“Moss… Moss… It’s time to wake up, Moss.” Amy’s voice broke through the sunlight-induced haze that enveloped me.
“Would you please just let me sleep? Was having a dream… we almost caught the guy—” My words were cut short by the massive yawn that followed.
“But then, let me guess, he got away at the last second,” Kaye suggested with a laugh.
“Maybe I should just scoop him and the jeans up in one armload,” Amy said next.
“I’m up. I’m up. Everyone, calm down already.” I cracked open one eyelid and found Kaye, Amy, and Johnson all standing and staring down at me. “No Brewer?” I asked with a triumphant grin.
“He’s waiting for us to pick him up,” Kaye explained with a sigh. “Splitting up seemed like a good idea, until it wasn’t.”
We made our way downstairs, me ambling behind the rest of the group as I waited for sleep to shake itself out of my extremities. Amy purchased the cuddly nap time jeans on my behalf, and we were off.
Johnson drove deeper into the city to catch up with Brewer, while Kaye and Amy piled in with me and the jeans.
“Please tell me we’re done for the day,” I groused as Kaye pulled out of the lengthy driveway and almost immediately hit a pothole.
“We’re headed that way, but first I have to check in with the boss man,” Kaye said as Amy fiddled with her phone.
Mason’s voice boomed through the speakers. “What is it?”
“Sir, we’ve encountered our exposer,” Kaye said. She paused to suck in a deep breath and run her fingers through her hair. He wasn’t going to be happy with this recounting of events.
“Yes? Did you bring him in?” he asked, then sucked in a deep breath and waited. It’s like he already knew exactly what we had to tell him.
“Not exactly,” Amy volunteered on Kaye’s behalf.
Silence permeated the other end of the line. Good grief. “Well? How have you bungled it up this time, Godwin?” he barked.
“Nothing is bungled, sir. We made good progress in the investigation today. And we’ll get him soon,” she said. “It’ll be much easier now that we know what he looks like.”
“We split up to cover more ground,” Amy rushed to explain. “And Moss and I were on our own, when—”
“Do the lot of you have a brain to share?” Mason demanded. “Did Johnson and Brewer sign off on those two going alone without a proper magic user to accompany them?”
“Yes, sir. They both knew. None of us thought about what they’d do if they actually made contact with our con. We all assumed we’d be chasing down cursed objects again today.”
Mason groaned. “Well, cut to the chase, then. How’d he slip through your fingers?”
“He locked us in a bedroom, sir,” Amy said, wincing as if this admission caused her physical pain.
“Confound it!” Mason shouted. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you with this case. It’s too important.”
“Now hold on,” Kaye interrupted. “It’s not all bad news.”
“Then give me the good news as fast as you can, Agent. Lord knows I need it,” he growled. Frankly, I was getting sick of his whole holier-than-thou attitude. If Mason was such a talented agent, then why wasn’t he on the beat?
“Amy managed to get photos of both our guy and his vehicle. Including the license plate.”
Mason exploded again, and here I thought he’d be happy. “You should’ve led with that information!” he yelled. “Send me the pictures at once. I’ll have the team here run them through all magical and non-magical databases. Perhaps some of the human’s computer programs can match his face with records they have on file.”
He hung up abruptly, and without bothering to say goodbye.
Kaye pulled over to the side of the road and leaned forward, pressing her forehead to the top of the steering wheel, and letting out a massive groan. “We have to catch this guy, and we’ve got to do it fast.”
Amy set a gentle hand on her shoulder. “We will.”
Kaye scoffed at this. “Yeah, well, if not, I’ll be fired, and you two will be in prison.”
“If they plan on taking me back to CosmoPAWlitan, well, then, they’ve got another thing coming,” I promised while narrowing my eyes with ire. “I’ll dig this fancy microchip thing out of me with a rusty spoon before I let that happen.”
Kaye rolled her eyes and glanced at me in the rear-view mirror. “Now that’s the worst thing you could do. Because if you don’t get back to headquarters to have the binding spell taken off, you’ll turn into a real cat. Permanently.”
Then that only left one option. “We’ll catch him,” I vowed for Kaye, for Amy, for me. “I don’t know how, but we will. We don’t have any other options left.”
“Moss is handy to have on these hunts,” Amy said, smiling as she rubbed Kaye’s shoulder. “He senses the magic before I do. I didn’t realize magic was happening until we were inside the room with the man. But he knew as soon as we were up those stairs.”
“I don’t care what Mason says,” Amy continued. “We made great progress today. I think that deserves a celebration. Don’t you?”
Kaye sniffed and chanced a smile, and then we were back on the road again. We took a detour through a fried chicken joint after Amy claimed she had a craving. Really, though, I think she was just trying to find positive things to focus on so that Kaye’s mood wouldn’t continue to spiral downward.
“I want baked,” I shouted, sitting up straight and sniffing at the air. “And lots of it.” My stomach growled to punctuate my point.
Kaye sighed and added a side of baked chicken onto the big family meal she’d already ordered.
When the food was handed through the window, Kaye set it in the floorboard behind the passenger seat… and directly in front of me.
Oh, man. It smelled so good, and it was so, so close. I slinked off the seat and sat beside the bag. I wouldn’t dig into it, of course. It just felt nice to be so close to something I loved.
But then the angry rumbling in my stomach reminded me of my desperate hunger. Maybe I could just take in one extra deep breath through my nostrils, and that would tide me over until we got home.
Yeah, yeah, that could work. I sucked that heavenly-smelling air in through my little nose, filling my lungs as deeply as I could.
Ah, that’s the stuff.
That big, ol’ bird inside the bucket was just begging to be eaten—and to be eaten by this cat in particular. Maybe I could just poke my head in and feast on the delicious sight with my eyes.
Yeah, that would be enough.
A small container sat on top. It wasn’t a difficult latch. Reaching in delicately with one paw, I turned it over and extended one claw under the lip.
Score! It opened, and while it wasn’t my baked chicken, it was some sort of fried chicken. I carefully bit one and pulled it out of the package, then backed up and set it on the floor in front of me. I hated the thought of my food touching the floor, but I could leave that part and only eat from the top.
Oh, man. Why had I asked for baked chicken? The crispy crunchies on the outside of this fried stuff was divine. I moaned to myself, being careful not to attract any attention from the girls, and I dug in deeper and deeper.
I couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop.
“Moss!” Amy exclaimed, pulling the door open so fast it startled me. “What did you do?”
My stomach lurched in protest. What did I do?
I’d eaten straight through the bucket. A bite from this piece, a chomp of that piece. I’d claimed them all.
What a celebration.
“Whoops,” I muttered and smacked my lips. “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s not too late for you two to order a pizza. Oooh, could you order one for me, too? With anchovies?”