Rodney Ross

It’s Christmas Eve and it’s snowing, but at least one creature is still stirring: a tabby cat with white paws named Otis. He’s protesting from his carrier in the backseat of a rented Kia, en route to a veterinarian clink. Otis is neither ill nor in need of vaccination; Jaston Calderone has come out from assisted living to tie what few loose ends his gay son Mitchell’s suicide left behind, and one of them is Otis.<br><br>As the wind whips up bluish columns of white, Jaston navigates the clogged streets in a town he doesn’t know, looking for someone to swiftly euthanize Otis. He doesn’t suspect something spectral is already at work ... that a guardian angel has crafted a plan not for Jaston’s redemption, but for Otis.

Otis

Her emotionless gaze made him discomfortingly aware of his request. “Sure they do.”


A gust hurled itself against the window. Otis, spooked, scuttled back into his crate to squat in the back, where he kept a paw atop something.


“What are you protecting, big guy?” she asked.


He moved to a lobby brag wall of doctorates and accreditations from crown molding to baseboard. “His play pretty,” he said absently. “He moans with it in his mouth in the middle of the night and drops it near the sofa bed.”


Tam wriggled out a small felt mallard with an orange bill and a long brown throat. The gray abdomen had clearly been repaired at some point, hand-sewn with white thread. “It’s brought as an offering, prey he caught for you. He’s trying to earn your praise.”


Chapter 3