“I don’t have Diego issues,” said Dooley. “But I want him gone anyway. Cause I don’t want Max to be kicked out of Odelia’s house.” He placed a paw on my shoulder. “You’re my friend, too, Max, and I don’t want you to go and live with Emma Watson or Tom Hanks.”

  “Thanks, Dooley,” I said, my voice breaking a little. “And you, Brutus. This means a lot to me, you guys. It’s so great to have real friends who’ve got my back.”

  “We’re in this together,” Brutus said earnestly. “And together is how we will succeed.”

  Suddenly, the sound of applause startled us, and when we looked up we saw that none other than Diego was seated on the wall that dead-ended the alley, and was clapping his paws. The sound was muffled, for cat paws have cushions, which makes it hard for us to clap. Still, Diego managed just fine, and I could see his lips pucker into his customary sneer.

  “I’m touched,” he said. “So much love and affection. It’s almost as if the seventies are back. Next you’ll want to be wearing flowers in your hair and talk about brotherly love.”

  “What do you want?” Brutus growled, his face taking on a menacing scowl.

  “Want? From you losers? Nothing. You provide me with a lot of entertainment, though. In fact you idiots are more fun to watch than The Big Bang Theory. For my money, Max is Leonard, Brutus is Howard, and Dooley is Raj. That only leaves Sheldon, but I think we can all agree that he’s too smart for a bunch of morons like yourselves.”

  “And what about Penny?” asked Dooley, who seemed interested in this comparison.

  “Great question, Raj,” said Diego musingly. “I’d like to say that Harriet is Penny, and I’m the one she’s decided to give her heart to.”

  “So… who are you?” asked Dooley, a look of confusion stealing over his features.

  “I’m the cat who’s canceling the show and launching his own spinoff.”

  “Like… The Big Diego Theory?”

  “I like that,” Diego admitted with an indulgent smirk. “Though I might go with The Diego and Harriet Show. Cause it’s gonna be Diego and Harriet doing the horizontal mambo every hour, on the hour.”

  “Don’t even think about it,” grunted Brutus. “Your little show won’t even make it past the writing stage. The network will cancel you before you make it into production.”

  “Me and Odelia, who’s the network executive in charge of greenlighting new shows, are this close,” he said, holding his claws an inch apart, “and she told me my show’s a go.”

  I was having a hard time following the analogy, but I didn’t like what I was hearing. “Odelia told you… what, exactly?”

  He shrugged. “Odelia is tired of you, Max. Oh, she liked you well enough in the beginning, but after seeing your ugly mug moping around the house all these years she’s in the market for something new. Something fresh and exciting.” He gestured at himself. “Moi.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said. “Odelia would never say something like that.”

  “She would never say it to your face, Max, which is why she said it to me. She’s had it with you. She’s sick and tired of having some fat slob stalking her and she’s thinking hard about how to get rid of you so you’ll never come back.”

  “She-she told you this?”

  “Sure she did. And don’t even think about asking her about it. She’ll deny everything, of course.”

  “He’s lying, Max,” said Brutus. “He’s full of crap. Just like he’s full of crap about the Diego and Harriet Show. Harriet would never star in a show with the likes of you, Diego. Harriet loves me.”

  Diego laughed. “It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.” He gave us a horrendously fake pout. “Poor Brutus. Dumped by his sweetheart. And soon dumped by his human, too.”

  “My human would never dump me. Chase is crazy about me.”

  “No, he’s not. And neither are Marge or Vesta. Or Tex for that matter. The Pooles are done with you three—yeah, you, too, Dooley. Out with the old—in with the new.” He shook his head and tsk-tsked. “If I were you, I’d do the honorable thing and leave now, with your dignity intact. Beats being kicked out and humiliated by the Pooles. Oh, and you don’t have to thank me for the heads-up. I believe in doing the right thing. That’s the kind of cat I am.”

  “I’m going to get you for this,” Brutus said, holding up one paw, his claws extending menacingly.

  “Wow, Wolverine!” said Diego, laughing. “You and whose army?”

  “Clarice,” said Dooley. “She’s going to help us get rid of you.”

  “Dooley, shut up!” I hissed. “She’s our secret weapon—emphasis on secret.”

  “Clarice is gone,” said Diego, casually giving his paw a lick.

  “Gone?” I asked, and I could see the consternation on Brutus and Dooley’s faces.

  “How can she be gone?” asked Dooley.

  “He’s lying,” said Brutus. “Can’t you see he’s lying through his teeth?”

  “Oh, no, I’m not,” said Diego, then fixed us with a nasty stare. “Why do you think I came back? I took care of Clarice. Payback for what she did to me. She’s gone, dudes. And she’s never coming back. I made sure of that.” And then he produced the most hideous laugh I’d ever heard. It chilled me to the bone. When I glanced up again—Poof!—he was gone.

  Vaguely, I registered Dooley yelping and crying, “He vanished in a puff of smoke! He’s a demon!” I was too stunned to respond. Had Diego killed Clarice? It wasn’t possible. Or was it?

  Chapter 7

  Odelia rubbed her eyes. Staring at footage of Dieber dropping to the ground was not her idea of a fun time. When Chase chuckled, she opened her eyes again. “What’s so funny?”

  “You! The Dieber fan can’t even watch a few hours of her idol without nodding off.”

  “I can watch a few hours of Dieber singing—not the same footage over and over again of him dropping down on his patootie.” Though she had to admit he had a fine patootie. Not as fine as Chase’s, but definitely up there on the Billboard Patootie Top 100.

  “I wonder,” said Chase musingly.

  “Wonder what?”

  “If he’s got a tattoo on his patootie, too. I mean, he’s got tattoos on every other body part, right?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said dismissively. She wasn’t going to discuss Charlie’s tattoos with a non-fan.

  “I’ll bet you do. I’ll bet you know every single tattoo the kid’s ever gotten, and you even know their exact significance.”

  “And what if I do? What’s it to you?”

  “Do you have tats?”

  She cleared her throat and pointed at the screen. “Oh, look. Is that the killer?”

  Chase laughed. “So you do. Where is it and can I see it?”

  She rolled her eyes, then reluctantly got up, turned around and lifted her blouse, displaying a small tattoo on her lower back. It was a butterfly, drawn in blue and pink pastel.

  “I like it,” he said finally, gently rubbing his finger along the butterfly. The touch of his hand sent shivers tickling up her spine, followed by a rush of heat, and suddenly she wished he’d put his hands on some of her other body parts. The ones that weren’t tattooed.

  She quickly dropped her blouse before things got out of hand. There are places were getting out of hand is fine. Like her living room couch. Hampton Cove police station? No way.

  “When did you get it?”

  “When I was in college. A friend of mine was into tats, and she convinced me to try one. I have to admit I wasn’t entirely sober when I made the decision, but very happy that my lapse of judgment didn’t get me into greater trouble. And very grateful that that particular tattoo shop had a policy in place not to tattoo on visible places on the body like necks or hands or—gasp—the face.”

  “Yeah, imagine having that butterfly tattooed on your forehead.”

  “And what if I had?” she challenged.

  He smiled. “I guess I’d have to get a matching one of my own.”

  She was touched. “Aww. You’d do that for me?”

  “I’d do that for me. Who doesn’t want a tattoo of a bug on their face?”

  She slapped him on the shoulder, but then noticed something odd on the screen and frowned. “Isn’t that the guy who was shot?”

  They watched as the shot rang out and Ray Cooper scrunched up his face. The burly protection agent stumbled backwards, knocking into one of his colleagues, before crumpling into a heap, desperately clutching at his chest.

  “Finally,” said Chase. “Some footage of the actual shooting.”

  They watched the video again, but as far as Odelia could see there was no trace of the gunman. “Was he shot at close range?”

  “They’re still looking into that, but yeah, I think he was shot at fairly close range.”

  “So the gunman should be in this clip.”

  They watched the same footage a few more times, but if the gunman was in it, they couldn’t find him. At least they now had the incident on film. “I’ll send this to forensics,” said Chase. “Maybe they can see things we can’t. Enhance certain parts or apply some of that CSI mumbo-jumbo to establish a time frame and a blow-by-blow of what happened, exactly.”

  Odelia nodded. She hoped he was right. With the kind of high-tech stuff that was available these days, maybe they could unearth things that were invisible at first glance.

  There was a knock at the door, and Uncle Alec walked in, followed by a stern-faced man in a three-piece suit that looked like it might have cost a thousand bucks. A lawyer, she knew before Alec introduced the guy.

  “This is Paul Seymour,” said the Chief. “Counselor Seymour works for Charlie Dieber. Detective Chase Kingsley, who’s in charge of the case. And Odelia Poole, civilian consultant.”

  “Detective. Miss Poole,” said the lawyer. “I only have one question for you at this time. Have you identified the shooter?”

  “Not yet,” said Chase. “But we’re working on it.”

  The man’s lips tightened. This was not the message he wanted to hear. “Let me be clear. If you don’t find us a shooter we’re going to want to explore some other options.”

  “What other options?” asked Odelia.

  He jerked his head in her direction. “I’m sorry, who are you again?”

  “Odelia Poole. I’m a civilian consultant.” She decided to keep the fact that she was also a reporter for the local newspaper under wraps for now.

  He turned away from her, clearly not impressed. “Charlie has fans in high places. He’s proud to count the President among them. One phone call is all it takes to get the Feds out here and poring over this attempt on Charlie’s life.”

  “The President?” asked Odelia. “You mean, like, the President?”

  The man turned his penetrating gaze on her. She was pretty sure he could cut glass with it. “Is there another one?” He returned his attention to Chase, whom he seemed to have identified as the man in charge. “Make no mistake, Detective. Charlie wants results. If you can’t deliver him the shooter by this time tomorrow, he’ll make the call. Is that clear?”

  “Let me tell you something, counselor,” said Chase, not the least bit intimidated by the lawyer’s tactics. “When we tried to talk to Charlie and his people this morning, they brushed us off. I can’t conduct this investigation without full access to both Charlie and his team. They’re witnesses and it’s important they give us their full cooperation. Do I have your word that you’ll get them to talk to me and talk freely?”

  The lawyer nodded curtly. “I’ll advise them to give you full access. All the help you need.” He then stuck out his hand, gave Chase a brief handshake and stalked off without offering so much as a glance or a nod in either Odelia or Uncle Alec’s direction.

  “Nice guy,” said Chase. “Warm personality.”

  “Yeah, he’s a real charmer,” Uncle Alec agreed.

  “Do you think he was bluffing?” asked Odelia. “Can he really get the Feds out here to take over the investigation?”

  “Oh, I’m sure he wasn’t bluffing,” said Uncle Alec, rocking back on his heels. “So you better get me something, people. I don’t enjoy the prospect of being locked out of my own investigation in my own town. And I definitely don’t want to get in bad with the President.”

  “I don’t want to get in bed with the President either,” Chase said cheerfully.

  “Wiseguy,” Uncle Alec said, then wagged a finger in Chase’s face. “I don’t care how you do it, Kingsley, but I want results and I want them now, you hear?” He worried the few remaining hairs still desperately clinging to his scalp and sighed. “Or else we’re all sunk.”

  Chapter 8

  I have to admit that after our recent standoff with Diego in the alley, the three of us were feeling more than a little sandbagged. In fact it wouldn’t be too much to say we were feeling punch-drunk, as if Diego had put on a pair of boxing gloves and dealt us a glancing blow—a tough proposition when you’re a cat—and had knocked us KO in a single round.

  As a consequence we were wandering around more or less aimlessly when suddenly a car screeched to a halt right in front of us, just as we were staggering across the road, and I realized we hadn’t even looked left or right and had almost been turned into roadkill.

  A head emerged from the car window, and when I looked up with a degree of trepidation, I saw that the head belonged to none other than Odelia.

  “Max! Dooley! Brutus! What are you guys doing here?!” she was saying.

  I knew she said this because I saw her lips moving, though the meaning of her words only hit me with a delay of a few seconds, mainly because my first thought when I saw her was that she’d told Diego she was eager to get rid of me—tired of my sad sack stalking ways.

  A second head appeared, this one poking out of the driver’s side of the vehicle, and I saw it belonged to Chase Kingsley, the hunky cop Odelia has been dating for a while now.

  He, too, had a similar message to convey. “Brutus! Max! Dooley! What the heck?!”

  Brutus, I could see, was struggling with the same reservations I was, for he hadn’t forgotten that his human, too, was eager to put him out to pasture and exchange him for the latest model of feline—Diego.

  Dooley, in fact, was the only one who didn’t seem affected, as he sunnily announced, “We were looking for Clarice so she can help us get rid of Diego. But now that you guys are here, maybe you can help us out.”

  Both Chase and Odelia were silent for a beat, then they simultaneously called out, “In the car! Now!”

  Of course Chase could never have understood Dooley, as he wasn’t well-versed in the finer points of the feline language. He must have understood that we weren’t eager to stay out in the street, though, a fact for which I was grateful. Chase might not be a Poole, but by sheer association with the Poole clan he was clearly getting there—slowly but irrevocably.

  So we hopped into the pickup and made ourselves comfortable in the backseat.

  Chase stepped on the accelerator and soon we were digging our claws into the creased leather to keep from being smushed against the rear. Not that Chase would mind, I ventured, as his pickup is easily as aged and decrepit as Odelia’s.

  I could tell from Odelia’s anxious glances back at the three of us that she was eager to have a heart-to-heart. Unfortunately most humans find it strange when other humans talk to felines, so she kept her mouth shut for now. And since neither Brutus nor I were eager to talk to the very humans who were ready to put us out with the trash, silence reigned for a long beat. Until Dooley, who evidently didn’t share our reservations, started singing like a canary.

  “We just saw Diego in the back alley, and he told us you guys don’t like us anymore. That you told him you want to get rid of us and replace us with newer models. And that you think Max is a scroungy stalker and you’re sick and tired of his fat ass, and how Marge and Gran and Tex feel the same way about me and Brutus and so does Chase. Was he telling the truth, Odelia? He wasn’t, was he? He was lying through his razor-sharp teeth, wasn’t he?”

  Odelia merely offered us a worried glance, but didn’t say a word.

  Chase glanced back at us through the rearview mirror, and said, “You know? It almost sounds as if he’s talking to you, babe. I’ve never heard a cat babble as much as that one.”

  “Dooley,” said Odelia. “His name is Dooley.”

  “I knew that. Hey, Dooley,” he called out. “Talk some more, bud. You crack me up.”

  Dooley didn’t need to be told twice. “Well, Diego has been charming Harriet, as usual, and Brutus doesn’t like it, and neither do I. And now we want to get rid of him, just like we did the last time, so we went and tried to find Clarice, who managed to kick Diego out of Hampton Cove before and might be convinced to do it again in exchange for a lifelong supply of Cat Snax. Only we couldn’t find her at her usual haunts and now we’re thinking she might be hanging out at the Writer’s Lodge, curled up on Dan Brown’s lap—or maybe even Stephen King’s or JK Rowling’s—and convincing them to feature her in their next book.”

  “Dooley,” I said, finally finding my voice again. “Please shut up. Didn’t you hear what Diego said? Odelia is crazy about him. She won’t like it when we try to get rid of him.”

  “Yeah, that stuff’s a secret, Dooley,” Brutus chimed in, defeating the purpose of the secret by blabbing it out to Odelia now.

  My human took it all in with a shake of the head and a worried frown marring the smoothness of her brow. I could tell the conversation had rattled her.

  “Hey. Now they’re all talking,” said Chase, still completely oblivious and liking it. “What do you think they want? Food? You think they’re hungry?”

  “I think they want to tell us something,” said Odelia.

  “Yeah—that much I understood. But what?” He glanced back at me. “You know? Wouldn’t it be fun if we could understand what they are saying? I read about some professor who’s developing a machine that would translate cat language into plain English. If he ever manages to get that thing operational I’m going to get me one of those. Talk to my cats.”