I applied for every job I could find and Agatha was the first to offer me one.”
“That’s it?” Frankie asked. His voice was incredulous.
“That’s it,” I repeated. “I accepted the position of assistant manager in the thrift store, and she agreed to let me rent out her basement suite for a price I could afford, but when I arrived things weren’t exactly as I had expected them to be. And that’s a massive understatement.” The two of us stood in silence for a long moment staring at each other, an unspoken challenge burning in Frankie’s eyes. I steeled myself. “So, why did you leave the thrift shop? You were the last assistant manager, right? I was your replacement?” I swallowed the lump in my throat, uncomfortable in the newly formed tension that filled the room. Even the cats were on edge, and they walked in circles around the exam table, meowing.
Frankie reached down to pick Fluffy up, his fingers working through his thick black fur. By the expression on the cat’s face, I could tell he was not too pleased with the man’s hands all over him, and I suppressed a smirk as I diverted my eyes up to Frankie’s, waiting for him to respond. “Yeah, I was the last assistant manager.” Frankie’s lip curled over the words and his tone was stilted. “And I didn’t really choose to leave, so much as get kicked out. Agatha ruined my life.”
Chapter Thirteen
My mouth slackened as I stared at the veterinary assistant sitting beside the examination table. My lips were dry. “Agatha fired you?”
“Fired me? No. She didn’t even have the decency to that, she just made it impossible for me to work there,” Frankie snapped. He pursed his lips. “You know, she called herself a manager, but she literally didn’t have the first clue about running a business.” Frankie released Fluffy from his grasp and started to sort through the samples of pet food on the shelves that lined the back wall. “Do you know she had thirty-three vintage Chanel purses thrown inside an old trunk when I first started working there?” He smacked a tub of dog treats onto a shelf to emphasize his point. “Thirty-three.”
“She didn’t know how much they were worth?” I probed.
Frankie flicked his wrist. “She didn’t care. She wasn’t a businesswoman. I don’t know why she opened the store in the first place; she didn’t even want to sell any of her stuff. She just wanted to hoard the junk she liked.” His grimace softened as he rested his head against the wall. “She was happy to let me do whatever I liked with the other stuff, though—the purses and the clothes. I started dressing the windows and taking photos for my blog and things picked up with the store, and she asked me to move into the basement apartment so she wouldn’t be alone in the building at night… We were a sort of weird little family, the two of us, you know?”
“Sounds nice,” I said, truthfully. It did sound nice.
“It was. I haven’t always had a lot of luck with family. My step-father had a hard time accepting who I was, and my mom had a hard time standing up for me.” Frankie lifted his chin, daring me to challenge him. “But Aggy and me? We got along fine.” He frowned. “Until things kind of blew up with my blog. People started coming from all over the country to see the displays and the store started turning a profit for the first time since she’d opened the place. You’d think that’d make her happy, right?” Frankie glared at me and I nodded my head in agreement. His jaw tightened. “Wrong. She was furious. She ordered me to shut down my blog. Said if I dared post another photo of my displays that she’d kick me out on the street so fast my head would spin.”
I grimaced. “And you took another photo?”
Frankie exhaled and looked at me with tired eyes. “Hermes, Chloe, Burberry, and Dior in one single, divine outfit. I couldn’t keep that to myself. Art can’t be silenced.”