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“Since you like spying and finding out secrets,” I managed at last, still unable to look the raccoon in the eye, “maybe you can figure out where the kittens came from?”

“Where they came from?” he asked in that grating nasal voice of his, although perhaps I was coloring the situation red with the rage of his recent revelation. “Why does it matter?”

I balked. How could he not understand?“Because didn’t you see all that blood?”

He shrugged off my concern.“So what? Blood happens. It’s a fact of life.”

“Not for humans, it doesn’t. Blood usually means something has gone seriously wrong.” How could he know so much about humans, yet still know so little? A lot of good all his reality TV viewing and covert spy operations were doing him.

“Yes, but you foundkittens, didn’t you?Not humans,so thus not a big deal.”

“Still, it would really help put my mind at ease. Can you just… I don’t know… follow their scent or something?”

“Ex-squeeze me? Follow their scent? What do you think I am? Some kind of dog?”

I stared at him with my mouth open for a moment before answering.

Over the last year or so, I’d found there were two effective ways to deal with Pringle when I needed him to do something. The first was to give him something he wanted—treehouses, an adventure, a Nerf gun named Carla. The second, although harder to pull off, was much easier on the wallet. It was time to pull out this strategy and hope it did the trick.

It was time to employ reverse psychology.

“Aren’t raccoons part of the dog family?” I knew that they weren’t, but that was beside the point.

“Yeah, maybe the disgruntled cousin. Either way, we’re not having Thanksgiving dinner together. Capiche?”

I frowned, all part of the act.“So you’re saying raccoons can’t smell as well as dogs? That’s okay. I understand. Paisley will be home soon, so I can just—”

“Wash your mouth out with soap right now! Raccoons are superior to dogs in every single way. I could sniff out the culprit if I wanted to.”

“Yeah, but Paisley has a lot of experience. I bet she could trace the scent without even having to lower her nose to the ground.”

The raccoon placed a hand on each hip.“I don’t need experience to be the best. I was born that way. Now, you get out of my way!”

Satisfaction wrapped around me like a warm blanket as I watched Pringle scurry down the driveaway and out of sight. I hoped he’d be able to trace the source of the kittens, but even if he couldn’t, at least he was out of the way for the next couple hours.

Meanwhile I had one more piece of evidence to process before calling in some outside help, and it was waiting for me in the upstairs bathroom.

To the box!

Chapter Nine

The box was not in good shape. Not only had it been soiled with bloody pawprints, but it had also been badly shredded around the top edges and the inside. Whoever had packed the kittens inside had decided to fold the top flaps inward rather than letting them hang down over the outside.

I pulled each of the flaps out to take a closer look. Sure enough, beneath all the stains and scratches, I spied a white shipping label. Would this give me the address of the person who’d dropped off the litter?

I grabbed a container of bleach wipes from under the bathroom sink and began to carefully dab at the label. By the time I was done, I had a partial address:

1 8 ir S

Gle le, E

Well, that was helpful.

I could tell that the second line should read Glendale, Maine, but the first was so scratched up I found it impossible to read more than two numbers and three letters. None of which helped my tired brain.

Maybe Charles or Nan would have some idea. I’d be sure to ask them when they returned home.

For now, I was all out of clues—and Octo-Cat was probably all out of patience. I took a snapshot of the address label for safekeeping and then returned to the cat room.

I’d left the cats alone for fifteen minutes at most, but the scene that greeted me upon my return felt lightyears apart from the one I’d left behind.

Octo-Cat had lined up the kittens in a straight row right in front of the fish tank. He now walked back and forth, holding his tail high and erect as he spoke.“To be a cat, you have to be strong, brave, and—above all—well-groomed. Do you understand me?”

“Daddy! Yes, Daddy!” the kittens shouted in unison. Their high-pitched baby voices made this scene even more absurd than the fact they were cats.

Octo-Cat did an about-face, unable to hide the smug grin on his face even as he caught sight of me.

“What are you doing?” I asked cautiously, curious but also not wanting an earful.

“Training up the new recruits,” he barked—or at least made a canine-like noise, one I’d never heard him utter before.

“Daddy! Yes, Daddy!” the kittens responded in kind.

While I was glad he’d changed his stance on spending time with the youngsters, I was also now very worried. “Training them to do what exactly?”

“To be cats, of course. It’s a very important and very demanding job.” My cat grinned a jokeresque grin, which would have frightened me were it not so comical.