Catt Russell Books
Good Karma
Catt’s innate curiosity results in her unwittingly uncovering mysterious happenings in her neighbourhood.
Along the way, she also discovers that not everyone is who she thinks they are, herself included.
Excerpt:
If someone had told me that my life was about to change radically and that I was about to experience a whole range of absolutely weird stuff, I probably would have thought they were talking about a Dr. Phil episode and completely ignored them. As luck, or fate, would have it, this did not happen. Except for the life altering experience, that is. Those things are harder to ignore.
But I’m getting a little ahead of myself, so let me explain a few things. First, I am not a perfect person. I’m smart enough to be aware that this is not ever a reality, no matter what universe, parallel or otherwise, you exist in. Flaws happen. I should know.
If there’s one flaw I’ll admit to (though I’ve never really seen it as a flaw, but more as a character-building exercise, in that I generally learn a lot more than I might normally, and that can’t be bad, can it?), it’s that I have a tendency to snoop. And when I snoop, I sometimes, well, can get a little carried away. But, then again, maybe that’s natural too. I mean, what are the rules?
Perhaps I should start at the beginning, though even that might be difficult to nail down.
The thing is, I generally just jump into things with both feet, and if you must know, with my mouth open, probably saying something dumb, but with good intentions. That’s the way these things start. How they end up is a completely different matter.
I’ve heard that there’s usually a recipe for disaster. But, since I’m a pretty good cook, I never need to follow recipes. Mainly because I know that disaster is going to find me anyway.
I’m Catt Russell. Sometimes I think my biggest problem is sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong. But, I always ask myself, how would I know that’s the case unless I do? See? There’s a reason for everything. And it’s my job to find out why.
‘Snoopiness personified’ is how my husband, Jack, puts it. Who knows? Maybe he’s right. He’s an all round good guy, apart from the being quick to judge my personality quirks, but then I’ve probably given him good reason to over the years. He’s also a creative genius. Of course, that’s just my opinion, though he does little to deny it. As you can see, he’s also kind of humble. He doesn’t like to toot his own horn. That’s what he has me for.
Jack loves to invent things. You know, like trying to come up with the latest hot fad, the absolutely indispensable widget, the ultimate timesaving device. Pretty good for a guy who generally can’t seem to locate the laundry hamper or figure out how to buy a loaf of bread without a roadmap.
And, believe me, this can lead to some fairly intriguing, if not completely bizarre, situations. Sometimes, well…sometimes his ideas and my, er, inquisitiveness, can come in handy. Just wait and see.
Our son, Josh, loves cats, computers and pizza, but dislikes milk, math and public speaking. He’s so-so about sports. And while he plays soccer, he’s no David Beckham. So you might say that what happens is really my fault. Not that anyone’s pointing fingers, or anything.
And me? I’m just your average stay-at-home mom, chief cook and bottle washer, family taxi driver, and occasional column writer for the local weekly paper.
Voila! You have my life.
Which just recently became… well… kinda freaky.
You see, I hear voices in my head.
For real.
Not only that, but things happen when I think about them. Things that I can’t control and that don’t even give me any warning. Like that would help.
But it wasn’t always this way.
Life has a way of catching up with you and making you notice it. And let me tell you, when it does, you’d better be paying attention.
And, as I’ve mentioned, I’m also a consummate busybody, so poking my nose into places it generally doesn’t belong is second nature to me.
Who knew this could be dangerous?
We Hab Your Sud
When Catt Russell is awakened by the phone in the middle of the night, little does she realise that her life is about to take a life-altering turn for the weird. She must deal with inept kidnappers, who have taken the wrong child, and her wacky free spirited mother, who has chosen this point in time to leave her husband and move in with Catt’s family.
Excerpt:
“We hab your sud,” a menacing voice says on the other end of the phone.
Huh! My mind hastily tries to assemble itself to make sense of what the caller has said. A neat trick, since the digital readout on the bedside clock says 4:33, which means I’ve only been asleep for three hours. Okay, three and a bit. Still.
“Huh?” my mouth follows suit, but as is its habit when aroused abruptly, not to mention in the middle of the bloody night, it sounds querulous, if not downright dumbfounded.
“Your sud!” the voice repeats with more than a little irritation.
Sud? Sud? And then I get it. Son.
“My son?” I squawk.
“Yed!” the voice agrees. “Your sud. Deddid.”
“Deddid?” My mind scrambles in several directions at once which, for it, is par for the course. Especially in the middle of the night. Well, okay. Almost any time, if you must know. But this really doesn’t make sense. Part of me wonders if I’m being pranked by Donald Duck. Another part is screaming to me to stay on topic. Fine. Deddid. Who on earth is Deddid? “Who?”
“Deddid!” This guy is definitely beginning to lose what little control he has established. “Deddid! Deddid! Deddid!” he shouts.
I hesitate to advise him that increasing the volume has still failed to clear the cobwebs in my brain, and that I have absolutely no idea what he is talking about. Or who. Deddid?
“Uh, … David?” I ask.
“Deddid!”
Then the sounds reassemble themselves in my brain. The same brain that could never hope to get through a game of Jeopardy, let alone some lunatic phone call in the dead of night. This thought alone makes me cringe more fully awake.
“Uh… Dennis?” I try.
“Yed!” he agrees, and I think I hear relief behind the exasperation in his voice. “Deddid.
Your sud!”
The phone connection goes dead. And so does my hope of getting back to sleep.
My heart is doing laps around the room, and my breath has absconded with my rational mind. This guy has Dennis? My son?
There must be some mistake.
My son’s name is Josh.
Chapter One
The first thing I do is nothing.
That is, the first thing I do is nothing because I am absolutely frozen, rooted to the spot. Icy blasts shoot through my body and terrible images are caroming around the inside of my brain. Cool under pressure is not a phrase I am familiar with. Not when panic seems so much more like a good idea. Not to mention, the only obvious choice.
I finally realize I am still holding the receiver in my hand. It occurs to me that I should do something. But what? Jack! Jack would know. That’s what husbands are for, isn’t it? Emergencies in the middle of the night.
But I can’t talk to Jack, because he isn’t here. He’s presently on an airplane somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. I know this because I drove him to the airport last night and then, on the way home, ended up stuck in traffic because of some accident on the high-way involving a tractor-trailer and a load of chickens. Don’t get me started on that. I’ll probably be cleaning feathers out of my car for weeks as it is. Not to mention the other by-product chickens are famous for – and I’m not talking about eggs – smeared all over the paint job.
Then fear kicks in and sends me barrelling down the hall towards Josh’s room. Its intentions may be good, but its sense of direction is the pits. Big time.
“Ow!” I yell as I clatter into a doorframe. Who put that there? But this is no time for questions. Well, actually it is, but not that exact question.
Josh! Where is Josh?
As I continue my blundering, a bevy of cats, asleep on the hall rug, frantically arise as one and attempt to scatter to the four winds, claws scrabbling for purchase on the wooden floorboards. Parker, the clumsy one, ends up under my feet and, rather than moving away when she has the chance, stays there waiting for the disaster that is not long in arriving, which proves to be my stomping on some errant part of her anatomy. Well, I figure she had good warning. Serves her right. Though, even as I am thinking this, I know she will make sure I pay for my indifference in a much less subtle fashion. That’s just cats for you.
As it is, she screams as though she has personally seen the farmer’s wife on the approach, carving knife at the ready, which naturally sets the remaining cats fleeing for their lives. This involves quite a bit of hissing and snarling at each other in the mistaken assumption that one of them must be responsible for this uproar.
That’s what I get for listening to fear.
“Mom?”
Josh is standing in the doorway to his room, staring at me as though he has never seen me before. Correction. As though he has never seen a madwoman lumbering towards him down a darkened hallway in the middle of the night. Sort of a kid’s worst nightmare come true. However, it will be some minutes before this realization hits me.
The only thing I am presently conscious of is that Josh is here. Josh is safe.
My relief is immediate, palpable, and much louder than I had intended.
“Josh!” I shout, and then, at the look on his face, tone it down. “Josh, are you okay?”
His face says he was about to ask me the same question. After all, I’m the crazy person in this scenario.
“I thought you were Dennis,” I blurt, without thinking, which seems to be par for the course tonight. “I mean, I know you’re not Dennis, you’re Josh. But I was just so worried you might have been Dennis.”
Josh still doesn’t look any more convinced that I’m really his mother, and that this is a normal conversation to be having in the dark, in the middle of the night.
I steel myself to appear normal, though I think this ship might have already sailed. I try a bright, momish smile.
“I’m sorry to wake you, honey,” I say, just as though I was perfectly fine, and my heart wasn’t thumping around in my chest like a bungee jumper with no place to go. Go to Plan B, my mind decides. Lie. “I guess I just had a bad dream.”
It sounds lame even to me, but Josh doesn’t seem to notice. Or, if he does, he’s prepared to accept it just so he can go back to sleep.
“Okay,” Josh agrees and yawns.
I am just about to convince myself that it’s going to work, that we can finally go back to bed, that this entire horrible episode will be forgotten, when Josh asks, “Who’s Dennis?”
Then the doorbell rings.
Josh and I look at each other. The bell peals again. And again. And again. And keeps on ringing.
For Pete’s sake, it’s the middle of the night! my mind is screaming. First Deddid… er, Dennis, then the cats. Now this. Who in their right mind rings your doorbell in the middle of the night? The same people who phone you in the middle of the night? my mind suggests. But that was a wrong number. Wasn’t it? Is it any wonder I’m not getting my beauty sleep?
Now, whoever is outside has begun knocking on the door. Or rather, pounding, if the increasing noise level is anything to go by. It seems a pretty fair bet that whoever they are is not going away. Just great. There’s only one thing for it.
Sighing, I start down the stairs.
“Stay here,” I tell Josh. He doesn’t seem to need this advice, but nods anyway.
Fortunately, there are no cats to trip over on the way down the stairs. You see? I assure myself, there is a silver lining. But this thought doesn’t hold true for very long.
I turn on the porch light and peer through the window at the top of the door. Oh, my God. This night just keeps getting worse and worse.
I unlock and open the door. A wild-eyed, dishevelled woman falls through into the foyer in a cloud of exasperation, patchouli and righteous indignation, arms laden with backpacks and cloth carrier bags.
“I did it,” my mother declares. “I’ve left your father.”
Sole Sisters
When Catt comes into possession of a pair of boots under suspicious circumstances, she and Jilly find themselves caught up in a vortex of intrigue and danger. In other words, life as usual.
Excerpt:
I’m at the newsstand, trying to make up my mind between Redbook or People magazine, when I first become aware that some really annoying person is insistently attempting to catch the attention of someone else. Whoever it is doesn’t appear to be having much success.
“Helen!” a woman’s voice calls urgently. “Helen!”
There is more than a hint of desperation now, and I’m wondering what on earth is wrong with Helen that she can’t apparently hear this banshee screeching down the length of the mall. Surely it can’t have escaped her notice, because everyone else has sure enough been able to hear. Which one of them is Helen? I glance about, but there are no takers.
I’ve just advanced to the head of the checkout line and am pulling my wallet from my purse, when I feel a hand on my arm.
“Helen!” the voice sounds relieved but contrite. “What are y—”
I turn to face a woman I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen before in my life, despite what her voice seems to imply. She has shoulder length springy brown hair and large green eyes. She also has an embarrassed expression on her face. This is trumped by the nonplussed expression on mine.
“I’m so sorry!” she says. “I thought you were Helen. You look just like her.”
Is this good news or bad news? I’m not sure if I should be flattered or annoyed. What I am mostly is confused. Not to mention bored, hungry and fed up with shopping. But I’m not the type to unload my problems on a complete stranger. She has enough problems of her own, such as finding this Helen person and not drawing further attention to herself. And not necessarily in that order. Then my eyes light on the shopping bag in her hand.
If I hadn’t just come from that particular shop, if I hadn’t just been guilty of some pretty juvenile behaviour while in that particular shop, the bag probably wouldn’t have meant anything. But I had, and it does. Now who’s embarrassed?
Then I take in what I hadn’t noticed. The bag contains a pair of boots. But these aren’t just any boots. Of course not. Just any old boots wouldn’t make me gasp in surprise, and then stare in shock and something approaching horror. And then make me do the unthinkable. But, like I said before, these are not just any boots.
These are my boots.
So, maybe the unthinkable is in order. I’m not sure. But once you commit yourself to some action, there’s no turning back. So I don’t. After all, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my best friend Jilly, it’s that all’s fair in love and shopping.
“Those are my boots!” I gasp, grabbing for the bag. I can’t help wondering if Helen would be quite so possessive given the circumstances. Too bad for Helen if she’s not. That’s a sure way to lose your stuff. Surely even Helen would realise that. Wouldn’t she? Even if she is this woman’s friend. There’s such a thing as being taken advantage of because of your good nature.
The woman shies back, reflexively pulling the bag against her body. The expression on her face seems to say that even if I was Helen, I wouldn’t be getting this bag, and she probably would be thinking twice about seeking me out. Especially if I’m going to act like a crazy woman in public.
So there you have it. She can’t really be Helen’s friend. And what’s more, she’ll never be mine, not with that attitude.
By now I have one hand wrapped quite securely around the thick rope handle of the shopping bag and am pulling it toward me.
“No!” the woman says, jerking back on the bag at the same moment I try to jerk it in the opposite direction. Her eyes open wide and an unreadable expression crosses her face. Then, to my surprise, she leans slightly toward me, releasing her grip, and whispers, “Yes, okay. Please, take them!”
Before I can respond, she melts into the crowd and disappears. I am left, literally, holding the bag. All at once, any sense of victory I might have felt is replaced by shame. That was so unlike me. I don’t know what possessed me.
I’ve just mugged a complete stranger.
Art for Art's Sake
Catt Russell, an ordinary suburban soccer mom with unordinary, uncontrollable and unreliable psychic powers, and her society star sister, Micky, are plunged (literally) into intrigue on a remote west coast island, populated by a collection of dubious characters claiming to be a colony of artists, one of which is Catt and Micky’s brother, Art. But there is more going on than meets the artistic eye!
Excerpt:
If I’d been smart, I never would have opened the door.
Too late for that now.
“A vacation?” I say. “What kind of vacation?”
My sister doesn’t exactly appear to be dressed for going to the beach. She is currently camped in my front hallway, decked out in silk and cashmere and a really snotty attitude.
“Oh-h! Do I have to explain everything?” she challenges, as though I’m the one being mulish here.
My sister’s name is Micky, which she has shortened from Cosmic, the embarrassing label with which our parents chose to saddle her. I suppose, when you’re three, it doesn’t cause quite the cataclysmic distress as when you’re fourteen and noticing for the first time that everyone else around you has more or less pretty sounding names like Tiffany and Amber, and you’re definitely the one getting your face dunked in the john at lunchtime. So it’s a good thing you already know how to hold your breath for extended periods of time. Those swimming lessons were not wasted on us kids.
I stare her down. This is another lesson I’ve learned: Micky is not always, well, completely truthful. “So it’s not really a vacation?”
“Okay!” she scowls, as though this were all my fault and I should have known better than to antagonize her, especially when she’s in salvation mode. Heaven knows, this doesn’t come easily to Micky. “It’s Art.”
Art is our brother. He was christened Farout by our parents, a pair of latter day hippies, who are still following their muse wherever it takes them. I guess it never occurred to them that, one day, our brother might just like to fit in with normal people, and that Farout is not a name normally associated with the announce- ments of major business appointments in the financial section of the newspaper. But then I guess they never figured any of us for an establishment sell-out.
I’m not impressed. “What about Art?” I say.
I’m pretty sure that he couldn’t possibly have done anything more outrageous than our parents, who were last seen riding an elephant down my nice suburban street before being swallowed up by the insanity that is their life.
“He’s quit his job and joined a cult,” Micky spits out with just enough emphasis on the last word to make sure I’ve noticed. “And he’s decided to become an installation artist.”
Okay, so I was wrong. Art isn’t in the running for chairman of the board. Or even mailroom boy, I privately muse. But the way Micky said ‘installation artist’ makes me believe she doesn’t actually know what one is, though she’s not willing to give the concept floor space in any event.
“Uh-huh?” I say. “A cult?”
“Well,” Micky admits grudgingly, “more like some kind of commune. But you get the picture.”
Well, I sort of do. Mainly because, for most of their lives, our parents have indulged in just such an alternative lifestyle. But cult? I don’t think so.
And then another thought flies in my face. Micky showing interest in our brother? The same brother she’s barely mentioned since he left for the west coast several years ago? Much to her relief, as it turned out, since it meant she wouldn’t need to invite him to her snobby society wedding to the over indulged, but very wealthy, momma’s boy we all know as Jordan Spencer. Yeah, that brother. So, what’s up? I decide to test the theory.
“And?” I can’t help it if I sound just a tad suspicious. I mean, how would Micky even know what’s up with Art? It’s not like she has him on speed dial.
Instead of responding, Micky does that little head flicking thing that usually happens moments before she goes ballistic. I inwardly brace for the storm, but it doesn’t come.
“Oh, honestly, Catt!” Micky says in exasperation. “Can’t I just be worried about my brother?”
Oh, sure. Next she’s going to be knitting booties for the pregnant teens’ home.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffs. “That’s what Walmart is for.”
Since I’m pretty sure I hadn’t said that out loud, this makes me sit up and take notice.
Walmart? I think to myself.
Oh, alright! Micky’s responding thought is decidedly irritable. Or maybe it was K-Mart – one of those ‘mart’ things!
Oh great.
It’s happening again.
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