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cat.” I dug in my Super Secret Spy bag—think doctor bag, full of tools I
     need for my trade, but much nicer, because Michael Kors made mine. The cat, screaming
     bloody murder and racing back and forth against the French doors, was making me nervous.
     I dumped out my spy bag on a patio table. From the pile, I grabbed my new gun, a G42,
     the brand new .38mm and the smallest Glock pistol ever made, and my Quik-Piks, a set
     of universal bump keys. The only doors I can’t get in with my Quik-Piks are cockpit,
     White House, and my mother’s. (She’s on to me.) Where did I get this amazing tool?
     Amazon.
    I wiggled past the lock, stepped into Holder Darby’s kitchen, and the cat began weaving
     in, around, and through my legs, still breaking the sound barrier with its asylum
     noises. With my eyes and gun everywhere, I inched to what looked like a pantry, reached
     in, blindly grabbed a box, then dumped a small hill of cat crunchies on the counter.
     The cat hopped up and, thank goodness, shut up. I filled a coffee cup with water from
     the kitchen sink and put it beside the crunchies. “Chew your food, cat.” That cat
     had absolutely no use for me now that it had food. “You’re welcome,” I whispered.
     “Where’s Holder?”
    Leaving my shoes in the kitchen, I cleared Holder’s home room by room (nice master
     with patio that led to the pool, closet large enough for four QVC-addicted women),
     and Holder Darby was not here. Odd lights were on—nightstand, front hall, patio—so
     she’d probably left at night. An assortment of prescription bottles were lined up,
     smallest to largest, along the bathroom vanity. Wherever she’d gone, she hadn’t packed,
     and she had high blood pressure, something I completely understood, because the woman
     had the world’s worst job. And she’d left in the middle of a movie. I sat on the first
     of three steps that led down to a media room, where a Blu-ray logo swam across the
     television screen and a full glass of wine on a small table beside a lounger had been
     collecting fruit flies, another fun summer Gulf amenity.
    I called my husband. “Bradley. Holder Darby’s gone. Poof. Absolutely gone.”
    “Davis, get back here,” he said. “The vault has been robbed.”

Two

      
    Cats don’t like cars.
    And I never knew cats were so vocal. Or that they moved at the speed of light. I drive
     a black Volkswagen Bug, and the cat, when it wasn’t hanging upside down from the headliner
     by its claws, hurled itself face first at the passenger window, which could be why
     it’s face is so flat.
    “The window is closed , cat. You can’t get out.”
    I didn’t grow up with pets, cats or dogs, but I thought they loved riding in cars,
     sticking their heads out the window. The longest eight-mile drive of my life from
     Holder Darby’s to the Bellissimo, and never again.
    Fantasy answered on the first ring. “Are you murdering someone?”
    “I’m trying to get a cat in my spy bag.”
    Dead silence.
    “Fantasy, can you come in to work?”
    “It’s my day off, Davis,” she said. “I’m catching up on my stories.”
    “Just an hour. I promise.” Where’d that cat go? This isn’t a big car. “And would you
     stop by Cats R Us on the way in?”
    “For what?”
    “A cat care package. A cat starter kit. I don’t know. Ask the cat people what cats
     need and bring one of each. But no mice.”
    Kneeling on the hot pavement, I lured the cat out from under the passenger seat with
     a red Gummy Bear I found in the floorboard. It finally slinked out, then launched
     itself through the air, landing on and latching into my head. I tried to peel it off—dancing,
     gushing blood, shrieking—which only encouraged the cat to sink its claws in deeper.
     After five minutes of going round and round with the cat on my head in the vendor
     parking lot, behind the Bellissimo, on a blazing hot Sunday, love bugs everywhere,
     I got a grip. I stopped fighting the cat and