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“She should have left well enough alone,” said Brutus, earning himself nods of agreement from both myself and Dooley.

And as if she’d heard our words, Harriet came sashaying into the room, then hopped up onto the bed and Odelia’s fearsome foursome was complete.

“Also hiding from the vacuum cleaner?” asked Dooley.

“I don’t need to hide from a machine that is doing a great job eradicating everything that is hideous and odious about the world we live in,” she announced primly. But she wasn’t fooling me. Like Brutus, she kept darting anxious glances in the direction of the door. And the moment Marge came stomping up the stairs, no doubt intent on giving the upstairs the same treatment she’d awarded the downstairs, the Persian actually whimpered and slipped under the covers, joining Brutus, Dooley and, of course, myself.

We may be fearless in the face of murder and mayhem, but if there’s one thing that can beat us, it’s a simple contraption designed to extract those dust bunnies from their hiding place and deposit them into either a plastic receptacle—Hoover’s bagless variety—or a strange shapeless bag, never to be seen or heard from again. Oh, the horror!

Silly, of course, but I never claimed cats are perfect creatures.

So you’ve discovered our Achilles’ heel.

Don’t use it against us!

Chapter 6

Marge frowned as she applied the vacuum cleaner to her daughter’s upstairs bedroom floor. Harriet had been absolutely right. The house was a mess. Dust and dirt everywhere, clothes still in the hamper in the bathroom, dishes in the sink… She didn’t mind cleaning up after her daughter from time to time, but since this was already the third time this month, she was starting to think something was seriously wrong.

Odelia worked hard, of course, and so did her boyfriend Chase, a cop with the local police force. But she shouldn’t have to rely on her mother to take care of basic household stuff like this. And if she didn’t have the time, maybe she should hire a cleaner.

And as she vowed to have a talk with Odelia that night, she thought she heard the doorbell chime out its customary tune.

She shut down the vacuum cleaner and listened intently for a moment. Yep, there it was again. She wondered for a moment whether to open the door or not, but then decided she might as well have a look.

“You can come out now,” she said as she walked out of the room. “I’m done in here.”

Four cats gratefully stuck their heads from under the covers and sighed a collective sigh of relief. Marge smiled. It was funny to see them go into hiding the moment the vacuum cleaner came out. Well, funny for her. Not as much fun for them, poor babies.

She quickly walked down the stairs and headed for the door. The moment she opened it she thought she experienced d?j?-vu, for the two men standing there looked very familiar indeed.

“Johnny? Jerry?” she asked, taken aback a little by the sight of the twosome. “Is that really you?”

The two men appeared equally surprised by this meeting, for they goggled for a moment, then Johnny, the biggest of the two, opened his arms, his face breaking into a wide grin, and cried,“Mrs. P! It’s so nice to see you again!”

Marge wasn’t prepared to allow herself to be hugged by the big guy, though, so she took a step back, folded her arms across her chest, and frowned. “You have a lot of explaining to do, Johnny Carew. And you better make it good, or I’m calling the police.”

Jerry, Johnny’s ferret-faced partner in crime, contrived to beam at her, which oddly enough made him look like a ferret in heat. “Now, Mrs. P,” he said, his voice smooth like butter. “No need to be like that. We mean you no harm. Isn’t that right, Johnny?”

“Yeah, that’s right, Jer,” said Johnny, a mountain of a man whose face displayed all the hallmarks of a goofy kid, including a certain guilelessness that was remarkable in one who’d seen the inside of a prison cell for a big chunk of his life. The two career criminals had, once upon a time,been assigned to Marge for their community service, to be carried out at the library she managed. Apart from stacking books on their designated shelves, they’d also knocked out a wall in the basement, tunneled into the Capital First Bank, absconding with the contents of no less than fifteen safe-deposit boxes. They’d escaped to Mexico, but had recently been apprehended in Tulum after Johnny had posted a selfie on the beach, sipping a daiquiri and having a great old time.

“So you’re back,” said Marge, who still hadn’t forgiven the bank robbers for taking advantage of her good heart.

“Yeah, they caught us in Mexico,” said Johnny sadly.

“No thanks to you,” Jerry grumbled. “You just had to post that selfie, didn’t you?”

“But, Jer, how else were people going to know how we were doing?”

“They weren’t supposed to know how we were doing, you great lummox.”

“The cops shipped us back stateside,” Johnny explained. “Even though I told them we liked Mexico a lot better. The weather is much nicer,” he said. “And the beaches, too.”