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She quickly repeated the procedure with the other two prisoners. One introduced himself as Elon Pope, the lottery winner, and the other as Bertie Balk, the insurance broker with the wife trouble. Both men were over the moon. The story they all told them was the same: they’d found themselves in the vicinity of the Buschmann place, and had been knocked out by a blow to the occipital bone, at which point they must have been dragged downstairs and locked up. To what purpose, they did not know.

“Let’s find out if there are more prisoners,” said Alec, giving his mother a big hug.

And much to Odelia’s surprise, Gran actually got all teary-eyed. “Thank Odelia, and thank those cats!” she said with a shaky voice when Alec started to thank her. “I was just along for the ride!”

“Thanks, honey,” said Alec as he gratefully hugged his niece.

“You’re welcome,” she said, extremely gratified at how everything had turned out.

“Over here, Odelia!’ cried Max, and they all hurried over. Max and the others were in front of a locked door. Behind it, they could hear muffled shouts and pounding.

“It could be more of the bad guys,” said Gran as they deliberated their next move.

“So?” said Alec. “I’m more than ready to tackle them if they try any funny business.”

“Besides,” said Odelia. “Would bad guys lock other bad guys up?”

“Doubtful,” Gran agreed.

“Oh, just open the door already!” cried Elon, who couldn’t stand the tension.

Odelia tried several keys until one fit, and as the door swung open she was surprised to find herself staring into the faces of… two young boys.

Nicky and Jay.

Chapter 30

I was so glad to see my human again that I’d almost forgotten about Uncle Alec. Locked downstairs in that dark, dank cell. Luckily Odelia was so clever to find the right key to let him out, and then two other men, and when they found those two kids, I was starting to see this was all part of some bigger thing. After all, who would want to lock up grown men, little kids, and a bunch of cats in the basement of an abandoned house?

There was definitely something nefarious going on, and I couldn’t wait to find out what it was.

And so when Odelia went in search of more potential victims, while Gran and Alec took the two boys upstairs, along with the two other prisoners, Dooley, Harriet, Brutus and I decided to join her as she went door to door, looking for a solution to this mystery.

Unfortunately—though I should probably say fortunately—we didn’t find more prisoners. What we did find was another staircase, leading even deeper underground.

“I don’t know if I want to go down there,” said Harriet as we stared into the darkness.

“It does look very spooky,” Odelia agreed.

“Maybe we should wait until Chase is back,” said Harriet. “He’ll know what to do.”

“That could take a long time,” said Brutus. “Those bad guys could be halfway to Canada by now.”

“Chase will catch them,” I said. “Didn’t you hear what Uncle Alec said? Chase always gets his man.”

“Maybe we should wait until the police arrive,” said Odelia, then flicked on the Torch app on her phone and let the light play across the wall and those mysterious stairs.

“And what if there are more kids locked up downstairs?” I asked. “Or cats?”

That decided Odelia. She steeled herself, then put her foot on the first step.“I’m going in, you guys. Who’s with me?”

“We’re right behind you, Odelia,” I said, and also took a step down.

“I’m not going,” said Harriet. “I’ll bet there are rats down there. Big rats. Not nice ones like you see in the movies. I’ll bet the rats down there are huge. And really mean.”

“I’ll protect you, sweetie pie,” said Brutus, bravely pushing out his chest.

“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m staying right here. But go if you must.”

But since Brutus didn’t want to leave his lady love to fend for herself in case there were big nasty rats on this level as well, it was just me and Dooley and Odelia who finally made our way down into the bowels of the earth. Or, as Harriet had pointed out, a potential rat’s nest.

We’d reached the last step when the light from Odelia’s phone hit a steel door. Next to it was a switch, and when she flipped it, light flooded the stairwell.

“That’s much better,” I said. “I hate the dark.”

Odelia laughed.“But you’re a cat, Max. You’re supposed to love the dark.”

“Well, I don’t. Besides, it’s a myth that cats can see in the dark. We can’t.”

“We can see more than humans do, though,” said Dooley.

“That doesn’t mean I have to love the dark.”

His face fell.“You mean… there might be monsters?”

Dooley has a thing about monsters. When he was younger he was always afraid that monsters might be hiding under the bed, and always took a running leap whenever he wanted to jump up on the bed. He also instructed me to stand near the bed when he jumped, in case a monster reached out a tentacle and tried to make a grab for him.

Never once did I see a tentacle, though, or a monster’s claw. Still, as I indicated before, I’m not a big fan of the dark either. You never know what’s lurking there, right?