Group trips can be a fun, cheap way to see the sights, but they're not supposed to turn deadly. Hi, I'm Meredith Duffy. As an aspiring travel blogger, traveling by tour bus was supposed to provide new material for my side-gig. That all changes when a passenger dies on board, turning our transportation into a crime scene. A forced detour to a cat café sounds like purrfect blog material, but I soon find myself distracted when a mischievous cat leads me straight into the middle of the investigation. Now the cops eye me as a suspect, while a trio of baristas want me to adopt the frisky feline. As cute as that troublesome cat is, there's no way I could get him home, right? And besides, if I can't untangle the clues, identify the real culprit, and get the tour back on schedule, my final destination on this trip won't be home. It will be a tour of the local jail from inside a cell. ***

Originally published in the limited-time, no-longer-available When the Cat's Away cozy mystery anthology from Whiskered Mysteries in August 2021. Minor edits have been made since then, but the story remains largely unchanged.