For Candis, my first best friend. You pushed a boy off a running track at school when we were five because he was mean to me. And the next year I took a boy’s chair out from under him for hitting you in the head with his notebook. Luckily, neither of us wound up in the mafia, but I do think we’d make an excellent two-woman team in an adventure novel!

And in memory of Smeagle (Swee in this book)—my soulmate cat bestie. Thank you for living a full twenty-two years and for being the strangest and most wonderful creature I’ve ever met. You snored, you relentlessly stuck your paw in my coffee and my water, and you slept under the blankets and would bite my legs as you pleased. There was no better snuggler and no bigger heart. I’ll love you forever.