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Being locked up inside an office with one cat who seemed annoyed to be in our presence (Harriet), one cat who was anxious to get home and be near his litter box (Brutus) and one dog who had been doing nothing but eat since we got there (Rambo) isn’t exactly my idea of a good time.

And we had this mysterious cat killer to thank for it. He might not have taken our lives, but he’d certainly taken our freedom now that Odelia had decided we should stick close to either her or another member of her family until this attacker was caught.

Odelia had arranged for a large helping of dog kibble to be delivered to her office, and a (slightly less large) helping of cat kibble, and for once we all got to share one big bowl of water, but apart from that, the situation was less than ideal.

“I’d take you home but I have to finish this story,” she said when I gave her a troubled look.

She’d opened the back door, which led out onto a sort of small courtyard where we could do our business if we needed to, in the tiny patch of greenery, and amongst Dan Goory’s roses, of which he was particularly proud, but that was pretty much it.

“Here,” she said when I continued to give her less-than-happy glances, and handed me a tablet computer. “Make yourselves useful and try to figure out where I can find Charlene’s uncle’s former associate, will you? His name is Brett Cragg.”

So we gathered around the tablet computer, Brutus, Dooley and I, and started idly surfing the web, in search of a clue as to where we could find this Brett Cragg person.

He wasn’t on Facebook, though, and not on LinkedIn either, or Twitter or Instagram. In fact we didn’t find a trace of him anywhere, which made me think he was one of those rare individuals who didn’t spend their every waking hour poring over social media.

“Max?” whispered Brutus, darting a surreptitious eye at Odelia. “Maybe we can escape!”

“Escape?” I said. “Why do you want to escape? We’re safe in here. No one can get at us as long as we stay close to Odelia and Rambo.” Trading one’s safety for one’s freedom is a tough bargain, but one I’d grudgingly embraced. Not so, apparently, my friend.

“But we talked about this, Max,” he said. “We were going to recruit Clarice. She can be the one protecting us from now on. And I think she’ll probably do a better job than Rambo.”

We both cast a quick glance at the big dog, who was now snoring loudly, drool bubbling on his lips and dripping onto Odelia’s nice office carpet. He’d already eaten half a bag of dog kibble, and I had the distinct impression that second half wouldn’t last much longer either.

“All he does is sleep and eat,” said Brutus, and not unreasonably either. “I don’t think he’s cut out to be a guard dog.”

“No, he doesn’t seem to be the guard dog Odelia had envisioned when she hired him,” I agreed.

“So why don’t we slip out the back now, and see if we can’t find Clarice?!”

Dooley didn’t seem overly excited by the prospect of this ‘great escape’ either.

“But what is Odelia going to say? She’ll be very upset with us if we run away.”

“Odelia will understand,” said Brutus. “If we explain to her why we did it, she’ll be okay.”

“And what about Harriet?” asked Dooley.

We all looked over to where Harriet was lying on a settee, idly licking her fur and pretending the rest of us didn’t exist.

“Harriet is still very upset with me,” said Brutus sadly. “So I don’t think she’ll exactly sound the alarm if we make a break for it now.”

“And what if Clarice says no?” I asked. “Then what do we do?”

“Then we come back here—chances are Odelia won’t even notice we’re gone.”

This time three pairs of cat’s eyes swiveled to our human, who was typing away at her desk, her focus on her story unwavering.

Brutus was right. Odelia probably wouldn’t notice if we took off for a little while.

“All right,” I finally said. “So let’s go and find Clarice.”

“I would feel a lot safer with Clarice in our corner,” Dooley said, trying to convince himself to go along with Brutus’s daring scheme.

“Of course you would!” said Brutus. “This cat killer is no match for Clarice. So let’s go already, before Rambo wakes up and alerts Odelia.”

And so our adventure began. Ever so quietly we snuck out of the office, down the corridor, then out into the miniature courtyard and then it was a cinch for us to scale the wall that surrounded Dan’s little patch of green and we were out.

“I hope she’s not out in the woods,” I said.

Clarice doesn’t have a fixed abode, like the rest of us do. She can usually be found searching the dumpsters behind the stores on Main Street, but she’s just as likely to hang out in the woods in the hilly area near our town, where Hetta Fried owns the Writer’s Lodge, a cabin she likes to rent out to writers and artists. And since said artists and writers are rich enough to be able to afford Hetta’s cabin in the woods, they’re usually not too stingy to share their copious meals with Clarice.

We quickly crossed the street and then we were traipsing along the sidewalk.