Chapter 2

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Leona looped her arm around my back. She batted her big, fake cat eyes at me and tried to take a more convincing tone than her first two attempts during our short walk from her apartment to my lab. “Look Duggan, all I’m suggesting is a one-time trade, like a free agent moving to another team for one night—”

It was the same thing she tried every night, and I cut her off. “You’re never going to get a yes out of these lips any more than you will from the big guy himself. Just give up.”

Leona shrugged and leaned against me, the side of her head barely reaching the middle of my upper arm. “Speaking of lips, why are yours hidden?” Leona asked, her ears twitching in excitement. “Are we going out as a team for once?”

I sighed. “Leona, I’m a criminal mastermind. Overlords don’t go out to patrol for loot. We let villains take it for us.”

“You mean villains like me,” Leona shot back.

“I keep trying to show you a better way, dear girl, but you just won’t listen to reason,” I said in a soothing voice. “You’re holding yourself back, not I.”

Leona snorted. “Please, I’m just asking for something exciting to do with my only friend in this city—”

“Oh, that reminds me,” I cut in unceremoniously, already familiar with her tired routine. “The reason I’m wearing my costume is that I’m keeping my face hidden from my shrink, one doctor Wallace Cornwall.”

Leona tapped her lower lip in thought. “Should I care who he is?”

“He’s going to help me figure out what to do now that double M has split town.” I halted my explanation as I looked up the stairs to the office at the back of the warehouse, where Wallace stood waiting for us.

He was dressed in a black sweatshirt and back khaki slacks, which is why I hadn’t spotted him until we were right at the bottom of the stairs.

My door was standing wide open, annoying me to no end because I was certain I’d locked it. It had to have been locked, because it has an electronic access panel that I installed myself.

“I was going to pick you up at the same time,” I said. I kept my voice calm, hoping he wouldn’t notice my agitation at having him break into my office.

“I know, but I got bored after dinner and drove over. It took about ten minutes, so I’m amazed I didn’t kill anyone,” Wallace noted with a glib laugh. He looked from me to Leona, and his smile vanished as his mouth fell open.

Leona’s gaze darted to the sidewalk, her pointed ears drooping. Fidgeting, she muttered in a low voice, “Duggan, he’s doing it already.”

I looked from her to Wallace, who was kind of slowly slipping down the stairs. He was leaning on the hand rail, as though he was in shock or awe. I could not tell which.

I had no doubt that he was gaping at the black fur-lined ears on top of Leona’s head. I’ve always thought they had a fox shape to them, but Leona insists her DNA was all cat derived, so I call them cat ears for her sake.

Wallace reached out toward my short friend’s head slowly, almost reverently. His hand stopped just before his fingertip touched her left ear.

“May I?” he whispered.

Leona was almost beside herself with anxiety. She glanced up at me as though she were looking for some kind of confirmation. Shrugging before her gaze drifted back to Wallace, she said, “Yeah, I guess it’s okay.”

Wallace closed his finger and thumb to pinch the cartilage and flex it back and forth, his expression one of undisguised delight.

“These are incredible,” he muttered after what seemed like an eternity of him fondling her ear. Reaching back a bit further, he curled his fingers to scratch the back of her ear.

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