Found!

My brother is my hero. He camped out at Mom's house from Monday until Wednesday night when he captured my little Nilesy. And it wasn't easy- he had to contend with barking neighbor dogs, Enemy Orange Cat, a multitude of bugs, a centipede, and a crazy old raccoon trap that Uncle Jimmy keeps for just such an occasion. But Mark persevered, ultimately catching Niles by lying in wait (or sitting in a lawn chair as it were) in the garage with food as bait. Niles came in, Mark cat-whispered him closer, tackled his a%$, and hit the garage door opener. Score!

I think we have finally solved the mystery about how Niles got out of Mom's house. We were back in WV last weekend to pick him up, and Pete was walking Lucky around the house Saturday morning. He noticed that the screen was off of the bedroom window. The same window that we had opened the weekend before when we went to sleep. I talked to Mom about it, and she said that there were no screens out of any windows when she left. Then I remembered a noise that woke us up during the night. I thought it was the window falling, so Pete got up and shut the window. But now I realize that Niles must have jumped up into the window, knocked the screen out in the process, and fell to the ground.

Case closed. Thankfully with a happy ending!