Himalayan Hazard

Chapter Seventeen

Sariah took off the hooded sweatshirt she wore, revealing a beautiful fitted blouse beneath. “This is his,” she said, tossing the sweatshirt to me, then reaching her arms up to hug herself and replace the lost warmth.

“Thanks. I’ll get him started on the scent outside. Everyone else stay here. He doesn’t work as well with a crowd.”

“Why not?” Grizabella asked, intertwining her tail with Octo-Cat’s in what had to be the feline version of footsie. “I love an adoring audience.”

He lifted his head and sniffed the air for no obvious reason. “She says things like that sometimes so the other humans don’t figure out she can talk to us.”

“Octavius!” I called, moving toward the door and making a clicking noise. “Here kitty!”

He groaned as he trotted after me. “Enough with the kitty already. You know I don’t like that.”

Grizabella followed us outside into the dark tunnel. Luckily, the now illuminated train cars cast enough light to save me from having to use my remaining battery on the flashlight function.

I set Jamison’s sweatshirt on the ground. “Can you get anything from this?” I asked my cat.

He took a big whiff of the fabric, then sneezed. “Whoo, boy. It’s got that lady’s stench all over it. There is a thing as too much perfume, honey.”

“A lady can never make too many efforts with her presentation,” Grizabella purred. Leave it to a D-list Instagram celebrity to side with vanity.

I bit my lip and said a silent prayer for patience. The thing about working with cats was that it would always be on their timetable.

“Can you smell him, too? Or is she too overpowering?” If this didn’t work, I had no idea what else we could do, especially since Sariah seemed to believe that her brother would have no trouble evading the authorities.

“Yeah, I got him, too.” Octo-Cat yawned and stretched each of his four legs, one by one—showing off for his lady friend, no doubt. “Let’s do this!”

She appeared to swoon at his heroic catliness. Whoo, boy, indeed.

“Wait.” I crouched down, so that I was closer to his height. “I don’t have a way to track you. We didn’t bring your pet GPS and my phone is going to die any minute. It’s dangerous, and you’re going it alone. Can you promise me—?”

“He’s not going alone.” Grizabella stood, fierce determination swirling in her blue eyes. “I’m going, too.”

“My love, I couldn’t possibly ask this of you. As Angela said, it’s dangerous. I’ve already injured one toe bean in pursuit of this investigation. I could never risk your lovely toe beans like that.” Octo-Cat nuzzled Grizabella, but she stepped away before he could make contact.

“Rhonda was my human. I owe this to her.” The Himalayan took a deep breath and then took off in an impossibly fast run. The only time I’d ever seen Octo-Cat move anywhere near that fast was on the rare occasion when he had the zoomies—and we weren’t allowed to talk about that.

“What a woman!” he said, taking one glance back at me before sprinting after her.

“But I don’t know how I’ll find you!” I called into the lonely tunnel, but it was too late. Both cats had already disappeared from view.

Please, please, be safe.

I turned back toward the train and found Dad waiting in the doorway.

“I wanted to give you some privacy in case you needed it,” he said, stepping down to join me on the gravel. “Is everything okay?”

I looked back down the tunnel longingly. “Yeah. I just worry about the dangerous things he gets himself into sometimes.”

Dad laughed. “Believe me, I know how that goes. Both you and your mom are going to put me in an early grave.”

I shivered, not wanting to think about my dad or anyone else dying. I’d already seen more than enough to last a lifetime. Some occupational hazards were harder to accept than others.

“We’ll do anything to take care of our kids. That’s what being a parent is about.” Dad’s voice was soft, kind. “And before you say anything, yes. A pet parent is still a parent.”

Octo-Cat would hate hearing himself referred to as my child, but sometimes it really felt as if he were. I knew Mom and Nan would move mountains to protect me, too. I’d always been loved, protected, valued…

And suddenly I knew that Dad’s words referred to so much more than their surface meaning. “Nan and my real grandparents,” I stated simply.

Dad nodded. “Just because you’re not blood, that doesn’t mean she isn’t your real family,” he said, echoing my thoughts from earlier. “She gave up so much to keep your mom safe, even though she didn’t know why at the time.”

“We still don’t know why.” I wanted to know so badly for myself, for my mom, but more than anything, for Nan who had lived her whole life having no idea why this strange, scary, and even wonderful thing had happened to her.

Dad chuckled again. “Between you and your mom? You’ll figure it out in no time. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s to always bet on my girls.”

I wrapped my arms tight around him. Even though we’d never been very close, I’d never had to doubt his love for me.

“This whole trip has been a lot,” I told him once we released our embrace. “I just don’t know if I have the energy for two weeks meeting the family now.”

“Then we’ll go home. Just as soon as we can get off this danged train, anyway.” He glanced around, then chuckled again. The tension lessened with each sound of my dad’s laugh. It was one of my safe places. “Well, you know what I mean. As soon as we’re out of this tunnel and allowed to officially disembark.”

“Won’t they be mad, though? The family in Georgia?” As much as this entire situation wrung my heart out like a soapy dishrag, I was still excited to meet them, to see our family grow despite the unusual circumstances. Could I really risk ruining that?

Dad shook his head and smiled reassuringly. “We’ve waited this long to meet them. Heck, we didn’t even know they existed until a few weeks ago. It can wait—they can wait—until you’re rested and ready.”

“That’s good. Because I really need to get home and be with Nan,” I said, desperate to be reunited with my favorite person. Nan had raised me. She’d become my very best friend, and I just didn’t feel normal without knowing she was nearby.

“I know you do,” Dad said, and we hugged again. “I know you do.”