Chapter 2
Salvatore Conte was a dramatic man under even the most mundane circumstances. Now that Rumble was missing, he was reaching heights of histrionics Arthur hadn’t seen since the Spice Girls broke up—who is going to spice up my life now?!
Sal burst into the combination first-aid and headquarters tent like a blustering wind, Arthur only a step behind him.
“My daughter is missing!” Sal shrieked at top volume, startling a few paramedics and support staff. He glared around. “Did you hear me? She’s missing!”
“He means his cat,” said a commanding, and familiar, voice.
Acting Mayor Nora Anderson swept toward the middle of the tent, a clipboard in one hand and a Trident Falls–branded ball cap on her head, little wisps of black hair peeking out from underneath.
She was of an average build with medium brown skin and a calming presence, despite the vibrant tie-dye T-shirt she wore.
Since the moment Nora had appeared in the lobby of the Dead & Breakfast—only then, it was still called the Iris Inn—Arthur had quite liked her.
She had a steady quality to her personality and was meticulously organized, not to mention she showered endless praise upon his scones.
She’d been a great help to them as they’d dealt with murder allegations when the former mayor had died, and though Arthur had briefly suspected the newcomer might have something to do with it all, he’d found a genuine ally and eventually friend in the deceased mayor’s replacement.
Nora took a deep breath, which seemed contagious as it rippled through the others, and said, “No one panic.”
“I daresay I’ll panic if I wish!” Sal cried, entirely unmoved by her attempts to deescalate the situation. “Rumble is a delicate creature with no wilderness survival skills!”
Arthur might have interrupted to remind his husband that Rumble had been a stray with some success before they’d adopted her, but he was saved the displeasure by the arrival of Quinn Clark, Nora’s deputy.
“Rumble? Delicate?” Quinn scowled. She was shorter and stouter than her counterpart, but dressed the same, sleek blond ponytail looped through the back of her hat.
Quinn had been more of an acquired taste, antagonistic to both them and Nora during the whole murder situation, but Arthur had developed a fondness for the grumpy government worker, especially when she challenged some of Salvatore’s more outlandish claims, as she did now.
“She nearly took out my eye last week when I tried to pet her.”
“I know, isn’t she darling?” Salvatore whined. “I just adore her so.”
Arthur exchanged knowing looks with Nora and Quinn, confirming that they all understood what this was. Rumble would likely be just fine on her own. Salvatore, on the other hand…
Arthur wrapped an arm around Sal’s shoulders. He had to be the strong one right now, but worry fluttered in his chest as well. He’d never been much of a cat person during his life or undeath, but he’d grown very fond of Rumble despite that. She was part of the family.
“All staff be advised.” Quinn spoke into the radio with a brisk voice. “There’s a black cat loose at the festival. If it’s spotted, report to the HQ tent. Let me know immediately if you apprehend it. Out.”
“Apprehend it?” Sal repeated in an octave higher than his normal register. “We must form search parties to find her! Every second counts. The first forty-eight hours are crucial in missing persons cases!”
Arthur squeezed Sal’s hand fondly at the evidence that his husband did, in fact, listen to him ramble sometimes.
Nora gave a sympathetic smile to Sal and Arthur in turn. “We don’t have the manpower for that, unfortunately, but I promise we’ll be keeping an eye out for her. Quinn and I were about to do our rounds of the vendor tents. I’ll let everyone know to be on the lookout for Rumble.”
Salvatore, naturally, did not take the news well. He tried to climb atop a rickety folding table to give an impassioned speech, but Arthur held him back, shaking his head. It was far too unstable. The last thing he needed was an incapacitated Salvatore to take care of as well.
“Come on,” Arthur said, tugging on Salvatore’s ruffly shirt. “We can look for her.”
They returned to the festival without reinforcements. Though the sun was shining as brightly as ever, Salvatore’s mood was its own stormy cloud following them. Arthur popped open his yellow umbrella.
“Shall we?” he asked, offering Salvatore his arm.
“I wish it was night,” Sal grumbled.
“Wouldn’t that make it more difficult? She would blend in with the darkness.”
“Yes, but at least then I could fly.”
Arthur didn’t bother to point out that Sal’s version of flying was more like hovering and wouldn’t provide them much in the way of efficiency.
Instead, he silently resolved to find Rumble before they needed to resort to use of their powers.
It would only serve to demoralize Salvatore further when he remembered his own abilities were limited.
After two hours, they’d found nary a hair nor paw print—not that belonged to a cat, anyway. Eventually, they stopped by Theo’s cart so Arthur could order Sal his favorite iced coffee—the Full Moon Mocha—and ask for Theo’s help with their search.
“Not even sugar and caffeine can cheer me up,” Sal said morosely, though he had to pause halfway through the sentence to take a long sip through the drink’s biodegradable straw.
“Rumble is gone, and it’s all that rancid pet psychic’s fault.
If she hadn’t told such horrible lies, it wouldn’t have upset Rumble enough to make her run off.
Do you know what she said about our precious daughter? ”
Arthur suspected the crowds and yelling had overwhelmed the poor cat and made her bolt, but he wasn’t about to voice his opinion aloud. It wouldn’t change what happened, anyway. “What did she say?” he asked, more to placate his husband than out of true curiosity.
“She said Rumble would live another fifty years! Can you believe that nonsense? It’s not even remotely plausible.” Sal threw up his hands. “You’d think she’d be more practiced at fibbery. Even I know cats don’t live that long.”
Privately, Arthur was surprised to hear this. Salvatore was not exactly the most rational person he’d ever met. If anyone was going to believe their cat might live a longer than average life rather than face the reality of mortality, it would be Sal.
“It’s not like I’m completely uneducated on the subject, you know,” Sal carried on. “I know most cats only live to be…what, thirty? Thirty-five?”
Arthur sighed. There was the delusional Sal he knew and loved.
“I’m really sorry,” Theo said, handing Arthur an unsweetened iced tea, though he hadn’t ordered anything. “I don’t smell her anywhere near here, but if I catch a whiff I’ll be sure to let you know.”
Arthur sighed and took a sip of the tea. It tasted like defeat. “We’d better head home.”
Salvatore looked aghast. “But Rumble—”
“Nora and her staff are keeping an eye out—and Theo is keeping a nose out—I’m sure when Rumble calms down, or gets hungry, she’ll emerge and someone will bring her up to the Dead & Breakfast for us.”
“What if she’s hurt?” Sal said in a low, warbling voice.
“If you want to stay here, I can do the guest check-ins alone.” Arthur didn’t have the heart to play the we have to work card now.
This was beyond Sal’s usual antics—perhaps even worse than the Spice Girls incident of 2001, after all.
He wished he had the power to cheer up his husband, but he could no more make Rumble appear than he could remedy the rifts that tore apart the British pop sensation.
“No!” Salvatore clutched his chest. “We mustn’t be separated. We can’t let this fracture our family, Arthur!”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Just think, if Rumble comes back to a broken home, she will be devastated! We can’t make her a child of divorce!”
“Who said anything about divorce?” Arthur did his best to keep up with the twists and turns of Salvatore’s conversational style, but sometimes even he had to admit defeat. “Come on. Perhaps Rumble will be waiting for us at the inn. She knows her way home, I’d wager, and she’ll feel safest there.”
“Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?” Sal pinched Arthur’s cheek. “I married such a smarty-pants!”
With a pep in his step, Salvatore led the way back to the bike rack where they’d parked their teal tandem bicycle, but his renewed good mood didn’t last long.
Despite Sal’s brave words, he was clearly distracted the whole ride home, not even bothering with his usual halfhearted attempts to help pedal.
They biked from the fairgrounds near the woods all the way through town, passing the brick-and-mortar Big Bad Brew and city hall, which was now host to a lovely mural of a waterfall bookended with vibrant rhododendron bushes.
He recognized the telltale painting style of Brody Young, whom Arthur had suspected of murder only a few months ago.
As it had turned out, Brody was innocent—mostly—and found himself victim to his own father’s twisted plot to frame him for the mayor’s death.
At the unveiling a few weeks ago, Trident Falls residents had gushed about the new art installation, and even Quinn, who’d had a somewhat adversarial relationship with Brody, said his art gave her a sense of peace, like she’d just arrived home after a long journey.
Arthur was glad to hear it. Brody was a talented graffiti artist. He and his friends had been part of some anti-paranormal vandalism earlier that year, but Brody, at least, had turned over a new leaf after the whole murder ordeal.
Arthur still noticed tags around town from Brody and his friends here and there that certainly weren’t commissioned art.
But it was art nonetheless, and Arthur was encouraged to see them take on more positive messaging.