Octo-Cat led me inside and up the stairs. Thankfully, Pearl and Gertie didn’t notice me, which meant I didn’t have to explain what I was doing sneaking around my own house while the party raged on elsewhere. We stopped outside the door to the guest room where Mags was staying.
“We did all our talking through the door, but you can go ahead and open it,” my cat informed me.
I carefully let the both of us inside and found Jacques and Jillianne curled up together on the bed to share warmth.
“What’s going on?” I asked, glancing from my tabby to my husband’s hairless felines.
Jacques stood and stretched forward, revealing the webbing between his toes. No matter how many times I’d seen the way he moved, I couldn’t help but be transfixed. The most horrifying thought? That all cats looked this way under their fur, even my Octavius.
Octo-Cat hopped up on the bed, and I sat down too.
“Well, go on with it already. Just like we discussed!” he growled impatiently.
“I don’t like that I hurt your feelings,” the black-and-white skin-cat said.
“Not like that,” Octo-Cat corrected with a flick of his tail. “Speak like a normal cat, or don’t speak at all.”
Jillianne growled in defense of her little brother, but Octo-Cat quickly shut her down with another stern glance.
“I’m sorry,” Jacques mewled pitifully. “We were bad kitties.”
Jillianne remained pointedly quiet, so I kept my focus on Jacques. Now that he was being nice to me, he was kind of cute, actually. All those wrinkles were endearing, and the fact that he had a light fuzz on his feet and ears but zero fur on the rest of him was also charming.
“It’s hard for us to be back here after the senator died. We still feel guilty about what happened, and we really miss her,” little J continued.
Yes, their former owner had been the first corpse to turn up next door. After Octo-Cat and I solved the case, Charles had agreed to give the two pedigreed cats a new home with him so they wouldn’t need to spend any time in the rescue or risk going to separate families.
“Why do you hate me?” I asked, never understanding what I’d done wrong when I was the one who had proven their innocence and had worked so hard to bond with them since.
Jacques shook his head. “We don’t hate you, but we don’t want things to change. It was hard after the senator died, but eventually we started to feel happy again with Charles. Now everything’s changing. New family. New house. We’re scared.”
“You don’t have to be scared. And you can always tell me how you feel. I want you to be happy here. And I want to help however I can.”
“Told you,” Octo-Cat sang with a satisfied smirk. “She may be just a human, but she’s the best one there is.”
I puffed up with pride at that. I would never stop being shocked and delighted by my cat’s somewhat rare shows of affection. He was really spoiling me today, too.
I reached a hand toward Jacques, and he stretched into my palm, letting out a rumbling purr. He felt like a warm peach, not entirely unpleasant but definitely not anywhere near normal.
Octo-Cat crossed the bed and nudged Jillianne with his paw. “Now you.”
“He already said it. Why do I have to?” she groused.
Octo-Cat swatted her again, this time with claws.
“Fine,” she snarled, then rose to her feet. “I’m sorry. Everything Jacques said is true, okay?”
“And what else?” my cat prompted with another flick of his tail.
Jillianne sighed and mumbled something I couldn’t quite make out.
Octo-Cat grabbed her by the skin of her neck and flipped her over while still holding on with his teeth and all four of his legs. “We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way,” he mumbled, his mouth full of kitty flesh. “It seems you’ve chosen the hard way.”
The black lady sphynx breathed heavily, her eyes wide.
“Just do it, Jilly,” Jacques said softly. “We already tried being bad, but it didn’t work. Let’s be good now. Pretty please.” Even though I knew Jacques was three years old, he sounded like a baby then as he pleaded with his older and much crankier sibling.
“Fine,” Jillianne spat. “Now let me go.”
Octo-Cat held on for another few seconds to really get his point across, then released her.
“I’m sorry for the things we did,” she recited tonelessly.
“Which was what exactly?” I asked, even though I already had an idea.
“We created a scene,” she began with a bored expression, then smiled as she delved deeper. “And locked you in the room. And stole the rings. And ruined the dress.”
Hearing her confirm my newly formed suspicions really twisted my gut. I’d blamed Pringle for things he had no part in. I’d forbidden him from sharing in the most important day of my life. I’d treated him like a criminal, even though he’d done nothing wrong.
Instead of asking why—Jacques had already explained that, after all—I wanted to know, “How?”
“There was a key in the door,” Jacques answered. “Jillianne gave me a boost, and I was able to turn it with my sphyngers before I fell back down.”
Sphyngers. Huh. Now that these two were actually talking to me, it seemed I’d have a whole new lingo to learn.
“That lady who was supposed to be watching us yesterday was pretty distracted. It was easy for us to slip in and out without her noticing us,” Jillianne added, apparently enjoying the villain’s speech portion of their apology. “The rings were easy to nab from the top of the dresser and hide in our blanket. And we saw you let the raccoon in and listened when you told him it was okay if he was invited. We also saw how annoyed you were with him and figured it would be easy to frame him. So we invited him back inside right after we ruined the dress.”
“That was a horrible thing to do!” I shouted, then remembered that I needed to keep quiet if I wanted to avoid inviting more company into this room before we finished our conversation.
“We’re sorry,” Jacques said again and rubbed against my arm. “We’ll be good now.”
Jillianne rolled her eyes but offered no verbal argument.
“I appreciate you sharing all this with me. And your apologies, too.” I paused and chewed on my bottom lip. “But are we done here? There’s someone I really need to apologize to.”
“Good kitties,” Octo-Cat said with a sage nod. “Now that you’ve done as promised, I’ll keep up my end of the bargain. Let me show you where to get the fish.”
I opened the door where Grizabella sat waiting in the hall.
The sphynxes ran out of the room and down the stairs, meowing excitedly the whole way, but Octo-Cat hung back.
“Thank you for that,” I whispered.
He nodded again. “We still need to have that serious discussion about our future,” the tabby told me.
I sucked in a deep breath, hating to do anything to ruin his big day when he’d done so much to save mine. But a reverse neuter simply wasn’t possible. That wasn’t something I could magically change, unfortunately.
Before I could say anything, Octo-Cat continued. “We need to have that talk, but it can wait. Grizabella and I have the rest of our nine lives together, and so do you and I, Angela. We’ll talk when you get back. Now enjoy your honeymoon, okay?”
Once again, I cried big weeping tears of joy. I was really becoming quite the softie these days, but that’s just what happened when a person was well and truly happy with their life.