Lucy folded her arms across her chest. She wore a white sweater. Her brown curls brushed the collar. Her capris showed off the thin taper of her legs. “You’re teasing me.”

“Nope.”

“Are you going to tell me the story? Because now I’m intrigued.”

Frost grinned and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, okay. About a year ago, I was called in on a home invasion case. Rich old widow, beautiful house on Russian Hill. She’d been shot dead in her bedroom. The uniforms who responded had a problem because the woman’s cat was sitting on her chest, and he wouldn’t let anyone near the body. Hissed and batted at them with his claws if they came close. He was protecting her. I grew up with cats, so I figured I’d give it a try. So I just talked to him.”

“You talked to the cat?”

“Yeah. I told him I was sorry that the woman was gone, that it was brave of him to want to protect her, but there was nothing he could do anymore. Eventually, he got off her body and walked over to me. He climbed up my leg, curled up on my shoulder, and wouldn’t leave. Right then and there, he adopted me.”

Lucy blinked back tears. Cat stories did that to women.

“The other cops wanted to take him to animal control, but I said I’d look after him while we did the investigation. Eventually, I talked to the trustee of the woman’s estate and asked if there was some family member who wanted to take Shack. He said there was no family. I said, well, would it be okay if I kept the cat? The trustee got very suspicious and asked if I knew anything about the woman’s estate, which was weird. I said no, all I wanted was to adopt the cat. After an hour in which I felt like he was the cop doing an interrogation, I found out that the estate instructions left the house in a bank trust as long as Shack was alive, and whoever took care of him could live there for a dollar a month. The old woman wanted to make sure that somebody had a hell of an incentive to look after her cat. The funny thing is, I was willing to take him for free.”

“That’s quite the story.”

“Yeah. So here I am, the cop who rents a house from his cat.”

“Is all of that true? Or have you figured out that a man with a cat is sort of a chick magnet for girls?”

“Honestly, I have found that out, but the story’s true. I did have to change his name, though.”

“Why?”

“Well, the old woman called him Señor Bubbles. That didn’t seem manly enough for either one of us.”

Lucy smothered a laugh. “No.”