The Cat Caper

Chapter Two

The date at the top of the letter had already passed two months ago. Not a good sign. Not good at all.

“What is it?” Nan asked as I quickly scanned the legalese before me.

“It’s…” I took a deep, shaky breath in an effort to avoid either screaming or breaking down in tears. “It’s an arbitration notice.”

Nan’s face loomed closer, concern pinching at the edges of her mouth. “An arbitration for what?” she huffed with clear outrage.

After a deep, painful swallow, I forced my eyes to focus on the page and read the entire letter from top to bottom before I spoke again. “The other beneficiaries of Ethel’s will are disputing Octo-Cat’s inheritance.”

“Oh, dear,” Nan said with a disappointed shake of her head.

“If he wants to contest, he has to appear in court by this Friday. Otherwise his agreement will be implied, and the arbitration will go forward.” Even as I spoke the words, I couldn’t quite believe them. Why was this happening now? Or ever for that matter? It’s not like the others had gotten cut out of the will. Ethel had loved her cat dearly and wanted to make sure he lived the rest of his days comfortably. Knowing Octo-Cat as I did now, I totally understood. It wasn’t exactly cheap to fulfill his demands for Fancy Feast, Evian, fine china, Apple products, and—oh—a giant East Coast manor house.

I folded the letter back into thirds and sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose to stave off the rapidly building headache. “Nan, if this goes forward, he could lose his trust fund. We could lose the house. We could even lose him.”

I would not cry. Crying wouldn’t fix this. It wouldn’t bring Octo-Cat home. I needed to suck those tears that threatened to spill back in and approach both situations with a clear head.

Nan placed a hand at the small of my back and guided me back toward the house. “Well, we’ll just have to find him by Friday, then,” she ground out. “Failure is not an option.”

My cat had only been missing for a few hours, tops, but already I was terrified for him. He’d be devastated if he lost his inheritance and I could no longer afford to maintain his lavish lifestyle and expensive tastes. Worse still was the fact that he could be lying hurt in a ditch somewhere, and I didn’t even know where to look.

Nan motioned for me to sit on our massively uncomfortable antique Victorian couch. “You wait here while I make tea,” she instructed softly. “The hit of caffeine will help wake up our brains. We’ll solve this. Yes, we will.” She hurried out of sight, singing to herself as she went.

That just left me sitting on my own in our large, empty living room. I hated it. Octo-Cat should have been there, complaining about something, questioning my life choices, or telling tasteless jokes that no one else found funny.

While I worked hard not to let fear cloud my normally rational brain, Nan continued to sing loudly from the kitchen. Apparently, she’d already composed a ballad about our mighty victory over catnappers and arbitrations. I had no idea where she found the energy.

Could a catnapper really be to blame for Octo-Cat’s sudden disappearance? It was certainly a possibility, given how unlikely it would be for him to wander off on his own. But who would want to take my crabby tabby, and why?

Nan’s gray, curly head popped out of the kitchen. “Yoo-hoo, Angie dear!” she called, waving at me.

I lifted my head and attempted a smile that wouldn’t come.

“Why don’t you give our good friend Charles a call? May as well update him on the situation and see if he can help.” As soon as she’d said her piece, Nan disappeared from view and the singing started up again.

Charles. Would he know what to do? Nan seemed to think so, and the three of us had made a pretty good team more than once before. At the very least, he’d be able to walk me through this arbitration notice and help me formulate a plan for escaping unscathed.

The phone felt heavy in my hands. Placing this call meant admitting that something was wrong. That Octo-Cat was really missing. Could I maybe pretend for a few blessed minutes that everything was still okay? Would that be selfish of me? Stupid?

“Don’t dilly-dally, dear!” Nan trilled from her place in front of the stove, then switched to singing in a different language. I assumed Korean, given her newly discovered K-pop infatuation.

Not even the deepest breath I could muster filled my lungs with the strength I needed to make this call, to speak these dreaded words aloud. But I did it anyway. I did it for Octo-Cat.

“Angie, everything okay?” Charles answered after a couple rings. He was still at the firm, of course. He’d been putting in long hours ever since Bethany had put in her resignation notice. With her moving away to start a new life in Georgia any day now, that left Charles as the sole partner at a law office that had seen a veritable revolving door of attorneys these past several months.

Hearing his voice so full of concern, of kindness, set off the tears I’d already been struggling to hold back. “Charles, he’s gone!” I cried. “Octo-Cat is missing, and we can’t find him anywhere.”

Charles sucked in a deep breath, then said, “I’m sure he just found a great new napping spot and will wander home when his belly starts rumbling.”

The way he rushed through this explanation proved that Charles didn’t believe those words. And neither did I. We both knew my cat too well to believe he had willingly altered his routine.

“There’s also this arbitration thing,” I added, knowing I should probably re-open the letter and read the exact wording. But I was already far too tired, too emotionally spent to read that horrible thing again.

“What?” Charles’s voice came out low, hostile almost. “Who’s requested an arbitration with you?”

“Not me,” I corrected with another deep, weighty sigh. “Octo-Cat. And it’s the other recipients of Ethel’s will.”

He was silent for a few moments as he contemplated this newest development in the everyday traumas of Angie Russo. “Don’t let that add to your worry,” he said at last. “For now, just focus on finding Octo-Cat. He can’t be far. Besides, we both knew that the will would probably be contested eventually despite Richard’s best attempts to prevent that from happening. You’ll have a chance to contest the dispute before the arbitration goes ahead, too.”

“Yeah, but the deadline’s Friday,” I said glumly. So far, I’d managed to avoid going to court for any personal matters. The only reason I’d ever stepped foot in the county court before was to offer on-the-spot assistance for the lawyers from my firm. Usually, Charles.

He balked at this. “Friday? But that’s nowhere near enough time.”

“Yeah, I know.” I traced the intricate paisley pattern on the couch with my index finger, letting my vision go blurry but still refusing to let any tears fall. With a sniff, I informed Charles that, “The letter has a few different postmarks on it. Looks like it originally went to my old rental and then got turfed back as undeliverable until they finally found my forwarding address.”

“But they all know exactly where you and Octo-Cat are,” he protested. Charles had always been the sort to wear his heart right on his sleeve, and as such, I could tell that he’d become angry. Real angry.

I nodded, even though he wasn’t there to read my body language. “I know that, too.”

We both sighed in unison, and then I asked the question that had been plaguing me ever since the letter first arrived. “Do you think they sent it to the wrong place on purpose?”

“Of course I do,” he growled. I could hear something slam down on his end of the line. “It’s still okay. We’ll find Octo-Cat in no time at all. Meanwhile I’ll start putting together your grounds for contesting the arbitration, and we’ll show up on Friday ready to kick some serious complainant butt.”

“Thank you. You always make me feel better.” That was Charles for you. He never hesitated to offer his help when I needed it, and that was a big part of the reason why he’d become my closest friend since he relocated from his home state of California in favor of the scenic Blueberry Bay region of Maine.

“Want me to stop by after work to help you look for Octo-Cat?” he asked me after a brief pause. “I could finish up early and offer a second set of eyes. Or third, rather, since I’m sure Nan’s already on the case.”

I let out a weak laugh. He knew us too well. “Actually, I kind of could use a change of scenery. We’ve already been searching for hours, and he’s clearly nowhere nearby.”

“Want to come over to my place, then?” he asked without even the briefest hesitation.

“Yes, please,” I trilled.

Now that Charles was on the case, I knew everything would be okay. I had to believe that, because the alternative simply broke my heart.

If Octo-Cat were here, he’d no doubt yell at me to toughen up and do what needed to be done. And that’s exactly what I would do to bring him back home—and to make sure we kept him here, right where he belonged.