A Paw-sible Theory

“If you play with a cat, you must not mind her scratch.”

––Anonymous

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Elation and Disappointment

I paced around the house thinking. Hunter had said that on the day Alyx was injured, Ethan came in carrying a small bag from the convenience store and set it down on the counter in the kitchen. Ethan must have taken the treats out of the bag Sunday evening––which was when he gave us the treats. Misty, who diligently keeps track of everyone, surely remembers him doing that. I confronted her.

Misty, fastidious about her grooming, was licking her paws. She immediately let me know I was intruding. She wanted to know why it was so important for Pooky to come in now that Alyx was conscious.

Distracted, I lost my patience. Hadn’t she been paying attention? Didn’t she hear the lawyer David Hunter talking about a receipt?

She was busy scratching behind her left ear, and she jumped straight up in the air when I pounced in front of her and asked about the receipt. She proudly announced that she did remember seeing something float to the floor when Ethan took the treats out of the bag.

I stayed outwardly calm while she tried to remember where Ethan was standing when he took the treats out of the bag. She walked around and stopped to the right of the stove. The way I figured it, the receipt must have floated under the stove, unless it didn’t and the cleaning lady that Maggie had temporarily hired trashed it. The thought froze me to the spot, but only for a moment. I fell on my side and peered under the stove, excited when I saw the receipt. I stretched as far as I could, but it was still out of my reach.

Disappointed and discouraged, I stayed where I was, wondering how in the world I was going to communicate what I knew. Judging from the fiasco that had occurred with the lawyer earlier, it was doubtful.