I heard a noise from the house. A noise that sounded like a bunch of birds squawking. I glanced up and saw that light had come on in one of the third floor bedrooms. The squawking seemed to be coming from there. Then the light blinked out and the squawking subsided.

Aha! Had I caught Dad and Dr. Blake in the act of smuggling more birds into our house?

I was creeping up to peek in the back door when I heard a shriek inside.

“Want Kiki!”

I hurried the rest of the way up the steps and peered in. Timmy’s car seat was on the floor. He was strapped into it, flailing as hard as he could with hands and feet. His face was streaked with tears and snot.

Kiki was on the floor nearby. What was left of Kiki. She lay, limp and empty, with little piles of stuffing all around her. All my careful repair work had been undone, and she looked worse than she had after Spike had finished with her.

“Kiki!”

I controlled the impulse to rush in without thinking—that might not be the best thing for Timmy, or for me, either. Why had someone been eviscerating Kiki? To find the thumb drive, of course. Which probably meant that the person who’d ripped open Kiki was looking for evidence connected with the embezzlement. But only someone who knew Karen and Timmy reasonably well would think to look inside the stuffed cat.

Sandie. I backed away from the window, reaching for my cell phone, I’d call the police and—

“Don’t move.”

Sandie was standing at the foot of the steps, holding a gun.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you make that call,” she said. “Drop the phone, now.”

I stared at her, pretending to be stunned into immobility. Actually, I was fairly stunned, but my brain was racing, making and discarding plans to rescue myself.

“Now,” she said, gesturing with the gun. Then she giggled. “Wow, that sounded so dramatic. Like something out of the movies.”

“Sandie—”

“It’s too bad shooting people’s not at all like in the movies. They don’t get blown half across the room or spurt blood everywhere. They just die.”

I dropped the phone.

“Now go inside.”

She followed me up the steps. Timmy redoubled his efforts to get out of the car seat when he saw me.

“Auntie Meg!” he shrieked. “Want Auntie Meg!”

“It’s okay, Timmy,” I said. I went over to the car seat and hugged him.

“Out! Out!”

“Don’t let the miserable little brat out,” Sandie said. “I had a hard enough time getting him tied up in that thing.”

“I’m sorry, Timmy,” I said. “Sandie won’t let me let you out. If I try, she might hurt me.”

“Don’t like Sandie,” Timmy muttered.

“I don’t either,” I said.

“Well, pooh,” Sandie said. “I’m just so broken up about that.”

Bad enough that she was holding a gun on us, but did she have to be so . . . perky about it?