Читать онлайн "The Cat Caper" - Фитц Молли - RuLit

“Angela,” he groaned, “haven’t you ever heard that you should let sleeping cats lie?”

“I’m pretty sure the expression is—you know what? It doesn’t matter. C’mon, I have a surprise for you.”

Whoa, close one. I almost used the word dog in a sentence. That little slipup would have ruined our whole night, but I caught myself just in time.

“A surprise?” he asked, yawning so wide that his whiskers overlapped in front of his nose. “What is it?”

“You’ll see. C’mon.” I patted my leg and motioned for him to follow.

But he sat his butt back down on the hardwood floor and flicked his tail. “Tell me, or I’m not coming,” he demanded.

“Octo-Cat, can’t you just—Ugh, fine. Today marks one year since we first met. Do you remember that day?”

“So you mean it’s been one year and one day since Ethel died?” he asked, raising his eyebrows and staring me down.

Oh, I didn’t think of that. I hoped he wouldn’t be too sad to celebrate.

“I’m just giving you a hard time,” he said with a cruel laugh, trotting over as he shook his head. “Happy anniversary, Angela. I’m glad you’re my human.”

Footsteps sounded on the porch. I hadn’t even heard Nan pull up, but now she was here, and we could officially begin our little party. I’d asked my boyfriend, Charles, to wait a couple hours before he turned up, since he and Octo-Cat didn’t get along particularly well as of late.

I secretly loved that my cat was jealous of my boyfriend but hoped that he’d eventually get over it.

“Nan?” I called when Octo-Cat and I reached the bottom of the stairs, but she still hadn’t entered. Padding over to the door, I twisted the knob and—

A wagging ball of black fur pounced into the house.

“I’m here! I’m home! Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy!” the little dog cried, then immediately squatted and peed on the welcome mat.

I turned to Octo-Cat who stood on the last stair with his back arched and his tail at full-blown puffball status. “Angela, what is this?” he screamed, unwittingly drawing the dog’s attention over to him.

“A cat! A cat! Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Oh, boy!” The dog, who upon closer examination appeared to be a Chihuahua, bounded right up to Octo-Cat and pressed his nose to the cat’s butt.

Octo-Cat hissed, growled, swiped with his claws, and sent the little dog shrieking away.

Yipe! Yipe! Yipe!

“What’s all this commotion?” Nan asked, charging into the house, spotting the little black dog and scooping the poor, whimpering baby into her arms. “Okay, fess up. Who hurt my Paisley?”

“Nan…” I pinched the bridge of my nose to stave off the rapidly building headache. “Why is there a dog in our house?”

“This is Paisley. Yes, she is,” Nan cooed in a baby voice, and the Chihuahua licked her cheek, the horrible scary cat and the pain he’d inflicted apparently forgotten. “She lives here now.”

“Oh, heck no!” Octo-Cat shouted from his spot on the stairs. “I thought we were celebrating me tonight, not taking a visit to the ninth circle of hell!”

“Nan,” I said trying to make peace before everyone lost their cool. “We can’t have a dog here. Octo-Cat hates dogs.”

“Hatesssssss,” Octo-Cat hissed, then growled again.

“He hates me?” the shivering, little dog asked. “He doesn’t even know me. I’m Paisley, and I’m a good girl.”

Nan continued to talk in a goochie-goo voice, keeping her eyes glued to the mostly black tri-color Chihuahua in her arms. “Well, I saw this little girl at the shelter and right away she stole my heart. What was I supposed to do?”

She looked up and narrowed her eyes on me. “Was I supposed to let her stay in that cage all by herself? Or, Heaven forbid, let them put her down when the shelter got too full?” She covered Paisley’s oversized ears and frowned at me.

“No, I mean…” I sputtered. “No, of course you couldn’t do that.” Ack, I was such a softie.

“Octavius is just going to have to get used to his new housemate, because I’m not taking her back,” Nan said in a way that made it more than clear that this topic was not up for discussion. “C’mon, baby, let’s go outside and meet the forest creatures.”

Once Nan and Paisley were safely outside, I searched around for Octo-Cat so I could both explain and apologize on Nan’s behalf.

But he was nowhere to be found.

Crud, he was never going to forgive me for this one.

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What’s After That?

Lately my life has seemed pretty perfect—great house, great gig as my own boss, great new boyfriend, and the world’s most awesome talking cat. Turns out I shouldn’t have let my guard down…

Even though my private investigation firm is brand new, I’ve already got some not-so-friendly competition, and it’s coming from the sticky-fingered raccoon who lives under my front porch. I have no doubt he’s robbing his clients, since he’s stealing from mine, too.

Things go from irritating to downright dangerous when he swipes a little trinket from my attic, one that suggests dark secrets and spells big trouble for my beloved Nan.

I need to learn more, but that’s not going to be easy since the person of interest lives under the same roof. Can I trust this raccoon racketeer with something so dear? Unfortunately, I haven’t got any other options.

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