The Mysteries of Max: Books 31-33 by Nic Saint (chrome ebook reader txt) 📗

term is GPS tracker, and it sends a signal to a satellite, which sends the signal back to an app on Odelia’s phone pinpointing our exact location.”

“You mean like the GPS on Odelia’s car?”

“Exactly like the GPS on my car,” said Odelia with a reassuring smile. “That way whatever happens to you, Chase and I will know where you are, and we can come and save you.”

“And catch the catnapper,” I added, “which is what this is all about.”

“Since all five cats were taken in the same area and around the same time,” Odelia explained, “I think it’s best if you roam around that area around that time—assuming the catnapper hasn’t changed his MO—and hope he’ll take the bait.”

I nodded, seeing the soundness of her scheme.

“What do they say, babe?” asked Chase.

“They’re going to do it,” said Odelia.

Chase nodded. “Good boys,” he said, giving us both a pat on the head for our trouble. He’d crouched down so he was at eye level. Then suddenly, and completely out of the blue, he put a collar around my neck!

“What are you doing?” I asked, slightly alarmed. I trust Chase, of course I do, but no cat likes to be outfitted with a collar. I mean, we’re not dogs, okay?

“It’s the GPS tracker I was telling you about,” Odelia said.

“Oh, right,” I said, only mollified to a minor extent.

“Are you sure this is safe, Max?” asked Dooley as Chase repeated the procedure with my friend.

“Yeah, I’m sure it is,” I said, though to be perfectly honest I wasn’t entirely sure myself.

Harriet and Brutus had entered the house through the pet flap and now halted in their tracks when they caught sight of the recent additions to our costume. “Why are you wearing a collar, Max?” asked Harriet.

“It’s not a collar,” I told her. “It’s a GPS tracker.”

“We’re going to nab the nabber,” Dooley announced.

“Nab the nabber!” said Brutus. “And how are you going to do that?”

“You’re going to know exactly how they’re going to do that because you’re going to be nabbing that nabber along with your friends,” said Odelia. And before Brutus and Harriet knew what was happening they, too, had both been outfitted with tracking devices!

Harriet blinked and said, in a plaintive voice, “I don’t like the color. It doesn’t become me.”

“There isn’t much choice in tracking collars, unfortunately,” said Odelia. “So these will have to do I’m afraid. How do they feel?”

“Weird,” I said, grimacing and pulling at the collar.

“A little tight,” said Brutus in a tight voice.

“So if these give off a signal that transmits to a satellite,” said Dooley, “isn’t that dangerous? I mean, doesn’t that kind of thing give you cancer?”

“Don’t worry about that, Dooley,” said Odelia, getting slightly annoyed with all these objections to a plan that must have seemed perfect in her mind when she thought it up.

“So what’s going to happen now?” I asked.

“Now you’re going to walk around where the others were all taken,” said Odelia.

“And where is that?”

And as she told us where she was going to drop us off, and even was so kind to show it on a map on her phone, Harriet said in a low voice, “You guys, it’s the Bermuda triangle.”

“The Bermuda triangle?” asked Brutus.

“You know, the place where everything disappears.”

“Oh, right.” He produced a low chuckle. “It’s the Bermuda triangle of cats—the place where all cats disappear into thin air!”

“Oh, God,” I said, liking this whole endeavor less and less as time went on and the hour of putting ourselves in the path of this crazy nabber/killer drew closer and closer.

“Max?” said Dooley as Odelia and Chase talked the plan through a little more, “I don’t like this.”

“I don’t like it either, Dooley, but I’m sure it will be fine.”

“But we’re wearing a cancer-inducing collar, and Odelia is going to drop us right in the middle of the Bermuda triangle for cats. This is very dangerous, Max!”

“Just think of it this way, Dooley,” I said. “Soon we’ll have this catnapper behind bars, and then all cats of Hampton Cove can finally breathe a little easier again.”

He took a deep breath, then said in a small voice, “I just wish I could breathe a little easier now.”

Chapter 10

Marge was not in a good mood. Though she should have been in a great mood, she wasn’t, and it was all because of her mother. “Look, this is still my kitchen,” she said, “and I’m the one who has to pay for it, so I think it’s only reasonable that I’m the one who decides.”

“Excuse me, but I live here, too,” said Ma, “and also, I’m paying from my pension, so I have as much right to have the deciding vote as you have—if not more!”

Marge looked at the design her mother had chosen on the computer tablet, and shook her head. “I don’t like the cupboards,” she said finally. “They’re too small. My tableware is never going to fit. And besides, I always wanted a kitchen island.”

“So what?”

“So where is my kitchen island? There’s no kitchen island in this design.”

“If you want a kitchen island, Marge,” said Ma, sitting next to her at the computer in their cozy little living room, “you should get a bigger kitchen.” She threw up her hands. “There simply isn’t enough space for the kind of kitchen you want.”

Marge knew that her mother was right, of course, but she was loathe to admit it. “I’m sure that if we measure things again we can create enough space.”

“You can measure all you want, but as long as that measurer you have isn’t one that belongs to Harry Potter you’re not going to create more space, Marge. You knew when you bought this house that you were getting a small kitchen, an okay living room and a small sitting room.” She paused. “Though if you really want a bigger kitchen there is a solution.”

Hope surged in Marge’s bosom. She really had always wanted a bigger kitchen. In fact it was her main gripe ever since they’d