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Scrambling for her phone, Alanna turned on her flashlight app and swept it under the bed.
No cat.
Don’t panic.
“Petunia,” Alanna called. She looked in her closet. Sniffed her Manolos. She checked the bathroom. All clear. The spaces under the couch and the bookshelf revealed no feline. Alanna’s pulse steadily increased.
She suddenly remembered how she’d thrown open the sliding back door in a panic yesterday, desperate to start ridding the house of the gas fumes. Petunia didn’t usually wander near the door, but what if she’d been scared by Alanna’s hysterical screaming?
Alanna thrust open the back door and scanned the yard. No cat.
“Have you seen Petunia?” she called to her mom. Her voice sounded oddly strained to her ears. She wasn’t worried, of course. Petunia was just a cat. A horrible cat, in fact. It’d be a blessing if the furball had decided to skip town.
Only, Alanna’s hands were beginning to shake, and her lungs felt like they were filled with water.
“No.” Her mother pulled her hands from the soil. “She’s not in your room?”
Alanna shook her head. “She didn’t eat her food last night. Did you see her at all yesterday?”
Her mom paused to consider. “Yesterday morning, I think. Or was that the day before?” She tilted her face up to the sky in thought. “You know, I’m not sure which day it was.”
“It’s fine,” Alanna said. It wasn’t fine. She rushed back into the house. Petunia had to be inside somewhere. She was hiding. Playing some sick new little game. It would be just like her.
“Petunnnnia,” Alanna called in her sweetest voice. “Here, kitty kitty. PETUNNNNNNIA!”
She looked under the fridge. Moved the bookshelves. Searched her closet again. Looked in her mother’s bedroom. Her mom joined in the search. Alanna felt herself becoming frantic.
Stay calm,she told herself as she looked in the bathtub, the toilet, and behind the bag of rice on the top shelf in the pantry.
She can’t be gone. She can’t.
Methodically, she and her mother checked every nook and cranny in the house. Then they did it again. Finally, Alanna flung open the front door of the house and stared down the long, empty road of neat yards and houses.
Her breath came out in ragged pants. Why was she so upset? She hated Petunia, didn’t she? Alanna closed the door and dropped onto the couch. Something painful and wet banged around in her ribcage, a sob she refused to release.
“I’ll call the neighbors,” her mother said softly before heading to the kitchen with her phone.
Alanna took out her own phone. Without thinking, her fingers dialed a memorized number.
“Hi, Alanna.” Her sister’s cheerful voice greeted her on the second ring. “Is everything okay?”
Alanna tried to speak, but emotion clogged her throat. It wasn’t the cat and it was the cat. She’d lost Fresh Perspective. She’d let down her employees. She’d been an unholy harpy-bitch to a good man, and now…
“I lost Petunia,” she croaked into the phone.
A pause lingered on the other end of the line. Then, Layla spoke. “I’m on my way.”
Ch. 26 Sully
Thecatwasaghost.
No, more like a poltergeist, one of those angry, unsettled spirits that threw chairs across the room and shattered vases. In this case, his furry phantom had settled for rattling the house with ghoulish yowls throughout the night and swatting every last thing off Sully’s bathroom sink by morning. Fortunately, he’d had the good sense to keep the creature in the bathroom to limit the damage.
After mopping up a gooey puddle of hand soap while the cat huddled in the corner of the bathroom and stared at him with undisguised hatred, Sully checked NextDoor.com. He silently prayed the Yucca Hills chapter on the neighborhood website would include a mention of a lost cat.
Nothing.
Next, he jumped onto the Yucca Hills Facebook page and scrolled through notices about upcoming street cleanings, a welcome post for a new police officer, an agenda for tomorrow’s city council meeting, and multiple posts advertising the community play, Awareness Unto the Void, debuting next week. “This breathtakingly astounding play will ruthlessly confront the deepest truths of the universe,” the post promised.
