A large, furry creature leapt onto the bed near my feet and interrupted my reverie. My Maine Coon cat, Diesel, chirped at me, determined to capture my focus.

“Sorry to neglect you, boy, but I was reliving my youth for a few minutes there.” I grinned as Diesel butted my head, still chirping. He loved attention, and he returned it with often energetic affection. He climbed onto my legs, all thirty-six pounds of him.

“Hang on a moment, boy, you’re a bit heavy.” Diesel muttered as I spread my legs. He slid between them and resettled himself, his head in my lap with his body stretched out. He purred loudly with a sound reminiscent of his namesake engine.

With the cat comfortably in place and myself reasonably so, I picked up my book, found my place, and delved into the story again.

Lightning rent the sky once more, and the bedraggled girl huddled in the meager shelter of the portico. She grasped the knocker, ready to knock a second time, when the door swung inward, quickly and silently. She stumbled forward into the dimly lit foyer, righted herself, and turned to greet the person who admitted her. The door creaked shut.

Veronica Thane stifled a gasp as her eyes beheld the cadaverous, elongated figure of the ancient man who stood before her. “He must be eighty years old,” she thought. “And well over six feet tall.”

“Good afternoon, miss.” The butler—for so he must be, as he wore the usual garb of such a servant—spoke in a high, thin voice. “The mistress will be pleased that you managed to arrive early, despite the storm.”

Veronica gasped. What could he mean?

A voice called my name, and I put the book aside with some reluctance. “Yes, Azalea, I’m in here.” I sat up and tried to disentangle Diesel from my legs, but he wasn’t interested in moving. I had to scoot myself backward a few inches before I was clear enough to swing one leg over him. Then I twisted until I sat on the side of the bed.

“What you doing all the way up here, Mr. Charlie?” Azalea Berry, my housekeeper, frowned at me from the doorway. “And what you doing messing up that bed after I cleaned in here this morning?”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to disturb things.” I retrieved the book and tucked it under my arm before I stood. “Diesel and I were just reading. I came up here to look for something, and I got sidetracked by the books. I just had to lie down and read for a few minutes.”

Azalea nodded as the ghost of a smile flitted by. “Miss Dottie used to do that, too. Sometimes I couldn’t find her nowhere, and up here she’d be, stretched out on that bed, reading one of them books of hers.”