Chapter 20

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Doreen raced behind Mugs, calling him back. The guy was ahead of them, but, as she watched, Mugs was gaining. She wasn’t even sure what Mugs would do with the stranger, if Mugs caught him. Still, Doreen picked up the pace as fast as she could. Meanwhile, Thaddeus’s claws gripped her neck, and he was screaming in her ear, “Giddyup, giddyup, giddyup.”

“Could you just stop that?” she cried out.

“Giddyup, giddyup, giddyup.”

She groaned, remembered thinking having a talking parrot was cool. Then there was Goliath, who was even worse. She turned to look for the big Maine coon cat and got caught up on a rock and ended up sprawled on the ground. She bounded to her feet, Mugs still racing ahead.

She screamed at him, “Mugs, Mugs, get back here. Come back here, Mugs!” She kept running behind him, but now she was limping and sore.

She was still looking for Goliath, but she saw no sign of him. When she finally caught up with Mugs, he was milling around in the creek, sniffing the rocks. Either the guy had found a quick hiding space or the guy had jumped the creek, but Mugs hadn’t seen him. The creek was an odd thing too. It was much deeper here; it was also freezing cold. Her phone was screaming at her as well, and she knew it would be Mack. She sighed as she answered it. She stood, watching Mugs. “Looks like Mugs lost him,” she said into the phone, her whole body screaming in pain.

Mack may have picked up on that, sensing something was wrong. “What happened?”

“What happened is I fell,” she muttered. “Between Thaddeus gripping my neck and a missing Goliath, it hasn’t been a great chase.”

“You aren’t supposed to chase after intruders,” Mack muttered. “Do I need to come?”

“No,” she said. “It’s fine. Mugs is calming down.”

“Any idea where this guy went?”

“No, that’s a mystery.” She glared down at her knee. “And I scraped my knee.”

“Go home,” he said in a soothing tone. “I’ll come over, and you can give me the details.”

“No details. Somebody just jumped Richard’s fence—right in front of me—took one look at me, and booked it, but I don’t think Richard even knew.”

“Would you recognize this guy?”

“I possibly would. Of course all I can think about is how somebody was over there, maybe putting new listening devices there again.”

Silence came for a moment. “Right,” Mack agreed. “Why don’t you go put on some coffee, and I’ll be there in a few minutes.” And, with that, he hung up.

She smiled at the critters. “At least Mack’s coming. That’s about the only good thing to come out of this.”

They started to walk away, but she heard a noise. When she turned to look back, she saw a guy pulling out of the river from the deep part. He took one look at her, and he raced away again. She decided not to track him down because he was just that much farther ahead again. Plus now he was on the other side of the river, and this was the deep end.

She sighed, as she looked down at Mugs. “That’s why you lost him, buddy. He stayed under the water.” As she slowly made her way home, her knee started to stiffen up. And there at her place, right on her creekside bench, waiting for them, was Goliath. Doreen glared at the cat. “What happened to you?” she muttered. “I thought this was supposed to be a family thing.”

But obviously Goliath had made the decision that it was a family thing, providing it didn’t involve water.

Doreen petted him, and he hopped up on his back legs, so that she could pick him up. She immediately did and cuddled him. “You were the smartest one of us all,” she muttered, as she slowly carried him up to the house.

As she got closer, he jumped down, and she unlocked the door, disarmed the alarm, and then stepped inside. As soon as she did so, she had a thought and stepped back out on the deck. “Richard, are you there?”

Only silence came, but then what did she expect? If there’d been an intruder back there, chances were good that Richard wouldn’t be around to witness that. It just said a whole lot about the craziness that was their life right now.

She wanted to go knock on Richard’s door but figured, since Mack was coming, she’d leave that up to him. Because, for sure, now Mack would have to talk to Richard. Even though Mack was supposed to do it earlier, maybe he would have held this off. Yet she didn’t think so. Whoever was there had been very much interested in Richard’s backyard, and the only thing that came to mind for her was the fact that they had removed the other listening device.

With that thought uppermost she turned her attention to the coffeepot, then sat and waited for Mack.