eb93c43e214c621f9157c05b4b6a6878

“So can I tell him to head to your place?”

“Um…”

“I would host him myself but you know how I’m constantly under surveillance by some of the same paps that drove us out of England. Can you believe they’re using drones now, trying to snap a shot of us walking in our own backyard?”

She murmured a sound of commiseration, even as she wondered how she was going to explain to Chase that she had agreed to supply room and board to some British crook.

“He hasn’t…murdered anyone, has he?” she finally insisted.

This time it was Tessa’s turn to produce a light chuckle. “No, Odelia. He’s not a murderer. But he is in big trouble, and I can’t thank you and Chase enough for doing this.”

“So—“

“Okay, I gotta go. Dante is calling me. Toodle-pip, honey. And thanks again.”

“But I—“ But the Duchess of Essex was gone and she found herself staring at her phone in mild horror. Chase was going to be very unhappy when he discovered what she’d let herself in for this time. At least the man—whoever he was—hadn’t murdered anyone, which was a small consolation.

She chewed her bottom lip as she wondered where they were going to put this mystery guest. They’d turned the guest room into a nursery, so that was out of the question. And she couldn’t very well ask Tessa’s friend to sleep on the couch. And so it was with a groan of dismay that she finally picked up her phone again.

“Mom?” she said as the call connected. “Help!”

CHAPTER 4

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“I have to say that I like this new life of ours,” I said. I’d been lying on my back for a while, which is one of my favorite positions when in repose, and gazing up at a blue sky that was both majestic and a little bit scary, since it was filled with birds. And as everyone knows, some species of birds can be pretty keen on snapping up any bit of nourishment their beady eye can see, and they’re especially keen on a juicy morsel like me.

“What new life?” asked Dooley, who was also taking in some sun on the belly.

“Well, this new life we’re living. With the baby and all?”

Dooley turned his head to face me, and I could tell that he was not a little bit puzzled.“I don’t understand, Max. What new life with the baby?”

And then I remembered that I hadn’t yet related the conversation Odelia and Chase had been having the night before. About the future and all of that stuff.

“Okay, so Odelia has been working like a beaver fighting crime, right?” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Catching criminals and putting the bad guys behind bars?”

“Okay.”

“But now she has the baby, and so that part of her life is over.”

He chewed on this for a moment, then came back with:“I don’t understand.”

“Okay, look. So when you want to catch a criminal, you automatically put yourself in danger.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But now that she has the baby, she can’t do that kind of thing anymore. Imagine if she gets hurt? What’s going to happen to Grace?”

“She’ll be sad?”

I wasn’t fully convinced that babies are capable of feeling sad at the unexpected demise of one or both of their parental units, but that wasn’t the point I was trying to make. “Sure she’ll be sad,” I said, “but more importantly: who’s going to take care of her when Odelia is gone?”

Dooley’s eyes went wide. “Odelia is gone?!” he cried. “Where did she go?!”

“I’m just describing a hypothetical situation, Dooley,” I said. “The kind of situation a writer would describe as a ‘what if’ situation. What if Odelia keeps putting herself in jeopardy? What if something happens to her?”

He mulled this over for a moment, then said,“I’d be very sad if that happens.”

“I think we’d all be very sad if that happens, and so Chase and Uncle Alec have put their foot down: no more police business for us. Which means no more criminal investigations and no more getting involved in the sordid side of society.”

“So we’re done being cat sleuths?”

“We’re done being cat sleuths.”

His face lit up.“I think that’s great.”

“Do you? Do you really?”

“Of course! These are some very dangerous people we’ve been chasing all this time, Max. And just being close to them we could have ended up corollary damage.”

“I think you mean collateral damage.”

“So we’re officially retired now?”

“We’re officially retired,” I confirmed.

“Nice.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, seeing as there were no big birds on the horizon that I could see. No vultures or pterodactyls or suchlike.

“But we’re still going to spy out information for Odelia, aren’t we?” Dooley interrupted my peaceful slumber.

“I don’t think so, buddy. Odelia is officially retired, too.”

“But she’s still a reporter, right?”