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“What about the voicemails you’re planning to leave?” Charles wondered.

“Those are just a fail-safe. Call me, and I’ll make sure to stop whatever I’m doing—be it driving or sleeping or whatever—and I’ll give you my full attention. Hey, do you mind hanging around my house for a while if he’s out?”

I could practically hear the cringe in his voice as he said,“Better your place with one seagull than mine with the whole flock.” I really wished I was there with him, and not just because this road trip was driving me crazy.

“Good point. You know you can stay at my place if you need to.”

“Nah. They’ll just move bases, plus Jacques and Jillianne will be furious if I’m not home by bedtime.” He was right, of course. His two Sphynx cats were even more strangely entitled than Octo-Cat.

“Okay, I’ll call right back,” I promised, hating to let him go but also knowing I needed to move things along here. “Remember not to pick up. Love you. Bye.”

We hung up, and I took a few deep breaths before hitting redial. When his voicemail picked up, I raised my voice just south of a shout.“Pringle! Pringle! Charles is looking for you. Come over and talk to him. I’ve left you a top-secret message that will self-destruct in ten minutes whether or not you listen to it. So hurry up and follow him inside. Further instructions await you there.”

Click.

There. I’d appealed to his sense of drama. He wouldn’t be able to resist that.

I texted Charles between calls:“One down, one to go.”

When my second call was routed to voicemail, I laid out the basics of my plan and how it would involve the nosy trash panda.

“Agent Pringle, thank goodness you’ve accepted our call for help.” I reached deep down and pulled out every spy movie cliche I could think of. The raccoon had once thought of himself as a noble medieval knight, but his predilections tended to change based on whatever TV shows and movies he preferred at the time. Right now, he was on a Tom Cruise/ Arnold Schwarzenegger/ Bruce Willis binge, so spy tropes it was.

“We fear our mission might have been compromised and that our supposed allies aren’t giving us all the information. We’ve got a dirty flock and the impending threat of war. Already one flock has gone AWOL, and we need you to find these key witnesses and extract the true nature of their disappearance.”

As I continued to rattle off everything we knew in the most dramatic way possible, I started simply throwing in the names of popular action flicks. The cornier I could make this, the more our little raccoon spy would like it.

“It’s going to be Sum of All Fears around here if we don’t stop this Lethal Weapon from detonating. I’m counting on you to be The Terminator of these lies before somebody Dies Hard. Are you ready to join us on this Mission Impossible, Agent 007? Good, then await my next call for your assignment.”

I hung up quickly. If either Nan or Octo-Cat was paying attention, it was only a matter of time until one of them burst out laughing and spoiled the ruse. Yes, I knew that last part of my plea had made very little sense, but I also knew it would get the raccoon excited and ready to do whatever it took to solve the case.

Operation Raccoon Spy, here we come!

Chapter Eleven

Charles texted half an hour later to say he couldn’t find Pringle anywhere, but that he’d stay as late as he could without upsetting his two feline overlords back home.

While waiting to see if he would need me, I eventually nodded off.

I didn’t wake up again until the dead of the night.

Nan was wide awake as she took her turn behind the wheel, and she was listening ahead in Dr. Roman’s audiobook while the pets napped curled up together in the back seat. Octo-Cat would not be happy about that.

“Oh, you’re up?” my grandmother asked, turning her head to glance at me briefly as she clicked the stereo off.

I stretched what little I could belted into my seat, then wiped the sleep from my eyes.“Did Charles call?”

“He did, but I let him know you were dead to the world.”

Wow. I really must have been if I hadn’t heard the phone ring.

“Do you want me to take over for a while?” I offered despite still feeling quite sleepy. We could always find some coffee to activate my awakening sequence, if needed.

“I’m fine, dear. I don’t need quite as much sleep as I did when I was young.”

I smiled instead of pointing out that she’d slept clear through most of the day. “Okay, then I guess I’ll try to grab some more rest of my own. Wake me up when you’re ready to switch, okay?”

“Not a problem,” she promised and hit play on the audiobook again.

It only took a couple of minutes for me to drift back into a deep slumber—well, at least deep considering I had to do it while sitting up and buckled in. Driving was just about the most exhausting activity you could do while sitting on your butt the whole time. If I dreamed, it wasn’t something worth remembering because the next thing I knew somebody in the car was screaming.