“Tell me everything,” I said as soon as we got in the car.
Casey furrowed her brow from behind her coffee cup. “We’ve been together all week—"
“Not you. Persephone.” She was still in my lap. I usually put her into the travel carrier right away when we drove, but I wasn’t sure where we were headed yet. “She smelled cat. Again. That means it’s Roy.”
Casey’s mouth formed an O, and she motioned to Persephone.
“It was the same smell from the pool,” she said. “Same cat.”
“Okay, so either someone else is traveling with their cat, or Roy has a pet.” My mind raced. It could be a dead end. “Is it similar to what you smelled at the store?”
“Noodle’s marked everything since Cupcake’s been gone, so it’s hard to pick up on Cupcake’s scent.”
I looked at Casey. “We need to visit Rosamund’s house. She’s only had us in the store.”
“Noodle lives in the store, and it seems like Cupcake did too.”
“But if you watch the videos, Cupcake’s in a house,” Casey countered. “And it’s pretty obvious Rosamund plays favorites. Poor Noodle.”
“She’d be a nice cat, if she wasn’t so mad all the time,” Persephone added. “She’s territorial because she’s had stuff taken away from her.”
“I think we should see Marnie. We have a ton of time before sunset.” Casey mimicked Roy’s voice with a shudder. “Show her the ransom notes and see if she’d be willing to help.”
“Roy kept the latest note.” I meant to get it back, but as usual, he managed to throw me off. “You really want to talk to her again?”
“I do. Rosamund gave us two suspects—Marnie and Scott. Scott wound up being super helpful—”
“But someone was watching us while we were there, or he tipped off the ransom note writer.”
Casey mashed her lips together. “True. I still think there’s a possibility Marnie cursed us.”
I groaned.
“And she did want to talk to you about Persephone. Aren’t you the least bit curious why you can talk to her?” Casey reached over and gave the spot some love. Persephone purred in response.
“We don’t have an appointment for another week.” I wasn’t sure we could handle seven more days in Rappaport.
“I say we just show up. Tell her we’re close to solving the case, and this is her chance to talk to us.” Casey raised a brow. “Even if it’s not true.”
“We might be close.” I hadn’t had a chance to tell her about what I’d figured out this morning. “Things are coming together. We know whoever has Cupcake, they’re getting bold. I think they want to get caught.”
“Why?
“Depends on what they want in return for the cat.” I lifted Persephone out of my lap and handed her to Casey. I backed out of the parking spot. I did want to talk to Marnie, but it was only eight o’clock in the morning. I didn’t think she’d cursed us, or taken Cupcake. But now I had much better questions to ask her.
The flashing lights were visible before we got to the Don’t Forget Me shop. Traffic slowed, but it wasn’t anything like the other day when Cupcake mania took Rappaport by storm. Hopefully, his fans hadn’t given up on him.
Casey gasped as we approached the store. “The front window’s totally smashed in.”
Caution tape roped off the parking lot. But a little yellow plastic wasn’t enough to keep us away. Officer Mitchell approached us with his hands in the air. “Ladies, this is official police business.”
No. He didn’t get to take this case seriously now. “We need to talk to Rosamund.”
“She won’t be able to talk to you about the investigation.”
“What happened?” Casey asked. “Was anything stolen?”
“I’m not at liberty—”
“Is Noodle okay?”
He scrunched his nose, making his sunglasses rise on his face. “What about noodles?”
Casey sighed and waved him off as she walked past him. Persephone hissed when he tried to block me from following her. He jumped out of the way.
He might not take us seriously, but at least he respected my cat.
“I could arrest you for interfering with a police investigation,” he called after us. He couldn’t be the only officer here, and if they were serious, they’d whip out the handcuffs.
Rosamund was standing in the yard between her house and the store, hugging her arms around her middle. She was in an oversized Cupcake shirt and sweatpants, like she’d woken up to this horrible event.
We weren’t quite at the hugging stage in our relationship, but she needed one. Instead, I put my hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure how much more I can take.” Her eyes were wide and haunted. “I wanted to believe whoever took Cupcake wouldn’t hurt him. But they’ve been trying to hurt us. There’s no telling what they’re doing to him.”
A chill rolled through my body.
“How’s Noodle doing?” Casey asked.
“I-I haven’t been into the storeroom,” Rosamund confessed. “I called the police as soon as I saw the broken window. They’re right down the street, and…I’m not thinking straight—”
I didn’t wait for her to finish. We needed to find Noodle, because if she was missing, then we had a whole new set of problems.
A few police officers we’d never met made a half-hearted attempt to stop us at the door.
“Rosamund hired us to find Cupcake,” I said.
That earned a couple smirks. One of the officers nodded toward Persephone. “That’s the talking cat.”
“Yes.” I steeled myself.
“My kids are big fans. If I tell them I saw you and I didn’t get a picture, they might make me sleep in the doghouse,” he chuckled. “Would you be so kind?”
Casey and I looked at each other. A simple act of goodwill could buy us a little leeway, even if he had the world’s worst timing.
“I’ll meet you inside,” she said.
“There’s glass on the floor. Don’t let Spy Kitty cut her paws,” the officer said after the most awkward selfie ever. But that was actually good information. If we couldn’t find Noodle, a trail of bloody paw prints might give us some clues to what happened.
But I really hated that option.
“Let me know what you smell that’s different than the other times we’ve been here,” I said to Persephone as we moved through the store. The Cupcake display was totally bare. Either Rosamund got cleaned out again, hadn’t restocked, or someone took it. Judging from the location of the hole in the window, door number three seemed like the most likely possibility.
“I don’t like this place,” Persephone said. Her body was tense in my arms. There was no blood on the floor, which was a good sign.
Other than the empty Cupcake display and the broken window, nothing else seemed different.
Maybe they just wanted to scare Rosamund.
Or us.
Rosamund wandered into the store, her gaze fixed on the broken glass. “Roy’s not going to be happy about this,” she said more to herself than me.
“Why not?”
“He says the two of you are trouble.”
“We’re here to help.” But things weren’t getting better. “I need to make sure Noodle is safe.”
Casey was on one knee in the middle of the storeroom. “It’s okay, it’s just Addie and Persephone. We’re your friends. You’re safe now.”
Noodle’s eyes were wide and pinned on us. But she was letting Casey pet her. That was a good sign. Casey had a special touch with even the most withdrawn animals at the shelter. She was always the first one that they’d open up to.
I stepped a little closer, and Noodle hissed at Persephone, who yowled in response. I hoped that meant they were talking.
“She’s your friend,” Casey repeated.
“Oh thank goodness, Noodie, are you okay?”
Noodle didn’t go to Rosamund. Interesting.
“She should probably stay with you in your house until things calm down,” I said. The way things were going in Rappaport, it should probably be a permanent move.
“I tried. She cried at the door all night long.”
“Can you ask her if there’s anything she’s defending back here?”
“It’s just a bunch of boxes. As far as I know.” Rosamund sounded so defeated. We had to wrap this investigation up soon, or we’d lose her.
I took a small step closer to Casey and Noodle.
Another hiss.
Persephone almost jumped out of my arms.
“She doesn’t want Cupcake to come back, ever. And she wants us to leave too. She thinks we’re making this happen.”
“Okay. We won’t ask you any more questions about Cupcake.” Our window to find the cat was closing so fast that if we didn’t move quickly, things wouldn’t end well.
“But she wants to know if her dad can come back.”