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“What plan?” asked Marge in an even tone. She had poured water from the bucket into a small basin and was now rinsing tomatoes and a head of lettuce.

“She wants to turn our basement into a bunker. A nuclear bunker!”

“Not a nuclear bunker, you mug. A regular old bunker that can withstand anything. A nuclear blast, tsunami, hurricane or even Yellowstone going and blowing up on us.”

“And why do we need a bunker like that?” asked Marge in the same dispassionate tone as she took a pot roast out of the fridge and sniffed at it.

“Because winter is coming, if you hadn’t heard, and we need to protect ourselves.”

“Winter is coming but we don’t need no nuclear bunker to ride it out,” said Tex.

“Thenuclear winter is coming,” Gran specified. “And we do need a bunker to protect us from the blast. Why do you think Mark Zuckerberg is buying up half of New Zealand? Or those other tech billionaires? These guys know stuff we don’t, and they’re ready. So do you really want to be the chump that has to watch how his family is blown away by a nuclear explosion because he was too stubborn to listen to his whip-smart ma-in-law?”

“Where do youget all this nonsense?” Tex demanded.

“The YouTube, where else? Because the YouTube knows. The YouTube never lies.”

“Oh, God,” said Tex, and reached for the fridge.

“What are you doing?” asked Marge.

“I need a yogurt.”

“Not before dinner, you don’t. You know sugar spoils your appetite.”

“Your mother spoils my appetite.”

“The nuclear winter will spoil your appetite. In fact it will spoil your life. In that it will an-ni-hi-late you!” said Gran, wagging a bony finger in her son-in-law’s face.

I glanced to Dooley, and he glanced at me, and then we moved, as one cat, in the direction of the door. A couple of plaintive meows later and Marge was dutifully opening the door again and we were both walking out of the house. Even though winter was coming and it was chilly out, and pouring rain, it was still preferable to being inside.

Usually I don’t mind some light entertainment from the Gran-and-Tex show, but I’d had a rough day, what with finding out I needed to diet again, and getting stuck in the pet flap a couple of times, so my tolerance levels were low and about to hit rock bottom.

We walked through the hole in the hedge and into the next garden and then up to the house. No lights were on inside, so Odelia hadn’t arrived home yet. I gave the pet flap a sad glance and hunkered down on the deck, while Dooley ventured inside to see if he couldn’t wrangle up a human to act as my butler. Meanwhile, I took a well-deserved nap. What? Do you think cats would be as gracious and strong and flexible and overallfantastic if we didn’t get our eighteen hours of sleep? Sleep is good for you, you should probably try it sometime, young Padawan. And then I nodded off. Odd, though, but the last sounds that reached my ears were the sounds of Harriet and Brutus shouting.

Chapter 19

“What are you doing here?” asked Chase when Odelia walked out of the building just as he and Uncle Alec were walking in.

“Oh, this and that,” said Odelia. “Working on a new piece for theGazette.”

Uncle Alec narrowed his eyes at her.“You’re investigating the skeleton case, aren’t you?”

“And what if I am? If I had to wait for you guys to share information I could have waited a long time.”

“Alec thought it best not to involve you,” said Chase, happily throwing his boss under the bus.

“That’s not what I said, Chase. What I said was that since Odelia is so closely connected to the case, the body being found in her mother’s basement, we probably should keep her out of it.”

“It’s okay,” said Odelia. “Maybe by working separately we’ll discover a lot more.”

“But I don’t want you to work separately,” said Uncle Alec, looking pained. “I want you not involved in this case at all, you understand?”

“I do understand,” she said. “But you have to understand that when my editor gives me an assignment it’s a little hard for me to turn him down. Him being my boss and signing my paychecks and all.” She gave her uncle a smile which he didn’t reciprocate.

“So that’s how you want to play this, mh?” he finally asked.

“It seems I don’t have a choice, as you decided for me what role I should play.”

“I should have known you’d get involved somehow,” said her uncle, raking his meaty paw across the few remaining strands of thinning hair on top of his scalp.

“See?” said Chase. “I told you.”

“No, you didn’t,” Alec grumbled. “Well, fine. What did you find out?”

She feigned ignorance.“Find out? What do you mean?”

“Look, if we’re going to do this, we better join forces.”

“But that’s just it. You don’t want to join forces.”

He raised his eyes heavenward and emitted a rumbling groan. It had started raining, and his groan competed nicely with the sounds of thunder shaking the earth.

“Fine,” he finally said. “Have it your way.”

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll crack this case while you run around in circles.”