Mimi's Demons

Chapter 97: Lord Filth and Cats

"I have it under control," he said. "We've already caught one of them."

Her eyebrows rose. "There's more than one?"

"Of course there's more than one. Serial killers call attention to themselves. One murder you can get away with, but more than one? You're just asking for someone to notice. Each murder is an opportunity for evidence to be left behind as well."

She gave a little smirk that reminded him of curving cat lips. "You would know."

"Yes. I would know. But you know, most of my job isn't killing people."

"Yeah yeah, menial work like that is outsourced."

He didn't really care for how lightly she was talking about murder, but at least she was smiling now. And her vocabulary included a word like 'outsourced,' that was something.

"With more people, even if one gets caught, the murders can go on. It's one of the reasons why the syndicate is so difficult to pin down."

"I thought that was because you bribed the cops and people in office and stuff."

He snorted. "Love, kitten, I don't need to do such things. Those people come to me and ask for bribes."

Her whole face twisted into such a comical look of disgust, he had to laugh. If only the Secretary of State could see his Mimi's opinion of him on her face. Duke, after all, had been the one to turn down the Secretary's request that he give him connections to Epstein's Island, or what was left of it. Duke did not run that trash. Epstein had started that on his own and made sure not to give Duke a reason to pay attention to him.

"They're—what the heck! Why even become cops if you're just going to—and don't office guys make, like, a lot of money?"

"A lot of money is never enough for most people. Even those who most would consider 'rich' consider themselves, at best, 'doing alright.' Never rich."

Mimi narrowed her eyes at him. "You're rich."

"Rich enough to buy you a snow leopard Maine Coon mix, yes."

She rolled her eyes. "A cake would have sufficed."

"So would a thank you."

"I've said thank you plenty, and I LOVE Jaxon!"

"I still think Jaxon is a dumb name for a cat."

"You're a dumb name for a cat."

Duke smiled. He could mark Mimi's fear as successfully derailed.

Or so he thought until she wriggled around to get as his laptop.

There wasn't anything of concern on his screen for the moment, but it was still bad manners.

He reclosed it. "Excuse you."

"What?"

"You don't just go rifling through people's computers. I shouldn't have let you seen my work before now, it's given you the idea you can just do whatever you want."

"But I'm supposed to be inheriting your job one day, aren't I?" She wriggled a bit, impatiently. "Got to learn the deets."

The fact aside that she was learning the retarded slang of Cromwell and Juli aside, Duke's stomach turned hard and cold.

It must have shown on his face for Mimi went still and hunched up her shoulders.

"I'm sorry," she said, a bit too contrite for normal.

It told Duke the serial killer wasn't completely off her mind yet. And, really, it was silly of him to think it ever would. Forget a normal twelve-year-old, even adults would be unnerved by being threatened by bodies. Even he was.