Much Ado About Felines (Whales and Tails Mystery Book 4) by Kathi Daley Page A

gone home by now even if he didn’t have any today. Are these people reliable?”
    “The guy with the bald head and big gut who works in the marina office told me Danny didn’t show up for his charters on Sunday. He knows because a representative from each group came into the office and asked if he had a way to contact Danny. He said he called Danny’s cell and left a message.”
    I had to admit that sounded bad.
    “And the other source?”
    “That guy with the long hair who lives a couple of slips down from Danny.”
    “Caleb?”
    “Yeah, that’s him. He said he hadn’t seen Danny since Saturday, and his boat hasn’t left the slip since he came in from his last charter on Saturday.”
    “I’m coming over,” I decided. “Where exactly are you?”
    “Standing in front of Danny’s boat. I took a look around and nothing looks disturbed, but there’s no sign he’s been here recently either.”
    “Okay, stay where you are. I’ll be right there.”
    It wasn’t like Danny to just disappear, and although he did tend to miss some messages regarding changes to his previously scheduled charters, it wasn’t like him to flake out entirely. I remembered him telling me that he had charters all day Sunday when I’d spoken to him on Saturday. He’d seemed to be planning to meet those obligations, so why hadn’t he? More importantly, where was he and why hadn’t he called? We’d had rain the previous day, so I hadn’t had the occasion to call him with last-minute reservations. When he hadn’t shown up last evening, I’d assumed he was hanging out at the bar, as he often did. I was really worried.
    I was tempted to call Tara to ask her if she’d seen or spoken to him, but I didn’t want to send her into hysterics if she hadn’t. I figured it was better to head to the marina to find out what I could before I sent my best friend into panic mode. Danny was a capable person who, I believed, could look out for himself, but given all the odd things that had been going on, I felt a lot less confident than I normally would.
    When I arrived at the marina I found Cody and Max waiting for me on the deck of Danny’s boat. It was a beautiful day, and even if Danny didn’t have any tours scheduled I would think he’d be working on the boat. He had an old boat that required quite a lot of tender loving care, which meant that when he wasn’t on the water he was usually working on it.
    I looked around the marina. It was pretty deserted. A Tuesday during the off season didn’t normally lend itself to a lot of tourist activity even if the weather cooperated.
    “Do you know if Danny had any tours scheduled?” Cody asked me.
    “Yeah, he has one in about an hour. He really should be here by now. And I know he had four charters on Sunday. Tara mentioned to me that the first charter of the day had canceled, which left three. I did see a notation next to the last one, indicating that they were going to call Danny that day to confirm because they had a potential conflict. That still left the middle two charters.”
    “Which must be the two the guy in the marina office mentioned to me.”
    “Gus.”
    “Yeah, Gus. He gave them Danny’s cell number, but he never picked up.”
    “I’m surprised neither of the customers has called Coffee Cat Books to complain.”
    “Gus must have handled it.”
    “I say we hang out to see if either Danny or his customers show up for the charter scheduled for this afternoon,” I said. “In the meantime, I’m going to walk over to have a chat with Caleb.”
    Caleb and Danny were friends. Caleb ran a fishing charter, and they both lived on their boats and both depended on the seasonal tourist dollar to survive. Chances were if Danny was up to anything Caleb would know about it.
    “Hey, Caleb, you in there?” I called from the dock.
    He poked his head out of the cabin. “Hey, Cait. What are you doing here? Did you bring me coffee?”
    I shook my head. “Sorry. I wanted to ask about Danny.