Page 57 of Bad Call

That was all he had to say. No more texts. No phone call. Nothing. Was he busy? Was he practicing? Was he ignoring me? For the next three hours, I was hyper-fixated on that thought until I finally broke down and called.

Thank God, he answered right away.

“Yeah?” He sounded less than thrilled.

My heart sank to the bottom of my stomach. “Is everything all right?”

“No,” he huffed and blew out a heavy breath. “A family of raccoons got in through the doggie door leading in from my back deck. They’ve torn everything apart and are making a mess everywhere. I can’t find them or catch them, but I’m afraid the mama is pregnant and there’s about to be an even bigger family. And a bigger mess.” Something loud crashed in the background, followed by Rawlings’s barking. “Shit, I’ve got to go.”

“I’ll be right over,” I hurried to say.

A family of raccoons? Jesus Christ. This was totally out of my wheelhouse, but I couldn’t let him try to handle it alone. What if they were rabid? What kind of other diseases did raccoons carry? What if they bit Rawlings? I grabbed a handful of supplies I thought might help and my keys and hurried out the door.

Twenty minutes later, Casey answered the door, his fine sandy hair standing on end, sweaty and disheveled. His beautiful face was flushed. “Come on in,” he offered, leaving the door open.

I set my keys and phone down on his entry table and he handed me a flashlight. “Why is the house so dark?”

“They’re nocturnal. I thought the darkness would draw them out.” He also held a flashlight and shined it on my hands. “What did you bring a plastic bag for?”

“I don’t know. I thought it might help.”

“What are you going to do, asphyxiate them? Here.” He handed me a baseball bat. “Be prepared to use it.”

“We can’t kill them!”

“Oh my God, what kind of man do you take me for!? I’m just going to shoo them back out the door.”

“Of course,” I said, sounding disbelieving. Casey glared, which I could see even in the darkness.

“Follow me.”

I followed him down the hall, hot on his heels, shining the flashlight over his shoulder, and when he got to the kitchen, he stopped short, and I ran into his back.

“Do you have to follow so closely?” he hissed.

“Sorry,” I apologized, taking a step back.

“Just before you showed up, I heard something in here.” Quietly, he opened every cabinet on the bottom row. “I don’t see a damn thing,” he said, crouching low and shining his light inside.

“Me neither. I don’t hear anything, either.” And then we did, a soft scratching sound. “Is that Rawlings?” I whispered.

“No, I locked her in my bedroom.”

“Should we just run and call an exterminator?”

“Hell no,” he hissed. “We can do this. We’re big, strong, scary men with baseball bats and plastic bags. We’ve got this.”

“Right,” I agreed, not feeling very confident in our ability to capture a family of raccoons without ending up in the ER.

Casey reached for the warming drawer on the bottom of the stove, carefully sliding it open. He shined his light,and they reflected in the wide, scared eyes of the raccoon. “Shit!” He shut the drawer quickly. “That’s the mama.”

“What are we gonna do?” I whispered.

“Fucking beats me. Wait, grab a sheet pan from my cabinet.” I reached for the nearest one. “No, the one beside that one. I’ve got a big-ass pizza pan in there.” It sure was big. He could make four pizzas on this thing. “I’ll open the drawer, slide the pan on top of it, and then take the whole drawer outside. How does that sound?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Trying not to make too much noise and scare the raccoon, I slid the pan out of the cabinet and handed it to Casey.

“On the count of three,” he said. “One, two, three.”