13. GRIZZLY GRIEVANCE
Chapter One
I’m Angie Russo, and lately my life has been one train wreck after another. And, yeah, I do mean that literally. First my cat and I found ourselves aboard a derailed train about six months back, and then just a couple weeks ago, my nan crashed her sports car on the highway with us in it.
I’ve started to fear various modes of transportation just as much as I’ve feared electric coffee makers for a while now. In my life, both have only led to trouble.
And that’s how it all started, too.
I got zapped by an old coffee maker and woke up with the strange new ability to talk to animals. And those talking animals have led to most of my problems, like the aforementioned vehicle wrecks. I’ve also dealt with more than anyone’s fair share of murders, thefts, kidnappings, and other nefarious crimes. Then again, I guess that’s what I get for setting up shop as a private investigator.
Still…
I could really do with just a week or two where nothing life-altering comes around and rocks my world.
I can’t even remember the last time I enjoyed a good old-fashioned Netflix binge or spent the full day in bed reading. Also, I almost never get paid for my investigative work, which begs the question: Why do I keep signing myself up for more and more?
My partner at Pet Whisperer P.I. has zero issues saying no. Of course, he’s not the one doing any of the talking. He wouldn’t miss napping in a sunbeam or giving himself a slow, leisurely tongue bath for anything… Oh, did I mention my partner is a cat?
He’s a standard tabby with an oversized attitude, but don’t tell him I said that. His full name is Octavius Maxwell Ricardo Edmund Frederick Fulton Russo, Esq, P.I. (a name he freely and regularly adds to). I prefer to call him Octo-Cat. He’s not a fan, but at least he’s stopped arguing with me about it.
The trust fund his previous owner left him pays all our bills, and those rare moments when he offers me genuine displays of love and affection are the brightest spots in my day.
We also live in our—or rather his—giant manor house alongside my nan and her rescue Chihuahua, Paisley. Pringle the nosy reality TV addict lives in a treehouse in our backyard; he’s a raccoon. And then we have Charles, my big-time lawyer boyfriend, to round out our motley crew.
Our latest adventure took Nan, Octo-Cat, Paisley, and me on a cross-country trip to visit my cat’s girlfriend, a former show Himalayan named Grizabella. On the way, I learned that Nan has been blabbing what is meant to be a secret ability to random friends of hers on the Internet.
While that was going on, a militarized flock of seagulls bribed me into helping with their turf dispute, a case that mainly fell to Charles and Pringle since the rest of us were out of town.
And even though we held up our end of the bargain, the seagulls needed more time to deliver on theirs. I trust them, though. Any day now, they’ll lead me to my long-lost grandmother and I’ll finally learn the truth about my lineage.
Until then, I’ve been doing my best to focus on other things. It hasn’t been going well…
Mainly because my cat makes non-stop demands, and I’m just too tired to argue with him anymore. That’s why I’m driving more than thirty minutes out to Misty Harbor to purchase a lobster roll from his preferred venue, the Little Dog Diner. And when I get home, he probably won’t even say thank you for sending me to another far-flung end of Blueberry Bay to fulfill his latest request.
Yeah…
Have I mentioned just how badly I need a break from my life?
[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]
When I returned that afternoon with a bag of lobster rolls in hand, I found a pair of seagulls roosting on my porch.
“Bravo?” I asked as I parked my car and ambled over to greet them. “And is that Abigull? No way.”
The smaller of the two birds puffed out her feathers and let out a tinkling giggle. When I last saw her a few weeks back, she’d been little more than a hatchling. Now she was almost as large as her adoptive father—and a very happy-looking bird at that.
“We’ve finished our search for your grandmother,” Bravo informed me without further pretense. He’d promised to put me in touch with my long-lost biological grandmother in return for Charles, Pringle, and me assisting in a land dispute with another flock. And I knew he was trying his best todeliver on his end of the deal, but the more that time passed, the less I believed any of us would be able to find her.
I never should have doubted them, I realized now as an enormous smile stretched across my face.“That’s wonderful. Can you take me to her now?” I moved back toward my car, but the seagulls didn’t follow.
“She’s not here anymore,” Abigull said with a sad shake of her head.
Bravo picked up where his ward left off.“She was here in the Bay for a long time, but now we can’t locate her.”
“Did she…?” I swallowed hard, unable to believe the horrible timing. “Did she die?”
“Oh gosh no!” The little bird chirped and shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Nothing like that.”
“I’ve put my best gulls on scouting duty, but so far we’re unable to locate her new residence,” Bravo added, all business, while Abigull seemed much more concerned about tending to my feelings.
“So what now?” I asked with a sigh. I appreciated that they’d tried but also felt terribly heartbroken that I may never get to meet my missing family member after all.
“We’ll keep searching, but we’ll need to expand the radius. She may have left the state. It’s no problem, really. We will find her, but it’s just going to take a little longer than originally estimated.”
“Thank you,” I said, working hard to show them a smile even though the news they’d just brought me had ruined my whole day. “Thank you for not giving up.”
“Nothing can stop a bird on a mission,” Bravo informed me with a narrowed gaze.
“Yeah,” his adoptive daughter chimed in.
“Now we must be off.” Bravo immediately launched into the sky with Abigull at his tail.
“Bye, Angie,” the girl gull called as they soared away on the winds.
I slumped down onto the worn oak porch steps and sat there for a while, just me and the dwindling warmth of the setting sun.
What would I do if the flock failed to find my grandmother? I’d already questioned my remaining family in Larkhaven, searched every nook and cranny of the Internet… I’d even tried the genealogy route but had come up with absolutely nothing.
Somewhere out there, I had a grandmother I hadn’t even known existed until last year. Her entire family had been stolen from her when my grandpa took their baby—my mother—and asked Nan to take her somewhere far away.
None of us knew why, and my grandpa had already passed by the time I learned of his existence. And now these two huge players in my personal history were nothing more than a giant question mark, and I doubted I’d ever really be whole again until I could find her.
Chapter Two
Octo-Cat found me on the porch a while later. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since the pair of seagulls delivered the news of their delay in finding my family. It must have been a while, though, because the light had faded and a chill that hadn’t been there before now hung in the air.
“What are you doing out here?” Octo-Cat asked after pushing through the automatic pet door and coming to sit at my side.
I would have thought he was showing a rare moment of affection, except the next words out of his mouth were,“And where is my lobster roll?”
I sighed and pushed the almost transparent paper bag over to him.
“It’s almost all the way cold,” he whined as he crinkled his way into the sack, but he accepted the food nonetheless.
I sat and watched the branches of the white ash trees that lined our property as they blew in the wind.
“Do you—uh—want some?” my cat offered hesitantly, his face a distorted mask of concern through the oily paper. His eyes remained glued to the food, daring me to accept the offer.