She responded with a peal of laughter, and since her laugh was among the most contagious ever, I laughed, too. At some root level in my brain, I recognized that she was right. But I didn’t have to acknowledge that now, or even think about it, so I put Eddie’s carrier into the car and asked what he did to deal with muscle aches and pains.

“Do you have some secret remedy? Because I’ve never seen you limping around after a day of chasing after, but never catching, seagulls.”

Eddie blinked at me, then looked away.

“Okay, I get it. You can’t break the Cat Code.”

All the way back to the houseboat, I lectured Eddie about the benefits of cross-species ideas, how the world would improve if we all just talked to each other, and how the effort should start with the two of us.

Outside of one very loud “Mrr!” he ignored me, and by the time he was in the houseboat and I was out of work clothes, he was snoring. And since it had been a long day for me, too, I finished the day as it had begun, with a bowl of cold cereal, and went to bed with a book.

All this meant I didn’t have time to poke around about Bob Bernier until the next morning. I was thinking about a plan before my alarm went off, and when I slid out from underneath a purring Eddie, I was pleased to feel only the slightest twinge of pain from my legs.

“Looks like I’m in better shape than I thought,” I said. Eddie opened his eyes to teeny-tiny slits, then closed them. “You, of course, have the entire day to rest and recuperate. I have to get out and fetch the bacon. Metaphorical bacon,” I hastened to add. “Me cooking bacon is bad for my frying pan and hard on the smoke detector.”

It occurred to me that Rafe and I hadn’t talked about cooking duties after I moved to the house. This lapse wasn’t really surprising, since cooking and its subsequent cleanup were my least favorite household chores, but you’d have thought it would come up at some point.

“Something to worry about later,” I told Eddie. “What I need to do now is head downtown. Yes, I know it’s early, but I’m not headed to work, I’m—”

Eddie’s snore, always loud, was suddenly loud enough to drown out my voice.

“Fine,” I said, tossing my nose in the air and walking into the bathroom. “Since you’re super not interested in my day, I’ll stop talking to you about it.”

I could have sworn I heard a faint “Mrr” but decided I must have been mistaken.

*   *   *