THE GEEK WITH THE CAT TATTOO

I've been busy with what I think of as a mini-book tour for the paperback release of The Orchard. Things have slowed down a bit for a few days, so I decided to pull out my cat project. I haven't worked on this for a few weeks, and I didn't remember it with fondness, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't awful. It's about 1/4 done. Not sure when I'll have the time to finish it because my main project (when all of this other stuff slows down) will be my Frasier, Play Dead sequel. But the cat stuff is fun. Just plain fun.  

I'm going to post the opening page here. This is the second book in the Cool Cat trilogy, and I think this might be the most fun of the three plots.  Working title: The Geek with the Cat Tattoo.  (Thanks to L.K. Rigel for that suggestion!)

This book stars the brother of Max from The Girl with the Cat Tattoo, and this cat is the most talented (magical?) of the three siblings. 

The Geek with the Cat Tattoo

I'm on my fourth owner and he's giving me a look I've become familiar with over the years. That look of suspicion. That look that says he knows. Or at least he thinks he knows.

He's going to ditch me. He's already contemplating the how and where. Take me to a shelter? Been there, done that, have the T-shirt. Or pack me in a box, drive fifty miles from Minneapolis, and dump me on some country road? Neither of those choices scare me, I try to tell myself. Living in the country. That might be nice, right? A lot of field mice to eat. A big sky.

Oh, my God. What am I saying? I'm a city cat through and through. I couldn't survive out there. I'm already imagining myself falling in with a bunch of feral cats who have rotten teeth and mange. Egads!

"What the hell are you?" asks my fourth owner. He's standing in the kitchen looking down at me, and the terror in his eyes has turned into something that scares me more than the possibility of life in the country with a pack of inbreds. 

 "Are you the devil?" Fourth Owner nods his head, as if coming to a conclusion. I remember when he picked me up from the shelter. He didn't know anything about cats. I wasn't even sure he liked cats, but lucky for me he wasn't around much. He works somewhere in downtown Minneapolis, and always talks about the cubicle where he goes with his slicked-back hair and body spray I can smell from a mile away. But like all of my previous owners, he's finally figured me out. He's figured out that I can put thoughts in his head.