“Either you go back outside voluntarily, or I’ll, um…” Yeah, or you’ll do what? Call the police to tell them to come arrest this dangerous intruder? She snorted. “Or I’ll have to find a way to get you to leave, and trust me, you won’t like it.”

The cat didn’t move.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She grabbed the back of the recliner and pushed the piece of furniture with its furry occupant across the hardwood floor toward the French doors.

Her feline visitor let out a startled hiss.

“I told you, you wouldn’t like it.” When she reached the step leading down to the garden, she tilted the recliner.

The cat slid off the leather seat and landed on the tiled patio. It gave Susanne a disgruntled look.

Quickly, Susanne pushed the recliner out of the way and closed the door before the cat could sneak back inside. Through the glass, she gave the feline a victorious grin. “Mission accomplished!”

She slid the semi-transparent curtain closed and went to get herself a new bowl of muesli.

“Meow!” The plaintive sound drifted after her, followed by the soft thump of a paw against the glass. “Meeoooooow!”

With a groan, she rested her forehead against the fridge. “Be strong.” She was here to do a job, not to make friends—not even with a cat.

“And then she dragged Nobby into the office, and I didn’t see much of her for the rest of the day, thank God!” Anja paused in the middle of the footbridge across the lake and waited for Miri’s reaction.

Gino, her friend’s shaggy mutt, used the opportunity to sniff out the love locks people had placed all over the railing.

Something splashed in the water below them, but in the darkness, Anja couldn’t see what it was. Maybe a swan or a turtle?

“Thank God?” Miri repeated. “What would have been so bad about seeing more of her? I thought you said she was hot.”

“Hello? Didn’t you listen to a word I just said? She’s a total snob. Waltzes in there with her ruined five-hundred-euro shoes and thinks she can take over just like that! Besides, I never said she was hot.”

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

A passing jogger with a headlamp chuckled at them.

Now Anja was grateful for the darkness that hid her blush.

Miri didn’t seem to mind that he had overheard part of their conversation. When the jogger had disappeared around a bend in the path circling the lake, she asked, “So is she? Hot, I mean.”

“I guess she’s marginally good-looking.”

Miri guffawed. “Marginally good-looking? Now I know I’ve got to visit the store and check her out!”

Anja grabbed her sleeve. “Don’t you dare. I’m in enough trouble as it is. I think she doesn’t like me.”