The Mysteries of Max: Books 31-33 by Nic Saint (interesting novels in english txt) 📕

my loyal but slightly goofy sidekick from now on. How about that?”

“Very generous of you, Brutus.”

“Think nothing of it, Max.”

And so the long night wore on. One by one people started disappearing: first Uncle Alec and Charlene, who said they wanted to get an early night, then Gran and Scarlett, who said they wanted to take a stroll along the Strip, and of course Odelia and Chase were also eager to return to their room, as they had something to celebrate in the privacy of their bedroom: their wedding night. Though it’s entirely possible that after the week they’d had, they’d both fall asleep the moment their heads hit the pillow.

So finally it was just Tex and Marge and us cats. When Tex looked up and saw that his entire roster of customers had vanished into thin air, he looked a little sheepish at first, but Marge was quick to console him. “You did a wonderful job, honey,” she said. “And do you realize that our daughter just got married? And to a wonderful husband to boot?”

That quickly put a smile on the good doctor’s face again, even as he was dissecting a piece of fish filet, probably trying to ascertain what kind of diseases it might be suffering. “We did a good job raising Odelia, didn’t we?” he said as he took a seat at the table.

“We sure did,” said Marge, then gave her husband’s arm a squeeze. “What do you say we go up to our room, too?”

Now he was positively beaming. “Best idea ever,” he said, and then they, too, left the building.

For a moment, silence reigned, and then Harriet said, “I can’t believe they forgot about us!”

“Well, at least they didn’t leave us without something to eat,” Brutus pointed out.

Silver linings, people. Life is all about recognizing the silver linings. And sometimes, just sometimes, those silver linings consist of raw fish—lots and lots of raw fish!

THE END

You probably noticed that I kind of glossed over the actual wedding. The good news is that you can read all about those missing moments in Purrfect Wedding, a free story for newsletter subscribers. Sign up here: nicsaint.com/news

Purrfect Deceit

The Mysteries of Max - Book 32

Chapter 1

We were in Odelia’s office doing what we do best: having a refreshing nap. Not that napping is all we do, mind you. Sometimes we doze, and sometimes we even sleep. Dooley and I occupied one corner of the office, Harriet and Brutus another. Recently a sort of disagreement had broken out between the two factions that make up Odelia’s cat contingent and I can only blame The Wedding for this frankly embarrassing fracas.

A wedding had taken place in Las Vegas, and Odelia and Chase Kingsley had officially been declared husband and wife. It had been one of those shotgun weddings, though fortunately no shotguns had featured into the thing, and a good thing, too, I should say.

The moment we returned from Vegas however, two things happened that caused a kind of rift: first off, a great number of people who’d heard through the grapevine about the wedding were vocally displeased, and didn’t mind expressing this displeasure to one and all. As Odelia’s cats we more or less bore the brunt of this displeasure, as our fellow felines in the local community turned to us to tell of their annoyance with the way the whole thing had gone down, and this naturally weighed on all of our minds.

Harriet, fed up with all this criticism, which she felt she didn’t deserve, figured Dooley and I were mostly to blame, as we should have used our influence to discourage Odelia from going through with her plan, even though at the time Harriet had thought it was a great idea—something she’d since conveniently forgotten, I might add.

And then there was the second dispute that soured things to some extent.

“The stork, Max!” said Dooley. “It’s the stork! I can see him! Quick, let’s catch him before he takes off again!”

I looked in the direction indicated but unfortunately didn’t see any sign of said stork.

“Um… I’m afraid I don’t see any stork, Dooley,” I said therefore.

He stared at the window, through which a sliver of blue sky was visible. “Oh,” he said finally. “I thought I saw it. Must have been some other bird.”

“Will you please shut up about your stork,” Harriet yelled from her side of the room.

“Yeah, some of us are trying to take a quiet nap,” Brutus chimed in.

“I’m sorry,” said Dooley. “It’s just that… you know how important it is, you guys. And I think we should all be on the lookout for that stork twenty-four seven.”

“You be on the lookout,” said Harriet. “Brutus and I have better things to do.”

“We could take shifts,” Dooley suggested, turning a hopeful face to me. “I could watch out while you take a nap, and you could watch out while I take a nap. And vice versa?”

“Sure, Dooley,” I said reassuringly. “Don’t you worry about a thing. You take your nap and I’ll make sure that stork doesn’t pass by this office without me attracting its attention and making sure it does what it’s supposed to do.”

“And what’s that?” asked Brutus. “Take a dump and fly off again?” He seemed to think his joke was very funny, for he suddenly broke into uproarious laughter.

“You know how important this is, Brutus,” said Dooley, sounding a little hurt. “If we don’t catch that stork, Odelia will never have her baby, and then she’ll be very sad.”

“Oh, Dooley,” said Harriet with a sigh, even as Brutus shook his head.

“What?” said Dooley. “It’s true, though, isn’t it? This is very, very important.”

“Absolutely, Dooley,” I said with a smile. As long as Dooley was on the lookout for the stork delivering Odelia’s baby there was no need for me to go into all that birds and bees stuff again, something I thoroughly dislike, I don’t mind telling you.

“What are you guys talking about?” asked Odelia, busily typing