He’d actually been the one to come up with the idea for tonight’s ambush. Nan and I had just seen to the details. Paisley, too, by keeping everyone’s spirits up with her constant optimism and kindness.
She believed the bad guy would be caught and that we would all win Detective once and for all.
And I chose to believe that, too.
“The eagle has landed,” Octo-Cat rasped in my ear. He’d been joining Nan for her spy movie marathons lately and had picked up the lingo quickly. Since no one could understand him but me, I preferred he speak plainly—but I guessed whatever made this fun for him was okay by me.
I turned toward the foyer just in time to see our target, the shelter’s Community Outreach Coordinator, Mr. Leavitt, enter my home. He wore a very becoming black tux and an enormous grin that stretched from cheek to cheek.
“Hello, stranger,” I said after I made my way over to him, hating the taste of those flirtatious words in my mouth. My heart belonged to Charles and Charles alone, but still I needed to get our prime suspect to play straight into my hands and was willing to do whatever it took.
Well, within reason, that is.
“You and your grandmother have really outdone yourselves,” he exclaimed as I led him toward the cash bar we’d set up in the dining room. “This place looks fabulous!”
“It doesn’t just look fabulous. It is fabulous,” I responded right on cue. Nan and I had practiced my role in this charade many times, and while I didn’t have an exact script, I knew all the points I was expected to hit as quickly and naturally as possible.
“We’ve already raised over twenty thousand dollars just from the table reservations alone. By the time the silent auctions and donations come in, we could be over one hundred thousand. Not bad for one night’s work, huh?”
There, I’d said all the most important things. Nan would be so proud if she were here to witness my debut performance.
Mr. Leavitt’s eyes widened with poorly concealed avarice. If he’d been carrying a drink, I imagine he may have choked on it. Instead, he merely stuttered his next words. “O-o-one hundred thousand dollars? You don’t say.”
“Oh, but I do.” I placed a delicate hand on his shoulder and laughed. “It turns out people are very generous when it comes to saving the animals.”
“Yes, I’ve always thought so.”
The bartender handed him a glass of white wine and refilled my seltzer and lime. I wasn’t much of a drinker under normal circumstances, but tonight I needed all my wits about me. I also needed to redirect Mr. Leavitt to the foyer so that Octo-Cat could keep an eye on things as they went down.
“Excuse me for just a moment,” I said, drawing my phone out of my strapless clutch and pushing send on the message that I had already composed earlier that evening.
Smiling up at Mr. Leavitt, I said, “There. Now that that’s done, let’s enjoy the party. I have so many people I’d like to introduce you to. Did you know Nan was a famous Broadway actress back in her glory days? She has many wealthy friends from her time in the city, and several of them came out to support her—to support the shelter—tonight.”
“Fantastic,” Mr. Leavitt said and took another sip from his glass.
A loud tapping followed by a burst of microphone interference filled the room, causing everyone to fall silent.
“Excuse me, excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,” Nan cried into the mic. “I just wanted to say a huge thanks to a donor who asked to remain anonymous. She just gave us a fifty-thousand-dollar donation, single-handedly putting us over our fundraising goal for the evening. Thanks to her big heart, the shelter can stay open for another two full years and we can help all of Glendale’s stray pets find their forever homes.”
Everyone clapped politely. Some even gasped in awe.
What an amazingly generous gift… had it been real.
“Oh, this night has already exceeded our wildest expectations,” I gushed to Mr. Leavitt, continuing the carefully planned facade. “Nan and I had hoped our little gala would be a success, but we had no idea it would raise so much money.”
Nan snaked through the crowd and joined the two of us in the foyer. “Mr. Leavitt,” she enthused. “I wanted to hand you this check personally. A fifty-thousand-dollar donation. Can you believe it?” She pressed the check into his hand, which was my signal.
“A problem with the vegetarian dinner option?” I shrieked into my headpiece. “No, no, no. We can’t have that, especially not at a fundraiser for animals. I’ll be right there.”
I pressed my Bluetooth device to imitate ending a call and then turned toward Nan with a panicked expression. “C’mon, I think this one might require both of us. It was nice seeing you again, Mr. Leavitt. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
“It’s all you, bud,” I mumbled into the headpiece as Nan and I rushed outside. “Operation Red Dot is in full swing.”
Chapter Twenty
As much as Octo-Cat had hated being tricked by the red dot when I had to capture him for our vet visit, that little moment of treachery served as the entire basis for our plan to catch Mr. Leavitt red-dot-handed.
“It’s not about the red dot,” Octo-Cat had waxed philosophically. “It’s about what the red dot represents.”
He’d gone on to explain that, for cats, the red dot itself is irresistible and basically impossible to ignore. My cat then urged us to find Mr. Leavitt’s red dot, and by that time Nan had already said it best: Money is its own motive, whether you have it or not.
From there, we flew full force into planning the charity gala and, with it, our master plan. So, the fifty-thousand-dollar donation was a total fraud. We had fake checks printed with a fake name and fake address and even a made-up account number, counting on our bad guy to do the bad thing and steal it.
Officer Bouchard had gone undercover in plain clothes to stake out the bank in Dewdrop Springs. At the end of the day, Mr. Leavitt had a decision to make. He could either continue to slowly embezzle funds from the failing animal shelter, or he could grab the big check and make a run for it. Our hope was that the fifty-thousand-dollar carrot—or red dot, using Octo-Cat’s preferred analogy—was enough to encourage him to do the latter.
“He’s leaving! He’s leaving!” Octo-Cat cried inside my ear while I pretended to be busy examining a tray of broccoli florets.
“Text him,” I told Nan, who had a text to Officer Bouchard ready to go on her phone. As much as I hated being left out of the action, my role in this ambush had officially ended.
“Good work, Octavius,” I said before removing my headpiece. After that, I pulled my phone out of my clutch and sent a quick text to Charles.
May I have this dance?
He found me a short while later, and together we swayed on my front lawn until the stars came out…
Actually, that would have been incredibly romantic, but we did have to face one minor distraction first.
“He’s got him.” I heard Nan’s words only moments before I felt her arms wrap around me from behind. She joined Charles and me in our dance as she whispered in my ear. “That fool went to the same exact bank as before. Turns out it had been him the whole time, except for the last two checks, of course. I’ll tell you more when I know more.” She gave me a kiss on the cheek and then wandered off.
“Your nan just pinched my butt,” Charles told me with a laugh.
“Nan’s gotta Nan,” I responded, rolling my eyes. She and I could have a talk about boundaries later. Right now I wanted to enjoy my evening held tightly in Charles’s strong arms.
“How’d you know it wasn’t Trish?” he asked me.
“It was too perfect,” I murmured, ready to put this whole thing behind me and enjoy the rest of the gala as best I could.