“While being an animal control officer can be challenging, there’s seldom any danger—except from an angry four-year-old.” His mouth twitches like he’s trying not to smile.
“But what if something bad did happen?” I argue.
“Here’s my advice to you. Your mother wants some time alone, so give it to her.”
Becca’s mother slips her arm over my shoulder. “Honey, why don’t you stay here for dinner?”
“I don’t want dinner. I want my mother back,” I say stubbornly.
The adults share uneasy glances, and I can tell they think I’m overreacting.
“Kelsey, sometimes marriages need a break,” Mrs. Morales adds with a sweet smile identical to Becca’s. “This is between your parents and has nothing to do with you. Your mother will contact you when she’s ready.”
I blink fast, pushing back the tears. I think back to this morning when I last saw Mom. I was waking up, and she was already dressed in her uniform. She bent over and kissed my check, whispering goodbye. Was that good-bye more final than I realized? If she was planning to leave, why didn’t she tell me? Why promise to take me shopping, then leave me waiting at school?
Leo is watching me, frowning as if he doesn’t know what to say.
Becca reaches out for my hand. “Want to go see Buggy?” When I don’t move, she tugs me down the hall. “Come on.”
I follow numbly. All I can think about is my mother. Could I be wrong about Mom? Is she enjoying “time alone” in a comfortable hotel? Did she simply forget to pick me up?
Buggy is in a crate with blankets, toys, food, and water. When Becca lifts her, Buggy wiggles excitedly, yapping. She looks much better than she did yesterday. Her tummy is full, and her black eyes shine brightly. Becca, Leo, and I take turns cuddling her until Becca returns her to the crate, where she promptly falls asleep. Then we go into Becca’s upside-down room.
There is no carpet or rugs, and her belongings are arranged overhead on the walls, out of the reach of animals. A bookshelf with Becca’s favorite animal books winds around the edge of the ceiling. And the ceiling decor includes a cork bulletin board, nature paintings, and dangling county-fair award ribbons. A rolling ladder propped against the wall gives Becca quick access to her belongings and lets her reach high enough that so cats, dogs, and goats won’t get into her things.
The only animal in her room is Chris, one of the three kittens we rescued. The black cat is curled between pillows on the queen-size bed. When I sit beside her, Chris crawls into my lap.
Leo gives me a worried look. “Kelsey, are you okay?”
“I don’t know. Am I freaking out over nothing?” I run my fingers through Chris’s silky fur. “Maybe Sheriff Fischer is right and Mom left because she wants to be alone—like the text said.”
“Analyze the facts,” Leo says with typical Leo logic. He takes out his mini-tablet and taps on the screen. “Fact one: Your mother admitted that she and your father were taking a break from each other. Fact two: She went to work this morning but then took the day off. Fact three: She sent a text to your father saying she was leaving.”
“Which is a good thing,” Becca says with forced optimism, “because if she can send a text, then she’s safe.”
“I guess so.” Hurt feelings ache like a deep bruise. “The facts prove Mom left town to get away from her family and isn’t in danger.”
“Au contraire.” Leo waves his hand. “There are additional facts to consider. Fact four: Not picking you up from school is out of character. Fact five: Your mother told you she was suspicious about a work call. Fact six: She neglected to take her suitcase. Does she have another suitcase?”
“Yes, but it’s in storage with our furniture.”
Leo nods. “According to my calculations, there are two probable explanations. One: your mother doesn’t want to be found. Two: an unknown person doesn’t want her to be found.”
A chill sweeps through me.
Becca and Leo look at me like they’re waiting for a plan of action. I study spy novels and put the word Spy in the Curious Cat Spy Club. I’m good at solving puzzling mysteries about abused or abandoned animals, but this is about my mother. What can I do?
“I need proof that Mom investigated a suspicious call so that Sheriff Fischer will search for her,” I say. “But I don’t know what type of call it was or where it came from.”
“How many calls does she go on each day?” Becca asks.
“A few dozen?” I shrug. “I have no idea.”
Leo taps his finger to his chin. “Today is Friday. Your mother went out on the suspicious call two days ago.”
“Yeah, on Wednesday. But the sheriff wouldn’t even check her daily log to find out where she went.” I press my lips together to hold back my anger.
“We’ll find her ourselves.” Leo stands up from the chair, his blue eyes shining with determination. “And I know where to start.”
- Chapter 6 -
Z Codes
When I get home, I rush into the kitchen where Gran Nola is tossing a salad and shout, “Mom is missing!”
Instead of being shocked, my grandmother calmly shows me a text she received from Mom. It’s the same text I read on Dad’s phone.
“I’ve already talked to your father, so I know what’s going on. Your mother needs time alone to think things through.” Gran Nola picks up a knife and slices a tomato. “Don’t worry.”
“But she didn’t pick me up from school!”
“Your father told me about that. I’m really disappointed in her,” my grandmother says as she chops the tomato into tiny pieces. “She should have asked me or your father to pick you up.”
“But she didn’t even pack a suitcase! All of her things are still in the guest room.”
“Not all of them.” Gran Nola dumps the tomato slices into a bowl. “She keeps an overnight bag in her truck in case she needs a change of clothes.”
My mouth falls open. “I didn’t know that.”
“I wish Katherine would have talked to me or your father instead of running away. But she’s been so stressed lately that a long weekend alone will be good for her.” My grandmother pats my hand. “She’ll feel better when she comes back.”
If she comes back, I think with a stab of fear.
But there’s no point in trying to convince my grandmother that Mom is in danger. Just like Dad and the sheriff and Mrs. Morales, she believes the texts more than I do.
Fortunately, my club mates believe me. As I’m getting ready for bed that evening, Leo calls. “Come to my house at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow for a CCSC meeting. I have something important to show you,” he adds mysteriously before hanging up.
What does he want to show me? I hope that it’s something that leads to my mother. Without her, my room echoes with emptiness. Mom’s sneakers are still on her suitcase where she kicked them off. When I check her dresser drawers and the closet, nothing seems to be missing—except the work uniform she was wearing. And her green toothbrush is still in the bathroom.
No matter what the adults think, I know Mom did not plan to leave.
I sleep restlessly and wake up before my alarm goes off. A glance at my clock brings all my fears back. I’ve heard the first twenty-four hours are the most critical to finding a missing person. Mom has been gone for longer than that, and no one thinks she’s missing—except the CCSC.
When I arrive at Leo’s house, Becca’s already there, wearing black tights, a panther-black shirt, and a knit black beanie. She’s staring up at the ceiling, aiming a remote control at Leo’s microsized dragonfly drone, which circles over her head. The robotic dragonfly camera eyes transmit images so I can see a ceiling view of Leo’s room on a monitor. The room is more like a high-tech office than a bedroom, with computers, robots, and floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with containers of electronic parts. And humming with bubbling sounds is a large aquarium with exotic fish named after characters in Finding Nemo. Leo the tech genius has a secret love of Disney movies.
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sp; Leo gestures for me to sit beside him. He spins his wheeled desk chair back to the computer and clicks on the keyboard at superspeed. Numbers and symbols swirl across the screen so fast it makes me dizzy.
Becca maneuvers the drone as it loops around the ceiling. She glances at me with a hopeful look. “Any news?”
“Yeah, but nothing good.” I bite my lip. “Dad’s not the only one who got a text from Mom. My grandmother, sisters, and brother did too. And they all got the exact same text.”
“You probably would have gotten one too, if you had a cell phone,” Becca says sympathetically. She knows how much I long for my own phone.
“If I’d gotten the text, I wouldn’t have believed it.” I fold my arms across my chest. “But my family does, and they think I’m freaking out over nothing.”
“Even though no one knows where your mom is?” Becca jerks the remote as she turns to look at me, almost crashing the metal dragonfly into a shelf.
“Everyone thinks Mom took a long weekend away and will return by tomorrow. Gran Nola said she’s done this before, but I don’t remember Mom ever leaving like this. No one else is worried.”
“We’ll find her,” Leo says in such a confident tone that my heart warms.
“Leo has a plan,” Becca adds. She lowers the drone to the floor, then shuts off the remote.
“I found the key to your mother’s location.” Leo taps rapidly on a keyboard. Lights flash on a nearby printer, and it pushes out a sheet of paper that Leo hands to me.
At the top of the page are the silhouettes of a cat and a dog framing the logo: Animal Control Officer Call Log. I try to make sense of a chart with columns labeled Time Rec’d, Time Resp., Time Clear, Call #, Address, Type, and Action. And at the bottom of the page is my mother’s name.
“Mom’s call log,” I say with a rush of excitement.
Leo flashes a proud grin. “For Wednesday.”
“How did you get this? Did you hack into Mom’s email?”
“Hacking is a crude term and unnecessary in this situation. The Animal Control Department is a public service, and therefore call records are accessible to the public—if you know where to look.” Leo flashes a sly grin. “The public records for last week are currently available, but this week hasn’t been posted. So I bypassed a few obstacles to find the log for Wednesday.”
He hands me the paper, and I study the entries. The first three columns show the times for each call Mom went on from 8:27 a.m. to 4:04 p.m. I recognize most of the street names since I’ve ridden my bike all over Sun Flower searching for lost pets. The last column (Action) lists letters that make no sense to me. ZVIC, ZINJ, and ZWELF don’t look like any code I’ve seen in my Decoding Codes book.
“What do all the numbers and letters mean?” I ask Leo.
“Times, locations, type of calls,” Leo replies. “It’s easy to read.”
For a genius like him. Confused, I point to the column with letters beginning with Z. “What is ZVIC?”
“Vicious animal.”
“Oh, I get it,” I say. “Ignore the Z and the VIC is short for vicious.”
“Precisely,” Leo says as if this is as obvious as adding two plus two. “Z is probably an official code representing the Animal Control Department.”
“ZWELF sounds like elf.” I wrinkle my brow. “What does it mean?”
“WELF is an abbreviation for welfare.”
“Animal welfare.” Becca’s half-moon necklace dangles as she bends over for a closer look at the paper. “Someone reported an abused or neglected animal.”
Leo nods. “When the sheriff’s office gets a report about animals, they send an animal control officer to investigate.”
“Like my mom,” I say with a sick feeling in my gut.
The paper rustles in Leo’s hand. “Each code represents one of the calls your mother investigated. The Z codes are easy to interpret once you ignore the Z. ZINJ means an injured animal, ZATTAK an animal attack, and ZABAND is for an abandoned dog.”
I run my finger down the coded column.
“Mom went on eight calls on Wednesday,” I say as I count down the list in Leo’s hands. “The next day she found out something suspicious about one of them, so she was going to go back Friday morning. We have to find her.”
“We will,” Leo says with a determined set to his jaw. “Even if it means going to each address on this list.”
“And doing what?” Becca spreads her arms out. “We can’t just knock on doors and ask, ‘Did you kidnap Kelsey’s mother?’”
“Subtle methods are required,” Leo agrees with a thoughtful expression. “I’ll do more research online. But don’t worry. We’ll find your mother.”
His confidence is so reassuring that I want to hug him. Of course, I don’t…and I blush a little at the thought.
“I’ll print out directions to each address,” Leo says, turning back to his computer. “Then we’ll start our search at the closest location.”
“No, we need to start where Mom did.” I lean over Leo’s shoulder to skim down the list of addresses. I recognize most of the streets, which spread in every direction across Sun Flower. “My spy books say if you’re tracking someone you have to become them.”
“How do we become your mother?” Becca purses her peach-frosted lips. “We’re just middle schoolers.”
“If we shadow Mom’s trail from her first work call to the last, we’re more likely to discover which call made her suspicious.” When I realize I’m touching Leo’s arm, I quickly pull back.
Leo’s gaze meets mine. “Good suggestion.”
“Um, thanks.” My cheeks warm. “What’s the first address?”
Leo pulls up a map of Sun Flower on his screen, then prints it out. He scrawls eight circles on the page with a red marker and labels them one through eight. “At 8:45 a.m., your mother went to 2575 Duncan Street for a ZMISC report.” He points to the red circled one.
“What’s ZMISC?” I peer at the paper.
“A miscellaneous report,” Leo answers. “That indicates the report didn’t match the usual complaints.”
“Which tells us nothing.” Becca throws up her hands. “Miscellaneous might as well be Z-UNKNOWN.”
“And it could be risky.” I frown, remembering saying this to my mother.
Suddenly I’m afraid, not just for Mom but for Becca and Leo too.
Am I leading my friends into danger?
- Chapter 7 -
Duncan Street
Leo packs his leather pouch with his bird drone, dragon drone, and FRODO.
The 4.0 version of the bird drone looks like a metal bird and can fly far and high for aerial surveillance. The dragon drone is a silver-winged dragonfly robot that’s tinier than a thumb with metallic glassy eyes and translucent wings. The bug-like eyes are actually cameras that videotape images. And the largest drone is FRODO (aka Futuristic Robotic Odor Detection Operative). It’s a metal dish with dozens of tiny wheels on the bottom and weird black bumps covering the top that are powerful smell receptors made of frog eggs. FRODO can track odors like a search-and-sniff rescue robot.
Becca and Leo head for Duncan Street, but since FRODO needs something with Mom’s scent to track, I detour to my grandmother’s house.
I rush into the guest room and search through my mother’s dresser drawers, sniffing shirts, pants, and socks for something that smells like Mom. But everything is neatly folded and smells of lavender-scented fabric softener. I even check the hamper, hoping for sweaty workout clothes—but it’s empty. Drats.
Sighing, I turn from the hamper, and my gaze falls on Mom’s white sneakers with green laces that she left on her suitcase. They haven’t been washed in a while and are smudged with grass and dirt stains. Mom loves these shoes and wears them when she gardens. I only need one shoe and choose the dirtiest one.
Since Leo is bringing his spy robots, I’ll bring my spy pack. I climb on a stool to reach the high shelf where I hid my green spy pack. It’s an ordinary green backpack filled with e
xtraordinary spy tools like graphite powder, gloves, a flash cap, a laser pointer, night vision glasses, and disguises.
Zipping open the backpack, I push aside a magnifying glass and duct tape. I find the box of plastic “evidence” bags and slip Mom’s shoe inside one of them. Slinging the bulky pack over my shoulders, I race outside, hop on my bike, and ride off to join my friends.
Winding through Sun Flower reminds me of previous CCSC cases. A zorse named Zed ran into traffic on Pleasant Street, which led us to the alley where Becca, Leo, and I rescued three kittens from a dumpster. A few more turns, and I pass a familiar yard full of golden sunflowers where Sunflower Mary, a crafty old woman, rocks in her porch chair, yellow crochet yarn dangling down her skirt. A few streets later, I see the spiraling turret of the Victorian-styled home where the CCSC first met Albert, a 130-year-old tortoise. Last week I got an email with a photo of Albert and his owner, Reggie. The tortoise looked happy as Reggie fed him a gigantic chunk of cactus.
The first address on Mom’s call log is 2575 Duncan Street, a run-down apartment complex in the oldest part of downtown. I roll across uneven pavement stained with oil and skid marks, scanning the area for my club mates. Rows of cars are crowded in the parking lot, but no one seems to be around. Where are Becca and Leo?
I circle, wondering if I got the address wrong—until I spy a blond head crouched behind a laundromat.
I park my bike next to Becca’s, and Leo stops tinkering with FRODO to look up at me. “Did you bring an odoriferous object?”
“If you mean something that smells like Mom, yes. Here’s her shoe.” I take the bagged shoe from my spy pack.
“I love colorful laces.” Becca playfully swats at the dangling green shoelace. “I have purple, blue, and pink laces so my sneakers match my clothes.”
“Mom only has green. It’s her favorite color.” I sigh as I hand the shoe over to Leo. “So which apartment are we going to?”
“The apartment number is…” Leo frowns at the call log. “Not listed.”
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