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“Hungry,” one of the other kittens said without properly pronouncing theR,so it came out more likehungee.

Octo-Cat looked to me.“Did you get that?”

I nodded, then translated for Charles,“They’re hungry.”

He pulled out his phone and began to browse the web in response.

“How old do you think they are?” I asked Octo-Cat.

“It’s hard to say. A couple months, maybe.”

Charles set his phone on top of the closed aquarium and lifted a kitten in one hand, then handed her to me.“That’s about a pound, right?”

I nodded, unsure of it myself.

“Then we should be okay trying some soft cat food.”

“Should I get some of Octo-Cat’s?” I offered. It’s not like we had anything else in the house that could work.

“Don’t you dare!” he growled, startling the kittens.

“We need a special kind for kittens,” Charles explained. “Could you text Nan back and ask her to get some from the store?”

“I could, but I didn’t actually text her. That was a bluff.”

Octo-Cat glowered at me, clearly not pleased with anything about our current situation.

“I’ll head out then, if that’s okay,” Charles offered. “I’ll be back as fast as I can.” He placed a kiss on my forehead, then carefully let himself out of the room so that none of the felines could exit after him.

“Can I go now?” my cat asked me as the kittens continued to lick, nip, and bat at him.

“Sorry. I still need your help. Do you think the kittens will be willing to talk once they’ve been fed?”

“Maybe,” he answered with an exhausted sigh. “But little ones this age don’t know very many words. Much more advanced than humans at this age, but still with nowhere near the intellect of a full-grown cat.”

This was turning out to be quite the challenge.“Then what do we do?”

“I say we revisit the raccoon’s idea to—”

“Don’t finish that sentence if you know what’s good for you.”

“You’re no fun,” he groaned. “If you want to figure out what happened to them, you’re going to have to mount an investigation, AKA you’re going to have to do your job for a change.”

Ouch.

But also…touch?.

Chapter Eight

After Octo-Cat assured me he’d keep an eye on the little ones, I went to survey the scene of their abandonment. Other than a few bloody pawprints, the porch looked normal enough.

A faint pair of boot prints could just be made out under the fresh snowfall. I put my foot into one as a gauge for size. It was larger, but only just. Nothing about the style of the print gave away the wearer’s gender, and I could find no other clues nearby.

Any tire tracks that may have been left behind had already mixed in with the ones Nan made when leaving for her fitness class. For all I knew the mysterious doorstep-dropper could have been on foot.

“I thought I smelled your unique aroma wafting through my treehouse.” Pringle climbed up the porch railing and hopped down to stand beside me. I was pleased to see he’d left Carla at home. I was also quite offended by what he’d just said to me.

“How dare you say I stink!”

“I said you smelled,” he corrected, wagging a finger at me. “Notbad,exactly. Not good, either, though.”

I took a deep breath and forced myself to focus. If Pringle insisted on bothering me, maybe he could offer some assistance while he was here.“Did you see who brought the kittens?”

“Nope. I heard the car driving away but didn’t get here in enough time to see anything.”

Okay. So they were delivered by vehicle, which meant that someone had intentionally chosen my house for this very special delivery.

I could unpack that later. Right now I needed to use Pringle while I had him.“Usually you’re so fast. How did you miss this?”

He sank to all fours and sighed.“I had to wait for a good place to pause my show.”

“Survivor?”

“You know it. I’m on season twenty-seven, and it is definitely the most dramatic one yet.”

Didn’t he know they said that every season about every single reality show? Well, at least this addiction of his kept him from creating havoc for me 24/7.

“Uh-huh.Are you least learning valuable survival skills from all this binge-watching?”

He blew a raspberry.“Please. I watch it simply because it’s so bad. I could teach these humans a thing or two or two hundred about wilderness survival. By the way, I sent in an application for next season, using your name and video.”

It was already bad enough he snuck into my texts and social media. Now there was a video? Wait… what? “What video?” I boomed.

“Why, the one I took through your window when you weren’t paying attention, of course.” His answer came out flippantly, as if he saw nothing wrong with his actions at all. That made it worse, because it meant that things like this would happen again… and again.

And again.

I clenched my fists tight at my side but forced myself to keep calm. Recording private videos of me was definitely not okay. If he were a human, I would have called the police to come and get him.

Unfortunately, I still needed Pringle’s help with the kittens. After that, I could rain down all kinds of punishment on him.