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in the basement at the shop—it was before we got the pump. Kathleen was with me when I went to check things out.”
    â€œAnd you found a rat?”
    Mags nodded. “Floating in the water.” She shuddered.
    â€œWhat did you do?” he asked.
    â€œI didn’t do anything,” Maggie said. “Kathleen scooped the rat out of the water with a snow shovel.”
    Nic looked at me. “That was nice,” he said. He still looked confused.
    â€œOh, it was.” Maggie’s gaze darted to me for a moment. “Until she used the shovel like a lacrosse stick and flung the rat at Ruby.”
    â€œThat was an accident,” I said, trying not to sound huffy.
    â€œWe think Kathleen was some kind of Scottish Highlander in a past life,” Maggie teased. “She was probably very good at the caber toss.” She gave me a sweet and totally fake smile.
    Nic held up a hand and looked at me. “Okay. Why did you throw a dead rat at Ruby?”
    â€œLike I said, it was an accident.” I shot a daggers look at Maggie, who was having way too much fun telling the story. “I tossed the rat outside. I didn’t even see Ruby.”
    I hadn’t. The rat had gone whizzing past Ruby’s head, just inches from hitting her, much to my embarrassment. She’d been a very good sport about the whole thing. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have flung it out on the sidewalk in the first place, but I was trying to get the thing out of the shop, away from Maggie.
    Maggie was shaking with laughter now. She gestured at Nic with one hand. “And that’s not the best part. The rat wasn’t dead.”
    Nic frowned. “What?”
    â€œIt wasn’t
exactly
dead,” I said.
    â€œSo it was what, just partly dead?”
    That made Maggie laugh harder.
    â€œIt was—I don’t know—unconscious, stunned.” I pressed a hand to my forehead. I was laughing now, too, because the whole scenario had been just like something out of a Monty Python movie. The rat had zipped by Ruby’s head, landed on the sidewalk with an audible splat and then gotten up, shaken itself and scurried away.
    Nic turned to Maggie. “Yeah, you definitely wanna get the cat,” he said, deadpan.
    Once Maggie got control of herself, she apologized again to Nic.
    â€œLet me know what happens,” he said. “If the cat doesn’t catch anything, I can set some traps—the humane kind.” He grinned at me. “Because I don’t even know where the snow shovel is.”
    Maggie and I walked back up to her studio. She bumped me with her hip. “Are you mad at me because I told that story to Nic?”
    â€œYes,” I said.
    â€œNo you’re not,” she retorted. “Because that’s one of the things that made Marcus fall for you.”
    I stopped and stared at her. “What?”
    â€œHe didn’t tell you?”
    I shook my head. “No. He told you?”
    She smiled. “Uh-huh. He said he saw how kind you were.”
    â€œBecause I flung what I thought was a dead animal at Ruby?”
    Maggie’s grinned. “Because you were worried that Ruby might have been hurt and you were worried about the rat, too.” She nudged me again. “I’m glad you didn’t go back to Boston.”
    I bumped her back. “Me too.”
    â€œSo what do we do now?” she said as we started up the steps again.
    â€œFirst we deal with the furry intruders,” I said, “then we’ll find the thief.”
    I headed straight up the hill at the end of the day. Owen was waiting by the kitchen door,
almost
as though he knew I was coming for him, which of course he didn’t.
    â€œOkay, Fuzz Face,” I said, bending down to pick him up. “Maggie needs you to do rodent patrol at the store.”
    â€œMerow,” he said loudly. Translation: “Let’s do it.”
    As we drove down to the shop, I explained about