“Um, you guys?” I called out. “A little help?”

  I felt hands fingering my belly and I giggled. I’m ticklish that way. Then those same hands pressed into my belly and slowly eased me back inside. Finally I was free, and found three humans and four cats intently staring at me, then they all burst into laughter!

  “Hey! What’s so funny?!” I cried. “Never seen a cat get stuck before?”

  “No, actually I haven’t, Maxie, baby,” said Brutus, pretty much rolling on the floor, laughing. Diego, too, was howling with mirth, and so were Harriet and even Dooley, though he tried to spare my feelings by hiding his face behind his paws.

  “Very funny,” I growled. I was blushing, though since I’m blorange, and covered in fur, I was pretty sure no one could see it.

  “I think you’re going to have to make it bigger, Dad,” Odelia said finally.

  “Yeah, better install an outsized pet door for an outsized cat,” Chase added.

  Tex scratched his scalp. “I don’t think they have them in a larger size. I guess I’ll have to make the next one custom-sized.”

  “I’ll give you a hand, Tex,” said Chase, clapping his future father-in-law on the back.

  “Thanks, buddy,” said Tex, still looking slightly stunned. “I should probably have measured Max before I got started. My mistake.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Dad,” said Odelia with a smile. “Max is a one-of-a-kind cat. He needs a one-of-a-kind pet door.”

  I’m not sure what she meant by that, but judging from Diego’s knowing look it wasn’t good. ‘See?’ that look seemed to mean. ‘She’s going to get good money for you, Max. Paid by the pound… by the pound!’

  Then again, if Odelia was going to sell me by the pound to the pound, why did she go to all the trouble of installing a pet door for me? I was going to have to thresh this thing out once and for all. The moment Diego was gone I was going to have a long heart-to-heart with my human. Was she or wasn’t she about to get rid of me? Inquiring minds needed to know!

  Chapter 13

  Odelia woke up in the middle of the night from a strange noise bleating away in the vicinity of her ear. For a moment she thought it was Max, whose breathing could get a little noisy from time to time, especially when he was having a bad dream. He would start to paw the air, as if running in his sleep. She’d asked Vena, her veterinarian, about it once and she said he was probably dreaming about chasing something or being chased himself.

  The notion that cats could dream had been a new one for her, but it didn’t surprise her. In fact there wasn’t much about her cats that did surprise her these days. They were amazing creatures, and capable of so much more than most humans gave them credit for.

  They were also very sensitive. As she was falling asleep earlier, Max had tripped up to her, carefully looking left and right, and had asked her if it was true that she intended to drop him off at the pound one of these days, and actually sell him by the pound. The idea was so outrageous that she’d laughed it off. But when he told her the story had been launched by Diego, it wasn’t all that funny anymore. It would appear that Diego had been feeding Max and the others a bunch of sensationalist stories, and scaring them witless in the process.

  So she’d impressed it upon Max that she had no intention whatsoever to sell him to any pound, and vowed to have a long talk with Diego and tell him to stop this nonsense.

  She reached out and took her phone from the nightstand and saw that it was Chase.

  Picking up, she groggily muttered, “Mh?”

  “Very eloquent, Poole,” Chase’s voice came. He sounded more awake than she was. “There’s been an incident at the Dieber place. Some lunatic placed a knife on Charlie’s pillow, and now he’s scared out of his feeble little mind and has been yelling for cops, cops, cops!”

  “So? I’m not a cop. You go.”

  “Outside. Five minutes. Oh, and Odelia?”

  “Huh?”

  “You sound sexy when you’re sleep-deprived.”

  Five minutes later she was outside, trying to rub the sleep from her eyes, and watched Chase’s big pickup drive up, the engine rumbling pleasantly, the burly cop looking as fresh as a daisy. How did he do it? He gave her a big grin as he pushed open the door. She dropped into the seat and immediately leaned her head against the headrest and fell asleep.

  A prod woke her up again. “Look alive, champ. We’ve arrived.”

  She wrenched open her eyes and stretched her arms out as much as the cramped space in the cabin would allow. “So what’s this story about Dieber finding a knife?”

  “That is the story. Dieber found a knife on his pillow.”

  “So what’s the deal? Is it a threat? Was there a note? What?”

  “That’s what we’re here to find out, babe.” He gave her a look of concern. “Are you sure you’re up for this? You look like you crawled out from under a steamroller.”

  “Had a long talk with Max before nodding off,” she muttered before catching herself. “I mean—Max kept me awake half the night.”

  “He probably wasn’t happy that he couldn’t fit through the pet door. Don’t worry. I’ll give your dad a hand tomorrow and we’ll fix it.”

  She glanced over. “How come you’re so… chipper? What’s your secret?”

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. “No secret. I tend to wake up at the drop of a hat ready to go. Always have.”

  “You don’t feel like a zombie fresh from the grave?”

  “Nope.”

  “And you don’t need a gallon of coffee before you’re ready to start your quest for brains?”

  “Nope. Though coffee would be welcome. I hope the Dieber got a fresh pot brewing.”

  “You’re something else, Detective Kingsley.”

  “Just your friendly neighborhood cop, always ready for duty, ma’am.”

  They’d arrived at the gate to the Dieber compound, and the same guard who’d admitted them the day before was on duty. This time he recognized them, and waved them through without delay. Chase parked his rig in front of the house, and they trudged up to the front door. That is to say, Odelia trudged. Chase bounced athletically on limber legs.

  Once inside, they were greeted by a scene of extreme pandemonium. No semi-naked girls prancing around in the pool this time, but guards and girls and staff members running around like headless chickens, and Charlie Dieber having a major freak-out in the living room—the one with the six Warhol-type portraits of his tatted-up torso.

  “They’re trying to get me!” he was screaming. “But I won’t be gotten! Nobody can kill the Dieber. The Dieber is invincible. The Dieber is indestructible! The Dieber is bulletproof!”

  “I hate it when they talk about themselves in the third person,” Chase said.

  “Me, too,” she intimated.

  The Dieber finally caught sight of the twosome and his face lit up. “Cops!” he cried. “I need cops, cops, cops!”

  “Well, you got them, Charlie,” said Chase. “Now what’s all this about a knife?”

  The Dieber dropped the vape he’d been sucking from into the hands of a plump woman dressed as a housekeeper, and stalked up to them. As usual, he was shirtless, wearing only Bermudas, and his bare feet slapped the marble floor. He tapped Chase’s chest with his finger, getting into the cop’s face. “Someone left a knife on my pillow. A frigging knife! So what are you going to do about it, huh? The Dieber could have died tonight!”

  “I guess I’ll take a look at the knife,” Chase said with a tight smile.

  The Dieber returned to pacing the living room, and Odelia didn’t know what was more unnerving, watching his Bermudas drop a little lower with every step and show a bare bottom that was as inked up as the rest of his body, or the fact that the killer had gotten so close to the star that he could have slit his throat if he wanted to.

  Carlos Roulston was there, and so were the members of Charlie’s close protection team, and they escorted Odelia and Chase up a sweeping flight of stairs and into a bedroom that was easily as large as Odelia’s entire house. In fact it was safe to say Charlie’s bedroom was the size of a luxury suite and resembled one as well. The four-poster bed stood near the window, overlooking the ocean, and once again portraits of the pop star were the main decoration. The man was clearly in love with himself. There was also another white horse, rearing up with the Dieber seated on its back. Only this time the Dieber was in the nude.

  She averted her gaze, suddenly feeling she’d already seen too much of the kid, and joined the guard detail around the singer’s bed, where the knife was still very much in evidence on the pillow, as indicated. Almost like a pillow chocolate, but with an edge.

  “We talked to the housekeeper,” said Roulston. “She says that when the cleaners were in here there was no knife.”

  “When was this?” asked Chase.

  “This morning at ten, and again at ten tonight.”

  “They come in twice a day?”

  “Yup. Charlie is a neat freak. Wants fresh sheets put on his bed twice a day.”

  “But… why?” asked Odelia.

  Roulston shrugged. “Let’s just say this bed sees a lot of… action.”

  “Oh.” She decided not to ask him to elaborate.

  “So the knife must have been put here between the time the cleaners left and the time Charlie turned in for the night,” said Chase. “Which was… when, exactly?”

  “According to Charlie he got up here at around three. Before that, he spent time in the private recording studio in the basement, working on his music. Then he went for a dip in the pool with some of his Bediebers—the girls who permanently live on-site—and when he got here with three of them—”

  “He’s a horny little devil, isn’t he?” said Chase.

  “He is blessed with a healthy libido,” Roulston admitted with a slight grin.

  “So they got here, and then what?”

  “Charlie saw the knife and freaked—screaming bloody murder. He’s been at it since.”

  Odelia walked up to the bed and studied the knife. It was just your regular garden-variety kitchen knife. No note, no threatening words scribbled on the wall, no nothing.

  “Interesting,” said Chase, scratching his scalp. “Any idea who could have done this?”

  Roulston shook his head. “Must be one of the staff. The house is locked down at night, no one allowed in or out. I’ve got people guarding the perimeter, and I’ve hired more guards to make sure no one can get near the house or Charlie.”

  “You’re saying this was an inside job.”

  “Has to be. Whoever placed this knife was already on the premises.”

  “One of Charlie’s girls, maybe? Jealous of one of the others?”

  “We’ve talked to all of them. They don’t seem particularly attached to Charlie—simply happy for the opportunity to be close to a rich superstar and bask in the benefits.”

  Chase nodded. “We’re going to want to talk to everyone on staff. Housekeepers, cleaners, drivers, chefs, servers, the pool boy—if you have a pool boy.”

  “We have a pool girl,” Roulston said.

  “Of course you do. I’ll call in some more colleagues, and we’ll start the interviews.”

  And so it went down. Chase called Uncle Alec, who called more of his people, and for the next two hours they went through the full roster of Charlie Dieber’s staff, which was even more extensive than Odelia had imagined. The guy clearly believed in living the good life.

  At least there was coffee. Plenty of coffee. And then she settled in for the duration and assisted Chase in interviewing the two dozen people who might have issued the threat.

  Chapter 14

  I was singing my heart out, and finally starting to feel like myself again. It was cat choir night, and I was flanked by Dooley and Brutus as I took my place in the choir and joined in the fun. Shanille, our principal conductor, was swinging her paws just so, and for a moment I forgot all my troubles as I belted out cat choir tunes with reckless abandon.

  Cat choir gathers in Hampton Cove Park and is one of my favorite social gatherings. Practically every Hampton Cove cat is a member, and it’s the place to be in town once the sun goes down. All around us, night had fallen, which never bothers us one bit, since, as you may or may not know, the feline eyesight is a great deal superior to the human eyesight.

  The only minor issue marring this wonderful time for us were the humans who live around the park and who enjoy yelling abuse at us. They obviously weren’t fans of music.

  And we were just launching into Uptown Girl—Billy Joel is a local and a fan favorite—when two new arrivals disturbed my equanimity. They were none other than Harriet and… Diego.

  Harriet had always been a member of cat choir, but hadn’t attended ever since she started seeing Diego. Probably since Diego had never been invited. Who would invite him? Not me, and definitely not Brutus or Dooley.

  When our moving rendition of the Billy Joel hit was done—basically all of us screeching as hard and as loud as we could, and Shanille trying to impose a measure of harmony, Diego clapped his paws. “Beautiful!” he exclaimed. “Wonderful! Such talent!”

  Shanille seemed touched. “Why, thank you, Diego. I’m so glad you could make it.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked. “You invited this cat?”

  “Of course I invited Diego,” said Shanille. “He’ll be a great admission to cat choir.”

  “But… the first rule of cat choir is… you do not talk about cat choir!” said Brutus.

  “Unless a rare talent like Diego turns up,” Shanille insisted.

  The other cats murmured in agreement, and all around I could sense the mood shifting. They were all looking at Diego as if he was the second coming of Christ, and Brutus, Dooley and I were the Judases standing in the cat’s way. Even Shanille was giving us a look of disapproval. “Go easy on them, Shanille,” Diego said. “They’re good cats. Just… no talent.”

  “What?!” I cried. I turned to Shanille. “You’re not listening to this nonsense, are you?”

  “I’m sorry, Max. I talked this through with Diego, and I have to agree. The three of you lack the required talent to be in our choir. I always knew something was amiss, I just didn’t know what it was. It took Diego to figure out what was wrong with our sound. It’s you, Max. And Brutus and Dooley. You… well, I’m just going to say it—the three of you can’t sing.”

  I gawked at the cat. “You can’t be serious.”

  “What is she talking about, Max?” asked Dooley.

  “She’s… kicking us out!”

  “You can’t kick us out,” said Brutus. “I just became a member.”

  “I’m afraid Diego is right. Cat choir should be a place for the enjoyment of music. Only cats with a musical bone in their bodies are welcome. And I’m afraid you three don’t have what it takes.” She sighed deeply. “It is with great regret, therefore, that I must ask you to leave.”

  “You can’t do this,” I said. I pointed at Diego. “He’s evil!”

  “This hurts me more than it hurts you, Max,” said Diego mournfully. “But we have to think of cat choir. I’m sure you’ll agree with me that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

  “Here, here,” one cat called out.

  “Well spoken, Diego!” cried another.

  “Diego is right,” said Shanille. “He will take your place, and I’m sure he’ll do great.”

  “Bye-bye, Max,” said Diego. “And don’t feel bad. We can’t all be as talented as me.”

  “I’m going to get you for this,” Brutus growled as he took a menacing step in Diego’s direction. “I swear to God—”

  “No violence, please, gentlecats,” said Shanille, holding up a conciliating paw. “And no blasphemy. If you have any respect for cat choir, you will accept the decision of the majority.”

  I turned to the others. “You don’t want us gone, do you? I’ve known you guys forever!”

  But they all gave me a stony-faced look. It was clear Diego had gotten to them, too. And then Diego cried, “And just like I promised, Cat Snax for everyone! My treat!”

  “You bought them with Cat Snax,” I said, now truly in shock. “You bribed them.”

  “To celebrate the arrival of this exciting new talent, Diego has indeed agreed to dispense a little treat amongst the members,” said Shanille, lifting her chin. “No bribery involved whatsoever. Merely a small token of his appreciation.”

  Harriet gave us a look of commiseration, but then turned away. It was obvious which side she’d chosen in this escalating cat war.

  “Come on, Max,” said Brutus. “We’re not welcome here anymore.”

  And as we stalked off, Dooley said, “I liked cat choir. I really did.”

  “Me too, buddy,” I said. “In fact I loved it.”

  “You know?” asked Brutus. “You and I had some issues when I first arrived in town, Max. But never like this. Never like Diego.”

  “No, never like Diego,” I agreed. “That cat is pure evil.”

  “We have to talk to Clarice,” said Dooley. “She’s the only one who can save us.”

  “At least Odelia is not selling us to the pound, you guys,” I said as we left the park and convened on the sidewalk, under a streetlamp, for an impromptu crisis meeting.

  “She’s not?” asked Dooley.

  “Nope. I talked to her and she said it’s all rubbish. She would never sell us or get rid of us. Diego has been talking through his hat. It’s all lies. Filthy lies to get our backs up.”

  “Unless he’s right and Odelia is lying,” said Dooley.

  “Who’s the more likely liar?” asked Brutus. “Diego or Odelia?”

  Dooley thought about this for a moment but finally gave up. “Is that a trick question?”

  “Diego, of course!” Brutus cried. “Odelia wouldn’t lie to us. Would she, Max?”