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“Well, I just hope you’ll be able to impress it upon her that this kind of behavior simply will not stand. Imagine if people find out about this. And they discover that I didn’t press charges. Can you imagine the damage this will do to my reputation?”

“I know, and I’m sorry, Charlene. And I will talk to her, I promise.”

After she’d hung up, and seeing Ellie’s questioning look, she shrugged and said, “Family stuff. Nothing to worry about.”

Ellie chuckled.“Trust me, I know all about family stuff.”

The door opened and Max and Dooley walked in, looking a little perturbed. Unfortunately she couldn’t talk to her cats now that Ellie was in the room with them, but that didn’t mean her cats couldn’t talk to her. And they did—very vociferously, too!

“Odelia, Wilbur just chased us away from the General Store,” said Max, “because he and Gran got into some kind of argument last night, and Gran hit his car with her car, and now he doesn’t want us near the store again.”

“He called us spies,” said Dooley. “Spies for Gran.”

“And also, a man has been spying on us and filming us. He’s a big man, young, and seems to know a lot about us, and also about you—he knew that we’re your emissaries and how we collect bits of news for you and everything!”

“He’s Carl Strauss’s sex maniac buddy,” Dooley announced, quite surprisingly. “He’s probably upset with you because he thinks that you attacked his sex maniac friend last night, and now he wants to find out more about you.”

Never before had Odelia felt so hamstrung by the presence of another person in the room. She wanted to ask Max and Dooley about a million questions, but just had to sit there and play dumb!

“I’m going to get some coffee,” said Ellie. “Do you want something?”

“You know what? Could you maybe run down to the bakery and get me a couple of donuts? I suddenly have this incredible craving for donuts.”

Ellie grinned.“You really have that cop DNA, don’t you? Sure, I’ll get you some donuts.”

The moment the girl had left, Odelia burst out,“What’s all this about a sex maniac guy stalking you and filming you? And what in the name of all that is holy has gotten into Wilbur all of a sudden?”

And before long, and in as few words as possible, Max and Dooley recounted to her the events that had transpired that morning. And before Ellie returned carrying a bag of glazed donuts with sprinkles, Odelia’s life had been made a little more complicated still.

23

We’d arrived home after an eventful day spent in town, and were pleased to find that we had the house to ourselves. And so after having eaten our fill, both in crunchy kibble and what was left over from the pouches of soft food Odelia or her mom or grandma like to dole out to us in the evening, we decided to go and sit outside for a while and enjoy those last rays of sunshine of the day. And I was just about to head out when I saw through the window that Ted was taking his dogs for a walk again—and this naturally included Brutus and Harriet, who were now part and parcel of his canine family.

Harriet looked distinctly unhappy, but Brutus was manfully persistent and pranced along in Rufus’s wake.

“Poor Harriet,” said Dooley. “Maybe we should ask her to leave Brutus and come back to us?”

I also felt sorry for the Persian. Slowly but inexorably all the things she loved were taken away from her: she couldn’t sing the soprano parts in cat choir anymore, and she couldn’t even eat her favorite cat food any longer.

Rufus must have seen us glancing out at them through the window, for he gave us a little wave. Oddly enough there was a slight sense of frustration in his eyes, too, if I read his expression well, which I think I did.

“Rufus doesn’t look very happy either,” I remarked therefore.

“I saw him this morning. He complained that Harriet has been hounding him.”

“Hounding him?” I asked with a laugh. “How can a cat hound a dog?”

“I don’t know but that’s what he said. He didn’t have a lot of time to talk, because he had to join Marcie for his morning walk.”

“Odd,” I said, but then shrugged it off.

We walked out just when Odelia and Chase arrived home, and they seemed to have decided to follow our example, for they also joined us outside, only whereas we stretched out on the smooth lawn, enjoying the cool feel of the grass tickling our bellies, our humans stretched out on the lawn chairs, a cooling glass of some fruity liquid in hand, complete with straws and all.

“So I talked to the people at Spindler,” said Chase, “and they claim that Carl was one of their best customers.”

“Oh, the dating app people?” said Odelia.

“They say that Carl spent so much time on their app that in short order he’d become their number one customer.”

“And Zoe?”

“No dice, I’m afraid. Whoever Zoe is, they have no idea.”

“But she is on Spindler.”

“Oh, sure, but they take the privacy of their customers very seriously. Anyone can set up a profile with them. And there’s no way to know who’s behind the profile.”

“So Zoe could literally be anyone.”

“Pretty much.”