Kiki Larkin

Kiki Larkin was the beloved feline pet of Megan Larkin.

Megan found the abandoned Kiki one rainy day in Larkin City:

MEGAN ARRIVED AT HER office early Monday morning. The cold winds from Friday blustered in a steady downpour of rain over the weekend, and it continued coming in droves.

She made a dash from her Acura to the doorway of the office, pausing to shake her umbrella and prop it upside down against the building. She was just about to enter when she heard a soft mewling sound. She glanced around her, trying to find the source of the noise. It sounded like a cat in distress, so she was driven to help it.

The fenced area in front of the office building featured a rock garden. Small, white-painted pebbles surrounded an eastern black oak tree contained in a red-brick planter. Megan stepped toward the enclosure, braving the rain without her umbrella.

An old laundry basket was lying atop the rocks, the outer edges pushed down into the white stones. She spied a kitten through the squared-hole design of the laundry basket, its mouth opening and closing with cries, staring at her frantically. Someone obviously placed the kitten under the basket, trapping it against the rocks, and now it was miserably wet and bedraggled.

Megan nimbly climbed over the short fence. She lifted the laundry basket, freeing the kitten from its cruel prison. It began to dart off, so Megan called out: "Here kitty, kitty." The tiny feline stopped short, looking at her cautiously. "Here kitty," she repeated. The cat hesitated, so Megan used the opportunity to scoop the animal into her arms. Then she hopped the fence again and ran for the office building.

Kiki also played an integral part in the ending of Megan's Legacy and therefore the Collective Obsessions Saga as a whole:

Megan felt familiar cold pewter against her chest. She looked down, seeing Kiki with her paw on the reliquary heart locket Luke gave her after their wedding. She'd rarely taken it off since, nearly a year ago.

Prying the black-beaded chain from Kiki's paw, Megan yanked the locket from her neck. She walked to the open window and tossed it out to sea, hopefully to follow Luke into hell. She uttered the words he had specially etched inside the locket, which she'd memorized the day he gave it to her, her voice clear and strong in the lighthouse tower:

"Where I am always thou art, Thy image lives within my heart."

That was how Lyle Gould found her seconds later.

Kiki Larkin appears in Megan's Legacy. Personal note: Kiki Larkin was based on Deidre Dalton's cat Kiki Alexandra O'Toole (2006-2018).

Excerpts from Megan's Legacy ©Deidre Dalton. All rights reserved. Books in the Collective Obsessions Saga by Deidre Dalton may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the author. All eight books in the saga are works of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

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