Groomed for Murder ’s Izzy McHale is back, and her pet boutique, Trendy Tails, is raking in the green. But someone else in town is seeing red.… The Midwestern Cat Fanciers’ Organization is bringing its annual weeklong retreat to Merryville, Minnesota. While that’s perfect for Izzy’s business, it unleashes headaches for everyone else. The event has lots of workshops on the care and breeding of cats, and it culminates in a cat show with a fabulous prize—a platinum collar dangle worth some big bucks. Cattiness, of course, ensues. But the claws really come out after the prize disappears, and the wealthy director, Phillip Denford, is done in with a pair of grooming shears. Now Izzy and her furry friends, Packer and Jinx, can’t waste time pussyfooting around. They have to solve this case before a killer pounces again. Praise for the Pet Boutique Mysteries “Knox has created a warm, funny, flawed, but completely endearing sleuth in Izzy McHale.”— New York Times bestselling author Miranda James “Annie Knox dazzles!”—National Bestselling Author Melissa Bourbon “Everything you could hope for in a good cozy.”— Crimespree Magazine “A witty whodunit...one that fans of corpses and canines, felonies and felines, will lap up.”— Richmond Times-Dispatch "[A]n impressive start to a new series.”—MyShelf.com   Annie Knox is the national bestselling author of the Pet Boutique mysteries, including Paws for Murder and Groomed for Murder . She doesn’t commit—or solve—murders in her real life, but her passion for animals is one hundred percent true. She’s also a devotee of eighties music, Asian horror films, and reality TV. While Annie is a native Buckeye and has called a half dozen states home, she and her husband now live a stone’s throw from the courthouse square in a north Texas town in their very own crumbling historic house. PRAISE FOR THE PET BOUTIQUE MYSTERIES Also by Wendy Watson Writing as Annie Knox OBSIDIAN For Todd. You were an inspiration to us all. Acknowledgments CHAPTER Dee Dee Lahti stood in the middle of Ballroom One at the North Woods Hotel, her aqua kaftan billowing in the intermittent wind from an oscillating fan, a patient Maine coon hanging from her hands by his armpits. She cocked her frizzy head, scanning the hutches and velvet-draped cages lining the benches. Her mouth—generously outlined in mauve—moved softly as she maintained a running conversation with herself. Without warning, she lurched forward and down, as though she were falling, and began to shove the cat into a pink leopard-print and PVC hutch. Pamela Rawlins had been chatting idly with me as I arranged my chiffon ruffs, hand-wrought collar dangles, and delicate clips sporting rhinestones, bows, and small beaded flowers on my vendor’s table. When Dee Dee crammed that cat into the hutch, though, she stiffened and sucked in a breath, her patrician nostrils pinching shut. “I swear, that woman has less sense than a box of hair,” she muttered. “Dee Dee, darling,” she called. “You really must put the correct cat in the correct enclosure.” She bit off her words like a Connecticut blue blood. Or a shark. Dee Dee looked up, her features scrunched in confusion. “You can’t put Phantom in Charleston’s hutch.” Dee Dee stared at the cat she had just deposited and then leaned in to look at the picture pinned to the outside of the enclosure. She stood straight and looked back at us, her expressive face slack, blank. “You just put Phantom in Charleston’s hutch. Phantom should be in his own enclosure.” Nothing. “The cage with the red velvet drape.” “Are you sure?” Dee Dee said. Pamela took a beat. “Of course I’m sure, you . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence, but even Dee Dee knew where she was going. Pamela was correct that Dee Dee Lahti was a few walleye short of a fish fry. Still, the residents of Merryville were one big dysfunctional family. We could harbor grudges against one another, whisper spiteful things behind one another’s backs, and, yes, even occasionally call Dee Dee Lahti “dingbat.” To her face. But Pamela wasn’t part of the family, and I felt a surge of protectiveness when she sniped at poor Dee Dee. I’d seen Phantom and Charleston, both silver-and-white Maine coons. “Pamela,” I said, “it’s an easy mistake to make. The cats are almost identical.” Pamela angled her body to face me, her small birdlike eyes utterly flat and emotionless. “I’m aware of that, Ms. McHale. Almost identical but not actually identical. If she can’t tell the difference between those silver markings, how will she tell the difference between two lilac-point Himalayans?” I raised my chin a notch. She allowed herself a tight shake of her head. “This is all highly irregular. I told Marsha Denford that we shouldn’t vary from our usual procedures. The annual retreat for the Midwestern Cat Fanciers’ Organization has a pristine reputation precisely because we have rules and we follow them to the letter. Our silver anniversary is not the time to start bendi