19. CAT SHOUT FOR JOY

Prologue

Evening drew down quicker than the old woman liked. She hurried up the wooded hill with her grocery bags; she wanted to be in the house before dark. She didn’t like living alone since her nephew and his wife moved out, and this evening she had lingered too long chatting with a friend at the village market. Around her now there was only silence; nothing stirred on the narrow, shadowed street or in the overgrown yards.

Suddenly she was struck from behind, a hard blow across her shoulders that knocked her sprawling. Pain shocked through her, her hands ground into asphalt where she tried to catch herself; grocery bags flew from her arms, apples bounced away, cans of soup and beans rolled into the gutter. Flailing, trying to right herself, she heard racing footsteps, soft-soled shoes running, and then silence; a dark figure vanished among the dusky trees, blending with the shadows and then gone.

Terrified, she slowly got to her feet, nearly falling again when she put weight on her throbbing leg. She found a tissue in her pocket and wiped at the blood, staring up and down the darkening street and into the neighbors’ yards: tangled trees and bushes, no one there that she could see, no one to threaten her now. And no one to help her. Nervously she studied the unlit houses and empty driveways. Every window was black, folks not home yet from work. A few part-time summer cottages still closed up since winter. She shivered, weak and shaken, cold with shock at the cruel prank.

What else could it be but a prank? She hadn’t been robbed: her purse still hung from her arm, the leather scarred in long scratches where she’d fallen. She’d read about an earlier attack or two, had seen news clips on TV, had thought they were flukes, that such a thing wouldn’t happen again, not in their cozy village. Surely not in this quiet neighborhood, though she was always careful. She wanted to get home. Wanted to be safe inside her own house where she could call the police. Still frightened but growing angry now, she picked up what groceries she could find and hurried uphill toward her own empty house.

1

Spring fog,” Joe Grey said, shivering, lifting a wet paw and licking irritably at his sleek fur. “May is supposed to be sunny, warm.” Though the gray tomcat knew better, he knew as well as Dulcie that Molena Point weather, this time of year, was always unpredictable. The morning fog, in fact, pleased him well enough; the shielding mist was perfect for the hunt as they prowled the jagged rooftops. Their quarry wasn’t pigeons or roof rats but human prey, their attention on the village streets below, on the narrow, fog-shrouded sidewalks. The cozy shops were still closed this early in the morning, the wares in their windows indistinct behind the shifting mist. Here, the hint of a doorway, the vague outline of a cypress or pine; there the corner of a window ledge, a half-seen pot of flowers. Only an occasional pedestrian passed, bundled up against the chill, wool scarf tucked into a down jacket, a warm cap pulled low; each passed into the damp haze and was gone again, the streets empty once more.

In the pearly light, trotting up and down from peak to peak, Dulcie gleamed rich with dark stripes; but the gray tomcat seemed nearly lost in the gloom. Only his white paws and the white stripe down his nose shone out flashing as he dropped from a gable into a hollow between overlapping roofs. Together they slipped along the edge of the shingles, peering over, scanning one street and then the next, their noses and ears nearly frozen. Their warm breakfast of pancakes and eggs seemed a very long time past.

On the fog-wet streets the tires of an occasional vehicle hushed by, then again silence. They watched a lone woman leave her motel, strolling idly, wrapped in a heavy sweater, looking in the shop windows, watched until she disappeared inside a steamy caf?; the few tourists who had remained after the weekend, maybe hoping for better weather, would still be abed or drinking coffee beside a warm fire. Or the hardiest ones already off running the beach, smug and righteous in their exertion, sweating despite the chill.

But as the cats prowled the roofs alert for the human predator, their moods were deeply mixed. Their urgency to spot the assailant, to pass his description to the cops and help put an end to this cruelty, ran crosswise to their distaste at having to witness such an attack, the brutal terrorizing of innocent citizens, most of them frail or elderly. What was his purpose? The victims were never robbed. This wanton cruelty was the dark side of humanity that the cats hated—the flip side to the love and kindness with which their own human friends embraced them.

But another sadness filled the cats as well. A distress that had nothing to do with the street prowler, one that no amount of their own effort could change. A mourning filled them for the old yellow tomcat: Misto was failing; his debilitating illness would soon take him.

His pain had begun suddenly, the cancer progressing rapidly. Already this morning, just at dawn, Joe and Dulcie had sat with him as he drifted in and out of sleep; as, off in the kitchen of the Firetti cottage, Mary washed up the breakfast dishes, and Dr. John Firetti was across the garden seeing overnight patients in his veterinary clinic. Quietly the cats had tried to ease Misto, to love him. They had left him only when Misto himself hissed and sent them away. Tucked up among the pillows in the big double bed, the fragile yellow tom wanted simply to nap. Joe and Dulcie had gone, looking back wistfully. They were not as resigned to his fate as was Misto himself. He was weak and tired, yet he seemed quite content, facing these last days of his long and adventurous life.

“You can’t change what is,” he had told them. “You can do nothing about my illness. I’m lucky to be among those I love. I’m happy to end up here, where I was born, after my life’s long journey. This life,” he’d said, “this life is not the end.” He’d yawned and pawed at thepillows. “I have known more lives than this one, and I will know more yet to come.

“But right now,” he’d said, flipping his thin tail, “now I need sleep. Go, my dears,” he’d said, extending a gentle paw. “Come back when I’m rested, when the pain meds have kicked in for the day.”

As Joe and Dulcie turned away, Misto had given Dulcie a secret and conspiratorial smile. Joe, catching his look, continued even now to puzzle over it, though he had asked no question. He’d trotted away beside Dulcie in silence as the old yellow tomcat rolled over and started to snore.

Joe had waited for Dulcie to explain, yet she’d said nothing. What secret was this? What could be so urgent that his lady would keep it from him? While Misto’s malaise left both cats steeped in sadness, Dulcie had shared her deepest conscience, her most private thoughts, only with the old yellow tom.

Earlier that morning before Joe arrived at Misto’s cottage, when Dulcie and the old cat were alone together, he’d given her a deep, steady look. “Life and death hang in balance, now, Dulcie. My life is ending. But you alone guard new lives.”

How could he know that? She had looked at him, shocked, her green eyes wide.

But then she smiled. Of course Misto would know her most private secret. How often did the old cat know what was in another cat’s mind, what lay hidden in the past or even ahead, in the future. How often did Misto divine secrets Dulcie could never dream.

“As the end of my days draws near,” he’d said, “three bright new lives have begun for you, my dear. Oh, yes,” he’d said, twitching a whisker. “Three dear little lives snuggled safe and warm inyour most secret world. And,” Misto had said, studying her, “you have not yet told Joe Grey.”

She had told no one. Except her human housemate, because how could she not tell Wilma, when Dulcie threw up her breakfast every morning?

But yet Misto knew, with those same powers that let him remember ages long past and let him see into the future.“Three kittens, three tiny mites,” he’d said, “snuggled within, secret and warm and happy.” And he had known more than that about her unborn kits; he had said, with a faint and ragged purr, “Three strong babies waiting eagerly to be born, two boy kits, and a calico girl.

“And,” he had told her, “there is an amazement about the calico kitten. She …” But he began to yawn, and before he could continue, the old cat had drifted into sleep, as was often the way since his illness. Maybe it was the medication sending him dozing, or maybe he thought he had said enough. Dulcie only knew that now, prowling the roofs in the cold fog, she fidgeted with unanswered questions. What had Misto started to tell her? What about her girl kitten, whatamazement?

And, though she longed to tell Joe Grey about the kittens, still she didn’t know how to tell him. What would Joe say when he learned that new little lives waited within the dark of her sheltering body? Would he want kittens, this tomcat whose very existence was committed to the exciting dangers of tracking human criminals? To the uncertainties of helping the law, ofapprehending evil? Would fatherhood hold him back from what he was born to do? Would rallying around helpless babies, while burning to chase after human scum, only make him restless and cross? Joe Grey was not an ordinary tomcat to casually father a litter and then disappear. Would the innate commitment, the very responsibilities of kittens, his kittens, only distress him?

And, she wondered, if she told Joe about the kittens now, would that news make Misto’s impending death seem even more cruel by comparison? As if the inestimable powers of the universe meant to take Misto’s life in exchange for the three new lives soon to be?

She knew that made no sense. But would such an idea strike Joe, as he grieved for their dying friend? Would such thoughts make him turn away from her joyous secret?

Or was the intention of the greater powers not to exchange life for life, but instead to fill the emptiness, once their friend had departed? To bring new happiness into their world through these young, fledgling spirits?

No matter how she pondered the question, she didn’t know how to tell Joe. And she didn’t knowwhen to tell him. Now, as they watched the foggy streets, still she kept her own counsel; though she was amused that Joe hadn’t already guessed, by the look of her.

She liked to think she was still svelte and sleek, that no one would see her condition. But when at home she posed before Wilma’s full-length mirror, looking at herself sideways, she could see the gentle curve of the babies that waited safe beneath her tabby-striped fur.

Well, she was just as fast as ever at the hunt. Or nearly as fast. Maybe it took a little more effort to outrun a rat and take him down; maybe she was a bit slow keeping up with Joe, was too often the last to rise after resting in the grassy fields. So far Joe had said nothing about the changes. He was either being polite or was too occupied with the crimes that had beset the village and with Misto’s illness to think much about a lazy partner.

And, Dulcie worried, what would happen to Misto’s spirit when he’d left them? Would the old cat step into a new life, as he said would happen? Into the bright realm where, he told them, all souls journeyed after this world? Were Misto’s tales of multiple lives true or were his stories of a long and varied past, before this life, only fabrications, the yellow tom’s imaginative fancies?

Yet what he’d told them of those past lives was linked to facts in the present, to photographs of a long-ago child Misto had known, to the cache of hidden money the cats had found, to so much that was very real, that they could do no less than believe him. But now, as the old cat grew thinner and his life faded, now when Misto asked for his son, Pan, they knew he was reaching his last days. The old cat was weak, indeed, if he had forgotten that just a few days earlier, before Misto grew ill, Pan had left the village. That the red tom would already be too far away from Molena Point for anyone to ever find him—Pan and tortoiseshell Kit were off on an adventure of which they had only dreamed; they had set out for a world where perhaps no sensible feline would venture. They wandered, now, on a journey they would not have begun had they guessed that Pan’s father soon would die.

If, when they departed, Misto had already divined his own illness, he didn’t tell Pan. He had wanted them to pursue their journey free and happy, perhaps the greatest adventure, in this world, that any cat could know.

But then later Misto, caught in the haze of pain medication, would forget they were away, traveling, and would ask for Pan. And then, remembering, the old cat would drop his ears, embarrassed. But then he would look at Dulcie and remember she was expecting kittens and the old cat would smile. In illness, his moods and the clarity of his thinking swung alarmingly, frightening Dulcie, and saddening Joe Grey.

Now on the foggy rooftops Joe and Dulcie dropped down from a high peak to a shingled slope, moving on toward Ocean Avenue, toward the village’s main street. Pausing sometimes, they looked idly into the second-floor windows of scattered penthouses where residents had left their shades up. Folks glancing out while showering or brushing their teeth knew there was nobody up on the roofs to see them—only gliding seagulls, and a pair of prowling cats peering in. They had no idea how their morning rituals amused the two feline observers. But at last the pair moved on, watching the streets and listening—and suddenly they leaped to the roof’s edge.

Paws in the roof gutter, they cocked their ears to a sound barely heard. They caught an elusive aroma drifting on the mist. Every sense alert, they stood seeking through the fog, keen to spot the attacker, hoping they might alert some unwary would-be victim.

But it was only a dowdy woman walking her three leashed beagles, only the hush of her footsteps and of their paws and the faint jingling of their collars.

So far neither the cats nor the cops had any clue to the street prowler. He left footprints that the police photographed or picked up electronically or captured in casts, but they had nothing to match them to. They’d detained no suspect, had found no matching footprints from another crime scene, no shoes tossed into a Dumpster, yet the prints at each attack were different.

Even more puzzling to the cats, the attacker left no scent for them to follow. Always some m?lange of competing smells got in their way: diesel exhaust, the heavy aroma of fresh bread and cakes from a nearby bakery, the stink of marigolds crushed underfoot, the overlying exhaust of a vanished car in which the guy might have fled. “Maybe,” Joe had said bitterly, “he can levitate like some would-be comic-book hero.”

Whether the assaults exploded out of cruelty or were born of some unknown reason, or were a sick prank with no real purpose at all, no one yet knew. Nor had the attacker left a clue at any scene, no dropped possession, not even trace evidence of hairs or fabric particles, no lost button; the perp seemed as ghostly as if, indeed, he had materialized from some phantom life.

Nor was there ever a loiterer nearby to be questioned as a witness. With each incident, the cats’ frustration grew apace with that of the detectives, the patience of both sets of sleuths wearing thin. The cats’ usual pleasure at offering Molena Point PD a telling clue, the officers’ stoic reception of mysteriously proffered information, all came to nothing. There was no information. Meanwhile lone senior citizens were being injured and frightened. Those older folks who had not been attacked, but who read the local paper, listened to the news, and gossiped among their friends, grew more wary and angry. One of the victims had been in a wheelchair, two walking with canes, folks out to take care of a few errands, get a little air. Each one was knocked down, wheelchair or cane cast aside. And the perp was gone, vanished, leaving the victim to the mercy of whoever might happen along and find them; but none of the marks was robbed.

When the assaults first began, MPPD had put on extra patrols: more squad cars cruising, officers on foot dressed in street clothes. Vacation leaves were postponed, overtime was increased. Of the seven who were accosted, one lady was a ninety-two-year-old music teacher living in a retirement home. A frail, retired banker, Ogden Welder, was fatally injured, the assailant gone before anyone heard his cries; Welder died in the hospital two days later.

No arrests and no witnesses. Only when someone heard shouts for help and arrived to find a frail person, frightened and angry, sprawled on the cement among spilled packages, was anyone aware of the crime. As more officers of MPPD worked the streets, their response to drug crimes, traffic accidents, shoplifting, and domestics demanded additional personnel that Max Harper didn’t have. Like every police department in the state they were understaffed, their budget stretched too thin for adequate overtime. There was plenty of city money for beautification and tourism promotion, but never enough for law enforcement—money for the politicians, but not enough to protect those who voted them in. Max Harper’s men and women grew ever more frustrated.

At the first assault, the cats’ anger had flared. At the second one, on a lone, helpless citizen, their rage revved high. Slipping into Molena Point PD they had lounged in Chief Harper’s bookcase, innocently reading field reports over his shoulder—though there hadn’t been much that they didn’t already know, that they hadn’t read in the paper, heard on the news, or heard from Joe’s housemate. Clyde Damen had grown up with Max Harper. Often over dinner or playing poker Max shared information that he knew—or thought he knew—would never go any farther than the Damens’ kitchen table. There, as the cards were shuffled and poker chips tossed into the pot, no one paid attention to the gray tomcat and maybe Dulcie, too, curled up in the easy chair quietly napping. Who would notice the twitch of an ear, the flip of a tail at some interesting new detail of the street crimes? Joe Grey’s own housemates were as secretive, regarding the tomcat’s spying, as was Joe himself.

Now, at the edge of the roof, the cats alerted again at the sudden swish of tires approaching down the fog-wet street. They watched an unmarked white van slip into view, but it was maybe only the delivery truck of some small company bringing produce or bakery goods to one of the restaurants. Farther on, a lone runner trotted by heading for the beach; there were always runners, lean men or women, tanned and seemingly carefree. Soon, from the shore, a dog barked. A flock of gulls rose screaming, and then silence again; when they heard nothing more they lay down at the roof’s edge and had a leisurely wash.

“I wish,” Dulcie said, “Kit and Pan were home. Surveillance would be easier with four of us. Besides, I miss them,” she said, giving Joe a green-eyed look.

“Just wish them home safe,” Joe said crossly. He didn’t approve of the flighty tortoiseshell and the red tomcat chasing off into a world that Joe himself could hardly believe in, a world Kit called magical. Except he had to believe there was such a place, when their human friend Kate Osborne had gone there. Kate told startling tales, and had brought back enough jewels and artifacts to convince even Joe himself—and to make him even more nervous thinking of Kit and Pan venturing down into those vast caverns beneath the earth. They had been gone only a few days, and still the thought ofthat journey made his fur crawl.

That land had fascinated tortoiseshell Kit even when she was very young, listening to a band of feral cats tell their stories. Only later when she was older had thoughts of those hidden caverns begun to frighten her. But Pan had no fear; he had traveled the length of California and Oregon on his own, a hobo cat, staying out of danger. Now, learning of the Netherworld, he had burned to see that farthest, most enticing realm of all.

Kit, half longing to go and half afraid, had given in, to please him. And, because her two human housemates had longed to be off on their own adventure. Lucinda and Pedric would never have followed their own dream, of an Alaska cruise, if it meant leaving their beloved companion alone at home. The little speaking cat was their treasure beyond all other joys. Kit knew that. She knew Alaska beckoned to her two housemates. But only if she herself journeyed away from Molina Point would her old couple feel free to take the leisurely, small-ship cruise they longed for. Lucinda and Pedric weren’t getting any younger. “If you don’t go now,” she’d told them, perhaps with more honesty than finesse, “you may never go at all.”

Kit had given Lucinda a soft purr.“Ryan’s father and his new wife are keen to go with you—it will be an easier trip with another couple. Mike and Lindsey are quiet and steady, and—”

“And they are younger and stronger than we are,” Lucinda said, laughing. “You needn’t say it, they’ll take good care of us. They’ll be good companions to investigate the little ports and scattered villages.”

Kit smiled, and nosed at Lucinda.“You will take your adventure, and Pan and I will take ours. That is what life is about. And then,” she said, purring, “we’ll be home together again. Oh, my! To tell each other all the wonders we saw!”

It was just a few days ago that they had said their teary good-byes. That Lucinda and Pedric, Mike and Lindsey boarded their plane for Vancouver—and Kit and Pan crossed the village up into the hills and joined the waiting group of feral, speaking cats who had lingered, waiting for them. Waiting to set out together down into the Netherworld; and none of the speaking cats, not even Pan himself, had any notion that Pan’s father would soonlie ill.

Now, this foggy morning, Joe and Dulcie, left without enough cat power for efficient surveillance, were about to separate, each to watch the streets alone, when a siren’s whoop and the wail of the medics’ van brought them sharply alert. As the roar of the engines headed fast for Ocean Avenue, they glimpsed the van and two squad cars make a skidding turn onto the divided main street and vanish beyond the buildings. The cats marked where the sound of the engines died, heard vehicle doors flung open and men running, and they fled over the roofs toward the action.

2

Old Merle Rodin said later, it was his wristwatch that put him in the hospital. His wife wasn’t home at the time. He was alone, dressed in old denim pants, a faded denim shirt and suspenders, working in his shop when he tore his watchband on the corner of the vise. The soft leather was worn ragged anyway and had been ready to tear. And then, as he was cleaning up from painting the wooden chairs, he spilled turpentine on the band and he knew the wet leather would tear worse. He didn’t want to lose the watch, it was the only kind he could read anymore, the new ones were all dots and squiggles. This was a good, reliable Swiss Army with big black numbers so a person could tell the time. Big dial, plain and no-nonsense. He left the watch loose on his wrist, finished cleaning up the workbench, got in his car and drove the few blocks into the village to get the band replaced.

He parked in a handicapped spot in front of the Village Inn. He eased out, pulled his crutches out, locked the car, and swung along the narrow walk that led behind the hotel to the little courtyard, to the row of small shops tucked in around a patch of garden, heading for the jeweler’s door. There were miniature courts all over the village with their little, half-hidden vendors. Each retreat was, to a tourist, a new and exciting discovery; that’s one of the reasons visitors came to Molena Point, for this kind of special charm.

He didn’t like his reflection flicking along the fog-dim windows. His white beard and crutches, his hobbling walk made him look older than he was; some days he felt old, but he didn’t like to see it.

The village was nearly deserted this early, the stores not open yet, and the streets so foggy. The few early tourists would still be holed up, and most of the locals, too. But the jeweler was always there early working on the books, cleaning up, puttering around; even if he kept the door locked, he’d let you in if he knew you.

The newspaper warned folks not to go into empty courtyards and alleys alone, since the attacks began. But this court was safe enough, being right by the hotel. The paper claimed the cops didn’t have a lead yet to the source of the crimes—and the Molena Point cops were good at what they did. Too bad, nice little village like this, so much crime suddenly. Maybe he was getting old. He didn’t like the changes he was seeing in the world, didn’t like what the world had become.

Moving on into the courtyard, walking slowly, he placed his crutches carefully on the uneven bricks so not to stumble on the edge of a flower bed and tip over into the cyclamens. Their array of red and pink flowers had bloomed all winter among their intricately patterned leaves. They would die back soon now, once summer was on them. Sure enough, there were lights on in the jewelry store. He was heading across the court, for the glass door, when he was hit from behind. His crutches flew out from under him. He spun around, striking out at the attacker. He hit a glancing blow with his left fist and fell sprawling, his arm twisted under him. His legs twisted, too, tangled in the crutches. A violent pain dizzied him where his head was struck.

He didn’t know how long he’d lain there, the wind knocked out of him, when he heard the siren, a blurred, faraway sound as if he were half asleep. One whoop, then silence. Then a tangle of voices, and people kneeling around him, putting machines on him to take his blood pressure, his pulse. A man wiping at his forehead with something cold and stinging. Uniformed medics lifting him onto a stretcher, covering him with a blanket, really careful of his arm, lifting it gently. He didn’t try to move it, he knew it was broken. He didn’t know, until later in the hospital, that he’d lost his watch.

He didn’t know, and never would know, how the Swiss Army watch was found, that two cats found it lying in the flower bed deep beneath the cyclamens.

Joe Grey and Dulcie discovered the watch long after Merle Rodin had been lifted into the medics’ van and driven away, after the cops had finished their search of the scene and the crowd had dispersed. Merle wasn’t there to see the gray tomcat and his tabby lady slip down a vine from the hotel roof and trot across the courtyard to where he had lain; to see a discerning tabby nose and a gray and white nose sniffing among the cyclamens, twitching at the smell of turpentine that the cops, with their inferior sense of smell, had missed. Merle didn’t see a soft tabby paw reach down among the leaves to investigate the wristwatch or see Dulcie sniff at it again. He didn’t see the two cats slip out of the courtyard leaving the watch where it lay, the cats galloping fast up the street, noses to the faint breeze following the turp-scented air where the attacker had fled.

Fog held the stink of turpentine low against the sidewalk. But as Joe and Dulcie raced after the scent that had transferred to the mugger when Merle struck out at him, the smell vanished. It ended at the curb, replaced by the smell of exhaust as if the attacker had stepped into a car and sped away.

The street was empty. No car moved now in either direction. But then as the fog shifted, the heady smell of sandalwood drowned all other scents. The cats slid into the shadows as the proprietor of the oriental rug shop passed them, sandalwood aftershave drifting back to them as he paused to unlock his store. As he disappeared inside, Dulcie sniffed again at the curb.

“There’s not only exhaust,” she said, looking up at Joe. She watched as he, too, sniffed again at the concrete.

“Oil,” he said, his yellow eyes brightening, “bicycle oil. Maybe he didn’t get away in a car.” He sniffed again, breathing deeply, his whiskers twitching. “But still a hint of the turpentine, too. Maybe we can catch him.” Noses to the pavement like a pair of tracking hounds, they raced away, ran out along the street swerving past parked cars, glad there was hardly any traffic, that they needn’t dodge moving wheels.

The smells they followed continued for three blocks but then suddenly the turp and oil were gone, vanished in the wake of a noisy street sweeper, its huge roller-brushes sucking away every leaf, every scrap of paper, and every errant smell. Its roar drove instinctive fear through the cats: every fiber of their beings trembled, fearful the hungry juggernaut would crush them if they drew close. They might be wiser than most cats, they might be brave when facing a human killer, but this monster reached down into their darkest, ancient instincts, terrifying them both.

Only when the sweeper had passed did they relax. They followed it, sniffing along its wake, but no scent remained. The giant spinning brushes had destroyed the trail. And the perp himself was long gone. A faint sea wind began to tease them, and to stir and thin the fog. Soon all they could smell was salty iodine, a hint of dead fish, and the pine and cypress trees that sheltered the narrow streets. Glancing at each other, the cats were of one thought.

Leaping up the nearest oak, they headed for Molena Point PD. By this time, Chief Harper would have information on the victim: driver’s license, other identification from the man’s billfold, maybe a hospital report on his condition. Maybe the responding officer’s field notes were already on Max’s desk. Off they raced over tiles and shingles, Joe’s mind fully on the assaults. But as the gray tomcat tried to understand the perp’s motive, Dulcie lagged behind, feeling tired again suddenly, feeling awkward and heavy.

She didn’t like to think that as her pregnancy advanced, she would become truly clumsy, that she wouldn’t be able to keep up with Joe. Who needed a fat, slow partner trying to do detective work? This frustration, plus having lost the trail of the attacker, plus her underlying distress over Misto, left the little tabby padding slowly and disconsolately across the tiled roof of the courthouse.

Ahead on the roof of the PD, Joe had stopped. He stood looking back at her, puzzled by her slow approach, his lady who usually ran circles around him. It was just as she joined him that a woman came out the door of the police station below, her high heels tapping. She didn’t notice her scarf slip off her shoulder to fall among the bushes, a pink scarf hidden now beneath the bottlebrush blooms. Dulcie froze, watching.

The pale pink gauze excited her, brought her sharply alert, stirred in her a possessive greed she hadn’t felt since she was a very young cat. Her longing for that soft, beautiful garment filled her suddenly with a keen, claw-snatching desire. She wanted that scarf. Her passion surged anew from her long-ago thieving days. The pink scarf was hers; the woman had carelessly lost it and now it was meant for her. Her passion returned for the silk stockings she had stolen, the satin teddies she had lifted from neighbors’ bedrooms, slipping out through an open window, the lovely cashmere sweaters she had dragged home and hidden when she was very young—had hidden until Wilma found them, untilher embarrassed and amused human housemate had called the neighbors and given them back their treasures. The disappearance of each item, which Dulcie had so cleverly stolen, had broken the little cat’s heart.

Now, awash in her early passion for possession, she flashed past Joe and down the oak and into the bushes. Creeping under the dense and leafy shelter, she snatched the scarf, pawed it into a little bundle in her mouth, and ran, through the bushes and away. She paused only when the tap of high heels returned down the walk. Dropping the scarf, she reared up to look.

Peering over the bottlebrush blooms she watched the woman searching, watched her look all around and then turn back into the station as if to ask if she’d lost the scarf there. Gripping the soft scarf again, Dulcie hurried away beneath the leafy shelter. She stopped only when, glancing out toward the street, she saw a wheelchair coming down the sidewalk beyond the parking lot, a middle-aged woman gliding along turning the wheels with her hands; clearly she was being followed.

She was lean and tanned, her brown hair in a ponytail threaded through the back of a golf cap. She wore cargo pants, the fabric folded neatly beneath a long steel brace on her left leg. Dulcie could see the corner of a blue shopping bag pushed, bulging, into the back pocket of the wheelchair. Four strides behind the woman, a boy in ragged jeans walked silently, the hood of his heavy black sweatshirt pulled up around his face. He moved slowly, keeping his distance and looking in the other direction, but certainly he was following her.

Could this be the mugger, this kid? Dulcie couldn’t see enough of him to tell his age, but his walk was easy, like a boy. She sniffed, but at this distance she caught no turpentine scent, no smell of bicycle oil.

Was he waiting until the wheelchair had passed the PD and was in a more deserted part of the village before he attacked?

But again, why? What was his purpose? The attacker never stole anything; he shoved, pushed someone over, and ran. None of this made sense. A shout stopped the boy in his tracks, and stopped the woman. A shout from atop the roof, shocking Dulcie.

“Look out, you’re being followed. You, boy … Get away from her!” Joe’s voice. Oh, he wouldn’t cry out in public, he wouldn’t chance being seen!

She couldn’t see above her, she was too near the building; but Joe would already be gone, safely hidden.

As the boy stood looking, the wheelchair-bound woman spun to face him. When she started after him, the boy ran. He was fast, disappearing in the traffic, dodging cars. She was fast, too, but she stopped at the curb. Two pedestrians had turned to stare, but their attention was on the woman. A bus went by; when it passed, the boy was gone. The two portly tourists, dressed in red sweatshirts, watched the woman for a long moment as she headed away down the street; they talked softly between themselves, then they, too, turned away—and Dulcie’s thieving passion had cooled. Joe Grey’s shout had sharply upset her. It took a lot for a speaking cat to expose himself like that, a lot of nerve even to whisper, in public. Leaving the scarf beneath the bushes, she slipped out into the parking lot where she could see the roof above.

From that distance, rearing up, she could see that the roof was empty. She thought Joe would be behind that tangle of heat vents, of weathered gray pipes and metal boxes that rose up against the clearing sky. She waited, crouching at the edge of the bottlebrush until Joe appeared, slipping out from the galvanized jungle, and came leaping down the oak tree. Dulcie joined him. She would return the scarf later, to the PD, would leave it for the clerk to find. Maybe the woman had left a phone number in case someone discovered it. Guilt touched her only a little; her surge of greed had been deeply therapeutic. She felt like herself again, her passion to steal, her wild dash dragging that soft and silken prize, had left her refreshed and wide awake and like her old, wild self once more—no longer just a pregnant cat growing heavy and lethargic. She was her bright, kitten-self again. Her joy burned young and rash, she was a whole cat once more: thief cat when the mood took her, mother cat, cop cat. She was all together now; she felt strong again, and complete.

Beside her, Joe Grey was frowning. If he was annoyed or amused at her thieving, he said nothing.“Should we report that guy? Head for your house, and call the chief?”

“What are we going to report? He didn’t attack the woman. Maybe she’ll report it, maybe she’ll call in.”

“But we saw him. A kid …”

“What did we see, Joe? Dark clothes, a black hoodie, and he was gone. We don’t know if he would have attacked her. He was so bundled up, we don’t know if that was a kid. Maybe a small adult.”

Dulcie sat watching him, her tail twitching.“Let’s wait, see if she makes the call. If we call in on something so vague … that doesn’t help the department’s confidence in us. They have enough questions about our phone calls, we don’t need to make one that’s so … uncertain.” She looked at him steadily, her green eyes wide.

Joe Grey flicked an ear. He knew she was right. Every tip they offered the PD, like every bit of evidence, needed to be solid. Not just a quick glimpse of someone’s back, when they couldn’t identify him and didn’t know what he meant to do.

They lingered in the bushes until two officers left the station through the heavy glass door. Slipping in past their heels, the two cats swerved to the right through prisonlike bars into the shadows of the holding cell.

This was not their usual mode of entry. Ordinarily they would stroll into MPPD as brazen as a pair of two-bit lawyers come to bail out a scuzzy client. But today, crouching beneath the bunk that hung from chains in the wall, wrinkling their noses at the stink of stale booze and stale sweat from generations of detainees, they peered warily toward the reception counter.

They would not be greeted today with joy and petting and a little snack from their favorite clerk. No homemade cookies or fried chicken, no hugs and sweet words from blond, pillow-soft Mabel Farthy. Mabel was in the hospital’s rehab, recovering from back surgery. The cats missed her and they worried over her, as did all the department. And they knew, too, that if this sour-faced substitute clerk caught them in the station again she’d pitch a fit, would summon an officer to throw them out—though the officer wouldonly smile, would listen to her complaint, but then would go about his own business, leaving the cats to do as they liked. And Evijean wouldn’t snatch them up herself; she was too afraid of long claws and sharp teeth.

3

The lobby of Molena Point PD featured the one holding cell just to the right of the glass doors as you entered. Here a drunk could be temporarily confined or prisoners held for a short period while waiting to be booked. Beyond the holding cell was an austere seating area: seven folding metal chairs, no coffeetable strewn with magazines, no potted plants to cheer the nervous visitor. Civilians waited here for their appointment with an officer or detective, perhaps to offer information, to identify stolen items, to pore through a gallery of mug shots, or to file a bad-tempered complaint against some unruly neighbor. To the left of the waiting area ran the long reception desk on which, over the years, Joe and Dulcie had enjoyed Mabel Farthy’s gentle petting and ear rubs, her one-sided conversations and, most of all, her homemade treats. Mabel liked to cook; she often brought a freshly baked cake or cookies for the officers, and always the cats got their share. Mable could laugh and hold her own with the men she worked with; everyone loved her. Her replacement, Evijean Simpson, didn’t know how to smile.

Evijean didn’t bring treats for man or beast, she had no rapport with even the kindest officers, and certainly she had no fellow feeling for a cat. She didn’t want stray animals, as she described Joe and Dulcie, to be slipping in contaminating the station with fleas and cat fur.

Evijean was so short that, from the cats’ angle on the floor of the holding cell, she was barely visible behind the tall counter. They could see little more than the top of her head, her pale hair pulled back in a bun with ragged ends sticking out. She seemed hardly a presence at all as she moved about among the state-of-the-art radiosand electronics. The cats watched until she turned away to stack papers into the copier; then they slid out through the cell bars, made a fast dash to the base of the counter below her line of sight. From there, a stealthy creep down the hall to the half-open door of the chief’s office, where they crouched listening.

At first they heard only Max’s voice, but then Charlie laughed. Comfortable husband-and-wife talk followed, implying no one else was present. Pushing inside, they saw the two were not alone.

Max Harper was in uniform this morning, not his usual lean western shirt and jeans. He sat at his desk alternately going through a stack of files and entering information on the computer. Charlie sat at one end of the leather couch texting on her phone, though such electronic preoccupation was not Charlie’s habit. Her kinky red hair was freshly brushed, smoothed back in a ponytail. Her jeans and pink sweatshirt smelled of fresh hay and clean horses. She wore dangly gold earrings this morning, and had changed her work boots for a pair of handsome leather sandals, which meant that she and Max wereprobably headed out to lunch.

Detective Dallas Garza occupied one of the leather chairs, reading a report, his tweed sports coat thrown over the other chair, his polo shirt open at the collar. His smooth, tan face was clean-shaven, his short black hair neatly trimmed. He glanced up at Joe and Dulcie, his dark Latino eyes amused, as usual, at how the cats made themselves at home. Only occasionally did Dallas watch them with an uncertain frown.

Though no one in the department knew the cats could speak, they all knew, well, the phone voices of their phantom snitches. Max and the detectives had learned to trust implicitly those anonymous called-in tips; they took the information and ran with it, put that intelligence to good use. No one imagined the informants were their sleek, four-pawed visitors, the department’s favorite freeloaders.

So far, the relationship between officers and cats was comfortable and efficient. During the cats’ anonymous messages, no officer in the department cross-examined the caller or asked his name. They’d learned to trust the information they were given. If the cats dragged a stolen clue to the station and left it, with a phone call to alert that it was at the back door or inside a squad car, there were no questions. “Found” evidence, useful Visa bills, or a “lost” cell phone? The detectives used what they got and then generated their own follow-up investigation, digging out background facts that would stand in court.

If ever in the future the cats were careless and were caught in the act, discovered talking on the phone, Joe didn’t want to think about the consequences. Their well-oiled and effective deception would be down the tubes, the work they loved destroyed in one careless moment. A cop was all about facts; his thinking was no-nonsense and meticulous. Clues, hints, anonymous tips, a good detective might put those together in new and creative combinations and come up with the missing piece. But no cop believed the impossible.

Hopping on the couch beside Charlie, Dulcie stretched out across her lap. Joe looked up into Charlie’s lean, freckled face; Charlie always had a happy look even when life, for the moment, took an ugly turn. She petted them both, her green eyes amused at their private secret. She didn’t glance up when Max’s phone buzzed, but continued to stroke Dulcie and Joe. She did look when Max said sharply, “When? What time? Put Davis on.”

He listened, scribbling notes on a printout that he’d inserted in a yellow pad. “You have his belongings? Davis, is his wife there? Stay with her, and see her home. See that she has someone with her.” He listened again, then, “I’ll talk with the coroner.”

He hung up, looked over at Dallas.“Merle Rodin’s dead. Cerebral contusion, from the blow he took. You want to go on over, finish up the paperwork while Davis takes care of the wife, gets her statement, makes sure she has friends or family around her?” This part of police work was never pleasant. They did what they could, to ease the pain that nothing could ease.

The Latino detective rose and pulled on his jacket. He gave Charlie a brief hug, and left the office, and Max looked across at Charlie, filling her in.“Lab has the brick that may have hit Rodin. A brick from the border of the flower bed, with what looks like bloodstains. Dr. Alder says there are particles embedded in the scalp that could be the same material.” Now it was the coroner’s and the lab’s job. Charlie’s hand was tense, poised on Joe Grey’s shoulder.

She said,“He could have fallen on it? Or that street scum picked it up and hit him? That poor old man.” Charlie was stoic about most village crime, or appeared to be. The cats knew she often concealed her distress from Max—he had problems enough without worrying about her, too. He didn’t need a distraught wife. But these senseless attacks on frail citizens had left her enraged, feeling helpless—as frustrated as the department when the attacks continued and they had no viable clue yet, to give them a lead.

“The blood type on the brick,” Max said, “matches Rodin’s. But it will take a while for the DNA.” The lab in Salinas was always backed up. Max turned off his computer and rose. The cats waited until he and Charlie left for a quick lunch, then they hit the chief’s desk.

Pawing through the stack of files, Dulcie took the corner of Max’s yellow pad in her teeth, pulled it out from under the folders, and opened it with her claws.

Beneath pages of notes was a printed list of the seven attacks, with Max’s penciled notes in the margins. The victims’ individual files, with additional information, would be kept secure on the computer. This page needed no securing; most of this—until the attack on Rodin—had already been in the local paper, on local radio or TV. There had been seven previous victims including one death when banker Ogden Welder died in the hospital. Merle Rodin was the eighth mark, and the second to die. Max’s new notation gave the hour, location, and date. Cause of death would wait for the coroner’s report.

One interesting fact, new to the cats, was that three of the victims had only recently moved to the village from San Francisco; and that one had been vacationing there, taking a week off from his job at San Francisco General Hospital as a physician’s assistant.

“So, San Francisco vectors in,” Dulcie said. She cut a look at Joe, knowing what his take would be. Joe didn’t believe in coincidence. If you dug long enough you could usually claw out a connection. The tabby gazed hungrily at Max’s computer, thinking of the victims’ files. With cool speculation, she reached a paw.

Joe stopped her with a quick swipe of claws.“If Evijean barges in here, finds us alone before the lit screen, you want to guess what would happen?”

Dulcie smiled a crooked smile, but she jumped down. They’d have to wait until Max or one of the detectives was into the program, some moment when they could lie on the desk idly washing their paws as they shared departmental information.

Or wait until one or two officers stopped by Joe’s house after his shift, maybe for a few hands of poker with Max and Clyde. Max would talk freely in the Damen household, as would Ryan’s Uncle Dallas. Dulcie looked at Joe. “How long do we wait for a poker game?”

Joe shrugged, he wasn’t hopeful.

Dulcie said,“Talk to Ryan, she’ll get something going.” This wouldn’t be the first time Ryan would conduct behind-the-scene assistance—she was deceptively casual when she eased Clyde into an unplanned poker night for Joe’s benefit: Joe’s dark-haired, blue-eyed housemate did love a conspiracy.

But now,“I don’t know,” Joe said. “As hard as she’s working, and the cranky mood she’s in, I’m not sure she’s up for a poker night. Tekla Bleak, that woman with the remodel, she’s driving Ryan crazy. New complaints every day, foolish and arbitrary changes. Ryan comes home at night as snarly as a possum in a trap.”

They were quiet as two officers came down the hall. When they’d passed on by, Joe dropped from the desk and peered out toward the lobby. No sign of Evijean—maybe she was sitting at her desk, hidden by the counter. They made a dash for the front door as Officer Brennan came in herding a young man before him, unwashed and smelling of whiskey.

Slipping out the door behind them through the miasma of alcohol, they scrambled up the oak tree. They sat on the tile roof only a moment before they headed across the roofs again, moving south and east in the direction of John Firetti’s veterinary clinic. Despite their preoccupation with the attacks, their strongest urge was to sit with Misto. While we can still be with him, Dulcie thought sadly.

Below them along the narrow streets the traffic was heavier now. The fog was thinning, the shops were open, and a few tourists had left their motels, looking up at the sky hoping for sunshine. The smell of coffee and sweet confections rose from the little bakeries, the smell of late bacon and eggs from the small caf?s, from clusters of tables in street-side patios. The cats were passing above a tree-shaded court when they stopped, looking down, watching two strangers below. A woman with a cane was limping through the patio toward one of the shops. Behind her a short, older man had turned into the courtyard,walking without sound following the woman, his eyes intently on her; she seemed unaware of him.

4

Looking down from the roof, engulfed in the smells of caf? breakfasts, Joe and Dulcie watched the woman in tight black workout clothes limp along toward the back shops of the little courtyard, watched the man following her. Her cane was one of those folding aluminum models. Her face and arms were sun-wrinkled, her calves pale between her cutoffs and black socks. She wore sturdy black walking shoes and a black fanny pack strapped low at her side. She glanced uneasily now at the small, thin man behind her, a grizzle-haired fellow wearing a boy-sized leather jacket and jeans. He moved easily, like a boy. He slowed when the woman slowed and pretended to look in a store window. As she limped along she watched his moving reflections. Turning suddenly, she headed toward a small toy store that was just opening.

The cats could see the owner inside pulling up the shades, a tall, bald man in a pale blue sport shirt. As soon as he unlocked the door the woman stepped inside. The two spoke for a few moments, then she moved deep into the shop. The owner stepped out into the courtyard, stood facing the man with a forbidding look. Everyone in the village, it seemed, was on edge over the assaults. The ragged fellow stared back at him, turned away and headed for the street. Neither had spoken. The cats heard, from somewhere behind the shop, a door open and close as if perhaps the woman had slipped out the back, to the side street or an alley.

Within the store, the shopkeeper had picked up the phone. The cats, watching him, watching his gestures, felt certain he was calling the police, giving the man’s description. He glanced out once to see which way the stalker had gone—as Joe and Dulcie turned to follow the little man from above. A few parking places down, he approached a white Toyota pickup. Slipping in, starting the engine, he pulled out into traffic between a UPS van and a pair of wandering pedestrians. The cats saw, behind him, the shopkeeper run from the patio and step into the street, stopping traffic, watching the pickup pull away with a hard, intent look as if he were committing the license to memory.

“He’ll call that in, too,” Dulcie said, smiling, flicking her whiskers.

But the cats had memorized the number as well.“If that was the same person as at the courthouse,” Dulcie said doubtfully, “that we thought was a boy, then somewhere he changed jackets, maybe left the black hoodie in the Toyota.”

“Why not?” Joe said. “Or maybe not the same guy. Maybe he thought to take advantage of the attacks. Snatch a few bucks and lay the crime on the real bully.”

“So even if the real thug’s never caught,” she said, “the crime’s laid on him, and this fellow goes free.”

“He’ll be caught,” Joe said calmly. “A matter of time. Time and stealth.” The tomcat never doubted that between cat-power and the cops, they’d catch the right man. “We’ll call the department from Misto’s house,” he said, hurrying along.

“But the shopkeeper got the number, he’ll be calling right now.”

“Maybe. Or maybe he got it wrong, couldn’t see it all.” Joe didn’t like to depend on chance when it came to humans. “We’ll tell Harper about that kid, too, there in front of the PD following the woman in the wheelchair. If I hadn’t shouted …”

Dulcie stopped, gave him a long, steady look.“This time, Joe, let’s leave it. We don’t know that either one was going to attack. We didn’t see an assault.”

His yellow eyes narrowed, his ears went flat.“We saw two stalkers … We—”

“Wait, Joe. Wait until we have something certain. We don’t want—we can’t afford to make niggling little tips that could turn out to be nothing.”

His scowl deepened; his claws dug into the shingles.

“We can’t shake their confidence in us, we don’t want them wondering, every time we call, if thistip is worth pursuing.” She nosed at him gently. “Leave the calls for the big stuff. The important information that we know they can run with. Don’t throw it away on conjectures.”

Joe turned and trotted away from her, over a low, shingled peak, toward Ocean Avenue. He badly wanted to get to a phone. He didn’t like to admit that maybe, just maybe, Dulcie might be right.

She caught up with him quickly, nosing at him so he wouldn’t be cross. But she stopped abruptly, peering over the edge of the roof at a plump couple in matching red sweatshirts: the couple from in front of the PD, the woman’s unruly hair tangled around her jowly face. Joe had a sharp recall of the red-sweatered couple turning to stare at the would-be victim, then moving quickly away as if they didn’t want to be seen.

When the portly couple turned into the low-walled patio of the Ocean Caf?, Dulcie followed them. Joe wanted to move on to a phone.

“Just for a minute,” she said. “I want … there’s something about those two.” With Dulcie so keenly intent, suddenly so focused, Joe put aside the thought of the phone, his own curiosity tweaked, too, and he followed her.

The brick terrace was crowded with small round tables draped in red, blue, or green cloths. As soon as the couple in red was seated, the cats backed down a stone pine, dropped down inside the wall and behind a row of potted geraniums.

“From the looks of them,” Dulcie whispered, “they could skip a few breakfasts,” But glancing down at her own tummy bulge, she thought she shouldn’t criticize.

No one was looking as the cats slipped under the table’s blue cloth, avoiding the couple’s canvas-clad feet; avoiding the woman’s floppy carryall that she’d set on the floor, one of those flowered, quilted numbers that tourists couldn’t resist. Crouched in the shadows, they listened to the rustle of their menus and to their discussion of what sounded good—blintzes, omelet, hash browns. The cats licked their whiskers. Dulcie’s appetite lately had been way too demanding, another aspect of her secret that was hard to conceal from Joe Grey.

The click of footsteps and the deep voice of the waiter brought his black shoes gleaming just inches from their noses. The tinkle of ice as he poured water. He offered coffee and poured it, and the couple gave their matching orders: pancakes, eggs, ham, and apple pie. The sound of the server’s shoes clicked away again. The restaurant and patio were crowded, so the staff didn’t linger.

The woman’s voice was grainy and low. “That was her, all right, Howard. She’s colored her hair different, it was blond before, but the same big brown eyes with those little creases, same long face. Same tennis tan,” she said with sarcasm. “She wasn’t in a cast and wheelchair then, but that’s the same woman. Bonnie something, don’t you remember? Even the same gold hair clip and gold earrings, I remember those.”

“So?” Howard said. “How would I remember? I wasn’t there every day, like you. And she has as much right to come down here as we do. Half of San Francisco vacations in Molena Point—even if we do come down partly to see your sister. But that woman—Bonnie, you said?—and that Betty Porter, they have nothing to do with us.”

“But we are connected, Howard. That’s just the point. That Bonnie woman and that Betty Porter. We are connected, that’s what’s scary—scary, when Betty Porter was hurt so bad, Howard.”

“Coincidence,” Howard said gruffly. “An accident. What else could it be?”

They both had harsh, whiskey voices. Maybe the result of advancing age and thickening vocal cords, or maybe they liked their booze as well as a big breakfast.

But it was breakfast that quieted the two. The minute their orders came, all discussion ended; there was silence except for the clatter of knives and forks on plates. The sounds of greedy humans gulping their food made Dulcie feel queasy. Whoever said a cat didn’t get morning sickness, even this late in the game, didn’t know much about felines.

Ignoring her unsteadiness, too curious to be still, the tabby reached out a paw, and with careful claws she drew the floppy purse away from the woman’s foot. With teeth and claws she loosened the drawstring, then gently pulled the bag open.

She peered in, then half crawled in, her head and shoulders down inside the bag. Joe watched the woman in case she reached down for the floppy purse, wondering what he’d do if she did reach.Hurry up, he thought, half annoyed at Dulcie, half amused.

Dulcie backed out from the depths of the carryall, her teeth clamped gently around a fat red billfold, trying not to leave tooth marks. Laying it on the brick paving, she worked the snap loose and pawed it open.

The two cats, ears and whiskers touching, studied the driver’s license: Effie Hoop, clearly incised beside her wide-faced picture. Quickly they memorized the San Francisco address, both wishing they had Kit’s keen, photographic memory.

Dropping the billfold back in the bag, and still with only the sounds of eating from above and no useful conversation, Dulcie and Joe slipped out from under the table, slid behind the geraniums again, and leaped up the patio wall. Landing lightly on the narrow edge, they were about to spring up the stone pine to the roof when they saw Ryan’s truck coming down the street.

The big red king cab swerved in to the curb where a minivan was pulling away. With parking spots at a premium, Ryan was lucky. On the far side, the driver’s door opened. The cats were about to drop off the wall, trot across the sidewalk, and join her when they saw that it wasn’t Ryan. The driver was her new carpenter, Ben Stonewell, apparently running an errand. Yes, the bed of the long pickup was loaded with new kitchen cabinets, all carefully shrouded in plastic and cardboard, the logo of the cabinetmaker stamped on the wrappings. Ben entered the restaurant patio at the far end.

Ben Stonewell was a shy young man, quiet, reclusive, not much of a talker. He’d been in the village less than a year, working for Ryan. He had left a large construction company up the coast because they moved him around so often from job to job, from one city to another. He’d told Ryan he wanted to settle in one place, in a small, friendly town. He liked to hike and runon the beach. He was heading for the takeout counter at the back of the patio when he glanced across to where the red-shirted couple was seated. He paused, startled. He was still for only an instant and then, his face turned away, he moved on quickly.

Probably he was picking up lunch for himself and Ryan’s red-bearded foreman, her uncle Scott Flannery. Usually the men brought their lunches, but once in a while they splurged on burgers and fries. At the counter he paid for a bulging paper bag, pulled his cap low, turned away again from the portly couple. Double-timing back through the patio to the street, he never showed his face to them. He slid into the truck fast, started the engine, and pulled away, heading back to the job.

From atop the wall, Dulcie looked after him, her tail twitching.“What was that about? Why would Ben hide from those two, they’re tourists. How does he know them?” Leaping up the stone pine lashing her tail, she looked back at Joe, her ears flat in a puzzled frown. “This Hoop couple. The woman in the wheelchair. Betty Porter. And now … Is Ben Stonewell part of the puzzle? What are we seeing?”

“We’re seeing bit and pieces. Too few pieces.” The tomcat rankled at, but relished, this process of scattered hints slowly coming together, of clues falling one by one into place in ways he hadn’t anticipated. Like cornering a mouse that darted in a hundred directions before it came to ground.

“It will all fit together,” he said confidently. “All of a sudden. So simple we’ll wonder that we didn’t see it right at first.”

He glanced down again at the couple in the patio, then leaped from the wall to the roof and they galloped away across the shingles toward Ocean Avenue, heading for Misto’s cottage.

In order to cross that wide, divided street, they backed down a bougainvillea vine and entered the crosswalk close on the heels of three tourists, young Asian girls leading a fluffy brown dog. The little mutt looked around at the cats, put his nose in the air, and hurried along in disdain. The traffic halted obediently for human pedestrians, whereas drivers might not see a cat or a small dog. On the far curb Joe and Dulcie fled past the little group and up a honeysuckle vine to the roof of a furniture boutique. Only then did the dog start to bark, at the nervy cats.

But now Dulcie, trotting up and down the steep tiles, began to lag behind again. The last up-and-down climbs had been tiring. Joe Grey glanced back at her, his ears flattened in a frown.

She knew she needed to explain. She needed to tell him soon, before he started asking questions. But again unease kept her silent. How would he respond to the thought of kittens?

Joe was not an ordinary street cat to ignore, or even kill, his own young. To Joe Grey, with his wider human view of the world, new babies would be a responsibility. A burden that he might not welcome, this tough tomcat who was all about danger. Whose life bristled with spying on criminals and passing information to the cops. Would he want this tender miracle? Would he want his own affairs disrupted, his own stealthy contribution to police work shoved aside while he sat with helpless babies or taught them to hunt—instead of Joe himself off hunting human scum?

But she had to tell him. She prayed he would be glad. The kittens needed their father; they needed Joe’s down-to-earth view of life, his level-headed and sensible teaching—just as they needed Dulcie’s touch of whimsy, her bit of poetry, even her love of bright silks and cashmere. Their kittens needed both parents, they needed the contrast of two kinds of learning.

Well, she thought. Whatever he says, here goes.

She paused on the roof tiles, looking at Joe. The look in her eyes stopped him, made him turn back.“What?” he said. Suddenly worry shone in the tomcat’s yellow eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Kittens,” she said. “There will be kittens.”

Joe looked at her blankly.“What kittens? Rescue kittens? The village has plenty of those, Ryan and Charlie have been trapping abandoned kittens—”

“Our kittens,” she said. “Your kittens.”

Joe stared at her. He looked uncertain, he began to feel shaky. His expression turned to panic. He hissed, his ears flat, his paw lifted …

But then his whiskers came up, his ears pricked up, his eyes widened. “Kittens?” he said. “Our kittens?” He let out a yowl.

“Kittens! Oh my God.”

He backed away from her, amazed. He leaped away, raced away across the shingled peaks, twice around a brick chimney and back again, a gray dervish streaking … He spun twice around Dulcie, his ears and whiskers wild. Around her again and halted, skidding nose to nose with her.

“Kittens?’’

He nuzzled her and washed her face. He stood back and looked her over.“You don’t look like you’re carrying kittens.” He frowned. “Well, maybe you’ve put on an ounce or two but … Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” she said, flicking her whiskers, lashing her tabby tail. “Dr. Firetti says there are kittens.”

Joe couldn’t stop smiling. Strange that he hadn’t noticed a different scent about her. But she always smelled of the garden flowers and the pines—maybe he hadn’t paid attention to subtler smells.

She sat down on the tiles, licking her paw, watching him. He stood silently looking at her, speechless and grinning. When he could talk again he said,“Kittens! They’ll learn to hunt as soon as they can toddle, I’ll bring them mice to learn on. They’ll learn everything they need to know, to hunt, and to defend themselves. And to be the best detectives ever.”

Oh, my. Dulcie hadn’t thought of that.

“They’ll learn to read from police reports,” Joe said, “right there on Max Harper’s desk, learn so cleverly that Harper will never know …” On and on he went, happily planning. Dulcie watched him uncertainly, her tough, practical tomcat laying it all out … bragging over his clever babies, his rookie-cop babies … Oh, my tender little babies, she thought nervously.

But then she thought, Okay. They’ll grow bigger, they’ll grow strong. Kittens grow up, you know. Cop cats, she thought tremulously. Well, I guess I can live with that. I’m pretty good at cop work myself.

But they’ll learn more than what Joe teaches them, she thought stubbornly. They’ll learn about poetry. About literature … and so much to know about the ancient past. They’ll learn to dream,Dulcie thought. They’ll learn to dream from me.

5

Misto didn’t spend his waning days in the veterinary clinic, but next door in the Firettis’ cottage, tucked up in John and Mary’s king-size bed among a tangle of soft pillows. Since John had discovered Misto’s fast-growing cancer, which was already too widespread for surgery, he and Mary had kept their beloved companion as comfortable and well tended as any ailing human could ever be.

The Firettis’ bungalow sat back from the side street, down a long stone walk through Mary’s flower garden. The clinic was off to the right, its original two cottages joined now by a glass-domed solarium that had turned the structure into a tall and airy hospital. The rooms of one cottage offered the felineclinic, lobby and office; the other cottage held the surgery and examining rooms. The solarium itself housed the dog hospital and exercise yard. Dr. John Firetti, tall and slim and quiet, had made the clinic a safe and welcoming sanctuary for his treasured patients.

But for John and Mary, their own Misto was the most beloved of all. He had come to them when he was an old cat, returning, after a long journey, to his kittenhood home. The instant love between the three was solid and deep. The Firettis were heartbroken when John did not discover the old cat’s disease early on. They were distraught that Misto had kept his secret as the illness fast progressed, that the old cat had hidden his early pains. Those first days, the yellow tom had shown no weight loss, no loss of appetite, no dullness of eyes or of coat. Certainly he showed no flatness ofspirit; he was as lively as ever. Misto had no clue himself until, quite suddenly, he began to feel weak, deeply tired. Then the pain was fierce, and he knew.

For some time, he kept that malaise to himself. When at last he told John that something was wrong, the cancer had spread and was not operable. Indeed, Misto told them, he would not have wanted surgery. The big yellow tom seemed far more at peace with his illness, with the numbering of his last days, than were his human and feline friends.

But now as the end of Misto’s life drew near he had much to speak of. He remembered his earlier deaths more clearly, just as he remembered his earlier lives. He shared bright fragments with John and Mary from times long past and from distant places, the old cat lying before the hearth fire of an evening, telling his exotictales.

Some days John would carry him over to the clinic, to a comfortable bed on his desk. And when, at dawn, John drove the few blocks to the shore to feed the band of feral cats he cared for, Misto rode with him, tucked up in the front seat in a warm blanket. Misto loved the shore and the roiling sea. Those gleaming waters brought back times living among the fishing wharves on the coast of Oregon; the sight of the sea brought back earlier lives, too: a strange life at the edge of the Aegean Sea; the Welsh and Scottish coasts. But the best was here, on the shore of Molena Point where the yellow tom had been born, this very stretch of shore where John now fed the strays.

Here, as a kitten, Misto had been taken far away from the village by a caring couple. Now in old age after so many adventures he had traveled back again to his first home, to the long white beach and the little dock where the ferals still gathered. Now, even in illness, he was satisfied to be back where he was born. Sometimes John carried him up the rocky coast where the waves crashed wild and where, when the tide was out and the sea sucked away, little pools among the rocks reflected the changing sky; where with a careful paw he could tease small rock crabs and tiny, trapped fishes.

Venturing to the shore with John on his better days, he stayed in the cottage with Mary on bad days, tucked up before the fire, and at night he slept warm between them. The Firettis woke each time Misto woke; they doled out pain medication and brought him cool water, offered custards and warm fish broth; they tried not to show their grieving.

But just as the old, speaking cat had come back to the Firettis on his own, the arrival of Misto’s son Pan, some months later, was a second wonder to John and Mary.

The Firettis had known about speaking cats for many years; John, since he was a boy. They had kept the secret well, but they had longed to share their home with just such a one. Now their family included both Pan and Misto—though the four had had only a short time together before Pan was off on his journey and before Misto began to fail. How deftly the old cat had kept his secret, to give Pan his freedom; and soon now Misto himself would face a new adventure. The yellow tom knew that when his pain grew too severe John would help him sleep, and sleep more deeply until his spirit rose up and he would fly free.

“We will be together again,” he told John and Mary. “We will come round together again, in one life or another, as we are meant to do. This is the way of the universe,” Misto told them. Mary had wiped a tear, cuddling him, and she couldn’t answer.

Now Misto, alone for the moment in the Firettis’ bedroom, was dozing when Joe Grey and Dulcie padded across the big rag rug, slipped up onto the bed, and settled among the pillows beside him. Only slowly did Misto’s ragged ears lift, his whiskers twitch. Only when he was alert again did Dulcie touch a soft paw to Misto’s paw.

“I told him,” she said. “I told Joe about the kittens.”

Misto grinned at Joe Grey.“About time you knew.”

Speaking kittens were rare; speaking, mated couples seldom brought little ones into the world. Joe, still shaken, looked back at Misto and smiled foolishly.

“Now,” Dulcie said, slipping closer to the ailing cat, “now, what else do you have to tell us? What about our girl kitten, that you didn’t tell me earlier when you fell asleep? Now you can tell us both.”

Beside her, Joe Grey went rigid with dismay. He didn’t want to hear predictions. He was proud and happy about the kittens, but he didn’t want Misto to lead Dulcie down some foolish path of what could be, what might be; he didn’t want the old cat planting foolish dreams.

Misto’s voice was weak but filled with pleasure. “Three kittens,” he told Dulcie again. “Two boy kittens, and a calico girl. It is she I have seen in my dreams. A lovely little creature, a beautiful young cat with a charmed spirit. A kitten who is heir to past lives more amazing than you can imagine.

“Your own child, your bright calico baby. Her past lives are set into humankind’s history, her portraits grace man’s ancient art from centuries gone. You will find the antique paintings, the tapestries, the illuminated manuscripts, you will find her image if only you will look.”

He glanced at Joe.“There is no other cat marked like her. She has moved through time with an elegance unique even to our own speaking race, this kitten who will be your child.”

Dulcie’s heart beat fast; she burned to search among the library’s old volumes, to find their own calico child. Yet she was shaken with fear for the treasure she carried, fear at bringing such a one into the world, fearful of the challenge, the responsibility for that precious creature.

“Courtney,” Misto said. “Courtney is her true name. She has carried it through much of time, she would welcome owning that name again.” The old cat laughed. “A name bigger, right now, than the little mite herself. But she will grow big and strong, this kitten who is destined to a life of honor.”

“What honor?” Dulcie whispered, even more stricken. “Oh, my. What destiny?”

But the old tom had dozed off again. As if, when he thought he had said enough, he escaped slyly into an invalid’s sleep. Softly Dulcie moved to the foot of the bed beside Joe, where the gray tomcat sat rigid and uneasy; and strange imaginings filled them both.

It was now, with the two cats so nervous and unsettled, that Dulcie’s housemate found them. Wilma slipped into the room beside John Firetti as the good doctor brought medications for Misto.

Wilma Getz was as tall as the younger doctor. She wore a tie-dyed sweatshirt today, a garment so old it was back in style, its soft reds setting off her gray hair, which was tied at the nape of her neck. John was in his white lab coat, having just come from the clinic. His light brown hair was short and neat, his sunburned forehead peeling, his light brown eyes kind as he greeted Joe and Dulcie. Moving to the dresser, he set down the tray with the syringe and medicine, to be administered when the yellow tom woke. He stood beside Wilma, looking down at the two cats sitting rigid and edgy. They looked deeply at Joe, then at Dulcie.

Dulcie flicked a whisker.“I told him.”

Wilma smiled and stroked Joe Grey.“It will be all right,” she said. “They’ll be fine, strong kittens.” She frowned at Joe. “What? They’ll be healthy kittens, Joe. You’ll be a fine father. What?” she repeated. “You don’t want these sweet babies?”

Joe stared up at her, his conflicted look filled half with joy, half with distress.“Of course I want them! Our kittens! Our little speaking kittens. It’s a miracle. But Misto …” he hissed softly. “Does Misto have to make predictions? I don’t need predictions!” Joe said. “I don’t want to hearpredictions.”

Wilma and Dulcie exchanged a look and tried to keep from smiling. Dulcie rubbed her face against Wilma’s hand. “Misto’s prophecies were … they frightened us both,” she said softly.

It was then that John interrupted—as if perhaps he didn’t want to hear predictions, either? Or perhaps he wanted only to soothe Dulcie and Joe. “Let’s have a look at you, Dulcie. Let’s see how the kittens are getting on.”

Moving his medical tray to a chair, he cleared the dresser and lifted Dulcie up. She stretched out, looking up at him trustingly, only the tip of her tail moving with a nervous twitch. She loved John Firetti, but even his gentle hands pressing her stomach filled her with unease, an automatic reaction to protect her babies.

But John’s hands were warm and tender on her belly. “Feel here, Wilma. And here …” He watched as Wilma’s familiar fingers softly stroked Dulcie’s stomach. “It’s a little late now to feel them properly,” he said, “it was easy when they were smaller. There are three kittens. Come on, Joe. You’ll feel better when you can see for yourself. Maybe you can wipe that scared look off your face.”

Reluctantly Joe leaped to the dresser. He hesitated, then placed a careful paw on Dulcie’s tummy.

“Feel along here,” John told him.

Joe stroked Dulcie as soft as a whisper. As he found the faintest divide between each tiny shape his expression turned from surprise to wonder.

“Three little heartbeats,” Dr. Firetti said, holding the stethoscope against Dulcie, then letting Joe listen. “I’d say about two more weeks, they’ll be ready to face the world.” Scooping Dulcie up again, he handed her to Wilma. “A ride home would be a good thing.”

He looked sternly at the tabby.“You are to stop galloping all over the village. No more running the rooftops. No more racing up and down trees. No climbing. You’ll soon be a mother, Dulcie. You have babies to think about. A little circumspection,” he said. “You are to slow down, take care of the kittens. We don’t wantto lose these little treasures.”

Dulcie laid her face against his hand. Of course he was right. No one said pregnancy would be easy; no one said she’d like being a stay-at-home cat, being quiet and calm and doing nothing. Sighing, Dulcie snuggled down in Wilma’s arms. She guessed her theft of the pink scarf had been her last craziness before she accepted a dull and sensible boredom.

Wilma had once told her, “To admit to boredom is to admit to intellectual poverty.”

That remark, at the time, had shamed Dulcie because she’d been bored and restless and didn’t know what to do with herself. Now the thought nudged her again as they headed for the car.

We do have a snug and cozy home, she told herself. I can curl up before a cheerful fire, we can read together, we have music, and we always have nice things to eat. And, she thought, smiling,there’s Wilma’s computer right there on the desk … Now, maybe … Now, if I must be idle, maybe more poems will come, maybe new poems. Why should my idleness be boring?

As Dulcie and Wilma headed home, Joe raced away across the empty side street into a tangle of cottages, through a maze of gardens, and up a pepper tree to the roofs. Heading home himself, he was still getting used to the idea of kittens, to the fact that soon they would have their own family. His thoughts wereall atangle, part of him annoyed at the interruption of his busy and sometimes dangerous life, part of him ashamed at such a thought. But what he felt most was an incredible tenderness for Dulcie and their babies, a fierce desire to protect them. What he wished was that the world was a safer placefor their kittens—for all the innocent of the world.

These violent attacks on the frail and elderly seemed far darker, now, a cruel contradiction to what life should be. He didn’t want to think about human evil just now, but he couldn’t stop. Suddenly, passionately, with the amazement of kittens filling his thoughts, Joe Grey wanted no viciousness at all, anywhere in the world.

But that’s the way the world is. This is the balance between innocence and cruelty that Misto talks about.

Still, Joe thought, no one has to like it. No one has to accept the twisted humans who relish their brutal plots, no one has to accept the corruption of the world. I can hate it if I choose. And maybe, he thought, even a cat, once in a while, can do something to push back the dark tide.

6

This wasn’t a game, this was for keeps. It was that very fact that made it the best game of all. Dead is dead, losing is for keeps. Snuffed like a candle, and that was the end of it. Death for the real scum among the decoys and shills they’d set up, and most of those were elderly, they’d chosen those to help mislead the law. So far the actions they’d laid out had gone down just fine. One or two they’d had to back off, but they’d make up for that.

They hadn’t liked moving to Molena Point, but this was where the marks had come. Prissy little place for retired rich people. Or for those who wished they were rich. That’s what most of these people were, the want-to-be rich. Poking around the fancy shops, maxing out their credit cards, gaga over the big prices. Talking about the big-deal social events and wanting to be part of them, that’s what these newcomers were about. Living beyond their means, trying to get a glimpse of the movie stars and big-time executives who lived on their high-toned estates back in the hills.

And in the town itself, little shops all too cute and pretty, sleazy tourists taking in the sights, dragging their fancy dogs on a pink leash. You couldn’t move for tourists and foo-foo mutts with fluffy scarves around their necks, dogs even in the outdoor caf?s. Well, but the crowds were part of the game, the crowds were cover, all these strangers from out of town worked right in to confuse the action.

Two people dead now, and before they moved down here two more taken care of in the city. According to the papers, both cases were accidents. Cops didn’t have a clue. Too bad some on the list had moved away. New Hampshire, Georgia, Mexico.

As for these local cops, any town where the chief wore jeans and western shirts, and stray cats wandered in out of the station, had to have hick-town law enforcement despite their fancy money.

No, the game was playing out just fine. Every death, every name they crossed off the list evened the score one more notch. They’d keep on until they had them all, or as many as they could reach. Maybe in time they’d snuff every one of those killers, who themselves so badly deserved to die.

While the unknown bully entertained satisfying thoughts of success and while Joe Grey fumed uselessly at the evils of the world, across the village Dulcie sat in her window in the kitchen, purring and content at last.

Looking out at Wilma’s bright spring flowers, at the rich alstroemerias and the last of the winter cyclamens, she licked her whiskers at the smell of broiling flounder. Tonight they would have their supper in the living room before the fire and then would tuck up together on the couch with a favorite book, maybe oneof Loren Eiseley’s that they reread every so often.

Maybe being pregnant wasn’t so bad; maybe she’d better enjoy her leisure while she could. When the kittens came, tiny and helpless, she’d have her paws full. And later when their eyes and ears were open, when they had grown bold and wild, she wouldn’t have a moment of her own.

Yes, now was a moment for herself, to rest, maybe think about the poems that insisted on waking her at night and wouldn’t go away. Even as Wilma dished up their supper, a poem was nudging at Dulcie like a bright glow—though maybe this verse, she thought, amused, was born of a pregnant cat’s ravenous hunger, and that did make her smile.

No thin beggar, never shy

This lady dines quite royally

Fine salami, leftover Brie

Salmon freshly from the sea

She is beautifully obese

Who feasts on kippers and roast geese

But as the poem slowly formed, and as she followed Wilma in by the hearth, she had a sudden flash of something else. Watching Wilma, she saw suddenly the darkly dressed boy, or small man, following Wilma on the street, alone on a foggy morning.

But how foolish. No one was going to attack Wilma, not without sprawling on the concrete themselves, seriously damaged. Wilma Getz might be up in years but she was strong, she was well trained, and she had a carry permit if she wanted to use it. Defensive tactics and firearm training put her in a different category from most of her fellow seniors. Too bad, Dulcie thought,that more seniors have never availed themselves of such skills.

Maybe, in the last few decades, life didn’t seem so dangerous. Maybe, the way some people looked at their lives, only a very special need would lead one to consider such training.

But of course Wilma’s training had come with her profession, in probation and parole. Yet even now that she’s retired, Dulcie thought, those skills are a plus. And any citizen can carry pepper spray or a cane, can learn how to use those simple weapons against a would-be mugger.

She thought about earlier centuries, about the wild young years of the country, when self-protection was the only protection a person had, when there was no nearby law enforcement, when the skill to fight back was an essential way of life.

These trusting humans today, the tabby thought, they need to rev up some anger, they need to substitute complacency for sharp teeth and claws. They need to find a little mean in themselves and learn how to use it.

Joe Grey, heading for home over the rooftops thinking about the kittens and then about the street crimes, wondered again if it was time to call Max. He had nothing to tell the chief but a few vague observations: the smell of turpentine and bike oil after Merle Rodin’s attack. The person following that woman in the wheelchair as if ready to attack her, racing away when Joe Grey himself shouted, then dove out of sight. That couple from San Francisco recognizing the woman, knowing her from the city and distressed to see her there in the village. What was that about? Ben Stonewell not wanting the couple to see him, and Ben, too, was from San Francisco. Wondering what these matters might add up to, well aware of their vagueness, he knew that Dulcie was right. They needed solid facts, needed leads that Harper couldn’t brush off, that wouldn’t make the chief lose faith in the phantom snitch.

Leave it for now, Joe thought. Just leave it. This time, listen to Dulcie.

Leaping from a pine branch to his own shingled roof, he trotted across to look down on the driveway. Ryan’s parking spot was empty, she’d still be at work. No big surprise, she’d been late every night since she started on Tekla Bleak’s renovation.

That Bleak woman was a pain in the tail. Ryan never should have taken on her remodel, particularly with so many sensible, likable clients waiting for Ryan to start on their own houses. Ryan’s innovative design talents, her conscientious attention to construction details and fine materials had generated a long line of eager customers.

The Bleaks hadn’t been in the village more than a few months when they bought the cottage just down the street from the Damens’ house, and because Ryan felt sorry for Sam Bleak, in his wheelchair, she had agreed to work them in soon for the needed renovations, so they could live more comfortably. Meanwhile Sam and Tekla were renting a backyard guesthouse just a few blocks from the center of the village, a cottage so tiny there was hardly room at all for the couple and their teenage son, or so Tekla complained.

Now as Joe looked down at his own driveway, he could smell their supper, lasagna or maybe spaghetti sauce, and he thanked God Clyde could cook. Clyde’s new green Jaguar stood in the open carport, a gleaming collector’s item, the result of a three-way trade Clyde had managed, offering his fine mechanical workmanship on other vehicles, in trade for the Jag. Licking his whiskers at the smell of supper, Joe slipped into his glassed-in cat towerthat rose atop the second-floor roof, padded across his tangled pillows, and pushed into the house through his cat door onto a rafter above the master suite. Below him, to his left, was the master bedroom: king-size bed, fireplace, TV, all the amenities. To his right lay Clyde’s small study, andbeyond it, Ryan’s large, glass-walled studio. The tops of oaks and pines rose on three sides, forming a leaf-sheltered workplace which, like Joe’s tower, blended with the woods and sky.

Dropping down from the rafter onto Clyde’s desk, hitting a stack of paperwork, he barely managed to avoid a landslide. The entire suite felt empty. Even Clyde’s leather love seat was bare, no little white cat and big silver Weimaraner curled up together. Snowball and Rock would be down in the kitchen licking their chops, waiting hopefully for spaghetti. The two would never admit they were geared for disappointment, that spicy sauces were not on their agenda.

Months ago Ryan had put both animals on a diet of lean cooked beef or chicken, a safe selection of fresh vegetables—and added taurine for Snowball. No treats from the table, none of the human-type food that Joe and Dulcie indulged in. Who could explain to them that speaking cats were different, that they thrived on food that would do inestimable damage to the organs of most animals?

Dr. Firetti was more than careful about regular checkups for the speaking cats, but they always rated A-plus. Who could explain why? Except for John Firetti, the medical profession didn’t know that talking cats existed.

Well, Joe thought, Rock and Snowball felt great on Ryan’s diet; they were sleek, lively, and sassy. Ryan had tried only once to put Joe on the same regimen. He’d raised so much hell that she and Clyde gave him what he wanted—though he knew she was now slipping in a few vegetables. He admitted only to himself that they weren’t bad, a little change of flavor that went down fine.

He wondered if Wilma was preparing similar special fare for Dulcie, to better nourish their babies? How would his lady take to that? Again a thrill of amazement shivered through him, another smile twitched his whiskers as he dropped from desk to floor, galloped down the stairs and into the big family kitchen.

Clyde stood at the stove stirring spicy tomato sauce, his short brown hair neatly trimmed, his tanned face showing only a hint of stubble after a long day at the automotive shop. He was still in his work clothes, pale chinos, Italian loafers, a green polo shirt. He had substituted a navy blue apron for the pretentious white lab coat that he wore at the shop. Clyde catered to expensive foreign models, classic cars, and antiques; he liked to keep an upscale image: medical specialist to your ailing Maserati, the best in tender loving care for your frail old Judkins Brougham. As Joe leaped to the table, Clyde turned from the stove.

“What?” Clyde said, frowning at him. “What’s the silly grin?”

Why was Clyde always so suspicious?“Bad day at the shop?” Joe asked coolly.

“What, Joe? Why are you smiling like that? What have you been up to?”

“Ryan still down at the Bleak job? Why does that woman show up every evening just at quitting time? Doesn’t she know people have lives of their own? Doesn’t she understand the term quitting time?”

“I said, ‘What’s the grin about?’ What gives?”

“Tekla thinks Ryan has nothing better to do than hang around after work to hear her latest complaint.” This remodel, which Ryan had sandwiched in among her larger construction projects, was just four blocks from their own house: a convenient location for Ryan to get to work, handy to run home for lunch. But hard to avoid Tekla Bleak. If Ryan wasn’t right there on that job—among three projects she was currently working on—Tekla would come on down to their house to lay out her complaints.

“Arbitrary, useless complaints,” Joe said angrily. “She makes them up to enrage Ryan.”

“The smile,” Clyde said patiently, stepping to the table, reaching for Joe. “What is the smile about?”

Joe raised extended claws and hissed in Clyde’s face. A few things were none of Clyde’s business; he didn’t need to ask nosy questions.

Clyde looked like he was going to strangle Joe.“What … is … the … smile … about? You haven’t stopped grinning since you got home.”

“I am not grinning. The Cheshire cat grins. I do not grin.”

“It’s plastered all over your face. Even when you try to scowl.” Clyde watched him intently. “What? Have you got a line on the mugger?”

“If I had a line on that dirtbag, would I be sitting here on the table listening to your rude hassling? I’d be upstairs on the phone to Max Harper.” Hissing again, he dropped from the table. “I’m going down the street and hurry Ryan along. It’s suppertime and I’m starved.”

“What, hop on her shoulder and tell her dinner’s ready? That should get Tekla’s attention.”

“I don’t need to say anything. My studied glare speaks volumes.” Turning his back he headed upstairs, leaped to the desk, up to the rafter, pushed out through his cat door into his tower. Out its open window onto the roofs and he headed south to the Bleaks’ frame cottage, where, late as it was, he could still hear hammers pounding.

Galloping the four blocks, he leaped onto the roof of the small brown house. White window trim and white picket fence that still needed painting. New, thick roofing shingles under his paws, they smelled new. He crouched above the cracked driveway, looking down at Ryan’s red king cab, parked directly below him.

The truck bed was no longer crowded with new kitchen cabinets; they had been unloaded and would be neatly stored inside the empty rooms. Bellying down on the shingles peering over, he watched Tekla Bleak where she stood on the deep front porch telling Ryan off, her voice loud enough to bring two joggers to a halt, the young men staring as if Ryan might need help, but then moving on, fast.

Tekla was a small, skinny woman, her short brown hair awry, her long, baggy blouse draped over slim black tights. Her black running shoes were sleek and expensive.

“My husband,” Tekla snapped, glancing down at Sam in his wheelchair where he waited patiently at the bottom of the steps, “can hardly maneuver his chair through that narrow gate. And you will have to do something about this ramp, you can see it’s way too flimsy for a wheelchair. If it gives way, if Sam falls …” Tekla stepped closer to Ryan, her stance threatening. Ryan looked at her coolly.

Ryan’s dark, short hair was spattered with sawdust, as were her neatly fitting jeans and her white T-shirt. She dangled a Skilsaw from one hand, where she’d been cutting a porch rail. “I have not yet torn out the gate,” she said patiently. “You can see we have only begun on the new rail.” She did not point out that Sam had no trouble at all with the gate, that his wheelchair slid right on through.

“And,” she said, “the new wooden ramp is sturdy enough for an army. Concrete supports in five places. Sam has been up and down it every day and it’s given him no trouble. You wanted wood, Tekla. Not concrete, as I suggested.” Looking over Tekla’s head, Ryan gave Sam a wink. The poor man never got in a word.

His eyes grew bright at Ryan’s smile, though he listened meekly enough to his wife’s haranguing. Joe thought it pointless for Tekla to make a fuss over Sam’s comfort when, inside the house, adaptations for his wheelchair were minimal, at best. One bathroom and a small bedroom had been retrofitted for him, but most of the renovation was concentrated on fancy countertops, fancy basins and faucets. Ego appeal, not efficiency for a challenged resident. Even the bright new kitchen was not being adapted for a wheelchair; the counters were all standard height, not even a low, easy island where Sam might fix himself a snack, as Ryan had forcefully suggested.

How simple it would have been to design the job with prime attention to Sam’s comfort. Whatever complaints Tekla had now were irrelevant to the main purpose of the project, and the woman’s arguments were wearing Ryan thin. Demands that they tear out brand-new work, put in different light fixtures though these had just been installed, replace the new kitchen hardware because Tekla had changed her mind. The arbitrary reversals were at Tekla’s expense, that was in the contract, but the extra time and labor had Ryan and her workmen increasingly frustrated. Even her foreman, big, red-bearded Scott Flannery, who was usually calm and reined in, was about at the end of his temper.

Ryan’s nature was much the same as her uncle’s; it didn’t take much for their Scots-Irish blood to flare up. So far she and Scotty had been circumspect with Tekla, trying not to upset Sam; everyone felt sorry for Sam Bleak. Everyone but his wife.

It was Ryan’s young carpenter, Ben Stonewell, who pointedly stayed away from Tekla, avoiding trouble. Joe could see how much the woman upset him. Now, after Ben’s evasive behavior in the restaurant patio when he didn’t want to be seen by the Hoop couple, Joe had to wonder if there was more about Ben than he was seeing. He hoped not, he liked the shy young man.

Only Billy Young seemed immune to Tekla’s shrill complaints. Ryan’s thirteen-year-old apprentice seemed more amused than angered. Joe had seen Billy, more than once, turn away, hiding a little smile at the storm of Tekla’s raving. Joe watched Billy now as the boy put away the shovels and a pick from where he’d been digging a newwater line. The tall boy looked older than thirteen, his brown hair trimmed short and neat, his thin face, high cheekbones, and black eyes hinting at his trace of Native American blood.

Finished cleaning up, Billy wheeled his bike from beside the garage and moved on up the drive to the street to wait for Charlie Harper. This evening, even Billy had had enough of Tekla.

The chief’s wife often picked Billy up after work, when she came down from the ranch on an errand. Charlie and Max Harper had been Billy’s guardians since his grandma died; they hadn’t wanted to see him go into foster care. Max usually dropped Billy at work in the morning, throwing his bike in the back of his pickup. The bike got him to school for early afternoon classes; then he was back at work again, on the school’s part-time apprenticeship arrangement. Now, as Tekla raised her voice louder, Billy wheeled his bike farther away, up the street. She was insisting on different flooring, when the new floor was already down in three of the six rooms.

“This is not what I ordered,” Tekla shouted.

“This,” Ryan said, “is exactly what you selected.”

“It is not. You’re lying! You’re a liar!” Tekla snapped. “You got this cheap stuff at some discount sale!” Her accusation made every hair on Joe’s body bristle. Crouched as he was on the roof, he found it hard not to leap straight down on Tekla’s head.

“I don’t lie,” Ryan said softly, her green eyes steady. “You cosigned for the flooring yourself.” She picked up a square of the sleek golden wood where a pile of scraps had been tossed on the porch; she showed Tekla where it was stamped on the back: “Same manufacturer, same style number, same color: antique oak.”

“I don’t believe you. Where is the order?”

Ryan pulled both the order and the delivery bill from her pocket. She held them so Tekla could look, but she didn’t hand them over.

Tekla said no more. Joe dropped down onto the truck hood trying to keep his angry claws from scratching Ryan’s red paint. He longed to dig them into Tekla. Ryan was beautiful and kind and Joe loved her; but Tekla’s harangues sent her home every night with a headache, in a cranky mood that cut through both Joe and Clyde, that cowed Rock and sent the little white cat to a far corner—until Ryan got herself under control. Until she did her best to smile, and the household turned sunny once more. Now when Ryan glanced up at Joe, he laid his ears back and licked his whiskers, telling her, Screw the woman. I’m hungry, it’s suppertime! Dump Tekla and let’s move it! His tomcat scowl said it all.

Ryan tried hard not to laugh. Tekla looked at her strangely, but at last she turned away and wheeled Sam to their van. Sliding open the side door, she pulled down the ramp and helped him in. Joe watched her fold the wheelchair and secure it beside him. Tekla might be small in stature, but she was strong; and she seemed to take adequate care of Sam—adequate physical care, anyway, if you could discount her spirit-bruising sarcasm. Their son, Arnold, was kinder to Sam than Tekla was. At least he acted kinder when he stopped by after school; he seemed far closer to his father than he was to Tekla.

Though somehow even Arnold gave Joe the twitches. As nice as the kid could be to Sam, there was something hard inside him. Something about Arnold Bleak that mirrored, exactly, the deep-down enmity of his mother.

Joe watched the van pull away, watched Ben head up the street for his small coupe, patting his coat pocket as he always did to make sure his phone was there and the little spiral-bound notebook that contained his building measurements and notes. Watching Ben, Joe edged from the hood of the king cab around through its open window and dropped to the front seat. At once Ryan joined him, slipping in through the driver’s door, leaving Billy to wait for Charlie, leaving Scotty to lock up.

“How do you stand her?” Joe said as she started the engine. “You could break the contract.”

She looked at Joe, frustrated.“With Sam in a wheelchair, they need this remodel. At least he’ll have a convenient bath and bedroom. They have to be cramped in that little place they’re renting.” Her patience sounded kind and forgiving, but when again she glanced at Joe, angry tears filled her eyes. Ryan, who never cried. Who was usually high-spirited and in charge of a situation. “If she could just be civil,” she said. “If she could just try …”

On the seat Joe snuggled closer and laid a soft paw on her arm.“You know she does it on purpose, you know she likes hurting people. Don’t let that scum get to you with her power trip, you’re better than to listen to her.” Looking up, his eyes held Ryan’s. “She won’t take you down, you have more style, more everything. You can laugh at her.”

Driving, Ryan smiled, and wiped at her tears. They were a block from home when she pulled over to the curb and gathered Joe up in her arms. Burying her face in his fur, she was silent for a long time, dampening his gray coat with her tears, needing a little time-out, needing Joe as she tried to get herself under control.

But suddenly she began to laugh. She laughed against Joe, she held him tighter, then held him away, laughing in his face, her teary green eyes bright with amusement.“You’re right, tomcat. I can growl at her just as good as you can,” and she hugged him harder. “If Sam can’t silence Tekla, if he won’t silence her, then maybe I will.” She stroked and hugged him. “Why not? I can unsheathe my claws just as well as you can.”

7

Tears still dampened Ryan’s cheeks as she pulled into the drive—but she was still smiling, cuddling Joe close on her lap. Above them, bright reflections from the lowering sun flashed across her upstairs studio windows. She and Joe sat a moment enjoying the sight of their comfortably remodeled house, Ryan scratching Joe Grey’s ears as she shook off the last of her anger. “Guess we have it pretty good, don’t we, tomcat?”

Joe gave her a nudging purr.“Guess we do, now that you’ve added a little pizzazz to the old cottage. And to the family,” he said, grinning. “Now that you’ve civilized Clyde,” and that did make her laugh.

The Damen house had started out some fifty years earlier as a one-story weekend bungalow. It was now a spacious two stories with more air and light, and a touch of Spanish flavor. It still amused Joe that the renovation was what had pushed the romance into high gear as Ryan and her crew worked on the remodel and Clyde often worked with them. What better way to get to know a person than working side by side, exhibiting your worst temper when you hit your thumb with a hammer, as Clyde was inclined to do, or when the wrong materials were delivered, nudging Ryan’s temper. What better way to know someone than when a project turned out exactly right and they could share that glow of pleasure. As the couple learned each other’s moods, as they began to see the truth of what each one was about, the romance bloomed.

Now, gathering Joe up in her arms and swinging out of the truck, Ryan hurried inside. Setting him down in the hall, she didn’t go into the kitchen to kiss Clyde as she usually would, but headed upstairs to wash away the last of her tears. Joe heard the bathroom door slam as he followed the smell of spaghetti into the kitchen; then soon he heard the shower pounding.

“In a temper again,” Clyde said, moving around the big table laying out napkins and silverware. “What does Tekla want now? Gold-plated doorstops?”

“Wants to rip out the new floors,” Joe said, leaping up to the kitchen counter. “Said that floor wasn’t the one she ordered.”

Clyde snorted.“What did Ryan say?”

“Ryan showed her a floor scrap with the name and color number on it, showed her a copy of the order Tekla had signed. Why does Sam Bleak stay with that woman? Even in a wheelchair he’d be better off alone. You’re setting four places.”

“Just Scotty and Ben.” Ryan’s uncle Scott was a bachelor and was often there for dinner. Young Ben Stonewell was single, too. The thin, twenty-something carpenter, who was new to the village, was so quiet, so withdrawn and shy, that Ryan was inclined to mother him.

Clyde said,“It would be pretty hard for Sam to get along alone in a wheelchair. He needs someone.”

“He has Arnold.”

“Arnold’s what? Maybe fourteen? And the kid’s … he’s kind enough to Sam, but there’s something about him. The kid makes me uneasy.”

Joe twitched a whisker.“With Tekla for a mother, no wonder. I don’t get too friendly with him, I doubt he likes cats very much. He makes my fur twitch.”

They heard Ryan descending the stairs. She came into the kitchen, her temper washed away, looking softer in a pink velvet jumpsuit and smelling of lavender soap—no longer smelling of anger. Her short, dark hair curled around her face, from the steamy shower. “Sam and Tekla have no one but Arnold,” she said. “No other family that I know of. Both Sam and the kid need Tekla, and they sure need to have this house finished. If she’d just stop buggingus and let us get on with it.”

Clyde moved away from the stove and took her in his arms. She melted against him, nuzzling into his shoulder.“Tekla’s a lot less caustic,” she said, “when Arnold’s around. Is she ashamed to pitch such a fit in front of their son?”

“I’d be ashamed,” Clyde said. He stroked her hair, then turned back to the stove, where the water for pasta had begun to boil. He eased in the dry spaghetti, then opened two cans of beer, handing one to Ryan. He stood watching the pot, ready to turn it down when it boiled. At the sink Ryan washed tomatoes and began cutting up salad greens. Joe moved down the counter away from her splashes and then sailed across to the table. He hoped he wouldn’t have to move again when their guests arrived. After all, it was only Scotty and Ben. At the other end of the long kitchen, the big silver Weimaraner and little white Snowball watched the proceedings with nose-twitching interest, though their own bowls of supper had already been licked clean. As Joe settled down between the place mats, Clyde turned from the stove to fix him with a piercing look.

“Okay. Now Ryan’s home. Now we’re all together. Let’s hear it.”

Joe looked up at him blankly. Ryan turned, watching them.

Clyde sipped his beer, his gaze never leaving Joe.“You were grinning when you got home this afternoon, grinning until you left again. You’re scowling now, after a half hour with Tekla. But that smug look is still there, underneath. Come on, Joe. Spill it.”

Ryan looked closely at Joe. She reached out one slender finger and tipped up his chin, studying his wide yellow eyes.“I didn’t notice, down at the Bleaks’ or in the truck, I was too caught up in … too damn mad. You do look a bit smug,” she said. “What, Joe? What is that look?”

Joe Grey sighed.

He told himself he was blessed to have Ryan and Clyde, to have a loving family. That he was blessed he hadn’t remained a homeless stray in the San Francisco alleys. That he was more than fortunate that Clyde had rescued him, back when he was a starving kitten. Told himself he was lucky beyond dreams that Clyde had married Ryan Flannery.

But there were times when they didn’t have to be so damned nosy. He lay between the place mats staring back at his housemates’ stern and unblinking assessment, the two of them waiting for him to explain that inner joyousness that he couldn’t seem to hide or quell: two stern humans banded together insilent interrogation, as hard-nosed stubborn as a pair of old-time detectives. If Clydethought he had a secret, Ryan knew he did. Her green eyes saw too deeply into his wily cat soul.

He wanted to share his and Dulcie’s news. He was eager to tell them about the kittens and see their excitement. But he felt embarrassed that he was so excited. And he dreaded the fuss they’d make. They’d start worrying over Dulcie; they’d caution him to take care of her when he and she were out running the roofs and streets. They’d tell him not to let her climb trees, just as John Firetti had told Dulcie herself. They’d go on and on, he could only half imagine their concern.

But he had to say something. The two were still staring. There was no getting out of this. Besides, Dulcie was already starting to show, if you looked carefully. Pretty quick now, her condition would be too obvious to hide. Then everyone would start asking questions. If he or Dulcie didn’t break the news, Clyde and Ryan, or Charlie, would start to interrogate Wilma, whom Dulcie had so far sworn to secrecy.

Well, hell, he thought, fighting his prideful embarrassment, and he laid it out for them using Dulcie’s own words. “Kittens,” he said, “there’ll be kittens.”

Clyde stared.

“We’re going to have kittens,” Joe said slowly.

Ryan’s eyes widened and she began to smile. Clyde’s expression was numb. Dulcie and Joe had been together a long time, with no sign of ever expecting babies. Kittens born to speaking cats were a rare occurrence. The idea still amazed Joe himself, still left him only half believing. “Dulcie is with kittens,” he repeated, watching Clyde.

But Ryan flew around the table and grabbed Joe up in her arms.“Kittens! Oh, Joe. How manykittens? Do you know how many? Has she seen Dr. Firetti? When are they due? How soon? Has she told Wilma? Wilma hasn’t said a word … Oh!” She kissed the top of Joe’s head, then kissed his nose. Beneath his fur, Joe had to be blushing. “Oh, kittens,” she said. “Little speaking kittens …”

Snug in her arms, Joe didn’t point out that there was no guarantee their babies would speak. Ryan and Clyde knew that, if they’d thought about it. John Firetti had told them, long ago, that the gift of speech didn’t always happen, that sometimes the talent was not passed on, that it did not appear at all. Just as, once in a great while, a little speaking kitten would be born to an ordinary, nonverbal litter.

A recessive gene? An anomaly surfacing out of nowhere? Joe found the tangle of genetic paths daunting; he didn’t comprehend the math of it at all, or the implications. He wondered if anyone understood this particular scientific puzzle. How could geneticists study and understand a creature they didn’t know existed? No more than a handful of people in the world could know there even were literate, verbal cats.

Most people, Joe thought, wouldn’t believe in talking cats if one shouted obscenities at them.

Those few who knew the speaking cats and loved them kept their secret well, to protect the cats themselves; to shield them from human exploitation in a world where any creature rare and different was open to human greed.

Settling deeper into Ryan’s arms, Joe worried that the babies might not be able to speak. Dismayed, he looked solemnly at Clyde and then up into Ryan’s green eyes, so tender now as she fussed over him. But Clyde was saying, “Kittens! My God, Joe. If they’re half as stubborn and hardheaded as you …”

“Or if they’re half as smart and decisive as Joe,” Ryan said, “and as clever and sweet as Dulcie … oh, a baby shower, Joe! We’ll have a shower for Dulcie—little kitten toys, a soft new cat bed. Baby books, little kitty primers to—”

Joe drew back in her arms and pressed a paw to her lips.“You’re not having a baby shower!” Ryan never gushed, he was shocked at her gushing. “Dulcie’s not having a foo-foo baby partylike some … some giddy … human mother.”

“Why not?” she said, hugging him. “Little toy mice, some pretty little blankets …” She was never like this, his steady, sensible housemate, the woman he counted on for a calm and balanced view of the world when Clyde might be off the wall. The tomcat’s voice was sharper than he intended.

“We don’t want a baby shower!” he hissed at her. “Don’t you think you should ask Dulcie if—”

A loud explosion stopped him, then a deafening metallic clatter as the top blew off the cook pot. Clyde and Ryan spun around, Ryan hugging Joe tighter, backing away from the stove, where a geyser of steam blasted toward the ceiling. Pasta was boiling over in a white cascade of froth, bubbling over the sides of the pot and across the stovetop and burbling down into the burners. The metal lid spun rattling across the floor. Clyde dove for the pot and pulled it off the burner. At the same moment a series of loud thuds rattled the front door and a deep voice echoed through the intercom. “Supper ready?”

8

Ryan held Joe forcefully over her shoulder, having grabbed him away from the geyser of steaming water as she hurried to the living room to let Scotty in—leaving Clyde to deal with the erupting pot. Reaching for the door, she tossed Joe on the mantel among the tangle of photographs. He hissed at her and settled down to collect himself, to ease his jangled nerves. Washing his paws, he listened to Clyde in the kitchen swearing and banging pots.

Chaos was nothing new in the Damen household. Joe should be used to calamities. But deep in his feline nature burned that ancient instinct for self-preservation, that fight-or-flight inborn shock at loud noises, every fiber geared to slash or race away until he’d sorted out the cause of the trouble.

Reflex response, he thought, and where would a cat be without that instant reaction? As he sat on the mantel calming himself, in the open doorway Scotty gave Ryan a big bear hug, happy to see her though they’d worked together all day. Her uncle’s voice was so deep and comforting that soon Joe’s fear reflexes had eased. He began to purr, and then to smile as he saw again the lid of the spaghetti pot blow off, and Rock and Snowball streak out through the dog door to the safety of the backyard.

Stretching out among the small, framed photos, he was washing his shoulder when the phone rang. He heard Clyde answer, but not until he realized the call was from Kit’s traveling housemates did he drop to the rug, beat it to the kitchen, and land on the table, to listen.

Clyde had pushed the boiling pot off the burner and opened the windows to clear out the steam. The trash can was filled with sopping paper towels sticky with starchy water. Was this the end of their supper? Was the spaghetti ruined? Joe eyed the mess with dismay. He wasn’t about to choke down a serving of cat kibble.

But no, there on the stove the spaghetti itself was piled in a colander glistening with olive oil, balanced atop a deep bowl. And the covered pot of tomato sauce looked tame enough, nothing bubbling out, nothing running over the side. As Clyde talked on the phone he wiped the last of the sticky gray liquid off the stove. “Lucinda,” he mouthed at Joe, silent because Scotty was headed through to the kitchen. “It’s Lucinda.”

Clyde’s words didn’t cheer Joe. If the Greenlaws had arrived home before Kit and Pan returned from their own journey, if the older couple found them still absent they’d be beside themselves. But then, listening to Clyde, Joe realized that Lucinda and Pedric were in Anchorage. They were talking about the shops and a native arts museum, Clyde asking questions to avoid the subject of Kit as Scotty and Ryan entered. “ … yes, they are, Lucinda. Kate says the new garden plants are fine, she checked the watering system yesterday.”

Lucinda, aware that someone had come in, talked for only a few minutes more, then ended the call. Did Clyde’s “Yes, they are, Lucinda …” answer her most urgent question, tell her that Kit and Pan were still away? Had she hung up burdened by that news?

“Lucinda,” Clyde said to Ryan and Scotty. “They’re in Anchorage.” He looked at Ryan. “Your dad and Lindsey have gone on to the Kenai River for a day or two of early salmon fishing. Lucinda wasn’t sure whether they’d be coming home together or separately, she wasn’t sure which flight they’d take.” The travelers hadn’t been gone long, but it seemed to Joe like forever. He hoped Kit and Pan would be home before the Greenlaws; even this short parting had been hard for the older couple, and surely was hard for Kit, too. The three had never been parted since the amazementof their finding one another just a few years ago up on Hellhag Hill. The frightened tortoiseshell kitten, a lonely stray, hadn’t ever imagined she would discover humans she could speak with, humans she could trust to keep her secret, humans she could love and who would love her as she had never dreamed.

As for Lucinda and Pedric, long immersed in the Celtic myths that told of speaking cats, to imagine encountering such an astounding creature in real life was beyond their dreams. Such a longing was only whimsy, fanciful thinking; they hadn’t dared suppose that a speaking cat would appear before them there on those green hills, wanting to share their picnic—to share their lives. A chance meeting born perhaps of a deep and inherent need within the two humans and within Kit herself. Their close bond now had made it hard indeed for the three of them to part. They’ll be together soon, Joe told himself hopefully, nothing bad will happen.

At the kitchen table Scotty took his usual place, absently petting Joe where the tomcat lay sprawled across the place mat, his paw on Scotty’s spoon. Scotty was never annoyed at Joe’s boldness but only amused; he nodded thanks as Ryan handed him a can of beer and a frosty mug.

“Ben will be along,” Scotty said. “He stopped by his place to feed his rescues.” They had all been pleased when young Ben Stonewell, even in his tiny rented room, had taken in three rescue cats, giving them safe temporary quarters until real homes could be found. Scotty laid a sheaf of drawings on the table. “I swung by Kate’s to pick these up—the changes she’d like for the outdoor shelter rooms.”

Joe watched Scotty with interest. His mention of Kate brought a vulnerable look to the Scotsman: he glanced down shyly, seemed suddenly off center, making Joe Grey smile.

Blond, beautiful Kate Osborne, their good friend who understood the speaking cats so well, had at last succeeded in buying the old Pamillon estate. The acreage and crumbling mansion had languished for generations in the hills above Molena Point, caught up in a tangle of legal disputes. Kate’s attorney had finally wound a legal path through the mire of too many heirs, too many overlapping trusts and wills. Now the property was through escrow, Kate and Ryan had all the building permits, the plans had been approved by a hard-nosed county inspector, and they had begun construction of a fine new cat shelter. It rose just south of the fallen mansion with a low hill in between. Ryan’s larger crew of carpenters was working up there, Ryan dividing her time between several jobs, but always happy to get away from the Bleak renovation.

The shelter project was part of CatFriends, their volunteer rescue group. The refuge was a special dream of Kate’s, to care for abandoned cats. Kate had lived in the village before she left her philandering husband. It was here in Molena Point that she discovered her own strange relationship to the speaking cats. She had, while investigating that connection, found her way down the hidden tunnels beneath San Francisco’s streets into the Netherworld, where Kit and Pan now traveled. Though Kit and Pan’s route had taken them, not from the city’s tunnels, but from here in the village beneath the estate itself, down a cavern discovered by the band of speaking, feral cats who made their home among the Pamillon ruins.

Kate, at the moment, was living in Lucinda and Pedric’s downstairs apartment looking after their house and garden while they were away—watching for Kit and Pan’s return, just as she waited eagerly for Lucinda and Pedric to arrive home again, safe.

“She was working on two more drawings,” Scotty offered. “She said she’d drop them by later.” Again Scotty had that off-center look that made Joe and Ryan glance at each other.

“She wants to add two more outdoor group rooms,” Scotty said, opening up the folded plans. “For the ferals that want to see outdoors, cats who get upset being shut inside.” The plan was, the ferals would be neutered, given their shots, and turned loose again into the colonies where they hadbeen trapped. That way, the whole colony was healthier, the cats wouldn’t reproduce but could live happy, productive lives hunting the rats and mice and destructive ground squirrels that bedeviled the village cottages. CatFriends’ volunteers were currently feeding three such colonies, supplementing their rodent diet and seeing to it that they had plenty of fresh water.

The rescue group’s plan for the shelter had begun at the time the economy faltered so badly that many homes and cottages were foreclosed and families moved hastily away, searching for new jobs, cruelly abandoning their pets to fend for themselves or find new owners. Members of CatFriends had patiently trapped the lost, frightened animals and found temporary foster homes for them until the shelter could be built. There would be roomy cages and two big group rooms for the cats who got along well together. Rescued dogs went to the SPCA, which had larger facilities for them.

A lot of thought had gone into CatFriends’ shelter. Their group meetings included Charlie Harper, Ryan’s glamorous sister Hanni Coon, Ryan and Kate, and five other members. Joe and Dulcie had sat in on a few gatherings at the Damens’—had sat in, finding it hard not to offer their own opinions. How could humans design a cat shelterwithout consulting an expert? Sometimes they even wanted to argue with Kate.

Joe had been amused when Scotty started attending the meetings. Scott Flannery was not a cat person and was not inclined to women’s groups. But then Ryan’s shy, quiet carpenter Ben Stonewell had joined. Ben was interested in the rescue operation. Scotty was more interested in Kate; he would come to the meetings with Ben but leave with her, “for a walk on the beach,” he would say, or, “a nightcap in the village.”

Scotty was Ryan’s father’s brother. Detective Dallas Garza was her mother’s brother. The two men had moved in with Mike Flannery after the children’s mother died, when the three girls were very young. Together the men had raised them, adjusting work schedules to be sure someone was at home for them, teaching them not only to cook but to do household repairs, to carpenter, to carefully handle and care for a firearm, and to help train Dallas’s bird dogs. Dallas and Ryan’s beautiful sister Hanni were good hunting partners.

But it was Scotty who stirred Ryan’s interest in construction, teaching her the more intricate use of carpentry tools and the basics of strong construction, years before she went on to art school to study design.

Now, at the sink tossing salad, Ryan turned at a knock on the front door, and went to let Ben in. The young carpenter hadn’t used the intercom; he was wary of that simple device, though he was comfortable enough with the high-powered carpentry equipment.

The thin, pale young man entered the kitchen shyly. He looked freshly scrubbed; he wore his brown hair shoulder length, but it was clean and neat. He always seemed pleased by the big family kitchen, the homey room with its flowered overstuffed chair and bookshelf at the far end, by the resident animals looking up smiling at him, by the warm sense of family. He was more outgoing with the two cats and the big Weimaraner than with humans. At the sight of Ben, Rock left the braided throw rug and came to lean against the young carpenter’s knee. Ben had changed from his work clothes to tan slacks, a brown polo shirt open at the collar, and loafers. Ryan pulled out a chair for him and fetched him a beer. He looked up at Clyde. “Smells good,” he said. “Real good,” and he grinned more openly. “Can I help?”

Clyde shook his head.“All under control.” The rescued pasta draining in the colander seemed none the worse for boiling over—there was enough spaghetti for a small army. The Damens always made extra. Leftovers went in the freezer for a handy future meal. That is, what leftovers Joe Grey didn’t get into during a midnight foray. Joe had learned, when he was very young, to open the refrigerator, though he was not as agile as Dulcie. The Damens’ refrigerator, as well as Wilma’s and the Greenlaws’, had emergency interior handles; these were Clyde’s invention, built at the automotive shop by one of his mechanics.

Scotty set the salad on the table, and Clyde dished up the spaghetti. Joe leaped off the table to the end of the kitchen counter where Clyde had set Joe’s own plate. He could never understand why Clyde thought he deserved a smaller plate than everyone else. Though he was amused by its pattern of fat cats. Ryan said it might encourage Joe to watch his waistline. In fact, looking at those prancing, greedy kitties only made him eat faster.

They were all seated, Ryan serving the salad, when Scotty said,“Kate told me … she saw another assault this evening.”

Everyone paused, Clyde’s beer mug half raised.

“When I got to the apartment she was just home from the PD, from filing the report. She was still mad, upset that she hadn’t caught the guy. She said he ran like hell, and Kate’s pretty fast herself.”

Clyde said,“She got a look at him?”

“Not much, just his back. He slid into an alley. She wasn’t that far behind, but when she got there he was gone, not a trace.”

Scotty sprinkled cheese on his spaghetti.“Slim guy, Kate said. Thin and small. Dressed in black, black cap with earflaps. Could have been a kid, or not. She was coming out of the drugstore when she saw him half a block away, saw him knock a woman down. When he saw Kate he spun away and ran. She grabbed her phone, got a blurred picture of his back, just a smear of the dark figure careening around the corner. She called 911, then chased him. When she lost him she turned back to help the woman. Officer Brennan was already there, and the medics.

“Kate said the woman didn’t seem hurt too bad. While they were taking care of her, Kate went on into the station, gave her statement to Detective Davis, and they copied the photo from her cell phone.

“They’ll enhance the picture,” Scotty continued, “but I doubt they’ll get much. The woman told Brennan she was all right, she didn’t want to go to the hospital. She went into the station with him, gave her own statement, and he took her home.” Scotty laid a copy of the photograph on the table.

Joe, leaping to the table pretending to sniff at Ryan’s spaghetti, got a good look at the picture, but it didn’t offer much, just a dark, blurred figure running, very like the hooded figure who ran when Joe shouted from the roof of the PD.

“What does this guy want?” Scotty said. “These attacks seemed no more than cruel pranks—until the murder. And then the second death, that could be either murder or unintentional manslaughter. None of it makes sense. Everyone in the department’s edgy.”

Joe knew that. He was more than uneasy himself.

At Scotty’s first mention of the attack Ben looked uncomfortable. “If people were half as decent as animals,” he said, “were as kind as animals, the whole world would be at peace.”

No it wouldn’t, Joe thought. Watching Ben, the tomcat found it hard to keep his mouth shut. He wanted to point out that predatory animals weren’t so decent, that wolves, coyotes, jungle cats, were all cruel killers, that was the way God made them. Wolves, for instance, began eating their prey before the poor animals were dead; a wolf would pull half-born calves from their mothers, or would mortally wound valuable young heifers and not even bother to eat them. They would leave their prey slowly dying and move on to kill the next little calf, as they taught their cubs how to hunt. He wanted to say that it was only the victims of the wolves and coyotes that were without cruelty.

And, Joe thought, only half ashamed, even a mouse might not die quickly in the jaws of a hunting cat. The tomcat’s own dual nature sometimes left him conflicted; he really didn’t like to analyze such matters—and now he could make no reply to set Ben straight. His opinion was locked in silence.

He realized he was scowling only when Ryan gave him a faint shake of the head, a look that said,Back off, cool it, Joe. You’re too interested. Suck up whatever you want to say. Get out of Ben’s face with that angry and superior stare.

Embarrassed, Joe turned from Ryan, leaped from the table to the kitchen counter once more, and licked clean the last of his spaghetti.

Only when Ben talked about his rescue cats did his eyes brighten. He launched into an amused and loving description of his three charges, of how well they got along together and how all three slept with him at night. Maybe, Joe thought, if Ben finds a larger apartment he might keep the three homeless cats. Ryan said his apartment was so small there was hardly room for the bed, a tiny refrigerator, and a hot plate. The little basement room and bath huddled beneath a tall old house that overlooked a shallowcanyon east of the village. Ryan had described, to Clyde and Joe, the rough concrete walls, the decrepit metal windows on the two daylight sides of the corner room. She said Ben had lined up the two spacious cat cages before the windows, further darkening the little apartment but giving the cats light and morning sun. Ben’s landlord rented out rooms in the house above, but people were seldom home. No one seemed to care that Ben kept cats. Joe expected he’d find a better place soon. He’d only moved down from San Francisco less than a year ago.

Well, Joe thought, the Bleak job will finish soon and Ben will be working full-time to finish the shelter; he’ll like that better. Though Joe did wonder why Ben was so uncomfortable around Tekla, more upset at her harassment than seemed warranted.

Well, who could blame him? Joe avoided the woman, too. Now, watching Ben, the tomcat had no idea that by the next morning his idyllic picture of the young man would have changed radically—and that Joe himself would be thrown into the middle of the tangle.

9

That blonde that spotted the attack had nearly messed them up, she ran faster than you’d expect, almost got a good look and ruined it all. A hasty retreat and no harm done, but way too close—left a person shaking with nervous sweat.

But that was the only time there was trouble. All in all, every new assault was a blast. Shadowing the victims, learning their habits, learning the paths they took among the village stores, knowing where they lived and where they shopped. Watching the places they worked, where they ate if they ate out. Pausing in a doorway, waiting, silent in the shadows, that was the best part. The sudden hit—slip up with no sound, one good shove and it was done. See them fall scared and struggling and you were gone before they got a glimpse. A fast attack, then gone. How easy was that?

Well, it should have been the same this time except the damned blonde got in the way. She had a cell phone—did she get a picture? If so, it couldn’t be much. A running smear from the back. Hell, she didn’t see anything. What could she tell the cops? Anyway, that mark had been just a shill. Tomorrow would be a real one again. Tomorrow’s target knew something, knew too much and needed taking out. Tomorrow when they’d be alone, just the two of them.

It was near dawn when the setting moon angled into Joe Grey’s tower so bright that, even deep in sleep, he tucked his face under the pillows. But the afterglow stayed in his head, brought him half awake. Wriggling around, he scowled out at the offending yellow orb. Damn moon brighter than a streetlight slanting in through the oak and pine branches.

The moon had been high when he galloped home from hunting late last night, his belly full of mice atop his earlier spaghetti supper—a good hunt even if Dulcie had wanted to stay to the grassy hill that rose behind her own cottage. He was chagrined that he hadn’t been concerned, days earlier, when she preferred to stay within the village instead of out on the far hills. Why wasn’t I puzzled that my lady was slowing down?

Tomcat inattention, he thought. All wrapped up in my own interests. Expecting her to be as irate at these new crimes as she always is at village violence. I never wondered at all why she was so preoccupied.

But even though he hadn’t noticed Dulcie’s motherly condition, he had seen a different look in her eyes. That alone should have clued him in. He’d wondered only briefly what that calm look was, that deep contentment in her easy glance. He’d put it down to some passing mood, thinking,Who can understand females? He should have paid more attention, should have figured it out without having to be told. But no, not for one minute had he taken time to wonder.

Ryan had said, late last night as she climbed into bed and Joe leaped to the rafters, ready to head out to hunt,“Be careful with her, Joe. Hunt close to home, and hunt easy.” She’d pulled the covers up over her silk nightie. “Please be careful, you don’t want to stress her. Not with those precious kittens.”

Well, hell, he knew that.

“Listen to Dr. Firetti,” she’d scolded. “We’re all eager for those little kittens to be healthy and strong.”

Joe had flicked his ears in annoyance, bolted across his rafter and out his cat door.

But he’d made sure Dulcie had an easy hunt among the tall grass where the field mice thrived. He had watched her gobble mice as if she couldn’t get enough.

“Taurine,” she’d told him when at last she’d stretched out in the grass to rest. “Cats need taurine, and maybe I need more now for the kittens. We don’t make our own, like people do.” Where did she get this stuff? From Wilma? Did she and Wilma find these things online? Or had Dr. Firetti told them? Taurine, he thought. No wonder a cat craved mice.

It had been around two a.m. when he’d escorted Dulcie through her cat door and headed home himself. He found it hard to get used to his tame, sedate lady, hard to forget her wild days when, too often, he’d had trouble keeping up with her. He guessed those times would return. He hoped so. He felt tender and frightened for her, but he missed her devil-may-care fearlessness. Now, rolling over among the pillows again to block out the setting moon, he burrowed under and slept once more, deeply.

It was a reflection from the low rising sun that pulled him from the depths this time, that stirred him just enough to smell coffee brewing. Then an urgent banging, which woke him fully. He leaped from the pillows to stare around at the dawn-bright roofs and treetops. The pounding came again, from below, from the front door, and Billy Young’s voice, “Ryan? Clyde?” A quavering, shaky voice not like Billy. Joe pushed out through the tower’s open window, leaped across the shingles, and peered over.

The slim, brown-haired boy stood with his back to the front door, pressed against it watching the street fearfully in both directions, his thin face white, even his high, ruddy cheekbones white, his fists clenched. The door opened so suddenly behind him that he nearly fell inside.

Swinging around, he pushed in beside Ryan and slammed the door closed.

Startled, Joe Grey fled in through his tower onto the rafter, hit Clyde’s desk, and was downstairs before Ryan and Billy reached the kitchen. Clyde, startled, turned from the stove where he was frying eggs. Joe leaped to the table as Ryan urged Billy to sit down. He was trembling and out of breath, his dark eyes huge. She reached for the freshly brewed coffee, addedmilk for him. “You ran here from the job?”

Mutely, Billy nodded.

Putting the cup on the table and fetching her own coffee, she sat down next to him. At the stove Clyde dished up the eggs and set them aside. Refilling his coffee cup, he joined them. Both were quiet, waiting for Billy to collect himself. When Joe heard the familiar sound of Max Harper’s truck go by, Billy heard it, too, and glanced nervously in that direction. When Ryan took Billy’s hand, gently undoing his fist, he gripped her fingers hard, needing that strong human touch.

Only Joe heard the softer sound of the medics’ van slip by the house, following Max. No one else looked up. The medics were not using their siren, as if they didn’t want to be heard heading for the building site. What had happened? Surely there’d been an accident—but who was hurt, to call out the rescue team?

Oh, not Scotty, Joe thought. Ryan’s big redheaded uncle was often at work early—but the tall Scots-Irishman seemed as indestructible as stone. Is it young Ben Stonewell? He thought, shivering. But maybe only some local, poking around the building, fell over a stack of lumber? It was hard as hell to sit still, not to race out and follow the action.

“Max dropped me off at the job,” Billy was saying, “and went on to work. I was early, Scotty wasn’t there yet. No one … I used my key, went on in. Opened the garage from inside, then went out again and around to get some tools …” He cupped his hands around the warm mug, sat silently staring into it. Seeing what ugly replay, that he could hardly talk about?

At last, quietly, he looked up at Ryan and Clyde.

“Ben Stonewell,” the boy whispered. “Ben is … Ben is dead. Lying there, the ladder fallen over him … blood everywhere. I … I called Max on my cell. Dead,” he repeated, looking at them, lost and pale. “Lying there in the side yard, so much blood … the ladder down ontop of him.” He wiped his eyes. “I guess he’d been working on the roof gutters. I thought at first he fell, then I saw the blood … then the bullet wound. A terrible hole, had to be a gunshot.” He wiped at his eyes. “He couldn’t have lived … A hole in the back of his jacket and up through his throat. Blood underneath where he fell …”

Ryan put her arms around the boy. She held him tight, her cheek against his forehead, her hands gripping his shoulders to steady him.

“I shouldn’t have left him there alone,” Billy said. “Dead, and alone. I was afraid the killer … that they might still be there. That they’d think I saw them and would come after me, too.”

“Did you see anyone?” Clyde said.

“No one.” Billy looked up at Clyde. “Ben never hurt anyone, never wanted to hurt anyone. How could someone … Why would somebody … ?”

Joe stretched out across the table close to the boy, put his paw on Billy’s arm. Billy had already been through the trauma of his gram’s death. The shock of seeing Gram’s frail, charred body on the medics’ stretcher, covered with a sheet outside their burned cabin, a memory that could never go away. That had been about a year ago, when Billy was twelve. Now Joe hurt for the boy in a different way than he hurt for poor Ben. Ben was dead, was at peace now from whatever horror had happened to him; he was hopefully in a kinder place. But Billy was feeling it all, the shock, the pain, the terror. why would someone hurt Ben Stonewell? What had he done that someone wanted him dead?

It was a while before Billy quieted, before he grew steadier and some color returned to his face. When he seemed stronger, he and Ryan and Clyde piled into the king cab and headed for the remodel. Joe Grey, slipping out behind them, leaped into the truck bed among the tools and folded tarps and old jackets. A stack of oak boards was strapped to one side. Clyde’s glance back at him, as Clyde stepped up into the passenger seat, told Joe he’d better make himself scarce at the scene.

Clyde knew that no one could keep him away. Clyde’s Get lost look was only an empty threat. Riding in the bumpy truck the four blocks to the brown cottage, Joe, despite his pain for Ben, was thankful it wasn’t Ryan or Scotty or Billy lying dead. Had some drug-crazy vagrant, seeing the property vacant and under construction, maybe camped there overnight? And when Ben came to work early they’d panicked. Maybe the killer had a record, maybe there was a warrant out for him. He didn’t want Ben calling the cops, and in a panic he’d shot Ben? Maybe someone on drugs with his brain all scrambled?

According to Billy, Ben must have been up on the ladder when he was shot, working on the roof minding his own business, not confronting some trespasser. But they shot him anyway, Joe thought. And what if Billy had gotten to work first? Would they have killed Billy instead? A murder as coldly senseless as the random street attacks.

Senseless? Joe thought. Random? We don’t know that. No one thinks those attacks were without reason.

Ryan slowed the truck a block from the remodel and drew to the curb. Officer Jimmie McFarland stood in the center of the intersection rerouting traffic, sending rubberneckers down the side streets. McFarland with his boyish smile, his brown hair fallen over his forehead, looked like he should still be in college, not in a police uniform. Seeing it was Ryan and Clyde, he waved them on through to the next intersection, which was blocked off with sawhorses. There, when Ryan parked next to the coroner’s van, Joe leaped out of the truck bed and into the bushes. The Bleaks’ cottage was three doors down. He hightailed it through overgrown back gardens and beneath the yellow crime tape that now marked off the Bleaks’ weedy property. At the far side of the cottage he slipped into the neighbors’ hedge and peered out.

Max Harper and Detectives Garza and Kathleen Ray were working the scene. Kathleen stood against the house a few feet from Ben’s twisted body, photographing the scuffed earth with its tangle of footprints from the building crew, angling for shots of the fresh prints on top. Dallas and Max were working on grids and a rough map, and making notes. Outside the crime tape the coroner waited to seal up and remove the body. Dr. John Bern was a thin, pale man, his dark-framed glasses placed firmly on his small button nose; his hair was graying, but he still looked strong and fit.

Joe watched Dallas kneel beside Ben, photographing the body from different close-up angles, then taking blood and debris samples with as little disturbance as possible. Ben lay twisted from the way he had fallen, his jacket skewed around him, the ladder still lying across him. The blood on his face and jacket bristled with dirt and debris. Dallas reached to remove the items from Ben’s pockets, but he paused, looking at the blood and dirt smeared down across Ben’s lumpy pockets and down into the folds of his clothes. He looked up at Max. “The removal of his possessions will be better done at the morgue. This mess—we could contaminate a lot, here.”

Max nodded and glanced at Kathleen. She would, Joe assumed, be accompanying the coroner and the corpse.“You’ll want a second witness,” Max said. “Get Jane Cameron over here.”

This meant Detectives Ray and Cameron would have custody of the evidence, would examine and photograph it, log it in, seal it in the appropriate individual bags, and transport it to the station to the evidence room. Joe watched Max and Dallas remove the ladder. Dallas shot another round of pictures and then, with John Bern, carefully lifted and wrapped the body in clean sheets—as clean as they could be kept. Joe watched them seal Ben into a body bag. Feeling sick and cold, he started suddenly thinking about Ben’s construction notebook.

He had seen Ben, alone at odd hours, as during a coffee break, writing in the last pages of the little spiral-bound tablet. Not making his usual brief measurement and product memos on the front pages, but writing away in longer passages at the back, frowning, deeply occupied; he had watched Ben drop the notebook in his pocket if anyone came to join him. What was on those pages?

Could Ben have known the killer? If this wasn’t a random shooting, if someone had killed Ben on purpose, would the notebook shed some light on the murder?

He’d like to have a look, but there was no way. He watched Max and John Bern carry the body to Bern’s van. When they had him strapped in place, Dallas turned back to the house, picked up the ladder that he had already fingerprinted and photographed, set it in place and climbed up to examine and photograph the roof where Ben had been working. Watching him, Joe crouched in reflex when Tekla’s angry voice echoed sharply from down the street. He reared up above the bushes to look.

Down at the corner, Ryan and Clyde stood facing Tekla Bleak, her angry harangue exploding in their faces. She was alone, Joe didn’t see Sam. Maybe she’d left him in the van, parked beyond Ryan’s truck nosed into the sawhorse barrier. Tekla’s voice was shrill enough to take a cat’s ears off. Joe had to grin at Officer McFarland’s annoyed scowl.

“Of course it’s your fault! Whose fault would it be! One of your people murdered right here in my house. How could you let such a thing happen! Why would you allow this? I can’t live where someone’s been murdered, where there’s been a dead body! How could you …”

Joe threaded through the hedge, raced through the backyards to the corner and slipped under a lavender bush. The murder was Ryan’s fault? Right. This woman was certifiably nuts. He wanted to leap in her face, show her what claws felt like.

“It’s a good thing Sam isn’t here, I can’t have Sam upset and distraught—”

“Where is Sam?” Ryan said, to distract her. “He’s always with you.”

“Why is that your business? Sam’s home with Arnold, the boy has a cold. Don’t change the subject, Ms. Flannery. I cannot have this mess in my yard. I cannot have police all over my property. This is intolerable. I won’t—”

She looked shocked when Clyde forcibly took her arm and turned her toward her van.“I suggest you wait in your vehicle, Tekla. Captain Harper will want to talk with you. You don’t want to tramp around mingling your footprints with those of the killer?” Clyde asked, smiling. “You don’t want to add your footprints to the possible evidence? This is a crime scene now. This is police territory.”

Tekla jerked her arm away from Clyde and turned her back. She was standing stiffly by the barrier glaring at McFarland when a second squad car drew up, nosing into the shade beneath a cypress tree. Detective Juana Davis got out, square, dark uniformed, and severe. The no-nonsense officer was still limping, her knee replacement giving her trouble. Ignoring Tekla, she put her arm around Billy and took Ryan’s hand, her dark Latina eyes warm and caring. She talked softly with them for a few minutes, then turned to Tekla, her black eyes unreadable, a cop’s closed look. Silently Tekla looked at her. Joe settled more comfortably among the bushes hoping Davis would question Tekla right there, where he wouldn’t miss anything—Davis would question Billy and Ryan, too, for whatever information they might have, whatever they had observed.

These first interviews were best done at the scene, when the crime was fresh. Where had the ladder been stored? Did Ben have a key to the house or garage? Did Billy? Had any of them given someone else a key? Did Ben always come to work so early? Was Billy sure no one else had been there when he arrived? But it was Tekla’s answers that Joe burned to hear. Davis would ask where Tekla had been this morning, would ask for all kinds of details while, later at the station, Dallas would repeat those questions and more, the detectives alert for incongruities, for conflicting answers.

Now, at the far side of the house, Dallas was searching for trace evidence where the body had been removed. Soon he would photograph the ground there, would process for fingerprints on the window frames, would examine and take samples from all the surround. Before they finished up this morning, the officers would search Ben’s car and his apartment; both were now a part of the crime scene. Meanwhile Joe waited impatiently for Tekla’s interview, for Davis to sit her down right there, on the porch steps, to conduct the inquiry

But instead, Davis walked Tekla to her squad car, got her settled, and began the preliminary questions. Joe was poised to slip over under the car or ease up on top beneath the cypress branches when Max came out of the house and down the steps. He put his arm around Ryan and drew Billy to him. Curious, Joe waited.

“Juana can do your interviews later,” he told them. “As soon as Davis is through with Tekla, she’s headed for Ben’s apartment. I’d like you two to follow her, get the rescue cats and their cages out of there so she can work that part of the scene. I have an officer up there, he got a key from the landlord. I don’t want the place unguarded until we’re done with it.” The rescue cages were unlikely receptacles for any item of interest, but in a search, they needed to be cleared.

Ryan and Billy waited through Juana’s interview, sitting on the steps close together out of Dallas’s way. Joe did slip under the squad car but he couldn’t hear much; Tekla’s voice was sullen and low. When at last Tekla stepped out scowling and got into her van, and Ryan and Billy headed for Ryan’s king cab, Joe Grey slipped into the truck bed. He was startled nearly out of his paws when Dulcie landed beside him in a flying leap from beneath the hedge.

“What the hell!” he hissed. “How long have you been here? Can’t you be more careful! Those are our kittens you’re carrying! My God,” he snapped. “Are you all right? Are they all right?”

Dulcie smiled sweetly.“I’m fine, the kittens are fine. It was just a little leap.” She rubbed her whiskers against him. “Wilma heard the call on the police scanner.” She yawned in his face. “Scanner woke me up. Guess I slept in this morning, I was so full of mice. She … Wilma called the station to findout what had happened. I left her crying,” Dulcie said sadly. She settled quietly on the folded tarp beside him, and there were tears in her own eyes. “I still can’t believe it. Ben. Such a dear, gentle fellow.”

Joe clawed at the jackets that lay tossed in the bottom of the truck, pulled them up onto the folded tarp to make a softer bed for her. She gave him a whisker kiss and curled up there. She looked so sad. The engine started and they were on their way, following Juana’s patrol car up to Ben’s place. Joe supposed that until Ryan found new foster homes for Ben’s rescue cats they would reside in the Damens’ downstairs guest room.

Riding in the truck bed close to Dulcie, he wondered if Ben’s notebook had been in his jacket pocket when he died, along with the cell phone he always carried. Why did the notebook keep nudging at him, why did he think it important? And now the phone, too—the phone he’d seen more than once aimed casually at Tekla’s feet as Ben stood near her ordering supplies or checking on a delivery.

Was his curiosity one of those moments Dulcie called cop sense? “Cop thought,” Dulcie would say. “Detective intuition? Feline intuition? Who knows?” Now, curling closer to her, Joe was glad she was beside him.

But then, heading for Ben’s place, the truck slowed too soon, in only a few blocks. Joe tried not to be seen in the side mirror as he reared up to peer out—at his own house. Why were they stopping? Did Ryan not want him and Dulcie in on the search, did she mean to haul them out and leave them? That would be tacky, she wouldn’t hear the last of that.

Or maybe she didn’t want Billy to know they were riding along. Billy was too perceptive, he was sure to wonder why the cats had hung around the crime scene and why now they wanted to ride up to Ben’s place. The cats trusted Billy, but enough people knew their secret: Ryan and Clyde, Wilma, Lucinda and Pedric, Kate Osborne, the Firettis. Every new confidant became, unwittingly, a new danger to them. One careless word, one innocent remark that might imply too much, and their cover could be destroyed.

Pulling into their drive, Ryan got out but didn’t turn back to the truck bed; she didn’t snatch the cats out and dump them on the lawn. She and Billy headed for the garage. Joe and Dulcie, slipping behind the tied-down lumber, watched the two return with three cat carriers and extra blankets, safe transport for Ben’s rescues. Ryan loaded these in the truck bed, hastily tying them in place as Billy stepped back in the cab. Ryan’s scowl into the shadows of the lumber said clearly, Stay out of sight! Stay out of the way and out of trouble or I’ll make trouble. Swinging into the truck, she headed up into the hills where crowding cottages overlooked a wild canyon, where Ben Stonewell had rented his small basement apartment.

10

In Anchorage, as Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw prepared for their trip into Denali Park, worry still rode with them. They couldn’t get their minds off Kit. Shopping, adding a few things to their light backpacks for the trip, adding heavier boots and canvas jackets, they toured Anchorage for another half day—butall the while their minds were on Kit. As they walked the town’s rough streets, with the great, snowcapped peaks towering over them above the steep rooftops, unease nagged the gray-haired couple. Worry followed them as it had for the whole excursion, even as they thrilled at the sight of calvingglaciers, at polar bears swimming in the icy waters and roaming the shores, at hundreds of bald eagles descending together toward an icy fjord. All the while, their thoughts didn’t leave Kit and Pan for long.

When Lucinda had asked Clyde on the phone if Kit and Pan were still gone, when he really couldn’t talk much, all he said was, “Yes, they are, Lucinda …” Someone came into the room, and then shortly they had hung up. Not a satisfactory discussion. She knew he’d call when they did return. Meanwhile, she and Pedric fretted. Lucinda pictured the two cats back in the village curled before a warming hearth fire, maybe with Kate in the downstairs apartment or with Wilma and Dulcie. If she thought hard enough, maybe she could make it happen.

But Kit and Pan were not curled before any fire. They were shivering cold, their paws nearly frozen as they clawed up through the dark earthen tunnels, up and up the wet, slick boulders, climbed in blackness, leaving the Netherworld behind them.

They had taken their leave with tears and with longing from that land of green light, of rolling fields and jagged cliffs, that realm of gentle unicorns and dwarves and elven folk; from the short-tempered Harpy who had carried them aloft winging through the green glow of the Netherworld’s granite sky.

They had left their own kind, too. Had left behind the small clowder of speaking feral cats with whom they had traveled down from their own land, who had chosen to stay longer in the one Netherworld realm that welcomed and understood their singular feline race.

The green light followed them into the tunnel for only a little way, staining the ragged walls but quickly growing dim, eaten up by shadows. Kit grieved at leaving but she yearned for home, for her own loved ones. They trotted close together, Kit’s mottled black and gray coat dark against the heavy stone walls, Pan’s red-gold coat glowing for a little while and then darkness swallowed them.

In the Netherworld they had stayed clear of the blighted kingdoms to the west that had long ago grown corrupt and lost their own magic. They had cleaved to the one small country where life still throbbed with the bright hopes and endeavors of its peoples, the one unspoiled corner of that lost and phantasmic world.

Now, ahead they could see only the faintest shadow-shapes in the blackness, their own eyes wide and black with their night vision. Echoes led them, echoes of a mewl to see what might bounce back to them, echoes of their own claws scraping stone. Vibrations against their whiskers led them, too, as they padded up and up in the velvet dark; up and up through the dense and incomprehensible earth, Kit’s yearning fierce for home, for space and light, for Lucinda and Pedric, for Joe and Dulcie and Misto, for all their human and cat family.

Is this always the way? Kit thought. You long so hard for something, as we longed to see the Netherworld. You reach that place, you dive headfirst into the wonders there, you embrace those who greet you, who take you to their hearts—but then you start to grieve for home and all you left behind, to grieve for those you loved first?

Oh, she thought, will Lucinda and Pedric be home, will they be there to hug and welcome us? Or are they still in Alaska? Will the house be empty and dark, no cheerful blaze on the hearth, no one to hug and snuggle us, no good smells of supper cooking? Are they still there at the top of the world evenas we leave the world’s very depths? She imagined Alaska’s mountains of glacial ice breaking and falling, its huge and hungry beasts; she saw the two tiny figures in that vast land which, to Kit, seemed far more threatening than the enchanted realms that they had left behind. Now the last breath of the Netherworld had long ago vanished. The higher they scrambled up through darkness, the deeper up into the vast and heavy earth, the more they longed for the open sky. For their own stars, billions of light-years above them, for the night winds blowing down from heaven, for their own bright moon. Crowded against stone shoulders too close to the edge of dropping chasms, they knew fear: fear of falling, panic sometimes at the tunnel’s confinement, terror that they were lost, but they mustn’t let fear take them. On they climbed, drawn by their terrible longing, up and up, it seemed forever in the overwhelming dark.

Joe and Dulcie bounced along in the back of Ryan’s pickup, slyly peering out. She pulled up before a tall old dark-shingled house that hugged the side of the canyon. Two stories plus a peaked attic and, down at the daylight basement level facing the canyon, a small apartment tucked into the concrete foundation. Even the sight of Ben’s small home brought tears to Dulcie’s eyes and left Joe grim and silent.

Beside the house, the driveway from the street had been widened so one could pull on back next to the little rental. Ryan turned the truck around, backed down against a heavy wooden barrier, and set the brake. Beside Ben’s plain front door, a wide window faced the drive. Through it the cats could see two big cages facing larger windows that looked down the falling canyon. There could be no other windows, the way the apartment was tucked beneath the big house, up against the hill. The inner space looked cramped and dim. Both cats shivered, both cats felt for an instant that in that shadowed room the spirit of Ben might linger, that Ben wasn’t ready yet to leave this earth, to leave his new home, his friends, his little cats. Joe and Dulcie ducked out of sight when Juana’s patrol car pulled down the drive and parked beside them.

Ryan stepped out of the truck, untied and retrieved the three small carriers—and gave Joe and Dulcie another warning look. Stay put. Do not make trouble in front of Davis. Do not slip in and try to toss the apartment—until Davis leaves. Joe scowled at her but obediently the cats crept deeper behind the lumber. Ryan was getting as bossy as Clyde. When everyone’s backs were turned, Juana unlocking the apartment door, Ryan and Billy hauling the carriers inside, Joe and Dulcie scrambled out of the truck bed, up over its roof, in through the driver’s open window, and to the backseat. With its dark-tinted glass, they could see out but remain nearly invisible. Only the white strip down Joe’s nose was a problem, but maybe it would look like a simple reflection of light.

It was one thing to lounge on Max Harper’s desk snooping and listening; the department was used to freeloading cats making themselves at home. But their presence at a crime scene was never smart, particularly one as out-of-the-way as this. Why would cats hitch a ride way up here? Why would they hitch a ride anywhere? Most cats, unlike dogs, didn’t enjoy going along to savor new smells or new views; most cats didn’t like the noise and jolt of a car or truck.

Though sometimes a cat would crawl into a warm vehicle unseen, maybe a mover’s van, go to sleep, and end up half a continent away. That cat might make the national news if he was discovered, identified, and found his way home again via human intervention. Or not. He might spend the rest of his life as a homeless stray, or might luck out and adopt a new family but never see his own people and his own neighborhood again. All because he had foolishly chosen to nap in the wrong hideaway.

Inside the dim apartment Juana flicked on the dull overhead bulb; she left the door open for additional light as she examined the small, shadowed room.

Knowing that Ben would never again sleep in that narrow bed, eat a meal at the little table, or pet his three rescue cats made Joe swallow hard and look away.

As Juana examined the big wire cages, the three rescue cats eyed her warily: a half-grown black female, a big white tom, and a black-and-white tuxedo male. Juana photographed the cages, the walls, the concrete floor, then began to lift fingerprints from the cage handles and from their flat metal latches. Why would the killer, if he had been in there, have any interest in cat cages? Whywould the killer have come there?

Had he planned to kill Ben here in the apartment this morning, but Ben had already left? Or did Ben have something he wanted, something so valuable that before following Ben to work he had slipped in here to search?

This whole case seemed so senseless. Innocent victims, four of them dead. Banker Ogden Welder; Merle Rodin; James Allen, who had been attacked while wiping the windshield of his car, and died shortly afterward, in ER. And now Ben Stonewell. While the other assault victims had been left alive as if their attacker had no desire to finish them. None of this, Joe thought,none of it adds up.

He watched Juana bag a cluster of short black hairs from the bed, and that gave him a start. Anything involving cat hairs unsettled him. But those weren’t his hairs, they’d belong to one of the rescues. When Juana finished with the main room, Ryan and Billy lifted out the three rescue cats and put them in the carriers. Setting these outside the front door, they got to work breaking down the big cages into flats. Davis watched them carefully; civilians were never left alone at a crime scene, even the most trusted friends. That was, in part, for their own protection, if questions should arise later about the possibility of contaminated evidence.

Fighting the bolts on the old cages, Ryan and Billy slowly removed the sides and tops. Before loading the big wire flats in the truck, Ryan stepped outside with her cell phone. The cats, slipping into the front seat beneath the open window, crouched listening. She made two calls, the first to Wilma, to tell her that Dulcie and Joe were safe, and to talk a moment about Ben. But then when Wilma asked if Dulcie was all right, the tabby hissed and lashed her tail. Do they have to fuss over me? Just because I’m with kitten, do they have to treat me like I’m helpless?

Ryan’s next call, to Celeste Reece, was a long and tearful conversation. The cats could tell from Ryan’s gentle words that Celeste was shocked and upset. After a long while, Ryan said she’d bring the rescues on over if Celeste had room. Ryan listened, nodded, and hung up. As she and Billy loaded the flats into the truck bed, Joe peered out, torn between staying with them or remaining behind. He glanced at Dulcie. “We could just slip inside, search in the shadows behind Juana.”

“Oh, right. Just how do you propose, in that tiny space, to keep out of Juana’s sight? You know her better than that.”

Waiting wasn’t Joe’s style, but they stayed sensibly in the truck. Peering from the cab window into the apartment, they watched Juana meticulously photographing the little table beside Ben’s cot, paying close attention to some kind of marks on its surface. Juana stepped outside once, as Ryan headed for the backseat with the first carrier. “Did Ben have a laptop? And a printer?”

“He may have,” Ryan said. “He submitted a printed r?sum?. But he could have done that anywhere. Library, UPS, Kinko’s.” Ryan looked at Juana questioningly.

“Table’s a bit dusty,” Juana said. “Two items have been recently removed. Clean underneath and with slide marks. Did Ben have a smartphone? Did he take and print any pictures?”

“He had a smartphone. I never saw any prints he’d made. I think he took some shots of work in progress. Probably just for the record and didn’t bother to print them. I keep the same kind of record. Unless …”

Ryan paused, frowning.“Unless Tekla criticized something more than I knew. Unless she was onhis back, too, when I wasn’t around, and he wanted proof of the work he’d done? If he did take pictures for that reason, I’d like to know what it was about. I guess his phone would be at the coroner’s, he usually kept it in his jacket pocket.”

But Juana had already keyed in a call to Kathleen Ray.

“You’re still at the coroner’s. Did you find a phone, was there one on the body?” She waited, then, “And Dallas didn’t find it at the scene?”

Joe wanted to shout, Ask about a notebook, too! Did she find a spiral-bound notebook? Beside him Dulcie was strung tight, they both wanted to slip into the apartment to scent the marks on the table, see if they could detect what a human sleuth might miss. But one look at Ryan, as she opened the back door of the kingcab, and he knew they’d better stay put. They were already in trouble for not staying in the truck bed.

They watched, peering back between the bucket seats as she strapped the cat carriers onto the backseat. When she’d finished, they leaped to the floor back there, in the shadows where Billy might not notice them. Glancing up at Ryan, they tried to look small and defenseless, but Ryan only scowled.

Billy got in the front next to Ryan, she started the engine, and they headed down the hills to deliver the rescues to Celeste Reece. Maybe by the time Juana got back to the station, she’d have found something of interest, have pulled more pieces together. Maybe by the time they slipped into the station again, Davis’s written report would be on the chief’s desk? And, with luck, Kathleen’s list of Ben’s possessions? Maybe she would find the notebook. Maybe then the odd bits of intelligence might start to make sense. Then, it would be time to slip away and call Harper.

Kit and Pan pressed on up the tunnels in blackness, their whiskers brushing outcroppings, their keen ears catching the echo of empty spaces that halted them in their tracks. They found their way sometimes by the luminescence of scuttling crabs, the iridescence of blind fishes flashing through dark rivulets. Scrambling up through the blackness toward their own world across underground springs that soaked their paws, they didn’t know day from night. They crossed stone bridges trusting their whiskers, trusting the tiniest movement of air. They wondered if they werefollowing the same path that they haddescended. Or would they keep climbing and circling forever?

“I don’t think… .” Kit began. But Pan eased closer to her and purred and licked her ear to steady her and on they went, Pan’s bold attack on the darkness soothing and calming to the tortoiseshell. And then at last as they rounded a bend the tunnel grew wider—and they saw ahead the faintest glow, the thinnest shaft of light. “Sunlight!” Kit whispered. “Oh, sunshine!” Soon golden light blazed in at them, the portal shone wide open, and they bolted out into the brilliance. “Our sky,our world,” Kit cried, reaching tall, whirling around on her hind paws, staring up into Earth’s infinite spaces that swept away forever; beside her Pan, too, leaped for the sky. They were home, reveling in the vastness of their own bright and endless domain, their own universe.

11

Celeste Reece worked hard for CatFriends’ rescued strays, finding homes for lost and abandoned cats. She lived south of Ben’s place, down along the canyon nearer the village, a square, sturdy woman, her iron-gray hair layered short and neat, her voice low. Her way with a cat was understanding and always gentle. She attended CatFriends meetings at the Damens’ house where Joe liked to lounge among the group and slyly enjoy the variety of snacks laid out on Ryan’s tea cart.

Now, from the floor of the backseat, Joe and Dulcie could see nothing as Ryan pulled up into Celeste’s drive and parked. Only when she and Billy had lifted the three small carriers out, and their footsteps moved away, did the two cats leap up onto the seat and press their noses once more to the dark window.

Celeste’s one-story stucco cottage stood on a narrow lot flanked by older houses crowded close together above the canyon among olive and pepper trees. Behind Celeste’s yard a lone pine loomed tall, a dark exclamation mark against the pale spring sky. The stucco walls of the cottage smelled of fresh paint, the color pale ivory beneath a black shingle roof. The front windows were narrow and tall, reaching nearly to the ground, three at either side of the carved front door.

An old, discarded basketball hoop lay at the side of the yard atop a stack of folded painters’ tarps. Part of the driveway was wet. A bed of flowers and bushes along the drive gleamed where they had just been watered. The rest of the yard, an expanse of pine bark and bushes, was dry. The marks of wet bike tires crossed the drive, swerving in and then back to the street. Beside the housea wheelchair stood tucked against the porch rail and the two shallow steps. In the back pocket of the wheelchair a blue shopping bag peeked out: it was the wheelchair from in front of the station—but that hadn’t been Celeste Reece in the wheelchair, spinning around to face a possible assault.

Ryan and Billy set the carriers on the porch. The door opened at once, Celeste stepped out, gave Ryan a big hug and put her arm around Billy. Her jeans and T-shirt were old and faded, her short hair shone fresh and clean. Leaving the door ajar, she knelt to look in the carriers.

Two of the rescues pushed forward, greeting her with interest. The black-and-white tuxedo kept his distance. She spoke gently to the small black cat and to the white tom but ignored the wild tuxedo as she could see he preferred. She looked up at Ryan.“My sister’s down from the city, she’ll help me with the cats. These three make twelve, about all the room I have. I hope we can find homes for them.”

“We usually do,” Ryan said, “you usually do. And soon we’ll have the shelter. Didn’t your sister … ?”

Celeste nodded.“Bonnie. You remember, she married Gresham Rivers. Yes, she recently lost Gresham in a shocking accident. She was hurt, too. Now that she’s out of the hospital and through the memorial, now that she’s beginning to heal, she needed to get away, get out of the city. Away from every painful reminder, at least for a little while.”

“I’m so sorry,” Ryan said. “How can Clyde and I help?”

“Thanks, but there’s nothing at the moment. She’s doing fairly well. It was a terrible accident. It’s been hard for her, alone suddenly, the shock of Gresham’s death, so cruel and senseless. Come, let’s set up the cages.”

Leaving the rescues in their carriers on the porch, Billy and Ryan followed Celeste as she opened the garage from outside. Inside, five tall cages stood against the far wall, each with several tiers.

Joe and Dulcie could see pale shapes within, interested eyes looking out. They dropped down quickly as Ryan passed the truck, Celeste and Billy behind her, ready to unload the wire kennels.

Watching the three friends haul out the big flats, thinking about Ben taking care of his rescues in that small apartment, Joe’s voice was hardly a whisper. “We need to tell Misto about Ben. Misto was fond of him.” He thought about how, before Misto got sick, Ben would come to the shore to help John feed the ferals and would always carry Misto around with him in his arms. About how, that first day when they knew Misto had a malignancy, Ben had gone to the clinic and spent a long, quiet time with the frail old cat. Golden Misto, even for those humans who didn’t know he could speak, had woven himself, with his indomitable spirit, into the lives of them all.

“Misto needs to know about Ben,” Joe repeated, “but I don’t like to hurt him. He …”

“Maybe he does know,” Dulcie said softly. “Maybe, in that mysterious way he has, maybe he already knows, maybe he knows where Ben is. Where …”

“Where Misto soon will be?” Joe finished sadly.

A soft step by the truck window, and Ryan looked in.“I came back for my gloves. I heard you whispering,” she said quietly. “I’ll see that Misto knows. I’ll call Mary. The Firettis will gather him to them and hold him; they’ll tell him gently that Ben is gone. Two strong humans, to tell him and hold him.”

Joe looked up at Ryan and swallowed and didn’t answer. He looked toward the garage where Celeste and Billy were at work setting up the cages. Ryan reached into the truck seat for her gloves, gave the cats a pet, then returned to the garage. Joe and Dulcie were watching the cage sides being bolted in place when, at the house, the front doorswung open again and the woman in the leg brace hobbled out, the woman from in front of the courthouse, Bonnie Rivers, lean and tanned, wearing her metal brace.

Leaving the door ajar behind her, she didn’t approach the wheelchair. She came down the two steps using only her cane and headed for the garage. And the cats heard again in memory the woman in the red sweatshirt, That was her, all right, Howard … same long face, same tennis tan. She wasn’t in a cast and wheelchair then … Bonnie something …

How was Bonnie Rivers connected to the couple in the red sweatshirts? Somehow, through San Francisco. And was she connected, as well, to the Molena Point street attacks?

As Bonnie limped toward the garage, Joe Grey and Dulcie waited until the little group had their backs turned working on the cages, then slid out the open window, Dulcie breaking her fall among the bushes. Quickly they crossed the dry part of the garden to the open front door—but the smell of the wheelchair stopped them.

They stood sniffing, wrinkling their noses at the unexpected scent. A faint hint of Vicks VapoRub. But a strong, fresh scent of Hoppe’s, said Joe. There was no mistaking the smell of gun-cleaning solvent. Its aroma drifted all through the offices of MPPD, as well as at home on occasion when their housemates cleaned their own firearms. But Hoppe’s on the wheelchair? The smell brought them up sharply.

The Hoppe’s was on the handlebars. The hint of Vicks clung to the edge of the seat where Bonnie’s legs would have touched. Sore muscles in the injured leg they could understand. But Hoppe’s? That was more interesting. Glancing toward the garage where the four were at work, they fled through the partially open front door into the house, shaking pine bark from their paws.

The large living room had also been freshly painted, white and airy. Big bay windows at the back, white canvas slipcovers on the upholstered furniture. A pale wood floor, no throw rugs for a cane or wheelchair to get caught on, the room uncluttered and welcoming. They had no trouble following Bonnie’s scent to the guest room, which appeared to share a wall with the garage. Slipping in, they could hear the mumble of voices where the four were working, heard small metallic clicks as the cages were bolted together. Following the smell of Hoppe’s to the dresser, they leaped up.

They landed nose to barrel with a businesslike revolver.

Dulcie backed away before she saw that its action was open and empty, the weapon bright from a recent cleaning. It lay on folded newspapers beside gun-cleaning equipment, a bottle of Hoppe’s, gauze patches, a long rod, and a little brush. Beside these lay a box of .38 cartridges.

They wanted to paw the box open to see if any rounds were missing, but they didn’t want to smear fingerprints. They still didn’t know if pawprints would be picked up. But why not? They had never yet gotten in trouble over pawprints, but the thought haunted them.

The sounds from the garage changed suddenly. They heard water running as if bowls were being filled, hands being washed, the chores were done. Dropping to the floor they fled the room, fled the house. They were through the truck window, in the backseat of the king cab, when Ryan and Billy headed their way. Dropping to the floor, Dulcie was panting with tension and exertion. Joe nosed worriedly at her.

He’d been so interested in Bonnie Rivers and the gun that he’d nearly forgotten his lady’s condition. I nearly forgot the kittens, nearly forgot how stressed Dulcie must feel, ramping around the village trying to sort out this tangle while she worries about the kittens. Gently he licked her ear. Maybe all Dulcie really wanted was to loll around the house enjoying little treats and listening to music. Maybe she didn’t want to be out chasing a killer, just wanted to be calm and cosseted, for herself and for the kittens.

How much strife can the kittens sense, he wondered, when they’re still inside the womb? We don’t want frightened babies. Will the tension that Dulcie feels, will that weaken them or strengthen them? Make them more fearful or make them bold and strong? Maybe, he thought, no one knows the answer to that. But for his lady and thebabies, he’d prefer restful and tender care.

Kit and Pan had emerged from the tunnels among the Pamillon ruins just where they had entered to go down seeking the Netherworld. Emerged from beneath a stone porch between tumbled pillars and vine-covered buildings. “Home.” Kit mewled again softly. “Oh, we’re home.”

They stared up at the endless sky above them; they drank in the scents of pine and cypress, the smell of the grassy fields and of the distant sea. This world’s breeze caressed them, rippling through their fur, made them race in circles. They were fiercely hungry. In the tall grass among the broken carvings Pan lifted his nose scenting for mice, for rats or squirrels, for anything edible, and Kit did the same. The tunnel had provided water and an occasional blind lizard or sightless fish snatched from the black waters, but never enough, nothing substantial enough to truly sustain them. Now they dodged through the ruin on the trail of a wood rat, doubled through overgrown bushes working together hazing the little beast until they took him down. Quickly they shared their kill, but left the tail. They spied and cornered a big wharf rat, attacked it with businesslike urgency. Soon, killing and gorging and feeling stronger, they finished off their meal with a pair of small and succulent field mice.

They drank from a little spring within the overgrown garden, and at last, sated, they lay washing blood from their paws. They wanted a nap after their long and stressful climb, but Kit hungered too passionately to be home. Had Lucinda and Pedric returned? Would they snatch her up and hug her and cry over her and comfort her? Would they hold her warm and safe and hug Pan, make a loving fuss over both of them? Were her humans home to welcome and comfort them?

Eagerly she headed down the hills, Pan following close beside her, down and down where the hills dropped away, dotted by cottage rooftops. Down they fled, racing belly-deep in grass, paws flying, crushing dandelions and wild nasturtiums, leaping through tangles of honeysuckle. Down and down the familiar hills where, far below, the sea reflected late afternoon sun; down through cottage gardens that smelled of onions and rotted leaves, down until at last they could see Kit’s own roof among the distant oaks. She could see her tree house. Racing steeply down they bolted at last into Kit’s own garden.

The house towered two stories above them. Kit’s tree house thrust higher still. Up the oaken trunk they scrambled, up into her aerie into scattered leaves and cushions. Kit rolled among her pillows, lay on her back looking up into the tree’s sheltering crown, up into the sky beyond. Hersky, her tree, her house, her gardens all around. Their world, their village, their rooftops stretching away where they could travel the shingled byways as familiar as other cats’ firesides. Among the leaves and pillows Pan sprawled beside her, his amber eyes laughing. “Our world,” and it was theirs, their own sky rising high and away without any stone barrier, high and away forever.

But even now, even so content, Kit couldn’t be still. Restlessly she rose again from among the cushions, peering toward the big house. Were they home? Could she hear them? Could she catch their scent?

She heard no sound. She saw no movement at the kitchen windows, the shades were still half drawn. There was no smell of cooking, no lingering scent of recent and comforting meals. The big house smelled distant and empty.

But maybe … Maybe they’d just gotten home, maybe they had just now come in. Maybe … Leaping from her aerie, Kit raced along the thick and twisted branch that led to the dining room window. In through her cat door that was set into the lower pane. One leap from the windowsill and buffet to the dining table, Pan close beside her, the cat door swinging behind them.

No one cried out at hearing the flapping door, no one came running. All was still. The house was empty. But even so they went racing through the hollow rooms, one room to the next, and in each room scenting out and listening and rearing up, looking for an open suitcase, sniffing for some hint of new smell.

All was still. All was as Lucinda and Pedric had left it. Nothing in the house was changed, no book or magazine moved from where Kit had last seen it. Wastebaskets empty, clothes hamper empty, clean towels hanging on the racks neatly folded, double bed carefully made, bedroom shades at half-mast. Nothing out of place in the kitchen, trash basket empty when Kit stood on the foot lever and Pan reared up to peer in.

The only change was the stack of mail piled on Pedric’s desk in the living room, where Kate must have brought it in. Yes, Kate Osborne’s faint scent where she had been through the house making sure no tap was leaking, no intruder had entered.

“Maybe Kate’s home,” Kit said, “the downstairs apartment,” and she was out the cat door again, along the wandering branch and down the oak tree, Pan close behind her.

“Her car isn’t in the drive,” Pan said behind her, but Kit paid no attention; down the hill she fled and around the lower wall of the house to Kate’s sliding glass door.

They could smell her scent stronger there, beneath the edge of the door. They pawed at it, Kit yowled, they tried the knob, swinging and kicking, but that did no good, the dead bolt was in place. They pawed and scratched and meowed together in a fine chorus, but there was no answer. They scrambled up bushes to peer in through the windows. At last, discouraged, they gave it up and headed for Wilma and Dulcie’s. They needed welcoming. Kit needed hugging. And, in spite of being full of rodents, they longed for a bite of home-cooked supper. No wood rat or even field mouse was ever as succulent as a meal prepared lovingly by human hands.

They had left Kate’s door, were crossing the neighbors’ roofs when a brown car came along below them and stopped at the curb. A Dumpster stood across the street before a vacant lot where a dozen dead trees had been felled. Two men sat resting from cutting the logs with chain saws. The big metal bin was nearly full of smaller branches.

As the brown sedan slowed, a passenger stepped out, emptied a bag of old shoes in under the twigs and leaves, swung quickly into the car again, and it moved away. The workmen glanced up but paid little attention—they were only dumping old shoes. The cats didn’t recognize the make of the car; they didn’t see either the driver’s or the passenger’s faces. They moved on toward Wilma’s hoping for a hot supper.

Alone in the stone cottage, Wilma had put on a CD of Pete Fountain, a favorite among her collection of early jazz. These days when Dulcie was gone and Wilma worried, the lilting clarinet eased her. But now even as she paced the cottage worrying over the pregnant tabby, she knew she was being foolish. She knewvery well where Dulcie was, from the police scanner that sat on the cherry desk and, later, from Ryan’s phone call. She felt ashamed keeping such a close watch on Dulcie, but just now, considering the tabby’s condition, she and Ryan might both be forgiven.

She’d known, early this morning when Dulcie bolted out her cat door, where she’d gone, had known when she turned on the scanner, and then from calling Ryan. Young Ben Stonewell had been shot. The murder sickened her, she was … had been fond of Ben; he was kind and caring and nothing cruel about him. Why this death? Was there something about Ben that they hadn’t known? Could his murder be connected to these other crimes?

She had been tempted to drive over to the Bleak renovation this morning, but with the department working the scene she didn’t like to get in the way. Pacing the cottage, across the Persian rug, brushing by the flowered couch, thinking about Ben’s murder, and worrying about Dulcie, she hardly saw the room at all. She jumped when the phone rang, and snatched it from the cradle.

“The cats are fine,” Ryan said, knowing how she worried. “They’re with me, we’re moving the rescues from Ben’s place. Celeste is taking all three. We’ll swing by the department so Billy and I can give our statements—Dulcie and Joe will be right there in our faces, you know that. Dulcie will be just fine. Joe Grey,” Ryan added, “Joe has grown very attentive.”

Wilma laughed.“He’d better be, he’s responsible for this miracle—half responsible.”

There was a smile in Ryan’s voice. “I’ll bring Dulcie home when we’re finished. Please don’t worry about her.”

Hanging up, Wilma put on another CD and stretched out in the easy chair. Listening to the haunting clarinet helped to push away her worry, helped to ease life’s dark side. She dozed off listening to Pete Fountain. The CD was nearly to the end when a different sound stirred her from sleep. The soft flap of the cat door, then a demanding mewl that startled her wide awake.

Having raced over the roofs heading down toward the village, Kit and Pan paused several blocks above where the shops began. Scrambling down a pine they fled through Wilma’s bright garden and in through Dulcie’s cat door—but at the sound of music, they paused. Music filled the house, the clear notes of a clarinet, the dulcet riffs of the one musician in all the world who could speak to a cat’s very soul.

Listening and smiling, but then curious, they padded into the kitchen. Wilma seldom put on a CD unless she or Dulcie were celebrating some special joy, or unless they were very blue and needed that soul-healing music.

Kit and Pan, lonely and hungry and needing loving, did not want to face some sadness. Which was this they were hearing? The lilting clarinet to ease an unwanted sadness, to assuage unexpected bad news? Or was the bright music a celebration of some wonderful event, of which they knew nothing? What were they to find?

Hesitantly they crossed the dining room beneath the big table. Softly they padded toward the living room prepared for either extreme, ready to offer comforting if that was needed, or to add their own joy to some bright and mysterious celebration. The cozy room was so welcoming, the soft oriental rug under their paws, the smell of recent baking, the flowered couch and overflowing bookshelves, sunlight streaming in on the cherry desk. In her easy chair, Wilma had stirred from sleep, an open book in her lap. Kit, watching her, gave a loud and startling mewl. Wilma jerked up, fully alert. She leaped up and knelt before them, grabbing them both in a hug, laughing, nearly smothering them in her joy, in her delight at their return.

12

In the lobby of MPPD two men and a young woman waited in the folding chairs, a chair between each as if they had come in separately. The thin woman, in pale blue workout clothes, had focused on the younger man, grousing to him about the unfairness of the police, how that cop had pulled her over just because she was talking on her cell phone. Both men glanced away, their minds on their own problems. Ryan and Billy stood near the desk, waiting for a detective to come out for them, to escort them back to one of the offices to take their statements.

Joe Grey and Dulcie, having slipped into the holding cell, crouched under the bunk, trying not to breathe the mixed fumes of sweat and Lysol that so sharply stung their noses. They watched Detective Davis come out to get Ryan, watched the two disappear down the hall, leaving Billy at the mercy of Evijean Simpson; but Evijean had all she could do to deal with an enraged wife who had come to bail out her husband.“Of course he drinks,” she snapped at Evijean. “What do you think I can do about it? Why should I be hassled and embarrassed because of the trouble he gets into!”

“You don’t have to bail him out,” Evijean told her as Dallas came up the hall, motioning Billy back to his office. At the same moment the front door flew open and Tekla Bleak stormed in demanding to see Captain Harper. Evijean, already overwhelmed, took one look at Tekla’s scowl, backed away, and buzzed through to Harper.

The minute Max appeared, Tekla lit into him.“I want that woman off my property at once. I’m surprised you haven’t already done that. I told you, with this murder …”

Max listened in silence, with only the hint of a smile.

“That Flannery woman has no business there after what happened. Why didn’t your people make her leave? She’s responsible for this and she’s made no effort to evacuate the premises, to move her equipment, get her workers out of there. I want her out now. She refuses to honor the contract and of course it’s in the contract, about damages caused. What worse damage could there be than this disgraceful murder, and I told her as much.”

Max waited, letting her vent. In the holding cell, beneath the bunk, Joe Grey and Dulcie looked at each other with the same amused disbelief as the chief.

“This is police business, Captain Harper. It’s your business to get her out of there now.”

Max looked at Tekla for a long moment.“The property is a crime scene. Nothing can be moved or removed. And how is your contract with Flannery Construction any of our affair?”

“She’s turned our house into a crime scene! That is your affair. She’s the one responsible for hiring that Ben person—he was obviously involved in something shady or he wouldn’t have been murdered, but she refused to admit that. It’s up to you to make her leave, or I will see my lawyer.”

“Right now,” Max said, “we’ll want your statement, what you actually witnessed at the scene. Come back to my office, we can take care of that at once. Then you can call your lawyer.”

Across the room, the two men and the young woman seemed to have forgotten their own troubles as they enjoyed the entertainment. Under the bunk, Joe and Dulcie were more frustrated than entertained. They wanted to follow Max and Tekla and listen, and they didn’t dare cross the room. They watched them vanish down the hall. They heard Harper’s door close, hard and decisively. Then silence. Their line of communication had gone as dead as an unplugged phone.

Cut off from eavesdropping, they curled up beneath the bunk into that drowsy seminap that serves a cat in times of annoyance, when things don’t go as planned.

Maybe Max would record Tekla’s statement at the same time that he made written notes; maybe they could listen later. But to what end? What would they learn? The woman was all vitriol and hot air. They were dozing and waking, listening for Max’s door to open, when Ryan came up the hall with Davis, and Dallas and Billy behind them. Ryan stopped at the desk.

“Evijean, we’re going to do some errands. Will you tell Captain Harper we’ll be back, so Billy can ride home with him?”

Evijean scowled and nodded. Ryan, turning away, was just beside the holding cell when she dropped her car keys.

Leaning down to retrieve them, she glanced in at Joe and Dulcie—she knew just where they’d be, with the lobby full of strangers. Her look said, Are you coming?

Both cats looked back at her blankly, their ears down in a no, we’re not, get out of our faces stare that made Ryan hide a laugh. Rising again, she went on out, following Billy. Joe knew she’d meant to drive Dulcie home to Wilma, not leave her running the roofs; but Dulcie backed away stubbornly.

There were only two civilians waiting now, the young woman having been seen and sent on her way. Joe was wishing they could make a dash for Max’s office when they heard his door open, heard Tekla whine, “ … but you’re the police. It’s your—”

“As I explained, Mrs. Bleak, this is not police business. This is between you and Ms. Flannery. If you want to file charges of misconduct, which I think would be hard to substantiate …” He was walking behind Tekla; she halted when she saw Ryan and Billy disappear out the glass door to theparking lot.

“What are they doing here?”

Max just looked at her.

“You will file charges against her!” she said shrilly.

As Evijean called the remaining two civilians to the counter, and Max walked Tekla to the door, behind their backs Joe and Dulcie made a dash past the counter and down the hall to the chief’s office.

When Max returned, Dulcie was curled up on the leather couch. She looked up purring at Max’s indulgent glance. From the bookcase, Joe got a gentle scratch on the head as Max sat down, picked up the form where he’d recorded Tekla’s statement. He scanned it into the computer, then slipped the sheets into a file in his desk drawer. Turning back to the computer, he pulled up the firstsection of Kathleen’s report, which she had sent from the coroner’s office. It included details of the condition of the clothing and of the body as clothing was removed. Joe skipped down to her list of Ben’s personal belongings: pocketknife, small grouting spatula, car and house keys, oversize bandanna, wallet, and a neatly folded packet of receipts from various building supply houses. No cell phone, no notebook.

Had these two items disappeared after the shooting, lifted from Ben’s pocket by the killer? Or had Ben somehow been able to hide them before he died? Standing on the ladder working on the roof, had he heard an uneasy noise behind him? Had he glimpsed someone standing below in the shadows of the surrounding trees? Had he seen the gun? In that split second, had he, in desperation, quickly stashed the items he didn’t want someone to find? But hidden them where?

Dallas had searched that whole area, had taken Ben’s toolbox as evidence, had climbed the ladder and searched the roof for debris and trace elements.

Did Ben have those items when he fell, and the killer snatched them? Or, Joe thought, am I chasing shadows? Is the notebook of no interest? Was there nothing in the back but a few personal thoughts, like a diary? Nothing among the phone’s pictures but building details? Am I fretting over nothing more than a collection of building specifications and material lists?

Juana had searched Ben’s apartment and searched Ben’s car for evidence, and Dallas had worked the rooms of the remodel. The detectives knew Ben had a phone and a notebook, so they should be as interested as Joe to know what they might contain—but they had found neither. Now he watched Max remove another file from the drawer and pull out a yellow pad, the kind on which he made random notes. Hanging half off the bookshelf, Joe scanned the chief’s brief notations about those who had been attacked. The full reports would be on the computer. Max made no move to bring that up on the screen—even for Joe’s convenience. The yellow pad was a place to contemplate, to perhaps jot down random thoughts about the victims.

Betty Porter, leaving work, M.P. Drugstore, streets stormy, nearly dark, hit from behind as she approached her car. Nothing stolen. Still had her purse, her billfold with credit cards and cash. Sent to ER, her spleen removed, recuperating at home, twenty-four-hour nurse.

Hazel Curt, walking home carrying groceries, again nearly dark. Hit from behind, knocked down, not badly hurt. Again, no robbery. She walked on home, called the department. No sign of attempted breakin. No further occurrence reported.

Luella Simms. Late afternoon. Attacked in parking lot of Village Grocery, loading shopping bags into backseat, knocked down but saw no one, nothing stolen. She was helped by a passerby, refused transportation to ER. Reported bruises, no injuries.

Elsie Rice, walking from her cottage at Pineview seniors’ residence to the dining room for breakfast, 9 a.m. Hit from behind, fell into bushes. Saw no one, heard no running. Davis took the call, photographed footprints in the damp lawn. Victim was cared for at the facility. No enemies in the facility thatshe knew of.

A notation in the margin:“Have received so far two dozen frightened phone calls, citizens sure they were being followed. Conducted interviews. No useful information.”

The last four names were the murder victims, Max had marked three with a penciled note:“San Francisco connection?”

Ogden Welder. 84-year-old retired banker. Walking home from the beach, 6:40 p.m., attacked from behind, critically injured, died, MP Hospital. Lived alone, Jasper Senior Apartments. Listed by the facility as having no family.

James Allen. Attacked 6:30 a.m. in driveway of his house, in his walker as he wiped windshield of his car. Had an order in his pocket for routine blood work, was headed for the lab. Heard nothing. Knocked to the ground, heard someone running, light footsteps like rubber soles. Saw no one. Statement was short,in severe pain. Died in ER 1:03 a.m. of a ruptured aorta. Attending doctor: Robert Ingleton. Officers Brennan and McFarland canvassed neighborhood. No witnesses, no newspaper delivery yet. Allen moved to MP from San Francisco with wife two years ago, bought small cottage on First Street.

Merle Rodin. Hit from behind, patio garden outside McKee Jewelry approx. 9 a.m. Found by passerby, transported to ER. Cause of death: blow to head with brick, severe contusion, blood but no prints on brick. See coroner’s report: Kathleen Ray.

Ben Stonewell. Shot in back of head while standing on ladder at construction job. Approx. 7:15 a.m. Dead when he hit the ground. See coroner’s report: Kathleen Ray. Moved from San Francisco eleven months ago. Unmarried. Went to work the same week for Flannery Construction. Basement apartment on Hayes.

Joe burned to see the full reports, but even Max’s notes jolted him. It was time to add his own information about San Francisco, it was time to call the chief. Tell him about the couple in the coffee shop patio, and about Celeste Reece.

He wished that right now he could lean out from the bookshelf and whisper his message in the chief’s ear. He hid a smile at the thought—but when he glanced across at Dulcie she was staring hard at him, her green eyes wide with alarm. Hastily he backed deeper into the shelf, put his chin down on his paws and closed his eyes. How did she know what he was thinking? How did she do that?

When he looked again, her green gaze was languid, only gently scolding.

But then when he looked deeper he saw something else, something strange and unfamiliar in his lady’s eyes. He saw a need, deep and urgent, a fear he didn’t know what to make of—he saw a look of entrapment. And Joe felt, in his own being, Dulcie’s shaky uncertainty.

This was her first litter. She was thrilled but she was scared. Scared of the birthing? Joe guessed he would be, too. Scared of taking care of those tiny mites? And was she fearful because life was so upside down—the two of them entangling themselves in these ugly attacks when she should be at home thinking only about the kittens? Joe saw, suddenly and clearly, Dulcie’s need for quiet and repose, for a new kind of tenderness. His lady, he realized, was far more vulnerable than he had ever guessed. Vulnerable and frustrated, right down to her soft tabby paws.

He didn’t know how to handle this. He was observing a kind of confusion that perhaps only another female would know how to deal with. He wanted to leap off the bookshelf and cuddle her. He wanted to lick her face and comfort her. But in truth, he felt clumsy and inept. He had helped make these kittens. Now he didn’t know what to do about it.

Dulcie needed another female, another lady cat who understood the frightened, excited, lonely confusion that must be a part of motherhood. She needed Kit. Kit had never been a mother, but she was female. She would know how to ease Dulcie, Kit could lay on that special tenderness that even the most loving tomcat didn’t quite know how to handle. But Kit wasn’t there. And across the room Dulcie, seeing Joe’s own confusion, turned her face away, curled up in the corner of the couch and pretended to sleep, pretended that she was just fine.

Yet even now, as he tenderly watched her, the tomcat’s mind was of two opposing passions. He was struck with worry over his lady, but yet he burned to claw deeper into the case at hand. To see the full reports, to anonymously call Max and add his own information to the mix.

Max knew the key to the attacks lay somewhere in San Francisco, but neither of them knew what that key was, what element drew the varied victims together. Joe was kneading his claws on the shelf, wired to race home and call the chief, when Ryan knocked at the open door, Billy behind her.

“Interviews done?” Max said, motioning them on in.

They stepped inside.“Done,” Ryan said, “and we’ve run our errands. Evijean did tell you we’d be back?”

Max scowled and shook his head.“Not a word.” He reached for the phone as if to speak to Evijean, then seemed to change his mind. He looked up at Billy. “I won’t be long,” he said, “a little paperwork to finish. Charlie’s up at the rescue building. We’ll be home in time to feed the horses and we can start dinner.”

A smile lit Billy’s brown eyes. He liked cooking bachelor style with Max. He sat down on the couch beside Dulcie, gently stroking her.

Max glanced down at Kathleen’s notes, then looked at Ryan. “Ben always carried his cell phone?”

“Yes,” she said, sitting down beside Billy. “Juana went over that, in my statement. He always had it, either in his shirt pocket or his jacket. He never set it down on the job or left it in his car, he never mislaid it. Juana searched his apartment, his car, searched the jobsite and my truck that he uses to pick up supplies. No phone. She’s concerned about what pictures he might have taken before … right before he was shot,” she said softly.

Max nodded; they talked for a few minutes about Ben, his habits, his interests, his deep caring for the rescue cats. Joe guessed that Juana would have covered most of that, too. But another take was always good. Max said,“Did Ben ever tell you why he moved down from the city? Did he have family there?”

“He had no family at all. None. I was wondering … about a service when the body is released?”

“We’ll put something together,” Max said. “Talk with Charlie about it. Maybe that little cemetery out by the water. You’re sure he was all alone in the city? No girlfriend?”

“He said, in the city he was hardly ever home. The construction firm he worked for put him out on jobs in Sacramento, Redding, up the coast—all too far to commute. He said he was tired of that, he wanted to live near his work. He said once, ‘How did I have time to date, to even meet anyone?’ He liked the smaller town atmosphere of the village, he wanted to settle in one place, he loved the small community. He was lonely, Max. He was just so young, he was just getting started making a life for himself.”

“And you’re sure he had no other problems? Bad trip with a girlfriend that he didn’t want to mention? Any other reason to leave the city, besides his dissatisfaction with work?”

“Not that he ever said. Surely you’re not thinking drugs, not that clean-cut boy.”

Max was quiet, looking absently at his notes, his thoughts to himself. Ryan, seeing that he had no more questions, rose and scooped Dulcie up from the couch.“Come on, my dear, I’m taking you home, you need some supper.”

Watching them, Joe dropped down to the desk and came to the edge—thinking of a phone, a fast ride to the nearest phone. Ryan gave him a startled, then amused look. She came around the desk carrying Dulcie and gave Max a hug. She scooped Joe up over her shoulder and they left the office.

And Ryan, like Dulcie, seemed to know exactly what was on Joe’s mind. She hurried out, thinking, Phone, he wants a phone. That wild, intense look in his eyes—like he wants to shout right out at Max. He’s been scanning Max’s desk, reading everything in sight. Something he found really grabbed him; he’s burning for a phone, burning to share it with the chief.

13

With the tomcat twitching to get to a phone, Ryan took him home first. She meant to pick up Rock, drop Dulcie off to be coddled by Wilma, then head for the beach. No matter how heavy her workload or Clyde’s might be, the big dog needed his twice-a-day gallop. The minute she stopped in their own drive Joe scrambled over her shoulder, out the driver’s window, and up to the top of the king cab. She watched him leap to the roof and vanish across the shingles. He’d be through his tower and onto Clyde’s desk before she’d backed out again. She could hear Rock pounding down the stairs barking, ready forhis run. As she let him out the front door and loaded him up, she envisioned Joe on the phone talking with Max—the gray tomcat sitting straight and tense at one end of the line, Max Harper swinging his feet off the desk, sitting up, alert, when he heard the snitch’s voice—and that too-familiar craziness hit her: that Alice in Wonderlandgiddiness. None of this was happening, none of this was possible. But all of it was happening, right now, right in her face.

Joe dropped to Clyde’s desk, listening to Rock thunder down the stairs, to the front door slam and the king cab pull away. Then listening to the silent house, the upstairs rooms empty and still, a few golden dust motes floating. He looked across at little Snowball curled up on the love seat all alone now, onewhite paw over her pink nose. When he leaped to the couch to nuzzle her, the cushions were still warm where Rock had lain napping beside her. Joe snuggled close for a few moments, gave her a warm lick on her ears, but then he returned to the desk.

He didn’t use the house phone, he pawed the hidden cell phone from among a stack of papers, the phone that Clyde had bought him and registered in a false name: Joe’s insurance against some moment of failed caller ID blocking on the Damens’ landline. He sat for only a moment washing his paws, going over the items he needed to tell the chief, hoping Max and Billy hadn’t left yet. Turning on the phone, he punched in the single digit for the desk at MPPD. Half the time, Max didn’t turn on his own cell, knowing he could be reached by radio. Joe was sorry to hear Evijean answer.

Any of the younger officers who might be standing in for a moment would have put him directly through to Max. Speaking patiently, he asked for Captain Harper. He knew what was coming. Evijean’s voice was cold and authoritative. “What is your name? You will need to give me your name.”

“This is a personal call, Evijean. Everyone in the department knows my voice. I need to speak with Max now.”

“I can’t connect an unidentified caller, that’s against departmental rules. You will have to identify yourself.”

“Rules? What rules?” The woman was nuts. “What? Security rules? What damage do you think I can do over the phone? If you don’t connect me, Max will know it pretty quick and you, my dear, will be pounding the street for a new job.”

He could feel Evijean’s rage through the phone line, could almost smell the smoke.

“I cannot connect you without identification.”

He thought of calling Max’s cell, but it would probably go to voice mail. He didn’t want to leave a message, he wanted to talk with Max. He could try for Juana or Dallas, but he’d get the same routine. The silence stretched out unbroken and then there was a click. Evijean had hung up.

Immediately he called her back.“I have information for him regarding the current murder investigation. Put me through to him now.”

“If you want to see Captain Harper you’ll have to make an appointment.”

“What do you think the chief will say when he finds out you are blocking confidential information in the murder of Ben Stonewell? And that you are getting in the way of the investigation of the other three murders? No one, no one else in the department treats a valued informant so rudely.” Ears back, claws bared wanting to slash her face, he listened to another long silence, expecting her to hang up again.

A very long silence. But then he heard a click and Max came on the line.

The chief sounded short and impatient, as if he might be headed out the door for home. When he heard Joe’s voice, he calmed. Joe imagined him settling back in his desk chair, picking up a pen and notepad.

The tomcat laid it all out for him: the San Francisco connections he had found, people other than the dead victims but involved with them. Bonnie Rivers in her wheelchair, not a victim but shecould have been when she was followed there in front of the station. Bonnie’s husband recently killed in a San Francisco street accident, and Bonnie herself injured. And then, in the home of her sister, the .38 revolver on Bonnie’s dresser, a weapon that had been newly cleaned.

Joe didn’t like blowing the whistle about the gun—maybe the .38 had nothing to do with Ben’s murder. Maybe Bonnie was one of those rare Californians who had a carry permit? He wondered how she’d managed that. If she had a permit, maybe she’d been target practicing at some gun club on her way downfrom the city? Or she carried the gun without a permit, sufficiently frightened after her husband was killed that she balanced her own life against California’s restrictive gun laws. Whatever the case, he felt shabby, implicating the woman when he didn’t even know what caliber weapon had killedBen.

Still, Bonnie was connected to this tangle somehow. What was that incident in front of the department, when the boy followed her and then ran? What was her relationship to the portly couple in the red sweatshirts, the woman so uncomfortable at seeing her? He gave Max the couple’s names and their San Francisco address. But besides passing along his uncertain tips, there were questions Joe himself would like to ask.

Oh, right. Harper had never yet answered the snitches’ questions. Nor did his detectives. It was all take and no give. Maybe if he were a human snitch, a drinking buddy, someone they talked with in the shops or on the street, it would be a different matter.

Yet the questions ate at him, and what harm to try?“Is there,” Joe said boldly, “a connection here, to San Francisco?”

“What’s your take?” Max said, shocking Joe clear to his paws. Max never asked his opinion.

“Maybe some soured workplace relationship?” Joe said. “A fired, disgruntled ex-employee out for revenge? Or … Illicit investments? Some kind of Ponzi game? The victims were on to the scam, someone trying to scare them off, stop them from reporting it?” But Joe shook his head. To torment the victims, yes. But to kill them? Still, the way crooks killed today, for no reason, anything could happen.

But what he really wanted to know was about the gun.“What weapon,” he asked Max, “did kill Ben? Could it have been Bonnie’s .38?”

He expected no response. Max was still for a long moment, then,“Not that gun,” the chief said. “It was a .32-caliber automatic.” He paused, then added quietly, “I’ve never given you information before. I expect the same courtesy of confidence that the department proffers to you.”

“You have that,” Joe said, his voice shaky. “Now, can you tell me whether in fact you found Ben’s phone? And the small spiral notebook he carried?”

“We’ve found neither,” Max said, rather tightly. “There’s the possibility they contain useful information, maybe photographs in the phone. We’d be indebted for a lead.”

Joe could hardly breathe. A whole new world had opened up, an enhanced one-on-one cooperation that made his head spin. Suddenly the chief was working with him, not just using the information that Joe or Dulcie provided.

Why the change? Why Max’s abrupt, increased confidence in the snitches he’d known and worked with—at paw’s length, Joe thought—through so many long and satisfying cases? What was happening here?

“I’ll do what I can to find them,” Joe said softly.

“Thank you,” Max said. And before Joe could say more he heard the soft click as Max broke the connection.

Switching off his cell phone Joe Grey sat on the desk absently batting at Clyde’s scattered invoices, mulling over the change in the chief’s response. Almost, he thought with interest, almost as if the chief were proud to be working the case right alongside his two snitches.

And didn’t that set a cat up!

Or, he thought with alarm, almost as if Max knows something?

As if Max had guessed the identity of his informers? His furry, four-pawed informants? And a deep, icy chill held Joe.

But no, not Max Harper. Not that hardheaded cop. If Max ever for a moment imagined that his snitches might be cats he’d … Joe couldn’t guess what the chief would do, he didn’t want to think how Max would respond. Sign up for psychiatric counseling? Check himself into rehab?The very thought gave Joe shivers.

No, Max doesn’t know. Maybe he’s just mellowing, growing more comfortable with his longtime snitches, easing into a more direct relationship. That’s it, Joe thought, and the idea pleased him. If Max really believed his snitches were cats he would have challenged them straight-out, would have made them speak to him in person.

Whatever the case, I’m not solving anything prowling the desk messing up Clyde’s tax receipts. Leaping up to the rafter, he pushed out into his tower. He’d just gallop across the rooftops to Ben’s apartment, for a little break and enter. The notebook and phone had to be in there, and somehow Juana had missed them.

But Juana seldom missed anything. Like all Harper’s detectives, Juana Davis was nosy and thorough, prodding and snooping until she had found every last thread and torn fingernail. No, Joe thought at last, to search Ben’s apartment after Davis was finished was an exercise in futility. He sat down in his tower among the pillows, stared out through windows at the streaks of sunset trailing above the Pacific. He thought about Ben, who never forgot or misplaced those two items. Why, this morning, would he have left them at home? He thought about Ben at work, the phone and notebook safe in his pocket. The sun just pushing above the eastern hills. Ben, alone, up on the ladder nailing down the new roof gutter …

He glimpses a shadow move in the yard below? Maybe hears the click of the automatic as a shell slides into the chamber? He turns, sees the gun, sees the killer? He knows in that split second that he will die there, so his gut reaction is to hide whatever evidence he carries, leave it for the cops to find. He turns, shoves the notebook and phone—not in the gutter but hides them under the roof tiles, slips them under those pliable composite shingles.

Now certain where the phone and notebook had to be, Joe fled out his window, racing across the rooftops heading for the remodel. He could almost see the two items tucked down under the black shingles. As thoroughly as Dallas Garza would have searched the scene, Joe thought this time the detective had missed that small hiding place. Had missed Ben’s message that lay waiting. With stubborn certainty he knew Ben had seen his killer and had left a trail for the law to find.

14

Ryan and Rock arrived home fresh and sassy from their walk, both smelling of the sea and the tide pools, and covered with wet sand. She took the big Weimaraner around into the backyard and gently hosed him off. She dried him with a towel, dried his feet. She removed her own shoes and socks, and in the privacy of the walled patio she pulled off her jeans, shook everything out in the flower bed. Leaving Rock sunning on a lawn chair, she rolled up the wet items, carried them in through the kitchen to the laundry and dumped them in the washer. Her face burned from wind and sun; her short, dark hair was sandy and windblown. Rock had chased half a dozen seagulls, threatened a big Rhodesian Ridgeback until she called him off, and had run her some three miles up the hard, wet shore. She wished she had more time with her dog. She envied Clyde the mornings that he took Rock running, pulling on his sweats, returning an hour later feeling just as high as she felt now, and of course just as hungry.

But in the kitchen, meaning to fix herself a snack, she stopped, shocked at the sight of Joe Grey: the tomcat lay on the table on his belly, his head down between his paws, his ears down, his eyes closed in misery. She hurried to him, but she touched him only gently.“Are you hurt? Oh, Joe! What is it, what’s wrong?”

He stared up at her, forlorn.

“Where do you hurt? What happened? Was there an accident?” She slid soft fingers down his side and his legs, feeling for an injury. “Talk to me! I’ll call Dr. Firetti.” Leaving him she stepped to the phone.

“No.” Joe shook his head and closed his eyes again.

“What’s the matter?” she repeated. Then, alarmed, “Is it Dulcie?” She turned back to the phone, but Joe grumbled and sat up.

“Dulcie’s fine.” He stared grimly at Ryan. “Prescience, hell,” he said. “Cop insight is all rubbish, I don’t buy that stuff!”

Ryan sighed and sat down.“What? You act like you’re dying, and all that’s wrong is … some investigative glitch? You made a wrong guess?”

He scowled at her, ears and whiskers flat. She was getting as cranky as Clyde.

“Joe, every cop has bad days! Just because you’re a cat, why should you be any different?”

Silence.

“Tell me!” she snapped, losing patience.

“I thought … Dulcie says sometimes I have the same precognition as a cop. A subconscious thing … putting together vague hints … coming up with a solid fact.” Joe looked up at her balefully. “Sometimes she has me believing it.”

“So what happened? You had an idea, you put things together and … it didn’t fly?” Ryan willed herself to speak softly.

“I was so sure. Ben’s phone and his notebook are missing. When neither Juana nor Dallas found them, I thought—I had a clear picture of the phone and notebook tucked down under the roof tiles, I could almost see Ben shoving them there.” Joe sighed. “I bought into Dulcie’s theory and thought it was second sight, a cop’s intuition.”

“And you found nothing.”

“Only the smell of Dallas’s aftershave, where he’d already looked.”

“Then maybe he found them,” she said logically.

“He didn’t,” Joe said with certainty.

“Maybe the department is holding back.”

“They’re not,” he said with equal conviction. From the look on Joe’s face she didn’t ask how he knew that.

“Max would have told me,” he said. “Max … Max talked to me this evening. When I called. He answered my questions. A real two-way conversation,” Joe said, looking at her with amazement.

She was as surprised as Joe, then as uneasy.“He gave you information when he never has before?” She looked at him, frowning. “Why would he do that?”

“Trust?” Joe said hopefully. “He’s decided after all these years that I’m an informant he can trust?”

They looked at each other, questioning.

“It’s no more than that,” Joe said, feigning a conviction he didn’t feel.

“Yes,” she said uneasily. “But I’d call what you were thinking no more than common sense. Ben was on the ladder. He saw or heard something, maybe heard the gun click. If the phone and notebook do contain something of value, he hid them in the only place handy. But what could be so important about the notebook? Ben used it for measurements and lists.”

“And maybe other things,” Joe said. “I saw him more than once watching and listening to Tekla, frowning, moving away when she noticed him.”

“Maybe Tekla has some suspicion about who this assailant is, about why he’s doing this? Maybe she said something to Sam, and Ben overheard? Ben made notes, trying to figure it out, to make sense of it?

“But,” she said, “if Tekla had a suspicion, why wouldn’t she talk to the department? Why didn’t she speak up this morning, the minute she knew Ben was dead? Why didn’t she tell Dallas or Juana?”

“Tekla wouldn’t talk to a cop. All she could think of was how inconvenient and embarrassing the murder was for her. She doesn’t care who killed Ben. She doesn’t trust cops any more than she’d trust the killer.”

Ryan rose, took a glass from the cupboard, opened the refrigerator, and poured herself a beer. From a big covered bowl she dished up Rock’s supper, a concoction she cooked up every week for Rock and Snowball, and kept frozen in manageable portions. Setting the bowl in the microwave for a moment, she put it on the floor. She stood back as Rock rushed to his meal, scarfing up a mix of meat and a variety of steamed vegetables. She smiled when Snowball came trotting down the stairs, yawning, and tucked into her own bowl, close beside Rock’s gulping muzzle. Gently the big dog made way for her, not touching her food.

“Snowball might be getting on,” Ryan said, “but with this new diet you’d never know it.” She looked down at Joe, sprawled across the table patiently waiting for his own supper, for Clyde to get home and start cooking. Joe wasn’t having even the most artfully prepared dog food. Ryan was saying, “If you’d just try a few bites …” when the intercom buzzed. She turned on the speaker.

“It’s Charlie, we’re just headed home.”

Ryan buzzed Charlie and Billy in. Charlie’s red hair was tucked back into an intricate twist. She was wearing black tights and a long, many-colored, hand-knit shawl. “Kate and I were at the gallery,” she said. “A little private preview. The group show looks great, Kate loved it. And five of my large horse etchings have already sold. I’d hardly gotten there when Max called, wanted me to pick Billy up at the station. Something about a phone call just as they were starting home. He was headed up to talk with Celeste Reece and her sister,” Charlie said, puzzled.

At the mention of Celeste Reece, Joe Grey came to attention. So his phone call had been important, had sent Max up there double time to talk with Bonnie, and surely to have a look at the gun.

“Kate left the gallery and headed back to the shelter,” Charlie said, smiling. “She can’t leave it alone, has to make sure every detail is the way she wants it, has to pet and play with the few shelter cats that are already settled in, the few we’ve made room for. She’s up there more than the carpenters are. And …”

But Joe Grey hardly heard her as he dropped off the table and melted away through the living room. With his thoughts on Max Harper, on Celeste Reece and her sister, he bolted out his cat door, scrambled up a pine tree, over his own roof and the neighbors’ roofs, heading for Ocean Avenue and the roofs rising up the hills beyond. The scents from the surrounding restaurants followed him, the smell of steak and lobster reminding him that he’d left home without his own supper. On the other side of the divided main street he hit the peaks and shingles, streaking up over the little shops and crowded cottages; hoping he’d beat Max to Celeste’s house, and knowing he wouldn’t.

He just hoped he could get inside where he could hear what they talked about; he had a lot of questions about Bonnie Rivers. Above him the orange-streaked sky was darkening, the sun gone, the streets below him growing shadowed. Approaching Celeste’s freshly painted, bright ivory cottage, he saw above its dark roof the first stars begin to gleam. Max’s truck was parked in the drive.

15

Wilma, having hugged and cried over Kit and Pan home from their long journey, had made supper for them, then saw that they were tucked up on the couch in the folds of her quilt. She had served them leftover shrimp Alfredo heated in the microwave, warm milk, and a nice bowl of custard, all of which vanished swiftly. The poor cats were starving, and exhausted, too, from their long climb.

Now, full of their warm meal and happily back in their own world, they tried to tell her of their travels but all they could do was yawn—neither one could stay awake. Even as she stroked them, sitting on the couch beside them, the cats yawned and yawned and dropped into sleep. She sat looking down at them, so beautiful, Pan’s red-striped fur tangled against Kit’s mottled black-and-brown coat; the two cats so lovely but so small and vulnerable—and yet so bold and courageous in the adventure they had undertaken, in the dangers they must have faced. She wanted to grab them up again and keep holding them or to snuggle down warm between them. She left them at last, let them sleep and restore their strength, restore all that they had spent. She wanted to call Ryan and Clyde, call Charlie, call Kate, call the Firettis to tell them all that the cats were home, but she put that urge aside. Let them sleep, don’t encourage anyone to come racing over to love and hug them, to see for themselves that they were well and safe, to welcome and celebrate them. Let them sleep around the clock if they chose.

But she did call Lucinda and Pedric, they would be so relieved. She called from the bedroom, shutting the door, speaking softly. When she couldn’t get them on their cell phone she called the lodge in Anchorage.

The Greenlaws were in Denali, their cell phone out of range. The lodge called them on the radio, then put her through to them. Lucinda’s yelp of joy and her flood of questions wavered with static. When Pedric came on the line, his voice was shaking. Wilma couldn’t stop smiling. Now, their worries put at rest, Kit’s beloved housemates could get on with their own adventure.

“Don’t wake them,” Lucinda said. “We’ll talk later. We’ll call as soon as we’re back from Denali.”

Wilma, wishing them a happy journey, had hung up and headed for the kitchen when she heard the cat door flap open and Dulcie came bolting in. Glancing out the kitchen window, she saw Charlie’s red Blazer pulling away. Charlie waved, tooted the horn, and was gone. Wilma spun around at Dulcie’s excited mewl. In the center of the kitchen, Dulcie stood up on her hind legs, her ears up, her tail twitching, one paw lifted. She had caught Kit’s and Pan’s scent; she was poised to boltfor the living room when Wilma grabbed her up.

“Don’t wake them,” Wilma whispered, cuddling Dulcie. “They’re worn out. They had such a long, hard journey up those endless tunnels, let them sleep.”

“Oh, my,” Dulcie said softly. She slipped down from Wilma’s arms, padded silently into the living room and reared up, looking at the two cats so deeply asleep on the couch. She longed to reach out a paw and gently touch Kit, but she only looked, every line of her tabby body curved into pleasure, to see the two home again. Kit was safe, they both were home and safe. And won’t they be surprised when we tell them about the kittens? Oh, my, Dulcie thought, won’t Kit make over them and spoil them.

But maybe she would spoil them more than they needed, this tattercoat Kit who was still, in spirit, a wild and unruly kitten herself. What kind of influence, Dulcie wondered warily, will Kit be on our innocent babies?

From the shadows beside Celeste Reece’s front door Joe Grey could hear Max’s voice clearly. He wouldn’t need to find a way inside as long as Celeste didn’t close the windows. The front door was shut tight, but the tall glass panes flanking it stood wide to the evening breeze. Joe could smell coffee from within, and some kind of peanut butter confection that reminded him again he’d had no supper. The bright white room, clean and uncluttered, smelled not only of coffee and dessert, but a lingering scent of roast beef that didn’t help his emptiness, either. Max must have arrived just as they finished their meal.

The windowsills were so low he had to crouch down in the petunias so as not to be seen. Celeste and her sister, Bonnie, sat on the white couch, Max in a matching chair, his dessert and coffee beside him on a small table. He had just finished asking a question that Joe missed; he looked at Bonnie expectantly for an answer.

Bonnie, tanned and slim, was dressed in pale jeans and a light blue T-shirt, her metal brace snug to her left leg.“It was me they were after,” she said shakily. “Not my husband. They didn’t … they didn’t care who else they killed.”

Celeste said,“The trial itself was stressful enough for Bonnie. And then, all those weeks later, the accident—what we thought was an accident. I headed for the city, stayed in the hospital with her. It was terrible. Gresham gone so suddenly, that long surgery on Bonnie’s shattered leg …” Celeste looked across at her sister and went quiet.

Bonnie’s direct, steady voice was more in control now than her sister’s. “After all those days sequestered, sitting in the cold, stuffy courtroom, finally it was all over, the ugliness, the stress. I was just beginning to feel normal again. Gresham and I needing to be with each other, staying close, going out to dinner at our favorite little restaurants, going to movies, long walks through the park. And then … the accident.”

Max was quiet, giving her time. Then,“The jurors,” he said at last, “could you identify them all, do you remember their names?”

“I’d know them to see them. I’d know their pictures, of course. But I’m not sure I can remember all their names—in most cases, just a first name.

“But I’ll try,” she told Max. “I’ll start a list, write down descriptions and the names that I can remember. Maybe the full names will come to me. After the accident, it took me a while to realize what … what had really happened—that it wasn’t an accident. When I read about thatwaiter, Jimmie Delgado, going home from work after midnight, his bicycle hit, Delgado killed … he was on the jury. It was then I began to put it together and got scared.”

“I’d like you to come down to the station,” Max said gently. “Tomorrow morning if you can. See if you can identify the murder victims? I can have someone pick you up, if you like. If I’m not there, one of the detectives will work with you, show you the pictures.”

Bonnie nodded.“I read something in the paper about James Allen, saw the paper some time after he was killed. I remembered him, maybe because it’s such a simple name, and because he was in a walker. An older man, nearly bald, gray fringe of hair around his ears. He complained, said he was too old to be on jury duty. But I guess the attorneys didn’t think so.”

Max said,“We may need to get a release of the names of the jurors, that may still be sequestered. A list would help you put names and faces together.” He was quiet, then, “You’re sure you didn’t know the boy who followed you?”

Bonnie shook her head.“All bundled up. A boy? A small man? I’d say a boy, though. A good runner. But the couple you mentioned, in red sweatshirts? A rather portly pair. I recognized them, but they weren’t on the jury, I never knew their names. I saw them in the visitors’ gallery several times. And during the verdict and sentencing? She was crying, both days. He had his arm around her, hugging her. I couldn’t tell whether she was crying from grief or was happy. It was that kind of crying,” she said, looking across at Max.

Max nodded. He picked up some newspaper clippings from the arm of his chair.“May I make copies of these, return them when you come in?”

“Yes, of course.”

Joe glimpsed the headlines for only an instant as Max folded the articles into his notebook and slipped it in his briefcase.

… dies when car goes over cliff north of …

… on a rainy street south of …

Bonnie said,“Would first thing in the morning suit you? Say, eight o’clock?”

“That’s change of watch,” Max said. “I’m tied up until, say, nine?”

She smiled.“Nine’s fine. That will give Celeste and me a chance to have breakfast out, splurge a little.”

When Max rose, the tomcat backed deeper into the petunias. Though the evening was growing dark, his white paws and white nose were always a problem, too bright in the gathering dusk, even among the tangled leaves. Watching Max head for his pickup, Joe wanted to leap in the truck, ride home with him unseen, slip into the Harper house, paw through Max’s briefcase and read the clippings. What trial was this? What was the offense? Who was the plaintiff? If someone was out to kill the jurors … a friend or relative of the plaintiff … then he must have received the ultimate sentence … life in prison or the death penalty. Joe wished he had run faster over the rooftops, that he hadn’t missed half the conversation, missed the telling facts.

But now, as much as he wanted to know the rest of Bonnie’s story, he decided not to hitch a ride, not chance getting caught snooping up at the Harper ranch. He’d see the clippings in the morning, once he hit the station. Though even that wait annoyed him, he was wired with curiosity. He watched the chief cross the yard, step into his pickup and backout—and Joe Grey hit the rooftops, his paw-beats thudding across the shingles of the neighborhood cottages as he headed not for the Harper ranch, that long haul up the hills, but for Ben’s place.

Maybe Juana had missed nothing at all—and maybe not. Either way, she was sure to have cleared the scene by now.

Maybe, in the process of removing crime tape, she had aired the apartment of cat-box smell, had opened the windows and, if luck were with him, she had not relocked them all. Not likely, knowing Detective Davis, but he meant to find some way inside.

Up across the roofs and oak branches, racing above the dropping canyon until he saw the tall old house ahead, Ben’s small basement apartment at the back. The outdoor security lights were on, but no interior lights at all, even in the big house. He came down two gardens away.

There was no sound from within as he crossed the darkening yards onto the brightly lit lawn. Juana had removed the crime tape, and luck was with him. She, or maybe the landlord, had left the apartment wide open, to air. Strange, he thought, to leave it unlocked at night. Maybe that’s why the security lights were on, shining brightly into the tiny room, brighter than Joe wanted. His nose twitched at the lingering stink as he leaped to the sill of an open window.

The screen was old-fashioned with just the kind of latch he liked. With careful claws he ripped a small hole in the bottom. Reaching through, he flipped the hook, pulled the screen open, ducked under, and dropped down inside.

The room was just as it had been except for the empty space before the windows where the two big cages had stood. Dent marks from their stands marked the carpet. He scanned the room looking for a hiding place that Juana could somehow have missed. Though still he found it strange that Ben would have left notebook and phone at home that morning. There was a better chance the killer already had them. Joe couldn’t get it out of his head that Ben had secretly taken pictures that he felt might lead to perpetrator of the street crimes—pictures that Ben didn’t know might lead to his own killer?

In this little square room, could there be some hiding place so small and out of the way that even Juana had overlooked it? She had surely gone over the carpet feeling for lumps underneath. Beside the narrow bed was a little writing desk that served as a night table, cluttered with cough drops, a battery-operated travel clock, a couple of paperback mysteries. Marks in the thin coating of dust described the shape of a laptop and what could be the feet of a small printer. Maybe one of those giveaway color jobs where the company made most of its profit selling cartridge replacements. In the far corner of the room a tiny refrigerator stood beneath a small counter with a bar-sized sink. On the counter were a dozen cans of cat food, a few clean mugs and plates, and a microwave. And now, even with the windows open to air out the lingering stink of cat kennels, another scent touched Joe. He could smell, when he took agood whiff, the whisker-licking aroma of young mice.

Having missed supper, he spared a few moments to stalk the trail, hoping to assuage the hollowness in his belly. Slipping across the room following the mousy enticement, he had doubled back where it was stronger—when a swift small shadow fled past his nose. Damned mouse exploded right past him! Enraged to have missed it, he leaped where the shadow paused for an instant. He missed again, the tip of its tail vanishing beneath the bed. Well, hell!

Bellying under the bed among inert dust mice, he found where the little beast had disappeared. Where the molding was warped, concealing a sizable hole behind the wooden trim.

Crouching to peer in he saw a tangle of chewed-up paper, and the smell of mouse was strong. He was staring at the edge of a mouse nest: torn papers deep and cozy. He tensed when something small stirred within. Hungrily he flashed his paw in, fast as lightning he grabbed—and drew back faster, hissing, pain shooting through his paw.

A half-grown mouse clung to his paw, its sharp teeth sunk deep in his tender pad. The tiny animal glared at him with rage. Joe shook his paw and backed away, the angry mouse clinging.

In all his days, in all his battles with enemies twice his size, from fighting raccoons to enraged dogs, he had never been attacked by a mouse. He stared at it, shocked; he was about to pull the cheeky youngster off his paw and crunch and swallow it. But it was so small and so damnednervy. The stupid mouse had way more courage than sense. Joe bared his teeth over it. One chomp and it would be gone, warming his hungry belly.

In the second that he hesitated, the mouse bit him harder. Angrily Joe swatted the little bastard off with his other paw. It was so bold he couldn’t eat it. It stared up at him, squeaking angrily, then fled back into the hole.

Peering in, Joe prayed the little varmint wouldn’t charge out and grab his whiskered nose. He couldn’t believe the nerve of the creature.

But now the nest was empty, the mouse had vanished. There were no others. Had they run away at his disturbance? Nothing there now but the soft paper bed itself. Joe studied the tangle of chewed-up paper, each piece colored as bright as Christmas wrappings. Tiny scraps gleaming red, green, blue: a nest of scraps as brilliant and shiny as …

As brightly colored photographs.

Photographs, diligently chewed into hundreds of pieces, torn to line a rodent’s nest.

Gingerly he reached a paw in, hoping the coast was still clear. Carefully he examined the edges where the mother mouse’s mastication had not been so thorough. She had created a soft bed in the center, but had left the outer portion in larger scraps only lightly torn apart. Joe clawed out a few pieces, some nearly an inch across.

Yes, torn photographs. A shot of green grass with a streak of muddy path. The toe of a jogging shoe, mud-stained. The cuff of black jogging pants. All common items, but views that had, for some reason, stirred Ben to record them.

Once he’d printed them, had Ben hidden them in the hole not thinking about mice? And the mouse, typical opportunist, had begun at once to line her nest. Or had Ben hidden them somewhere else in the room, and the mouse dragged them here to make her nest?

He imagined Juana, in her straight black uniform skirt, having to crouch low, her face to the floor to peer into the opening beneath the warped baseboard. Crouching so low might have put more stress on her mechanical knee than she wanted, and she’d made short work of the search.

How, Joe wondered, do I report the torn photographs without making Juana look bad for missing them? And how, in fact, do I report this at all without hinting at my identity? How many snitches crawl around under beds looking in mouse holes? Why had this supposedly human snitch thought to peer inside a mouse nest; why would he ever imagine a mouse might be hoarding useful evidence?

Maybe he should just forget this one, abandon this particular tip. Were the torn photos worthreporting and thus stirring anew whatever suspicions Harper already had about the snitch? Maybe the department would gather enough information without this very dicey report.

But as he leaped to the windowsill and slipped out of the apartment, latching the screen behind him, he knew he would make the call. This one was too good not to pass on to the chief. Time to head home and call Max again, he thought, smiling. And, listening to his rumbling stomach,Time to hit the refrigerator—leave the mouse, go for the cold spaghetti. Then call Max. Licking his whiskers, he took off across the rooftops.

16

Joe’s second call to Max was disappointing.

After the intelligence that Max had shared with him earlier in the day, he’d thought their relationship had geared up to a new and more intimate confidence.

Not so.

As Joe sat on Clyde’s desk using the cell phone, trying to maintain the heightened relationship, telling Max about the mouse nest, the chief dropped back to his closemouthed demeanor of earlier calls, the one-way snitch-to-cop dialogue that Joe was used to. Well, what could you expect? Listening to Joe’s wild tale of a mouse and torn photos, of course he’d clam up. “What were you doing poking around in mouse holes, what were you doing in Ben’s apartment? That’s a crime scene.”

“The crime tape was gone,” Joe said. “The windows were open. I was standing at the window looking in, wondering if your detectives missed anything, when this mouse ran across the floor. I guess mice take over right away when a place is empty. It had a piece of shiny red paper stuck to its fur.

“I remembered what you said about photographs. That paper was bright and shiny enough to have been chewed off a photo, and it made me wonder. I climbed in the window, had a look under the bed where the mouse had gone, and found the nest.”

Max’s heavy silence made him want to hang up and pretend he’d never made the call. Sitting among the clutter of Clyde’s bills and catalogs, he knew he’d talked himself into a corner.

But then Max said, sounding only slightly reluctant, that someone would investigate the mouse hole, and he thanked Joe and hung up.

Now Joe lay in his tower speculating on what would come from that phone call. Hoping the photos would be worth the effort—his bitten paw still hurt. And then thinking about the one missing fact that Max and Bonnie Rivers knew and that he didn’t. About the real heart of the puzzle: the rest of the information on the San Francisco trial, the facts that he’d missed when he arrived late at Bonnie’s to eavesdrop through the front window.

A murder trial, but whose trial? What kind of murder? And when? He had left Celeste Reece’s house knowing more than when he arrived, but not knowing enough, not knowing what the department knew.

First thing in the morning he’d find out, when he hit Harper’s office. Now, curling among his pillows, looking out his tower windows at the night, he tried to be satisfied with that. At least now his belly was full of supper: cold spaghetti and smoked salmon that he’d scarfed down before he called Max. Yawning, he was dropping into sleep when below in the house, the phone rang. Two rings, then Ryan or Clyde picked up on one of the downstairs phones; he could hear no voice from Clyde’s study. All was silent again and he drifted off, he was down into heavy sleep, into a deep dream, when the doorbell rang and Ryan’s excited squeal jerked him wide awake.

Ryan never squealed. It was not a scream but a high, delighted exclamation. He heard several voices all at once, excited male and female voices jangling together and then Ryan pounding up the stairs, Rock thumping and barking beside her. Her voice rose among the rafters and through his cat door as if the house were afire.

“Joe! Joe, are you there? Wake up! They’re home! They’re here!”

Joe yawned. Lucinda and Pedric? Well, good, it was about time. To go running off to Alaska just when—

“Kit and Pan are home. Kit and Pan are here! Wake up!”

He shot out from among the pillows, belted in through his cat door, and crouched on the rafter staring down. Ryan stood looking up at him, her velvet jogging suit wrinkled, her dark hair tousled.“Kit’s home! Pan’s home! Oh, come down! They’re here! Wilma brought them.”

Clyde appeared behind her, Rock crowding between them. Wilma hurried up the stairs, too, Dulcie tucked up in a fold of her red cloak. Kit and Pan raced up past them, flew up the stairs, and reared up, staring at Joe. He wanted to leap down yowling, wanted to pummel Pan and caress Kit as he’d done when she was a youngster—but even as delight rushed through him, Joe felt sick.

He looked down at the two cats crowding between Ryan and Rock, the red tomcat serious and silent, Kit’s black-and-brown fur all atangle, her yellow eyes huge. For a moment their looks were steady with satisfaction at being home. But then they let their pain show, their deep and terrible pain.

They knew. They knew that Misto was dying.

“Dulcie told us,” Kit said in a small voice. Pan’s amber eyes were filled now only with rising dread, his distress terrible to see. Joe dropped to the desk and to the floor and pressed against Pan. He put his chin over Pan’s shoulder, in a tomcat kind of hug. Pan pressed his face hard against Joe; they stood so for a long time before Pan turned away, hanging his head, and Joe moved to comfort Kit. But Ryan picked Pan up, holding him close, pressing her face against him, her dark hair tangled over his red coat. He snuggled his face into her throat, shivering.

And as Joe licked and nuzzled Kit, her yellow eyes were filled with such conflicting emotions. Her tears, her pain for Misto were terrible, her devastation at the old cat’s illness. When Misto had first arrived in Molena Point, Kit had followed and followed him over the rooftops, begging for his stories, listening to his ancient tales. He was the closest to a father she’d ever had.

But now Joe could see, even through Kit’s pain for Misto, a spark of wonder, too. Despite her hurt and grieving, he could see in her eyes a rising joy at the thought of Dulcie’s kittens. Sadness and wonder burned together, now, within Kit’s small tortoiseshell being.

Joe was hardly aware when Clyde picked him and Kit up and they moved down the stairs. Wilma carrying Dulcie, Ryan hugging Pan over her shoulder, they made a strange procession through the house and out to the drive. They all tucked up in Wilma’s car, Clyde beside Wilma, Ryan in the backseat, the cats cuddled among them. They headed for the Firettis’ cottage, dreading the moments ahead. Kit, in the front seat beside Wilma, pressed against Pan. Pan licked her face but then turned away, grim and withdrawn.

Dulcie had told them about Misto’s illness only a long time after she burst in the house catching their scent and letting out a mewl of joy. Going quiet, letting them sleep, she had waited in silence for a long while, tucked up in Wilma’s lap. But then when Kit and Pan did wake, and Kit jumped down to nuzzle Dulcie, she backed away with a yowl of surprise. Dulcie smelled different. “Oh, my!” Kit stared at Dulcie, her yellow eyes wide. “Kittens! You’re carrying kittens!”

Dulcie laughed and lashed her tail and looked very proud of herself. Pan came close and sniffed, and backed away again with a typical tomcat shyness.

It was only after Kit had sniffed Dulcie all over and asked too many questions, and Pan asked questions, only later that Dulcie put out a paw at last to silence them, and sat quietly looking at them both.

Kit and Pan grew immediately very still, shivering at Dulcie’s solemn look. When, gently and softly, Dulcie told them about Misto, Pan had slunk away into the hall by himself, where he curled up against the wall, nose to tail, rigid and grieving.

It was a long time more, after Pan finally joined them again, stoic and resigned, that Wilma had called the Damens. That she and the three cats got in the car and headed for Ryan and Clyde’s house.

Now, driving the few blocks from the Damens’ to the Firettis’, Wilma stroked Pan softly. “Don’t grieve, please don’t, Pan. Don’t let Misto see you grieve, he doesn’t want that.” And, to Kit, “Please don’t cry, my dear, he doesn’t want sadness. Misto himself is not sad—except to be parting from you. He is certain heis parting for only a little while; he is so very sure this is not a forever good-bye. He does not believe there is an end to the spirit.”

But even so, Pan tucked his nose deeper under his paw, and Kit laid her face against him. Wilma said,“Misto has known other lives. I believe him,” she said softly. “He will be bright-eyed when he speaks of waking in vast eternity again, of finding himself once more approaching a new life.” She paused at a stop sign, then turned onto the Firettis’ street, passing the softly lit dome of the clinic, approaching the lighted cottage that sat deep in Mary’s garden.

“Grieving would only make him sad,” Wilma said. “Let him tell you of the wonders, of how his released spirit will see the vastness of the earth, see the sweep of centuries again as no living creature can see them. Let him tell you more of his earlier lives, of the wonders that await us all, of how we will all be together again. Don’t spoil that for him.”

Parking in the Firettis’ drive, she picked up Dulcie and stroked Pan. “Misto’s vision is so clear, so real, it must be true. His view of what lies in the past is too detailed to be only an old cat’s dreams. Let him tell you with happiness. Love him, Pan. Tell him you know you will be together again. Don’t spoil his parting, don’t hurt him with your own sadness.”

17

The four cats padded quietly into the Firettis’ cottage, where Mary stood in the open doorway. Ryan, Clyde, and Wilma lingered behind, then silently joined Mary and John where they’d been lounging by the fire, John in tan pajamas and a brown terry-cloth robe, Mary in a velvet housecoat printed with small nasturtiums. As she drew humans and cats to the couch, Pan alone approached the bedroom. The others waited in silence, filled with his grieving.

In the bedroom Pan reared up to look. Misto did not recline now on the Firettis’ big double bed; he lay curled up in a roomy retreat of his own. A child’s crib lined with soft blankets had been drawn up against the big bed, the bars removed on that side so he could pad back and forth as he pleased. So he could settle alone with no movement to disturb him, or could curl upagainst Mary and John, warm and close. Now, as Misto lay sleeping, Pan’s heart twisted for the big yellow tom. Misto seemed so small suddenly, so frail. Padding across the covers of the big bed, Pan lay down with his front paws just touching Misto’s blanket.

They lay thus for a long time, father and son, Pan wrapped in silence and thin, elderly Misto so deeply asleep, his once-golden fur turned straw-colored from his illness. Pan, seeing his father so old and frail, felt his heart nearly break.

He could hear from the living room Dr. Firetti telling Dulcie that she mustn’t go traipsing across the rooftops anymore until after the kittens came. As he wondered idly how many times John had repeated his cautions, scolding the pregnant tabby, suddenly Misto’s eyes opened. The old cat had awakened to John’s voice, perhaps, or maybe to some inner perception—maybe to the sudden scent of his son reaching him through his dreams. Seeing Pan, he rose up out of the blankets, his amber eyes growing as bright as the eyes of a young cat, gleaming with life now, and with joy. Pan moved close to him in a tender feline embrace, father and son reunited, paws and fur allatangle, old cat and young together once more. For a long time neither spoke, the only sound their rumbling purrs. They didn’t see Kit, Dulcie, and Joe look in from the door and then turn away again. Kit, leaving the bedroom, stifled her longing to leap up and hold the old cat close, too, and snuggle him. Her own love for him could wait.

But then from the bedroom Misto, scenting her, called out weakly.“Kit? Kit, let me see you. Let me see how the Netherworld has treated you.”

Kit came slipping in and up on the bed and into the blankets of the crib, easing down close to Misto. The old cat looked her over and licked her face.“You look strong and fine, the Netherworld treated you well.” Kit smiled and nuzzled him; and there Kit and Pan remained, beside Misto, for the rest of the night.

Joe Grey and Dulcie, Wilma, Ryan, and Clyde soon slipped away home, leaving John and Mary to read by the fire, leaving Kit and Pan and Misto reunited, snuggled in Misto’s bed.

The three were quiet for only a little while before Misto stirred again and sat up as if he felt stronger, as if the closeness of Pan and Kit had brought him new life. No one imagined such a strengthening would last, but,“Tell me,” the old cat said, “I want to hear your journeys, I want to see that amazing land as you saw it.”

Listening to the crackle of the fire from the living room and watching its flickering reflections on the bedroom ceiling, Kit and Pan told Misto the wonders of those green-lit lands and the amazing beasts, the winged dragons, the white-feathered harpy, the dwarves and selkies and all the magical folk.

“We took a wrong turn at first,” Pan said, “where the tunnel split into five branches. Three crossed a sunken river on narrow stone bridges. The clowder cats argued; they weren’t sure which bridge, which path. We went a long way in the wrong direction and came out into the dark and fallen lands …”

“We didn’t mean to go there,” said Kit, “into that ruined part of the Netherworld. It is moldering and empty except for the grim old castles with their haughty rulers. The cruel royalty keep armies close around them, they are whip-masters over the peasants. The poor have nothing, nor do they care anymore. Why should they work when all they grow and any sheep or goats they raise are taken by the kings and they are left to starve?”

“They have turned to crime,” Pan said. “They think they have no choice, but they are courting even more evil. We moved through peasant villages where we saw no one, the cottages all collapsed, pasture walls fallen, fields fallow and untended. Not even a starving chicken remained, only mice and rats, scavenging. We hunted those, as did the peasants themselves; how thin were those poor folk, all weak and listless.”

“The magic is dead,” Kit told him. “We didn’t want to be there.” She tucked her bushy tail tight around her, her ears down as sadness filled her. “Dark spells rule them now. Greed rules that land.”

“We headed away,” Pan said, “seeking the one lone land that, the clowder cats said, had survived in brightness. Kate told us that, too. But she had approached on her own journey from another direction. We asked, from those who dared speak to us, which path, which tunnel. We asked from those brave enough to approach us.”

“We found the way at last,” Kit said, “beyond the Hell Pit and up the mountains. It was a hard journey—until the Harpy found us,” she said with a little smile. “The brash and loving Harpy. Oh, my,” Kit said. “A great, tall woman with a bird’s head, with bird’s legs and white-feathered wings, and she is all covered with white feathers. She is strong, she dines on the kings’ flying lizards. She took us on her back, all of us at once, our claws deep in her feathers to hang on, and she rose up to the stone sky on those great wings. She sailed up and up the mountains andover and down again in the green light, winging down into that clear, free land, into Zzadarray.

“She carried us down among the happy, smiling peasants,” Kit said, “to the only land still free, down among the strong selkies and the sturdy dwarves, and all of them welcomed us and their fields were green and rich and their animals are sleek …”

Misto sighed, seeing that land, seeing wonders he’d never known.

“No king,” Pan said, “rules that land. No bejeweled queen dictates tithes and taxes nor enslaves the villagers, demanding all their harvest. All farmers are master of their own fields and of what they wrest from them. All farmers own their land; they guard their small, free world fiercely against royalty’s cold sword.

“Those peasant armies,” Pan said, “with the help of the magical beasts, have gained the love and protection of the fiery dragons, too, the dragons who can be conquered by no man.

“One day,” Pan said, “that small country will take back the dark lands, you’ll see. Those who live in freedom will make the dark lands free again. Nothing of the Netherworld, then, will be ruled by avarice and greed. All rule will be born of love and caring—and of strength.”

“It is their strength in battle,” Kit said, “their fierce will to protect, that has kept alive Zzadarray’s magic.”

Misto rumbled a contented purr; Kit’s and Pan’s words brought strength to his thin face. The promise of freedom spreading from that one small land of Zzadarray lit his eyes, made the old cat smile. “I have lived many lives, but never in such a world as that magical place. Maybe one day fate will send me there, to that land.”

The three cats thought of that, and together they dozed and dreamed; it was not until they heard John bank the fire, to come to bed, that Misto said,“There is one more pleasure I crave, before my time is gone. Just one more visit to the sea, to say good-bye to the great and gleaming sea.”

John had come into the bedroom, Mary behind him.“In the morning, early,” he told Misto. He looked at Kit and Pan. “Will you come?”

“Oh, yes,” Kit said.

“Of course,” said Pan. “Where else would we be?”

“Early,” John said, “at low tide, when Mary and I feed the ferals. Misto, you can sit on the dock in your blanket as the wild ones share their breakfast. You can enjoy the beginning of their day with them, just as you like to do.”

“We will watch the sun rise,” Mary said, “red above the far hills, watch its reflection cross the sky and reach down to touch the sea.”

“We will watch the waves brighten,” Kit said, and as John and Mary climbed into bed, the three cats snuggled close together, yawning and safe. Kit and Pan were still tired from their journey, Misto bone tired from his lifelong journey, though it had been a rich passage. The old cat would soon be ready to leap up into the vast weightlessness beyond all barriers, to drift once again beyond mortal time, assured that one day he would return, to the finite world.

But never would Misto’s spirit, in life or in eternity, never would he abandon those he loved. All he had ever touched would remain close, forever would they be close, those spirits whom he treasured.

18

Max Harper’s office smelled of overcooked coffee, cinnamon rolls, and gun oil. The sweet-scented bakery box stood on the credenza just above Joe as he strolled in, his coat damp from the early fog. He shivered once, glanced up with interest at the bakery treats but padded on past. Behind Max’s desk he leaped up into the bookcase. Max glanced around at him, broke off a piece of his own cinnamon bun, and laid it on the edge of the shelf. Handily Joe licked it up, every crumb, then lay down against an untidy stack of pamphlets, DOJ reports, and government busywork. Detectives Garza and Davis were settled at either end of the couch with their coffee and snacks. Both looked unusually pleased. They paid little attention to Joe, and that was the way he liked it. He’d worked long and hard to become no more remarkable than the tattered volumes on the shelf behind him.

Juana’s uniform was dark against the leather couch, a Glock automatic holstered at her side, along with handcuffs, cell phone, and radio. Dallas’s pale jeans were neatly creased, his black polo shirt and tan corduroy blazer soft and well-worn, as were his leather boots. He set his coffee cup on the corner of the oversize coffee table, which was covered with files and binders. And, holding Joe’s attention, two batches of photographs were aligned atop the other papers.

The pictures in one set were as ragged as jigsaw puzzles: color photos formed of tiny, chewed fragments pieced together and glued to sheets of white paper—images of shoes, or of shoeprints with fancy treads. Juana hadn’t wasted any time. Joe imagined her moving Ben’s bed away from the wall, kneeling in her black skirt trying to favor her painful knee, fishing out pieces of the mouse nest a few at a time. He wondered if the mouse was watching. He tried not to picture it attacking Juana, but he had to turn away to hide a smile.

He thought of Juana sitting up late last night in her second-floor condo just across the street from the station, sorting through the torn fragments, carefully fitting them together piece by tedious piece. In one photo of shoes he could see part of what might be the porch of the remodel. In another, a waffle shoeprint gleamed at the edge of what could be the wooden ramp. That pasteup showed a fragment of running pants, too, with a black satin stripe down the side just like a pair Tekla wore—though, since he’d become alert to that pattern, he’d noticed a number of runners in the village with the exact same kind of pants.

Lined up with the fragmented pictures lay whole, untorn photographs taken at various crime scenes. The shoe patterns matched in both sets of pictures—but manufacturers turned out thousands of each model, Molena Point shops probably sold hundreds. Had Ben taken these shots because he thought Tekla might be the mugger, following a guess, laying out a possible scenario to see where it led?

But now, though the pictures could be a great breakthrough, the department still didn’t have the shoes to match them. Even what looked like Tekla’s shoe next to what looked like the remodel property was in fact circumstantial.

They needed the shoes themselves. Shoes might give them fingerprints and maybe DNA, evidence far more conclusive than a photograph. And still the officers were ahead of Joe. They knew which San Francisco trial was involved, they knew who had been convicted and with what sentence and would be looking for connections. But now suddenly, as Joe pretended to nap on the shelf, watching the chief shift a pile of papers and pull out his yellow notepad, there it was.

The answer. The missing piece of information for which he had hurried out of the house this morning after gulping breakfast, scorching away over the foggy roofs, never pausing at Dulcie’s cottage, making straight for the station. There on the yellow pad was the answer, neatly set down in Max’s angular handwriting, the information Joe had missed when he arrived at Celeste Reece’s house too late to hear all the facts.

12 November, San Francisco County Court: Trial of Herbert Gardner. Rape and murder of a minor. Guilty, all counts. Death penalty. Incarcerated San Quentin awaiting execution.

A list of the twelve jurors followed. Bonnie Rivers’s name was at the top. Max’s notation indicated that Bonnie’s husband, Gresham, had died when their car was forced off the road and down a cliff north of the Golden Gate, that Bonnie had been hospitalized with severe leg injuries.

The second name was a Jimmie Delgado. Joe scanned the attached newspaper clipping. Delgado was killed riding his bicycle at night on a slick San Francisco street during a heavy rain. The time was just past midnight. Delgado worked as a waiter. The bike was his only transportation. The driver was never found, there were no witnesses, no clue to the make or model of the car that caused his death. Rain washed away any skid marks. Dark blue paint streaks were found on the bike. The car, if it was ever found, might yield more evidence. Or not, Joe thought, aware of San Francisco PD’s heavy workload. If they’d found no viable suspect yet, they might soon file the case away among hundreds of others that remained unsolved. He read the list trying not to stretch up and peer over Max’s shoulder. What he wanted to do was drop down to the desk beside the chief where he could see clearly Max’s jotted notes.

The next two jurors were the Molena Point victims who had died, James Allen and Ogden Welder. Max noted that Merle Rodin had died but had not been a member of the jury, that Rodin had not been in San Francisco during the trial, and according to his wife, knew only what they saw on the news, to which Merle had paid little attention. The next juror, the third Molena Point murder victim, was Ben Stonewell.

Of the last seven jurors, three were still in the city. Citizens, Max had noted, too well known, of sufficient standing that the killer might have backed off, might be reluctant to attack them. Four jurors had moved away, two to the East Coast, one to Mexico, the other an uncertain destination. The moves had all occurred after the two“accidental” San Francisco deaths. Below the jury list were the names of Molina Point’s other four victims, who were not jury members, with a note:“Shills?” Attacks that had been set up to put MPPD off the trail? Most of them were elderly—was that choice meant to further mislead the purpose of the assaults?

Joe eased back on the shelf. Now they knew the why of the killings, to vindicate the convicted rapist. The murder victims had all been jurors, all but Merle Rodin. Maybe the guy hadn’t meant to kill Rodin, maybe Rodin did simply fall on that brick when he was attacked, a minor slip in the killer’s plan.

But Ben’s murder was no accident. Now the department had the motive for the killings, and the list of further possible victims. But did they have any suspect who might want vindication? Anyone connected to murderer Herbert Gardner?

“Gardner had no family,” Max said, startling Joe, answering almost as if Joe had asked. “No siblings, not one relative that the investigating officers found, not even a close friend. No one he ran with, no drinking buddy. No women he dated, which is strange. Except the young woman he killed,” Max added. “And nothing in the presentence report, either.”

But how good were those investigations? Joe wondered. How thorough was that particular assistant district attorney, how good are these new, young probation officers? He’d heard too many stories of sloppy work by young, newly hired government employees. How dedicated wasthe PO who did the presentence? Had he just jumped through the usual hoops and gone no further, had he not really cared?

Settling more comfortably on the bookshelf, tucking his paws under his chest, Joe thought about someone out there, still on the loose, eaten up with rage over the conviction of Herbert Gardner, someone who loved Gardner well. A girlfriend whom investigators had missed, a sibling or parent that the law hadn’t found? Sure as hell Gardner hadn’t committed those murders himself, locked up in Quentin waiting to die.

When Max’s private line buzzed, he ignored it as he and the two detectives laid out plans for a deeper investigation into Gardner’s background, a more thorough search than SFPD, the CBI, or the parole office had made—but a search to be conducted in cooperation with those departments. When the line buzzed again, again Max ignored it. He had finished giving the two detectives instructions when a faint sound beyond the closed door brought Joe alert.

No one else heard the brush of a soft sole on the hard linoleum. Joe stood up rigid, listening. Max was saying,“ … send Mike Flannery up to the city as soon as he gets home from Alaska, he can do some of the legwork, he’s a hell of a better investigator than …”

The sound came again, the presence had not moved away: someone was standing close against the door, listening. Silently Joe dropped from the bookshelf to the desk and down to the rug. He approached the closed door, ears back, his walk stiff, his growl rising. Behind him he could feel Max and the detectives watching him. Silently Dallas rose, his hand relaxed beside his holstered weapon; he jerked the door open.

Evijean Simpson stumbled and nearly fell. She caught herself against the doorjamb, her right fist lifted as if she’d been ready to knock. “There’s an urgent call from Detective Ray. Chief, can you pick up?”

Max glanced at the phone he’d ignored, nodded to her, and turned to answer. Evijean left, heading back to the front desk. Joe Grey leaped innocently onto Max’s desk and curled down yawning beside him, his head on the notepad as close to the phone as he could get. But Kathleen’s voice was too low; without the speaker on, he couldn’t hear much.

“He did?” Max was saying. “Where? I’ll be damned. Yes, get on over and pick him up.”

There was a murmur from Kathleen. Joe wanted to reach out a paw and turn on the speaker. Max said, “Retrieve what pictures you can, print them, too, then get both items to the lab. Ask them to move on it. As soon as you’re done, let’s see what you have.” He listened, then, “You bet,” he said, grinning. Hanging up, Max looked across at the detectives.

“The cell phone and notebook the snitch called about? Billy found them, near where Ben died.”

Joe felt his claws dig into the blotter, and quickly sheathed them. Billy found them? He’d searched all over hell for that phone and notebook. And Billy Young found them? he thought, half annoyed, half smiling.

“He was cleaning the dryer vent in the remodel,” Max said, “where it dumps out into the yard. They were stuffed back inside, behind the flap.”

Joe wanted to yowl. Why hadn’t he looked there? He’d passed that vent a dozen times, had smelled nothing but the lingering scent of dried blood from where the body had lain, and the mixed, personal odors of the medics and coroner. He’d been so sure about the roof shingles—a bad guess—but not the vent, had passed the vent and hadn’t even thought to lift the flap and look behind it!

“Vent’s right below where Ben was shot,” Max said. “Just beside the marks in the grass where the ladder had been propped against the house. Blood on both the phone and on the notebook.” Max was quiet, then, “That was Ben’s last act, after he was shot? Hide evidence he thought was important, that he hoped we’d find?”

“Shoe photos?” Juana said. “The same photos I pieced together?”

“Apparently,” Max said. “Ben must have thought we’d find the shoes, find a match to the crime scene photos. Fingerprint the shoes, and we’d have our killer.”

Juana shook her head.“We’ve been checking the trash pickups, the Dumpsters, the landfill. Those two rookies weren’t happy, digging through landfill. We’ve got shoes, cartons of running shoes. I went over them again this morning. Not one of them matches the crime scene photos or the shots I pieced together.”

19

Earlier that morning as Joe Grey had headed for MPPD, in the chill fog Kit and Pan sat with Misto on the dock, tucked up beside Mary in a warm blanket. The three cats watched John put out food and water for the ferals, watched the wild band approach warily the heap of blanket. But when they caught Mary’s scent and the scent of the cats they knew, they relaxed and rubbed against the pilings and approached their food bowls greedily.

Misto, warm and purring, looked out at the incoming tide. In all his travels, he had followed, fascinated, the earth’s waters. He had lived on the rough wharves among the commercial fishermen, had once gone to sea with a fishing crew, had watched the hungry waves climb the sides of the keeling boat. Had crouched belowdecks when waves crashed over the bridge, wanting to wash him away, wanting hungrily to drown them all, man and cat alike. He had wandered the land where small blue lakes gleamed among pine forests, had seen the giant osprey dive into diamond-bright water and rise again, clutching silver trout in their talons. But best of all was right here, right now. The shore where, as a tiny kitten, he had waded in the white sand sinking deep, laughing at the incoming tide. He was once again where he was born, returned to this one perfect embrace of land and sea. Curled up between his son and Pan’s lady, the old cat was content. This was the place of his birth, this was where he had been set down by eternity, and this was where he would enter up into that realm once again.

The three cats and Mary lingered for some time as John moved among the feral cats, petting those who were tame enough, talking to them all, making sure none was hurt or sick. The little party left the shore, heading home, in time for John’s first clinic appointment.

In the bedroom Mary tucked the frail cat up among his blankets and again Kit and Pan settled beside him. As Misto drifted off into a nap, Pan dozed, too, content to be close. But Kit was content for only a little while. Soon she began to feel squirmy. She wanted to roll over but didn’t want to wake anyone. She needed to move; she ached from doing nothing, from being still too long; she needed to run. At last, losing patience, she slipped silently out of the blankets and left the bedroom. She crossed the empty living room, swung on the knob of the front door, and kicked it open.

Outside in the fog she raced across the garden to the next cottage, scrambled up a vine, hit the roofs, and galloped north, bridging between cottages on twisted oak branches. She came down only to cross Ocean Avenue among the feet of wandering tourists, and then up again, up and down the peaks racing, working off steam. Part of her wildness was her very pain for Misto. Part was an explosion of longing for Lucinda and Pedric because she missed them terribly. Having talked with them on Wilma’s phone she knew they were safe, but she wanted them home. Running in wild circles and from peak to peak, she wanted Dulcie beside her, too, but Dulcie wasn’t up to chasing, not now. Leaping and gamboling and too full of herself, and then thinking again about the street attacks and wonderingif there was new evidence and what Joe Grey might be finding, she headed for Molena Point PD.

Detective Ray’s office was small, just space for Kathleen’s desk, a visitor’s chair, a tall and crowded bookshelf. Her desk faced the door, as an officer’s desk always does. The walls were hung with groups of miniature paintings, sunny and unassuming. Watercolors were Kathleen’s one quiet diversion from the pressure of the job. Billy Young, entering with the detective, moved away from the entrance, looking at the miniatures, enjoying the small, bright details of Molena Point’s hills and woods and rocky shore.

Painting had eased Kathleen’s stress as she worked as a model, too, before she left that world for the more honest company of cops in the small-town department. Kathleen was dressed this morning in slim jeans and a faded tan sweatshirt, her dark hair tied back casually. Billy thought she would be beautiful even in rags. She was kind, too. Kind to Billy, to animals, to everyone. He stood beside her desk watching her lay out her equipment, watched her begin to lift fingerprints from Ben’s cell phone and then from Ben’s small, spiral-bound notebook.

“Looks like only Ben’s,” she said at last, glancing up at him. He was pleased that she’d allowed him to come on back and witness the procedure. “These will go on to the county lab, they might be able to bring up prints I can’t, they have more sophisticated techniques.”

Billy nodded, he knew that. Once she’d lifted the prints, he watched her plug a USB connection into the cell phone and into her computer and download Ben’s pictures. He bent over the screen beside her, looking. Most of the shots were of construction jobs, details of the Bleak cottage and of other projects before it. But some wereof shoes, photos angled at the ground as if secretly and hastily captured. Kathleen paused over each of these, and enlarged and printed it. She lingered longest over those that showed a bit of tread mark in the earth beside the shoe itself. One grid in particular, with a scar across the waffle pattern, made her smile.

“This could get us somewhere,” she said happily, her smile eager and pleased.

Once she’d finished the photos and had fingerprinted the notebook, too, she leafed slowly through its pages, touching only the edges with her thin cotton gloves. “Notes and sketches of building details. Hardware, light fixtures. Make and model numbers.” Not until the back pages did she turn to the copy machine and make two sets of duplicates, five pages each. When Billy stepped up to look, she shook her head.

“I can’t officially share these. You know that. Maybe later,” she said, “maybe the chief will. Youare like his own kid.” And that made Billy blush.

Dropping the notebook and phone into evidence bags, she packed them up to be sent to the county lab.“The fingerprints, if they can sort out any others besides Ben’s, those will go to IAFIS.”

“The digital database,” Billy said. Cop work was interesting. This last year was the first time in his life he’d thought about some kind of profession. As a little kid and before Gram died, he’d been too busy working to put food on the table, too busy taking care of his drunken grandmother to think of much else. Any job was welcome. He concentrated on doing things right, on keeping the animals well and happy and safe, and didn’t think about his own future.

But now he was not only learning the building trade. Max had urged him into firearms training and self-defense, too, into the police cadet class the department had started for a few of the village boys. The precision, the quick thinking and keen analysis of police work interested him a lot.

“Come on,” Kathleen said, slipping the phone’s photo prints and her copies of the notebook pages into a file folder. “Let’s take these into the conference room, lay the photos out where we can compare them.” Reaching for her desk phone she punched in the key to call Max.

Kit caught Joe Grey’s scent on the walk of MPPD. Peering through the glass door, she slipped in on the heels of three young officers—she slid into the holding cell as another officer came in and two left walking with a clean-shaven civilian in a suit and tie. A lawyer? Yes, he had that cool, superior look. Beyond the counter Evijean’s faded hairdo was just visible beside the copy machine. Now, with the lobby empty, Kit flew to the base of the reception desk, slunk along beside it, and fled down the hall, keeping to the shadows, pressing against the molding where the chief’s door stood cracked open.

His office was empty. She could smell where Joe Grey had rubbed against the woodwork, and could detect the horsey scent of the chief’s boots, and the scents of Detectives Garza and Davis, but there was no one here now. When she heard voices across the hall she peered out; she watched Kathleen and Billy move up the hall to the conference room and inside, Kathleen carrying a brown envelope and some file folders. Padding in behind them, she watched Max and the three detectives and Billy folding the metal chairs and stacking them against the wall so they could move freely around the conference table. Dallas had shrugged off his corduroy jacket and laid it on the counter. Davis was making a pot of coffee. Joe Grey sat on the counter beside her. Joe was about to lie down on the folded corduroy coat when, catching Dallas’s look, he changed his mind and turned away. When he saw Kit he flicked an ear, watched her slip into the shadows behind the trash bin.

From there, she leaped to the counter beside him. She stopped, startled, almost mewled with surprise. She studied the photos laid out on the table, shots of crime scenes, of the victims lying on the ground, an overturned wheelchair. And footprints. Pasted-up pictures of part of a shoe, or part of a print. Kathleen was saying,“ … not one discarded shoe we collected matches up with the crime scene shots, and doesn’t match with any of these that Ben took.”

Shoes! Kit thought. They’ve been collecting … thrown-away shoes? Oh, my! The shoes that woman dropped in the Dumpster right by my house the night Pan and I got home! Does the department have those shoes?

Max had picked up two photographs and stood comparing them. These might be of the same shoe, one at an attack scene where an elderly woman sat leaning against a stone wall, the other just a fragment, beside a wooden porch. Might or might not be the same.

Kit stared at Max, curious and excited, then dropped from the counter and bolted out of the conference room. Racing past Evijean she barely skinned out the glass door as a civilian came in wheeling a baby. Shoes. Thrown in a Dumpster. Shoes …

With all those photographs, with all four officers looking at footprints, she only prayed those thrown-away shoes were still there, that the Dumpster had not been hauled away, that full-to-overflowing Dumpster full of dead leaves and branches—and shoes.

20

Kit’s racing departure from the conference room startled the four officers and Billy, and badly unsettled Joe Grey, who wondered why she would make such a scene. But Kit was Kit, addlebrained and flighty. The chief had turned back to the table, to the machine copies of Ben’s notebook pages, to Ben’s comments about the San Francisco trial. The court would frown on a written personal record by a juror. But no court official was present, the trial was over, and in Harper’s view, this was police business now. As Juana stepped to the conference room door and firmly closed it, Kathleen read the pages aloud.

Most of Ben’s entries regarded individual jurors, his personal observations of their attitudes and their perceptions: a diary such as one might make on an interesting journey. No one was identified by name. Ben had given each juror a nickname, some amusing, all to retain individual privacy.

Pink Lady thinks Gardner can be rehabilitated? He raped and killed this young woman and who knows how many others? Now, all he needs is a few months’ therapy and he’ll be cured?

Big Ears thinks Gardner’s suffered enough at his own cruelty, that he is filled with remorse, that now he needs our compassion.

Besides his wry comments about the jurors, Ben had made observations about others in the courtroom: the attorneys and those regulars who returned several times to the visitors’ gallery. For such a quiet young man, Ben had had his sharp side. One entry that drew Max and the detectives, and drew Joe Grey, regarded a woman who sat in the back row of the gallery. “Day four: She’s here again, here every day. Always so bundled up. Well, the courtroom is cold. Strange hair, you’d call it blond, I guess. Cheap dye job. But something more about her. Something odd and unnatural. Maybe just too much makeup, along with the dowdy clothes. She—”

Kathleen stopped reading when Max’s cell phone buzzed. At the same moment Kathleen’s radio crackled, but the wail of a medics’ van passing nearly drowned Officer Crowley’s canned radio voice.

“Another assault,” Crowley said as the emergency van headed north, then soon went silent, reaching its destination. “Man in a wheelchair overturned,” Crowley said, “medics just arrived.”

Kathleen turned off her radio and Max switched on the speaker of his cell phone. They could hear garbled conversation in the background, could hear arguing, then Crowley came on the line.“It’s Sam Bleak, Chief. Dark-hooded guy knocked him over and ran. Bleak says he doesn’t want to go to the hospital, says he’s only bruised.”

“Did he see the man? Did anyone?”

“Says he was alone, attacked from behind. But yes,” Crowley growled, “he says yes, he did see his face.”

“You got a description.”

“Yes,” Crowley said embarrassedly.

Max looked puzzled.“Does he know him? You get a name?”

“He doesn’t … he seems reluctant.” Crowley sounded both angry and uncertain. As if he didn’t want to give information even on the phone. Again there was discussion in the background, then Crowley came back on.

“He refuses to come in, Chief. Says he’s done nothing, why should he come into the station like a common criminal?”

“Just hold him,” Max said, frowning. “I’m on my way.” And he was out the door, double-timing through the lobby. He didn’t see Joe Grey slip out behind him and leap into the truck bed. The chief swung away from the station unaware of the extra pair of eyes and ears that rode with him beneath a folded tarp.

Kit, racing up across the rooftops to the vacant lot, looked down on the Dumpster parked in front, and swallowed back a yowl of dismay. They were finishing up, were about to haul out of there. The lot had been cleaned off. No more dead trees, only stumps. No long, heavy tree trunks. They had been cut up and hauled away, probably on a big flatbed. At the curb, the Dumpster stood overloaded with rubble and branches, waiting to be hitched up and pulled off. Were the shoes still there, maybe way down, underneath?

Angled behind the Dumpster, three workmen sat in their pickup eating lunch—as if, having wrapped up the job, they meant to leave when they’d finished their noon meal. Maybe they were waiting for the tractor that would retrieve the Dumpster?

She had to get the shoes out before any tractor or heavy truck made an appearance and the shoes would be gone forever.

Maybe she’d better call the chief. Get the cops out here to stop them.

But in the time it took to gallop home, even if it was only half a block, the tractor might arrive, hitch up, and move out.

No, she had to do this now. Scrambling down an oak tree, she slipped across the street beneath the pickup, then under the Dumpster on the far side. Nearly hidden from the men, she leaped up, hung from the Dumpster by her front paws, then scrambled up on the thin metal rim.

The piled-up branches were thick with twigs and leaves crisscrossed and tangled together. Carefully poking in between them she could see, deep down, the toe of a tan running shoe. The whole load smelled of pine and willow sap. She didn’t want sap in her fur, she’d have to chew it out. Easing down between the branches, willing them not to slip and fall on her, she reached deep with a careful paw. She stretched farther down and down until she snagged the shoe with two claws.

Gingerly she hauled it out. Sliding it up between the branches, hoping she wasn’t smearing fingerprints, she pulled it onto the edge of the Dumpster. Balancing it there she took it in her mouth, her teeth clamped on the very edge. Don’t smear the prints, she kept telling herself. She glanced up to the pickup, praying no one would notice her.

She saw no movement in the truck, just the dark silhouettes of the three men, two of them wearing baseball caps. Dropping down with the shoe, holding her head high, she hauled it across the street beneath tree shadows. There she laid it under the lacy leaves of a low-hanging pepper tree and went back for the next one.

It took her a long time to find five shoes among the tangled branches, to back out hauling each one, without toppling limbs on herself. She dug and wriggled, searching, but couldn’t find any more. The sun was well past noon. Watching the three men, she thought, Eat slow, eat more! Talk and laugh, take your time!

Did the shoes hold fingerprints? Maybe not the canvas, but the plastic or leather parts? She prayed they did, and hoped again that she hadn’t smeared them. And what about DNA? Could that be inside a shoe, or would sport socks have soaked it all up?

Not that it made much difference. The county lab was so far behind it would take maybe a year to get DNA evidence back to the department. By then, who knew what else might happen?

When she had the five shoes hidden under the pepper tree, she hauled them one at a time across the neighbors’ yards, staying to the shadows and beneath bushes. She dragged each one to her own yard, four houses down from the Dumpster, and nosed it under the front steps. When at last she’d hidden them all, she scrambled up the oak to her tree house. She lay down for a little rest, and to work the sawdust and leaves out of her long coat. There was tree sap; she’d deal with that later. She rested only a few moments, then crossed the oak branch to her cat door and slipped inside.

Max Harper’s cell phone number was on the Greenlaws’ speed dial. She hit the single digit, listened to the ring, was coughing from sawdust when Max answered.

“Shoes,” she said, swallowing. “Are you looking for shoes, maybe evidence to the assaults?”

“Yes,” Max said. “What have you got?” He didn’t ask who this was. Those days were long past when anyone in the department, except Evijean, would be so gauche as to question one of their prime snitches.

“Shoes thrown away in a Dumpster,” Kit said.

“Recently?”

“Yes. While they were clearing this lot. Looks like they’re all done, like maybe they’re just ready to leave now, but I have the shoes.”

“Yes, we’d like a look,” Max said. “The Dumpster’s where? Can you identify the person who dropped them?”

“No. I saw only their backs for a minute.” She didn’t want to say when she learned the shoes were of value, or when she saw them dumped. “I hauled five shoes out, hid them under a porch across the street.” She gave him the address where the Dumpster stood. Then, shivering, she gave him the address where the shoes were hidden, the address of her own house.

“Under that front porch,” she said. “That tall house with the children’s tree house in the back.”

She felt sick, taking a more than foolish chance, leading him to a hiding place so close to the truth. But her own front porch was the only one near that had a hollow beneath it; all the others were just a couple of concrete steps, solid and impenetrable. And if she hid the shoes among scattered bushes, neighbors’ dogs might find and chew up the evidence.

No, her porch was the safest. No neighbors’ kids poked around there, and it had been a long time since any unruly dog, facing her own claws and teeth, had invaded her yard.

“I know the house,” Max said uneasily. “Why that house?”

“It’s the nearest one to the Dumpster that has a good place to hide them,” she said coolly. “And that house looks empty, not a soul around. I pass that place every day on my way to work. There’s no car in the drive and never a newspaper and the shades always the same, half drawn, like they’re on vacation.”

She hoped she sounded businesslike and detached when in fact she was shaking with guilt.“Will you send someone for them?” she said innocently.

“We will, pronto. And thanks for the help.”

Smiling, Kit hit the button that ended the call—and prayed that Lucinda and Pedric’s ID blocking was working. With a nationwide phone company, one never knew. She shivered at having put the snitch in her own neighborhood. I pass that place every day on my way to work. That did scare her, to draw Max’s attention there—but it made her laugh, too. A cat going to work every day?

And how could she implicate Lucinda and Pedric, when they were far away in Alaska?

Max Harper reached the attack scene as the caller hung up. He pulled to the curb in front of the western shop where the little alley ran back, flanking the bakery. The street was blocked by the medics’ van and two squad cars. Parking beside the white van, but before stepping out, he called Dallas, sent Dallas over to retrieve the snitch’s evidence.

“Shoes?” Dallas said. “Under the Greenlaws’ porch? How come, after all these weeks, the snitch just now finds discarded shoes in a Dumpster? And near the Greenlaws’?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I don’t think they’ve been working long up there, clearing out those dying pines. Just go get the shoes,” Max said. “And get shots of any footprints the snitch left,” though of course Dallas would.

He sat a minute in his truck watching the four medics crowded around Sam Bleak, a woman medic taking his blood pressure, Sam huddled in his wheelchair looking pale and frightened. Tekla stood beside him, her hand protectively on his shoulder. Her stance was stiff and military, her face filled with anger as she raged loudly at Officer Crowley. The six-foot-six officer looked silently down at her, no smile, no frown, his face as still as stone. Max stepped out of the truck, approached the medics and three officers. Watching Tekla scolding, he took a second look at her black jogging pants, at the smear of dirt on the cuff.

He moved closer. Was that not a smear, but a small tear? He thought about Ben’s photographs, the one that showed a tiny rip in the cuff of black jogging pants, pants with the same satin stripe as these. Stepping away, he dialed Dallas again. “You still there?”

“Just out the door.”

“Before you leave,” he said softly, “send Kathleen over here with the big camera for some detail shots.”

Hanging up, he headed across to sort out the Bleak couple, Tekla’s angry diatribe filling his ears like swarming bees. Trying to hold his temper, he didn’t see Joe Grey peering out from the truck bed, didn’t see Joe’s smile as the tomcat thought about the phone call from Kit, about Kit leading Max to what? New evidence? Or only more useless shoes?

When, in the truck, Max’s phone had buzzed and, answering, the chief had straightened up in the seat keenly alert to the caller, Joe had slid out from under the tarp and pressed against the back of the cab, listening.

Shoes? Joe had come sharply alert. From Max’s end of the conversation, from the fact that Max didn’t cross-examine the caller or ask his or her name—and from the way Kit had raced out of the conference room earlier, she had to be the snitch.

Having been gone so long from the village, having just gotten home and most of her thoughts on Misto, she hadn’t realized shoes might be important until this morning. In the conference room piled with shoes and photographs of shoes, listening to Max and the detectives, she’d raced off alone to fetch what she hoped would be evidence. She’d retrieved the shoes, she’d hidden them where they’d be safe, and then she’d called Max, and that made Joe smile. Kit, their scatterbrained Kit, was indeed growing up.

21

In the back of Max’s pickup, parked in the shadows of a cypress tree, Joe Grey reared up to peer over the side of the truck bed. He watched one of the four medics, a woman, tenderly clean up Sam Bleak’s forehead and his upper arm, cutting loose his torn shirt, wiping away blood from both injuries. Officer Crowley was present with two other uniforms, talking with the chief. Sam’s wheelchair lay fallen across a flower bed that edged a narrow brick walk. Sam sat on a carved wooden bench at the edge of the walk, which ran back between the buildings past the western shop, a boutique, a toy shop. A matching bench could be seen farther in between the windowed stores. Little lanes and half-hidden courtyards could be found all over the village, pleasing the locals and offering a longed-for charm to eager tourists. When Sam’s forehead and arm had been bandaged, a second medic, a slim young man, handed him a clipboard and pen.

“This is your release, Mr. Bleak, if you’re sure you don’t want to go to Emergency.”

Sam said he’d see his own doctor. Tekla leaned over, took the board from him, and began to read it out loud to him. As if he were too injured and unsteady—or too senile—to read the form himself.

When she had finished reciting the dull paragraphs, she handed it back for Sam to sign: a release of liability, to protect the medics and police. These days a human could hardly breathe without removing responsibility from everyone in sight. The day will come, Joe thought, when Clyde and Ryan have to sign a waiver so the garbageman can pick up our trash.

When the medics had finished with Sam and turned away, Joe dropped out of the truck into shadow and slipped beneath the shrubs at the curb. Hunkering there out of sight, he watched the three men and the woman gather their equipment back into the van, their blankets and oxygen tank and masks, their various black leather cases with the big syringes, packaged needles, and who knew what other kind of torture. As the van pulled away, Max began to question Sam, nodding to Officer Crowley to take notes.

“He ran right up behind me,” Sam was saying. “Tekla wasn’t here, she—”

“I’d left him for just a few minutes,” Tekla snapped, “left him here in what I thought was a safe place while I ran into the bakery. Does a person have to be on guard every minute in this village? Isn’t there a street patrol? I would think …”

Max stared at her with that dry, patient look. The same look as when he was about to strong-arm a drunk.

Joe looked up when Kathleen arrived. Stepping out of her car, she stood a moment taking in the situation; then she adjusted her camera and began to shoot the scene and the surround. Kneeling, the tall, slim detective photographed marks on the sidewalk the wheelchair had gone over, and close-ups of the area of broken flowers in the narrow strip of garden. She took time to lift latent fingerprints from the wheelchair, then photographed Sam and the chair at different angles; she included in her camera range several shots of Tekla’s pant legs. She was fast but careful and precise, covering the area thoroughly.

When Tekla started berating the chief again, Max asked her to step on over with Officer Ray.“She’s nearly finished photographing,” Max said. “She’ll want to interview you. You can wait on that other bench, back along the walk there.”

Tekla looked as if she’d refuse. Scowling, she moved closer to Sam as if to remain protective of him—as if Max or one of the officers might do him bodily harm. Max looked over at Kathleen and nodded.

Turning, Kathleen headed for her car, locked the big camera safely in the trunk. She hung the smaller camera over her shoulder, took Tekla by the arm, and gently ushered the shorter woman back along the walk to the bench. She sat Tekla down with just enough force to prevent her from striking out as she seemed inclined to do. Quickly Joe moved to the back of the cypress tree out of sight and scrambled up. Hidden in the heavy foliage, he slipped out along a branch that arched over the sidewalk nearer to Tekla and Kathleen, where he could listen.

And where, within seconds, Kit came slipping along behind him as if out of nowhere. Feeling the sway of the branch, he glanced back; she peered out at him half hidden, her mottled black-and-brown coat blending into the shaggy cypress. With a flick of her ears, she looked over.

Max was kneeling beside the wheelchair where he could look Sam in the face.“I know you’re shaken, Sam, but can you tell me what happened? Just take your time,” he said gently.

“He hit me so hard. I was sprawled on the ground before I knew what happened,” Sam’s voice was unsteady. “Like Tekla said, she’d gone on a quick errand, left me parked right here in the lane, said she’d only be gone a minute to the bakery. I was looking in the window at those fancy western boots, in plain sight of the busy street, when I was struck so hard from behind I thought a truck hit me.” Sam rubbed at the bandage on his forehead.

“I went sprawling, my wheelchair slid away, I heard someone running. I saw a dark figure running, but I was so dizzy …” He looked pitifully at Max, pale and shaken—but anger burned, too, deep in Sam’s eyes, and that shocked Joe. Sam Bleak, so mild and docile, suddenly burned with a cold rage that the tomcat had not seen before.

Max studied Sam with interest.“Did you hear anything before he hit your wheelchair?”

Sam shook his head.“Nothing. Nothing at all, the street was quiet. Then that terrible blow and I went over, I had no way to stop, no way to catch myself.”

“Can you describe the person? Do you remember his clothes? His height? Some idea of age? Was it a man, a boy?”

“A boy,” Sam said, looking directly at Harper. “Tan Windbreaker, I remember that. Old, worn jeans and scuffed leather boots. Running away, running from me so I didn’t see his face but … but I know him,” Sam said.

Sam Bleak was silent, looking at Harper. His next words shocked Joe and Kit right down to their paws, made Joe want to leap down and claw Sam’s lying face.

“The boy …” Sam said, “the boy … was Billy Young.”

Max stood up, narrowly watching Sam.“Are you sure of that?”

“He looked exactly like Billy, and dressed the same. I swear it was Billy Young.”

Max was silent, his look cold and hard. Joe wanted to shout, That’s a lie! What the hell are you up to?

“The boy who flipped me over,” Sam said, “it was Billy Young. That boy who works for Ryan Flannery—that boy who’s too young to be working in a construction crew. Who thinks he’s so smart because he has a grown-up job.”

Joe and Kit looked at each other, fear for Billy sparking between them, fear of what they didn’t understand. Max stood rigid and withdrawn. Maybe only the cats and his fellow cops saw that twitch at the side of his mouth, that quick inner fire that some humans wouldn’t notice. To the cats, even Max’s scent changed, had gone sharp with fury.

Sam felt tenderly at his bandaged forehead.“Same jacket, same clothes,” he repeated. “Running away. I shouted at him to stop, shouted his name.”

Again he was quiet, fingering his bandaged arm. Then,“Why would that boy do such a thing? What did he want? It was then, as I fell, that Tekla came around the corner, saw me tipped over.Tekla saw him, too, Captain Harper.” Sam’s fists clenched in anger. “Tekla knew him. He raced away—up the brick alley and into the next street. Tekla started to pick me up, to pick up the wheelchair, but I told her to go on, try to catch him.

“But he was gone,” Sam said shakily. “Just like those other attacks.” He put his head down on his hands as if he felt dizzy or was still very frightened.

Max glanced at his watch.“And then what happened?”

“I told Tekla to leave me be, in case anything was broken, and she called 911.” He did look pale. But, in truth, this was no more than a hoax, no more than a vicious lie.

“The siren came right away,” Sam said, “the medics’ van. Then more cops while the medics were looking me over, poking and prodding, and one of the cops—that tall one, the first one here, he started taking pictures. The medics kept arguing with me to let them put me in the van, but I didn’t want to go to a hospital, I’ve had enough of that. And then,” Sam said, “you got here, your pickup pulled in to the curb.”

“You’re sure it was Billy Young,” Max said coldly.

“Looked exactly like him. I only glimpsed the side of his face—high, thin cheekbones, brown hair, tan Windbreaker. Same clothes he usually wears,” Sam said, “same Windbreaker, same old, battered boots.”

“I’d like you to come into the station, you’ll need to fill out a report.”

Sam’s frown turned uncertain. He glanced across to where Tekla was deep in conversation with Kathleen Ray, as the detective recorded Tekla’s version on her phone, so the two interviews could be compared.

“If you file a complaint,” Max told Sam, “if you can identify him clearly, you can bring charges. If the boy has attacked others, it’s your responsibility to tell us what you can.”

Above in the cypress tree, Joe and Kit smiled at how cool Max was. The Bleaks had to know that Billy was the chief’s ward, or at least that he lived with the Harpers. So why would they set Billy up? For what possible reason? Simply because Tekla didn’t like Ryan, to get at Ryan through Billy, make them both look bad to Harper?

That didn’t make any sense. And now, as Max pushed Sam with questions, was Sam indeed getting nervous?

Could this all be Tekla’s setup? Had she forced Sam along with it, and now he was losing his resolve?

But then, what was Sam’s anger about? Was that all fake, too?

Whatever the answer, Joe thought, the Bleaks will find out soon enough what the chief already knows. This was a crime Billy couldn’t have committed, Billy was safe at the station when Sam was mugged; a dozen cops had seen him, including Max and all three detectives. The Bleaks, in a moment of misguided inspiration, had backed themselves into a corner, and didn’t that make Joe and Kit smile.

Most likely Tekla had tipped over the wheelchair herself, maybe eased it over gently so Sam wouldn’t in fact break any bones and create a real problem.

But they did manage to scrape his forehead and arm, Joe thought. Maybe they didn’t mean to do that, maybe that part was an accident as they performed their little charade. And that made him smile all the more.

The question is, why would they go to such lengths to get Billy in trouble? Oh, but Tekla would, Joe thought, just out of meanness. Or, he wondered, did they do this as some sort of diversion?

“Did you and Tekla walk down from your apartment?” Max said, glancing back along the street. “From the little guesthouse you’re renting?”

“Yes,” Tekla said coolly. “So that Sam could get some air. It isn’t good to always be riding around in the van.”

Kathleen said,“I can give you a ride to the station, if you like. So you can file your complaint.”

Tekla drew herself up. She said nothing. Sam smiled weakly. Kathleen and the chief stood over them waiting for a response, both officers so stern and severe that the Bleaks might find it hard to refuse. At last Sam allowed Kathleen to help him into the wheelchair, careful of his painful arm, and she wheeled him to her squad car, Tekla walking like an angry guard dog beside him. Kathleen settled them in the backseat and folded Sam’s chair into the trunk.

As they pulled away, leaving Max talking with Officer Crowley, Joe and Kit left the cypress tree praying Billy was still at the station. They didn’t want to miss this confrontation. Joe wished Dulcie were there. He’d give her a blow-by-blow account, just as he would lay it all out later for Misto and for Pan. Misto needed to be kept in the loop; the old cat needed to see and feel as much as he could of these last, waning days, Joe thought sadly.

But as he and Kit galloped away across the roofs toward the station, he looked slyly at her.“You found shoes! Did Dallas get them?”

Kit smiled.“I watched him fish them out from under my porch. He lifted each one with a stick inside so he didn’t smear any prints. I hope I didn’t smear any.”

“Your porch?” He stopped and looked at her, and was getting ready to scold her. But she looked at him so contritely that he swallowed back his words.

What the hell, she’d gotten the shoes, hadn’t she? That could be the key, if they could find a matching shoe, one with a good set of fingerprints. That could be the evidence they needed; and he looked at Kit and didn’t criticize—he wasn’t going to trash her bright-eyed joy in finding them.

As they leaped to the roof of the courthouse and raced its length, Kathleen’s squad car pulled up to the red zone below. Dallas’s Blazer was already there. He was just disappearing through the glass door carrying a cardboard box. It was filled with evidence bags, each the size and the shape of a shoe. Kit stared down at it with triumph, her ears up, the tip of her tail twitching.

Joe just hoped they’d turn out to be the right ones, belonging to the perp, not just someone’s worn-out footwear. Backing down the oak tree, they crouched in the bushes by the front entry watching Kathleen remove Sam’s wheelchair from the trunk and unfold it. As she held the glass door so Tekla could roll him through into the lobby, Joe and Kit slipped behind them into the smelly retreat of the holding cell—their retreat for as long as Evijean remained on duty. He thought of Dulcie resting at home as she’d been told, and wished she were there to enjoy the coming performance.

22

Though it was just mid-morning, a warming fire burned on the Firettis’ hearth, its blaze reflected in the fog-frosted windows. Firelight brightened the flowered couch where Misto lay tucked up in a quilt between Dulcie and Pan. Mary Firetti and Wilma sat on the matching couch sipping coffee. Wilma had brought a gift for Misto, a big tray of custards. The three cats had promptly lapped up three small bowls before they snuggled close.

At home earlier, Dulcie had paced from room to room wanting to be outside, wanting to roam but having promised to stay in, not to run the roofs but to rest. She had paced and glared at Wilma, who sat at her desk paying bills. She’d wanted to be at the station, wanted to find Joe Grey, wanted in on the action. Whenever she’d trotted out into the garden for a few minutes she felt Wilma at the window watching her. It was all very well to be quiet and protect the kittens, but she’d begun to feel like a caged wildcat. Butwhen the custards were ready to take to Misto, getting in the car, Wilma said, “You need only be idle for a little while, the kittens will arrive soon. I don’t need to tell you how important this is, these are the most precious of babies.”

Dulcie knew that! She tried not to snap at Wilma. She tried not to sound sulky. But even a trip in the car was a treat, just to get out. Trotting up the Firetti walk through the last of Mary’s cyclamens as bright as new crayons, she had raced into the cottage to nearly pounce on Misto and Pan, she was so glad to see them—though it had only been a few hours.

Pan said,“Kit slipped away early. Restless, so restless.”

Dulcie snuggled closer and looked tenderly at Pan.“You miss Kit this morning,” she said, licking his ear. Kit might have been restless, she thought, but maybe that was a loving gesture, too, to slip away at dawn, to leave father and son alone together, just the two of them.

Mary had set Wilma’s dozen little bowls in the refrigerator to keep cool. “Misto does so love your custards. I make little stews, I make soups, but your custards are the real treat.” She looked at Misto, then back at Wilma. “We talked about Ben,” she said softly. “I told him about Ben.”

Misto lowered his ears and put out a paw to Wilma. But as she reached to stroke him she saw behind his grieving look that staunch certainty, too, in his golden eyes.“Where Ben is now,” the old cat said, “he is safe, he is beyond human cruelty.” He licked Wilma’s hand. “Ben is loved with a strength the living cannot imagine, he is free in joy now, he flies weightless.”

They talked about Ben and about the attacks, Misto stoic, in his own way removed from the deepest pain. It was nearly noon when Wilma and Dulcie left the Firetti cottage, Misto napping again, and Pan still close beside him. Riding home, Dulcie thought about the street crimes, about new police reports, new intelligence coming in, about Joe at the station, and she looked up forlornly at Wilma.

Wilma sighed. She hadn’t worked in corrections for all her career without knowing how these present crimes drew Dulcie. “You want to be with Joe, putting the pieces together.”

Dulcie sighed.

“I’ll take you to the PD if you’ll promise to wait there. To let me pick you up later, not come galloping home alone over the rooftops. You might not go full term, Dulcie, you might …”

“I promise,” Dulcie said.

Reluctantly Wilma dropped her off in front of the courthouse, watched her disappear into the bushes to wait for a chance to slip inside the station. Wilma lingered for a few minutes, and then a few minutes more, but no one came or went through the glass door. She could see action inside, could see Max and Detective Kathleen Ray; she could just see Joe Grey in a corner of the holding cell, and she glimpsed a fluff of tortoiseshell fur; Kit was there with him. She could see that brittle temporary clerk, Evijean, behind the counter. And was that the Bleak couple in there? That was curious, what was that about?

She watched Dulcie peering out, watching intently from the bushes. She watched the tabby move beneath a camellia, closer to the glass door where she could see in better. Wilma waited a few minutes more, got an angry scowl when the tabby reared up to look back at her. Whatever was happening had Dulcie’s full attention. At last Wilma left her. Joe Grey and Kit were there if the tabby needed someone. Dulcie had a loud yowl if she found herself in trouble. As many times as I’ve worried over her, I have learned to trust her. I’m not going to rein her in completely, even now.

It was earlier, just after Sam Bleak’s fake attack, that Joe and Kit slipped into MPPD behind Kathleen Ray and Sam and Tekla, the two cats sliding into the shadows of the holding cell. Surely Evijean hadn’t seen them, there had been no cry of outrage. Beyond the reception counter among the computers, radios,and office machines they couldn’t see even the top of Evijean’s head. When Joe reared up for a better look, he was sure no one was minding the counter—though the clerk’s area was never left unmanned.

As he watched, Detective Ray moved toward the counter, alert and wary. She had switched on her radio when Max pulled up outside, swung out of his truck and in through the glass door—and as Evijean emerged from the conference room, slipping out with a guilty look.

Max watched Evijean, frowning because she’d left her station. He looked down the hall at the door she had closed. “Are you keeping that room locked?”

Evijean set a cup of coffee on her desk.“Detective Davis moved those …” She glanced at the Bleaks. “That material that was on the table. She moved it to her office,” she said with more finesse than Joe would expect. “Detective Garza is with her and the boy.” Joe thought she might have the courtesy to call Billy by name.

Max looked at the Bleaks, then back at Evijean.“How long has Billy been here?”

She looked confused.

“How long has he been in the station this morning? Since what time?”

“Maybe two hours,” Evijean said. “Since Detective Ray brought him in with … Since around nine when she brought him back to your office.” She watched the chief, frowning. Her finesse just went so far. Over in the waiting area, Tekla and Sam had come to full attention. Both had begun tofidget.

“Evijean,” Max said, “ask Detective Davis, Detective Garza, and Billy to come up front. And hand me two complaint forms.”

Evijean frowned uncertainly and looked down into the shelves beneath the counter.

“Those forms in the box at the end,” Max said impatiently. Joe knew what he meant. These were the sheets the chief had made up for previous incidents where he wanted the complainants’ statements in their own handwriting; they were not the usual documents that an officer himself filled out. Evijean found them, inserted the forms in two clipboards, and handed them to him. Even she knew this was unorthodox, that a complaint was filed verbally to an officer and the complainant only signed the paperwork.

When Evijean had called back to Juana’s office and relayed the chief’s message, Max said, “Has Billy left the station since Kathleen brought him in this morning?”

“No, sir.”

“Not at all, for any reason? Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir, I’m sure.” Her look was sharp, keenly puzzled.

In the waiting area, Tekla had risen and stood scowling at the chief.“You would stand up for that boy. Isn’t he your ward or something? Of course you’d say he was here, you wouldn’t want—”

Max looked hard at her.“Mrs. Bleak, there’s a law against false accusation.” Whether he meant false accusation of Billy as the attacker, or false accusation of Max himself for lying to cover for Billy, his words made Tekla back off, and made Joe and Kit exchange a whiskery grin.

Max had turned to Sam.“You can have a good look at Billy Young now. If you’re sure it was Billy who attacked you, you can file the complaint and we can move on with the matter. Maybe we can put him in juvenile hall until we get this sorted out.”

Beneath the bunk, Kit’s yellow eyes widened but Joe Grey only smiled. There was no way in hell Max would do that. They heard a door open down the hall, footsteps approaching, and Billy and the two detectives came up to the front. At the sight of Billy, Tekla moved behind Sam’s wheelchair as if to remain in control,to wheel Sam on out of there to safety. Billy, looking puzzled, came to stand beside the chief. Max put his arm around him and turned him to face Sam.

“Is this the boy who attacked you, who tipped over your wheelchair?”

Billy stared at up at Max and then at Sam, uncomprehending.

Sam wouldn’t look at Billy. Nor did he look at Max Harper. “Maybe …” he began, “Maybe … maybe that boy’s jacket was gray, not tan. Maybe …” He frowned at Billy as if seeing him for the first time, this boy he saw nearly every day working on the remodel.

“I think,” Sam said, “I think that boy’s hair was darker. Yes, a darker brown, and longer, down around his neck. Hard to remember,” he said, “when I was sprawled there dizzy and hurt, and he was running away …” He looked down at his hands, at the scuff marks that the medics had bandaged.

“I guess,” Sam said lamely, “I guess I could be wrong. I was so frightened and confused when I was knocked over, the sidewalk seemed to be whirling under me, so dizzy …”

Max and the detectives watched him with interest. Had the Bleaks thought, with the crime scene cleared at the remodel and the yellow tape removed, Billy would be cleaning up there now as Tekla had demanded? Had they, this morning, seen Scotty, or maybe Ryan or both off in the village running errands, maybe picking up material? Assuming Billy was working alone as he sometimes did, thinking there would be no witness to the boy’s whereabouts, had they jumped at the chance to stage their little ruse, to lay the crime on Billy? A spark of inspiration that went bad? Joe and Kit, looking hard at them, wished they could stare the truth right out of that pair of liars.

“Even if you’re not sure of the identity,” Max was saying, “if you file a complaint describing the attack, that will help us. That would be considerable assistance in finding whoever did attack you. You needn’t mention Billy at all, if you’re not sure he was involved.”

He handed Sam a clipboard with a complaint form. Sam took it with his right hand, laid it carefully against his hurt left arm. The chief handed a second form to Tekla. Joe watched Max pick up one of the folding chairs and settle Tekla across the room.“You need to each do your form separately, without discussion,” he told her.

The chief and Kathleen had already taken their statements, that was the complaint. Now Max was poker-faced. Joe had seen him at the card table with that look, running a bluff.

“Describe only what you remember,” the chief told Sam. “Tell what happened as best you can, just as you told it to me and Detective Ray. You’re the only witnesses we have. Your statement is of great value.” Max’s demeanor was smooth as silk. As Sam filled out the form, bent earnestly over the clipboard, Evijean came out from behind the counter carrying her purse. One of the rookies came down the hall to take her place, relieving her for an early lunch, a blond young man brushing a speck of lint from his uniform. Evijean had hardly left when Kit stiffened, peering out the glass door.

Joe barely caught sight of Dulcie as she slid past the station following Evijean. The next minute, as two civilians came in, Kit slipped out and fled down the sidewalk, to follow Dulcie. Why was Dulcie out of the house where Wilma had meant for her to rest and act matronly? And what the hell was she up to? Joe remained still, his ears back, watching them. He wanted to follow her, too, but his questions swung so sharply back to the Bleaks that he stayed put.

The couple had finished up their complaint forms, signed them, and were handing them to Captain Harper. Something about the look they exchanged as they headed for the door held Joe.

They left the station quickly, Tekla determinedly pushing Sam’s wheelchair as if wanting to be swiftly away from MPPD and Max Harper. As Max turned to the desk with the forms, Joe leaped up beside him, rubbing chummily against his arm.

Max looked down, laughing at him. Joe was happy to lighten the chief’s mood, and as Max stroked him, he got a look at the forms with the Bleaks’ rental address.

Molena Point did not have house numbers. Sam identified the street and cross streets in the usual way, then the name of the house, Daffodil Walk, with an added note,“the guesthouse in the back.” Joe knew the house, a two-story frame painted butter yellow. Joe had never seen a daffodil in the yard. Giving Max a nudge and a purr, Joe dropped down from the counter, galloped to the glass door, and yowled stridently for the chief to let him out.

“Spoiled, worthless tomcat,” Max said, sounding too much like Clyde.

Smiling, Joe slipped through the open door, skinned up the oak tree as Max turned back inside, and scorched away over the rooftops. He wanted to arrive at Tekla and Sam’s rental before they did. He wanted to slip into the apartment behind them and hastily conceal himself.

23

Dulcie was already gone from in front of the PD when Joe Grey went racing out, headed for the Bleaks’ rental. Watching the busy lobby, she had drawn back when Evijean came out and headed along the street. A few doors down stood Effie Hoop in her red sweatshirt, smiling, waiting for Evijean. What was this? Did these two know each other? Curious, Dulcie followed, slipping along in the shadow of the building. She watched the two women hug in greeting. They glanced toward the police station, then quickly entered the new little tearoom that stood between two larger shops.

The leaded front windows were low to the ground, looking out on a row of ceramic pots planted with red geraniums. Dulcie stood half hidden among these, looking in. The tiny restaurant was charming, was most attractive to tourists. It was handy to the department, too, for a quick snack. But a cop wouldn’t be caught there with its fluffy flowered curtains, its d?cor as overdone as a dollhouse. It was perfect, however, for lunch for the two ladies. Dulcie wondered where Effie had left her husband, Howard. This was sure not his kind of place. And how did they know each other, Effie, with her strange remarks about San Francisco, and sour, bad-tempered Evijean? They looked as easy together as old, dear friends as they were led, laughing and talking, to a frilly corner table, its ruffled cloth printed with a tangle of daisies.

When Kit appeared suddenly pushing in beside her, Dulcie nuzzled her in greeting; both cats were so focused on Evijean and Effie that when another two ladies entered they slid inside at once and under a padded window seat.

The tearoom was small, its decorative windows framed by ruffled curtains. Though the day was warm, a tiny stone fireplace sheltered an equally tiny but welcoming flame of miniature logs. The women, only glancing at their menus, were already deep into a discussion. Dulcie crouched, listening. Hadn’t Effie Hoop or Howard mentioned a sister, that morning in the caf? patio over breakfast? But Effie was saying, “It doesn’t make sense. Seven attacks, three of them jurors. Those jurors dead, plus the two killed in the city. But what about the others, those here in the village that had no connection to the trial?”

She went quiet as the waitress came to take their order, setting down a pot of hot water and a selection of teas. Both women ordered a small salad and scones.

“Those other attacks,” Evijean said, “may be a diversion. The department thinks that’s what it was.”

“I suppose that’s possible. What did you find out this morning?”

“They have more photographs. They took shots this morning, too. And they have some kind of new evidence, Detective Garza came in with a box full of evidence bags. I didn’t get a look, he took them on back to his office. As for Herbert Gardner,” Evijean said, “as far as anyone knows he didn’t have any connections. No family anywhere.

“But someone’s out to get the jury that convicted him.”

“Maybe some slimy friend of his,” Effie said, “that the investigators didn’t find.”

“Whatever,” Evijean said, “Marilain’s dead, that can’t be undone. It’s not surprising,” she added. “The girl was no better than a streetwalker.”

“No matter what she was, she was our niece! Our own brother’s child. It’s not his fault she went bad.”

Dulcie and Kit glanced at each other. The two women, despite their difference in size and bulk, did look alike, their pale coloring, their long noses. Effie’s brown hair had started to go gray. Evijean was some years younger, but her hair was so faded that, under the strange blond coloring, it must be graying, too.

Evijean stirred sugar into her tea.“Well, she had a poor start, fell into bad ways herself.”

“Don’t you care that she’s dead?”

Evijean shrugged.“Gardner will die for it. However this turns out, that’s the consolation.”

Effie looked at her sister, her round face disapproving.“You dated him once, didn’t you? Before Marilain met him, when you lived in the city?”

“Not dated, he was a generation too young,” Evijean said sourly. “Marilain was only seventeen, a child. I just had dinner with Gardner a couple of times, after work. Then when he met Marilain, of course he had no time for anyone else, even a friend. I think he hung out with me to meet her. Ithought he was a friend. I had no idea what he was, what he might do,” she said bitterly.

“Well,” she said, “that was a long time ago, before I worked for the sheriff’s department and then moved down here. I might never have gotten this temp job if I hadn’t been cleared, back then, for the sheriff’s office.

“But now … it’s the jurors,” she said, “they had no need to die. How did the killer get their names? All that is sealed. But you were there in the courtroom, in the gallery. Did you notice anything strange, or anyone you knew? Did you know any of the victims?”

“The only victim I know is Betty Porter, and she wasn’t on the jury. I know her from earlier visits, from talking with her in the drugstore.

“Well, in the courtroom, I did see that other woman, Bonnie, who was nearly mugged right here in front of the station. She was on the jury—but it was her husband who was killed. I recognized her from the San Francisco paper. She was the juror, and he died for it.” She paused as the waitress brought their order.

Evijean said,“So strange that the San Francisco investigators, the county attorney, knew so little about Gardner’s background.”

“They found enough to prosecute him,” Effie said. “They didn’t need to know his life story. That defense attorney,” she said with a smile, “his heart wasn’t in saving Gardner.”

“You have to give him that,” Evijean said. “No one wanted Gardner to go free.”

“Except the stalker,” Effie said. “Didn’t Gardner ever say anything to you about his background, his family?”

“Nothing. He was so closemouthed. That in itself should have alerted me. Marilain never said anything about his past, either, and by that time, I didn’t care. And then I moved down here and didn’t see her anymore. She might have been our niece, but I didn’t like her much. She wasn’t much good,” Evijean said.

Effie poured more tea for herself.“Well, someone was close to him, cared about him. Someone is killing innocent jurors because they did their job.” She set down the teapot. “Marilain did come to see us a time or two when we lived on Grant Street—wanting to borrow money. She said Gardner had no family, that his mother would have nothing to do with him, that he hadn’t seen her in years, that she’d moved to the East Coast somewhere—maybe as far away from him as she could get.”

“Well, it couldn’t have been her,” Evijean said. “If his mother hated him for how he’d turned out, maybe knew about earlier crimes, why would she come back here and go after innocent jurors for convicting him? She should celebrate.”

Effie shrugged.“Some women are like that. Hate their kids when they turn bad, but then they go all defensive when the kid gets caught and has to pay for his sins.” She settled heavily back in her chair, buttering a scone. “And the police here, they don’t have any background on Gardner? Theydon’t know who might be connected to him?”

“Not that I can find,” Evijean said. “But now, this morning, they’re working on new evidence, something’s going on in there.” She sipped her tea, looked up at Effie; she went quiet as the waitress brought their check.

When Dulcie looked at Kit, Kit looked sly and smug. A look of triumph, as if she had her paws in the cream.“What?” Dulcie whispered. But the women had paid the bill and risen. With no more useful information forthcoming, and with not much traffic in and out of the tearoom, the two cats hurried out the door behind them.

Evijean went on into the station. Dulcie and Kit waited in the bushes until they could duck through, unseen.“What?” Dulcie said again. “What did you do?”

“The shoes,” Kit whispered. “I found thrown-away shoes. Dallas has them.” Quickly Kit told her about Sam’s “accident,” about the Bleaks’ charges against Billy. “And Joe,” Kit said, “Joe was mad enough to … I didn’t know what he’d do.” She peered in through the glass door. “Looks like the Bleaks are gone. They …” She hushed as Officer McFarland pulled up in his squad car. As he got out, they slipped up to the door behind him. Seeing them, McFarland grinned, his boyish brown hair mussed under his cap, and he held the door for them. They trotted through, glanced up at him with a flick of their tails, and hurried past the counter out of Evijean’s sight, quickly down the hall, to the safety of Max Harper’s door.

His office was empty, the door cracked open but no one there. They could hear voices from Juana Davis’s office. They crossed the hall and slid inside, halting inches behind Detective Davis’s black shoes and the chief’s western boots where they stood at a long, folding table. Kit slid in first. She knew at once by the smell that the shoes were there, the shoes she’d found in the Dumpster; the smell of pine pitch was so strong that she had to hide a grin.

24

Juana Davis’s usually neat office looked like a jumble sale. A long table stood in the middle of the room, her furniture pushed against the wall, the credenza, bookcase, and desk shoved together. Davis, Max Harper, and Billy stood at the table absorbed as Dulcie and Kit slipped into the room. Silently theyhopped up onto the desk and to the top of the bookcase where they could look down.

Besides the shoes there were photos again: crime scene photos crowded the table. A set of pictures neatly arranged by each shoe. Now they had a match, the corresponding color shots marked with time, date, name of the victim. Kit looked smugly at Dulcie. She was so proud she could hardly help lashing her tail and grinning.

But Dulcie was looking for Joe Grey. Why wasn’t he in here scanning the evidence? She couldn’t even catch his scent.

She thought about the Bleaks’ scam, how they’d tried to incriminate Billy, how angry Joe had been—Kit said she didn’t know what he’d do. Oh, she thought, he hasn’t followed them, he hasn’t followed the Bleaks home?

But that’s just what Joe would do.

Stay outside, she thought. Just watch the house, see if they try to run, see if they try to get away from Harper. Then call the station. Oh, don’t go in there. She moved to drop down to the desk, to head for the door and follow him—but now even Dulcie herself was too wary, thinking of the kittens. She was feeling heavier, clumsier. She thought of running over the rooftops, maybe getting into a tight squeeze inside the Bleak rental … If anything happened to the kittens, to Joe’s kittens …

And somehow, looking at Kit, at the flighty tortoiseshell, she didn’t want to ask Kit to follow him. When he’s alone, he’s extra careful. Alone, he can sometimes plan his moves better, he’s not distracted. No, this time she would put her trust in Joe, in Joe Grey’s strength and macho intelligence. Creeping closer to Kit, snuggled against her, she watched Billy Young, standing at the long table beside Juana, answering her occasional questions. She was comparing the crime scene shots and their matching shoes with a handful of the pasted-up photos.

“Yes,” Billy was saying, “that’s just behind the remodel, under the bedroom window. Those two pieces of two-by-four? I tossed them there a week ago, and forgot them. Same shoe, though. Same torn pant cuff.”

Was this why Billy was here, a civilian looking at police evidence to verify the locations of certain photos? But these locations could be verified by police photos of the larger surround, they didn’t need a witness. Dulcie and Kit looked at each other. Was this an added experience for Billy? Max’s ongoing introduction to see if the boy was truly interested in police work? Billy said, “How long will the lab take?”

“Hopefully, a week or two,” Max said.

“That’s wishful thinking,” Juana said, laughing.

“If they’re as backed up as usual,” Max told Billy, “could take a month or more.”

“While the killer,” Billy said, “could be long gone.”

Neither Max nor Juana replied.

Near the shoes lay machine copies from a small, spiral-bound notebook. Though only the top, lined page was visible. Ben’s note was short, but was carefully dated.

Monday, November 4. Ten a.m. Blonde in back of gallery again, back row but different seat. No hat today, dressed kind of fluffy, full skirt and a blousy shawl. Nothing like that leather cap and bulky jacket. I guess she’s hiding her extra weight, she could stand to lose a few pounds. It’s the same woman. She walks the same, kind of slow and like maybe she has arthritis. Same blond hair …

That was all the cats saw before Max glanced up at them and they turned to wash their paws.

Near the notebook pages, three photos had been set aside. Each showed a running shoe with the bottom of a pant leg, a black satin stripe down the outside seam and a small tear at the bottom. One showed the print of the shoe’s tread on the concrete, a waffle pattern with stars in it. The second photo showed only the footprint, but it was the same odd pattern. Neat handwriting in the white margin at the top of each photo gave the date and identified the attack. The third photo was of the same jogging pants with the black satin stripe, the tear, but with different shoes. It was dated this morning, and in different handwriting, and marked with a file number and the name “Sam Bleak.”

Max was saying,“This is enough to bring them back in for questioning.”

“Enough to file charges?” Juana said doubtfully.

“No. Only as persons of interest,” he said. “We’re not filing charges on a dead man’s notes and photos, even our own crime scene photos. We wait for the lab, hope they come up with prints. And Sam’s false accusation of Billy isn’t much of a case against them. You read their statements, how they backed down.”

“But they’re tied into this,” Juana said. “You want to try for a search warrant? Before they try to skip?”

“With Judge Manderson? You know he wants hard evidence before we do a search.”

Juana sighed.“Wish we had the gun that killed Ben. And what was that about, that fake attack this morning, throwing themselves right in our faces?”

Max shrugged.“No one said criminals were smart.”

Billy said,“Did they think if Sam was mugged, that you’d see them as helpless victims? And I guess,” he said, grinning, “I guess they don’t like me much. But,” he continued, “even when they left the station, they looked nervous.”

Juana turned when her desk phone rang, and flipped on the speaker.

Evijean said,“I just took an anonymous call. A message for Captain Harper. The man wouldn’t give his name.”

“I’m here,” Max said.

“He wouldn’t wait. He said to tell the captain that the convicted rapist, the one in San Francisco? … Gardner? That he has a mother somewhere, that they are estranged. The last he’d heard, she was living somewhere on the East Coast. He said you were looking for a connection, for family.”

“Why didn’t you switch him directly to me?”

“He didn’t want me to transfer the call, he said he was in a hurry. He told me to pass it on promptly … A very curt man,” she said. “He gave me the information and hung up.”

“No caller ID?”

“No, sir. Maybe an old cell phone with no GPS?”

Dulcie looked at Kit; they both watched Harper. The way Evijean described the call, that didn’t sound much like Joe Grey. Dulcie thought about the conversation in the tearoom. Could Evijean have made up that call, to pass her own information to the captain? And, when she glanced at Kit, she knew the tortoiseshell was thinking the same. So what was Evijean’s interest in this? Besides that it was her niece that Gardner raped and murdered. Maybe just a nosy clerk wanting in on the action, sharing information in her own ego trip?

Yet even as Dulcie puzzled over the phone call she began to feel edgy. Not uneasy about the Bleaks now, or the street prowler, or even about Joe Grey. She had every confidence in Joe, in his instincts to come out on top. Something else was bothering her. Rising, she began to pace the top of the bookshelf.

Is it the kittens? she thought nervously. Is it time? She felt no pain, there were no contractions, though the little mites were, as usual, squirmy and restless. Kit watched her with alarm, her yellow eyes wide.

Below them, Max was on the phone again when the cats heard Charlie’s voice in the hall. They watched Charlie and Ryan squeeze into the room, both dressed in jeans and Tshirts. Watched them move out of the way among the crowded furniture, looking with interest at the evidence, the shoes and photos and Ben’s notes—though most of their attention was on Dulcie. Charlie, taller than Ryan, reached up to pet her.

Dulcie stiffened when Charlie scooped her up; she glared at Charlie indignantly. Charlie lifted her gently down and cuddled her—imprisoned her—in her arms. Securely gripping the nape of Dulcie’s neck so she couldn’t leap away. Holding her captive. Shocked, she hissed at Charlie. When Ryan reached over to gently stroke her, she growled and hissed at Ryan, too. What wasthis? Neither Charlie nor Ryan had ever manhandled her. Captive, incensed, she wanted to snag her claws in Charlie’s red hair and pull hard. She was mad as hell and she couldn’t say a word. Couldn’t swear. Couldn’t scream for help. She could only snarl and growl.

“What the hell?” Max said. “What’s the matter with her? You only picked her up.” Putting his arm around Charlie, he reached out his hand to see if Dulcie would strike at him, too.

She didn’t, she drew back. She could not bloody the chief, that was unthinkable.

But even so, Max’s hand paused in midair. “What … ?” He looked hard at Dulcie, and then at Charlie. “This cat’s pregnant, no wonder she’s cranky. Didn’t you know she’s pregnant? Does Wilma know? She shouldn’t be out on the streets like this, look at her.” Max might be a tough cop, but he had a tenderness for Dulcie and Joe and Kit, just as he did for all animals.

But now Charlie and Ryan looked at him with cool female tolerance.“Yes, pregnant,” Charlie said, “waiting for kittens. We came to get her.”

Juana watched the scene with amusement. Davis had cats, too, but neither one was in danger of getting pregnant. Billy, stepping up beside Max, stroked Dulcie’s ears and face. Then, taking liberties Dulcie would allow to only a few, he felt her belly knowingly.

“Pretty soon,” Billy said, looking up at Charlie. “Less than two weeks?” Billy had taken in rescue cats since he was a small boy; in the last few years he had helped birth more kittens than he could count, strays that came to him half starved when he’d lived in the shack down by the riverbed, strays more prevalent before CatFriends got to work saving lost and abandoned cats and ferals.

Max said,“Wilma can’t want her running the village when her time is so close. Why did she let her out? If the kittens come early on some rooftop, in some out-of-the-way place …”

“Dulcie’s supposed to be locked up,” Charlie said innocently. “Wilma called, she’s frantic and is out looking for her. Somehow Dulcie managed to slip out through her cat door. I’ll take her home,” she said, keeping a strong grip on the nape of Dulcie’s neck.

Beside them, Ryan put her arm around Billy.“And you and I need to get back to work, finish cleaning up until we know what the Bleaks intend to do. Keep on building, or scrap the job?” she said with irritation. “Charlie can drive us over. I left my truck there.”

“Don’t leave Billy there alone,” Max said, “until we have this sorted out. Are you carrying?”

“In my truck,” Ryan said.

“Wear it,” Max said.

Charlie’s eyes widened. She nodded, gave Max a kiss, careful not to squash Dulcie between them, and they left.

In the SUV Dulcie didn’t need to be held captive. She snuggled on Charlie’s lap obedient and silent—worrying again about Joe Grey. Had he followed the Bleaks when they left the station, was he watching their apartment? Was he in the apartment? Was that why she felt so nervous? If he had followed them, he’d be sure to find a way inside. She didn’t want to think of him shut in alone, with those two. Maybe she and Charlie should swing by the Bleaks’ rental, after they’d dropped off Ryan and Billy.

And maybe not. Maybe that would make things worse, would really alarm the Bleaks, would make them run or would put Joe in jeopardy.

She didn’t know what to do; she was in a quandary and that wasn’t like her. She wanted to race over there herself, but when she felt the kittens squirming she knew she wouldn’t.

Charlie pulled up in front of the remodel beside Ryan’s truck, and Ryan and Billy got out. As Charlie headed away again, she gently stroked Dulcie. “I’m sorry I manhandled you. You looked determined to take off. Tell me about the photos and shoes, and what happened with Billy? Those Bleaks didn’t really accuse him!”

“They did,” Dulcie said. “Kit told me, blow by blow.” She passed on to Charlie everything she knew, from Sam’s fake attack and the Bleaks’ accusation of Billy, to the conversation in the tearoom, to Evijean’s strange phone message. Charlie was silent as she pulled up in front of the stone cottage, putting the details together. Wilma came hurrying out, scowling at Dulcie and ready to scold her. But instead Wilma gathered her up in a hug of relief, and Dulcie relaxed against her. Purring, she patted a soft paw against Wilma’s cheek—and she could smell a pot roast cooking. Yawning against Wilma, suddenly drained of all her cat energy, she wanted only to eat and then sleep warm in Wilma’s arms.

25

When Joe had left the station, he’d had every intention of tossing the Bleaks’ apartment for evidence; surveillance was not enough. Racing the length of the courthouse roof, he hit the peaks above Jane’s Knitting, Matelle Bakery, and three upscale clothing stores. On the roof of a small motel he galloped past second-floor windows, surprising a little child looking out. From a patio caf? across the street, the smell of frying onions followed him as he headed a block north to the tall, two-story frame on the corner, the butter-yellow house named Daffodil Walk. There were no daffodils in the scruffy fenced yard.

The small rental cottage at the back might once have been brown. It was not fenced, as was the big house. A narrow, cracked drive led from the side street to the cottage’s attached one-car garage that jutted out in front. The Bleaks’ white van stood to the right of the drive on a patch of grass, handy to the front steps. Oak trees shaded both yards.

Dropping into a tangle of twisted branches, Joe made his way to the back. In the yard of the big house a heavy-shouldered Rottweiler stopped chewing on a fallen branch and stared up at him, his yellow eyes small and mean, his growl a low rumble. He glared unblinking as Joe slipped over the hip of the cottage roof out of sight. The beast knew he was still there, could surely smell him; but, not seeing the invading feline, he might be less likely to bark and draw attention.

Stepping stones led from the street along the drive to the front door of the cottage. Over in the fenced yard the dog rumbled once more, leaped at the closed gate, then returned to maul his oak branch. Joe could see a kennel at the back near the big house.

Padding on across the cottage’s ragged shingles, he backed down the last gnarled tree into the sweet smell of mock orange bushes shedding their wilted flowers. A temporary wooden ramp led up beside the three steps to the small porch. The front door stood open.

The van’s passenger door was wide open, too, revealing Tekla’s black-clad backside where she leaned in. Her posterior and thighs looked narrow as a boy’s. She backed out, carrying a crookedly folded blanket, a six-pack of bottled water, and a handful of road maps. Before she could turn toward the house Joe was inside and under the first shelter he came to: a padded bench against a short wall that faced the front door. Diving under, he glimpsed the small, crowded living room beyond.

To the left of the front door in a narrow alcove hung two Windbreakers and a yellow raincoat on wooden hooks. The front door itself was flanked by tall panes on either side, swirly glass so you could see only a person’s shape and what color he was wearing. The glass panes were the perfect arrangement for a thief. Only a moment to break the window, reach through and turn the key; unless, of course, one had had the foresight to remove the key.

To the right of the front door a narrower, closed door probably led to the garage, Joe could smell the oil-rubber-tire-mildew scent common to most village garages. To the right of that door was the kitchen alcove with a small breakfast table. The cramped living room behind him held a faded couch, a fake leather easy chair, a TV on a rolling stand, a depressing tableau for the desperate renter.

Two hard-sided suitcases stood beneath the hanging coats beside the front door. From the shadows beneath the bench, he watched Tekla lay the blanket on the larger one, set the maps and the bottled water on the blanket. As she shut the front door the hinge gave a little squeak. Her black jogging shoes were inches from his nose as she headed down a short hall to his left past a tiny bedroom to a larger one at the back. He followed her, praying she wouldn’t glance around. At the sound of Sam’s muffled voice from the back room, Joe froze. “You want all these clothes?” He didn’t sound happy.

“Just the front ones,” Tekla snapped. She moved on to the larger bedroom, Joe following; even this room was minuscule. Just space for a double bed partly blocking a glass door with the draperies drawn, a dresser, a small armoire that would hold a TV. Tekla entered the small walk-in closet, its door standing wide, Sam’s wheelchair parked beside it. Joe waited in the shadows, watching.

Inside the closet Sam was standing up, supporting himself by gripping the overhead rod. As Tekla lifted off the first few hangers, Joe slipped across behind them to the unmade bed and underneath to the far side.

Rearing up between bed and draperies, he considered the suitcase that lay open atop the tangled sheets and blankets. He was poised to disappear again if they turned. The suitcase was packed with Spandex pants and shirts, most of them black. On top of a folded black tank top lay a handgun, a dark automatic. The clip was in, and he assumed that was loaded. Another clip lay beside it, and two boxes of ammunition marked .32 caliber brass jacketed hollow point, a hundred rounds each. The same caliber bullets as the one that killed Ben.

If he could get out of here with the gun, that would be all ballistics needed—compare these riflings to the bullet that murdered Ben.

Why had he been so sure he’d find a gun? The right gun? And, what am I doing shut in this house within grabbing distance of these people? They’d seen him at the remodel; they knew him, if they’d paid any attention. Whatever, they’d have to wonder what a cat was doing in here.

So they wonder. So, what are they going to think? That I’m tossing the place?

But even so, Sam and Tekla gave him the creeps. In the closet, Sam was saying,“ … was a stupid thing to do, a cockamamie idea. You only set the cops onto us.”

“They were already onto us, poking around like they were.”

“That’s your imagination.”

“That boy was right there in the house that morning, he could have seen everything.”

“Then why didn’t he tell the cops?”

“I don’t know, Sam. But I don’t trust him. And it was too good an opportunity to miss, you falling like that on the edge of the walk, wrenching your arm and crying out. There was no one around to say you weren’t pushed and that it wasn’t the boy did it. I thought he was alone this morning, we saw the contractor and that red-bearded carpenter in the village, I thought he’d be alone in the remodel and no one to say where he really was … Put him in as bad a light as possible in case he did tell what he saw that morning. Maybe he saw nothing, maybe he heard the shot, butmake a liar of him right off, before he started talking. It was just too good not to say it was him. How was I to know he was with the damn cops?”

“You blew it, Tekla. And you made me lie for you. Again,” he said darkly.

“I never made you lie for me. You could have—”

Sam laughed, a bitter, small sound.“What was I supposed to do? Call you a liar, in front of the cops?

“As it is,” he said, easing out of the closet and into his wheelchair, “they’re suspicious now, all right. Hurry it up, let’s get moving. They might have already put a watch on this place.”

He was silent a moment, getting settled properly in the wheelchair.“I want out, Tekla. I want out of this now, I want done with this even if Herbert was—is—my son.”

As Sam turned the chair to wheel toward the bed, Joe slid to the floor and behind the draperies. Looking out through the small space where the two drapes met, he watched Tekla turn to the suitcase carrying a plastic grocery bag.“And what about the house?” Sam was saying. “All that work—and money.”

“Have we ever worried about money? I have my ways. When we get where we’re going, we contact the Realtor, sell the house in the name of Bleak.” She turned to look at him. “There was a good chance no one would ever find out, that we could have stayed right here, live rich in this village fora while. Rub elbows with the movie stars,” she said, laughing.

“It didn’t work out, did it, Tekla?”

“No matter. Everything’s set up for the sale, escrow and bank accounts in the Bleak name, fix it like we always do. Sell the place from a distance and move on.” Reaching deep in the suitcase beneath the folded black spandex, she pulled out four rust-colored folders, the kind of heavy envelopes that a bank might use. Fanning them out, she chose one. “This will do.”

Putting the other three back beneath the clothes, she shoved the one envelope in her purse. She removed a golf cap from the plastic bag, wadded the bag inside to keep the cap from wrinkling, and tucked it down in the side of the suitcase. The plain beige cap had a ponytail attached to the back, a dark auburn hairpiece—stirring a perfect picture of early mornings when the cats would see a lone runner on the beach, her auburn ponytail bouncing in the dawn light.

Though sometimes they would see a blonde running, equally petite, loose blond hair streaming out the back, and sometimes running with a young boy. Or sometimes it was two boys, both wearing baseball caps.

Tekla picked up the gun, checked what Joe assumed was the safety. She fished a soft, pistol-shaped gun case from a side pocket of the suitcase, slipped the gun and the extra clip into it, zipped it up, and slid it back into the slim pocket.

“Aren’t you going to … ?”

“I don’t want to be caught with the guns. Not until we’re out of California. Unsecured, loaded guns on us, and an underage kid in the same car?” She looked at Sam, scowling. “I don’t think so.”

“What about Arnold?”

“I called the school, he’s on his way. I said his daddy was hurt bad, had been assaulted like those others. He …” They heard the front door slam, and Arnold called out.

“In here,” Tekla answered as Joe drew deeper behind the drapery. Adult eyes, even Tekla’s, might miss him. But kids were so nosy, and Arnold made him nervous. And what did she mean, guns? Where were the rest? How many guns? What did they have, a whole arsenal?

“What are you doing?” Arnold said, stomping in.

“Get packed,” Tekla said.

He kicked at the corner of the bed.“Why are we leaving this time? What’s happened now?”

“Just get packed. Make it snappy.”

Arnold stomped out. Joe listened to him banging around in the other bedroom as if heaving his possessions into a suitcase. But Joe had to smile. They might think they were hauling out of there, but Harper’s patrol would have a tail on them, pronto. What made them imagine they could dodge the cops in that big white van?

When Sam retreated to the closet again, and Tekla followed him, reaching to sort through another load of clothes, Joe slid up into the suitcase. Feeling carefully along the sides and between the folded layers, he searched for other guns. He shocked himself, quickly drew his paw back, when he uncovered the cold stainless steel of a big, heavy revolver.

It was twice the size of the automatic, smooth and slick to the paw, not holstered, not encased in anything he could carry.

But the one he wanted was the automatic, the gun that could have killed Ben. Feeling into the narrow pocket where he’d seen her stash the padded gun case, he took it in his teeth. Praying the safety was indeed on and that there was no shell in the chamber, gingerly he hauled it out. Easing it to the floor, he half carried, half slid it across to the armoire, guiding the muzzle away from him, all the while keeping an eye on the closet and listening to Arnold banging around; he didn’t want to hear silence from the boy, see him slipping back into the bedroom.

With a careful paw he pushed the gun case under the armoire as far back as he could reach. If she missed this gun and went looking for it, maybe she wouldn’t look here.

The banging from the next room stopped. When Arnold’s footsteps started down the hall Joe slid fast under the armoire, flat on his belly beside the gun case, flat as a sardine mashed in a can.

At the bedroom door, Arnold paused.“You want the suitcases in the van?”

“Leave them by the front door,” Tekla said.

Arnold turned, his footsteps scuffing away down the hall. Joe heard him drop his suitcase by the door. Tekla swung over to the bed, stood a moment as if arranging clothes in the open suitcase, then a thump and click as she closed and latched it. The space beneath the armoire smelled of dust, dust clung to his whiskers, and, peering out, he could see dust under the bed and along the edge of the fallen blankets. He hoped to hell he wasn’t going to sneeze. Across the dusty floor he could clearly see drag marks where he’d moved the gun and that made his heart pound.

Tekla, busy hauling the suitcase out to the entry, barely noticed Sam grappling with his own, smaller suitcase and the wheelchair. He finally got the suitcase aboard, and the chair turned around in the tight space. Tekla was much more helpful in public. At the front of the house Joe heard a door open, but not the front door with its squeaky hinge. The other bedroom door wasopen. Only the garage had been closed.

Could they have another car? He’d never seen them in anything but the van. Could they have kept a car hidden, ready to travel? They meant to leave the van so it would look like they were still home? If they left in a different car, without a description, they’d be hell to find once they got out on the freeways. A cop would have to spot the Bleaks themselves, and because of Tekla’s little tricks with hairstyles, even that could be iffy.

26

Joe heard Tekla drag a suitcase across the entry, heard it clunk down a couple of steps into the garage and the door slam. He heard a click and then a thunk, as if the tailgate of a hatchback or SUV had been opened Skinning out from beneath the armoire, he slipped down the hall, leaving the gun hidden. Halfway down, he froze. The door to the garage opened and Arnold clumped in—but he turned away to the kitchen. Joe heard the refrigerator open. While the kid was occupied, Joe hit for the bench and under it.

Tekla’s purse stood on top. He longed to claw it open and drag out that narrow brown envelope. He pulled deeper into the shadows as Arnold came back munching, smelling of peanut butter. The boy, turning back into the garage, let the door slam behind him: one of those spring-hinged jobs as lethal as a spring-loaded rat trap. Before the door slammed shut Joe tried to see in, see what kind of car, but he got only a glimpse. The space was dim, the big garage door still closed. With Arnold blocking the view, he could see only a dull brown, dirt-encrusted rear fender and open tailgate where the car had been backed in, perhaps for faster loading. Now, with the inner door to the house shut again, he heard the faint sounds of suitcases thumping into the back and the mumble of their voices, could make out only a few scattered words. Behind him Sam was coming down the hall, sounded as if he were pushing his wheelchair, leaning on it in an uneven walk. The garage door opened again and Tekla came into the entry. “Leave the chair, Arnold will bring it. Arnold, help your father get in the car.”

Arnold appeared, shoving the last of his sandwich in his mouth. In that moment, as he clumsily handed his father down the two steps into the garage, Joe saw the SUV more clearly, but it didn’t help much. Faded brown in color and far from new, but he didn’t recognize the make, nor could he see a logo. Creeping out straining to see the license, he sucked back fast as Tekla turned.

Picking up her coat and purse from atop the bench above him, and Sam’s and Arnold’s jackets, she hauled them into the garage, letting the door slam closed. This time Joe heard the dead bolt turn. In a moment the car started, the garage door rumbled up, he heard them pull out and the door rattled down again.

He leaped at the knob, swinging and kicking—but the dead bolt held tight. They were gone, gone before he’d seen much of the car, and sure as hell they were headed for the freeway.

The van still stood in the narrow drive, the van the police would be watching. Paws sweating in his haste, he searched the house for a phone. He looked everywhere, every room, but found only empty jacks. They must have used only their cell phones. Half their belongings were still scattered about. In Arnold’s room, wrinkled clothes, school papers, empty drink cans strewn everywhere. By the front door, the three coats still hung abandoned. But they’d taken the front-door key.

They couldn’t have left it unlocked? Were they gone for good and didn’t care if someone came in? Maybe they had simply left what they didn’t want? Leaping, he swung on the knob until he’d turned it. Holding it, kicking hard against the molding, he fought until he was out of breath but he couldn’t force it open.

He wanted out of there, wanted to get to a phone. Turning, he surveyed the small crowded rooms.

He seldom saw a house he couldn’t break into or out of. Always he and Dulcie were able to jimmy a window or a lock somewhere. But as he made the rounds of the small cottage, leaping up to each sill, he found himself fighting uselessly. The metal bolt locks were driven down hard into the molding; all were so old they maybe wouldn’t slide at all. Didn’t these people ever open a window? The old house had settled, too, making everything even harder to operate. Maybe the bedroom slider would work better; he had seen a narrow patio beyond. Maybe in spite of the position of the bed, they might have used that opening on warm nights.

Slipping in behind the bedroom draperies, he peered at the slim crack where the moldings met. He could glimpse the engaged dead bolt, the door securely locked. When he leaped for the lever that would unlock it, it flipped right down. Scrambling up again he gripped the handle with both paws and kicked against the wall. Kicked again and again. The door remained solidly closed, stuck tight. Or was it screwed close? Yes, when he examined the bottom molding, there were four big screws embedded.

When he checked the bathroom window, it was frozen in place. They sure as hell didn’t believe in fresh air. Or the landlord didn’t. Doubling back through the house, he peered up at the ceiling-high heat vents, their grids secured with rusted screws. Even if he could climb on the bookcase in the boy’s room—which was crowded with junk and sports equipment, not books—even if he could somehow get into the vent, where would that lead him?

Inside the heater, that’s where.

By the time he reached the kitchen, one bruised paw was bleeding and he felt as mean as the Rottweiler. By this time the Bleaks would be well out of town on one of the freeways, headed who knew where? And the van still in the drive to keep Harper’s patrol complacent. Springing to the counter beside the sink, he peered out the kitchen window.

The main house was just to his left. Straight ahead across the narrow, scrubby yard and just inside the woven fence, the Rottweiler was demolishing the last of the oak branch. Joe envisioned a huge lump of splinters in the dog’s stomach. Despite his distaste for the mean-tempered animal, Joe didn’t envy him that misery.

A light was on in the yellow house, in what looked like the kitchen. Behind the thin curtains he could see a figure moving about, maybe fixing a bite of lunch. Stepping onto the sill Joe tried the window lock, but this, too, was totally stuck. One of those ancient curved jobs that would have to be turned with pliers. Maybe even pliers couldn’t budge it—the device was thick with coats of old paint. Watching through the window as the Rottweiler pursued his frenzied chewing, Joe reared up against the glass.

The moment the dog paused to get his breath Joe let out a bloodcurdling yowl and raked his claws down the pane. The scritching sound put even Joe’s teeth on edge. The Rottweiler paused, looking up. Joe stretched taller and gave another howl. The dog stared at him, roared, and charged the fence hard enough to break through—but the fence held. When Joe yowled and clawed again, the Rottweiler’s barking frenzy brought the back door crashing open. A broad-shouldered, bearded man stepped out clutching a leash in one hand, a cell phone in the other, holding the phone to his ear—talking, and watching the cottage.

Joe couldn’t hear a word with the dog roaring. Twice the man stopped talking to shout at the dog, but it kept on barking and lunging. Still talking on the phone, the guy came down off the porch and headed for the cottage. He paused once, looked back uncertainly at the dog, glanced down at the leash, and turned back toward the closed gate.

Don’t bring him. Leave him be, he’ll only complicate matters, don’t bring the damned dog.

The man opened the gate, shouting to quiet the animal. When he leashed the Rottweiler, the dog settled down. Together man and beast headed for the cottage.

Joe heard them walking around the yard, circling the house, the dog huffing and snarling. When Joe heard the man’s step on the porch and the click of doggy toenails he fled past the front door to the open alcove where the coats were left hanging. He leaped, hung with his paws on the shelf above the hooks. With his hind feet he kicked down the wrinkled jackets, dropped on top of them and pawed them into a heap. They smelled of the boy and of Tekla. Outside the glass, the man had paused, still talking on the phone. Yes, he was talking with the dispatcher. Joe waited, listening.

“No, I’ll stay on the line,” the man said irritably. He spoke again to the dog, to quiet him, then he knocked and called out to Tekla. His shadow shone through the obscure glass, waiting, listening, the dog a dark mass moving restlessly against his knee.

When no one answered, he knocked harder and called out again. He waited, then,“They’re not home,” he told the dispatcher. “But my dog don’t bark for nothing. Yes, send the patrol. My dog don’t bark for no reason.” When Joe heard keys jingle, he raced halfway down the hall. There, Joe Grey did the unthinkable.

He backed up against the wall and sprayed.

Streaking to the bedroom, he did the same on the bedroom door and then hastily sprayed the bed. Storming back to the entry, he heard the key turn in the lock. Diving beneath the jackets, Joe was out of sight when the door edged open. The Rottweiler, pressing his face at the crack, got a good whiff of tomcat and let out an echoing roar. Joe was peering out, ready to leap up for the closet shelf, when the Rottweiler lunged through, exploded into the entry as black and huge as a rodeo bull, jerking the leash so hard the big man could barely hold him. Charging toward the hall, he bolted for the smell of Joe’s markings, the man double-timing behind him, leaving the door wide.

And Joe was out of there.

Leaping from beneath the jackets, he flew out through the open door as two cops answered the landlord’s call, pulling in behind the van.

Parking their police unit, Officers Brennan and Crowley got out and approached the open door, their hands poised near their holstered weapons. Joe watched from the bushes for only a moment and then he was off, scrambling up the oak to the roofs, streaking away home. Racing for a phone, to get the message to Brennan and Crowley before they cleared the house and left again. He wanted them to find the gun, not leave it there unguarded. He wanted them, in proper police procedure, to bag it at once, fresh with Tekla’s prints.

27

Dulcie, having been chauffeured home by Charlie—like an invalid, she thought irritably—woke much later warm and cozy curled in Wilma’s lap. It was late afternoon, the westering sun slanting in through the living room windows across Wilma’s cherry desk. How hard she had slept. She woke filled with strange dreams, though already they were fading. She tried to bring them back, but they had flown apart, vanishing into fragments. Why did dreams do that?

All that remained was the sense of danger, of Joe Grey’s fear. But now even that was fading—and as fear vanished, she was filled with Joe’s wild amusement. She could hear faintly from the dream the roar of a barking dog. She sat up, puzzled, kneading Wilma’s leg, pushing Wilma’s book aside.

Wilma stroked her, watching her.“What?” she said softly.

“A dog, a huge dog threatening Joe. A gun. And … Tekla. Tekla Bleak,” she said, hissing. “But now … Joe’s all right, it’s all right. He’s all right,” she said, purring. She looked into the fire that burned on the hearth, trying to sort out what she’d seen, what exactly had happened. As she reached for the dream again, trying to slip back into its shadows, faces and action overlapped into softer visions, and soon she dozed once more and Wilma returned to her book.

But then as she fell into sleep a brighter vision touched Dulcie, not a dream at all but something more alive and urgent shaking her awake, her heart pounding.

“It’s time,” she said, leaping down from Wilma’s lap. “Something’s happening, it’s time.”

“The kittens!” Wilma said, shoving her book aside and getting up.

“No,” Dulcie said, “not the kittens. It’s Misto.” She shivered, staring at Wilma. “It’s time to go to Misto.”

Wilma grabbed her purse, smothered the fire with ashes, found a jacket on the hook in the kitchen. She never questioned Dulcie’s perception. She picked Dulcie up gently and they were out the kitchen door into the bright afternoon, into the car, backing out. “What did you see? What did you dream?”

Dulcie snuggled close against her.“I was with Misto in another place, not Molena Point, not this world but a place so bright, larger than our world could ever be, the sky stretching away more huge than our sky and millions of miles of green hills rolling on and on and up into endlessness … And yet,” Dulcie said, “at the same moment we were in our own village, so tiny in those vast spaces. I can’t explain how that could be, we floated in eternity but still were in our own tiny village, and then … And then Misto and I were in the village library but the room, the book stacks, were dwarfed like a tiny jewel in endless space. We were looking through old, old books at pictures of my little calico, the way I dream of her, the way Misto describes her. We were looking at our girl kitten over the centuries. The same sweet face, sly and clever, the same faded calico markings and dark swirling stripes, and her little soft paws.

“There she was in those ancient tapestries and books, in lives so many generations gone. There, in one century and then another, born to different times, though Misto said she will remember little of those lives. But now,” she said, “he has shown her to me for the last time. Now Misto himselfis going home. My dream of Courtney is his parting gift.”

Slowing the car, Wilma turned onto the Firettis’ street. She felt cold, her hands shaking. Parking before the cottage, she lifted Dulcie as if, Dulcie thought, she were as frail as porcelain. Contritely Dulcie leaped from Wilma’s arms into the fern bed by the Firettis’ front door, the fronds soft beneath her tummy and paws. She waited as Wilma knocked, both strung tight with heartbreak—but both would smile and comfort Misto. They would offer only brightness to the old cat, would lay only love before the venerable cat they so treasured.

In much the same way that Dulcie knew Misto needed her, Kit looked up suddenly from hunting gophers in Lucinda’s garden. She had come home from MPPD alone, abandoned by Joe, left on her own by Dulcie and Ryan and Charlie; had padded home feeling lonely and not sufficiently praised for finding and retrieving the evidence of shoes; had padded home to her empty house, to hunt alone in her empty garden. But now suddenly she turned from the gopher hole, startled. She listened. She sat very still looking away across the village, hearing in her thoughts a bright whisper. She felt awash suddenly in brilliance. Joy filled her, a need filled her, the old cat was calling to her …

She was distracted suddenly as the gopher stuck his head out. She grabbed and killed it all in a second, in a fast reflex, and then she bolted away, left the dead gopher lying limp and forgotten. The old cat was calling her. She raced away through neighbors’ gardens and up to the roofs and down and down across the shingles and peaks of cottages and shops, hurrying, sprinting for the Firettis’ cottage.

But Joe Grey, bolting home from the Bleaks’ empty rental, was driven by another mission. Still smiling at his well-timed escape from the Rottweiler, he leaped into his tower and through it onto the high rafter and dropped down onto Clyde’s desk. From the love seat Snowball looked up at him sleepily. She was alone; likely Rock was with Ryan. The little white cat yawned, watching him paw at a pile of papers. Finding his cell phone he punched in the one digit for Max Harper. He waited only two rings.

“Harper,” the chief said shortly.

“The Bleaks have skipped. Left town in another car, a small brown SUV. Clothes, suitcases, maps, like they’re set to travel. I didn’t get a good look at the car, can’t tell you the make, couldn’t see the license. It was in that little garage where they were renting, it was gone when your officers got there. If they’re still there,” Joe said, “there’s a gun in the bedroom, under the armoire. A loaded automatic, in a gun case. Get it out before the damned dog—”

“They have the gun,” Max said, amused. “The dog did find it, but he couldn’t get his nose under.” Max was silent, then, “We lifted a couple of pretty good prints, good match for Tekla’s. We’ve sent the gun to the lab.”

Once again Joe smiled to hear that Max was confiding in him. This whole situation was different from past cases. But there was something else that he hadn’t yet told Max. “There’s a second gun in Tekla’s suitcase. A big, stainless steel revolver. I couldn’t get a good look to tell what make.”

But it was the automatic that was the real evidence. If the riflings on it matched the bullet that killed Ben, they’d have the Bleaks cold. Have evidence far more telling than a notebook and phone and torn pieces from a mouse nest.

And yet now, even after Max had thanked him and they’d ended the call, Joe had an edgy, “something waiting in the background” feeling, as if something were yet to happen. He looked down at Snowball, who was deeply asleep again. He listened to the hollowness of the empty house. He stared away to the east of the village where Ocean Avenue met Highway One, where the Bleaks would have escaped—and suddenly he was out of there, leaping nervously from the desk to the rafter.

With a sudden sure sense of what was wrong, he was through his tower onto the shingles, streaking away across the roofs of the village plaza and the cottages and shops beyond. Heading not toward the tangle of highways where the Bleaks would be speeding, where no cat could ever catch them. Heading for Firetti’s Veterinary Clinic, led strongly now by the same urgency that had called Dulcie and had summoned Kit.

In the Firetti bedroom, the old cat didn’t sleep. He was not, this day, feeling exhausted; he was not drugged by medication. He had had no pain shots since the night before, nor did he want them. His body was in a transition that he knew well.

Though he was weak, he had put his failing aside, had found a new temporary strength. He sat tall on the bed, snuggled all around by his furry entourage, by Kit and Pan and Dulcie, and now Joe Grey as the tomcat slipped in across the room and up on the bed to join them. In Joe’s eyes there was sadness, there was hurt at what was to come.

The cats heard Wilma’s and Mary’s voices from the living room, but the two women didn’t enter. They heard the fire crackle to life and sensed its warmth. The old cat looked at each of them and smiled. He put a paw on the paw of his son Pan, his constant companion these last days. He looked at Kit. “You found shoes,” he said, smiling. “You hauled all that evidence across the yards and hid it for Captain Harper to find.”

Kit beamed.

He looked at Joe and the old cat shook his head.“That Rottweiler could have eaten you in one gulp, tomcat.”

Joe’s eyes widened. The venerable cat’s omniscience unnerved him.

“You did well, Joe Grey. But you’ll soon be a father.” He gave Joe a stern look but said no more. Smiling at Joe, he turned to Dulcie.

“You have another poem in your head, my dear. So much goes on, within. Even as you nurture your kittens, that clear voice nudges you. Those words want life, too. Your verses want to taketheir place in this world. Will you tell us this one?”

“A little of it,” Dulcie shyly. “Just a little …”

Duchess of the garbage can

Queen of the alley

Lolling under dustbins

Rolling fat and jolly

No thin beggar, never shy

This lady dines most royally

Fine salami, leftover Brie

Scraps of salmon from the sea

She is beautifully obese

Who feasts on kippers and roast geese

Queen of the garbage can

Duchess of the alley

Accepting largesse with greed

Rolling fat and jolly.

Her words made Misto laugh.“Your children will grow up on poetry,” he told her. “Poetry and,” he said, looking at Joe Grey, “maybe on cop work, too.”

The old cat settled back, and he told them a final tale. He held close his guardians of love. They waited together for his final moment, for the instant when he would step away from them into his next great journey. Misto painted for them, now, realms he would again travel; he gave them views down upon the earth, deep into ancient lands as if those times were again alive. He showed Joe and Dulcie moments from their kittens’ own pasts, each experience a tangle of puzzles.

Slyly Misto showed Joe Grey the tomcat’s past lives that Joe did not remember and didn’t want to remember. At Joe’s dismay, Misto laughed.

To Joe, those faraway moments, if they had ever really existed, were gone and done, not part of life here and now. Life was in the moment and that was as it should be.

But for Dulcie and Kit and Pan, the glimpses Misto gave them into kinder realms beyond earthly evil, that promise was a valued gift, and the cats reached their paws close around him. They held Misto, snuggled with him as he dozed in a light and easy sleep. It was later in the small hours of morning that they woke.

28

Misto died before dawn. It was just after four, the witching hour, the hour when restless human sleepers wake filled with unsettling thoughts, when restless felines rise and stretch bright eyed and hit the bedroom floor or the cold ground, ready to prowl, that secret and exciting hour that all cats welcome, knowing adventure waits.

Misto woke fully from last night’s gentle sleep. Beside him, Pan and Kit and Joe and Dulcie still slept, deep under, curled close around him. Misto smiled at the dear cats, guardians of his frail body and of his restless spirit. John and Mary lay on the bed dozing near them, but when Misto woke, they woke. All four cats woke, startled.

It was time.

Misto lifted his head and looked at John; his look said the pain had returned and it was very bad. His look said that now he wanted help. It was time.

John Firetti rose, and with care and tenderness he prepared the shot that would bring a cessation of pain, that would bring peace. Tenderly he administered the medication and, leaning down, he kissed Misto’s forehead and ears. Mary leaned close over the other cats, kissing Misto’s face.

In seconds he was gone.

Now, in this world, Misto slept deep and forever, but beyond this world a brightness glowed. They all could see it, they watched Misto’s spirit rise up, they could feel his passing, they saw his golden form as delicate as gauze above them. He was, for a moment, a clear light above them, and then he was gone. To another place.

They sat with him for some time. No one moved or spoke. From far away they felt his spirit caress them, and an echo of his thoughts drifted back to them: Do not grieve, I am with you. You have lives to live, wrongs to right before you complete your journey. You have kittens to raise,his voice said with a smile, before you move on to the next adventure.

As dawn began to color the sky, John and Mary rose. They fetched the little casket that John had prepared, with its carved designs of flowers and trees and its silk liner. They laid Misto within, and John said a prayer for him.

In the living room Wilma rose from the couch where she had dozed. They carried Misto in his small casket to his resting place, which Mary had prepared in the garden. The morning was chill, barely light, the sky streaked with trails of dark clouds and the first hints of sunrise shining through; it was the kind of morning Misto liked best.

The humans knelt. John uncovered the grave he had dug, set among its five granite boulders. The cats crept close and sat quietly. It was then that Kate appeared and, behind her, silent and close together, came Ryan and Clyde, and Charlie. Ryan took Wilma’s hand. Both wiped away tears.

John laid Misto’s casket in the flower-lined grave between the granite boulders. They patted the earth down, each hand and each paw adding a benediction.

When the grave was covered, each mourner said a few words, then Mary planted primroses over the little mound. As they turned away, weeping, in Dulcie’s head the words of a poem began. The first few words of an ode to Misto, a bright caress that would be a long time in the making, but would speak for all of them.

Golden spirit, you reach down

Your ghostly paw to touch the earth you love

To touch the sea

To stroke the lakes and rivers …

29

It was later that morning that Max Harper received a third call on the BOL for Tekla and Sam Bleak. All three reports were from California Highway Patrol. Max hadn’t had much description to put out, no make or model, no year, no license number. Just an older brown SUV, faded and dirty. One responder thoughtit might be an older Chevy. None caught the license number, the plates were smeared with dirt. In one response the car carried three occupants. In the others, only two people were visible. It annoyed him that the snitch hadn’t gotten a better handle on the car, hadn’t found a way to follow it.But then, Max hadn’t been there to witness the action; maybe the car had vanished too fast. The positive part was, in all three calls the car was moving east, heading now through Nevada.

This same morning, in Anchorage, the Greenlaws parted from Mike and Lindsey Flannery, watched them take off in a light plane for a few more days of fishing north of Anchorage. The Greenlaws spent the morning comfortably before the Inn’s fireplace. Their flexible schedule and their several side trips aboard small ferries had been exciting, but they were tired out, they missed Kit, they worried about her—it was time to go home.

And it was much earlier that morning that, up at the new shelter construction, Kate Osborne ended up crying in the arms of Ryan’s uncle Scott, her tears drenching Scotty’s red beard. Kate wasn’t sure how this had happened. Scotty wasn’t sure what Kate was crying about. He knew she was grieving for Ben. He knew that the Firettis’ old yellow cat had died, that Ryan and Billy were sad about him, too.

But no one could tell Scotty how deep the grieving went, no one could tell him Misto’s story. In Scotty’s arms, she didn’t try to stop the tears; she just let herself weep.

She was well aware that Joe Grey and Ryan were glancing in their direction, trying not to show their interest in this sudden tenderness—but did they have to stare?

When she had arrived at the shelter site, parking beside Ryan’s red king cab, Scotty had looked up from where he was installing a window. He had paused in his work, watching her approach, had looked hard at her, at her tear-blotched face. She had headed on back into the building, but he’d stopped her.

“Kate?”

She’d turned, looking at him in spite of her tears. He’d switched off the drill, laid it down and, as natural as the shining of the sun, he’d put his arms around her, had held her, let her cry against him. Across the yard Joe Grey, draped over Ryan’s shoulder, watched the couple until Ryan politely walked away to disappear behind the building.

“When did this start?” she asked the tomcat. “It’s just this week that I’ve noticed.”

Joe shrugged.“How do I know when it started? You put Scotty up here working on the shelter, and Kate is here all the time. How can he work around Kate Osborne and not be aware of her, she’s a knockout.”

Ryan looked at him. She said nothing. She moved farther back among the raw wooden beams and posts behind the main building. Sunlight warmed the plastered block walls of the shelter and warmed the three outdoor enclosures—these open-air spaces would be living quarters for dozens of feral cats who would not want to be shut inside. Wild-living cats that CatFriends would neuter, give their shots, and turn loose again in their own colonies.

Ryan said,“If Scotty and Kate get serious, that does present problems.”

Joe agreed. Scotty and Kate would be another couple where one partner knew the cats’ secret and one didn’t. Scotty had no notion the cats could speak. Not an easy way to live, where one member of a happy couple had to harbor lies, as did Charlie Harper. No happily wed couple wanted the dark specter of deception shadowing their honesty with each other. And in Kate’s case, the stress could be worse.

Kate, who had divorced a philandering husband long ago, said she’d never trust another man. Scotty, the loner, dated casually but had never found a woman he loved—he said he wouldn’t marry for less than a deep, true commitment. How would Kate hide the truth from him, when she herself had such a close connection to speaking cats?

Joe looked around for Billy, wondering if he, too, had been watching Kate and Scotty, but then he remembered this was a full school day in the work/school schedule that had been set up for the boy. Joe had turned on Ryan’s shoulder so he could look behind them when Ryan spoke softly. “Look,” she whispered, facing away toward the tree-sheltered Pamillon mansion that stood beyond the rise.

Across the hilly meadow, on the remains of a fallen stone wall, a brown tabby crouched.“One of the clowder cats?” Kate said. “Oh, have they come back from the Netherworld, too? But Kit and Pan can’t know, they didn’t say anything.”

Joe stretched up from her shoulder to look. The tabby was gone, but a white face peered out from the shadows; he could barely see her pale calico against the light stone wall.“Willow,” he said. “That’s Willow! I don’t see the tabby, but Willow’s back! They’re back!” He leaped down to join the clowder cats, racing away.

Ryan stood looking after him. What would this mean? Were the ferals still fine with her building the shelter here? They’d better be, at this late stage. They’d known about it before they descended down the tunnels to that other world. She would not have begun the project without Joe and Dulcie and Kit and Pan seeking out the wild clowder and telling them. Asking them, she thought, smiling.

The ferals had seemed all right with the plan, had seemed comfortable with the close proximity to the rescues. They were pleased with this caring human help for cats in need. Though no one had been sure, in fact, that the little group of feral cats would return from the Netherworld; there were charms and wonders in both lands.

Kate had situated the shelter, and the road that approached it, nearly half a mile from the mansion, away from the ferals’ preferred hunting grounds, from the overgrown rose gardens and the woods beyond. Ryan and Kate hoped, as the shelter was populated, as volunteers came and went, they wouldn’t drive the shy little band away. They would never want to do that. They had already posted small signs around the mansion grounds marking that area dangerous and off-limits.

When Ryan heard the sound of the drill once more and saw Scotty back at work, she found Kate inside the main building in a large communal room, busy with her drawing pad. Planning the cat perches, the overhead walks, the lofts and hiding places to entice the resident cats. Laying down her drawing pad, Kate handed Ryan one end of her tape measure. Neither spoke of Scotty. Kate smiled and hugged Ryan, showed her what she wanted to measure, and said nothing more.

Joe Grey galloped across the wide, hilly berm and through scattered trees into the weedy grounds of the stone mansion, searching for Willow and the ferals. There, by the stone wall: Willow came out, stepping delicately, smiling, then rubbing whiskers with Joe. One by one the ferals appeared to greet him. Soon he was surrounded by seven cats all talking at once. He followed them deep behind the big house where no human would see or hear them. Their eyes were bright with a secret, their tails lashing. There was no small talk, not even tales of their return up the tunnels. What were they so eager to tell him? He had no notion that their message would send him racing away again for a phone.

The ferals greeted him with nose touches and rollovers and a little crazy chasing, then they led him to a narrow dirt road back in the trees beyond the mansion.“You’ll want to see this,” pale-coated Sage said. “This might be for the police. These people that were here made our fur bristle. Those humans coming here into the ruins, they were scum.”

The cats led him down the old sunken road, hidden deep in the woods, where he and Dulcie had sometimes wandered. It was hardly wide enough for a car, so cars never came there. But now a car had come, its tire marks fresh and deep in the mud where a small rivulet crossed. Joe could see where the vehicle had parked and where it had turned around, making several passes, its bumpers and fenders biting into the earthen berm. The feral cats crowded around him, dark tabby Coyote, creamy Tansy, light tabby Sage, and Willow of the pale calico coat, all seven of the small band of ferals that had ventured down to the Netherworld. Willow said, “This is your kind of hunting, Joe Grey. Hunting humans. Those people smelled of evil.”

“The car nearly got stuck,” Coyote said, the long-eared tabby smiling with pleasure. “They came here in daylight yesterday. The first thing they did was turn the car around. Took them a long time, big clumsy wheels spinning in the mud,” and that made Coyote laugh. “Way too big for this narrow road. They waited until dark to leave. Hiding,” the dark tabby said. “Hiding from what?”

“Did they see you?” Joe said.

“Not us,” said Sage, glancing at Tansy. “They had a boy, a big, rude boy, he got out and stamped around in the woods and broke branches and threw them. We made ourselves scarce.”

“What kind of car?” Joe said, not expecting them to remember. “What make?” The ferals didn’t pay much attention to man’s noisy machines, except usually to avoid them.

“Brown,” Willow said. “Like a station wagon.”

“An SUV?”

“I think so. It opened in the back so you could see through to the front. There were suitcases, blankets, as if for traveling. We could see the mark that said Ford. The license was all mud, caked and dry. But close up, you could read it. We thought you might want to know what that was?”

Joe Grey smiled.“Of course I do.” Well, the ferals did know, from past encounters, what police work was about. When Willow told him the number he said it over twice, committing it to memory. Now he burned to get to a phone. He said his hasty good-byes, nudged each cat gently and touched noses and promised to return soon.

“Most likely,” Joe said, “a detective will be out to look the scene over, to photograph the tire marks and those footprints back and forth into the woods.”

“What about our pawprints?” Willow said.

Joe thought about that.“They know there are feral cats up here, they think you are one of the wild bands that CatFriends feeds. Charlie has made it clear you are to be left alone, to be protected. They won’t be surprised to see pawprints.” He gave Willow a final friendly nudge, spun around and raced back through the woods and across the berm to Ryan, praying she hadn’t left.

He found her in the car, sitting quietly. He leaped in.“Thank God you waited.”

“What else would I do? You take off like gangbusters, all riled up. I knew I’d better wait.”

Standing in her lap he snatched up her cell phone and hit the button for the station—hoping he wouldn’t get Evijean.

Of course he got Evijean.“Captain Harper is not …” she began with her delaying routine.

“Evijean,” Joe said coldly, “I have the license number the chief is waiting for. If he doesn’t get itnow, pronto, you’ll never get a recommendation for another job, no matter where you look—and believe me, you’ll be looking.”

Evijean put him through.

The conversation was brief. Max said,“I’m putting the information out as we speak. We’ll see what this gets. Again, many thanks. This could reel in our fish.” And he hung up.

When Joe ended the call Ryan grinned and caught him up in a hug that, as usual, deeply embarrassed him.

When he explained what the ferals had found, she hugged him again, and he felt her tear dampen his cheek.“Those dear clowder cats. I can’t believe they’ve grown so close to humans—to care about human problems, to get that information to you.”

She looked at him, frowning.“If you hadn’t been here, do you think one of them would have come down into the village to find you? The village, the streets and buildings, seem so threatening to them.”

“You and Kate were here, you’re here every day. And Charlie. It was Charlie who sprung that trap for them when one of them was captured, sprung it and crushed it.” Joe looked at her coolly. “They would have come to you,” he said with assurance.

She nodded.“They’ve helped us, helped the law before. They do trust humans. When Sage was so badly hurt by that killer—when he was so scared—he put all his trust in John Firetti to help him—and that was hard,” she said. “Sage was scared to death. But now,” she said, “what made Tekla and Sam turn up in the hills onto that narrow little road instead of hitting the freeway?”

“When they left the rental,” Joe said, “did they see an unmarked surveillance car? Or thoughtthey saw one? Or they passed a black-and-white cruising, maybe it slowed to watch them?”

She smiled.“Whatever happened, they got nervous. Found a place to hole up until dark, thenthey doubled back to the freeway.” She started the car, glancing down at Joe. “I guess you’ll want a ride down to the station, to see how this falls out?”

“I guess I’d like that,” Joe Grey said, twitching a whisker.

“The law will find them now, Joe, with this information. They’re sure to stay on the freeways if they want to make any distance.”

“Right. But which freeway?” He thought of the tangle of highways that led out of Molena Point. “Which freeway, Ryan? And heading where?”

30

Alone in her tree house Kit huddled among her cushions sad and grieving, still licking away tears for Misto. Joe was with Ryan, up at the shelter. Dulcie would be cuddled close to Wilma. And Kit had parted from Pan at the Firettis’: Mary and John need him, they need Misto’s son close. I need him, too, but they need him more. And I need Lucinda and Pedric, I need my dear humans. I need not to be alone just now.

Why had the three of them ever parted? What if something happened to her old couple before they could return from that huge, cold land? But what if something bad had happened in the Netherworld? How would that be any different? How would Lucinda and Pedric feel if Pan and I hadn’t returned?

Besides, she thought sensibly, you could get hit by a truck right here in the village. Life is never certain, no one said it was all neatly laid out and safe. No one said life comes with a guarantee. Pedric always tells Lucinda that. You have to walk quick, watch quicker, and take your chances.

But still she grieved. She napped, and when, waking, still she felt lonely, she left her tree house and went down into the gardens and wild fields to hunt.

It was late that evening that she slipped into Kate’s basement apartment, where Kate had installed a cat door. Having feasted on mice, she licked all the blood off her paws and whiskers to make herself presentable if she were to sleep in Kate’s bed. The cat door made her feel so welcome that she slept there with Kate that night, the next night,and the next; in fact she moved right in. Missing Lucinda and Pedric, she took solace in Kate’s gentle ways and in their small suppers together that were indeed more companionable than any lone hunt. In bed at night they talked about the Netherworld and about Kate’s own adventures there in thedarker realms that Kit and Pan had avoided.

“The magic is all but gone,” Kate said. “As the magic dies, fewer and fewer children are born. Without the magic that includes love, those babies who do live are pale and weak. Even the shape-shifters’ skills are fading … I can no longer change,” Kate said sadly. “After I decided notto do that anymore, I tried twice.” She looked shyly at Kit. “I couldn’t. I miss looking in the mirror and seeing that lovely, cream-colored queen looking back at me, my golden eyes and ivory whiskers, the marmalade streaks in my fur.”

Kate shook her head, embarrassed.“I was lovely,” she said longingly. “Though not as beautiful as you.” She stroked Kit’s m?lange of black, brown, and orange fur, as soft as silk. “I couldn’t change,” she said again sadly. “My own magic was gone.”

Kit felt sad for her. But she couldn’t change, either, she never had; in the Netherworld she and Pan had tried. But they were happy; they didn’t need the complications that came with being a human person. Mortgages, income taxes, stalled cars. Let humans deal with those irritations. Maybe next time around she and Panwould be human, burdened with human responsibilities. But right now they were free spirits.

Each night Kit slept safe and content beside Kate, waiting for her own humans to come home. Each morning, Kate rose early, if only to enjoy the sunrise. She liked to sit on the deck with a cup of coffee, looking down on the village, watching the world come awake. On the fourth morning when Kit woke she heard the glass door slide closed, heard it lock, heard Kate’s step up the outside stairs, heard her car start in the drive. Heard her back out and head away. Kit rose, yawning. Sometimes the carpenters came early to the shelter. In the tiny kitchen, leaping to the table, she found the porridge and the fried egg Kate had left for her. Beside them lay a note, held down by the porridge bowl.

Lucinda called my cell. They took a late flight last night, the four of them. I’m picking them up at San Jose. We’ll be home before noon.

Kit licked the note, shivering. Lashing her tail, she raced the length of the apartment, leaped from bookshelves, bounced on the unmade bed, flew to the dresser and almost slid off again. She was so excited she thought she couldn’t eat, but the next minute she was back in the kitchen devouring the cereal and egg, slurping it up so fast she scattered half of it on the table. Then she was out the cat door, up the hill, up her oak tree, up its rough bark into her tree house, where she could see the approaching street, whereshe tried to settle down to wait. Tried to settle down. Fidgeting and twitching, she knew quite well it would be hours before they got home.

She thought of going to tell Pan, but she didn’t want to disturb their grieving household with her own excitement. She could go tell Dulcie and Wilma or she could tell Joe Grey if she could find him. She could call anyone, she wanted to tell someone.

But Kate would do that, Kate would call their friends from her cell phone; and Kit didn’t want to leave home, because what if they caught an earlier flight and got home sooner than Kate said and she wasn’t there at all? Sighing, she wriggled deeper into her pillows, put her nose under her paw and tried to be patient. For the flighty tortoiseshell, patience didn’t work very well.

31

Pictures of sporting dogs filled the walls of Dallas Garza’s office, a fine succession of bird dogs with whom Dallas had hunted for much of his childhood and most of his adult life; had hunted any time he could, between college, the police academy, and then police work. Dallas’s last two, aged pointers had died not long ago. He had not bought another pup, he had little time now to train and work a sporting dog—and he was not a man to replace his respected hunting partners with a little lapdog; that was not his style.

Beneath the handsomely decorated walls, the detective’s desk was a tangle of odd papers, handwritten notes, computer printouts, faxes, and bank information from a dozen cities: account numbers, the names of his contact at each bank. Leaning back in his chair, the phone to his ear, Dallas was talking with the manager of a small Kentucky bank. So farthis, too, sounded like a dead end. Each account Tekla had opened across the country, each in a different name, had been closed out, the money withdrawn, and all information on the bank records had proved to be counterfeit. False addresses that turned out to be short-sale houses or vacant lots. Hehad left Juana’s office some time ago, where she was tracking the couple through rental agreements.

The Bleaks had apparently lived this lifestyle for several years, under a revolving collection of pseudonyms. Apartments secured with invented information, bogus past employment that no rental office had bothered to check. Or, if the information had been looked into and found wanting, the applicants had simply been sent packing. Tekla and Sam would move on, and no complaint was made. What good was it to have efficient police, if civilians didn’t pass on suspicious information when they had the chance?

When he heard Juana’s step crossing the hall he motioned her in. She looked frustrated and tired. She poured a cup of coffee, filled Dallas’s cup, sat down at one end of the couch, laid a clipboard on her lap, the page covered with neatly inscribed notes. They looked at each other in silence. They looked up when Max appeared, coming from his office, carrying a half cup of coffee. His twisted smile held them both.

“What?” Davis said.

“The Bleaks’ brown SUV is a Ford,” he said, looking smug. “Don’t know what year, but we have the license number, I just put it on the BOL. It’s all across the country now.”

Davis laughed. Dallas said,“Was that from the snitch?”

Max grinned and nodded, making Dallas smile. The detective said,“I heard Evijean grousing at some phone call. When she shut right up, I assumed she put the call through. Is our snitch getting her trained?”

Max laughed.“Let’s hope so.” He glanced at Dallas’s scattered notes, then at Juana’s yellow pad. He sat down at the other end of the couch. “What’ve you got?”

“I think we know this much,” Juana said, “the Bleaks—Gardners—began this marathon in Northern California, when son Herbert was first arrested on suspicion of molestation. As far as I can find, Gardner is their real name; they lived in Seattle for some years. Herbert was twenty-three when the first complaint was filed against him. Without sufficient evidence, Seattle held him only a short time, released him with a warning.” She looked across at Max. “There was plenty of evidence, no reason the district attorney shouldn’t have pursued the case. Would have saved everyone a lot of trouble—would have saved a life.”

“Too busy,” Dallas said, shrugging. “Docket too full.”

“From that point on,” Davis said, “I have twelve charges, all molestation. All insufficient evidence, or so the DA thought. Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane. Tekla and Sam had already distanced themselves from him. They moved to several cities in Southern California, then back up the coast to San Francisco. Herbert tracked them somehow. When he found them, he moved right in.

“Two weeks later he was arrested on a rape charge. A neighbor saw him attack the girl and identified him. Girl was hurt real bad, she filed charges, but then she dropped them, she was too scared. This time Tekla and Sam left the city in a hurry; they must have thought this one could turn really serious and didn’t want to be involved. They changed names as usual, closed bank accounts, ended all contact with Herbert. I think I’ve traced them to Denver under one of the names, but that was some time ago. There’s no new contact in Denver. I found where her father had left her a sizable amount of cash. She manipulated that very well, both legally and illegally, using a number of names.”

Max said,“There’s no indication they ever tried to put Herbert into treatment?”

“Not that I can find. As if they just wanted to get away from him.” Davis looked up at the chief. “How often does treatment help a rapist?”

“It doesn’t,” Max said. “But getting him off the street helps. Now that we have some ID on the car, let’s see what we can do. They’ve got Herbert locked down tight, but his murdering folks aren’t much better.” Max paused as Joe Grey strolled into the office, his ears up, his head high with tomcat bravado.

Leaping to the couch, Joe stretched out between Davis and Max. The chief looked mighty pleased, Joe thought. They all three did, and that made him hide a smile. The ferals had done all right, they’d found what the department needed. Now it was a matter of waiting for the enhanced BOL to pick up more reports—and a matter of Joe catching up on the conversation he’d missed. Rolling over closer to Juana, he leaned against her arm where he could see her notes.

Davis was saying,“After she filed charges, then dropped charges, as soon as she could travel she left the state. Scared, afraid Herbert would find her. Herbert did some jail time, then walked. Surprisingly, he stayed in the city. Found a job of sorts, as an assistant janitor, rented a cheap room.

“It was not until his next arrest, maybe three months later, that the charge stuck. He was found in the storeroom kneeling over the body of Marilain Candler. The head janitor walked in on him, hit him with a shovel. While he was down, janitor made the 911 call.

“Herbert’s indicted for rape and murder,” Davis said. “He chooses a jury trial. Tekla learns about it, in the papers or on TV, her son on trial for murder. And she has one of those emotional turnarounds. This is her son, charged with murder. Suddenly she’s as angry as a mother tiger. They can’t do this to her son. She hikes on out to San Francisco to be there for the trial. What did she think? That she could stand up for Herbert, could defend his character?”

Dallas smiled.“That could be the odd-looking woman in Ben’s notes, the woman he watched from the jurors’ box.”

Davis nodded.“The woman always in the back row. When Herbert’s convicted and gets the death sentence, that’s the real turning point. She goes hot with rage against the jurors that convicted her boy. Herbert is misunderstood, he’s been grossly wronged, and she vows that each and every juror will experience exactly what they dealt out to him.”

Dallas finished his coffee.“I’ve called the lab twice to hurry them up on the ballistics. Maybe, now that we have the license number—if the Bleaks don’t switch cars or change plates—someone will pick them up and ship them back to us.”

“Let’s hope,” Juana said. Beside her, Joe Grey tried not to look smug. The license number and make of car were a big plus; he was mighty proud of his feral friends. That timely information from those shy, reclusive cats was one more nail in Tekla’s coffin.

32

In her tree house Kit turned round and round among her pillows. She curled up and dozed for a little while. She fidgeted and paced, waiting for Lucinda and Pedric to get home. The morning sun rose high and higher, but still it was far too early, it was a long drive from the San Jose airport to Molena Point. Below her, no car came along the street, not even a neighbor going to grocery shop or drop the kids at school. She slept fitfully again and dreamed of her elderly couple surrounded by polar bears. She woke terrified for them, surprised there was no snow.

Crawling out from under the pillows, she climbed up the branches onto the high roof of the tree house. She sat in a patch of sun looking down at the empty street. Where were they now? Still on a plane somewhere in the sky? Or were they already leaving the plane, going with Kate to claim their luggage?

The sun was higher, they could already be on the highway heading home. They could already be turning off Highway One down into the village. She waited. No car appeared. At last she crawled among her pillows again, trying to quiet her restless nerves. This time when she fell asleep she and Pan were safe in the Harpy’s arms flying through the green-lit Netherworld over the craggy, dark lands …

She woke, startled.

A car was coming up the street. She wished it were Lucinda and Pedric and knew it couldn’t be because the sun still wasn’t high enough.

But the sound was Kate’s car. She leaped up to peer over, watched the SUV pull into the drive. Yes, Kate’s Lexus, curved bars on top where the Greenlaws’ luggage was tied. Kit fled down the oak tree, dropped the last six feet as Lucinda opened the passenger door. She flew into Lucinda’s arms. Lucinda’s wrinkled cheeks were sunburned; she was dressed in safari pants and a khaki jacket. Pedric stepped out from the backseat dressed in khakis, too. They held her between them, hugging and loving her so hard they nearly squeezed her breath out. Lucinda was crying. Pedric’s wrinkled cheeks were wet—but then they were all laughing and Kit thought she’d burst with happiness and they couldn’t talk here in the front yard for fear of the neighbors, though they saw no one about. They hurried in the house, leaving the luggage on the car. Inside there was more hugging and Kit scrambled from one to the other and all of them talking at once. They were home, her dear family was home, they were safe, they were all together and safe.

In the living room Kate turned on the gas logs, made sure the tired couple was settled comfortably in their own soft chairs—as if Lucinda and Pedric were guests in their own house—then, in the kitchen, she put the kettle on for tea. As bright flames danced on the hearth, Kate went to bring in the luggage. The Greenlaws had traveled light, just their three canvas duffels. Why had they been tied on top when there wasplenty of room in the big Lexus? But then Kit caught a whiff of salmon as Pedric went to help Kate carryin an oversize Styrofoam cooler; she sniffed a stronger scent as they headed for the laundry where the big freezer stood.

In the living room again, Kate told Kit,“At the last minute they changed their flights, decided to all come home together. I dropped Mike and Lindsey off first, so they could get their own salmon in the freezer.

“Lovely salmon,” Lucinda said, leaning back in her soft chair. “A lovely trip,” she said as Kit leaped into her lap. “But a tiring flight home, we didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Tired and hungry,” Pedric said. The couple stayed awake long enough to enjoy the hot tea and the quick lunch Kate had put together. Gathered before the fire, they shared a favorite, grilled cream cheese and salami sandwiches on rye; then Lucinda and Pedric headed for the bedroom, yawning. Theydidn’t unpack, but pulled on nightclothes and crawled into bed, where Kit snuggled between them purring a sleepy song. She could hear Kate in the kitchen rinsing the dishes; soon she heard Kate leave, locking the front door behind her, heard her car back out. And Kit snuggled deeper, safe between Lucinda and Pedric—an unaccustomed midday nap for her two humans. Contentedly Kit dozed, drifting on a cloud of happiness that only a little loved cat could truly know.

It was nearly a week before Lucinda and Pedric felt up to a party for their homecoming, a simple gathering of friends to celebrate their safe return. It would be two weeks more before MPPD would celebrate the end of another journey: the end of the Bleaks’ cross-country escape, the moment when neither of the Bleaks could any longer dodge the law. Much would happen, between.

While Lucinda and Pedric rested at home with Kit, exchanging tales of their adventures, while Dulcie languished in her own house feeling heavy and nervous, Joe Grey prowled the offices of MPPD scanning computers, listening to phone calls, waiting, as Max and the detectives waited, for a positive response to the BOL. A few calls came in where a citizen thought he’d spotted the car speeding by, tried to follow it, lost it, and didn’t get the license number. It was raining across several states, and the Bleaks, taking advantage of stormy night travel, managed to slip through. Meanwhile MPPD was busy with the usual shoplifting, car breakins, and domestic violence cases that, these days, plagued even the tamest of small towns. There were, as well, daily inquiries from concerned citizens asking if there was any line yet on the attacker. The next report on a brown SUV, again with only a partial license number, put the couple somewhere in Alabama, still heading east. Alabama HP put patrols out, but in the heavy storm that had hit the state, the Bleaks had the advantage.

Sam could drive only short distances because of his left leg. In Molena Point, he hadn’t driven the van at all. Best to let people think he was more crippled than he was, to garner sympathy, make folks feel sorry for him. Now, moving across the country, he did drive, though it made his leg hurt. His increasingcrankiness continued to irritate Tekla.

They didn’t stop in Atlanta; she wanted to move on through, head north into Georgia’s less populated backcountry. Freeway drivers were fast and brutal, so even she got nervous. They gassed up outside Canton, moved away on a narrower road into low hills, thick pine woods, and tacky mom-and-pop farms. “Home places,” the gas attendant called them when they asked for directions, home places, with an accent that made Arnold smirk. The rain had stopped, the weather hot and humid, further souring Sam’s mood.

With a local map they checked out a couple of shabby motels back in the hills at the edge of small manmade lakes. The only motels available in that backcountry, where people went to fish. Following the crooked roads they passed truck gardens and commercial chicken farms, long rows of rusted metal buildings that stunk of burned feathers and burned, dead chickens.

They holed up in a sleazy motel north of Jasper, the hick town where juror Meredith Wilson had moved to take care of her aging father. The weather had turned even more muggy, sticky and overcast with dark clouds hanging low. Sam said it was tornado weather. He was always imagining something, some disaster that never happened. Coming across country he’d grown more and more bad tempered, critical of her and of this whole plan, whining that they were going to get caught.

Well, they hadn’t even been stopped. Couple of glances from GHP black-and-whites on the highway, but with Arnold ducked down out of sight, and with her long blond hair, they sailed right on through.

Getting caught hadn’t been Sam’s complaint earlier, right after the trial. Those first two “accidents,” he’d been pretty high, seeing Herbert vindicated. “One more payback,” he’d say. Then when she’d pulled off the first Molena Point assaults without a hitch, and then Arnold did one while she watched from the shadows, then Sam had been really excited. He’d even got a kick out of the fake attacks. “They probably deserved it, anyway,” he’d said. And all along, he hadn’t had to do one damn bit of the legwork.

But now suddenly, running from the cops, he’d decided, this late in the game, that he didn’t like the program.

It was half his idea in the first place. More than half. It had been his rage as well as her own, at the twisted law, at the self-righteous courts. It was Sam’s anger, at that lawyer and the jurors, that’s what started them planning. He said, when Herbert was committed to die, “Those twelve lackeys just signed their death sentences. No one,” Sam said, “has the right to take Herbert’s life. Every one of them will pay, and pay hard.”

It was later that he started to get shaky. Though not until they were through Texas did he really get cold feet, when that trucker slowed and ran alongside them for half a mile, looking. But by that time they’d changed license plates, and she and Arnold sat in the back, both with long blond wigs; she thought that was funny. Arnold didn’t. But it was then that Sam, glancing up at the trucker, began to really whine.

Well, to hell with him. Now they were in Georgia she wasn’t stopping, not this late in the game. Now they had a motel just where she wanted it, a place to hole up near to Meredith Wilson, and now it was her turn to pay.

A thin, nervous creature, the Wilson woman, fidgeting in the jury box looking upset every time the coroner up there on the witness stand mentioned some gory aspect of his supposedly unbiased examination—the bastard putting Herbert in the worst light. Deliberately making the weaker jurors, like Wilson, squirm with unease.

She wished she’d taken care of those other three jurors that were still in San Francisco, they’d been just as bad. Once she was done here, maybe they’d go back, see to them, too. By that time, those three would stop jumping at every shadow on the street, would have let their guard down. Meanwhile, the Wilson woman would be a pleasure to terrify before she died.

She didn’t need to stage an accident, not back in these Georgia hills. This country was full of pot farmers and no-goods, it was nothing for someone to shoot a prowler. She read the papers, she’d looked at the statistics. People got shot all the time, raped, beat up. Half those guys were never caught, were friends with enough of the deputies to accidentally escape or to wiggle around the law.

Meredith Wilson lived only half a mile up the gravel road from the shoddy motel, and that was handy. Hot, hilly country running along both sides of the valley where the narrow lake lay. Mostly summer shacks down by the water, just the one old motel. It rented fishing poles and rowboats, and when Sam kept at her, whining not to do the Wilson woman but to move on and get away, when he’d kept at her, she rented poles for him and Arnold. Bought bait from the motel keeper and sent them out to the end of the dock to fish so maybe she could have a little peace.

Sam didn’t like that the sky was so heavy and dark. She told him, there was a little wind, if he’d be patient it would blow the clouds away. Leaving them occupied, she went back to the small, muggy room, pulled the blinds, lay down on the sagging bed, thinking about the moves she still had to make. Theshifting of money to a nearby state, calls from the throwaway cell phone, another motel registration, North Carolina maybe, using one of the fake driver’s licenses and fake names. She needed to pay attention to the details. Well, she was good at that.

She was dozing off when the room darkened suddenly. The wind rose howling, the blind flapped, and the window glass warped into flashes and shadows. She hurried to look out but didn’t understand what she was seeing. The air was full of flying sticks, flying boards. Two windows broke nearly in her face. The wind hit her like a freight train, the force sent her reeling away, covering her eyes. Tree limbs, furniture, pieces of wood and glass hit her as she was flung against the far wall. Behind her another window exploded and the roof was gone: she watched the whole roof lift and drop in the lake. It settled on the water, hung up on the edge of the dock. Where the roof had been, dark, roiling sky boiled down. Where she’d glimpsed Arnold racing in, pushing Sam in thewheelchair, now there was only the great slab of roof covering the dock and torn lumber and crashing wind. When she turned, the wall behind her was gone. The motel office and the line of rooms were gone, torn apart into rubble. She ran, falling and stumbling, dodging flying debris.

33

The Damens’ patio was crowded with friends gathered belatedly to welcome the wanderers home from Alaska: the Greenlaws, and Ryan’s dad and Lindsey. The walled garden echoed softly with talk and laughter. Joe, Kit, and Pan wandered among the guests begging politely. It took only a soft paw and a gentle meow to receive an offering of Brie or p?t?, as their human friends, drinks in hand, waited for the main course.

But soon Joe and Pan, growing impatient, leaped to the wall beside the barbecue, closer to the broiling salmon. Below them Kit prowled restlessly, her mind on Dulcie and Wilma at home alone missing the party in their patient deference to the unborn kittens. Even Joe Grey, though he sat greedily licking his whiskers, had not liked leaving his lady.

The backyard of Clyde’s original bachelor cottage had once been a depressing expanse of dry grass and weeds that Clyde had euphemistically called the back lawn. Ryan’s description had been less endearing. Under her imaginative design, and with a good crew, she had transformed the half-dead patch into a charming andprivate retreat. The tall white stucco walls offered privacy from prying neighbors, and cut the sea wind. The brick paving was dappled with leafy shadows from the young maple tree she had planted, and was edged by raised planters now bright with the last of the winter cyclamens. Beneath the trellis that shaded the barbecue, hickory coals glowed where Ryan and her dad stood broiling the big salmon that Mike had split down the center and laid on foil.

Father and daughter did not resemble each other except for their green eyes. Tall, slim Mike Flannery’s sandy hair and his light and ruddy complexion spoke clearly of his Scots-Irish heritage, in contrast to Ryan’s warmer coloring and dark hair from her Latina mother, who had died of cancer when Ryan and her sisters were small. Ryan was thankful for Lindsey, for her dad’s new wife. He had remained single for so many years. Too busy to date, not wanting to date. Too occupied raising three girls, with the help of Scotty and Dallas. Lindsey’s dimpled smile and laughing hazel eyes, her fun-loving, easygoing ways, fit exactly Ryan’s view of what a stepmother should be.

Lindsey sat now with Charlie Harper and the Greenlaws at a small table, the three voyagers telling Charlie about their cruise. The same unstructured, small-boat cruise that, a few years ago, would have been Charlie and Max’s honeymoon trip. If, at the last minute, local crime hadn’t gotten in the way when someone blew up the church. Their close call minutes before the wedding still sickened Charlie. That disaster had pulled Max back into the office, unwilling to abandon his men during the continuing alerts and ensuing investigation.

With the money they hadn’t spent on their honeymoon they had remodeled the ranch house that Max had owned for years. The handsome addition was a solid and lasting gift to each other, a luxury in which to enjoy their new life. When Max isn’t chasing the bad guys, Charlie thought,working long and crazy hours.

But they had a lot to be grateful for, they were blessed, living on their comfortable acreage where they could have horses and the two big dogs, where they could ride over the open country in the evenings. She was blessed to have the time now to pursue her own career as an artist and writer. But loving Max, their close and comfortable marriage, that was way at the top of the list.

The two tomcats, waiting for supper, watched their gathered human friends, and listened, attuned to every conversation, Joe Grey keen with interest, though Pan was solemn and withdrawn, the red tabby badly missing his father. Joe watched Kit, who had only now settled on Lucinda’s lap between Charlie and Lindsey, trying hard to be still.

Kit wanted to ask Lucinda if someone should be with Dulcie and Wilma in case the kittens came, but among this crowd of human friends she could say nothing. She was always having to tell herself to be careful. It was so hard not to blurt out a question, to swallow back her words when so many urgencies railed inside her head, too compelling to not talk about.

But Dulcie’s all right. What could happen? Wilma has a phone, and John Firetti is right here at the party, he and Mary are only minutes away if the kittens come. And then she worried, How will the kittens handle their gift of speech? How will they learn that they must not speak in front of most humans? How will Dulcie impress on their young kitten minds that talking is a secret? If they do speak? If they are born with that talent, they will think it as ordinary as sharpening their claws. There’s so much Dulcie and Joe will have to teach those tiny mites. How will the new babies ever learn to keep their kitty mouths shut?

But Lindsey was saying to Charlie,“The new exhibit opens when?”

“Next week,” Charlie said. “Two landscape painters, and a woman who does wonderful birds. And my animals.” They watched Ryan leave the barbecue, pick up several empty plates from the table, and head into the kitchen.

“I’m coming to see your animal drawings,” Lindsey said. She glanced down at Kit, then looked at Lucinda and Pedric. “There’s one of your lovely tortoiseshell peering down from an oak branch that I’d like to buy.” She smiled. “If you two don’t snatch it up first. She’s so lovely,” she said, reaching to stroke Kit.

Kit gave her a sweet kitty smile and tried not to preen. But then, even with such praise, her attention turned suddenly to Max and Clyde and Scotty, sitting on the low wall of a flower bed; their serious talk, Clyde’s sudden frown, drew her curiosity; she dropped to the brick paving and padded across to listen. Hopping up into the flower bed, she stretched out among the blooms.

“I don’t like what will happen to the Bleak house,” Clyde was saying, “now that they’ve skipped. Ryan could be stuck with a big loss, though she did, after a couple of weeks of Tekla’s crazy changes, demand more money up front.”

Scotty laughed.“Tekla wasn’t keen on that.”

Max said,“Their bank account—the only account we’ve found so far—shows only forty thousand. I expect the mortgage company will attach that, and look for the rest. I’d guess there’ll be a foreclosure, maybe a short sale. If—when—we pick the Bleaks up, bring them in and prosecute, maybe the court will assign what assets they can find to help the victims or their families.”

“What I don’t get,” Scotty said, “is why they ever bought that house, why they ever started on a renovation. If they came here to … If their intention was these attacks, they can’t have thought they’d be staying permanently.

“Or,” he said, “did they really believe they’d get away with this, that everyone would think the assaults were some kind of prank—and that the murders themselves were unfortunate accidents? That’s insane thinking. Or,” he added, “was that remodel all for show? For distraction, to put you off the track?”

“Pretty expensive cover,” Max said, “though they’re adept at manipulating money, sliding out from under.”

Scotty shrugged.“The woman’s crazy as a drunk squirrel.” Picking up a canap?, he slipped it down to Rock, who sat watching the three men, the Weimaraner’s eager yellow eyes following each morsel from hand to mouth. Clyde gave Scotty a look; Scotty knew Rock wasn’t allowed a human diet, but sometimes theScotsman couldn’t resist.

“Well, we’ve got a line on them,” Max said. “That sighting in Arkansas. Too bad the caf? owner didn’t report it sooner. He didn’t know about the BOL until a couple days later. A deputy stopped in for coffee, mentioned it and described the Bleaks.” Max scratched Rock’s ear as the dog nudged him, but he didn’t feed Rock. “They were headed toward Georgia, if they kept on in that direction.” He sipped his beer. “Maybe we’ll pick them up on the East Coast, maybe the odds will turn.” He looked up when Ryan caught his eye from the kitchen door, holding up the phone extension.

Max rose and headed for the kitchen, but moved on through toward the guest room, wanting that extension where he could hear above the party noise. The minute Joe Grey heard the guest room door close he dropped down from the wall and slipped away through the crowd. Kit, watching them both, hopped off Lucinda’s lap and followed. Pan remained on the wall, stoic and quiet.

Kit, passing the guest room’s closed door, paused to hear Max say, “She gave you this number, and not my cell phone?” His irritation told her he was talking about Evijean. She flew up the stairs as, above her on the desk, Joe Grey eased the phone from its cradle. As she landed beside him, he hugged the headset in his paws and eased it down on the blotter. They hoped Max would hear no small electronic click and no thump on the thinly padded surface. Pressing their ears close, Joe and Kit listened.

There was no break in Max’s voice as if he’d been alerted that an extension had been picked up. Glancing at each other, they tried not to breathe into the speaker; and they watched the stairs warily in case someone started up to the office and studio—why would the two cats have the phone off the hook, crouched over it?

Mice in the speaker? Kit thought, and had to swallow her laugh.

Max’s call was from Georgia, from Sheriff Jimmie Roy Dover. Dover’s drawl was deep and heavy. Kit imagined a portly man who enjoyed his native southern cooking.

“So far, this is the way we’ve put it together,” Dover was saying. “The worst of it is, we’ve got every unit out there looking for wounded, for bodies. And of course evidence is disturbed, stuff flying everywhere.

“Well, when the tornado passed, she must have known Sam’s and Arnold’s bodies were there on the dock, under the fallen roof. Maybe she thinks they’re dead, maybe not. Maybe she runs to help them, maybe not. All we’ve found is a line of muddy footprints where she gets out of her room, where she runs outside—and she doesn’t head their way.

“When she’s clear of the worst of the debris,” Dover said, “she pauses beside the body of a dead woman among the fallen walls. Later, one of our men photographed the body and what may be Tekla’s footprints. The dead woman must still have been clutching her purse. Looks like Tekla—if those are her footprints—grabs the purse, you can see where it was dragged out from under the muddy debris. It took us a while to find this much, with the mess, and with victims needing help.

“We figure Tekla now has the woman’s car keys, fished them out of the purse. She steps on out to the parking strip. The first row of cars was smashed. Tornado sheared through the building neat as a Skilsaw, dumped the fallen walls on that row of vehicles. It missed the more distant cars, she must have bleeped the electronic key until she got a response from one of them, an answering bleep or blinking light. Now she has the right car, she gets in and takes off.”

Max was silent, listening.

“But Tekla’s wounded,” Dover said. “She drives about three miles, then starts swerving, tire marks all over the road. Pretty quick she loses it, runs the car into a tree.”

“You got her.”

“No, we didn’t. She must have sat there for a while, but then you could see where she backed the car up. Apparently didn’t do too much damage, gas line must have been okay, apparently no tires punctured, and she takes off again.”

“Well, hell.”

“Rescue units were on their way to the motel, but in the dark and the hard wind they must have sped right by her, didn’t ever see her.

“We didn’t find the tire marks and the gouge in the tree until the next morning, first light. By that time,” Dover said apologetically, “she was long gone.”

“And Sam and Arnold?”

“Dead,” Dover told him. “Crushed by the fallen roof. GBI has the report. They’ll be calling you.”

Max was quiet for a long while. Joe and Kit felt a surprising twist of pain for Sam and Arnold Bleak. No matter what they had done, no matter whether they’d been a willing part of Tekla’s plan, the two cats didn’t like to think of someone being crushed that way, in that terrible storm—and of Tekla not even trying to save them, just leaving them.

Max gave Dover his cell phone number. As the officers ended the call, Joe used both paws to ease the headset back onto the phone. They waited in the shadows at the top of the stairs until Max left the guest room and moved out to the patio again. Only when he’d gone did they wander casually down the empty stairway—but at the bottom Kit paused, startled, the fur along her back lifting. Joe Grey froze.

A faint ripple of tension ran through those gathered, through not everyone seemed aware of it. A subtle glance across the patio between Ryan and Clyde, between Charlie and Kate and the Greenlaws, a look as meaningful as a whisper—and the Firettis were headed for the front door, John fishing his car keys from his pocket.

“The kittens,” Kit whispered. “Joe, the kittens are coming.” But Joe was gone, racing away, flicking his heels in her face. Clyde bolted across the living room and out of the house, across the yard trying to snatch Joe from the air as the tomcat leaped past John Firetti—and Joe was through the driver’s door into the back of the medical van.

Joe Grey glared out at Clyde. “Leave me alone,” he hissed softly. “They’re my kittens!” Clyde stepped back, returning Joe’s angry stare.

“Let him come,” John said. “Let him be with her.”

“But …”

“There’s not much chance of germs, they’re always together. Whatever Joe’s been exposed to, so has she.”

Silently Clyde stepped back. John closed the door and they were gone, roaring away up the street headed for Wilma’s cottage. In the van, Mary reached out to Joe. He crept up between the bucket seats to the front and into her arms. She stroked him but said nothing; the kittens were coming and they were both nervous.

Behind the retreating van Clyde turned back to the house, ignoring questioning stares. Approaching the front door, where Max, Scotty, Mike, and Lindsey stood, he didn’t want to talk and didn’t want to know what they were thinking. Joe’s behavior and his own were too strange. “Cats,” Clyde said with disgust, shouldering past them, coming in the house, putting his arm around Ryan.

Ryan smiled, and before anyone could ask questions, she led Clyde away to set out the desserts and make a fresh pot of coffee.

Lucinda and Pedric had risen and headed for the living room behind the Firettis. Kate followed as, behind them, Clyde said casually to those around him,“John’s off to deliver Dulcie’s kittens. Wilma—Wilma’s been a bit nervous.”

From the mantel, Pan sat watching the action, cutting his eyes at Kit as she leaped up beside him. Kit wanted to be with Dulcie. Her look at Pan said, Shall we? She knew John didn’t want a crowd. Birth was a private business. And he didn’t want other cats’ germs near the kittens. Butwe haven’t been around other cats— Oh! Except the ferals, up in the hills. And John’s ferals at the beach.

But they’ve had their shots. And John always changes his shoes when he gets back in the van, changes his lab coat and cleans his hands.

She thought about Dulcie in labor and hurting. She told herself they’d keep out of the way, that they’d stay outdoors, she just wanted to be there. She looked at Pan, edgy and nervous. The fascination of Dulcie’s miracle made her shiver. Pan frowned back at her but then reluctantly he rose. Together they dropped from the mantel and fled out the open door.

34

Dulcie paced the living room back and forth, past the flickering hearth, past the couch where Wilma was pretending to read. She could feel Wilma watching her and trying not to worry. She moved from room to room, padded into the kitchen, sniffed at the nice custard Wilma had set out, and turned her face away. She drank from her bowl, but only a few laps. There were no pains yet, but her restlessness was intolerable. She wanted to crawl into her new kittening box, and she didn’t want to be confined in there. She wanted to creep into the farthest corner of the house under the darkest bed, but when she did that, she backed out again. She wanted to be near Wilma, but then Wilma’s lap was too warm. She wanted Wilma to come to the kittening box with her, but she didn’t want anyone there at all. This should be a lonely vigil, only her kittens should share the coming moments, she wanted to be alone to bring them into the world, yet she didn’t want to be alone.

The kittening box Wilma had set up in the bedroom, beside her own bed, was sturdy and splendid. It was constructed from a heavy packing carton uncontaminated by grocery store insecticides. Wilma had cut a smooth little door at one corner arranged so a draft wouldn’t blow in. She had made a lid for the top, which could be lifted off to clean the box. A nice thick bed of newspapers lined the bottom. Papers that Dulcie wanted to rip up, that she intended soon to tear apart, she could feel the urge itching in her pads; papers that would be thrown away after the birthing and would be replaced by a warm blanket.

There were clean soft towels stacked outside the box, that John Firetti had asked Wilma to provide. Everything was ready. But as perfect as was her nest, Dulcie couldn’t stop creeping into dark corners, turning around and around and then hurrying out again into space and light—and then returning to her box. She didn’t know what she wanted; she was eager and scared. She felt ravenous, but the sight of food made her ill. She wanted Joe Grey, but she didn’twant him until the ordeal was over. Where was he, why wasn’t he there with her? She returned to the kitchen, longing to race outside, but Wilma, after futile attempts to reason with her, had fetched the electric drill and screwed her cat door closed.

And now suddenly as she paced and fussed, the front doorbell rang. Wilma picked her up to keep her from running out. She opened the door to the Firettis, they stepped in quickly, and Mary deftly shut the door behind them. Even a sentient, speaking cat could behave foolishly when she was about to give birth. The minute Dulcie saw John, she relaxed. The minute Joe Grey wound in behind John’s ankles, Dulcie hissed and spat at him. Why was she behaving like this?

She let John take her from Wilma’s arms; as she laid her head against him, trust in the good doctor filled her. She quit spitting at Joe and she felt easier. It was then that Charlie arrived. Dulcie heard the Blazer pulling up, heard the kitchen door open and close. Charlie came through the house, reached gently to stroke Dulcie, then put her arm around Wilma. “I thought you might like a little more moral support?”

Wilma smiled and hugged her niece. At their feet Joe Grey was quiet, watching their friends gathered around Dulcie. Dulcie didn’t want to spit at him now. And now, for a moment, a brightness filled the room, glowing around them, and she could hear Misto’s whisper, the faintest breath, You will be all right, the babies are strong, they will be just fine. The glow hung a moment, then was gone, Misto’s warm, familiar voice gone. But his love remained.

In Wilma’s bedroom, John lifted Dulcie down into the kittening box. She settled at once, she didn’t fight him, she didn’t try to run away now. She put a paw up, she wanted him near, she didn’t want him to leave her. John waited, sitting on a low bedroom chair beside the box. She felt restless but then lay quiet. Her purr rumbled stronger, a purr of anticipation and of fear waiting for the pains that would come. She heard from the living room a bold scratching at the door, heard the door open, heard Kit’s mewl, Wilma’s voice and then Pan’s, and she was glad they were there: a loving entourage waiting—filled with kindness but leaving her to her privacy.

It was a long time before the first pain hit her, then soon another, and another. Soon they were coming faster than John had told her they would. She murmured once. Another pain and she strained and mewled softly. She cried loudly only once, pushing hard when the pains were sharpest. The rhythm of the contractions carried her as if on a huge wave, soon so close together she thought she couldn’t breathe; this first kitten was eager, was clamoring to get out.

In the living room where Charlie held Joe Grey, he tried to leap away when he heard Dulcie cry, tried to go to her. Charlie grabbed the nape of his neck.“Don’t, Joe. Don’t go in and upset her, let her be, John is with her.” She scowled down at him. “You have to be patient.”

He didn’t feel patient, he wanted to be with Dulcie. He hissed at Charlie and raised a bristling paw. She held him hard, held him until he eased off and settled once more on her lap, only faintly snarling. Dulcie was hurting. His lady was in there crying out and maybe in danger. Birthing kittens was frightening and perilous, why hadn’t he realized that? He butted his head against Charlie, shaken with fear.

Across the room Kit and Pan snuggled close to Wilma in her soft chair, Kit shivering but Pan stoic and calm, hoping to calm his own lady. They heard Dulcie’s whimpers and her single yowl, they watched Joe Grey flinch and strike at Charlie, saw Charlie’s green eyes widen as she settled him once more. They heard the back door open, watched Kate and the Greenlaws slip through. Dulcie’s patient but nervous attendants filled the living room, lookingquietly at each other, waiting. These were not ordinary kittens, these were miracle kittens, and their friends waited nervously.

Only Ryan and Clyde were absent. How could they leave their guests to attend such an ordinary occurrence as the birth of kittens? So many folks had already rushed out. The Damens didn’t need more puzzled questions—but Joe Grey wished they were there. Clyde to bolster his courage, Ryan, like Charlie, to soothe and mother him.

“Sometimes,” Charlie said, stroking him, “it’s harder on the father.”

Joe Grey glared up at her. How could that be true?

“Do you remember,” Charlie asked him, “how proud you were when Dulcie told you? Proud and shy and excited?”

Joe remembered. “Kittens?” he’d cried. “Our kittens?” He remembered backing away from Dulcie, perplexed and amazed, racing away across the rooftops, then flying around her, skidding nose to nose with her. “Kittens?”

It was late evening. The three kittens had been born safe and strong. Dulcie had cleaned them up and was resting, the tiny little ones nursing against her when Joe Grey slipped into the room. John Firetti, kneeling over the box, looked up and nodded.

“Come, Joe Grey. Come see your babies.” John and Mary and Wilma had just cleaned the kittening box, Mary sliding the soiled newspapers out from under as John and Wilma gently lifted Dulcie and the kittens. Deftly Mary had slipped a thick warm blanket in, and John had settled mother and babies back onto their nest. Joe Grey entered warily, nearly electrified with shyness.

He crept up onto Wilma’s bed where he could look down into the box. He crouched there very still, looking at their new family. He was, for an instant, fearful of how he might respond. He was too aware of the ancient instinct of some tomcats to ravage their own young. Would this age-old urge surface in him now, would emotions he detested hit him suddenly? Looking down into the box, he was ready to turn and run before he hurt his tiny, helpless babies.

But no. Watching Dulcie and their three beautiful kittens, Joe Grey knew only wonder.

Only when Dulcie lifted her eyes to him did he see for an instant the female’s equally primitive response, the inborn ferocity of a mother cat to protect her young. But then her look softened, her gaze matched his own contentment. They looked at each other and at their babies, and they knew they had made a fine family. Three kittens so beautiful that Joe couldn’t resist slipping carefully down next to the box, next to the door where he could reach his nose in, could breathe in their sweet kitten scent.

“Courtney,” Dulcie said, licking the swirl-marked calico female. Joe thought about names for the two boys but nothing seemed to fit; the two pale buff kittens were still so small, how could one know what kind of cats they would be?

Lucinda and Pedric and Kate slipped into the bedroom, having removed their shoes. They looked down into the box at the three tiny kittens and pronounced them the most beautiful babies ever born. Charlie was enchanted by them. She came again the next morning wearing freshly laundered jeans and shirt, removing her shoes outside the back door, washing her hands at the kitchen sink. Not until the kittens had their several shots would the“germ vigil,” as Wilma called it, ease off and the little family be free from isolation. John Firetti, indeed, worried over the rare little newborns.

Now everyone, humans and cats, would wait impatiently the two weeks or more for the kittens’ eyes and ears to open, for their curiosity to brighten. Wait for them to crowd to the door of their kitten box, peering out, for the boy kittens to reach for the wider world. Courtney needed no encouragement; she was already pawing at every new stir of air, mewling at every small change that occurred around her.

The next days, while the friends waited to hear more than kittenish meows, to know if the kittenswould speak, Joe Grey prowled restlessly between his new family and MPPD: a doting father, but still a nervous hunter, as alert as were the police for some clue to Tekla’s next move, for law enforcement somewhere on the East Coast to pick up her trail, to arrest and confine her.

35

Tekla’s left arm and side hurt bad from where the car had hit the tree. Maybe she was only bruised, or maybe she’d cracked a rib. Fighting the “borrowed” Honda back to the narrow dirt road, getting it on solid ground again and easing out of there in the wind and blowing rain, she slipped the loaded revolver from her purse into her jacket pocket. She was still nervous over the automatic’s disappearing, back in Molena Point. She and Sam had fought all the way across the country about that, too. Either Sam or Arnold was lying, or both were. Why would Sam move the gun? To use it as evidence, to prove that she’d killed Ben Stonewell? If the cops picked them up, did he mean to turn it over, with her prints on it, get himself off the hook?

There’d been no one else in the house to take it after she’d put it in her suitcase. Had he stashed it in the garage somewhere? If he had, sure as hell, the cops would find it. She didn’t understand what he was up to, and that scared her. She’d wondered if, that night in that first out-of-the-way motel, somehow a maid had slipped in, gone through their bags, and taken the gun. That didn’t seem likely; they’d left only long enough for a quick burger, and she’d locked her bag. The other gun, the Magnum that was now in her pocket, hadn’t been taken.

But all across the country, Sam had been losing his nerve. Whining, getting cold feet, not wanting to go on with this, wanting to leave the last jurors they could reach. Just let them go free, after all his earlier talk about getting even. His malingering had delayed them, too, pulling off the highway early, sleeping in late, not wanting to get started.

After she shot Ben, she’d wiped off her prints, but then she’d handled the gun briefly again when she packed it. That missing gun scared her bad. What the hell had Sam done?

When the tornado hit, she’d been lucky to get out of there, the whole room caved in around her. Lucky to find her purse with the Magnum safe inside. The .357 was heavy, but with the automatic gone, it would have to do. With that mess back there, the twisting wind picking up the roof, she knew Sam and Arnold were dead. How could she go to look when the fallen roof covered the entire dock, when everything it had hit was underwater. All she could do was run.

She was terrified when she found their car outside the room smashed beyond use, the wall of the building crushing it. She was lucky to nearly fall over that dead woman, that’s what saved her. Rooting around under the woman’s body where she could see a leather strap, digging out the woman’s purse, that was luck, finding those car keys. Beeping the car, hoping it wasn’t crushed, she’d found it and gotten out of there fast. You had to live right to have luck like that—but then on the dark dirt road when she hit that tree, skidded off the road, she thought she was done for. Jammed in tight against the steering wheel, she’d hurt bad. Cops with their lights and sirens careening by in the dark never even saw her, not that she wanted to be found.

Strange that once she’d left the destroyed motel, had passed maybe half a mile of wrecked cottages and fallen trees stacked like broken toothpicks, that was the end of the damage. Nothing more had been hit. That’s where the road turned away from the lake and climbed. Was that how these tornadoes worked? Ran along between the hills, hit in just the low places?

Now, using the penlight in her purse and the local map, she followed the back roads to the next small town. It hadn’t been hit, either, just a little wind damage, an awning torn. Dinky little burg, one dumpy motel right out of some old movie. She checked into a room, she had no choice. She hurt real bad and it was too dark to move on with what she meant to do. She couldn’t afford to get stuck on those back roads at night, lost trying to get away afterward.

At the front desk she paid with cash. The bearded fat man didn’t blink an eye, just gave her change. The room was ancient. Scarred wood furniture, worn-out bedspread, limp drapes. She finished the bag of chips she’d bought at the last gas station. Her side felt like fire. Was it going to keep getting worse?

She took four Tylenols, didn’t undress, just fell into bed. She slept most of the night. She woke before dawn, sick with hurting. When she stripped and looked in the mirror her whole side was purple, a vast, tender bruise. Sure as hell her ribs were cracked, maybe broken. She didn’t need this, she didn’t want to move onMeredith Wilson in this condition.

Picking up the phone, she cajoled the bearded, overweight rube at the front desk into sending her up some breakfast. What she got was stale cold cereal with milk that was about to go sour, and a cup of lukewarm coffee. She ate, took four more pain pills, crawled back in bed and slept.

She stayed in the fusty room a week, hurting bad, sure her ribs were broken. She didn’t want to see some doctor. Toward the end of the week the pain began to ease, and the bruises were fading. She lived on stale cereal and stale cheese sandwiches. On the eighth day she hauled herself out of bed, sick of the place, sick of the food. It was late morning, later than she’d meant tostart, but she couldn’t stand waiting any longer. Making sure she had the map, she headed out, paid the rest of her bill with cash. She stopped at a burger place for takeout, first hot food she’d had in a week.

None of the narrow back roads were marked, most of them dirt with patches of gravel, walled in by thick timber tangled with bushes and vines. She had to guess which road, none were marked. Only once in a while did a small, faded sign appear, but with names she couldn’t find on the local map. Twice she came to dead ends and had to turn around. It was early yet, but the woods were growing dim; this was taking longer than she’d planned. She didn’t want to get on toward evening out here, get lost in the pitch-dark. She wanted to find the woman, do what she came for, and get back to civilization.

Meredith Wilson was the first of the jurors who had left the city after the two accidents. She didn’t know whether it was because of the accidents. Her friend from the court, who’d gotten the sealed jury list for her, said for sure the Wilson woman was going back to Georgia to be with her sick father; Meredith Wilson had told her all about it. A jury clerk could get real friendly with the jury, bringing them sandwiches and coffee and all. Her friend Denise Ripley, they went way back, they’d been in high school together, in the city. Denise had worked for the Clerk of the Court for years—she had not only given Tekla the jury list and their addresses, she’d passed along other useful information, including several people headed for Molena Point, maybe for a few days’ getaway after the stress of the trial.

She’d found out more about those people, first in the city itself, talking to their neighbors, checking mailboxes. That’s why it took so long from the time Herbert was sentenced and sent to San Quentin until she went into action. Took time, finding out how best to get at each of those righteous jurors who had sentenced her son to die—die for a pitiful weakness that Herbert himself couldn’t help and that no one knew how to cure.

On these narrow dirt roads trying to follow the map, it seemed like she’d been driving forever; and now the road itself was beginning to darken as the sun dropped behind the trees. The sky was clouding over again, too. She didn’t like this. But she was too far now to turn back.

When she came to the next fork, she could see a small sign. When she brightened the headlights, a thrill touched her: the hand-carved letters read wilson. This was it. She wasn’t lost. Far ahead through the pine woods, scruffy open fields still held evening light. She turned off the headlights, moved on up the dirt road. She could smell the stink of chicken houses, smell them before she saw them. Bumping along, she came to the turnoff that led, maybe a quarter mile, tothe long rows of corrugated metal buildings rusted and sour with chicken dirt. A cottage stood between the road and the metal structures, its two front windows faintly lit, enough to light her way—a raw wooden shack with a weedy vegetable garden along one side. A wide front porch ran across the front, complete with rocking chairs. She could smell woodsmoke and could smell meat frying. Before turning into the long dirt drive she paused at the mailbox.

The name and numbers were nearly invisible. robert clive wilson. She pulled along the rutted drive to a small stand of red-leaved trees. She decided the ground was hard enough that she wouldn’t get stuck. Carefully she backed into the shadows between the spindly trunks. She didn’t get out of the car but sat waiting for full dark. Finding the house cheered her, had put her back in charge again. She sat watching the windows as darkness closed in, feeling the car rock when the wind picked up. She’d say she was looking for a Timmie Lee Baker. Any name would do, she’d say she was lost. She could repeat road names from the map and from the few nearly illegible signs; that was all she needed to get her foot in the door. When it was dark enough and with the wind pushing at her back, she stepped out of the car, the loaded .357 heavy in her jacket pocket as she approached the house.

36

Late-evening sun shone through Wilma’s dining room windows into the large new cat cage she had set up there. The bedroom quarters had grown too small for full-time use. Now Dulcie and the kittens, and Joe Grey, too, had room to sprawl for a nap in the sunshine. The ringing phone woke Joe.

The babies didn’t stir, they slept deeply, their tummies extended and full. Nor did Dulcie wake, worn out from the kittens crawling over her in their attempts at rough-and-tumble. The babies’ eyes were open and their tiny ears unfurled. It was less than two weeks and Joe was proud of them; John Firetti calledthem precocious and waited eagerly for their first words. They all waited, trying to think how to keep them from talking at the wrong time, in front of the wrong people.

Wilma answered the phone on the second ring. Joe heard her desk chair squeak.

“Oh, yes, I’d love that. What can I do?” By the smile in her voice he could tell it was Charlie, she had a special tone for her niece. “Are you sure? Is Max … ?” She was quiet, then, “Yes, that sounds fine.” Hanging up, she looked across into the dining room. “Charlie’s on her way over with a shrimp casserole, a last-minute potluck. Ryan and Clyde are bringing a salad. Max will be along, he’s at the station waiting …” She paused, watching Joe. “Waiting for a callback from Georgia.”

Joe came to full attention.

She said,“Looks like they’ve got Tekla!”

He leaped out of the pen and headed for the cat door. Wilma watched him disappear. She couldn’tnot have told him, nor would she have stopped him.

Joe, racing from peak to peak, was hardly aware of clouds darkening toward evening. Almost thundering over the roofs, he hit the courthouse tiles, raced their length and dropped down the oak tree to the station. He slid in through the glass door behind a pair of teenage girls. Across the lobby, Detective Davis was headed down the hall toward Max’s office. Joe fled past the counter, hoping to avoid Evijean, but a familiar voice stopped him.

“Yes, sir, Captain. I’m still waiting, I’ll put it straight through.” Mabel Farthy’s voice—Mabel was back. There she was, his blond, pillow-soft friend standing at the counter beside sour-faced Evijean Simpson, a stack of papers and files between them. Was Mabel catching up on the casesat hand? Was this Evijean’s last day? He was torn between racing to Max’s office or leaping to the counter.

He leaped—Mabel grabbed him up in a warm and smothering hug. “Oh, my. Look at you. Where’s Dulcie? But Davis said she had kittens? Oh, my! Imagine. Kittens! You’re a father, Joe Grey, and don’t you look proud.”

He tried not to look too proud. He rubbed his face against her shoulder; he nuzzled her face and smiled. She petted him until Evijean cleared her throat loudly. When Mabel turned to frown at Evijean, Joe slipped from her arms, dropped from the counter and fled. He didn’t want to get Mabel in an argument with Evijean on her first day back.

Life was good, leave it that way. Evijean would soon be history.

Slipping into Max’s office, he hoped that somewhere on the East Coast, Tekla was resting her heels in the cooler, and that would top off the day.

Juana and Dallas sat on the leather couch, sipping fresh coffee and looking pleased. Max lounged behind his desk, his feet up on the blotter, waiting for Mabel to put his call through. Whatever was coming down, all three were smiling. Joe flopped down on the deep Persian rug and tried not to look curious. He rolled luxuriously, then had a little wash. Nothing so distracted a human from a cat’s true intention as to watch the cat bathe. A little cat spit, a busy tongue licking across sleek fur, and most people would relax as if hypnotized. Maybe they could feel the comforting massage in their own being, a kind of reflex contentment. He looked at Max, at ease behind the desk, and a sense filled Joe that indeed all was right with the world. Slipping up on the couch beside Juana, he waited, as the officers waited, until the phone’s open speaker came to life—until Mabel said, “Sheriff Dover is on, Captain Harper.” The call from Georgia law enforcement was not from the GBI as Joe had expected, but the deep, slow voice of Pickens County Sheriff Jimmie Roy Dover.

When Max answered, Dover said simply,“We lost her.”

“Lost her?” Max barked, envisioning as Joe did that again Tekla had given them the slip.

But Dover didn’t sound dismayed. In fact there was a smile in his voice.

“When she disappeared, and every deputy out helping the rescue crews, the best we could do at the moment was put out another BOL and alert Meredith Wilson. This wasn’t one big tornado, Max. Narrow, slicing ones hit all over the state, scoured the low places between the hills. At the lake here, wiped out nine cabins and the motel. That low wind roaring along the cleft between the hills, screaming like a banshee, struck through half a dozen of these valleys, uprooted trees like mown hay, flattened buildings. Couldn’t tell where it would hit next, never seen anything like it. Local police and highway patrol and us, we had every man out looking for the dead and injured.

“Twenty-four hours, the storm began to ease up. No word on Tekla. Phone lines were down, but we got Meredith Wilson on her cell. All was quiet at their place. We sent two deputies out there as soon as we could spare them, but no sign of Tekla.

“About then, GHP got a call from a citizen with a police band, said he’d spotted the car Tekla was driving, just north of Waycross. Blue Honda Civic, he didn’t get the plate. Headed for Florida. Lone woman driving, blond hair that looked like a wig, he said, kind of crooked on her head. County sheriff deputy made her and pulled her over.

“It wasn’t Tekla,” Dover said. “This woman checked out, she had family in Florida. Officer fingerprinted her but no match, and sent her on her way.”

On the couch beside Davis, Joe had to hide a smile. These law enforcement guys from the South, they were talkers, they liked to string it out. Well, that was okay, southerners were storytellers, it was in their blood. Wilma said some of the best writers came from the South. She had described for him and Dulcie southern families sitting on their deep, covered porch in the warm evenings, rocking away, watching the fireflies, weaving family stories and ghost stories and their traditional tales.

“We had two other reports,” Dover said. “Blue Hondas, lone women, but both turned out duds. Until tonight, nearly a week later,” the sheriff said.

“Weather blowing in again, but it wasn’t here yet, just heavy clouds, when Meredith Wilson called us. Said a blue four-door, she couldn’t tell the make, had stopped on the road in front of their mailbox, then turned in, pulled in among a stand of young sourwood trees.

“I sent two deputies. Takes about twenty minutes from the station, and called in four more as backup. Our first car gets there and turns in, the storm is gearing up. Enough wind to cover sound and movement. Meredith and her father could still see Tekla’s car. We told them to stay inside, don’t answer the door, stay away from the windows.

“First patrol car checks in, approaching the house. Next thing, we hear gunfire. Second car pulls up and we get an Officer Down call. We radioed for the medics. Two more cars arrive, deputies surround the place. The officer is lying in the doorway shot in the leg and a wound in his side, his partner kneeling over him applying tourniquets to stop the blood. And Tekla’s sprawled on the steps,” Dover said. “She’s dead, shot through the chest—but not by our men.”

There was a little pause. Dover said,“Meredith Wilson killed her, with her daddy’s favorite handgun.”

They were all silent. Then,“It was later we found the scar on Tekla’s revolver where one of my deputies shot it from her hand. She could well have kept firing, have hit more of us if she’d had the chance.

“So I guess,” Dover said dryly, “besides saving lives, Meredith Wilson saved the California courts some money. Maybe,” he said, “the good Lord handled this one.”

And Joe Grey, face hidden from the chief and the detectives, couldn’t stop smiling.

In Wilma’s living room before the fire, Max and Charlie sat close together on the couch, Ryan and Clyde on cushions before the hearth. Joe and Dulcie lay on Wilma’s lap, in her easy chair. The kittens, for the moment, were blessedly asleep in their pen. The house smelled deliciously of shrimp casserole set in the oven to keep warm. Ryan’s big salad bowl and a basket of French bread waited on the table. Impromptu meals, Wilma thought, were the best. The Greenlaws had brought a berry shortcake; Lucinda sat near Charlie and Max, at the other end of the couch; Pedric chose the padded desk chair, Kit stretched out on the blotter beside him. Pan was home with the Firettis. Kate and Scotty had opted out for their own impromptu supper, they didn’t say where.

Just this morning John Firetti had examined the kittens again, had pronounced them fine and healthy and had doted over the babies. Talking to the kittens and stroking them, he had called the lighter buff boy Buffin, then had looked up guiltily at Dulcie.“It’s just a nickname, it’s not for me to name them.”

Dulcie smiled.“Why shouldn’t you name them? You helped them into the world. Buffin? I like that. Buffin,” she said, “as golden pale as the sea sand. The name has a gentle sound.” She looked up at John. “Misto named Courtney, and he would like this name, too.” She laid a paw on John’s hand and looked down at the tiny baby. “Hello, Buffin.”

“And this other little fellow,” John said, “with the dark shadow on his pale coat? Does he yet have a name?”

“Not yet,” Dulcie said. “I guess Joe and I are waiting … for our friends to help. Or maybe,” she said, “maybe we’re waiting for this little boy to name himself.”

And now this evening, this was how it happened when, the friends all moving to the dining table, paused around the cage looking down at the kittens.

“You don’t want common names,” Max said, startling Dulcie—as if they had been talking about just that. She watched the chief nervously.

“They’re Joe’s kittens,” he said, “Joe Grey’s and Dulcie’s.”

Everyone was quiet. What was Max saying, what was he thinking? That the kittens were far more than just special? In the silent room Charlie glanced at Ryan and Clyde, and at Wilma.

But maybe, Dulcie thought, Max meant nothing—his expression was bland, maybe he was just taken with her babies. He had grown to enjoy Joe’s bold and purring interruptions in the office. Now he admired Joe’s kittens; surely that was all he had meant.

Charlie said,“Wilma has already named the girl kitten, she is Courtney.”

“And this morning,” Wilma said, “John Firretti gave me another name … maybe not so original, but it fits.” She bent down to stroke the paler boy kitten. “Buffin,” she said. “This is Buffin.”

Charlie said,“I like it, it’s a sturdy name. He is sturdy, look at him.” She leaned down to pet the sand-colored baby. But when she picked up the other kitten, with the gray cloud marking his pale coat, he immediately nipped her and dug his claws in, making her laugh. “This one’s a little wildcat, he’s going to be a handful.” She glanced down at Dulcie and Joe, then at Wilma.

“Striker,” she said. “What about Striker? But Striker as in to protect, not to threaten.”

Behind Max’s back, Dulcie and Joe looked at each other, amused. Yes, a strong name. And a strong, determined kitten. And Joe thought, A good name for a young cop kitten—if that’s what Striker turns out to be.

Wilma looked into Dulcie’s green eyes, then into Joe’s level gaze. “Striker. I like that,” she told Charlie. When she took the kitten from Charlie she received a sharp scratch of her own. She set him down in the pen, tapped him gently on the nose when he tried for another swat. When he drew back, she gently stroked him. He looked up at her uncertainly.

“Hello, Striker,” she said, laughing, and she removed her hand before he thought to lunge again.

When Ryan brought the casserole to the table and everyone gathered, Courtney and her brothers, smelling the warm shrimp, let out lusty mewls. Even kittens with full tummies could bellow demanding cries; but a look and a soft mumble from Dulcie, and soon they quieted.

As they all took their seats, Ryan was saying,“What I don’t get is how Tekla got the jurors’ names. Doesn’t the court seal those, so no one can influence the jurors during the trial or do them harm afterward?”

“It was the jury clerk,” Max said, “a Denise Ripley, she passed the names and addresses to Tekla. They went through high school together. Maybe buddies, maybe not, but Tekla paid her well. Ripley spilled when the chief judge called her in. He got her story—I’m not sure how. Maybe she thought he would only fire her and not prosecute, though I’m sure he didn’t promise that.” Max smiled. “Ripley’s in jail now, under indictment.”

“She got what she deserved,” Charlie said, “and so did Tekla. Meredith Wilson is alive, unharmed. Because of Meredith, maybe so are a couple of deputies. And maybe those jurors, too, who were lucky enough to escape the Bleaks.”

“What would the world be like,” Ryan wondered, “if all the vindictive, blood-hungry people suddenly went up in smoke, vanished into nothing?”

“I’d be out of a job,” Max said, laughing. “I’d be spending my time with Charlie, in a long and satisfying retirement.”

“And pretty soon,” Wilma said, “with no more evil in the world for us to stand against, people would become as weak and ineffective as garden slugs.”

Dulcie thought about that. But in her mind, at that moment, the prospect of an innocent world, of a safe life for her kittens, such a dream would offer more than a few virtues.

It was later in the evening when, yawning, Dulcie watched their friends depart, that she thought a little prayer for them all, for cats, kittens, and humans. Her purr was deep, she was content with life as she and Wilma moved the kittens into their nighttime pen beside Wilma’s bed. Dulcie settled down among them, inundated by pummeling babies who did not want to go to sleep. Soothing her lively youngsters with a gentle paw, she willed herself to forget the last lingering images of Tekla’s brutal assaults, of the suffering that woman had caused.

She thanked the greater powers for all their good fortune, despite the ugliness. She thought of Pan tucked up with the Firettis, the three friends comforting one another. She thought lovingly of Joe Grey stretched out in his tower staring out at the sky and she thought, Good night, Joe, dream well—and in his tower at the same moment Joe Grey bade happy dreams to Dulcie and their three babies. The late spring night tucked warmly around humans and cats, and the kittens beneath Dulcie’s restraining paw drifted into sleep, safe and loved. Dulcie, looking out thebedroom windows to the night, hoped that Misto could hear the kittens’ purrs and could hear her own contented rumble. And they all slept, cats and humans.

It was only much later that Dulcie woke again and rose, that she trotted out into the dark living room, leaped onto Wilma’s desk, and with a quick paw she turned on the computer. She sat in its soft light thinking about Misto, thinking about the poem in her head that had been forming ever since the old cat died, the verses that wouldn’t leave her, and slowly, with her forepaws squeezed small, she shared her wordson the screen, her ode to Misto.

Golden spirit, you reach down

Your ghostly paw to touch the earth you love

To touch the sea

To stroke the lakes and rivers

To caress green hills and forests

To bless this mortal land you left behind.

Though you are gone,

Your spirit dances now

In bright eternity.

You are young again and strong

You whisper,“I am with you,

I am with you, still.”

You whisper,

“When your spirits join me,

You will know all secrets.

You will then fly free,

Fly paw to paw with me.

Our spirits sailing free.”

20. CAT SHINING BRIGHT

Prologue

On this early May evening in Wilma Getz’s stone cottage, the tall, older woman kneels by the hearth, the blaze reflecting from her long silver ponytail as she adds another log to the fire. Around her, cat friends and humans sit in the flowered chairs and couch but no one is at ease as they usually are in Wilma’s welcoming home. All are rigid, waiting. Wilma’s slim, redheaded niece, Charlie, holds Joe Grey securely on her lap, the tomcat struggling to get free and go to Dulcie, so nervous he can hardly be still. Hearing his tabby lady’s cries, he has tried twice to claw Charlie, shocking them both. Beside them, blond, beautiful Kate Osborne waits restlessly, as do Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw. The elderly couple snuggles tortoiseshell Kit between them, stroking her fluffy coat, trying to calm her fidgets as well as their own. But Kit will not be calmed, and she does not want to be petted. Rising irritably, she drops tothe floor and settles stoically before the hearth beside red tabby Pan, the tomcat straight and solemn, attempting in his own stern way to show no unease. Kit, beside him, tries hard to hide her own nerves, intently listening.

They hear no more cries of pain—but when, from the bedroom, Dr. Firetti calls Wilma, Joe Grey starts to fight Charlie again trying to break free, trying to go to Dulcie, the vanished echo of his lady’s whimpers still striking deep through him.

But John Firetti’s voice is cheerful. “Could we have the warm blanket now? While Mary and I clean up?” At the pleasure in his voice, everyone relaxes, worried faces turn to smiles. From the bedroom there is only silence, no more cries of pain from Dulcie. As Wilma rises to get the blanket, soft footsteps come down the hall; the doctor’s wife appears, Mary’s brown hair mussed, her brown eyes aglow with pleasure. “The last kitten has been born. Oh, so beautiful. Three fine kittens,” Mary says, “healthy and strong. And Dulcie is just fine,” she says, looking deep into Joe Grey’s worried yellow eyes. “Let’s give her a little while before we go in. Except you, Joe,” she says, reaching to pet the tomcat. “You can go see your new family.”

Joe leaps off Charlie’s lap and heads for the bedroom, shy suddenly, nearly electrified with uncertainty. He has never seen newborn kittens, not his own kittens. He slips up onto the bed where he can look down into the kittening box.

There they are, three tiny, beautiful babies. So little and naked, wriggling weakly against their tabby mother: the two buff-colored kits are boys, he can tell by their scent. And, oh my, the girl is going to be a striking calico, he can already see the faint patterns on her tender skin. Dulcie has cleaned them up; she lies resting. The tiny ones squirm close to her, pressing at her, nursing hungrily against her striped belly.

Dr. John Firetti, kneeling over the box, looks up and nods.“Come, Joe. Come down and see your babies.”

Joe Grey eases off the bed, approaching warily. He crouches very still, looking into the birthing box at his new family, breathing in their intriguing kitten scent—but he is fearful. Even now he is afraid of how he might respond, he is too aware of the ancient instinct of some tomcats to ravage their own young. Would this age-old urge surface in him? Shivering, he is ready to turn and run before he hurts his helpless kittens—and when Dulcie lifts her eyes to him, he sees for an instant the female’s equally primitive response, the inborn ferocity of a mother cat to protect her babies.

But then her look softens, her green-eyed gaze is content, loving their kittens, loving him. Joe Grey purrs extravagantly for her. Watching Dulcie and their three beautiful newborns, he knows only wonder; he knows they have made a fine family. Three infants so tiny and perfect that Joe can’t resist reaching his nose in, breathing deeper of their sweet kitten aroma.

“Courtney,” Dulcie says, licking the calico and looking up at Joe. “You can hardly see her markings, but she will grow into them.” She licks the boys. “What kind of lives will these three make, our three tiny mites?” Powerfully the moment holds them, holds the little family in the handsof gentle grace.

1

Those first weeks were idyllic, Dulcie caring for the kittens, washing and nursing them, Joe Grey with them more often than not, galloping over the rooftops between his house and Dulcie’s. If he swung by Molena Point PD for a moment to read police reports as he lay casually on the chief’s desk, if he worried about the cartheft ring that was working closer and closer down the coast toward Molena Point—already the cops had readied extra forces—if Joe knew in his wily cat soul that it wouldn’t be long before the thieves hit their village, he kept his concerns to himself. Dulcie didn’t need to fret over a possible new crime wave, all she and the kittens needed was their cozy, safe home, quiet and secure. Wilma kept the TV and radio off, and the newspaper out of sight; nothing of the outer world intruded to disturb the little family’s tranquillity, only soft music on the CD player, or a little easy jazz, or Wilma would read to Dulcie, something bright and happy.

Two weeks after the kittens were born their eyes were open and their tiny ears unfurled. Another week and they could see and hear very well and were toddling about their pen. Courtney’s colors were clear now, the bright orange and black markings along her back, her white sides and belly, her little white face with orange ears and a circle of pale orange and darker freckles around her muzzle, the three perfect black bracelets circling her right front leg. Now, when the kittensheard Joe Grey come in through the cat door, they squealed with delight. When Joe jumped into the cat pen that Wilma had set up in the kitchen, the babies climbed all over him, pummeling and mauling him, rolling under the tomcat’s gentle paws. The biggest question in both parents’ minds, the same question that nudged those few humans who knew that Joe Grey and Dulcie could speak, was when would the kittens say their first words?

Would they speak? Would they be speaking cats like their parents and like tortoiseshell Kit and red tabby Pan? Or would Joe and Dulcie’s babies grow up without knowing the human language, without the humanlike talents of their parents? Everyone was filled with anxious hope, with nervous waiting. Wilma’s niece, Charlie, came often to visit, the kittens climbing from her lap to her shoulder to tangle wildly in her long red hairand to pat with curiosity at the celestial scattering of freckles that spilled across her cheeks, making her laugh. Charlie, as Police Chief Max Harper’s wife, knew all the details of the coastal auto thefts. She said nothing in front of Dulcie, though she might exchange a glance with Joe Grey. Charlie talked to the kittens of other things, naming items in the kitchen, asking questions, hoping to draw out a word or two. But the babies only meowed.

June rolled away, and still no kitten said a word. Soon it was July and then August. The kittens at three months old were all claws and teeth, loud and demanding yowls, boundless energy, leaping from chair to table, climbing draperies; but not a word did they say. A cat tree stood by Wilma’s desk looking out at the garden, another at the dining room window, a third in the bedroom, their carpeted shelves and climbing posts already shredded by sharp claws where calico Courtney and her buff-colored brothers leaped, flew, battled one another, wildly fierce and happy. And still, Courtney and Buffin and Striker said no word.

Every night Wilma read to them, the book open on her lap with the kittens crowded around. Dulcie read to them, and often fluffy, tortoiseshell Kit came to visit and read to them, too; always the kittens’ blue eyes followed the words on the page; though they wanted to wrestle and play with Kit, as well, for she was much like a kitten herself. “Will you ever speak to me?” Kit asked them, her yellow eyes wide. “When we read to you—fairy tales or the old myths—I know you understand. Speakthe words, Courtney. Say them back to me.”

Courtney meowed happily, pawed Kit’s nose playful and sly, and switched her calico tail. Kit turned away irritably, settling on the boy kittens. “Speak to me, Buffin. Read to me, Striker.” No one said a word. Kit knew they could read, she could tell by their expressions. None of the three were normal kittens. And if they could read, surely they could speak. Stubborn, she thought. Her yellow eyes staring into baby-blue eyes, all she could say was, “You are toying with us. You are stubborn kittens, stubborn and willful.”

But a week later, it happened: Buffin was the first.

The sand-colored kitten with the gray patch on his shoulder had sneaked out the cat door when it was accidentally left unlocked. Padding into the garden, where he was not allowed alone—because of hawks and stray dogs—he discovered a fledgling bird perched low among a tangle of bushes. The nestling, having tried to fly, had ended in a crash landing.

Buffin, with a surge of inborn killer instinct, was about to pounce on the youngster with raking claws and sharp teeth when a strange new emotion stopped him. He backed away, puzzled.

He had no notion that Dulcie had slipped out the cat door behind him, that she crouched among the flowers feeling excited that he would make his first kill, but feeling sad for the bird as she often did. Mice and rats didn’t stir her sympathy but this little bright creature was as lovely as a jewel. But what was Buffin doing?

Carefully and gently he crept forward again. He reared up and, with soft paws, he lifted the little bird down and laid it on the grass. It was only a tiny thing, yellow and brown. Dulcie could have told him it was a warbler. She watched him stroke the bird softly. She watched him put his ear to the bird, gently listening—and suddenly Buffin spoke.

“There, there,” the kitten said softly. “There, you can breathe all right. And I can feel your heart beating. Bird,” he said, “little yellow bird.” His words were in full sentences, not baby talk at all. He crouched over the bird, hardly touching it but keeping it warm; for a long time it didn’t move, and Buffin was still and silent. Only when he felt the bird stir beneath him, felt it shiver and move its wings, did he back away from it, waiting.

The bird shook itself, and gave a little“peep.” Poised between Buffin and the bushes, it fluffed its wings and flapped awkwardly, trying to rise. It flapped twice more, clumsily—then suddenly it flew straight up, stumbling on the wind; beating its fledgling wings hard, it climbed straight up the wind and crashed into its nest amongthe reaching oak branches.

“Oh my,” said Buffin.

“Oh my, indeed,” said Dulcie behind him. When he spun around, she cuddled him and licked his face and her tears fell on his nose. Buffin had spoken, the first of her children to say a word; and what a strange thing he had done. What kind of kitten had she borne, what kind of little cat was he, so caring and tender that he would save the life of a bird? How could he be her and Joe’s son, the son of fierce hunters, when he didn’t want to kill a baby bird? (Though Dulcie, too, had had her moments.) But what kind of cat would he grow up to be? Indeed this kitten, Dulcie thought, had inherited something strange and remarkable in his nature.

Buffin looked at his mother, happily purring. He looked up at the bird in the tree, and purred louder.“Little yellow bird,” he said again, softly.

Everyone had thought Striker would be the first to speak because he was so bold. He was always first to start a battle, the first to show his rowdy ways and swift claws. He was first to dive into the food bowl, the swiftest up the cat trees, the first to do anything wild and foolish. But not until a week after Buffin’s debut, as Wilma called it, did Striker shout out his own first words, and he sounded just like his daddy.

The cats’ human housemate stood tying back her bright gray hair into a ponytail, watching Striker’s usual crazy race around the house. Even Wilma, a retired parole officer who had seen plenty of mayhem, shivered at the chances the kitten took. She watched him sail to the top of the china cabinet, leap six feet up to the cat tree, foolishly misjudge his balance, lose his footing, and plummet to the buffet, knocking a glass bowl of flowers to the floor, spilling blossoms and water and shattering the vase. Striker’s shout filled the house.

“Damn! Damn, damn it to hell,” he yowled.

He stared down at the mess he had made and before he could be scolded he fled, diving from the buffet through the dining room, racing down the hall into the guest room and deep under the bed. There he stayed, in the darkest corner, listening to Wilma and Dulcie laughing. Laughing at him! He was far more embarrassed by their amusement than by his own clumsiness.

Only when Dulcie crept deep under the bed herself and hugged Striker and told him it was all right, only when Wilma had swept and vacuumed up the broken glass and sopped up the water and thrown away the flowers did Striker come out from under the bed. He meowed with pleasure when Wilma told him it was all right, when both Wilma and Dulcie hugged him and laughed with joy because he had spoken; because, they said, he was a very special cat. No one scolded him for the mess; and certainly no one scolded him for swearing.

But what of calico Courtney? It was September, the kittens were four months old. Both boys were talking. Courtney had spoken not a word. The calico was keen and observant, she saw everything, she listened to every conversation; Dulcie had thought she’d be the first to ask questions. Their human friends, redheaded Charlie Harper; Joe Grey’s own housemates, Ryan and Clyde Damen; and Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw, Kit’s lean, elderly couple, all waited expectantly for Courtney’s first words. Dr. John Firetti came to visit far more often than was needed, greeting Wilma but then going right to the kittens. John had known about Joe and Dulcie for years, had known the secret of speaking cats since he was a boy. He had waited all his life to see new, speaking kittens born, which was indeed a rare event. He loved these kittens with an amazing rapport and they immediately loved him. The minute he knelt down by their pen the boy kittens were all over him, talking and cuddling and playing, Buffin stroking his face with a soft paw. As Buffin clung to him snuggled under his throat, John would look over at Courtney.

“No words yet?” he would ask Wilma.

“None. She hasn’t spoken,” Wilma would say sadly, looking down into Courtney’s baby-blue eyes.

Courtney would lie in Wilma’s lap as Wilma read to her, would lie purring but mute, loving the ancient myths and tales, listening in total silence—until one evening before the fire, as Joe Grey stretched out on the couch, Dulcie and the kittens on Wilma’s lap, Courtney suddenly put her paw on the page, on the very words Wilma was speaking.

Wilma hushed, watching her. Courtney sat up straighter and began to read aloud, just where Wilma had left off. She read the tale smoothly and clearly all the way through, she spun the story out as lyrically as Wilma herself had ever done.

When she’d finished, they were all silent. Joe Grey looked so ridiculously proud that Dulcie had to hide a laugh; she licked Courtney, both she and Joe smug with their calico’s cleverness—until the morning that the words Courtney read brought not smiles but alarm.

It was a week after Courtney started to read that, sitting on the kitchen table on the edge of the newspaper, she placed a paw on the front-page article.“‘car thieves moving down the coast. to hit molena point again?’” She looked up at Wilma. “What is this? What are car thieves? What does it mean, to hit Molena Point? Hit how?” She kept reading, dragging her paw down the lines of type.

2

Joe Grey still hadn’t told Dulcie about the car-thieving ring, he didn’t want her thinking about village crime. Not because she’d be afraid; Dulcie was seldom frightened. But because his tabby lady would be torn with painfully conflicting desires—longing to prowl the night with him tracking the perps, but toodeep with love for their babies to leave them. Wilma still kept the morning paper hidden and the TV news off. Dulcie was so entangled in busy motherhood that she hardly noticed Wilma’s changes in the household.

But the village had been struck, the thieves had been there twice, weeks apart and many weeks after the kittens were born. Both times in the small and darkest hours, the gang working fast, vanishing into the night in stolen cars. Then they had doubled back north, striking small towns that thought they had missed the attacks: Santa Rosa, Bodega Bay, San Anselmo, Ukiah, Mendocino. Molena Point PD remained on alert waiting for their return. Both the cops and Joe Grey found it interesting that in only a few cases were the perps able to steal the cars they broke into. Maybe only one of them carried the latest electronic equipment to unlock the ignition, or maybe the device they used worked only on certain makes. Joe slipped into Max’s office every day, leaping to the chief’s desk, picking up details that were not in the paper about the heists up the coast.

In the gang’s first descent on Molena Point they had stolen only three cars but had broken into twelve more, gleaning a fine array of cameras, clothes, money that some fool had hidden in the lining of a beverage holder, three pairs of binoculars, and a handgun tucked into a briefcase under the driver’s seat. The car owner reporting the stolen gun had been cited for not having a permit and for not properly securing his weapon. By the time Joe Grey and Kit and Pan arrived on the rooftops, the streets were black, clouds covered the thin moon, all was silent and the perps had apparently fled.

The second round of thefts was up in the hills beyond Wilma’s cottage. A houseguest had awakened hearing glass shatter, had looked out his bedroom window to the drive where two men were breaking into his new Audi. Grabbing the bedside phone, he had dialed 911.

The dispatcher sent out the call and then had called the chief at home. Max had risen, dressing hastily. Behind him, Charlie sat up in bed, pushed back her red hair, and tried to come awake, watching him pull on his boots.“What’s happened? Another car heist?”

Max nodded.“Up on Light Street. They broke into an Audi but couldn’t get it started, and burglarized five other cars.”

“They’ll be all over that neighborhood.”

“So will we,” Max said, belting on his holstered gun. Heading out, he didn’t imagine that his call from the dispatcher threw Charlie, too, into high gear. The minute his truck skidded up the drive, throwing gravel, Charlie called the Damen household to alert Joe Grey.

In the Damen master bedroom, Clyde snatched up the ringing phone, listened, then shouted grumbling up at Joe in his rooftop tower.“It’s Charlie. Are you there?” Hearing Joe yowl an answer, he laid down the phone and immediately dropped back into sleep. Beside him Ryan lay half awake, her short dark hair tumbled across the pillow. Above them, Joe Grey pushed in through his cat door onto a rafter, leaped down to Clyde’sstudy onto the desk, talked with Charlie on the extension, and was out of there, grabbing a small leather pouch in his teeth, leaping to the rafter, out through his tower, and racing across the rooftops. At the same time, at the Harper ranch, Charlie was calling the Greenlaws. By 2 a.m. tortoiseshell Kit and red tabby Pan had hit the roofs, too, heading for Light Street. Spotting the red lights of two cop cars and following them, they soon saw Joe Grey on a nearby peak, carrying his small cell phone in its leather pouch. Separating, the cats roamed the roofs watching the dark streets just as,below, the law was searching. They could see two cops attending to the Audi, taking prints, their flashlights and strobe cameras flashing off broken glass.

By three o’clock the cats had spotted and called in five other cars with broken windows. They could only imagine what contents might be missing. In the dense night they had barely seen two dark-clad men running, vanishing among the houses; one tall and heavily muscled, the other tall and thin. Not much forthe cops to go on but Joe made the call, sliding out the phone, its pouch wet with cat drool. They watched three officers melt into the bushes, searching, but they never found the men. From the roofs, the cats watched patrol cars slide along the streets, spotlights flashing in among the houses, while other officers on foot prowled the tangled yards. Cats and cops found no one. There was no sound but the quiet passing of patrol vehicles.

The next morning Joe hit the station early, slipping under the credenza in Max Harper’s office, into the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Max was at his desk, Detective Dallas Garza sitting on the arm of the leather couch blowing on his hot brew. Two missing cars had just been called in, probably hours after the vehicles were taken.

Now, several weeks later, none of the stolen cars had been recovered. The first round of thefts had run for three days, each night in a different neighborhood. Weeks passed before the next assault. Both times, all MPPD got were fingerprints of the cars’ owners or passengers, many smeared by the thieves’ gloves. That second round began when a man getting home at midnight was knocked down in his driveway. The perp grabbed his keys, took his car, and was gone. The victim’s cell phone was in his car. His house key was on the ring with the car key. He dug a spare key from between two strips of wooden siding near the garage door, ran in the house and called the department. Patrols hit the streets. And, at Charlie’s call, the cats hit the rooftops. This time the thieves got away with four cars, one an antique Bentley, but they had broken into nine other vehicles.

Now, as Courtney read the article and Wilma explained to her what car theft was, the calico looked up at her, wide-eyed.

“Surely,” Wilma said, “they won’t return now, the weather page says a big storm is brewing. Slashing rain, high winds.” Already the kitchen had grown dim; outside the windows, high, dark clouds lay waiting to descend. “Why would that front-page reporter think car thieves would be out ina downpour?” She pushed back her long, silver hair. “Surely they’ll wait for better weather.”

“Maybe,” Dulcie said, “a storm is the best time. Harder for the cops to see or hear a man jimmy a car window, harder to see them drive away.” She was shocked and annoyed that neither Joe nor Wilma had told her about the thefts, that even Kit had been silent. But then, on second thought, shewas glad. These last weeks, life had been so peaceful, nesting with her kittens, training them, reading to them, seeing them grow each day to develop his or her own unique habits and interests; no crimes to distract her, no worries about Joe out in the night stalking thieves—until now. Now she began to fret. Life beyond the cottage began to push at her; she longed suddenly to run with Joe across nighttime roofs hunting the bad guys. She was torn sharply between the excitement of the hunt, and the security of snuggling and caring for their bright and riotous kittens, safe in their peaceful cottage.

But she couldn’t leave her family, not yet, it wasn’t time yet to go off in the night leaving her babies for Wilma to tend.

Though she had been right about the weather. By midnight the September storm had hit Molena Point hard. The car thieves hit just as fiercely.

Again they chose the predawn hours, the black night windy and rainy, wind so powerful a cat could hardly cling to the rooftops. That whole late summer had become a grand slam for the meteorologists as they tried to explain storms that arrived months after El Ni?o should have come and gone.

The first report was a hijacked car. The woman driver, when officers reached her, was crying, badly bruised, and rain soaked. While medics took care of her, Max put out double patrols along the village’s hidden lanes where cottages crowded together, invisible in the dark, where all sounds were muffled beneath blowing oaks and pines. Ten cars were robbed between three and four in the morning while the village slept; ten cars robbed, five more stolen.

The next night in the predawn hours patrols were increased, prowling the tangled neighborhoods with their twisting roads among the woods but with expensive cars parked behind houses and in narrow carports; and of course no streetlights, Molena Point did not have streetlights.

But this night, Joe Grey and Kit and Pan didn’t follow the cops, they chose the very places where police patrols were thinnest, just in the center of the village. Staying to the most open streets, they separated across the dark rooftops, Joe Grey taking one route while Kit and Pan took another, all three of them straining to hear, over the wind, any sound of a wrench on metal or of breaking glass. The rain increased, the wind fierce as a tornado. Kit thought she heard Joe Grey shout, but couldn’t see him, couldn’t tell what he was saying. Had he even seen the stolen car that she and Pan had been watching, had he seen the man hide it? Or had Joe come from the other direction? And now she’d lost sight of Pan. Clinging to the shingles, she searched the dark for both tomcats and searched for the vanished thief, the wind slamming her face so hard she thought it would tear out her whiskers.

3

Kit clung to the rooftop, wind lashing her black and brown fur, flattening her ears and whipping her fluffy tail. Creeping along on her belly, digging her claws into the shingles, she watched the dark shadow below that she and Pan had followed—but now she followed alone, she’d lost Pan. As she turned to look behind her, the wind slammed her so hard she thought it would throw her to the sidewalk. Joe Grey had said the gale would come harder, close to dawn, that it would grow so violent that she and Pan had better be off the roofs early.

But they hadn’t listened to Joe.

Right now the gray tomcat was most likely safe at home wondering where they were, ready to come out again looking for them. So far they’d seen only the one breakin, the lone, dark-clad figure jimmying a white car and starting it, driving away so slowly they were able to follow him. Only three blocks away they had watched garage lights come on, the driver getting out to swing the old-style garage door open. He’d driven in, gotten out, they’d had one good glimpse of his back, heavyset, a black jacket. They’d watched the lights go out as he shut the door. Hiding that nice BMW? Or did he live here, was this his house? They didn’t think so, the way he was prowling around it now, even if he did have a garage key. And then she’d lost Pan—a minute ago they’d been together. Now, not a sign of the red tabby—when she turned back to look for him the twisting wind hit her face so hard it choked her. Come on, Pan! She cringed lower, searching—wishing they had listened to Joe Grey. Did Pan have to linger, snoopingaround that house? They knew where the car was, they could report it later, could call the law in a little while.

She dug her claws harder into the crusty shingles as the wind, like great hands, tried to throw her straight down to the sidewalk. Wind made the moonlight race and shift, that’s how they’d first seen him walking the street stopping to look at each car, a darkly dressed man caught in moving streaks of light. A broad man, not fat but heavily muscled under his padded jacket. A hard-looking man, dark cap pulled down against the weather or against recognition.

Having ditched the sleek white BMW and locked the garage padlock, he had moved close to the house, pressing his ear to the wall where, from the size of the windows and the drawn shades, there might be a bedroom. He’d stood listening. He looked angry when he turned away and headed for the front door. Taking another key from his pocket, he unlocked it and slipped inside.

He was gone only a few minutes before storming out again and taking off up the street. That’s when Kit followed him; she glanced back once to see Pan, too, listening at the bedroom wall. Kit didn’t go back, she stayed close to the thief, clinging to the roofs, wondering where he would make his next hit. He was only two blocks from Joe Grey’s house and she thought about Clyde’s vintage Jaguar in the drive, and Ryan’s nice truck with all her tools, Skilsaws, and building equipment secured in the back and in the side lockers, her long ladder chained on top. Don’t let him steal the Damens’ vehicles, don’t let him hit the Damens’ house.

Instead he headed up the side street, stopping again at each parked car, whether at the curb or in a driveway. He tried each car door to see if it was unlocked, then tried the various tools he carried; moonlight caught at a long slim blade, at several keys that, she guessed, might have been shaved, at other tools that bulged from his pockets. He avoided some of the newest cars with their sophisticated alarm systems. He carried a duffel bag—if he did get a car open but couldn’t start it, he rummaged through, stole whatever he wanted, dropped it in the bag, and left.

Strange, though. He seemed to have stolen the BMW with no trouble. He’d had keys to the garage and house, though he didn’t act like he lived there, he was too sneaky as he entered and then slipped away. And now, up the side street another man appeared, a tall, slim shadow moving within patches of blowing moonlight; he stood beside a sleek new sports car, lookingdown at his hands—operating some device. It didn’t take long, he had the door open, and slid into the driver’s seat. A few more minutes, he started the engine and drove away, cool as you please, turning right at the next corner. They’d seen only two men, but this was a larger gang than that. Where are the others? And why does this one have more sophisticated equipment than the other?

All summer Kit and Pan and Joe Grey had prowled the rooftops at two and three in the morning watching for the car thieves. Often they had seen plainclothes officers in the shadows of the streets below, and several arrests were made; but the thieves must have had replacements. They would work Molena Point for several nights, then would move north. A few days in one place, then gone again to another town, their movements so evenly spaced that their operation became a guessing game for local TV and small-town papers: Which town would be next?

Molena Point was only a mile square, the streets so crowded with cottages, the yards so dense with bushes and fences and giant trees—and no streetlights to pick out a prowler—that it was hard for cops, or even cats, to spot a thief. Sometimes, if there was moonlight, the cats got a license number or a make and model. More times clouds covered the moon, or the breakin was accomplished in black alleys between buildings or in the thick shadows of sprawling cypress branches. The first week the cats had worked this gig, they had reported five cars with dark-clothed men prowling around them, but by the time they reached a phone the vehicles were gone.

The next time, Joe Grey carried the small old cell phone with its fake registration, thanks to Clyde, his human housemate. Because of Joe’s calls, a number of stolen cars were apprehended, and arrests were made—but still the thefts continued.

Below Kit, the heavy man had stopped and began working on a car door. Even in the windy dark, she could see it was an older Jeep sedan. Before she knew it he’d popped the lock. He slid right in, and soon, through the sound of the wind, she heard the engine start.

He moved the car ahead slowly, driving without lights, turning left in the direction of Joe Grey’s house—maybe meaning to heist the Damens’ vehicles? Had Joe come home? Was he in his tower out of the worst of the blow, waiting for her and Pan to come bolting in out of the storm? Would he see the Jeep? She had to smile, that Joe had been so much more careful of his own safety since the kittens came. The responsibility of the three babies had made him, not less brave, but far more watchful for his own safety. Now, was he up there watching the Jeep approach? As Kit scrambled down a little pepper tree to cross the street to Joe’s house, the wind shook the small tree so hard she thought its limbs would break—the next instant, a tree did break. Not the lacy pepper tree but a tall eucalyptus that spread across the narrow street: there was a giant splintering screech as a reaching branch cracked, the main trunk split, and the tree came crashing down filling the street and covering Joe Grey’s roof, its upper branches hiding his tower, its heavy trunk twisted across the Jeep’s hood.

The man inside moved fast; killing the engine, he swung the door open. Kit bolted from the pepper tree across the fallen eucalyptus onto Joe’s roof. She heard the perp running up the street, the pounding of his shoes soon lost in the roar of wind.

Joe Grey’s tower was buried in the top of the fallen tree, covered with leaves and twiggy branches, Joe’s beautiful windowed aerie. Praying the gray tomcat had escaped, she yowled and yowled for him—she couldn’t shout his name, since the thief might still hear her. Worried for Pan but terrified forJoe, forgetting the vanishing thief as she scrambled across the last of the broken tree limbs and into the tangle of the shattered tower, she heard Clyde’s voice from within.

“What the hell! Joe, are you all right?”

“Fine!” Joe yowled. “Get this damn tree off me.”

Kit bolted through a jammed-open tower window into Joe’s broken aerie, into a mass of leaves and branches, and broken safety glass scattered like small diamonds. She watched the tomcat crawl out from under. “You okay?”

“Fine,” he repeated crossly, the white strip down his face narrowed with anger, his gray ears flat to his head. “I never in all hell thought that big tree would fall.” He began to paw glitters of glass from his face, from his sides and shoulders. “Cops, go call the cops. This stuff stickslike glue.”

Kit fought her way past him through the tower and in through Joe’s cat door onto the nearest rafter, dropped down to Clyde’s desk to report the thief but already Clyde was on the phone—mussed dark hair, rumpled robe—describing the fallen tree to the dispatcher. Apparently he hadn’t seen the smashed car, hadn’t seen the driver run. Kit could see Ryanthrough the sliding doors to her studio; she had grabbed the extension before Clyde hung up, her blue robe twisted around her, her green eyes frightened.

“A car,” she told the dispatcher. “The tree fell on a car, I can see it from my studio. The driver jumped out and ran. A square, heavy man, dark clothes, dark cap …” At the same moment, Kit thought she heard, up the street, another car starting. She leaped to the mantel to see better. “There,” Ryan said, “around the corner. He’s getting in another car, just the parking lights on. They’re moving off, turning north, maybe headed for Highway One?”

Kit didn’t hear Rock; the Damens’ big Weimaraner should have been barking up a storm from the moment the tree fell. Then she remembered he was off on a fishing trip with Ryan’s dad and his wife, Lindsey; they often took Rock with them. On the love seat Snowball, the Damens’ little white cat, sat rigid with alarm in her mound of quilt. She usually had the Weimaraner to shelter and protect her. Now, alone, she was shivering at the crash, her eyes huge and afraid, though she was unwilling to race downstairs and leave the comfort of her humans. Snowball didn’t speak, she could only meow, and now her cry was pitiful.

Clyde stopped to cuddle and reassure her, then stepped into Ryan’s studio, put his arm around her, stood looking down through the window at the wrecked Jeep. He turned to look at Kit. “Where’s Pan? He’s still out in the storm?”

“Firettis called,” Ryan said. “They’re worried about him, worried about you cats out in this. And Lucinda … she knows I’ll call the minute you show up, Kit. I can just see her pacing, I know how she fusses over you. But Kit, where is Pan?”

Kit didn’t answer, she leaped back up to the rafter and pushed out through the tangle of eucalyptus branches. Joe, having freed himself of some of the sparkling glass pellets, shouldered through beside her. “Kit, where is he? Were you together? Watch the glass. Where the hell is Pan?”

Kit’s heart was pounding so hard it shook her all over. Had other trees fallen? Could Pan be hurt? She raced from the broken tower down the pepper tree to the street, Joe beside her. Across the street and up again to the roofs on the other side, back the way she had come. The wind shifted and twisted, was choking them, pushing against them so they could hardly move. “We were together,” she shouted in Joe’s ear, “we saw that man hide a car then hurry away looking in other cars. I chased him but Pan jumped up to peer in the bedroom window of the house where the car was hidden and he never caught up with me.” The full terror of what might have happened to Pan sent her racing hard into the heavy blow.

In the Damen bedroom, Clyde had pulled on a pair of pants and was grabbing a jacket when Ryan stopped him.“We can look for Pan but no good trying to follow that man from the Jeep, by now the car that picked him up is probably on the freeway.” She had dressed quickly, she was reaching for her slicker when Clyde shook his head.

“Wait here, Ryan, please. Someone needs to be here, Pan might be hurt, they may need us.” He was halfway down the stairs when they heard sirens: Ryan ran to the studio window. Below, headlights were coming from either end of the street, their red flashers bright on the fallen tree and smashed car. The two black-and-whites drew close to the wreck and parked; their loud whooping stopped. Ryan followed Clyde down to meet them, praying that their noise and lights might bring Pan home.

Out in the wind Joe and Kit heard the sirens, heard them stop, heard the squawk of a police radio. The wind had died a little, the rain had stopped, and several blocks down where swaying trees led across from roof to roof, they saw a pale shape among the blowing branches. When they reached it, the ghostly shape was gone.

As they searched, balancing among swinging tree limbs, they heard scrambling, the sound of claws on rough bark. When they looked up, a cypress branch shook hard and Pan leaped down, straight into Kit’s and Joe’s faces. Kit threw herself at him nuzzling and scolding him; the three hunched together as the wind gusted harder.

“Where were you?” Kit said. “I thought you were behind me and you weren’t and that man stole another car and then a tree fell and I thought Joe was killed, it fell right on top of his tower and I couldn’t see you anywhere and I went to help him … Are you all right?” She stopped talking long enough to lick Pan’s ears, to look him over and see he wasn’t hurt.

“I’m fine,” Pan said. “I’d started to follow you, then I saw the same man up the side street breaking into cars and when he couldn’t get one started he just stole what he wanted. I thought you’d be following but I couldn’t find you. There was another, skinny man breaking into cars, taking things, then he broke into a black Audi.

“It didn’t take him long, he got the engine started, neat as you please. He took off, turned right at the next block but moving real slow as if looking for someone. I followed him. Behind me, I heard a couple of windows break, heard a car start. I kept following the Audi. He met another car, they stopped and talked, so low I couldn’t hear, then they both took off without lights. When I heard a tree fall I went back to look for you to see if you were all right. The street was quiet, the Jeep that had been parked there was gone. I was two blocks past the plaza when I heard sirens, saw redlights. Looked like the cops were at Joe’s house and I headed back fast.”

“The tree fell on Joe’s house,” Kit said, “on Joe Grey’s tower and on the stolen Jeep! The driver squirmed out and ran. Ryan reported it but we need to tell the cops he stole the BMW and locked it in that garage and—”

“No,” Joe said.

“But—”

“No way. How do you think that would look? What would the phantom snitch be doing at this hour out in the storm, so close to Clyde’s house?”

There had already been too many questions over the years about who the snitch was, the voice that had given the department so many useful leads but who would never identify himself. Even though the cops knew the snitch’s voice wasn’t Clyde’s, they’d have to wonder who would be out in this blow, so close to Clyde’s, at three in the morning, following the thieves.

“No,” Joe said again, his ears back, scowling at Kit.

She hung her head in silence. It wasn’t likely the cops would ever guess anything so bizarre as that a cat was their informant—though there had been some strange looks from the chief, and from the officers. “But,” she said, “someone has to tell them …”

Pan nuzzled Kit and licked her face.“Let it be. We’ll think of a way.”

“But we need to tell them now.”

“Let it be, Kit,” Pan said gruffly.

“I guess,” she said doubtfully, rubbing her face against his—and wondering how long the stolen BMW would remain in that garage.

Joe, watching the two, wanted suddenly to be close to Dulcie and the kittens, wanted to be tucked up with his own family, listening to the storm’s howl only from beyond solid walls.

He knew Dulcie worried about him, out on a wet, windy night. But he worried about her in a different way.

Ever since the kittens were born Dulcie, in the house with them most of the time, had experienced fits of cabin fever, a fierce longing to run the roofs with Joe and Kit and Pan, tracking the car thieves—or just to run the roofs alone, to snatch a few moments of freedom. Even now, when the kittens were four months old, even with Wilma to watch them, Dulcie wanted another cat to be near the youngsters, a cat who would make the unruly kittens behave, a cat more stern with them than Wilma ever was.Those three were so hardheaded, so adept at thinking up new trouble. To Wilma, disobedient kittens were amusing, they were not the same as a human parolee, to be sternly disciplined.

Now, crouched in the wind, the three cats moved quickly back to the safety of Joe’s house, dodging the blaze of lights from the two patrol cars and the cops’ LED flashlights. Near the wrecked car, Clyde and Officers Crowley and McFarland stood talking. On the roof, Pan paused, intently watching the officers. “Maybe we do need to call in and report that white BMW hidden car in the garage.”

“No,” Joe said again. “It’s too close, they don’t need to get curious.” Backing down a pine tree beside Ryan’s studio they beat it to the downstairs cat door. In the living room they were safe from the wind and, hopefully, from falling trees. They were wildly hungry; they were headingfor the kitchen when Joe saw three white flecks clinging to the rug behind Pan’s hurrying paws.

He sniffed at them, and nudged Pan.“Hold up your paws.”

Puzzled, Pan held up one hind paw, then the other. Deep in the creases between his pads Joe found five more flecks.“What are those?” The specks had a faint but unfamiliar smell. Pan frowned, studied his paws and sniffed at them. Kit sniffed, and nosed at a fleck that clung to the rug. It came away sticking to her nose.

“Styrofoam,” she said, pawing it off. “Flecks from Styrofoam packing? Like they use to ship china or glassware? How could that stuff stick to your paws when you were running, out in that fierce wind?” She nosed at Pan’s front paw. “It does stick. Like wool threads stick to your fur. Static electricity, Lucinda says.”

“Where did it come from?” Joe said. “From that house?”

“Maybe,” Pan said. “Even in the wind and dark, I noticed some specks. I thought they were from the bushes, maybe flower seeds. I was more interested in trying to get the smell of the man.”

“Did you?” Joe said.

“A sooty smell,” Pan said, “like he could use a bath. I still say we need to report that BMW before … the way he acted, he doesn’t live there. So why would he leave the car there for very long? You can bet your paws he plans to move it, and maybe pretty quick.”

“We can’t report it,” Joe repeated. “Too close to my house. The cops know all our voices, and of course they know Ryan or Clyde.”

“We’ll think of a way,” Pan said. He said no more as the cats raced for the kitchen where a battery light was burning and the smell of coffee and of the butane camp stove wafted out to them. They could hear someone puttering about, and Joe thought about the leftover roast beef he knew was in the refrigerator. With the camp stove and a minute’s wait, they could settle in for a nice warm feast.

4

From the kitchen Ryan heard the cat door flap open. She looked out to the living room as the three cats bolted in, sopping wet. As they fled for the kitchen she grabbed the phone. First she called the Firettis.“Pan’s here, and Kit, too. They’d better stay until morning, until the storm dies. Yes, Joe’s fine, they all seem fine, just hungry as bears.” The cats stared up at her impatiently, dripping puddles on the linoleum. On the phone, John Firetti said something that made her laugh but that made her wipe a tear, too. “I know, John. Well, it keeps the adrenaline flowing.”

When she’d hung up, she dialed Kit’s house. Normally, Kit might be out anywhere at night getting into all kinds of trouble, Lucinda and Pedric had learned to sleep through their worries; but they didn’t often have a storm like this. She had started to tell Lucinda about the fallen tree when Kit hopped to the counter. Ryan held the phone so Kit could talk; she imagined tall, gray-haired Lucinda Greenlaw in her robe and slippers listening patiently as the bedraggled tortoiseshell went on and on in her usual endless narrative. “… and there was glass over everything, too, all over us like little diamonds, but Clyde and Ryan got it off us and Officers Crowley and McFarland are here lifting prints off the car and …”

Ryan put a hand on Kit, and at last Lucinda, at the other end of the line, was able to quiet her. Lucinda gave her strict orders, she was not to come home until morning, until the wind died and branches quit falling, and she was to watch for power lines. Kit, switching her tail, hissed at the phone and stalked away. She did not like to be told what to do.

Ryan, laughing, breaking the connection, called Wilma because Dulcie would be worried about Joe; then she called Kate Osborne. Their beautiful blond friend was staying by herself up in the hills at the cat shelter that Ryan and her construction crew had just completed. The living arrangement was temporary, until Kate could hire acceptable caretakers; she wouldn’t leave the shelter cats alone at night, in case of fire or some other emergency. But it was a lonely place, and Ryan worried about her, in this storm. When Joe and Pan leaped to the counter beside Kit, crowding close to listen, Ryan turned on the speaker.

“I’m fine,” Kate said. “Scotty’s here. He … wanted to make sure we didn’t have any damage.”

Joe and Pan glanced at each other, guessing that Scotty had been there much of the night.

“But then there was an accident,” Kate said. “That neighbor who lives alone on the five acres that I wanted to buy? Voletta Nestor? The wind broke the window over her bed, cut her pretty badly. Scotty drove her down to emergency and they patched her up. They just got back, he covered the window with plywood. I had cleaned up the glass, pulled off the bedding, dumped it on the back porch and remade the bed. Scotty told her he’d order a new window.

“You can imagine how grouchy she was,” Kate said. “She’s bad tempered at best, and the storm and broken window and her cuts and pain didn’t help. He was glad to get her home again, see her settled and get out of there. The doctors wanted her to hire a nurse to be with her, but of course she refused.” Voletta Nestor, small and wrinkled, with frizzled gray hair sticking out as if she’d stuck her finger in a light plug, and her disposition about the same. Kate said, “She seemed edgy and nervous to have Scotty in her house, even if he was helping her. Taking her home, helping her down the hall, he glimpsed, on the dresser in one of the guest rooms, a stack of cartridge boxes, .38 specials. Voletta didn’t see him looking, she was too busy trying to use the walker the hospital rented her.”

Ryan laughed.“That little old woman with a firearm? Well, it is lonely up there. I hope she’s had some sensible training—she can be pretty cranky.”

“Scotty said that in her bedroom she kept glancing nervously out the other window down at that flat half acre of mowed weeds that she calls her lawn. What was she looking at? Or looking for?”

Ryan said,“She is strange. Could you put Scotty on the phone? We have a tree down, across the roof. And we’ll need new windows for Joe’s tower.”

“Oh my,” Kate said. “Is Joe all right?”

“He’s fine,” Ryan said as the cats began to wash themselves dry. Scotty came on the line, he said he’d be down in the morning to clear away the tree and start repairs. Ryan said, “I’ll have Manuel and Fernando here. It’s that big, heavy tree that stood just across the street.”

Hanging up, she turned to feed the cats. They sat glaring at her, demanding her full attention, hungrily licking their whiskers. She warmed up a helping of roast beef but saved a nice slab for Officers Crowley and McFarland. If they stayed to watch over the stolen Jeep as she guessed they would, they’d be hungry before morning. Her last words to the cats were, “You three are to stay out of the refrigerator. Paws off. The rest of the roast is for the law.”

Joe Grey scowled.

“If you ever want to eat in this house again, Joe, you will leave the rest of it alone. Eat the cold spaghetti.” Followed by another angry scowl, she moved out to join the men. She stood with Clyde, his arm around her, looking up at Joe’s poor, damaged tower.

Officer Crowley, tall and gangly, and young Officer Jimmie McFarland stood beside the wrecked Jeep. They watched Detective Dallas Garza pull up in his tan Blazer and get out, carrying his camera and strobe light. Garza’s dark, short hair was tangled in the wind, his square, Latino face solemn from sleep. He had pulled on a faded sweat suit. His shoes had no laces. “My God, a straight hit. Is Joe Grey all right?”

Clyde laughed.“We thought a bomb had struck. It took Joe a while to untangle himself and shake off some of the glass beads.”

“But he wasn’t hurt?” Dallas said. The Latino detective had never been much for cats, had been a dog man all his life, but with Joe Grey hanging around the station, Dallas had learned to care for the tomcat. Dallas didn’t know Joe’s secret, no one in the department knew that the tomcat could have sassed them back as cuttingly as they needled each other.

Dallas put his arm around Ryan.“Did you see the driver before he took off, did you see anything?”

“I saw just what I told the dispatcher,” Ryan said. “Darkly dressed, heavy man. Ran around the corner, got in a waiting car, and took off. The car was running dark.” One could see the resemblance between uncle and niece; though Ryan’s eyes were green, and Dallas’s nearly black, their hair was dark, they had the same warm Hispanic coloring, the same fetching smile—and often the same deadpan expression that gave nothing away. Dallas had been her mother’s brother. Redheaded Scott Flannery, her building foreman, was her father’s brother—Ryan a charming Scots-Irish and Hispanicmix. Her two uncles had moved in with Mike Flannery and the three little girls when their mother died. Raised by three men, two in law enforcement, the girls had grown up obedient, hard workers, and with minds and tempers more keyed to the interests of three sensible men than to frilly dresses and callow high school boys.

“The crash woke us,” she told Dallas. “I grabbed the flashlight, I thought the tree would be halfway through the ceiling. But there were only leaves and smaller branches poking through Joe’s cat door. Clyde and I pulled the ladder off my truck, he held it while I had a look. In the wind, the whole roof was a mass of blowing leaves. With clouds coming over the moon, I couldn’t see much of the shingles, just the damaged tower.”

Dallas photographed the Jeep, the damage to its body and interior, as much as could be seen beneath the fallen tree. Working in between the broken branches, wearing gloves and using a flashlight, he found and copied information from the registration so he could notify the car’s owner. When he’d finished, he turned to the two officers.

“I’ll be back as soon as it’s daylight, for more shots. Crowley, McFarland, go ahead and set up sawhorses and reflective lights. You’re on watch, leave your cars where they are. And try to stay awake. On my way out I’ll check the side streets.” None of the three officers, heading for the fallen tree, had seen on the dark side street the vandalized cars that the cats had observed. With the noise of the wind, it was doubtful any of the nearby residents had heard the sound of breaking glass and called the station, unlikely that anyone yet knew that their cars had been broken into or were gone.

Ryan told Crowley,“Give me your thermoses. I have a fresh pot of coffee, and I’ll put together some sandwiches.”

In the kitchen, the cats heard Dallas’s Blazer pull away. They heard Clyde come in, fighting the front door against the wind. He was carrying a roll of plastic from the garage. “I gave Crowley a key to the front door. Make sure the coffeepot’s full.”

The cats followed him upstairs, watched him cover Joe’s broken window and cat door with plastic and duct tape to break the heavy wind. Clyde cleaned the rest of the glass fragments off Joe, removed those that clung in Kit’s long, fine fur. Ryan toweled them dry, and they all piled into the big king bed, Ryan and Clyde, the three cats, and little Snowball. As the wind howled harder, the down comforter felt deliciously cozy. Kit, curled up beside Pan, fell at once into deep sleep, worn out and full of supper. But in sleep she dreamed of her own small house, her tree house blowing and shaking, she could feel its oak branches whipping and her pretty pillows sucked away and thrown across the yard; in her dream she thought the wind grabbed her and carried her away, too, she thought the whole world was blowing apart.

5

Voletta Nestor was so drugged with painkillers, with whatever the doctors had given her, she should have slept at once. But she still hurt and some of the bandages felt tight enough to strangle her. Tucked in her bed, trying to drift off, she woke fully and suddenly, remembering the front door. Had that Scott Flannery locked it as he’d promised? Sitting up, reaching painfully for the walker, she made her way unsteadily down the hall.

Yes, the door was locked. But coming back along the hall she could swear she’d left the middle bedroom door closed. Now it was open. She peered in, then shut it, wondering what he, or that woman from the cat shelter, might have seen lying on the dresser. Crawling back into bed, trying to get comfortable, she wondered about that blonde throwing her money away on useless pens for stray cats.

She had never expected a new building to rise so close to the ruins, she didn’t like people so near. That’s why she’d kept her share of the Pamillon property separate from the family trusts. She’d figured they’d never be able to sell the estate, never do anything with the old place. And then that Kate Osborne buying the mansion and the whole acreage, her and her sharp attorney finding a way to untangle the trusts. That was a nasty shock, and then Kate trying to buy her five acres, too.

Well, she and Lena had put a stop to that. Her niece was just as hard-minded as Voletta herself, they weren’t selling to anyone. And then that woman contractor shows up, her and her carpenters. And the foreman, this Scott Flannery, who she’d heard was Ryan Flannery’s uncle.

At least he had been there to help her tonight. She supposed she should have been polite and thanked him, he might be useful again sometime. Maybe he was Kate Osborne’s lover, he was over there a lot. She didn’t care what they did but the arrangement complicated things for her. From up at that shelter they could see her whole property, she knew that from when she’d walked up there, looking around at the half-finished building. Who would build a “shelter” for cats? Cats got along fine by themselves.

Well, she’d picked up a good trowel and a hammer. They wouldn’t know where they lost them. Scowling, she got as comfortable in bed as she could and drifted off into a mildly drugged sleep. If she dreamed of her own plans, she floated down into them, smiling.

When Lucinda and Ryan had hung up, Pedric turned off the gas log and set the camping coffeepot off the heat. With the power off, the house was freezing. They were both up when Ryan had called, had been looking out into the night, calling Kit. Now, carrying the emergency battery light, they hurried back to their warm bed, Pedric silently giving thanks that Kit was safe and that she would follow Lucinda’s instructions—and Lucinda wondering if Kit would do as she was told. Wondering if she herself would now be able to sleep.

Lucinda did sleep, but she woke at first light. Maybe it was the silence that woke her: there was no wind beating at the windows.

When she tried the bedside lamp, there was still no power. The tall woman rose, brushed back her gray hair, pulled on her robe again, relit the fire, and put the coffeepot back on the flames. She supposed there would be trees down all over town. Beyond the windows the sky was heavy with clouds. One small streak of red glowed behind the eastern hills. Nearer the house, down in the hollow to the west, lay the torn branches of eucalyptus and acacias, and four fallen pine trees. The coffee started to perk. She heard the cat door flap open and she turned.

Kit sat on the dining table looking smug.

Her tangled fur was a wet mess covered with damp leaves. Lucinda grabbed the tortoiseshell up in her arms hugging her close, pressing her face against Kit’s cold little face, stroking litter from her flyaway fur—saying a silent prayer that she was safe. Never had they had such wind, not in the middle of summer. Never had she worried so over Kit as she had last night—well, almost never.

The sweet cat was purring so loud she drowned out the sound of the perking coffeepot.“I dreamed my tree house was all blown apart, but before I ever dreamed, that one tree did fall, Lucinda, the one that fell on Joe Grey’s tower and the windows are broken and it fell on a car, too, a stolen car and smashed it in the middle, I was following the man and he crawled out and ran butI didn’t follow I was so worried for Joe, but then Joe was all right and Ryan and Clyde, too, only I’d left Pan behind and Joe and I went to look for him and—”

Lucinda placed a soft hand over Kit’s mouth. “Slowly, Kit. Slowly, you’re making my head spin. You told me most of this last night.”

Kit had to tell it again but she tried to go slower.“And Pan was following another man but we found him—Pan—and he came home to Joe Grey’s and Ryan made breakfast and she called the Firettis and we called you and it was still dark and we all piled in bed and went to sleep and the police were down on the street at the wrecked car and I dreamed about my tree house blown away and when I woke up the wind was gone but when I slipped out on the roof there were no lights down in the village, no power anywhere, but I was careful of loose wires anyway and Pan went home to the Firettis, they need him, they were worried about him.”

Lucinda hushed her again, picked up the phone, and dialed the Firettis.

“Did Pan get home?” Pan had been staying with the Firettis much of the time since Pan’s father died. The doctor and Mary mourned Misto so, he had been very special to them. Misto passed away shortly before Joe and Dulcie’s kittens were born. Now his headstone and little grave graced Mary’s flower garden; and Pan had moved in to fill the empty place in their lonely household, to ease their grieving. Though late after midnight he still prowled the rooftops with Kit, or dreamed away the small hours in her tree house.

“Pan just got here,” Mary said. “And Kit? Is she all right?”

“She’s home, she’s telling me all the details. Did you have much damage?”

“John’s been over at the clinic most of the night. Everything seems fine.” They talked for a few moments as, outside, the dark sky began to bloom with thin red streaks. As Lucinda hung up, Pedric woke, came out to the kitchen and was treated to another long dialogue before Kit devoured a lovely breakfast of pancakes and leftover salmon.

At Dulcie’s house, Wilma, too, had been up and down all night, checking the windows with a flashlight as the blow increased, checking the cage in the kitchen making sure the babies weren’t upset by the rattling wind. But they, tucked down in the blankets warm against Dulcie, had slept right through; what sturdy kittens they were. Dulcie looked up at her and purred and curled down deeper among them. The house was so cold, with no power, but the kittens’ bed was warm. Taking her cue from them, Wilma went back to her own bed.

Wilma was asleep, her long gray-white hair spilled across the pillow, when the wind ceased; the silence woke her, and the kittens’ mewling and hissing in play from the kitchen. They, having slept all night, were wild with energy. Wilma pulled the pillow over her head and closed her eyes, hoping to doze again.

In the kitchen, Dulcie played with them, tussling and wrestling, up over table and chairs and counters, atop the refrigerator and down again, running and leaping until she was worn out, but she hadn’t worn them out. She hadn’t slept much, the night wind had made her feel trapped, as if she were its prisoner.

Ever since the kittens grew older she had gotten these locked-in feelings every few days, hungering to be out of the house, yearning for a wild run under the open sky unencumbered by demanding youngsters. She loved her babies dearly—but did all mother cats feel this way? The kittens were big enough to be left in their pen, with Wilma to watch over them, but they made such a fuss when Dulcie left them. And now, this morning, her housemate needed sleep.

She wouldn’t take the kittens outside with her, they were still too small, with hawks in the sky and an occasional loose dog roaming. She had resumed batting and chasing them across the linoleum, trying to wear them out, when the two-sided bolt of her cat door slid open with an impatient paw, the plastic door flew up, and Joe Grey pushed inside.

The kittens hadn’t figured out the latch yet, but it wouldn’t be long. Joe Grey nuzzled Dulcie for only a moment then was mobbed by their babies, all three climbing Joe’s sleek gray sides, biting his ears and nipping his paws. He pressed Striker down with a big paw, then looked tenderly at Dulcie. “You look battered.” He licked her ear. “Go run, the wind’s gone. Be careful of the wires and …” But Dulcie was already out the cat door and up an oak tree onto the roofs running, running …

“Run safe,” Joe said to thin air. He pawed open the cage door and settled inside, the kittens following him. With sharp claws he pulled closed the top of the cage to keep them from climbing out and tearing up the house. The kitchen curtains were glowing with the first touch of dawn.

Out on the roofs Dulcie ran, she did flying leaps, she dodged loose wires and broken trees; the village below was dark, not a light burned anywhere. Racing across the tops of the neighbors’ houses between thin, rising paths of wood smoke, she watched the dawn come flaming and then fading to peach, the color of her ears and nose. She ran until she was winded, until the last twitches of constricted nerves had eased, until her heart pounded with freedom instead of frustration—until, in her wildness, the world was hers again. She passed a man below walking the neighborhood looking at the damage, the fallen trees, the rubble-strewn gardens, at a lawn chair in the middle of the street—a tall young man, thin face, thin, long nose, wearing a tan golf cap and tan Windbreaker. At last, eased and purring and feeling whole again, she sat down and licked loose bark and wet leaves from her paws. Life was good. Joe Grey was dear and loving to have taken over the kittens after a hard night himself, to offer her a little freedom. Refreshed, she galloped home longing to snuggle downwith her big gray tomcat and their youngsters, hoping that Joe had played hard with them and had settled the last of their wildness—for the moment.

Yes, Joe had quieted them. Dulcie arrived home to find the kittens sleepy and docile, willing to stay in the cage as she and Joe played gently with them. Joe gave her a brief picture of last night’s thefts, the tree falling, its leafy branches breaking his tower windows and sticking through into the main house, the smashed, stolen Jeep; the thief’s escape; their windy race to find Pan. “Ryan and Scotty will be taking down the tree. Will they break my windows even more, cutting the branches out? Can Ryan fix it, can she make it right again?”

“Of course she can fix it. She built the tower!” Dulcie lashed her tail. “It will be as good as new.” Seeing how restless he was, that he was beginning to fidget, “Go,” she said, “go hit the PD, you’ll feel better when you can see some reports, find out what they have.”

Joe gave her a whisker kiss, nuzzled the kittens, and was gone, out through the cat door.

He was back in less than a minute. He flew into the kitchen, leaped to the table then to the sink to peer out the window.

Wilma was up now, she came into the kitchen, clipping back her pale hair. In the dawn light it shone silver against her blue T-shirt.“What?” she said, frowning at Joe and stepping to the side of the window, out of sight.

“There’s a man walking the street,” Joe said, “stopping here and there in the shadows. He keeps looking this way as if he’s casing the house. He was there when I got here, but then he was just strolling along.”

“I saw him, too,” Dulcie said. “Walking casually, looking at the rubble, at the broken trees and damage …”

“He isn’t casual now,” Joe said.

Wilma, hidden by the blue curtain, frowned as she stood looking. Just as Dulcie leaped up beside her, the man backed deeper between the neighbors’ houses, but still looking at their windows. Only when light from the rising sun hit his face did he move deeper into the shadows—but not before Wilma got a good look.

Startled, she stepped back farther beyond the curtain. A tall, slim young man, thin but with strangely broad shoulders slightly hunched forward. A thin face but with wide cheekbones, a straight, thin nose and narrow chin. Light brown hair sticking out from beneath his cap. Wilma was very still, her hands gripping the edge of the sink so hard her knuckles were white. Behind them Courtney leaped to the counter, pressing against her.

Wilma stroked the calico idly, her attention on the man.“I saw him near the market yesterday, I got just a glimpse. For an instant I thought I knew him—as if he had stepped right out of time, stepped into this time from some twenty years ago.”

Courtney’s eyes, when Wilma mentioned stepping out of time, blazed with interest. The boy kittens leaped up, too, cocking their heads, intrigued.

Wilma said,“He’s a dead ringer for one of my old parolees. Calvin Alderson.” She studied the man, his face, his stance. “I had his case for over a year, until the PD picked him up for murder. He was indicted, went to trial, was convicted—some twenty years ago, but this man’s a dead ringer for young Calvin just as he looked then.”

“And at the market,” Dulcie said, jumping up beside Wilma and Courtney, “he was watching you?”

“He seemed to be. Passing a row of shelves twice, glancing in at me, standing in the shadows as I left, turning away when I went to load my car.”

Dulcie had never before seen her housemate afraid. Wilma Getz was no shrinking violet, she had been well-trained in her profession.

“Same build,” Wilma said, “slim but with those broad, angled shoulders. That day when they led him out of the courtroom he yelled that he’d find me one day, that he’d take care of me good.” She said this almost amused. “That wasn’t the first time I was ever threatened. It goes with the program. But seeing him now, exactly the way he looked then … Seeing someone who looks exactly like him,” she corrected herself.

“Alderson was on death row five years before they executed him. He was convicted of killing his wife’s lover. The investigating detectives were convinced he killed the wife, too, but her body was never found. They had some shaky evidence, but no body. Not enough to make a second case for murder.”

Wilma stood looking into the shadows at the man.“This could well be his son, their little boy, Rickie. He was placed into child care, he was about seven then. He was in trouble later, in his teens. I check his record now and then, except for small local crimes that might not be included. He did a couple of long stretches for assault, and here and there short jail time for theft or breaking and entering. Last I heard, he was in prison in Texas.” She stroked Dulcie. “I’ll call Max later, see if he can find out where Rick is now. Meanwhile, it’s nothing to worry over. That young man isn’t Calvin Alderson, and why would his son care about me? He hated his father, scared to death of Calvin. He should have been glad we locked him up—at the time, just a little boy, he was furious at me, at the law. Later, when I visited him in child care, he was fine.”

Courtney, snuggled between them, looked up at Wilma, intently curious about any new, intriguing human event. But her eyes held a shadow, too. As if the presence of a stalker, of danger to Wilma, stirred some long-ago memory, some ugly dream.

The sun was higher now, pushing back the shadows between their neighbors’ houses, and the man across the street moved briskly away, turning at the next corner, out of sight. They heard a car start and drive off. Joe Grey raced out the cat door and scrambled to the rooftops meaning to follow but already the car was gone.

Joe returned to the kitchen feeling concern for Wilma and frightened for Dulcie and the kittens. He didn’t want this guy hanging around. Was he Calvin Alderson’s son? Why would he be here? What did he have in mind? How did Wilma fit into his unfortunate life if, as she said, he had hated his father?

But Wilma wouldn’t let anything happen to Dulcie and the kittens, or to herself. A breakin wasn’t likely; she had good locks on her windows, and more than one handgun.

Still, restless over the watcher, hastily he licked up the cold custard Wilma set before him. Then using his damaged tower as an excuse, wondering aloud if the carpenters had started on it, if they were taking proper care, if Ryan was there to oversee the work, he headed for the cat door.

Dulcie, watching him, had to smile.“Go,” she said. “Go see to your tower, they’ll be clearing away the rubble.” And Joe Grey hit the roofs, making detours, peering into alleys, watching the streets for the prowler as he headed home.

6

Joe was three blocks from home, coming across the roof of the house where the BMW had been stashed, when he paused looking away along the side street. The department had put up sawhorses and crime tape barriers at either end of a three-block area. Along the curb stood seven cars with broken windows. All other parking places were empty where, before, there had been more than two dozen vehicles, many damaged. How many had the thieves gotten away with? How many had already been towed to the police lot, or their owners had been contacted and allowed to claim them? Two squad cars were parked inside the yellow tape, an officer seated in each, most likely running the license plates to find the last seven owners.

They would want to check for fingerprints on the cars and their interiors, or maybe wait for Dallas to do that. They would need lists from the owners of what was missing. He thought about the BMW that had been hidden just below him. He hoped it was still there, he still felt guilty that they hadn’t reported it. He thought of Pan’s words, Let it lie. It will come right, we’ll think of a way. The padlock was still hanging locked.

But maybe the cops had already jimmied it, and found the car. Was it there or was it gone? That was a nice BMW, one of those sporty models. Joe wondered if the owners even knew, yet, that it was missing, if they had even reported it stolen.

The tomcat still wasn’t willing to risk calling in, risk placing the snitch so close to his own home. Leave it, he thought, but it wasn’t like Joe Grey to do that.

He arrived home on his own roof to find Ryan, her uncle Scotty, and two of their carpenters clearing away the fallen tree. They had cut the heavy trunk into sections, had removed all but the spreading top that was still tangled in Joe’s tower windows. Corners of one window stuck out at an alarming angle. Another of the shattered panes had given way, scattering more diamond-bright fragments across the dark shingles. Ryan knelt beside the tower carefully cutting small branches, pulling them free of the structure.

At the curb, Manuel and Fernando were stacking the cut lengths of the tree into a truck bed. Joe stood looking at his beaten-up tower, his belly feeling hollow. He’d never realized how much the destruction of his cozy, private aerie would shake him. Staring at what was left of his private digs, his ears were back, his growl was fierce and yet dismally sad.

Below him, Officers McFarland and Crowley were going over the wrecked car, lifting prints. Dallas Garza was working inside the front seat also taking prints and dusting with a small brush for lint, fabric fragments, human hairs. Just up the street a tow car waited to haul the wreck to the department’s impound yard for further inspection. Joe guessed Clyde had gone on to work, concerned about damage to his automotive shop, to the windows and the tile roof. As Joe stood looking at his tower, Ryan tossed an armload of branches down to the lawn below, then came to sit beside him. Her short, dark, windblown hair was full of eucalyptus leaves, her green eyes more angry than sad.

“It’s all right,” she said, smiling down at him, smoothing her hand down his back the way he liked. “It will be all right, we’ll soon have it good as new.”

He couldn’t talk, couldn’t answer her, with the men working so near them. But she could talk to him, holding him, speaking softly without anyone paying attention, women talked to their cats all the time, and even tomcats endured cuddling.

“We’ll order the new windows as soon as we’ve finished clearing out,” she said. “I need to see what else is needed. Meantime, with the plastic and duct tape, you’ll be as snug as your kittens in their quilt.”

Joe wasn’t sure he’d ever feel snug again. Life seemed to have gone totally off center: the destruction of his tower, and Dulcie so moody at home, tied down with the kittens—even if she did love them more than life itself; and now, the threat of that man watching Wilma’s house.

If that guy came after her and there was a dustup in the house itself, even if Wilma was armed, Dulcie and the kittens would be in danger—his family was too vulnerable there, as was Wilma herself. Though she was armed and well trained, still she was alone. Despite the many dangers Joe had known, working behind the scenes snitching for the cops, life seemed now more perilous than he could ever remember—maybe his sudden sense of threat and concern since the kittens arrived had changed the way he viewed the world, maybe he was suddenly not so wild and devil-may-care anymore. From the moment he’d looked down at those tender babies, and had realized his full responsibilities, Joe Grey’s every thoughtseemed heavier and more serious.

Quietly, he snuggled closer to Ryan.

“It will be all right,” she repeated, scratching his ears. And almost as if she could read his thoughts, “The kittens and Dulcie are fine and safe with Wilma, you know that.”

Yes, Joe thought. But Ryan didn’t know yet, and he couldn’t tell her now, about Wilma’s prowler; not with an audience busy below them.

“And these car breakins,” she said softly, “are no different from any other village crime—most of which you’ve helped to solve.” Tenderly she scratched under his chin. “You and the cops will get to the bottom of these thefts. Your tower will be fixed before you can sneeze, and everything will be fine. The world, Joe, is just making its bumpy rounds, that’s all.” She kissed him on the forehead, set him down on the shingles, and got back to work.

It was only when Ryan had cleared the last branches from his tower; when Manuel and Fernando had gone to dump the logs and detritus from the cut tree; when Officers McFarland and Crowley had left; when Dallas had finished fingerprinting and photographing the car and had gone in the house to clean up; when the tow truck had hauled the wrecked car off to hold for additional evidence; and Scotty had left in his truck to get shingles and lumber and order Joe’s and Voletta’s windows, only then could Joe say a word. Before Ryan began to sweep up broken glass, they sat side by side on the roof in a comfortable two-way conversation as they looked out at the village. Most of the power was still off. A strip of shop windows was lit where one power line had been repaired. Joe told her about the man watching Wilma’s house.

“Wilma doesn’t need this,” she said angrily, her green eyes flashing, her Irish-Latino temper blazing. “We’ll know more once Max has done some checking. Maybe this is the killer’s son, but why go after Wilma after all these years, if he hated his father? It was Wilma who helped put the man away, he ought to thank her. Maybe,” she said, “he’s just curious. Maybe he just wants to learn more about his father?” She sighed. “You don’t always know what’s in people’s heads when they look back at their past.

“Well, I know one thing,” she said, scratching his back, “the night’s events and the storm have left us all feeling ragged and out of sorts.”

“Even that cranky old woman Voletta had to get into the act,” Joe said with very little pity, “had to roust Scotty out, drag him out in the storm.”

Ryan nodded.“Kate is trying to get hold of her niece, Lena. She needs someone with her until her wounds start to heal. Lena comes down every few weeks to see her aunt anyway, she lives somewhere up the coast. I think there’s a husband and son. Remember, Kate contacted Lena when she was trying to buy that five acres from Voletta, and the old woman refused to sell?” Voletta Nestor’s five acres lay just below the mansion and below the land where Ryan had built the new cat shelter. CatFriends had wanted it for parking and for extra space if they needed to expand.

“That was too bad,” Ryan said. “But it’s her property, she can do what she wants with it.”

“She was lucky Scotty was up there in the middle of the night,” Joe said innocently, “to take her to the ER.”

Ryan gave him a look. He didn’t need to get nosy. Kate and Scotty’s sudden, low-key romance was none of his business.

“It’s lucky Scotty was there,” Ryan said. “Kate could have helped her, but there’s no way she would have left the shelter cats alone in that storm, she said they were all nervous.” She tipped up his chin to look at him. “Kate said Scotty was very good with them. They moved all the feral cats that were in the screened runs out of the wind, into the infirmary and offices. She said they spent hours calming individual cats, talking to them and soothing them.”

“I just meant—”

“I know what you meant. Let it be, Joe, and wish them happiness.”

She looked into his yellow eyes.“But it is worrisome. If they do become a serious twosome, if they were to marry, Kate would have the same problem as Charlie Harper. Keeping the secret of you cats from her husband. It’s hard to conceal a lie, even for a good cause, and keep a marriage honest and happy.

“Though Max Harper,” Ryan said, “would be more disbelieving than Scotty would, if he came face-to-face with the truth.”

“You mean if I spoke to Max?”

“Don’t even think it,” she said, laughing. “You are kidding?”

“Why would I spoil a good thing? Why would I give the chief nightmares? And where would that put Charlie? She’d have to admit she’d lied or she’d have to play stupid, and Charlie Harper is anything but stupid.”

She just sat looking at him.“After all these years, the way Max has grown to like you, you wouldn’t speak to him, you wouldn’t give away your secret?”

The tomcat laid a paw on her hand.“I’m not about to do that—my problem is, can we keep the kittens quiet?”

Ryan sighed, and hugged him, and prayed that he and Dulcie could keep those youngsters in line.“I wonder about the clowder cats last night, I wonder how they fared, up at the ruins? Kate told me she’d walk over this morning and try to find them.”

“There’s plenty of solid shelter,” Joe said. “They know every inch of the mansion, they know the cellars, the safe places that won’t crack or fall. But what about Dr. Firetti’s sun dome? That big kennel space is half the hospital.” The solarium had been built to join two small cottages together, to form the large veterinarian complex.

“The dome’s fine,” Ryan said. “I talked with John again, he said not a crack, nothing damaged, and their patients were all settling down.”

But when she stroked Joe, she felt his muscles tense.“You’re still wound tight. Go on down to the station. You’ll feel better when you look at the reports on the car thefts.” She envisioned Joe sitting in Max’s bookcase peering over his shoulder at his computer screen as officers logged in information on the stolen cars and on whatever property was missing from the remaining, damaged vehicles.

Thinking of the PD, of the homey atmosphere in Max Harper’s office, Joe gave her cheek a nudge, and trotted off. Leaping across the neighbors’ roofs, he paused a moment to watch the cordoned-off street below where Dallas and Officers Crowley and McFarland were at work. The owners of three cars had appeared. Two were quietly answering questions as theofficers filled in their reports. The one woman, standing beside her black Audi, was making clear to Dallas how disgusting it was that the department had allowed this shocking spree of vandalism and thefts to happen yet again in their quiet village—and to her nice new Audi. “Just look at the damage they’ve done, the side window broken out, glass everywhere, my expensive camera and leather jacket gone.” Joe Grey smiled, watching Dallas’s blank expression as the detective controlled his temper. Joe could imagine what the Latino detective would like to say. There was always one critic among the victims, vitriolic and rude—it didn’t matter that the cops had been up most of the night, or that she shouldn’t have left her valuables in plain sight in the car. Heading for Molena Point PD, he wondered if the desk clerk, soft, blond Mabel Farthy, might have brought some homemade cookies to work this morning or maybe a snack of fried chicken. Galloping over the rooftops toward the station, Joe Grey had no notion he would be followed or, more accurately, that his point of destination had already been invaded by unwanted company.

7

Wilma Getz’s cottage was cold, the power still off, the morning light through the windows a depressing gray. Buffin and Striker were curled in an afghan near the fire, warm and half asleep. Dulcie and Courtney lay on Wilma’s lap as she read to them but soon Wilma was yawning. The boy kittens watched her.When her book slid to the carpet, when she fell asleep reading, Striker woke fully. He looked all around. There was no roar of wind now, no sound but the crackle of the fire, and the drip of water from the eaves—he watched Dulcie and Courtney drift into sleep. He lay thinking about the car thefts, what little their pa had told about them, then with a soft paw he nudged Buffin.

The two kittens watched their mother, watched their sister and Wilma. When no one stirred or looked up at them the two young cats smiled, slipped out from the folds of the afghan, and padded silently from the living room, through the dining room and kitchen, and into the laundry to the cat door.

Striker tried to slide the bolt, though he had tried many times before. This time, more determined, he made only tiny sounds as he worked metal against metal until at last the shiny lock gave way and the forbidden door swung free.

Slipping out, they stopped the plastic flap with careful paws, easing it quietly down, and they shot out into the garden. Around the house they sped, out of sight of the front windows. Scrambling up a bougainvillea vine to the neighbor’s roof, their pale coats blending with the tan shingles, they reared tall, looking down at the village, gray in the cloud-smothered morning. They had never been in the village, the crowd of cottages tangled among tall trees fascinated them.

“There,” Buffin said.

“The courthouse tower,” said Striker. “That’s where MPPD is, that’s where Pa goes when there’s been a crime.”

“If he catches us, he’ll kill us,” Buffin said.

“Maybe only bat us a little,” said Striker.

“And scold. I don’t like scolding.”

Intently they looked at each other. They could go to MPPD, stay hidden from their father—they hoped. Or they could go to where the crime scene had been, but they weren’t sure where that was among the tangle of village streets. The courthouse tower stood tall and clear and was easy to follow. Another conflicted look between them, their blue eyes wide, a twitch of ears, a lashing oftails, and they were off over the roofs heading for the cop shop.

They had no notion, when they arrived, what they would do, how they would get inside, and how they would avoid their dad. They just wanted to know more about what went on last night, to know more about the crimes and what secret clues their pa had found—even if they were heading for trouble.

Joe Grey approached MPPD from the south, from the direction of his own house, galloping atop a row of shops, not over the taller courthouse that rose on the north side. One of the new shops smelled of chocolate. He peered over at the fancy little tearoom that Ryan said had good desserts and salads but that, with its flowery d?cor and frilly curtains, no cop would ever be caught there. There were no lights on, on this street, though lights shone farther away in the village. Only a dim glow here at the back, from the kitchen, as if the chef were cooking on a gas stove, working by lantern light.

At least MPPD was brightly lit, from their emergency generator. Gaining its roof, Joe watched the glass door swing busily back and forth below him as officers entered. This was change of shift, men coming on duty heading for the conference room, for morning count. Each time the door opened it emitted a strong waft of cinnamon to mix with the chocolate scent from down the street. Licking his whiskers, waiting until the foot traffic had all but ceased, he backed down the oak tree and slid inside behind the heels of Detective Juana Davis. He didn’t duck into the holding cell that stood to the right of the door, a small barred room meant for a few minutes’ confinement before an arrestee was taken back to the jail and booked. There was no one in the lobby but Davis, heading back for her office, black uniform, black stockings, black regulation shoes. And, at the front counter, clerk Mabel Farthy, grandmotherly blond, soft and round and always with a smile. When Mabel saw Joe her face lit up. She turned to her desk for a familiar baking dish that she often brought from home. Joe leaped to the counter. Mabel gave him a big hug, then broke a warm cinnamon roll into pieces, onto a paper plate. Joe devoured it as if he hadn’t eaten in days.

Purring for Mabel, he enjoyed a nice ear scratch as she went on about the kittens.“New babies, Joe Grey. Well, not so new anymore. Four months old already, and Charlie says they’re beautiful.” Charlie was often in and out of the station, her freckled, red-haired beauty always turning heads. Though Mabel had no notion the cats could answer her, she talked to them in a long and loving ramble as she fed them whatever treat she’d brought for the officers, and for the cats themselves.

“Two boy kittens as sleek as you,” Mabel said, “but pale as sand. And the girl kitten … a little calico. Charlie says she’s a beauty. So, Joe Grey, when do we get to see them? When will you bring your family to the station?”

Not any time soon, Joe thought, feeling a shiver of dismay. He lived in mortal fear of the kittens finding their way to MPPD, slipping in to prowl, all wild energy and curiosity and forgetting they were never to speak to a human or in front of a human, one of them blurting out a question before they realized the blunder they’d made. They can’t come here, Joe thought nervously. The department is used to Dulcie and me, and that’s fine. We keep our mouths shut. But wild, scatterbrained, half-grown kittens wanting to know everything? They don’t need to be anywhere near the station.

At that very moment two of the kittens peered out at their father and Mabel from deep beneath the bunk that occupied the holding cell, their buff coats blending well into the shadows. They were as motionless and silent as stuffed toys. They were thankful for the strong smell of cinnamon and chocolate and the stink of the holding cell itself that they hoped had hidden their own scent from their father as he’d passed by.

They had not come through the front door as Joe had, padding in behind the skirts of the woman detective.

Up on the department’s roof, they had found the open, barred window that looked down into the cell.

“Here we go,” Striker had said, slipping in through the bars. Buffin had looked with trepidation at the long leap down to the bunk’s thin mattress. Striker had gone first, had waited until Mabel was talking on the phone and then slipped in between the bars, hitting the mattress in a flying leap. Quickly Buffin followed. Now, in the far corner beneath the cot they were out of their father’s sight.

All the officers had vanished into the conference room where, even with the door pushed closed, the kittens could smell coffee and hear the mumble of voices. They watched Joe drop from Mabel’s counter, approach the door, and casually lie down beside it with his ear to the crack.

Max Harper didn’t waste much time at roll call. He went over the details of the stolen Jeep that was wrecked in front of the Damens’ house; that bit of news drew angry comments, both because it was the Damens’ house and because the perp had gotten away. Joe didn’t need to see into the room to know that the officers sat at the big table, papers and electronic notebooks scattered around them, and most with freshly poured coffee. The chief was quickly into the rest of the car thefts, but soon turned the meeting over to Detective Garza, for the numbers, models, and makes of the cars, which young OfficerBonner recorded on his laptop. They went over which cars belonged to tourists, how many were local vehicles. The square-faced Hispanic detective read off a list of what had been stolen from each car that wasn’t driven away, how each car was broken into, and the few that were able to be hotwired and so actually stolen. Dallas hadn’t had much sleep, working the street during the predawn hours. He had cleaned up at Joe’s house, he was clean shaven, thanks to Clyde’s razor. He no longer looked as if he’d just rolled out of bed, as he had when Ryan served him a quick breakfast. Joe had to smile because he was wearing Clyde’s newest T-shirt.

“These guys are mostly amateurs,” Max was saying, “yet look at the number of cars they’ve stolen. Looks like three or four have the devices or phone apps, and the know-how to use them on the newer cars. Who knows how many others there are, just to do breakins or hotwire older cars. We’vegot twelve older Jeeps reported missing, those are easy pickings—a few professionals and maybe a dozen or more to do breakins, and to drive the stolen cars out of the village. Question is, to where?”

Dallas looked over at Max.“An antiques dealer called in half an hour ago about a missing white BMW. Robert Teague?”

Several officers, who knew Teague, nodded.

Brennan said,“Teague was dating Barbara Conley.”

A few officers laughed. Dallas said,“Half the town was dating her.” He gave them the description and license of the BMW. “I went on over, talked with Teague, he was pretty upset. He lives in the area the thieves were working, said he left a valuable tea set, some kind of very old antique porcelain, in the back of the car.”

“Parked outside overnight?” Crowley said. “That was smart.”

“No. It was in the garage,” Dallas said. “He told me he drove up to the city yesterday to sell a few pieces of china for a friend. He spotted this tea set at the dealer’s, which Teague appraised at about thirty thousand but that he picked up for much less. Said he got home late, he was tired. Instead of carrying the box in the house he locked it in the car, locked the car in the garage. He thought it would be as safe there as in the house.

“He gets up in the morning, the car’s gone and the box with it. And no sign of a breakin.” No one had to say the thief, maybe at some earlier time, had used an electronic device to record the opening mechanism for the garage door.

“Apparently,” Dallas said, “the thief opened the car door all right, but his device wouldn’t start the car.” Dallas shook his head. “Teague, in a hurry last night, forgot about the concierge key he kept hidden on a wire under the seat.”

The concierge key, Joe thought, the key with no electronic signals. So when he pulls into a fancy restaurant he can give the attendant that key without electronic features that can be copied. He must have thought no one ever thinks to look for that. Last night, he goes on to bed, the key right there in his car. Human inventions are a wonder—until something goes wrong. Look at the world of computers … is nothing safe anymore?

But worst of all was the fact that Joe Grey knew where the BMW was and that information needed to reach the department. He still didn’t know how to report it without putting the sleuth within seconds of Joe’s own house at three in the morning on a stormy night when no human would be out on the streets except the thieves, or some nearby neighbor, like Clyde.

“So far,” Max said, “we’ve picked up three perps. And we have Ryan’s rough description of the guy driving the wrecked car. Some departments think there are more than a dozen members; but if they’re stashing the cars somewhere close, then moving them later, even three or four men could take down a dozen cars or more in one night. How many home garages have these people rented or made deals for? Given two or three days, as they’re doing up the coast, that many cars each night, that’s three dozen cars, some broken into and left, maybe a dozen stolen. Those are the numbers we’regetting from Watsonville, Santa Cruz, Sonoma.”

Max wrapped it up quickly. When Joe heard feet shuffling and chairs pushed back, he beat it down the hall and into Max’s office. Leaping to the desk, he didn’t see two pale shadows race soundlessly in behind him and under the credenza where Joe had often hidden, long ago, when he was still wary of being seen.

Under the credenza, Buffin and Striker smiled. So far, so good.

They hadn’t been able to hear much from the conference room. Leaving the holding cell, they had crouched below Mable’s counter where she wouldn’t see them without leaning over and looking straight down. They had waited nervously until Joe Grey pulled back from the crack beneath the door and fled down the hall. Like shadows they had followed him.

All in the timing, Striker thought boldly as they slid through Max’s door behind Joe and into the shadows. All with the grace of the great cat god, thought Buffin with more humility as he crowded close to his brother.

They knew the office layout from listening to Joe’s tales; they had only prayed that Joe wouldn’t slip under the credenza with them. But he wouldn’t; they knew their pa made himself at home in Max’s office. Peering out, they watched Joe leap to the bookcase and settle in among stacks of files and manuals behind the chief’s desk. When Max Harper and Dallas came in, the kittens pressed deeper still into the shadows.

In the bookcase Joe Grey, licking icing from one white paw, watched the officers casually. He hadn’t a clue that the kittens were in the room, all he could smell was cinnamon, and the clean, horsey scent of Harper’s boots. Detective Davis came in behind Dallas; she was, as usual, the only one in uniform. She and Dallas sat at either end of the couch, their papers, laptops, and two clipboards spread out between them.

Davis looked at Max.“Who was the friend that Robert Teague sold the china for, when he made that run up to the city?”

“Barbara, the hairstylist he was dating,” Max said. “Why, what do you have?”

“Nothing. Just curious. She gets around, doesn’t she?”

Max smiled.“Teague said this was china Barbara’s mother had left her, said the pieces were rare and expensive, two hundred years old. Said she’d never liked them. He said the market was good now, and she’d rather have the money.”

They had pretty well covered, in roll call, the locations and number of cars broken into and robbed, or stolen. That information would now, thanks to Officer Bonner, be on all the officers’ computers. They were discussing the gang’s mode of operation and waiting for more reports from men still on the street, new reports on other cars vandalized or missing, property damage from the storm itself, and reports on anyone injured. They had Scotty’s report on Voletta Nestor, the old woman living below the Pamillon estate.

“He took her to the hospital,” Max said, “brought her home and got her settled. He was … up at Kate’s. When the wind got bad he went up to check on the cat shelter, he knew she was alone up there.”

Dallas smiled.“About time he found someone. Ryan should be pleased.” Ryan was always matchmaking for her uncle, but so far no one had come up to Scotty’s standards. If more officers had been present, they wouldn’t have discussed private matters.

“Voletta Nestor shouldn’t be living alone up there, either,” Davis said. “She can hardly get around. She’s a Pamillon, part of that big family. Even if they are all at odds, have all moved away, you’d think someone would help her.”

“None of the Pamillons want anything to do with her,” Max said. “You hear a lot of rumors. I don’t know what the real story is.”

For years the Pamillon estate had stood partially in ruins while heirs squabbled over selling it. None of them, nor even their attorneys, could sort out the tangle of various trusts and wills to a point where the property could legally be sold. It was Kate Osborne’s attorney who finally made sense of the bequests, distributions, land descriptions, and overlapping amendments to make a sale possible.

Kate had the money, the Pamillon family was tired of bickering, and she bought at once. The day she signed the final papers, she signed a trust donating ten acres to CatFriends for their new shelter—to care for starving cats, cats that had been abandoned when the economy took a sharp downturn, when so many folks lost their homes and, too often, simply left their pets behind. Joe Grey couldn’t understand people who would abandon a pet. The tomcat might not be much for religion but he knew there was a hell, all fire and brimstone. And that there was a special place in it for people who threw away a member of their family. He was licking the last fleck of cinnamon from his paw when, over that sweet scent, he caught the faintest aroma of cats. Young, male cats. At the same moment, Max’s private line rang.

Max picked up, listened, then,“You’re sure they’re dead? Get out of there, Charlie. Get out now!” At this point, he switched on the phone’s speaker. “Are you carrying?”

“I’m out, I’m nearly to my car. Yes, I’m carrying.”

“Get in the car, lock yourself in. If you see anyone, take off fast.”

She didn’t need to be told those things. But she wasn’t going to go anywhere and miss seeing the killer; she didn’t tell Max that. She said, “I’m parked three blocks north,” and she clicked off.

Immediately Max put out the alarm and barked out half a dozen names. Joe heard officers racing down the hall for their squad cars, heard the shriek of the ambulance from the fire department only blocks away; Joe was headed for the door behind Max and the two officers when he skidded to a halt.

The shadows beneath the credenza smelled of young tomcats, his young tomcats. Four blue eyes peered out at him, frightened but defiant. Joe sat down. He looked at the kittens.

They crept partway out from under the credenza, their heads down, ears and tails down, looking more browbeaten than he’d ever hoped to see.

He had fully intended to scold them, to give them all kinds of hell. But what good would it do? And after that, what? What was he going to do with them? Take them home, and miss the first part of what appeared to be a murder investigation? He wanted to know if Charlie was all right. He wanted to see the victims before the coroner got busy on them.

He could send the kittens home. He doubted they’d ever get there, he knew they’d follow him. Neither Buffin nor Striker said a word. Neither kitten would look at him.

“Come on out of there.”

The kittens crept out and sat guiltily before their father, their ears still down, their tails tucked under, waiting for their scolding. Joe’s heart pounded with anger—while at the same time he tried hard not to laugh.

How could he be mad? Maybe he had fathered a couple of bold little cop cats; he’d been wondering how soon they’d take matters into their own paws.

“You will follow me,” he said sternly. “You will stick to me like syrup to whiskers.” He had to get them out of the station without being seen passing the front desk, prompting Mabel to make a fuss over them. He wanted to get to the crime scene, and these two would sure slow him down.

“Oh, what the hell!” Joe said. “Come on.”

Peering out into the hall, he found it empty. He cocked an ear and the kittens drew close to him. He sped out and to the counter, both kittens crowding him, the three hugging the wall of the counter. They could hear Mabel on the phone.“No, sir, Captain Harper is not available. Would you like his voice mail?” They could see, through the glass entry, a civilian woman approaching, wheeling a baby in a stroller. The instant she entered, backing against the door to push the stroller through, the three cats fled past them. Joe still wanted to scold the kittens, but he couldn’t, they were already suffering from their own guilty consciences. And he had to admit he was proud of them. They had gone off on their first adventure, they’d had the chutzpah to come right on into the station. He knew he’d regret this, but what else could he do? Buffin and Striker had wanted adventure. Well, they were going to get their first taste.

8

It was earlier that morning when Charlie Harper pulled her Blazer into a tight parking place a block from the beauty salon, a lucky find where a car had just pulled out. The time was eight-thirty, folks coming into the village to go to work or heading for the several popular breakfast restaurants. Areas of the village had their lights back, the windows bright, other shops flat and dim among fallen trees and work crews. She was still trying to decide whether to have her long, red, kinky hair shaped and trimmed as usual, or to get it cut really short, just feathered around her face. That would be easier to take care of, but would Max like it?

The salon was closed on Mondays, though sometimes Barbara took a few early-morning clients. It was a small shop, just the two hairstylists and the owner-beautician, Langston Prince. She’d always been amused at Langston’s fancy name, and by the austere and impeccable manners of the tall, thin, bespectacled gentleman.

Leaving her car on a residential block, she walked along the edge of the street over pine needles and well-packed earth to where lighted shops began. Max hadn’t come home this morning after departing the house in the small, dark hours. He had called later from the Damens’ to fill her in on the fallen tree and the wrecked car. Would the thieves spend two or three days in Molena Point as they had before, then move on to any number of towns up and downthe coast—their agenda as neatly laid out as a preplanned summer vacation? She wondered if they sold the newer cars in the States or overseas. She supposed the older ones were dismantled and sold for parts. Turning into the courtyard that led to the salon, she headed past potted geraniums and flowering bushes to the open stairway, past a little charity shop, a camera shop, a small but exclusive cashmere shop—and two empty stores with For Rent signs in the windows, thanks to the downturn in the economy.

The stairs were tiled in a pale blue glaze, and with an intricate wrought-iron rail leading to the second-floor salon that rose above the two, single-storied wings that enclosed the patio. She could hear music from above, an old Glenn Miller instrumental. Her hairdresser, blond, buxom Barbara Conley, liked the forties bands of the last century, and that suited Charlie fine. As she stepped in, the recording began to play a Frank Sinatra number. The soft ceiling lights were on, and in the back, brighter lights shone over Barbara’s station.

Moving on back, Charlie stopped abruptly. Her hand slid beneath her open vest to her handgun. She could smell the residue of gunpowder.

The client’s big, adjustable chair was empty. Barbara lay sprawled on the floor beside it, her male customer fallen across her, their smocks and clothes soaked with blood, his glasses lying broken, his unfinished haircut shorter on one side. Shop owner Langston Prince, getting a quick haircut before Barbara’s appointments arrived.

Had someone already been in here when they opened the salon? Or had the killer slipped in behind them? A chill shivered through her as she eased against the nearest wall, looking around her.

There were two bullet wounds in Barbara’s chest, oozing blood. The shot that had killed Langston had torn through his throat. The blood and ripped flesh sickened her. Backing along the wall, she scanned the shop. The doors to the inner office and two storerooms were closed. No footprints marring the freshly waxed floor, no smears of blood. Drawing her Glock, she eased toward the front door, her heart pounding until she was through it again and outside. Her back to the building, she scanned the patio below then headed down the stairs, her gun still drawn.

She fled across the patio into the recessed doorway of the camera shop, stood watching the courtyard and stairs, watching the street as she slipped her phone from her pocket and hit the single digit for Max’s private line.

At MPPD, as Max and his officers raced for their cars, Joe Grey slipped out behind them, the kittens pressing against him. Moving south along the sidewalk close to the walls of the small shops, hunching down whenever they passed a low window, Striker and Buffin were his shadows. They’re good kittens, Joe thought, still half amused and half angry.

At the new little tearoom, he paused.

A line of tan clay pots planted with red geraniums stood against the low window.“In there,” Joe said softly, “in the shadow.” The two young cats slipped in between the tall containers and the display window, crouching down, their tan color matching the pots so well that they were almost invisible. They watched Joe rear up, push open the door of the tearoom and slip inside. The door had flowered curtains, tied back with bows, and flowery curtains hung at the windows. An elderly brown cat lay curled on a window seat, sleeping so deeply that he didn’t even open his eyes when Joe entered.

There were no customers, the shop had just opened. He could hear voices at the back, beyond the counter and kitchen, an echo as if through an open back door, could hear thumps as if boxes were being unloaded. Leaping onto the front counter, he silently slipped the headset from the phone.

The kittens watched Joe Grey punch in a number, but through the glass they could hear only a few words—enough, though, to tell he was talking about them as he kept an eye on the back for anyone approaching.

“He’s talking to Mom,” Buffin said.

“Maybe not. Maybe she’s already looking for us,” Striker said. “Maybe he’s talking with Wilma.” Whatever the case, they were still in trouble, and their mother would be far angrier than their dad.

“I don’t care,” Striker said. “This is better than staying in the yard, with Mama watching us like leashed puppies.” They had seen the neighbors’ dogs pulling at their tethers, longing to be free.

The talking at the back of the shop ceased suddenly. Joe pushed the headset back into place and dropped softly to the floor. Racing for the door he pulled it open with raking claws and slid through. Slipping along the wall, he crouched between the pots beside Striker. The kittens were afraid to ask who he had called.

Dulcie had been searching, she had covered the neighborhood and the hill behind her house. Angry and worried, she was pushing in through her cat door to tell Wilma she was going to look farther away, was going to look for the kittens in the village, when the phone rang. She slid quickly into the kitchen, her coat covered with grass and the seeds of a dozen weeds. Usually she cleaned herself off rolling on the back-door mat before she entered. Now she just bolted through as she heard her housemate cross to the phone. On the second ring, Wilma answered.

Dulcie already knew where Joe would be. Twenty minutes ago she had heard sirens moving through the village, police cars and a medics’ van. By now Joe would be at the scene, whatever had happened. Were the kittens there, too? Wandering the roofs alone, had they heard the emergency vehicles and gone bolting off after them?

Had they already found Joe, were they with him? Lashing her tail, angry that she had fallen asleep and allowed them to slip out, she was filled with guilt, too. They were too young to be out on their own, they hadn’t learned all the dangers of the village, they hadn’t learned nearly enough about cars or about strangers, they might be bold but they were still innocent. Cursing her own neglect, she galloped into the living room where Wilma had answered the call.

Courtney sat on the desk, her orange, black, and white softness pressed close to Wilma, her ear to the phone beside Wilma’s cheek, listening, her blue eyes wide and innocent. She hadn’t sneaked out of the house while Wilma and Dulcie slept. Dulcie wondered if the little calico had seen those two leave. Had seen, and had kept her kitty mouth shut?

On the phone, Wilma said,“Hold on,” and she turned on the speaker. “It’s Joe, he’s in a caf? by the station, he only has a minute. The boys are with him, he said not to worry.”

“They’re sticking to me like glue,” Joe said. “I’ll take good care … Gotta go, someone’s coming,” and the phone went dead.

Dulcie knew they were headed for the crime scene. She knew that Joe would keep the kittens out of the way, and safe; he was always careful not to be seen by the law. If cats are conspicuous at a scene, and then within hours or a day an anonymous call comes in, a tip from the snitch, that was not a good combination.

It will be all right, she told herself. Whatever happened, the danger’s over now. There was no need for her to show up, one more cat who might be seen, making the cops wonder. Instead she wandered the house, repeating to herself, They’re fine, the danger’s over, they’ll just watch from cover. But while Wilma made herself a soothing cup of tea over the open fire, and Courtney sat on Wilma’s desk clawing at the blotter, her calico body taut and uneasy, Dulcie paced nervously. Even if the police were there and Joe and Striker and Buffin would be safe, she felt that something was yet to happen. As if somehow her boy kittens were edging toward trouble.

Kate Osborne, leaving the small caretaker’s apartment in the CatFriends shelter, headed down to the vet’s to leave three rescue cats, and then to the hairdresser to meet Charlie for breakfast; for a few moments she sat in her car warming it up, tucking a scarf into the throat of her sweatshirt against the morning chill. Her two daytime volunteers had already arrived, were feeding the rescues and cleaning their cages. The petting and grooming sessions would come later, after the kennels were immaculate and the cats all fed. Neither woman’s home had had serious wind damage, only a few fallen branches, but they said trees were down all across the village.

Sitting in the Lexus, turning on a soft CD to calm the yowling cats, she could see that Voletta’s blinds, in the left-hand bedroom, were drawn. She supposed she should go down the hill, take her some breakfast, but maybe she was still sleeping after last night’s injuries. Scotty said she could get around all right in the walker. Voletta was a strong old woman. How many times had Kate seen her wandering the overgrown estate with its tumbled rocks and fallen walls? Kate liked to walk the ruins, too, but Voletta was always surly if they met. “You shouldn’t be walking up here, Ms. Osborne, this is Pamillon property.”

“It’s mine, now,” Kate would say. “Had you forgotten?” She couldn’t bring herself to be falsely polite to the old lady. Even if Kate were only cutting a few roses from the estate’s wild-growing bushes, Voletta would scold her.

Kate’s hair appointment was just after Charlie’s. Her short trim wouldn’t take long, and they’d have a late breakfast at the Swiss Caf?, if the power was on. Parking at the vet’s, she took two carriers to the door and went back for the third. Two of the scrawny rescues had been brought in last night before the winds grew fierce, the third cat early this morning, found by a paper deliveryman, the old cat shivering, ice-cold and very hungry. They had been fed and warmed up, but all three needed to be examined by Dr. Firetti and have their shots before they could join the shelter community.

The clinic wasn’t open yet but when she pulled up to the door and rang the bell John Firetti answered. Tanned, with a boyish face despite his years, brown hair cut short above a high hairline, a kind smile, a hug for Kate, and gentle words for the three frightened rescues. A man who would never look old, not with that happy, caring grin. No wonder Dulcie’s kittens liked John so much; whenever he visited, the boy kits were all over him roughhousing and clowning, while Courtney, in the background, rolled over and flirted.

When he took the cages in, Kate headed for the hairdresser, thinking about the thefts and the storm. She knew a tree had fallen on the Damens’ roof, she had talked with Ryan earlier; she was thankful that Joe was safe, that everyone was all right. She was tempted to stop for a moment, take a look at the damage; but the street would be filled with cops working the wrecked car, or maybe with Ryan’s crew already cutting and clearing away the tree. Life, Kate thought, was a poker game: good luck sometimes, and sometimes not so much; all an inexplicable and surprising mix.

She thought of Scotty, of all the years they’d known each other, and not until these last few weeks had a sudden spark of real interest begun; though both were still a bit shy, both still holding back. Where would this lead, this slow, careful, yet for Kate heart-pounding relationship? Neither of them had ever been deeply serious about anyone. Kate, when she married Jimmie Osborne, had thought she was in love; but that was not the real thing, that partnership hadn’t lasted long before she knew the real Jimmie. That painful marriage was why, from the time she left him, she had been so wary of getting involved with anyone else. She certainly didn’t have Kit’s wild, head-over-heels exhilaration, the way the impetuous tortoiseshell had fallen at once, paws over ears, for red tabby Pan. Kit was so joyous, so certain that this was the moment, this meeting was the spark that would ignite the rest of her life—of both their lives. In Kit’s case, it looked like she’d been right.

Kate thought about Scotty, last night, how quick and efficient he had been getting Voletta Nestor down to the hospital, carrying her out to his pickup, the wind blowing so hard it made her frizzled gray hair stand out every which way, wind had rocked the heavy truck so it nearly skidded off the road. Kate had watched them from Voletta’s house as they descended the narrow lane toward the village; hastily she had cleaned up the mess in the bedroom then had fought her way back through the wind to the safety of the cat shelter, to calm the frightened and nervous cats.

First thing this morning she had called Voletta’s niece, she told Lena that Voletta had been in the hospital, she described the extent of the wounds just as Scotty had described them to her on the phone from the emergency ward. Lena had sounded shocked and distraught. She said she would be down before noon, and that she would stay as long as Voletta needed her. She wanted to know what she could bring. A walker? A wheelchair? Yes, she would be alone, she said nervously. She said she had no one to help her, but something in her voice was hesitant and uncertain.

Lena was about fifty, she was surely responsible enough to take care of Voletta. Kate had met with her several times when she was trying to buy Voletta’s five acres. A small, light-boned woman like Voletta herself, but with smooth complexion, brown hair cut in bangs and straight to the shoulders. A quiet, hesitant woman, she seemed so shy, her voice as soft as that of a young girl. Still, Lena had been strong enough in the sales discussions, siding with her aunt. The cranky old lady had no intention of selling and Lena had been bold in backing her up, cool and emphatic suddenly, as forceful as Voletta herself.

Coming down Ocean Avenue into the village, Kate started to turn onto the side street that led to the beauty salon but she halted abruptly.

The street was blocked with police cars. Charlie’s red Blazer was parked just beyond where officers were stringing crime scene tape across the wide entry to the courtyard. Her stomach turned when she saw the coroner’s van, Dr. Bern’s van, parked inside the courtyard at the bottom of the steps that led up to the beauty salon. Two cops stoodat the top of the stairs. She caught a glimpse of Dr. Bern inside. She sat in her car shaky and chilled. Charlie had had the only early appointment. Charlie, and Barbara Conley, their hairdresser, would have been in there alone.

Speeding on two blocks to the first parking place she could find, she skidded in at an angle, jumped out, and ran, she was ice-cold deep down inside. As she reached the patio, the coroner was coming down the tiled stairs. Behind him, four stern-faced young medics came carrying two stretchers, one behind the other. Each stretcher sagged with a wrapped body.

Sick and shaken, Kate spun around searching for Charlie, for her wild red hair and vibrant smile. Looking and not finding her she felt more and more hollow. She didn’t dare go to Dr. Bern, didn’t dare go to his van, didn’t want to see what was there. When she couldn’t find Charlie, she sought among the officers for Max Harper.

There: his back to her, Levi’s, boots, western shirt. He was talking with someone. He was so tall and the way he was standing blocked her view, she couldn’t see … she ran …

She stopped, and started to breathe again.

Charlie stood close to Max, the two deep in serious discussion. Max held a clipboard, taking notes. Charlie was all right, she wasn’t one of the bodies on a stretcher. Kate broke in between them, threw her arms around Charlie trying not to cry.

Charlie held her, both of them shivering.“It’s … Barbara,” Charlie said. “Barbara’s dead. And Langston Prince. They were … I found them shot.” Charlie tried to sound steady, to stay steady in front of Max. “I just walked in and—” She stopped, pressed her fist to her mouth. Behind them, the medics were sliding the stretchers into the coroner’s van. “I just …” Charlie was saying when a yowl like a cat cry came from the roof above, loud enough to draw the attention of every officer present.

Staring up, Kate and Charlie could see no animal, no shadow among the cluster of metal air intakes and protruding vents. But they knew that voice. Charlie looked at Max.“Are we done, can I … ?”

“Go,” Max said, frowning, watching the roof. He got edgy whenever he saw or heard a cat around a crime scene. Charlie and Kate ran up the stairs, swung over the rail, and along the one-story roof to the metal pipes—but now there was only silence. They called softly, “Kitty? Kitty? Come, kitty,” in deference to the men below.

They found Joe and the two kittens crouched among the tangle of air ducts, Striker holding his paw up, blood flowing from his pad, the buff youngster looking frightened, and ashamed because he had cried out. The cats were silent now, staring up at Charlie and Kate wanting help, Joe Grey’s eyes fierce with the need to hurry.

Kate, pulling off her scarf, wrapped the cut paw. Charlie picked Striker up, cradling him as Kate picked up Buffin and Joe Grey, father and son draping themselves across her shoulders. She knew Joe wouldn’t stay here, and they couldn’t leave Buffin alone, she didn’t want to think of the trouble he could cause.

Coming back over the roof and down the stairs, every officer watching them with their passel of cats, they ran for Charlie’s Blazer to head for the veterinary hospital, and to hell with what the cops thought. Passing Max, he looked at the blood-soaked scarf. “How bad is it? You need help?” And he gave Charlie a deeply puzzled look. Why were Joe Grey and his kittens there, what were they doing there? One was hurt, but why take all three to the vet?

“Not too bad,” Charlie said coolly. “Just a lot of blood.”

Max studied Charlie again, an unsettling gaze.“Call me on my cell if you need anything, we’ll be securing the two victims’ houses,” and he turned away, frowning.

9

Dulcie paced the living room trying to ignore Wilma’s glances. Joe had said Striker and Buffin were fine, but that didn’t keep her from worrying nor did it ease her anger that they had sneaked off and that he hadn’t brought them straight home. She thought of hawks, of stray dogs, of skidding cars.

“They’re growing up quickly,” Wilma said. “Wanting adventure just as you did at that age—just as you still do,” she said softly. Having encouraged Dulcie to wait, not go chasing after the boy kittens, Wilma sat in a chair before the fire, Courtney in her lap, a book open before them, reading aloud one of James Herriot’s stories, about a lone little cat who had no home.

The house was dim, her electricity still off, the only brightness this morning was where the fire’s blaze lit the pages of the book and warmed the living room. Wilma had gotten to a part of the story that brought tears to Dulcie’s eyes and that made Courtney shiver when suddenly the lights came on. In a moment they heard the soft rumble of the furnace. At the same time, the phone rang. Dulcie leaped to the desk and pressed a paw to the speaker, making sure the volume was turned up. It was Lucinda.

“Is your power on yet? Did you weather the storm all right?”

“Power just came on,” Wilma said. “Yours is still out? Is Kit there, is she all right?”

“She’s fine,” Lucinda said, “but I worried all night. Yes, our power’s still out.”

“The neighbors have two pines down across the street,” Wilma said. “A real tangle. Lucky they hit the garage and not the house. The young couple was out looking at it, I expect they’ve called a tree service—if they can get one in this mess. Do you want to come down to breakfast? I’ll make pancakes … There’s no one else here,” she added, for Kit’s benefit.

“We’d love it,” Kit and Lucinda said together, Kit’s cry almost drowning Lucinda.

Wilma rose as Dulcie clicked off the phone. She put aside the book, tucked Courtney down again in the warm chair, and headed for the kitchen. In moments the two cats could hear the sound of cracking eggs and then the beater going, then soon the sound of Wilma setting the table—but suddenly Courtney was no longer in the chair. She was on Wilma’s desk looking out the window. She was not waiting for Kit and the Greenlaws, but peering across the street where the two pines had fallen.

“That man,” she said as Dulcie leaped up. “That same man again, watching our house.” She crouched lower, just her eyes and ears visible above the window frame. “Why is he watching? What is he watching?” The cloud-dulled sun rising behind Wilma’s house put the cats in shadow. Across the street, the fallen trees and broken branches made their own shadows among the damaged walls of the garage so little of the darkly dressed figure was visible. Dulcie was about to trot out to the kitchen and tell Wilma he was there when, again, the phone rang.

Wilma picked up the kitchen extension. On the desk, Dulcie hit the speaker. What she heard made her hiss and lift a paw as if to strike the tomcat at the other end of the line.“Oh, Joe! How could you take them there and not keep them safe?”

“I didn’t mean to bring them! If you’ll remember, I left them with you,” he said sharply. “The little brats followed me. I didn’t see them slip into the station. When a call came in for the medics and coroner, then I did see them. But what was I going to do? It was Charlie on the line, she’d walked into a murder. What else could we do but … ?”

“Oh,” Dulcie said more meekly.

Wilma said tensely,“Is Charlie all right?” Charlie Harper was Wilma’s niece, she was Wilma’s only family.

“Fine, Charlie’s fine,” Joe said.

“But,” Wilma said, “I thought she was going to the hairdresser …”

“It was the hairdresser,” Joe said. “Barbara Conley was shot, and the owner of the salon. Just the two of them in the shop.”

Wilma was silent. There was talk around the village about Barbara, and Langston Prince—but then, there was talk about Barbara and any number of men, some who lived in Molena Point and others whom no one seemed to know.

“She … Barbara had been giving Langston a haircut,” Joe said. “But right now we’re …” Joe’s voice went low, as if he saw another scolding coming. “Striker cut his paw. It isn’t bad but Charlie and Kate brought him to Dr. Firetti, he’s putting a little bandage on it. I’m in Charlie’s Blazer, on her cell phone … Dulcie, don’t be mad. He’s fine, he’s enjoying the attention.”

Dulcie was silent. Joe, at the other end of the line, heard only a hollow emptiness. She said, finally,“How did he hurt himself? He wasn’t in the middle of the murder scene? What was he doing? How bad is he? What does Dr. Firetti say?” She knew she sounded tightly wound. And all the while that she was trying not to scold, she and Wilma and Courtney watched the man across the street. She said, “I hope Buffin wasn’t hurt, too?”

“Buffin’s fine,” he said stiffly. She needn’t be so judgmental. “He’s having the time of his life looking in at all the other cats. Kate’s giving him a tour.”

Dulcie sighed.“Bring them straight home when you’re done.” She knew how bossy she sounded. And what good was it to scold? She could hear in Joe’s voice his dismay that this had happened. She’d get the details later. The man across the street hadn’t moved, blending into the shadows of the fallen trees. As the clouds thinned and the sun lifted higher they could see more of his face: wide cheekbones, straight, thin nose, and narrow chin. He wore a cap, with pale hair sticking out. When the Greenlaws’ car pulled up, he slipped back among the branches, there was a ripple of shadow around the side of the shattered garage and he was gone.

Dulcie and Courtney watched the street in both directions but he did not reappear. Dulcie started for the cat door, wanting to follow from the roofs. Wilma picked her up and held her firmly.“Not this time. Let him go, Dulcie.”

Dulcie obeyed, startled at the unease in Wilma’s voice. They heard the back door open. Kit bolted into the kitchen ahead of Lucinda and Pedric; it seemed strange to see her without Pan, but the Firettis did need him just now, since Misto died. Wilma went to put the bacon in the microwave and pour pancake batter on the grill. Soon the smell of both filled the house, joining the scent of coffee.

But Dulcie’s mind wasn’t on breakfast. It was partly on the vanished man and, most of all, on her injured kitten. How soon would they be home? Kate and Charlie were with them, and Dr. Firetti would take good care of Striker, yet still she wanted to race over the roofs to her child.

Joe is there, she thought. And so is Pan. Striker doesn’t need his mama racing to comfort him after every little mishap. Yet even as she lapped up her pancakes, her mind was at the veterinary hospital, imagining needles and blood and the big metal examining table. She watched Wilma, who was nervous, too. About Striker? Or about the man casing their house? Did Wilma know more about him than she had yet told them?

Shortly after breakfast, while Lucinda cleared the table and did the dishes, Wilma turned on the phone’s speaker and called the clinic. An aide switched the line to John Firetti.

“Striker’s fine,” John said. “He had a local sedative so I could put three stitches in his paw. They’ll pick him up in a few hours, when that wears off so he can walk steadier.”

“Can he walk, on the wound?” Wilma said, glancing at Pedric who sat before the fire, intently listening.

“If he’s careful,” John said. “It isn’t bad, but it will take a few weeks to heal fully.” When they’d hung up, Wilma and Dulcie looked at each other.

“He’s a youngster,” Wilma said, “he’s going to get a scratch now and then.”

“It’s more than a scratch!” Dulcie snapped. “Three stitches!” But then she jumped to the desk beside Wilma and rubbed her face against her housemate, apologizing, loving her. Wilma picked her up, cuddling her. Dulcie knew she shouldn’t be mad. Striker would be all right, she was just edgy. And now, before the fire, Pedric began a tale—to comfort Dulcie and Courtney, to keep them all from worrying. But the tale was for his own Kit in a very special way. Kit loved Pedric’s stories, the tortoiseshell was all about stories, she had been ever since she was a tiny orphan following the wild band of talking cats, trying to cadge enough to eat from their leavings and shyly listening to the ancient tales they told. None of the big, wild cats had wanted Kit, but traveling at the edge of their clowder, she felt protected from larger predators. When they gathered at night, she crouched close in the shadows, hidden but safe, listening to their tales and memorizing every one.

Now, Pedric’s story of long-ago Ireland brought a keen brightness to Courtney’s eyes, too. There was a band of wild speaking cats in that legend, living among the Irish downs. It was a long tale, and two others about speaking cats followed. When Pedric finished with the classic “they lived happy forevermore,” Courtney put a paw on his hand. “Now tell about our wild feral band, about the speaking cats that live up in the ruins.” She looked at Kit. “Were those the ones you lived with when you were a kitten? Can we go to see them?”

“Who told you about the Pamillon cats?” Dulcie asked gently.

“Striker did. He heard you and Pa talking.”

Dulcie wished the kittens didn’t catch every casual remark, every whisper. She’d hoped they wouldn’t want to make that journey to the wild, feral band until they were older; she had started to explain about the clowder cats when a car pulled up the drive.

In a moment the plastic cat door banged open and Buffin came bounding through, then Joe Grey. The kitchen door opened behind them and Charlie came in carrying Striker tucked against her shoulder, his bandaged paw tangled in her red hair. Kate was last, carrying a little box of bandages, medicine, and instructions. Dulcie leaped up on the table to greet her child. When she sniffed at Striker’s bandage and the strange medicine smells, and then nuzzled him, Striker looked happier. But it was the expression on Joe Grey’s face that startled her.

Joe did not look guilty for letting Striker get hurt. He looked keenly excited.

“What?” she said.

“Coming back down Ocean,” he told her, “we turned on my street to see how Ryan and Scotty were doing with the tree removal. The tree’s all down, and cut up. They were loading it in the truck. Ryan has plastic sheeting over the broken roof. The side street is still blocked, officers still going over the broken-in cars and talking to the residents. But the house on the corner?” Joe said, looking at Kit. “The house where you and Pan saw the BMW hidden? They’ve got crime tape around it, too. Harper’s truck is there and two squad cars. The swinging doors to the garage are open and the car is gone.”

“Oh my!” Kit said. “Did the officers break the lock and find the garage empty? Did the thief come back and drive it off before they ever got there? Or have the cops already returned the car to its owner or had it towed to the compound?”

“Maybe,” Wilma said, “the car thefts aren’t why Harper and Dallas are there.”

“Why, then?” Joe said. “They had to get a warrant to search the house, had to get the judge out of bed early …” He watched Charlie untangle her long hair from Striker’s bandaged paw.

“That house,” Charlie said, “is part of the murder scene.”

They all looked at her.

“Barbara Conley lived there, she rented it two or three months ago. Didn’t you know that? Her rent, where she’d been living, had nearly doubled.”

This embarrassed Joe. He lived only two blocks away, he thought he and Ryan and Clyde knew everything that went on in the neighborhood. They did know that someone had moved in, late one evening—a small rental truck, a few boxes, minimal furniture. A curvy blonde, a couple of guys helping her. Joe had watched idly from his tower, and thought little of it. What was there to think? The house was a rental. He didn’t know Barbara Conley—sweet-scented beauty salons were not his hangout of choice. And Ryan might not have known Barbara at all, Ryan cut her own dark, blow-away hair, cut it after she’d washed the sawdust out.

“You sure, last night, there was a car?” Joe asked Kit. “Maybe we should have called Harper. But it was so damned risky.”

“Maybe,” Kit said, “we should call him now.”

“He knows your voice,” Joe said. “He knows Dulcie’s voice, and he sure as hell knows mine.”

“I can disguise my voice,” Kit said. “I can …”

But Courtney had already leaped to the desk.“Captain Harper doesn’t know my voice.” Courtney’s voice was quite different from Kit’s and Dulcie’s, her higher tones were still that of a youngster, a tender human teenager.

“You’ve never done this,” Joe said. “You don’t—”

“She’s listened to you make a call or two,” Dulcie said, lashing her tail. “Take her in the bedroom, Joe, show her how to use Wilma’s cell phone, help her with what to say.”

But Courtney scowled and lashed her own tail, she didn’t need to be told what to say, she knew what to tell Captain Harper.

Wilma’s “safe” cell phone lay on the nightstand, the old phone with no GPS, that Clyde had doctored, like Joe Grey’s phone, with a false identification. Courtney, hopping on the bed, and with very little instruction from her father, pawed in the single dial for Max Harper.

She told Harper, in her little-girl voice, that she’d seen the police “investigating that house on Dolores Street. I saw something there last night that you might want to know about. In the wind, around four in the morning, a car pulled in that driveway. A man got out, unlocked the garage, pulled the car in, and padlocked the doors again.

“He stood by the house, where the bedroom is, then he went in the front door, he had a key for that, too. He was in there about five minutes then came out again, locked the door and went away. I thought maybe he was visiting, that lady has a lot of company, but then when I saw the police there …”

“Do you want to give me your name?” Max said. “Want to tell me where you live?”

“I’d rather not,” Courtney said. “My mother would say I was spying.”

Max was silent; he’d started to speak when Joe Grey reached out a paw and punched the disconnect.

“You did great,” he said, purring and licking Courtney’s ear. “You’re my big girl. My big, grown-up girl.” And that thought, while it made Courtney smile, sent a sinking feeling right to the middle of Joe’s belly. She was growing up. It seemed like the kittens had just gotten there, tiny little blind things, then soon little balls of fluff. And now look at them, look at his smart, beautiful daughter. All three kittens were growing up too fast, racing toward the time when they would leave home to make their own lives. And Joe Grey followed Courtney back to the living room feelingpainfully sad—until he caught Kate’s glance and Charlie’s, and knew that their minds were on Buffin, on the amazement that had happened at Dr. Firetti’s.

Joe wasn’t yet ready to talk about that. Nor, it seemed, did Kate and Charlie want to discuss Buffin’s behavior this morning while Striker was having his paw tended. Maybe because none of them, maybe not even Buffin himself, knew quite what to make of his keen and peculiar interest in Dr. Firetti’s caged patients.

10

It had been just after Charlie walked in on the double murder and then Striker cut his paw, that Buffin discovered a new wonder. An amazement that filled his mind right up.

Charlie had parked her Blazer in front of Dr. Firetti’s clinic, its two older cottages joined into a large complex by the sun dome between. She got out carrying Striker with his bloody, wrapped paw. Kate carried Buffin snug across her shoulder but Joe Grey galloped ahead, a frown of worry in his yellow eyes.

The minute the tech behind the desk saw them and rang for Dr. Firetti, John appeared and took Striker from Charlie. Carrying the wounded kitten gently in his arms, he led them back into one of the examining rooms. The space had cages all around three walls, two long metal tables in the middle, and a counter and sink on the fourth wall beneath bright windows.

On the counter was a shallow round basket lined with a clean towel. Curled up comfortably was red tabby Pan; he looked up at his friends, frowned down at the look on Joe Grey’s face, and watched John Firetti unwrap Striker’s wounded paw. Since Pan’s father died, he spent considerable time in the clinic, he could not abandon the Firettis yet, he could only try to fill the empty place in their lonely household—except when the car thieves were at work, when, in the predawn hours while John and Mary slept, Pan and Kit and Joe Grey stalked the rooftops. Now, seeing the bloody scarf around Striker’s paw, Pan watched intently, his amber eyes filled with questions.

He didn’t leave his basket and approach. He remained where he was, watching as Joe Grey leaped to the metal table where John had unwrapped Striker’s paw. A cart stood beside the table, laid out with alcohol, swabs, bandages, local anesthetic, syringes, and more, an array that, Pan could see, made Joe Grey go queasy, made the gray tomcat’s ears drop and his pupils darken with alarm.

Joe had had his blood drawn once, maybe on this very table, to help save the life of one of the feral cats. He’d almost fainted at the sight of his own blood flowing into the glass tube. Now, he began to feel the same.

A tech had come in to help, a small, dark-haired girl, but John sent her away and told her to shut the door. He asked Charlie to scrub up, at the sink before the windows. Charlie often doctored her own dogs and cats and horses, sometimes under his telephone directions. Once the tech had gone, and humans and cats could talk freely, John wanted to know how Striker had cut his two pads so badly, and on what.

“A metal roof vent,” Joe Grey said, ashamed he’d let that happen.

“You’ll need a tetanus shot,” John told Striker. “You’re lucky not to have cut a tendon.” As he prepared the needle, Joe shut his eyes. For a tough, street-battling tomcat, his fear of a hospital was quite another matter. Joe Grey could whip the biggest German shepherd he’d ever met, but that sharp needle undid him. Young Striker, on the other hand, seemed quite in charge of himself. He hadn’t let out a sound since that one cry, on the rooftop, when he’d cut his paw.

But it was Buffin who was the most interested in the clinic. He gave John a loving look. John winked at him and then for a moment stood watching him as Buffin looked all around the hospital room, his eyes wide, studying with keen interest each cat or small dog in its cage. Some looked sick, some were bandaged, several were asleep.

“You kittens have had all your shots,” John said. “The few cats who are infectious are in a separate ward.” He glanced up at Kate. “You and Buffin want to look around?”

“Yes,” Buffin said immediately. “They are sick and hurt. But you can cure them.”

“I do my best,” John said. “I mean to heal your brother’s paw, if he will follow my instructions.” Kate, leaving Charlie to assist at the operating table, took the buff kitten on a little tour, carrying him slowly from cage to cage, pausing at each. Behind them John Firetti was softly asking Striker questions as he worked cleaning and disinfecting the paw’s two cut pads.

“How did this happen? This was a roof vent?”

“Something sticking up from the roof. A bunch of somethings where we were hiding, watching the cops.” Striker was very calm, the sight of his own blood didn’t seem to bother him. Joe watched his son with envy.

“There was a murder,” Striker said. “At the place where Charlie gets her hair cut. They were bringing two bodies out, all wrapped up. We ducked down behind those metal boxes and pipes on the roof and that’s when I hit my paw on a raw edge.” He watched without flinching, Charlie’s hands holding him gently as John began to put in the stitches. John was telling Charlie all the while where and how to stanch the blood, what to do to assist him. John had helped deliver the three kittens, they were special to him.

John Firetti had spent all his life, as had his father before him, keeping the secret of talking cats—and searching for a speaking cat or kitten among the band of ferals they fed, down at the seashore. They had never found such a wonder there—but John had discovered, early on, the talents of Joe, Dulcie, Kit, Pan, and at last Misto. Never had he and Mary thought they would have such a housemate as the elderly, golden cat, and the end of Misto’s life had come far too soon.

Now as John and Charlie worked on Striker’s paw, across the room Kate’s attention was on Buffin; the kitten knew these were not speaking cats, he didn’t try to talk to them. But, “This tabby,” he told Kate, “he’s healing, but his middle still hurts. Tell Dr. Firetti that his middle hurts, he will want to know that.” Buffindidn’t know yet what one’s insides were called, but he could sense the hurt. He looked in at a Siamese with a splint and a long white bandage on his broken leg. The cat was lying patiently, but in his eyes Buffin saw how tense he was.

“He wants out, he wants to run and he can’t. But his leg is healing,” he said softly, looking up at Kate. Resting easy in Kate’s arms, he said, “What would cats do, if they didn’t have humans to help them?”

“Some would die,” Kate said, trying not to show her amazement at the young cat’s observations. This kitten was sensing what human doctors might not be able to see. He looked in at a little fluffy dog who raised its eyes to him. “He’s lonely, Kate. I could stay in there with him while Striker is coming awake.”

Kate looked up at the doctor. John nodded, and she opened the cage. As Buffin settled in, the little dog grew brighter and snuggled up to him, licking Buffin and wagging his tail.

When Kate looked up, Pan was watching Buffin. He sat very alert on the hospital counter, she could almost read what he was thinking: What is this kitten, who seems to possess even more than our own special talent?

Now, as Dr. Firetti wrapped Striker’s paw in fresh bandages, Pan joined Joe Grey on the table. Joe, having tremulously watched the surgery, looked determined to regain his dignity. Pan, having lived with the Firettis for over three months, was used to the blood, the cutting and stitching. What the red tom was wondering was, What about Buffin and his strange observations? What skill does this kitten have, that is beyond even his gift of speech? He wondered if Buffin would speak to Dr. Firetti about the caged cats, about what he sensed. He wondered what this son of Joe Grey would be capable of, in his amazing life.

11

It was early that evening, just below the Pamillon estate, when Lena Borden arrived to take care of her aunt Voletta until her wounds healed. The sun had sunk behind the woods, night reaching down to quench the last glow across Voletta’s five acres that ran from the house down through the trees and on into land that might once have been pasture; land that was now rough with short-nibbled weeds, thanks to Voletta’s donkey and three goats. Kate watched from up the hill at the shelter. She had just finished feeding the rescue cats and had sent a young couple on their way with a pair of spotted kittens to replace their elderly Siamese whom they had lost to illness a month ago. All the paperwork was done, Kate had talked with their veterinarian, had visited their home, which turned out to have a delightful garden inside a large, catproof enclosure. She had even done a background check, which she knew would be clean. She was pleased with the match, the couple truly loved those kittens.

Now, standing at an open window, pushing her short blond hair back from her cheek, she saw Lena’s old white Ford station wagon making its way up the narrow road that branched off to Voletta’s cottage, the little lane narrowing as it ran on up into the woods behind the Pamillon mansion. Kate wasn’t thrilled to see Lena; the three times she had talked with her, while offering to buy Voletta’s place for enough so the old woman might move into a nice retirement home, Lena had at first been surly, then had gotten an almost frightened look in her blue eyes. Kate still wondered what that was about.

She watched Lena pull around the house on the gravel drive, to Voletta’s front door, though that entry was seldom used. Voletta Nestor and any occasional visitor parked at the back near the kitchen door. Lena stepped out, opened the trunk, hauled out a suitcase and a large duffel bag and set them on the porch. She was a pretty woman, her creamy complexion and straight-cut hair gave her the look of a young girl. Most of the time, she had the voice and the ways of a young girl, shy and uncertain.

This morning, after Scotty brought Voletta home from the hospital, Kate had taken her down some breakfast, had checked on her twice during the day, and had taken her a hot lunch. For this reason alone, she was glad to see Lena. Her visits to the old lady weren’t pleasant—Voletta was crankier than the donkey and goats that roamed her yard and tore up the neighbors’ gardens for miles around. Kate wondered how long Lena could tolerate them, as well as tolerate Voletta.

When Kate had offered to have Ryan Flannery’s carpenters fix Voletta’s falling-down fence to keep her animals in, Voletta’s response had been rude and hateful—the wandering goats and donkey still came up to push and nose at CatFriends’ outdoor shelters, upsetting the cats. They would keep coming, pushing at the heavy wire mesh until they tore up the shelter or until Ryan had built her own heavier fence to keep them out.

Lena dragged her luggage inside the front door and Kate saw a light go on in the right corner bedroom. Returning to her car she pulled it around the cottage to the back. From the shelter, you couldn’t see much on that side of the house, couldn’t see who came and went. If Lena had stopped for groceries she would unload them there, directly into the kitchen. Before Kate turned away, glancing up toward the ruins with its exposed living room and nursery where the two-story wall had long ago fallen, she saw three of the wild, clowder cats crouched at the broken-away edge of the nursery floor, looking down watching Lena.

The wall of those two front rooms had, years ago, been shattered by falling trees during a storm far worse than this year’s blow. The rotted trees still lay among the rubble, with green saplings growing up through them. Ryan’s crew was building supports in preparation for tearing apart and rebuilding that part of the mansion. As the three cats watched Lena, Kate thought they were whispering to one another.

Why would the ferals have any interest in Lena or Voletta—except to stay clear of the cranky old woman and the motley animals she tried to keep corralled within her rickety fence? Kate wondered if the ferals, in the storm, had heard Voletta’s window shatter and had come down from their new hiding place, curious, as Scotty took Voletta away in his car. Wondered if they had watched them return this morning, Scotty helping her inside in a walker. Ever since Ryan’s engineers had begun tramping the ruins, photographing and measuring, and then when the construction work started, the cats had stayed away. They had chosen for their new lair a northerly hillside above the estate, dense with boulders and cypress trees—one of their favorite early-morning hunting grounds and now a new temporary home.

“We don’t mind moving up there,” Willow had told Kate. “The carpenters are noisy, and when the machines are here we don’t want to be anywhere near them. When we do come down, to see what the men are doing, we stay here in the back away from the machinery.”

“It won’t be for long,” Kate told Willow, “and you’ll have your favorite places in the mansion back, only better.”

Cotton said,“We used to watch Voletta Nestor take her morning walks up among the ruins. Now she’s been hurt, I guess she won’t be doing that for a while.”

“Wandering,” Willow said, “as if she’s searching for something.”

“And other times,” Cotton said, “going right to where she keeps her special box.”

“Safe,” Willow said. “It’s a safe. When she goes there she puts in packages wrapped in brown paper. She keeps it locked—in a niche under the back kitchen stairs, and boards pulled over. But now, since you bought the property, she’s been taking packages out instead of putting them in.”

“How often did she do that, put packages in?”

“Every few weeks,” Willow said. “You weren’t around much then, we never thought to tell you. She’d go to town, bring home groceries. Later she’d walk up there, the little packages in her pockets.”

The ferals had watched Kate, earlier, as she went down to tend to the elderly lady. She had looked up at them and smiled, and they had switched their tails in greeting. It had surprised her that they would return to the mansion when Scotty, Manuel, and Fernando were working there; but this morning it was quiet work, no tractor or heavy equipment, just shovels and hand tools.

Ryan’s crew would make this part of the house whole again. It, like some of the other added-on wings, had not been as solidly constructed as the core interior—that main, old house was a ruggedly sturdy, four-bedroom retreat that even now needed only cleaning up, minor repairs, and new wiring and plumbing. None of the later additions, the front rooms and outbuildings, had been so strongly built, and these would be replaced. The basements and cellars were solid enough, Ryan had had an engineer examine them. “A fine foundation,” he had told her. Some of those underground spaces would be usedfor storage, but many would be left for the feral band, just as, outdoors, Ryan and Kate would leave the piles of old stone and rubble, and a number of strengthened storage sheds to afford shelter and hiding places.

Kate wasn’t sure what she would do with the renovated mansion. She had in mind a cat museum like the one she so loved in San Francisco. Paintings, sculpture, tapestries; that museum had originals by many famous artists. And she wanted rooms for art classes, too. The cellars and tunnels left for the feralswould be blocked from the public. Parking could be a problem, which was why she had wanted Voletta’s land. As dusk gathered, at the back of Voletta’s cottage the trees turned bright when the kitchen lights blazed on. Then lights in the living room, too, shining out on the rear yard. At the front of the house, the windows in the right corner bedroom were now dark.

She watched Scotty and their two carpenters, higher up the hill, putting their tools away, wrapping it up for the night. Scotty’s red hair and beard caught a last streak of vanishing sun. His big square hands were quick and capable as he loaded the tools in his truck. Watching him, a warmth touched her, a sense of his arms around her. The memory of her head on his shoulder; Scotty holding her as she’d cried against him, the day the old yellow tomcat died.

But a shiver chilled her, too. As much as she knew she loved him, this could never be permanent.

She wanted to stay with Scotty, she wanted them to be married, and she was certain that he did, too. But that could never happen. Not when she must lie to him, when she could never share her knowledge about the speaking cats. That confidence was ironclad among the few humans who did know the cats’ secret. And, with Kate, there was even more to keep hidden.

In the Harper marriage, Charlie knew the cats could speak, but Max didn’t. Charlie had to swallow back every accidental hint, every incriminating remark that might want to slip out. And Kate would have to do the same. She would have, too often, to lie to Scotty, and she would hate each deception. A solid marriage wasn’t meant to harbor secrets, marriage was meant for openness, the only secrets being those shared by both.

But, she thought, the lies have worked for Charlie, she has made them work. Though it was never easy. Too many times she had seen Charlie turn away from Max’s observing look, cross the room to refill their coffee cups, straighten the kitchen chairs, hunt in her pocket for a tissue, anything to distract from what might have been a misstep. Kate wondered if she could live like that with Scott Flannery, who seemed to conceal nothing, who held back no secret.

But thinking of living without Scotty was even more painful. Now, as Manuel and Fernando climbed in their truck and took off down the hill, and Scotty’s truck headed for the shelter, Kate turned away and went to start dinner in the kitchen of the little apartment. Two small filets, scalloped potatoes in the microwave, a salad. While she set the table, hearing Scotty’s truck pull up, her heart was pounding with conflicted thoughts, with the sight of him, tall and muscled, his flaming hair and neatly trimmed red beard. She could feel his hand in hers as they walked through the woods, or as he helped her install walkways and bridges in the big enclosures for the shelter cats.

These cats were not meant to be confined for long, they were meant to have homes. Or, if they were feral and had roamed wild and free, they would be returned to their own territory and looked after, from a polite distance, by the CatFriends volunteers. They would have had shots and been spayed, they would have water, and food besides the rats and mice they hunted, and would have secure outdoor shelters. Scotty understood that these wild cats that CatFriends had trapped were wary and frightened, and he was gentle with them.

She had watched Scotty around the ruins, how he would glance at the ferals, knowing they were wild. She could see his smile when they peered out at him, could see his interest in their shy ways. He always paid attention, as the men got to work with loud equipment, to how the cats would disappear, avoiding the very places the men meant to break and dig.

Now, as she watched Scotty come up the steps, moving on into the bathroom to wash up, she put the potatoes in the microwave, the steaks on the hot skillet, and the salads on the little apartment table.

“Those feral cats,” Scotty said, sitting down, “that band around the ruins. Will they stay at all, when we bring in more heavy equipment, bigger tractors and backhoes? Or will they leave for good, frightened and displaced? Where will they go?”

“There’s a lot of land,” she said. “Rocky places up in those trees, caves to hide and to den in. Places so far back in the woods, you can hardly see the mansion. I’m guessing they hunt there, in the early hours.”

“You know a lot about them,” he said, watching her.

“I’ve read a lot about ferals. And I know one thing, no cat wants to hunt down there at Voletta’s, intently stalking a rabbit hole, when that bad-tempered donkey and those three billy goats might come charging down on them.” She was interested that he cared, that he had thought about the cats’ fear of the workmen and heavy equipment—but then he startled her sharply:

“Wilma says there are pictures in the library of feral cats centuries ago. Pictures that look just like Dulcie’s calico kitten. I told her, that seems pretty strange. Wilma said it must be some special breed of that time, that the kitten is some kind of throwback.”

“Could be,” she said. “Genetics is a complicated science, I don’t begin to understand it all.”

“Pedric has seen the pictures. He thinks that kitten has been reincarnated,” Scotty said, smiling. “That’s his Scots-Irish blood, Pedric loves the old, mythic tales—we Scots are all storytellers.”

“Are you a storyteller?”

“I can’t make up the wild tales that Pedric does,” he said easily. But Kate wished, oh how she wished, that Scotty could believe those ancient stories—that he could believe all the wonders that surrounded him right here and right now, miracles that she knew to be true.

12

The stalker returned to Wilma’s the next night. This time he didn’t just watch her house, nor had he followed her as she shopped. He had waited out in the night until he was sure she slept, waited long after the reading light went out in her bedroom, until the house was dark.

Wilma and Dulcie and the kittens were sound asleep, tangled together in the double bed, Courtney’s paws in Wilma’s hair, Dulcie’s head on Wilma’s shoulder. Buffin was snuggled close to Striker, who was curled around his bandaged paw to protect it. Striker was the first to wake, raising his head, softly hissing. “There’s a noise. Someone …”

Wilma sat up, listening. Dulcie reared up beside her.“Someone’s out there,” the tabby whispered. They all could hear scraping noises at the front window. Dulcie slipped off the bed, stood tall on her hind paws, her tail twitching, her ears sharp. The kittens slid stealthily down beside her, everyone listening.

But now there was no sound. Only silence.

Then the sudden sharp clink of shattering glass.

In a moment they heard the front window slide open, then another sliding noise as if someone was climbing in over the sill.

Quietly Wilma rose, pulled on her robe, lifted her revolver from the nightstand, unholstered it, and slipped it in her pocket. The kittens watched her wide-eyed. Without a sound she opened the bedroom window and silently slid back the screen. She motioned the four cats through—but Dulcie didn’t want to leave her.

“Go,” Wilma said softly. “Go now. Up to the neighbor’s roof, out of the way in case of gunfire.”

Dulcie just looked at her. Wilma picked her up forcefully and dropped her out the window, down among the waiting kittens. Thin light from a quarter moon followed the cats as they climbed the neighbor’s honeysuckle vine. When they were gone, safe on the roof, Wilma crouched by the bed, her voice muffled by its bulk and covers, and softly called 911. Then she moved to the bedroom door listening.

The invader was in the living room, trying to open desk drawers. She heard him try the large, locked file drawers first, then pull the small drawers open, heard him rummaging as if he might be looking for the file-drawer key. But why, what did he think she had? She had nothing of real value that she’d ever kept in the house—well, except the Thomas Bewick book, the rare collector’s volume that she had at one time hidden in the secret compartment behind the files in the locked drawer. The book that she and Charlie had dug from among the Pamillon ruins.

But how would a burglar know about that? Or know its value? No one knew about the Bewick book except her closest friends. If that was Calvin Alderson’s son out there, the young man who had been watching her, how could he know about the handmade, one-of-a-kind volume that they’d found on the estate? What connection could Rick Alderson, or his father, have had to the Pamillons?

How could he know about that one volume printed differently from the rest of the edition, the one book that because of what the author had added to it, held a secret that must never be told? A book that, despite its considerable value, she had at last destroyed? How would he know any of the Pamillon secrets?

Quietly she slid the bedroom door open and moved down the hall toward the living room. Across the room he was still rummaging at the desk, his back to her. She watched him trying to jimmy the file lock on her nice cherry desk and that made her mad.“Stand up,” she said, cocking the revolver. “Turn around, hands laced on top of your head.”

He spun around, staring at the gun. A slim man. In the dark, backlighted by faint moonlight, she couldn’t see his face but it was the same man, the same wide, slanted shoulders, exactly like Calvin Alderson twenty years ago. Seeing the cocked gun in her steady grip he was still for only a second then spun around grabbing at the front door, turning the lock, jerking it open, and was gone. In that second she could have fired, could easily have killed him.

She let the hammer down slowly. She heard his footsteps pounding down the walk, then heard a car take off. Quickly she found a tissue, put it over her hand to open the door. She ran, chasing the car… a pale SUV. What make? She couldn’t tell. Nor, in the faint moonlight, could she see the license number. She was shocked to see Dulcie chasing it, too, running down the street. Oh, Dulcie! She was half angry, half filled with love to see Dulcie’s dangerous, insane effort. When the brown tabby at last lost the car and returned, Wilma grabbed her up, hugging her.

“It was a Subaru,” Dulcie said, “but I only got the first three numbers.” Wilma grabbed the desk phone and called back to the dispatcher. Then, carrying her gun cocked once more, she cleared the house, though she felt certain he’d been alone. When at last she let down the hammer and pocketed the weapon she picked Dulcie up again, hugging and loving her. “The kittens are still on the roof?”

“Yes,” Dulcie said. “What was he after? Why didn’t you shoot him?”

“He didn’t come at me or I would have. Think of all the legal fuss that would bring down on us, when he didn’t actually attack me.”

They waited sitting together until Officer McFarland arrived. A second squad car stopped briefly. From the driver’s seat, Officer Brennan asked her a few questions. He double-checked on the license, on the car’s description, then took off fast in the direction Wilma had seen the SUV disappear.

In the house, young Jimmie McFarland, clean-cut, short brown hair, looked the damage over carefully. He took a dozen photos, then began to scan for prints on the window casing, on the front door and knob, on the broken glass, the desk. Most were Wilma’s prints, some smeared as if with gloves. He did find a few additional prints where the invader had apparently taken off his gloves to manipulate the locks on the desk. It was the half-dozen white flecks on the oriental rug near the desk that interested him most. “What are these?”

Kneeling to look, Wilma shook her head. McFarland picked them up with a needle, searched the rest of the room for more. He found one speck caught on the concrete step where it joined the doorsill, he put them all in a small plastic bottle and dropped it in his pocket.

“They look,” Wilma said, “like bits of Styrofoam packing. Could they have been caught in his shoes?”

Jimmie gave her an interested look but was silent. A look that said, I’d like to tell you, but I can’t, a look she knew well. These specks were connected to something else, to some other case they were working. Maybe, in the morning, Max would tell her. She sat in her favorite chair holding Dulcie in her lap, stroking her, while McFarland called Dallas.

He told the detective what he’d found, what he’d collected, including the Styrofoam flecks. He answered several questions with a simple yes or no. During their conversation, the kittens were not to be seen. Obeying their mother, they were still on the roof. They were probably freezing, but they had minded Dulcie.

Was the burglar Rick Alderson? That little seven-year-old boy she had known so long ago? Was he not still in prison in Texas, but out on parole? She knew nothing at all to put him together with the Pamillons and the Bewick book. But what other interest would he have here, except a valuable item he meant to sell?

Or was his interest in her, instead, in retribution for his father’s death? But that didn’t make sense, little Rickie had hated Calvin Alderson.

Once McFarland had every bit of evidence he wanted, Wilma found a cardboard box in her garage, they took it apart and taped it over the window, closing off most of the broken area. It wouldn’t keep people out, but it would block the wind and keep more glass from falling.

She knew there were few civilians who would get this much attention from the police, particularly since breakins had become a misdemeanor in California instead of a felony. Was there more to this break and enter that she didn’t know, that McFarland wasn’t telling her? Could the attempted theft be connected to something more than a rare and vanished book?

McFarland said they were sending someone to cruise the neighborhood, and asked what she knew about the man.

“Not much, Jimmie. He looks exactly like an old parolee from twenty years back, Calvin Alderson. Such a startling likeness that I feel sure this must be Alderson’s boy, Rick. He’s been in and out of jail—but you and Max and Dallas know all that.

“I check on him every few years, out of curiosity. Or maybe a feeling of unease. Even at seven years old, that little boy … screaming that it was my fault his daddy went to prison even though the child hated Calvin. But then later he seemed to change his mind, and he was friendly enough. Now, for the past couple of weeks, he’s been hanging around watching me. Yes, I talked with Max, he’s checking to see if Rick is still in jail in Texas, or if there’s a warrant out for him.”

“Do you have a lock on your bedroom door?”

“That’s first on my list in the morning—and double bolts on the outer doors. It was the cats who heard him, they got frightened and woke me. For the rest of the night I’ll prop the dresser against the door. If he tries to get in, that will wake me.”

“And the bedroom windows?”

“I’ll turn the outside lights on. And balance some little bottles on the sill so if the window moves, they’ll fall.”

“You might be smart to move out for a couple of weeks.”

Wilma laughed, pushed back her long gray hair.“That’s exactly what Max will tell me, to move out.” Though what she meant to do was quite different.

“Or have someone stay with you,” Jimmie said diffidently. “Though I know you’ve handled a lot worse than this guy. But even though you’re well trained, it’s nice to have a backup.”

“I’ll be careful, Jimmie.”

Jimmie gave her a hug, and glanced with confidence at the weight of the gun in her robe pocket.“Take care,” he said softly. “There’ll be a patrol.” He turned, and was gone. Wilma locked the door behind him.

While Dulcie went to get the kittens, Wilma swept and vacuumed up every shard of glass on the floor and rug and in the window casing. She had vacuumed the rug three times, wiped down every surface with a damp cloth to catch the tiniest splinters, and put the vacuum away. She was in the bedroom straightening the covers when the kittens came slipping in through the window, silent and wide-eyed.

Pushing the dresser against the bedroom door, Wilma watched them settle among the covers, then she arranged the bottles along the sill. From the expressions on the kittens’ faces she could almost tell what each was thinking. Buffin wasn’t sure he liked this disturbance so much. Striker was still all hisses and fight, as if he had wanted to chase the man right along with Dulcie; Wilma suspected only Dulcie’s scolding, and his hurt foot, had stopped him.

But it was Courtney who looked amazed and excited, her ears sharp forward, her baby-blue eyes gleaming, one paw lifted, reaching out; her black and orange face wildly alight, she looked as if her head were swimming not just with this crime, tonight, but with remembered scenes, with visions exploding as if from dreams of a time long past.

Gently Wilma took the calico in her arms.“What are you remembering?”

Courtney, her black and orange blotches and three black bracelets bright in the lamplight, only looked at Wilma. At last she said,“Swords. Men on horseback with swords. I was on the roof—but a thatched roof. I was huddled down in the thatch and they didn’t see me.” She frowned up at Wilma. “That’s all I remember, a fuzzy dream, but I can smell the horses and the blood, I can smell the blood. They broke into the house, three men …” She closed her eyes. “Later, when they’d gone, when I came down from the roof … In the house the smell of fear and blood, two people dead, the old farm couple dead.”

“What did you do?” Wilma asked softly, only glancing at the silent boy kittens and Dulcie.

“I … The king’s soldiers came. I was there in the house, grieving over the old couple, mewing at them, grieving. The soldiers burst in and I didn’t know what they would do to me. They swung their swords and I ran between them, ran between their legs and kept running and … and …

“That’s all I remember,” she said softly. She looked up at Wilma, looked at Dulcie and her brothers. “Another life? Not just a dream?” she whispered. “Why do I remember? That man … That man, tonight, breaking in. That man, he lusted for something. That man made me remember.”

Wilma settled Courtney down under the covers, and slipped in beside her. The boy kittens and Dulcie, quiet and solemn, crawled in beside them.

Easing into sleep, her gun ready on the nightstand, Wilma knew Max would be there at first light. He would come to investigate the scene himself and he would tell her to move out, to take Dulcie and the kittens and go to stay at Clyde and Ryan’s house, and Max could be hard to deal with.

What she meant to do was take the cats there, while she stayed at home. Next time, she intended to catch the prowler. Next time she would corner him, would shoot close enough to make him talk. She wanted to know if this was Rick Alderson, and to know what this was about.

13

Wilma begrudgingly agreed to move in with the Damens after a heated discussion with Max Harper—an argument she knew she wouldn’t win. Max arrived early, just as she’d gotten out of the shower. She could hear him knocking, and Buffin ran to get her, the kitten looking very serious. “It’s the chief,” he whispered. “It’s Captain Harper, I looked out the cat door.”

Hastily she slipped on her robe. She answered the door barefoot. They sat in the living room for a few minutes before she went to get dressed, to pull on jeans and a sweatshirt. When she returned, Max was wearing cotton gloves, checking out the window and desk, even though he had the trace evidence and prints that Jimmie had collected last night.

He had started a pot of coffee, they sat at the kitchen table, she knew what was coming.“I want you to move in with Clyde and Ryan until we get this sorted out.”

“I don’t want to do that, Max. I’ll take the cats to the Damens’, to keep them safe, but I’m staying here. I want to know what he wants, what he was looking for.”

“That,” Max said unnecessarily, “is our job. That is why I want you out of here. With the evidence we picked up on your carpet, this guy could be Barbara’s and Langston’s killer. Do you still think this was Rick Alderson?”

Max was quiet, watching her.

“I can only say he looks exactly like Calvin Alderson. Even when he was a little boy, Rick had the same wide, slanting shoulders, slim, long face, thin nose …”

Max shook his head.“This man isn’t Rick.”

She just looked at him.

“Dallas put a rush on the fingerprints. There is no record at all on this man. None. No charges, no arrests, no convictions. Not even a driver’s license—which implies he’s using a fake.”

“But Rick is bound to have prints on record, he’s spent half his life in prison.”

“We have Rick Alderson’s prints, from AFIS. This man who broke in is not Rick Alderson—but whoever this is, we have enough to hold him on the two murders, we have a BOL out on him.

“If—when—we pick him, have him behind bars, you can come down to the station, watch the interview on closed circuit. Meantime, I don’t want him back here while you’re in the house. I don’t want you cornering him in here thinking you can handle him alone, that you can force information from him, by yourself. That’s not even good police procedure.”

She didn’t answer. She wanted to say, Have you forgotten that I’ve interrogated hundreds of felons? She wanted to say, I think I might know what this is about. I’d like a chance to soft-talk him, see if I can ease it out of him. But she couldn’t tell Max about the book, not all of it, the core of the story was too close to the truth about Joe Grey and the rest of the cats.

They argued while they shared coffee and a plate of lemon bars she’d had in the refrigerator. No matter what excuse she made, Max outbullied her. Wilma might be stubborn, but the tall, lean chief—her own niece’s husband—was far more hardheaded.

She’d been thrilled when Max and Charlie married. Max’s combination of a cop’s tough single-mindedness and his kind gentleness was just what Charlie needed. And now, though she and Max disagreed, neither was really angry. But, knowing that the burglar could be the killer that Charlie narrowly missed this morning, she told herself Max was right. She would go to the Damens’. Scowling at the tall, lean chief, she knew she didn’t have a choice.

“We’ll move one of the officers into your house for a few days,” Max said. “Same lights in the bedroom, same routine of lighted rooms behind the drawn curtains, showers and meals at the same time, and maybe our thief will try again. My hunch is, he wants you here, that he’s looking for something you’ve hidden and, thwarted once, he intends to make you give it to him. That means he’ll come well armed. What might he be after? You don’t keep stocks and bonds or cash in the house?”

She shook her head.“Nor valuable jewelry or coins,” she said, laughing. She couldn’t tell Max the whole story, but she could tell him part of it.

The regular copies of the Bewick book were valuable enough, in their own right, to interest a small-time thief maybe intending to auction it to collectors. She told him about the ancient, hand-printed volume with its wood engravings, that for some time she’d kept in the house; she put its value at maybe eight thousand. She left out that this one volume had been a singular and very special copy. If it still existed, which it didn’t, the information it revealed would have brought maybe a hundred times that much. She just said, “A breakin, for anold book,” and shook her head.

“We’ll leave your car in the drive,” Max said, “so it looks like you’re here. I’d get on over to the Damens’ as soon as Ryan or Clyde can pick you up. We’ll have patrols on the streets. While you’re gone, Ryan’s men can replace your window—after the lab has a closer look at the evidence McFarland collected around the desk and your front door.”

When Max had left she put fresh sheets on her bed for Officer McFarland. He would keep the shades drawn, lights would go on and off on her usual schedule of supper, reading for a while before the fire, then off to bed to read there for an hour or so—her own habits would become McFarland’s habits, except for the company of the cats. Whatever the breakin might involve, she thought as she ran a load of laundry, she was lucky to have Max and MPPD at her back.

Joe Grey woke in his newly repaired tower, new glass in the damaged window, brand-new pillows, the old pillows thrown in the trash to be sure all the broken glass was gone. He yawned and stretched, wondering what had awakened him. Had he heard the phone, had Charlie called? Had the car thieves returned, after all that went on the night before? But then he smelled coffee.

He slid out from under the pillows, stretched again, pushed in through his cat door onto the rafter, and dropped to Clyde’s desk. Glancing into the bedroom, he saw Clyde’s side of the bed empty and that Ryan still slept. He beat it downstairs to see why Clyde was up at this hour.

Clyde sat at the kitchen table devouring cold, leftover lasagna. Joe leaped up beside him.“That’s disgusting. Cold lasagna and coffee in the middle of the night. The combination makes me retch.”

“No kind of food makes you retch. You love lasagna. I couldn’t sleep, waiting for the phone to ring.”

“My guess is, the crooks are gone. Maybe, with the cops all over that house on the corner, they got spooked.” Joe looked at Clyde, frowning. “Did one of that scruffy gang kill Barbara Conley? Is that why her house is cordoned off, is that the connection?” Joe intended as soon as Max got to work, to hit the station. Police reports scattered on Max’s desk were what he needed now.

“Speaking of Barbara Conley,” Clyde said, “why the hell did you bring the kittens to a murder scene? You need to be more careful, Joe! They’re too young to drag all the way across town and straight into a murder. What did Dulcie say? And what do you think the cops thought? It’s bad enoughif you accidentally let yourself be seen snooping around—but to bring the kittens! What the hell were you thinking!”

“I didn’t drag them across town. I didn’t know they were there in Max’s office. They beat me to the station. They were hiding under the console when I got there. I didn’t see them until Charlie called in, and Max was out of there, me right behind him—and there were the damned kittens! What was I supposed to do?”

“Take them home,” Clyde said reasonably.

“There was a murder! Charlie called in a murder! Don’t you think I was scared for her? How could I … I just took them with me, what else could I do? They promised to behave. I didn’t know Striker was going to cut his stupid little paw and make a scene.”

“The way I heard it,” Clyde said, “Striker didn’t make a scene. Kate and Charlie made a scene getting you cats out of there. The whole department was watching. Wondering what you and your kittens were doing there. You’re always hanging around the station. Don’t you think they wonder, when you show up at a crime scene, too? Don’t you think some of those guys, particularly Max and the detectives, wonder why the hell you’re so interested? And now you’re bringing kittens …”

“Everyone knows cats are weird. Some cats steal their neighbor’s laundry and drag it home. Some cats … There was a clip on TV, some cat in England rides the train every day. Gets on in the morning, spends the day at the zoo, takes the train home again at suppertime. And James Herriot wrote about a cat that attended all the town meetings. Don’t you think Max and Dallas, if they do wonder, would do a little research? That they would look up that stuff on the web and understand that many cats do strange things, that some cats have weird interests like stealing clothes and shoes. Look at Dulcie. Stealing silk teddies from the neighbors. She started that when she was a kitten. There’s nothing strange for the cops to wonder about—or for you to get worked up about.”

“I’d say you’re the one who’s worked up.”

Joe sighed. In fact he worried a lot about what Max and the detectives thought. But right now it was really too early to argue. Night, beyond the kitchen window above the half curtain, was still as black as a rat hole.

“And,” Clyde said, “what about Buffin at the vet’s? When Kate and Charlie took Striker in to stitch up his paw and Buffin was so interested in the patients. What was that about?”

Joe just looked at him. Who had told Clyde about Buffin’s unusual concern over the hospitalized animals? Either Kate or Charlie. Couldn’t human females keep their mouths shut? The two were as bad as Kit, with her excited rambling.

Though the fact was, the buff kitten’s perceptive remarks had frightened Joe, as did Courtney’s inexplicable dreams or memories or whatever the hell they were. Couldn’t he and Dulcie have had normal kittens—except for the talking part? He wouldn’t want them to lose that talent, but did they have to add to the strangeness?

Royally irritated, Joe cleaned the rest of the cold lasagna from Clyde’s plate, turned tail, and went back up to his tower, to calm himself before he hit the station.

When he passed the love seat in Clyde’s study, Snowball looked up at him sleepily. She was so lonely with Rock away, on the fishing trip with Ryan’s dad. Joe gave her an ear lick, a nose rub, then curled up and snuggled with her for a little while before he jumped to the desk then to the rafter, pushed through his cat door, and burrowed down among his pillows.

His early-dawn nap didn’t last long. He was up again before the sun rose, ready to hit the rooftops, to slip into Max’s office before the chief arrived. Ready to scan any reports that might have come in, try to figure out the relationship between Barbara Conley and the car thieves.

The sun was barely up when Max Harper called Clyde, who had gone back to bed after Joe left. Answering, Clyde tried to shake off the dark dream that had harassed him.“Of course they can come,” he said sleepily. He didn’t bother to ask why. “They can stay as long as Wilma likes,” and he turned over and went back to sleep.

Wilma called twenty minutes later. She got Ryan, who was fully awake, dressed, and downstairs in the kitchen. Wilma told her about the breakin.

“That bastard,” Ryan said. “What does he want? Of course you’ll stay here.”

“Dulcie will make the kittens behave. Max says—”

“It’s a treat to have all of you. The kittens will be a blast. Have you had breakfast? Can I help you move?”

“In fact, you can pick me up. Max wants me to leave my car in the drive. So it won’t look like I have moved out. This is so … unnecessary. If anyone else told me to leave, I’d …” Wilma sighed. “Max is so stubborn.”

Ryan laughed.“That’s why he’s a good chief. You’re all packed?”

“What little I’m bringing. An overnight bag, and kitten food.”

“I’ll be right over. Clyde can get breakfast.”

While Wilma stood at the kitchen window waiting for Ryan’s king cab, Joe Grey, headed across the rooftops toward the station, had no notion that his family was moving in with the Damens’, that his home would be wild with his own mischievous kittens. He slipped into MPPD behind two arriving officers, shortly before Max got to work. Easing down the hall into Max’s office, he leaped to the desk where he could read quite handily the reports neatly arranged on the blotter, watching the door and listening for footsteps as he flipped each page with a practiced paw.

One stack was printouts regarding the car gang working up the coast in Cupertino. One stack was copies of Max’s officers’ reports about Molena Point’s breakins and thefts. Joe was stretching out for a better look at Max’s handwritten notes on Barbara Conley’s rental when he heard the chief coming down the hall, talking with Detectives Garza and Davis. Immediately he slipped into the in-box, curled up, and closed his eyes in deep sleep.

He heard Juana Davis pause by the credenza to start a fresh pot of coffee. Luckily the maintenance crew cleaned the pot every night, or they’d be brewing road tar. He barely slit his eyes open as Max settled into his desk chair, hardly glancing at Joe.

Dallas, carrying a printout, tossed his tweed blazer on the back of the couch and sat down. His jeans were freshly creased; he wore a white T-shirt, bright against his fresh Latino coloring; his short black hair was neatly trimmed. Davis, at the other end of the couch, was as usual in uniform, Joe seldom saw her in anything but black skirt and jacket, black hose, black shoes. Her square build, square face, and short dark hair seemed right for the regulation attire—but Joe preferred Juana in something less formal, the jeans and sweatshirt she wore on a hasty night call.

Max reached underneath Joe, into the in-box, to retrieve a sheaf of papers. It had been years since he’d been careful handling Joe, wondering if he’d get scratched; now he glanced down, amused. “Looks like you have houseguests, tomcat. Looks like your family’s moving in with you.”

His words shocked Joe. Had Wilma kicked Dulcie and the kittens out? What could they have done that she would evict them? He was unsettled, too, that Harper talked directly to him. He seldom did that, sounding as if he expected an answer. But why not? Max talked to his dogs that way, and to his buckskin gelding. What pet owner didn’t carry on a conversation with his animals?

But what was this eviction about?

Max looked at the two detectives.“A common breakin is one thing. But the trace evidence in Wilma’s living room—same as that from the salon and from Barbara Conley’s house.”

Joe Grey kept his eyes closed, trying to hide his alarm. Someone had broken into Wilma’s? Were Dulcie and the kittens all right? He’d seldom burned so fiercely to speak up and ask Max for the details.

“I want foot patrol, all three shifts,” Max said. “Wilma’s taking her cats and moving in with the Damens until we corral this guy.

“He broke the living room window around 3 a.m., was going through her desk when Wilma came out. When she drew on him he took one look at the gun, bolted out the door, and was gone. She chased him—a pale Subaru SUV, but she only got the first three numbers.”

Davis said,“And you found the same trace evidence as from the murder scene?”

“McFarland did. Apparently the same flecks of Styrofoam, same as from Barbara’s house.”

Davis sat frowning, Joe could feel her eagerness to compare the evidence from the three sources.

“Ryan’s picking Wilma up,” Max said. “They’ll leave Wilma’s car in the drive. I’m sending McFarland to stay there, turn the lights on and off, the TV, the fireplace, let this guy think she’s home. Either he’s looking for something special or, after he tosses the place, he means toharm Wilma.” Max looked at the papers Dallas held. “Is that from the lab?”

Dallas nodded.“Just came in—on some of the trace evidence from the Conley house.” The detective smiled. “Looks like Langston Prince was in Barbara Conley’s bed, maybe that same night.”

Dallas took a sip of coffee.“And also in bed with her, fairly recently, was the man who killed them. The same dark hairs, other than Langston’s, that we bagged near the bodies at the salon. Looks like all the Styrofoam flecks are the same, too. The lab is comparing them. And,” he said, “they’re comparing the blond hairs we found in both houses. Not all were Barbara’s. Hers were dyed, long and everywhere in the house. The others were shorter, like a man’s hair. But none of those were in her bed,” he said, grinning.

Two men in her bed the same night, Joe thought, isn’t that enough? Maybe the car thief was there earlier that same evening. And, he thought smiling, she didn’t even bother to change the sheets? Tomcats weren’t that fastidious, but Joe Grey found this particular situation disgusting.

“Strange about that neighbor’s call,” Max said. “Just a young girl, but she was as secretive as our snitches.”

“Maybe some teenager,” Dallas said. “Sneaked out with her boyfriend, didn’t want her folks to know.”

Davis said,“What about the fingerprints at Wilma’s? Did they come up a match for those at Barbara Conley’s? When do we get the word back on Rick Alderson, see if we have a match?”

Max leaned back in his chair.“We have Alderson’s prints, from his records. The prints we got from Barbara Conley’s match those we picked up at Wilma’s—we got a quick answer on that. AFIS says there’s no record on them. Nothing. This guy is not Rick Alderson.”

“They’re sure?” Dallas said. “Wilma says he’s a dead ringer.”

Max shrugged.“They’re sure. No record. The prints from Wilma’s match those at the Conley house and no record on them. AFIS ran both, to be certain—but there were smears, too, as with rubber gloves. A few partials where a glove was torn, but not much to go on.”

This was all news to Joe. Pretending sleep, he tried to put it together. The trouble was he couldn’t be in two places at once, he’d missed too much.

“I picked up a call when I came in,” Davis said. “Jerry, the bartender over at Binnie’s.” Binnie’s Italian was one of Davis’s favorites, she and the bartender sometimes dated casually.

“He said Barbara Conley had been in the bar a number of times with a guy who looked like a muscle builder. Dark hair, black leather jacket. They’d come in late, stay sometimes until closing. But this was some weeks back, he hasn’t seen the guy recently. He said she’d been in for an early dinner with Langston Prince a couple of times.”

I guess, Joe thought, there’s nothing wrong with Barbara dating her boss—until the wrong guy sees him in her bed.

Joe Grey didn’t linger long over thoughts of human digression; he was soon out of Max’s office, dropping quietly down behind the chief, slipping out then racing down the hall and out on the heels of a pair of attorneys, then up to the roofs and home. He wanted to be there when his kittens arrived, he wantedto be sure they were all right, after the breakin. Wanted to be sure they behaved. And, maybe he’d like to see his family happily settled, in his home.

14

Ryan pulled her red king cab into her aunt’s drive between Wilma’s car and the back door and quickly they loaded up—a small overnight bag for Wilma, a box of food and toys and quilts for the kittens. Leaving the house watched by three plainclothes officers wandering the neighborhood door to door handing out religious pamphlets, and by one of Ryan’s carpenters measuring for the window, they hoped this much activity would keep the burglar away from the area until the house was quiet again. Wilma’s car had sat in the same spot all night and would remain there.

Quickly the kittens leaped into the backseat, keeping their little mouths shut in case a cop, moving down the sidewalk, might hear them. All three were wide-eyed at this new delight, not only the exciting escape from the burglar, but the adventure of visiting a new house and taking over Clyde and Ryan’s downstairs guest room all to themselves.

So far in their short lives they had been inside only two other houses besides their own: Kit’s hilltop home with Lucida and Pedric Greenlaw, the cats all sitting before the fire listening to Pedric’s tales; and Max and Charlie Harper’s ranch house with its pastures and stable and hay barn where they could climb the tall bales, and chase mice. Now here was another new place to explore, and the first thing they saw as Ryan approached the Damens’ house was Joe Grey’s tower rising above the second-floor roof. It didn’t look damaged at all, it looked brand-new.

“A tree really fell on it?” Courtney asked, switching her tail.

“It did,” Ryan said. “It was all torn branches and broken glass. It doesn’t take my crew long to fix a problem.” As she pulled into the drive, Wilma, Dulcie, and the kittens all piled out, moving quickly into the shadows of the porch. Ryan took the big box from her, as the kittens fled upthe walk, hit the cat door at a run, and bolted inside nearly crashing into the big silver Weimaraner. He stood shocked at the onslaught, but smiling and wagging his short tail.

Joe Grey leaped to the couch watching his unruly kittens.“This is Rock,” he said as the kittens warily backed off from the Weimaraner. They had too often been warned about dogs, especially big dogs. “Rock’s all right,” Joe told them, “he won’t hurt you. He’s an exception.”

“Exception,” Courtney said, not sure what that meant, but liking the new word. Was “exception” a kind of dog? Or did it mean different than others? Rock stepped gently among them to lick their faces. Reassured, the kittens rubbed against his legs. Ryan’s dad had brought the sleek gray dogback early that morning from their vacation trip; he had brought, as well, a dozen fresh, cleaned trout that were now in the refrigerator. The kittens, following the delicious scent to the kitchen, searched the counters and table but found no fish at all. Disappointed, they bolted away again through the rest of the house. Dulcie started after them—until she caught Joe’s look, and stopped.

“Let them go,” Joe said. “Let them investigate.”

Ryan agreed.“They can’t get into trouble here as they might have up at the Harpers’ ranch. No horses to step on them, no territorial barn cats to attack them.”

“They have to learn about new places,” Wilma said as the Weimaraner poked his nose at her, begging for a pet. “Even a new house is an adventure, they can’t stay babies forever.”

The kittens raced in again, pounding down the hall to explore the living room more fully, investigating the flowered couch and chairs, the three tall green plants growing in pots against the soft yellow walls, the fresh white draperies that begged to be climbed. But when they eyed the draperies then looked from Dulcie to Joe Grey, they backed off.

As Ryan and Wilma headed for the kitchen, they paused a moment to watch the kittens looking above the couch and the mantel at the framed drawings of Joe Grey and Dulcie, of Kit, of a little white cat and the big silver dog. They looked and looked; and Courtney said, in a whisper,“Charlie Harper did these. Oh my. One day, will she draw portraits of us?”

“I expect she will,” Wilma said, wondering at the kitten’s use of the word “portrait.” A word perhaps from memory? From some long-ago dream?

But Striker and Buffin were most fascinated with Joe Grey’s comfortable chair, frayed, clawed, fur matted; Courtney joined them there, they all had to roll in the deep cushions, in their father’s scent, flipping their tails and purring.

Joe and Dulcie watched them investigate behind the furniture, picking up new smells; they followed the kittens as they prowled again through the big family kitchen with its round table, the flowered chair at the far end that also smelled of Joe and of Rock and of another cat.

“You smell Snowball,” Joe said, leaping to the kitchen table. He looked at his three curious children. “When you discover Snowball, be gentle with her. She’s not used to new visitors. She’s a shy, tender little cat—but she doesn’t speak. Be kind with her, you three.”

The kittens looked back, very serious, then raced away to find Snowball; but pausing to investigate the downstairs guest room, rubbing their faces against its wicker and oak furniture, they quickly made it their own room. It was already scented with Wilma’s overnight bag and with their own sacks of kibble, their own toys and blankets.

Best of all were the softly-carpeted stairs leading from the hall to the rooms above: they raced madly up and down, leaping over one another, flipping around in midair, dashing between Rock’s legs as he ran up the stairs gently playing with them. Dulcie followed to keep them out of trouble. Joe Grey remained in the kitchen watching Wilma slice cranberry bread and Ryan brew coffee; Ryan wore a flowered apron over her worn jeans and khaki work shirt, the ruffled hem brushing the top of her leather work boots. They could hear, upstairs, the thunder of Rock’s paws, and the kittens’ softer thumps as they leaped from desk to rafter and down again; they had strict instructions not to go out on the roof.

Ryan said, as Wilma sat down at the table and poured the coffee,“I’m still nervous about the breakin. That was no casual burglary, not after his following and watching you. You have nothing of huge value, not like the mansions up in the hills or along the shore.”

“Janet Jeannot’s painting,” Joe Grey said, leaping to the table. “Janet’s landscape hanging right there over Wilma’s fireplace.”

Ryan nodded.“That painting of the village is worth a nice sum. But it isn’t as if you own a whole collection of expensive art, or a houseful of priceless silver and antiques. Besides Janet’s landscape there are only the few pieces of jewelry Kate has given you. They’re worth a lot. But even if he’d seen you wearing them, how would he know they were real? And,” she said, putting sugar and cream on the table, “if he was looking for jewelry, why would he look in your desk? He—Oh,” she said, looking at Wilma, then at Joe Grey. The tomcat’s yellow eyes were smugly slanted, waiting for Ryanto catch up.

“Oh,” she said again, “the Bewick book? But how could he know about that? Anyway, it’s gone now,” she said sadly. “There’s nothing but ashes.”

It was the feral cats who had first discovered an old and sturdy, handmade wooden box buried among the ruins beneath a tilted foundation. They had led Wilma and Charlie Harper there to find, within, an ancient and valuable volume, hand printed on thick parchment pages. Old, handmade type, hand set, and printed by some early, manual process. The illustrations were woodcuts, hand carved, hand printed. The volume had been produced by artist and writer Thomas Bewick in 1862.

Of the few original copies that remained, most were owned by collectors, each worth at least several thousand dollars. But this one single copy had an added chapter at the back, where Bewick had written about the cats he had encountered in his travels. Wilma and Charlie had been so excited to find such a treasure; but they were shocked when they read that chapter. Why had Bewick written this?

Later when Wilma researched through all the collectors’ and libraries’ lists of ancient books, through all the sources she could find, there was no hint of this unique, single volume. She didn’t understand why Bewick had produced that copy. He had to know how dangerous any printed word was for the safety of the cats he had so admired—someone who loved the speaking cats should be committed to keeping their secret. Had Bewick let his urge to tell such a wondrous tale, to produce just the one volume with its beautiful woodcuts, override his concern for the cats themselves?

The book, she thought, hidden there in the Pamillon estate, had to have belonged to someone in the Pamillon family. Had they all known the secret, or had only a few? If the wrong person read those words, they might well go searching for the rare cats, meaning to exhibit them, to show them on TV, make fortunes from the innocent creatures.

Fortunately, that seemed not the case with this family—the Pamillons might have been strange in many ways, but the person who had hidden the book had apparently remained silent. One old aunt, who had died recently, had known all her life the truth about the feral band that lived in the ruins but she had said no word, Wilma was certain of that.

There were a few men in prison who knew; no one could say how they found out, but they had cruelly trapped several of the feral band. Charlie had freed the leader of the clowder, and Clyde had helped to release the others from their crowded cage.

The day that Wilma and Charlie found the book and brought it home, Wilma had locked it in her desk; but soon she had moved it to her safe-deposit box, adding Charlie’s and Ryan’s names and giving them keys. Then, not long afterward, for the future safety of the cats, but their hearts nearly breaking, the three women had burned the rare volume. They had felt sickened, standing around Wilma’s fireplace watching the flames devour a treasure singular and precious.

Now, in the kitchen, Ryan said,“How could this Rick Alderson, who is not Rick Alderson, how could he know about the book—if that’s what he was after?” She looked at Joe Grey. “Do you know something we don’t, tomcat, with that sly look? Or are you only guessing that’s what he’s looking for?”

Joe lifted his paw, snagging a slice of cranberry bread.“I wish I knew more, I wish I could put it together—but that’s the only thing Wilma did have of great value,” he said, licking crumbs from his whiskers.

“And who is this guy,” Joe said, “if not Rick Alderson? He’s apparently part of the car thieves, and he could be the beauty salon killer. How does Wilma fit in, how does the book fit in? Could he know about it from someone who’d been in Soledad Prison?” Nothing Joe had picked up, snooping on Max’s desk and listening among the officers, had touched on rare books or the theft of books. But, he thought, if the Bewick book was what this guy was after, even if it had been destroyed, could it be used to trap him? Quietly enjoying his snack, Joe began to put together a plan. “Maybe …” he said. “Maybe if—”

A sound from above silenced him, a rocking and sliding noise, a rhythmic thumping from Ryan’s studio. They all looked up, listening—until a crash directly overhead sent Joe and Wilma and Ryan flying away from the table. A thunder so loud they thought the ceiling would fall sent them racing for the stairs. Between their feet the little white cat bolted down headed for the kitchen and safety. From above, Rock’s thundering bark filled the master bedroom and studio, an angry, puzzled challenge.

Then, as suddenly, silence.

An empty, guilty silence.

Racing upstairs they found, at the top of the steps in Clyde’s study, nothing at all amiss. Ryan moved to her right into the big master bedroom. The doors to the dressing room and bath were closed. She looked in both but everything was in order; the entire room was undisturbed, even the space under the bed.

They headed for her studio.

Sunlight blazed in through the glass walls that framed the oak and pine trees. Sun shone on Ryan’s beautiful, hand-carved drafting table, picking out the ornate curves of its metal stand and its sleek oak top. The table lay on its side, the big, movable drafting surface wrenched away from the intricate metal stand, the floor dented where the table had crashed and broken.

Three pairs of blue eyes peered out from among the wreckage, two innocent buff faces and Courtney’s calico face serious with guilt. The kittens were too chagrined to even run away.

Dulcie, her ears back, her striped tail lashing, hauled Buffin out from beneath the curved metal legs, her teeth in the nape of his neck. Holding him down with one paw, she nosed at him, looking him over.“Where are you hurt?”

Buffin shook his head.“Not hurt.”

“Get up, then. Walk quietly over to the daybed, get up on it and stay there.” She watched him walk, saw he wasn’t limping. Turning, she bore down on Striker. “Are you hurt? Oh, Striker! Your paw is bleeding through the bandage.”

Ryan grabbed some scrap paper from the wastebasket, laid it on the floor. Dulcie said,“Come out from under there and sit right here, put your paw on that. Now, Courtney. Are you all right?”

Courtney nodded, her ears and tail down. She wouldn’t look at her mother.

“Then you can tell me what happened,” Ryan said as she grabbed a roll of paper towels for Striker.

“Rocking,” Courtney said guiltily, her eyes still cast down. “We were rocking. We … we loosened those bolts just a little …” She indicated the handles that held the drafting table at whatever angle Ryan chose. “And we jumped on it and it rocked and rocked and it was such fun that we rocked harder …” Now she looked up, her eyes bright. “Rocked harder still, all three of us back and forth, and …” She looked down again with shame.

“And the table fell,” Dulcie said furiously.

So far Joe Grey had stayed out of it. He was too mad to let loose with what he wanted to say. He watched Ryan wrap the paw in the paper towels, then retrieve rolls of gauze and tape from the master bath; then he turned his fierce scowl on Dulcie.“And where,” he said, “where were you when this happened? I thought you were watching them.”

Now Dulcie’s own look was guilty. “I was on the roof. I heard a car come down the street real slow, heard it stop then creep on again. I got that funny feeling—you know the feeling … I thought it might be the burglar, that he’d seen Ryan pick us up this morning, and I raced up for a quick look. Thekittens were quiet, nosing at the cabinet drawers and at the mantel, smelling everything. I thought I could leave them for a minute. They loosened the bolts and started this rocking after I left,” she said quietly.

“I thought at first it was Wilma’s stalker, I’m still not sure, you can’t see much inside a car from the house roof. I could see the driver’s arm, part of a thin face. He was wearing a cap and I think his passenger was, too, a heavy man. They moved on slowly and then paused, moving and pausing, looking at all the houses. There was someone in the back, someone smaller, maybe a woman or child. I was about to race down to the street for a better look when I heard the crash.” She looked at Ryan and at Joe. “I’m sorry I left them. Your lovely antique drafting table, Ryan. Can it bemended?”

“It can be mended just fine, Scotty can mend anything,” Ryan said, stroking Dulcie, giving her a little kiss between the ears.

“And the kittens are sorry, too,” Dulcie said, looking pointedly at Courtney who had seemed to have been the instigator of their game: Rocked and rocked, she’d said, rocked harder still … her blue eyes bright with the fun.

Joe Grey remained quiet, his ears flat, his yellow eyes blazing. The kittens had never seen their father so angry—though, in fact, Joe wasn’t nearly as mad as he looked. Half his mind was further away than broken drafting tables as he put together a plan that he thought might trap Wilma’s stalker.

He watched Ryan call Clyde at the shop.“Could you come home for a little while? Wilma’s here, and Rock’s here, but … I have to run an errand and … we think the burglar could be watching the house. I’ll explain later.”

She picked up Striker, as Dulcie ran for the king cab; Buffin followed, refusing to stay behind. Not so much because he was worried about his brother but because the hospital fascinated him—and because he wanted to be near Dr. Firetti, wanted to watch him work. John was like family, his touch, at their birth, had been Buffin’s first contact with the human world. His presence had honed deeper into Buffin’s emotions even than the love the doctor generated in Striker and Courtney.

Wilma was saying,“I’m fine, Joe, with you and Rock here. Clyde doesn’t need …”

“Let him come,” Joe said. “He needs to keep his mechanics busy.” Wilma sat down on Clyde’s love seat, holding Courtney, who was still quiet and ashamed. Rock soon joined them, herding Snowball up the stairs, the little white cat calm once more, under the Weimaraner’s care. Joe sat on Clyde’s desk secretly smiling, thinking about his project, then joining the dog and Courtney and Snowball stretched out across Wilma’s lap.

“What?” Wilma said, watching Joe. “What are you hatching?” She knew that devious look.

“Just thinking,” he said, hoping to con her into his plan. Wilma might not believe the would-be thief knew about the Bewick book, but Joe wasn’t so sure. Why would he search her desk but not take her checkbook or even the little stack of petty cash she kept there with a rubber band around it?If he was looking for that particular volume, he knew it was worth a fortune. If this man—who might be connected to the man who shot Barbara Conley and Langston Prince, connected to the suspect in a bloody double murder—if this man knew what was printed in the added chapter, all their clan of speaking cats was in danger.

But, Joe thought again, even though the book was gone, it might still trap the prowler. He looked at Wilma, considering.“You do still get upset over having burned the Bewick book. Even a few weeks ago when Dulcie mentioned it, you looked sad, still full of regret.”

“It was a lovely book. The work that went into it, the wood engravings, the hand-set type. I only wish I had one of the other copies, one from the regular edition.”

“You’ve already tried to find one,” Joe said. “But when you did, it was too expensive, enough to keep Dulcie and me and the kittens in caviar for years.” And, taking the direct approach, his pitch went on from there. Wilma listened, stern and silent, as the tomcat laid out his plan.

15

Ryan, with Dulcie on her shoulder and Buffin rearing up beside her, watched John Firetti tuck Striker into a cat kennel on a soft blanket. Immediately Buffin leaped in, too, refusing to leave his brother. John had resewn the wound where Striker had ripped out two stitches. Same routine, but this time the cats were silent as a technician assisted him. Only when she’d left did John speak to Striker, petting him, but stern, too. “You are to rest. You are to stay off the bandaged foot and behave yourself. No running, no jumping. In fact, to keep you quiet, to let the healing begin, I think I’ll keep you for a day or two.”

Striker looked chastised and obedient. Buffin looked delighted, hoping he could stay, too. He looked around for his little dog friend.

“Lolly’s so much better,” John said, “thanks to you, that I’ve tried sending her home.” They looked up as Mary Firetti slipped into the hospital room. She gave Ryan and Dulcie a hug and stood with them beside the cage door. She wore pale tan jeans and a cream sweater that flattered her sleek brown hair. Neither woman liked to see the kittens in a kennel. “They’ll sleep with us tonight,” Mary said, “if Striker will promise to be good.”

“No jumping off the bed,” tabby Dulcie said, “or off anything else. You think that paw will heal with you pounding on it and knocking over furniture?”

Ryan, pushing back her dark hair, reached in to stroke and love the two kittens; and Dulcie padded inside to lick their faces; but soon they left the hospital, Dulcie draped over Ryan’s shoulder. Crossing the garden, walking Ryan to the truck, Mary said, “It will be nice to have those two beautiful boys for a few days. John does love them. And Pan can go home to Kit for a while; he’s refused to leave us since his father died. I’ve told him he should be with Kit, that Misto would want him there, but talk about stubborn.” She looked at Ryan, her eyes tearing. “Pan’s been so dear. It’s been hard, learning to live without Misto. If Pan hadn’t stayed with us, the emptiness in this house would have been intolerable. Even when, sometimes, we sense Misto’s spirit nearby, we can’t touch him or hold him, we can’t snuggle him the way we snuggle Pan—and now will snuggle the kittens.”

“He’ll never leave you for good,” Ryan said. “His spirit will never leave any of us. He might be gone for a while, but he told us all, more than once, that time is different where he is. Misto has families through the centuries to be with when he’s needed, other people he loves, but nevermore than he loves you and John.”

“Early that morning,” Mary said, “when he passed—the glow rising above us, the echo of his voice as he moved into that next life. We know he isn’t gone.”

Ryan hugged Mary, nearly squashing Dulcie between them. She swung Dulcie into her king cab, and they headed home, Dulcie curled on the seat beside her, already missing her kittens, her chin and paw draped across Ryan’s leg. “They’re growing up fast,” she said sadly, looking up at Ryan. “They’ll want their own lives one day, and they’ll choose their own work,” she said thinking of Buffin there in the hospital and how happy he had seemed.

When they pulled into the drive, Clyde’s vintage Jaguar was there, leaving room for Ryan’s pickup. Rock, still nervous from the crashed drafting table, greeted them at the front door as if he had been standing guard. Ryan, heading for the kitchen, glanced up the stairs where Clyde sat at his desk. “Home,” she called up to him. In the kitchen, Wilma sat at the table with fresh coffee, reading the morning paper; it was so neatly folded that Wilma wondered if Joe Grey had even touched it; she was amused that she didn’t have to read around syrupy pawprints.

Clyde left his desk and came down.“Striker’s all right? And where’s Buffin?”

“Striker’s fine, and Buffin wanted to stay with him,” Ryan said, releasing Dulcie to hop down to the table. “The Firettis were pleased, they love those kittens,” she said softly.

Dulcie lay down on the table close beside Wilma. Joe Grey leaped up beside her, fixing his yellow gaze on Wilma, giving her an urgent, let’s get on with it look.

Dulcie watched him, suddenly wary and alert. From the kitchen counter Courtney watched with bright intensity. While she had napped with Snowball, her father and Wilma had had a long, whispering conversation. What wondrous thing they were planning.

But Clyde glared hard at Joe. Not for a minute did he trust that look, nor did he trust the excited amusement in Wilma’s eyes. “What?” he said. “What’s with you two?”

Wilma shrugged, and looked at Joe. Joe had started to lay out his plan when they heard the front cat door flap open, and Kit and Pan came galloping into the kitchen; smelling cranberry bread, they leaped to the table. As Ryan cut a slice for them, Clyde remained staring at Joe and Wilma, waiting for the bomb to drop. Whatever they were hatching, this was going to mean trouble.

Quietly Joe, under the gaze of his two human housemates and surrounded by the questioning cats, shared his plan.

“Charlie’s the best prospect,” he said. “The stalker might not even know her.” He looked at Ryan and Clyde. “The prowler, if he’s been watching this house, too, he knows both of you. He might have seen Charlie here, but maybe not. And she fits right in, she’s in and out of the art shop all the time, and in and out of the PD.”

“I don’t like this,” Clyde said. “It could get someone hurt, probably Officer McFarland.”

“But McFarland will be there anyway.” Joe reached a paw for another slice of cranberry bread.

“And,” Clyde added, “Charlie isn’t a good choice, she’s Wilma’s niece. He could have seen her there any time—no one could forget that bright red hair.”

“She can wear a cap,” Ryan said. “Tuck her hair under.” There was a long silence, then Wilma rose, heading for the guest room. Clyde and Ryan followed, the cats dashing past their feet.

Within minutes they were all gathered on or beside the desk as Wilma, comfortable in the wicker desk chair, called Tay’s Rare Bookstore, in the village. Yes, they still had the copy she had inquired about several weeks ago, one of the original editions of Bewick’s memoir. Despite the cost she put it on her credit card and asked them to wrap it in plain brown paper. When she’d hung up, she called Charlie.

An hour later, Charlie had cut her long red hair nearly a foot shorter. Feeling naked and regretful she left the house, cranked up the old green pickup they used around the ranch. Heading for the village, she parked in front of the art supply as a minivan moved out. She entered the store wearing a cap, not one curl of red hair showing, her dark glasses propped across the crown.

She spent perhaps fifteen minutes choosing her purchases. Leaving them there to be wrapped, she slipped out through the storeroom’s back door to the narrow alley that ran through from the art store past the backs of a deli and an upscale camera shop, to the rear of Russell Tay’s bookstore; passing trash cans lined along one wall, she slipped in through the unlocked back door.

She moved from the storeroom into the shop, into the smell of old books. She found Russell at the counter, slim, white haired, the lines in his face solemn and patient. He had set the book aside, concealed in brown paper as Wilma had requested. She tucked it into her oversized purse; they talked for only a few minutes, about the weather, the windstorm, and El Ni?o, then she hurried out the back again.

She knew she was being watched.

Coming down the alley she had glimpsed Dulcie peering over directly above her; and on the roof across the narrow side street she could barely see Joe Grey in a mass of overhanging pine branches, could see only the narrow white strip down his nose, his white chest and paws—and the gleam of his yellow eyes as he watched the street below him.

At the far end of the group of shops, Pan and Courtney crouched at separate corners, Pan above the alley, Courtney above the street looking very full of herself because of this important mission. The calico was as much the drama queen as Kit, giddily proud to be performing a glamorous job while her two brothers lounged in a cage in John Firetti’s hospital, even if they were being spoiled.

Charlie caught sight of Kit last of all, up in the pine tree that hung out over the street where, from its branches, she could see both ways down the sidewalk, could see every passing shopper.

Hurrying back down the alley, her package in her carryall, Charlie was startled when a heavily muscled man turned the corner, coming straight toward her—he fit too closely Kit and Pan’s rough description of the man they’d seen at Barbara Conley’s house on that windy night.

But no, this was not the same man. This fellow was lame, limping along. He passed her paying no attention as she slipped back into the artist’s supply.

Above her, the cats, having watched her progress, crouched together now on the roof of the art supply watching her load her packages in the passenger seat of the old pickup and set her big carryall on the floor. That’s where the book would be, a book like the one Wilma had burned—or almost like it, Courtney thought. How strange and complicated was human life. As Charlie drove away, Courtney snuggled up to her daddy, and knew that his anger about the drafting table was gone. She thought about Charlie going on with Joe’s plans and hoped … No, she knew his scheme would work just fine—as sure as hiding cheese to lure a mouse.

From the art shop Charlie drove to the bank. Taking off her cap, shaking out her red hair, she found a clerk free and went straight to Wilma’s safe-deposit box. She signed their card, used her own key, removed the metal drawer and carried it into a small, locked cubicle.

Removing the book-sized package from the metal box she unwrapped the age-stained white paper, then the disintegrating piece of ancient leather wrap, revealing a small and empty, carved chest. Opening this, smelling the lingering scent of the old book that was no longer there, she unwrapped the brown paper from the book she had just picked up. Same title, same binding, same dated first edition. Placing this in the chest she wrapped it up again in the frail leather and then the brown paper.

This she put in her carryall. She took the metal drawer back where the clerk followed her into the vault, slid the safe-deposit box into its slot, saw that it was properly locked then headed for MPPD. There was nothing unusual about her going into the station, the chief’s wife was in and out frequently, to have lunch with Max, sometimes to pick up their young ward, Billy, after school was out. This morning she skipped Max’s office, found Jimmie McFarland in the conference room typing a report. She gave him the box, and gave him instructions.

“This,” Jimmie said, his brown eyes amused, “you know this is entrapment, Charlie.”

They looked at each other for a long moment.“It really isn’t entrapment,” Charlie said, “that’s more complicated. And it sure isn’t if you don’t arrest him for stealing. If all you cite him for is break and enter, that’s only a misdemeanor.”

McFarland grinned at her. She said,“All Wilma wants is to know if the book is what he’s after. If he finds it and heads out with it, that will be her answer.”

Jimmie still had that stern, cop look that he tried so hard to maintain. The young officer’s natural expression was friendly and warm, and didn’t always suit his profession. Charlie said, “You’re there to protect Wilma’s house. She reported a breakin, she’s afraid he’ll come back and trash the whole place. You’re there not only as a cop, but as a friend.”

“But the book,” he said doubtfully. “How can a book be worth …?”

“It’s old, Jimmie. Nearly two centuries. Handmade, hand printed on leather parchment. The type is all hand set, every picture is an original engraving done by the author.”

Jimmie shrugged; Charlie knew about these things. The art world wasn’t his thing—counterfeit bills, false driver’s licenses, fake IDs, fingerprints, and electronic images he understood. But ancient hand-set type and engravings were something yet to learn about.

Charlie said no more. She was hoping their thief would know so little about that one particular Bewick book that he would think he had found the real thing, had found the one incriminating volume.

She thought, too, that it wasn’t likely he was alone in his search. Her guess was that several people knew about the book, knew more about the Pamillon history than the stalker might know. Could he have some connection to the Pamillons? Or was that only coincidence? Charlie just prayed that, in the process of planting the book and finding out what this was about, they could keep Wilma safe, and Jimmie, too. It seemed a long time, now, until night would fall and deepen and, hopefully, Wilma’s stalker would return.

16

Jimmie McFarland went through Wilma’s usual evening routine, making sure the lights were on and off at their normal times, the hearth fire burning, the curtains securely drawn. Settling down before the fire to read a batch of reports, he waited for their thief—their possible murder suspect—to make an appearance; and wondering if Wilma’s bait, judiciously hidden, was what the guy was really after. Ordinarily, one rare book alone would not be of such interest to a common thief. An entire library of valuable collector’s books, yes. As he mulled over the thought that the burglar had more complicated motives, the evening darkened and the wind sprang up sending shadows racing across the draperies.

Turning on an old CD of Dean Martin, settling before the fire thinking about making a sandwich, he rose when a car pulled up the drive. Quietly he moved into the shadowed kitchen.

The knock on the back door was light and hasty. A woman’s voice called out, “Wilma?” He smiled at Ryan’s voice, she knew Wilma wasn’t there but didn’t want anyone out in the dark to know it. Hand on his holstered gun he stepped into the laundry.

“It’s Ryan,” she called out. “I brought you a steak. We grilled, and …”

He turned on the outside light. Gun cocked in case she was followed, he opened the door, stepping aside nearly behind it.

She was alone. If Wilma were here, and had answered, the music would have covered her voice.“Did you get my call?” she said softly. “I left you a message.” Ryan handed him a plate covered with foil, it smelled like heaven. He set it on the laundry counter and looked at his phone.

He’d left it off; he felt his face color with embarrassment. She grinned at him. “Have a good evening, my steak’s getting cold,” and she was gone, backing out in her king cab.

He locked the door, turned his phone on, uncovered the warm plate with its thick, rare filet, fries, and a salad. He knew there was an apricot pie in the kitchen. This, Jimmie thought, wasn’t a bad gig, for overtime work.

Up the hills evening darkened with the same cloud-shifting wind, but not a gale wind like the night of the car thefts. Kate’s mind was on McFarland at Wilma’s house waiting for the stalker, as was Scotty’s as they sat at the little kitchen table, eating a supper of bean soup and corn bread. Wind fingered at the windows, and across the way at Voletta’s, wind made shadows dance across the dark bedroom glass. The whole front of the house was dark, and there was only a faint light at the back. Had Lena gone out, leaving her aunt alone? She was here to take care of Voletta, not go chasing around. Kate couldn’t see Lena’s car, though if she’d parked up close to the back porch it wouldn’t be visible. Voletta’s old muddy pickup stood farther from the house. As she reached to slice more cornbread, a pair of dimmed car lights came up the back road from the direction of the village and freeway.

The car pulled out of sight close behind the house. They couldn’t see Lena get out but they heard her voice as the driver’s door slammed. Two more doors closed and they heard men’s voices.

“Lena has a boyfriend?” Scotty said. “Or maybe two?”

“She arrived alone, I didn’t see anyone. Voletta didn’t mention anyone.” Soon the living room lights came on, then the lights of all three bedrooms.

“You can see more of the house from the mansion,” Scotty said. “From where we’re working. I saw the shadow of a man down there today, he was careful to keep out of sight.”

“I guess,” Kate said, “we shouldn’t be judgmental, when we’re living …”—she flushed—“conjugally.”

“Only until you agree to marry me,” he said softly. “What is it, Kate? What’s the secret? You divorced your husband years ago. You told me there’s been no one else. Why can’t you tell me what’s wrong? Am I not the right man, am I a one-night stand?” He looked at her deeply. “I don’t think so. And Kate, nothing can be so bad that I couldn’t overlook it. I’m a very forgiving guy.”

Leaning over, he lightly kissed her forehead. The wind rustled harder against the windows. Their supper was getting cold. Across the little hill, the lights soon went off in all three bedrooms and the living room. The kitchen lights had been turned up brightly, lighting the trees beyond; and as the clouds moved on, freeing the moonlight, Scotty looked up at the mansion. In the open-walled upstairs nursery, a movement drew their attention.

“The ferals,” Kate said softly. Three pale shapes were crouched at the edge of the floor where the wall had fallen away. Willow, Sage, and Tansy? They, too, were looking down watching Voletta Nestor’s house.

“I’ve seen them watching before,” Kate said. “At night when the moon’s bright it’s not hard to see their pale coloring. Since you’ve started work, they don’t come down here much, only early in the evening or maybe late at night. I don’t think they hunt down below Voletta’s, her goats and that donkey chase them.”

“Why do the cats watch her?” Scotty said. “What are they curious about?”

“Maybe the kitchen lights, watching the movement behind the curtains. Cats are fascinated by movement.”

“They’re strange little cats,” Scotty said lightly. “Sometimes they watch us at work. Always shy, half hidden, but not as if they’re afraid.” He put his arm around her. “What will happen tonight, at Wilma’s? Will the stalker try again, and take her bait? Or go after Wilma herself, thinking that she’s there? What is the connection between them? I hope McFarland nails him and hauls him off to jail.” Beyond the windows, the clouds scattered southwest, opening up the moonstruck night over the village, over the Damens’ house.

In the Damen patio, warm in sweaters and jackets, their table pulled up close to the hot barbecue, Wilma, Ryan, and Clyde, and slim, elderly Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw, were wondering the same. Would McFarland trap Rick Alderson or whoever the prowler was, land him in jail and keep Wilma safe? Was this young man connected to the murder scene, and maybe to the car thefts? Joe Grey and Dulcie, Kit and Pan and young Courtney crowded on one end of the table enjoying their share of steak and fries. Only Dulcie ate a little salad. Courtney, having never had filet mignon, gobbled the sliced steak with greedy delight. Never could she remember, in her dreams of other lives, a meal like this, the meat crisp on the outside, rare within, and more flavorful and tender than any scraps of boiled pork or Irish mutton. She knew she had enjoyed grand feasts as well as leavings, somewhere and sometime; but she had enjoyed nothing like this steak dinner right here and right now. She caught Kit laughing at her, the tortoiseshell’s yellow eyes teasing her for her greed. She didn’t care, she hissed smartly back, and returned to her supper.

Clyde was saying,“Last time they hit Sonoma, five cars stolen, twenty more left on the streets robbed or trashed or both.” He looked at Joe Grey. “Max said the Sonoma sheriff has found the five cars, and has two drivers locked up.”

“So?” Joe said. “Sonoma is working car heists. MPPD is also working two murders and now a break and enter. Give our guys a little credit.”

Ryan said,“What about the Styrofoam? How can something as innocuous as scraps of Styrofoam offer a link the police can prove? Seems to me that’s circumstantial.”

“It’s a good start,” Clyde said. “If those flecks did come from a stolen car, and then were in Wilma’s house, and in Barbara Conley’s house … If Max can find that car …” He looked at Kit and Pan. “The car you saw in the garage that night.”

Kit said,“The wind blew away the dust on the drive so clean it blew away the tire marks. But there were tiny pieces of packing, wind blew those so hard into the bushes it was like someone pressed them there, stuck tight.”

Joe said,“Pretty strong coincidence.”

“And you don’t even believe in coincidence,” Wilma said, scratching Joe’s ears. “I hope,” she said, “if the thieves come back to work this area, I hope Scotty will stay on at the shelter. I don’t like to think of Kate up there alone.”

Ryan pushed back her short, dark hair, her green eyes watching Wilma.“With Scotty restoring the mansion, working there all day, it’s easy enough for him to stay.” She smiled. “Kate says he’s grown really interested that the ferals sneak down sometimes to hide and watch them work.”

“The wild, speaking cats?” Courtney said. “But Wilma, you said they’re afraid of humans.”

Ryan said,“They like Kate and Wilma. And Charlie and I used to ride up there a lot. But still they’re shy of most humans, and that’s a good thing.”

Courtney drew herself up tall, lifting her front paw with the three black bracelets, the orange and black markings on her back bright even in the soft patio lights.“I want to go there. I want to talk with the ferals, I want to see the ruins, I want …”

Joe Grey looked hard at her.“If you go there, Courtney, Dulcie and I will take you. Or Kit and Pan will. You are not to go alone.”

“Why not? Kit goes alone.”

“It’s too far. Kit is not a half-grown kitten. You can’t run and dodge and disappear as fast, yet, as she can. You can’t climb as high and fast, yet. Do you remember Kit’s story of the mountain lion?”

“I remember.”

“Sometimes there are mountain lions there in the ruins. And bobcats, and always coyotes. You will not go alone, Courtney, until you are a grown-up fighter. And even then, alone isn’t safe.”

“But if you go with me … ?”

“We’ll think about it,” Joe and Dulcie said together.

“At least there’s no gang of thieves up there,” Pedric said. “What’s to steal at the ruins? Not a car in sight except Kate’s. And Lena’s car, down at her aunt’s. Those crooks want a crowded neighborhood, lots of cars to hit all at once.” The older man, tall and regal looking, tookLucinda’s hand. “I’m glad I got my gun permit.”

“I feel safer, too,” Lucinda said. “And I feel easier with Kit home safe at night, and now Pan, too. We missed you,” she said, stroking the red tabby’s back.

Pan said,“I do love John and Mary, but …”

“But,” Lucinda said, “you didn’t plan to stay forever. Now the kittens have taken over for a few days, and that’s good for all of them.”

Dulcie and Joe looked at each other, thinking about their boys going off into the world. Only a few days seemed to them like the prologue to forever. Did all parents feel this way?

But Courtney’s look was … What kind of look was that? Regret that her brothers might move away? Or a sly smugness at having Wilma and Dulcie to herself, having their house to herself? And at having their daddy all her own, at least some of the time.

When, even in the walled patio, the wind quickened and the clouds drew down, the party picked up their plates and leftovers, Clyde put out the fire in the grill, and they moved inside; the conversation turning again to Jimmie McFarland, tucked up in Wilma’s house, waiting for a window to break, a door to wrench open. But soon the Greenlaws headed home, Kit and Pan trotting close beside them as they unlocked their Lincoln, the car that had once nearly been the scene of Lucinda’s and Pedric’s own murders.

Well, that adventure came out all right, Kit thought, shivering, that night on the narrow mountain road when we nearly went over and I ran from the wrecked Lincoln and called for help for Pedric and Lucinda and the coyotes nearly had me.

When Clyde and Ryan came racing up the highway together with Rock and the cats, they saved me, Ryan shot the coyote and saved me. Life, Kit thought, life is good when you have strong and loving friends to help you. That night, she thought, trembling, they sure saved my little cat skin.

17

The Damen house was dark except for ghosts of moonlight shifting beyond the shades. Joe Grey woke feeling off center. What had woken him? He was not in his tower, nor was he in Clyde and Ryan’s bed. He was downstairs in the guest room stretched out on the quilt between Dulcie and Courtney, the three of them crowded against Wilma. He could just see Rock over by the door, lying on the throw rug, Snowball snuggled warm between his front legs. But where were Striker and Buffin, where were the boys?

When he remembered they were cuddled up with the Firettis, Joe scowled with jealousy. Their kittens were cozy in another household, with new friends. And again Joe felt abandoned.

But the two boy kittens were getting big, their blue eyes showing the first glints of yellow and gold in their pale buff faces. At their age, Joe had been on his own, making his own living—such as it was—evading bigger, vicious alley cats, hiding from stray dogs among the street rubble, rummaging for his supper in San Francisco’s garbage cans. Now, it was nearing the time when his own growing kittens would venture into the world for good, choosing the paths of their separate lives—choosing better than the homeless world where he’d first landed.

It hurt, deep down, to think of Buffin and Striker leaving the nest, it hurt Dulcie, and it upset Wilma. Wilma’s house was their nest, Dulcie had birthed the kittens there, had nursed and trained them, had watched them claw the furniture and climb the draperies and duck their heads in shame when they were scolded. Dulcie and Wilma had told the little ones myths, and Joe had told them stories about the real human world that amazed them. He recalled their heart-pounding delirium when each kitten spoke its first words, proved indeed that he or she was a speaking cat, was as rare and talented as everyone had hoped they would be.

Yawning, knowing that Striker and Buffin were safe, he wondered again what had awakened him—then he was sharply alert thinking of the stakeout, of Wilma’s house empty but not empty, police moving unseen through the shadows of Wilma’s neighborhood, Jimmie McFarland dozing fully dressed atop Wilma’s bed with the light on as if Wilma were reading. Jimmie in dark sweats, soft shoes, gun, holster, radio …

Carefully Joe eased out from beside Dulcie and slid to the floor. When Rock raised his head, bumping against the closed door, Joe gave him that be quiet look. But Rock didn’t need it, he was as silent and alert as if he, too, were off to track a felon.

Joe shook his head.“You need to stay here.” He nudged Rock gently until the Weimaraner slid over a few inches, easing Snowball with him. Joe pulled the door open with his claws, gave Rock another look that told him to stay, and slipped through.

He trotted softly up the stairs, hopped up quietly on Clyde’s desk, leaped noiselessly to the rafter and out his cat door. Nudging open a window he hit the roof and took off running. He didn’t hear a sound behind him, heard no stir of soft paws in the fitful breeze as Courtney followed her daddy—and as Dulcie, angry at them both, raced to catch up, both females staying to the shadows, silent as velvet.

Jimmie McFarland woke as disoriented as Joe Grey—but only for a second. He sat up wide awake, swinging his feet noiselessly to the floor, hand on his holstered gun, listening.

He could hear a thief rummaging the house, moving the couch out from the wall, the hush of books being shuffled back and forth in the bookshelves, of the desk drawers opening. He listened to the prowler search the dining room, the buffet and china cabinet. The kitchen and refrigerator took a long time as he tried not to rattle the dishes and pots and pans. He went through the laundry, Jimmie heard him open the freezer, after a few minutes closing it again. Heard him move the washer and dryer as if to look behind them. Heard him come down the hall, check out the guest bath, then open the linen closet, listened to the soft hush as he shuffled towels and sheets. Then the thief was in the guest room.

The faint sounds of drawers opening, of bedding being tossed aside, of the bed being moved, perhaps so he could look at the back of the headboard. When Jimmie heard the closet door slide open he silently turned the lock on his own door, the heavy bolt that had been installed and oiled the night before.

Moving soundlessly down the hall, he heard the boxes on the shelves being shoved aside—then, a second too late, heard the guest room window slide open, heard the guy hit the ground running. Jimmie was down the hall, through the window after him, racing between the line of neighbors’ garages and the rising hill, moving south, half his thoughts on the two officers working the street, wondering where they were. Tall, big-handed Crowley, six feet four, could pick the thief up like a rag doll if he caught him. Portly Brennan was slower, but tough, and reliable with a gun.

He hadn’t stopped to see if the book was missing, he knew it would be. The guy running between the hill and the garages stopped sometimes as if to listen. Yes, as he fled again, a gleam of moonlight caught the corner of the package. Same size, same pale color like brown wrapping paper. Strange he didn’t climb the hill—except he’d make a perfect target against the moon-pale grass. The moon hung low in the west, hitting the hill, leaving the yards dark. Beyond Wilma’s, the houses were close together. The runner paused at each narrow, dark side yard then went on, dodging bushes and trees. Suddenly he vanished. No sound, no movement in the shadows.

Jimmie used his flashlight, shining it into the narrow yards, into the crowded shrubbery. He was about to double back when he heard someone running again, and then two men…

He knew Crowley’s footfall. He heard the faintest hush of a door closing. Crowley stopped, they both stood still, one at each end of a narrow yard, listening, the faintest streak of moonlight touching Crowley’s cap where he stood by the corner of the garage; the walk-in door was halfway between them.

When there was no more sound, when they shone their lights around the door and into the shrubbery there were only empty shadows. Jimmie flashed his light once, then covered his tall partner while Crowley, wearing gloves, tried the door.

It was locked.

Moments earlier when Wilma’s stalker had slipped out the guest room window carrying the box, he heard McFarland come out behind him. He knew there’d be other cops. Earlier, he had jimmied the lock of one of the garages down the row—when he heard McFarland drawing too near then heard a second man running, he eased openthe door, slipped in, locked it from inside. He heard them try the door, fiddle with the lock, then soon they moved on down the row of houses, one at each end of the side yards.

The garage was neat and uncluttered. Low moonlight shone through the narrow, obscure glass in the big double door. There were two cars, both of them unlocked. Silently rummaging, he found little of value in the Ford Taurus.

In the black Mercedes he found, shoved back under a tangle of pamphlets in the glove compartment, the concierge key on a big ring. People were so stupid. They hid, or thought they had hidden, the nonelectronic model so when they went out to dinner or to a hotel they could give the attendant only the car key, no opening codes, no handy house key attached. He was thinking about starting the engine, opening the garage fast and taking off, when he heard a car start up the street, heard it move away south. A quiet, heavy vehicle that could be a cop car.

Quickly he left the garage, he couldn’t lock the side door behind him but the cops had already checked it. Slipping away, keeping to the shadows, he was lucky this time, the patrol car had gone on.

Moving fast and silently along the dirt path, he hustled down the last four blocks to the little corner grocery. He stepped behind it into the narrow strip of woods that separated it from the motel above and from Ocean Avenue. There were two homeless men asleep between the pines. They didn’t wake. The grocery’s little parking lot, which opened to the cross street, was empty. Staying beneath the bordering trees, he watched for the dark SUV that would pick him up. He had no notion that he was stalked by more than cops. When he heard a car coming he was prepared to race to it—until he saw the cop car behind it, and backed deeper into the woods. It wasn’t his ride anyway, but a white minivan.

Dulcie, running shoulder to shoulder with Courtney, didn’t say a word to her. She couldn’t talk, with cops down there on the street, and if she did speak, she didn’t know what would come out; she didn’t want this to end in a spitting match—she was so mad at Courtney for following Joe that she wanted to smack the headstrong kitten.

But Courtney had only meant to help her daddy. The calico’s busy paws tore across the shingles, her determined little face so coldly serious that Dulcie couldn’t scold her. They had crossed Ocean Avenue under dark trees, well behind Joe. There was no traffic. They climbed a vine silently and hit the roofs again. They were on the shop next to the little corner grocery when suddenly ahead of them Joe stopped. Dulcie and Courtney froze.

But he hadn’t seen them, he was peering over the roof’s edge where trees lined the market’s parking lot, intent on a man hidden in the trees’ shadows. When the figure heard a car coming he moved out among the row of trees that led to the street. Dulcie could barely make out his long thin face. He carried the box, wrapped in paper. He stepped back when a minivan passed below, moving slowly. A cop car followed it.

The officers pulled the driver over with flashing lights. They got out, ordered the driver out. He stood facing his van, hands on the roof. They frisked him and questioned him. They searched the van, looked at his driver’s license, then sent him on his way.

At first sight of the patrol car, the burglar had slid deeper in the pines and shrubbery. Now, when the cops had gone, he slipped his phone from his pocket. He spoke softly. Dulcie watched Joe listen from the roof then quickly choose a pine and back down, she watched him warily. If someone was picking this guy up, she knew what Joe meant to do.

“You stay here,” she told Courtney; but already the young cat was wired to move. “Right here!” Dulcie repeated. “Don’t you dare go down off this roof, not for anything. If I … if you are left alone, you are to go to your pa’s house. Do you know how to get to the Damens’?”

“Of course I know,” Courtney said, bristling. “Down that street four blocks, and to the left past Barbara Conley’s with the yellow tape.” And she turned her face away, sulking.

As Dulcie slid into a bougainvillea vine and down among its thorny branches a car pulled into the lot, a dark, older SUV. At once the thief fled from the bushes and opened the driver’s side back door. He folded half of the backseat down so it matched the platform of the rear storage space. Leaning in, he rummaged among the jumble at the back, tucking the box he carried under some duffel bags and bundles.

Behind him, Joe Grey sped for the open door, leaped in and slipped over behind the passenger’s seat. He could say nothing as Dulcie flew in and pressed against him; he glared at her, furious, ears back, yellow eyes narrow. He watched her claw a dark blanket down from the seat above them. As they slid under, Courtney flew in behind them.

They couldn’t scold, they daren’t even whack her lightly for fear she’d hiss and fight. This calico was getting too big for her britches.

Quietly the thief shut the door, went around and opened the front passenger door and slipped in. The driver took off, skidding as he turned.

Headed where? Where was he taking them?

Dulcie pushed the blanket aside for a little light. Courtney was wide-eyed and shivering. She hadn’t thought, she had only meant to help her pa. She hadn’t helped him at all, and now she was filled with fear. Dulcie thought of the time Joe had gotten in a car headed who-knew-where, and ended up in the parking garage of the San Jose airport, some eighty miles north. Lost, alone, surrounded by cars driving in and pulling away, a regular riot of moving wheels, he’d seen a woman he knew shot to death. He had, at last, stolen a cell phone from an open truck, had called Clyde and Ryan to rescue him.

Now, sliding around where she could see between the two front seats, Dulcie got a look at the driver: a heavy fellow, dark, short hair, heavy shoulders. He was built like Pan’s description of the car thief that windy night, the man whose trail bore the same white, flaky evidence as that from the beauty salon murders. Looking closely, she could see the same white specks stuck in the crepe soles of his dark shoes.

Kit and Pan hit the roof of the village market at the moment that Joe Grey, Dulcie, and Courtney dove into the dark SUV, saw them flash into the car and disappear.“Oh my,” Kit said and crouched to leap after them but Pan jerked her back, teeth and claws in her shoulder.

The two cats had, shortly after they’d returned home from dinner at the Damens’, slipped away again after giving Lucinda and Pedric face rubs, and loving them. They beat it out the cat door, headed for the stakeout at Wilma’s house where they knew Joe would be. There they had waited on the roofs across the street for a long time, they had watched Wilma’s living room light go out, then the reflection of the bedroom light come on, glancing off the pale back hill—and Wilma’s stalker appeared from the shadows near the front door.

This time he must have had a lock pick; it didn’t take long and he was inside. They came down from the neighbor’s roof and up onto Wilma’s shingles. They listened to him toss the house, the living room, the kitchen, they moved across the roof just above him the way they might follow the underground sounds from a squirrel tunnel. They heard, after some time, the stealthy sliding of a closet door in the guest room, the dry sound of shuffled boxes. Where was Jimmie? They scrambled down from the roof, they were racing for Dulcie’s cat door when they heard a back window slide open, heard the soft sound of running on the dirt path behind the house. From that moment, everything was confusion; climbing to the roofs again, leaping across the side yards scrambling from tree to tree chasing running footsteps. More than one man running but, in the dark below them, in the windblown night, all was uncertain. What they thought was the perpturned out to be a cop. What they thought were two perps, they saw suddenly were McFarland and Crowley. Where was Joe Grey? The running was louder, then it stopped; a door opened and closed softly. Silence, then a cop approached the door, found it locked, and moved on, looking back. The cops were gone when the door eased open and a tall, thin man came out, closing it behind him. He ran, almost soundlessly, racing along the edge of the hill and behind the village market. When he hid among the trees they crouched on the roof, listening.

They could smell Joe Grey’s scent on the shingles, could smell Dulcie and Courtney. Below, the black, windy, moonlit scene held them, the white van and the cops’ car, then the dark SUV, the perp leaping in, the three cats behind him. Kit crouched at the edge, ready to leap down. Pan grabbed her, stopping her—and the car skidded away, turning onto Ocean.

They followed up Ocean, over cottages and shops. When they couldn’t see up the hill any farther they scaled a tall pine to the top. “There!” Kit hissed. The SUV was climbing the last hump to the stop signal. They waited, panting, to see which way it would turn.

It turned north where Highway One would lead to a cluster of freeways. Kit couldn’t stop shaking. Oh, how did Joe let this happen? And the road was empty behind, no patrol car was tailing them. How did the cops, scouring the neighborhood, how could they miss such a blatant escape? Kit wanted to yowl.

“A phone,” Pan hissed, and they spun around, heading down the tree, dropping from branch to branch. Joe’s house was the nearest; but as they dropped to the sidewalk Kit said, “Wait … Wait one minute.” She raced across the parking lot to where the SUV had stopped. She sniffed where its tires had stood, smelling at the paving; she looked up at Pan making a flehmen scowl. The pavement smelled of … what?

“Garlic,” she said, inhaling again. “Garlic, geranium, eucalyptus, and … goats.” It was a sickening combination. “And here’s a eucalyptus leaf bent and crunched as if it fell out of a tire tread.”

“There are eucalyptus trees all over the village.”

“But that’s exactly what grows at the edge of Voletta Nestor’s weedy yard. I notice it every time we hunt on the Pamillon land, the eucalyptus, that ornamental garlic, its long silver grass. Red geraniums. And the damned goats,” she added. She looked at him, her eyes bright.

“Come on,” he said, and they raced through the dark for Joe’s house.

“If we can slip into the kitchen,” Pan said, “make the 911 call without waking anyone …”

“But we’ll have to wake Clyde, we need wheels. We can tell the cops about the car the prowler got into, and which way it went. I couldn’t see the license, only the first part, 6F … couldn’t see the rest. But how do we tell them that three cats are trapped in there, that the department’sJoe Grey is shut inside with those crooks?” She shivered, approaching the Damens’ cat door. The night was moving toward dawn, and where were Joe and Dulcie and Courtney headed? Slipping inside through the little plastic door, hurrying to the kitchen and a phone, Kit imagined the car turning onto the freeway, its three stowaways crouched out of sight, unable to see much out the windows above them, no idea where they were going or what would happen to them, and again she thought, Why did Joe do this? Dulcie and his own kitten? How could he let this happen?

18

Joe and Dulcie knew they were on Highway One, they had felt the car turn north. Soon they felt the echoing rumble as they went through the long tunnel where, above the highway, the grass grew tall, the land rolling away into the hills so one often forgot that the freeway snaked underneath. They sometimes hunted that lush verge, so dense with ground squirrels, snakes, and mice. Often they caught the scent of coyotes there or a cougar or bobcat that had come down into the village canyons. Now, the cats were more tense at their present situation than at the smell of a four-legged predator. Dulcie and Courtney wished they hadn’t jumped in the car so rashly but they couldn’t have left Joe to be carried away alone. What had he been thinking, to trap himself in here with two killers? Courtney wished her daddy hadn’t come out tonight, wished they were all safe at the Damens’, snuggled among the quilts with Wilma. When they felt the car change lanes, felt it speed tilting down an exit ramp, they dug their claws into the floor mat. Then they were on level road again, moving fast to the northeast.

“For crissake, Randall, slow down.”

“Let it rest, Egan.”

The cats looked at each other. Egan? Then the AFIS records hadn’t missed anything, this man really wasn’t Rick Alderson—unless he was using a fake name.

“We don’t need the CHP on our tail,” Egan said, “after that beauty parlor mess. Maybe, Randall, you need to be more careful.”

“What I need,” Randall said, “is a hamburger, before we load up and take off.” Wide shouldered, muscled, and broad, was this the man who had been in Barbara Conley’s house that windy night?

“We’re already past anywhere to eat,” Egan said. “Why don’t you think of these things sooner?”

“I wanted to get out of there. Them cops …”

“It was you said you’d drive. Ma would have done it, if you hadn’t argued.”

“She’s all over the damned road. I love your ma but I wish we didn’t have to use her for transport.”

“We need every driver we can get. You love her all right. And every other woman who gives you the come-on.” Egan turned, looking dourly at Randall. “You can cheat on them—cheat on Ma—but they better not double-cross you.”

Randall jerked his hand up as if to smack Egan’s face.

“Watch the road, for crissake.”

“I’m watching the damn road.” Randall glanced up at the sky above them. “Hope they’re ready. It’ll be getting light soon, we don’t have that much time.”

Dulcie looked again at the driver’s short black hair, dense and wiry, and thought of the black hair in the trace evidence that the cops had bagged from the murder victims. Slipping over behind the driver’s seat, she peered around to get a good look at Egan, his long thin face, thin nose, and light blond hair. That color hair hadn’t been among the evidence at the murders, but his blond hairs had been collected in Wilma’s house, and Barbara’s, along with the bits of Styrofoam packing that stuck to everything. They could smell the men’s sweat. And could smell the mud on Egan’s shoes—mud from behind Wilma’s house, the scent of mint that grew at the foot of the hill.

Courtney, clinging to her mother, trying not to panic at what might lie ahead and trying not to feel car sick, closed her eyes and ducked her face under her paws. Willing her memory-dreams to take her, carry her away from whatever was going to happen.

Closing her eyes, slipping into another time, another place away from her terror, she eased down among sod houses with thatched roofs, a woman she had loved, milking a small, cranky cow, her long hair tied back, her rough-spun skirts muddy along the hem.

But fear was there, too. When the woman’s sour husband came out and started sharpening a sword, the calico had fled. The scene was so clear. Soon there were more men, in steel armor and helmets, tall men on horseback. She felt the woman pick her up and carry her into the cottage, then the dream twisted into a haze of tall mountains, then broke apart into a meaningless jumble, the woman holding her softly; and she slept.

Dulcie, snuggling her kitten, knew she was off in another time. She felt both curiosity at what Courtney was seeing, and envy that she could bring back those ancient days—just as their friend Misto had remembered his past. As sometimes Kit while dreaming reached out a paw as if to touch someone or something that, in sleep, must seem very real.

Randall had slowed and was looking around almost desperately as if seeking a way past something ahead. The cats could see nothing from their angled view up through the windows, could see only night and the flash from moving car lights. Randall slowed even more, pulled over abruptly onto the bumpy shoulder, speeded up as if to go around some impediment—but suddenly slammed on the brakes. “Hell! Damn it to hell!” His maneuver woke Courtney, startled at his shout and at the lights all around them glaring through the windows, blazes of flashing red, now, that could only be the demanding signals of emergency vehicles.

Earlier that night, when Kit and Pan had raced to the Damens’ to call 911, they’d thought the house would be dark, that everyone would be asleep. But a light burned in the living room, glowing through the plastic cat door as they slipped through.

Three scowls met them: Ryan and Clyde and Wilma, in their nightclothes, solemn with anger. Kit and Pan could smell their fear.

“Where are Dulcie and Joe and Courtney?” Wilma said. “Oh, they didn’t go home to my house? Not in the middle of a stakeout? Oh, Kit! Why do you think I brought Dulcie and Courtney over here, but to keep them safe!”

“But I … we didn’t,” Kit began.

“Where are they?” Clyde said, his frown fierce. He wore a Windbreaker over his sweats and was jingling his car keys. Kit had never seen him so angry, she didn’t know what to say, she didn’t know how to tell them.

“The phone,” she whispered. “We need … They’re in the getaway car …”

Ryan fled for the kitchen, Kit in her arms. Within seconds she had dialed 911; she held the headset for Kit, her own face pressed close to listen. Behind them Clyde and Wilma crowded against them.

“The stakeout at Wilma Getz’s house,” Kit told the dispatcher. “Two men took off from the market parking lot, maybe ten minutes ago. Dark older SUV, maybe a Toyota. First two numbers of the license are 6F, that’s all I could see. They’re heading north … Heavy man like a body builder, dark hair. Thin young guy, blond, long thin face …” She paused a moment, thinking how lame was her little whiff of scent-evidence, wondering if it meant anything.

“They might,” she told the dispatcher, “be headed up toward the ruins, toward Voletta Nestor’s house, the house with that old barn behind, but that’s only a guess.” As the dispatcher put out the call, Kit pressed the disconnect.

Clyde had left the kitchen, they heard the Jaguar start. Ryan shouted and ran, raced out the front door. They heard the Jaguar idling, heard the car door open, heard them arguing, Clyde’s voice quick and angry. “You can’t leave Wilma alone.”

“Her stalker’s gone, Clyde. You heard what Kit said. You’re not going off alone after those men!”

“Shut the door, Ryan. The cops don’t know about the cats. If they catch that car, there’s no one to help the cats. Shut the damn door. Stay with Wilma, she … Oh hell …”

Wilma flung the back door open and slid in, Kit and Pan clinging to her.“I locked the front door,” she said as Rock bolted over her to the other side of the seat. She handed Ryan a jacket, and pulled on her own short coat.

Clyde, looking back at her, swore again briefly before he headed for the freeway. Wilma had been his best friend since he was a small boy when she was his neighbor, a glamorous college student living next door. They’d never abandoned that friendship; she was family—but right now he could have gladly strangled her. He scowled in the rearview mirror. “You carrying?”

“Of course,” Wilma said coolly, pushing back her gray-white ponytail, frowning back at him as he turned onto the freeway.

“Ryan?” he said.

“Yes,” she told him, slipping an automatic and a shoulder holster from her handbag, buckling on the holster then pulling on her jacket.

Kit crowded onto Wilma’s shoulder, looking out the window, prayed the cops were ahead of them, already cornering the SUV. What if the dark car had turned off and somehow evaded the patrol cars? “Oh hurry, Clyde. Please hurry.”

“Driving as fast as I dare,” he snapped; he seldom snapped at Kit. The speedometer said eighty-five. “If we get a cop on our tail, it’ll only slow us down, trying to explain.”

When Kit looked at Pan, he was as nervous as she. She thought of the SUV’s tires that smelled of Voletta’s place. Could they be headed there?

Did they mean to take the book there to Voletta? Who else would know about a hidden book removed from the Pamillon mansion, who else but a Pamillon? Who else would have sent someone to steal it back? None of the family lived anywhere near nor seemed interested in anything about the old place, even Voletta’s niece, and she hadn’t been there often before her aunt got hurt. And if Voletta had hired those men, what was the relationship between them, that she would trust them to bring her the book?

Could Kit’s wild guess about the smells be right? Garlic, eucalyptus, and geranium, growing thick around the old barn. She prayed to the great cat god that her hunch was on target, that the crooks were headed there with their unknown captives, prayed as hard as a little cat can that Joe and Dulcie and Courtney would escape safely.

19

Something woke Kate. She glanced through the bedroom door to the shelter office and caught her breath. A dark figure stood at the window silhouetted by bright lights. Then she saw it was Scotty.

The bedside clock said 3 a.m. Pulling on her robe, she went to stand beside him. Below the shelter and the Pamillon ruins, a pool of light shone across Voletta’s yard, a wider circle than the porch light could ever make.

The wide, weedy yard was full of cars. Three darkly clad figures were pulling cars out of the old barn, lining them up facing the road. Most of them were new or late models, shining in the floodlights.

Only a few days ago the barn had been empty, she had seen Lena open it to get a length of hose. Just a few bales of hay in there, some farm tools and ladders. A couple of dusty trailers pulled in, at the far corner. Now, watching with disbelief, she looked up at Scotty.“Not the stolen cars! Here in Voletta’s yard! This can’t be part of the car ring!”

“I’ve already called the department.” Scotty, feeling her shiver, pulled her closer, his arm warm around her. “Where else would those cars come from?”

“But that gang isn’t working the village now. That night when the wind was so bad was the last night. The paper said they’ve moved on, that they’re somewhere up the coast. Eureka, I think. And Voletta—how could that frail old woman be mixed up in a crime ring? That’s ludicrous.”

Scotty hugged her closer.“Looks like they’re using her place as a storage stop. They might bring cars from anywhere. Or these could be the Molena Point cars, they steal the cars in the village and hide them here. Move them later, during the time the gang has gone on up the coast, drawing more of the highway patrol withthem. That means they have more crew than we thought.” He looked down at Kate. “How long has this been going on? Have you seen this before? Seen lights down there?”

“No. But I haven’t been staying up here long, just since we moved the cats in. And I don’t usually wake at three in the morning—not until the storm hit, and you were knocking on my door,” she said, coloring slightly. “I’m up at midnight to check on the kennel cats, then fall back asleep until about six.”

He stood thinking, his red hair and beard caught in the light from below.“How often did Lena visit her aunt, before Voletta was hurt and Lena moved in?”

“Every few weeks, I guess. I didn’t make a point to go down and visit with her,” she said coolly.

Scotty laughed.“No girly chats over a cup of tea?”

She made a face at him.

It was then that Ryan called to tell them about Joe and Dulcie and Courtney.“There may be a car headed to Voletta’s. We … Kate, if a dark SUV pulls in, it’s Wilma’s stalker and that heavyset man. We don’t know where they’re going, but Kit says the scent on the tires could lead there, to Voletta’s place. Joe and Dulcie and Courtney are trapped in that car.”

“Oh my God.”

“The cats dove in behind the driver’s seat. When it stops, see if you can delay the car, give them a chance to get out …”

Kate said,“Voletta’s yard is full of cars, men we’ve never seen are moving cars out of the old barn. These have to be the stolen cars. Scotty’s already called the department.”

When they’d hung up, Scotty, moving into the bedroom, pulled on his boots and a jacket over his sweats and hurried outside. “I’m going over to the mansion,” he said, “where I can see better.”

She watched him cross her freshly mown yard and then the tall grass of the berm that separated the shelter from the mansion. He stood just inside the missing wall of the living room, keeping to the shadows. She dressed quickly in a sweatshirt and jeans, strapped on her shoulder holster feeling slightly foolish, and pulled on a vest to conceal it. Better foolish than unprepared. Max had insisted she be armed when she moved up here alone.“You have your permit, Kate. Use it.” He didn’t know, then, nor had she, that she wouldn’t be alone. She was watching Scotty again when something pale moved beside him. One of the feral cats? Surprised, she watched him crouch and reach out to it.

The ferals never came that near strangers. Even when they watched Scotty working on that part of the house, they were shy and wary. Scotty wasn’t one of the inner circle, those few who knew the speaking cats’ secret. She stood frowning and puzzled.

Yesterday morning when she woke at five, Scotty had already eaten and left; the apartment smelled of coffee and fried eggs and bacon. In the tiny kitchen she’d found his dishes neatly washed, resting in the drainer. Looking out at the frost-pale lawn she had seen where his dark footprints had crushed the frost from the mowed grass; had seen the taller, wild grass of the verge falling aside where he had walked through. Maybe, she’d thought, he’d had some new thoughts about the work on the living room, maybe he had gone over to the worksite to consider some change?

But his footprints did not lead to the front of the house, they went toward the back of the old mansion. Dressing quickly, she had gone into the biggest shelter, down at the end, petting cats as she went and talking to them. Standing on a log that was part of a tall cat tree, she could see Scotty behind the old house at the edge of the small, sheltered patio that joined a large bedroom—the private little garden where, not long ago, Ryan and Wilma had found the Bewick book buried.

She had watched him kneel down. She had frozen with surprise when three of the feral cats came out of the bushes and fairly near to him, stood watching him, unafraid: pale Willow and Tansy, and dark tabby Coyote.

She could swear he was talking to them, trying to entice them closer to be petted, these wild cats who would have nothing to do with most humans.

Did the feral cats sense something in Scotty that made them trust him? Did they see a quality in him that drew them, maybe sense the old Scots-Irish traits that might be sympathetic to their own heritage? The cats did not move closer, they were still for a few moments, listening to him, studying him with interest—but then they turned away, almost as if something he’d said had startled them. They drifted back into the shadows and were gone—and within Kate something joyful had exploded, a hope that bubbled up fiercely and made her smile.

All that day she had found it nearly impossible not to wonder if Scotty had guessed the cats’ secret or was on the verge of guessing. Might he have thought he heard them talking and, though he really couldn’t believe that, he was curious?

Or was it the cats alone who were making the advances? But why? Even if they were drawn to him, why would they want him to know their secret, these cats who were so shy and careful? The secret that no one who knew, could ever tell?

This solemn confidence was the reason she wouldn’t marry him. How could they be one when she was bridled with deception, with a lie by omission that she must forever hide?

All yesterday she had thought of little else. She was so excited that he might know the truth, it was hard to act normal. But now, tonight, with the serious activity below, she put aside her own questions.

Scotty still stood unmoving against the open living room wall, the pale cat companionably beside him, both of them watching the men busy below, moving cars—and was that Lena down there, helping them? Lena dressed in dark sweats, dark boots, dark cap pulled over her hair, stepping out of a pale convertible that she had just pulled into the line of cars? Kate studied the three men, and didn’t recognize them. And where was the dark SUV that Ryan hadcalled about? The car carrying the three terrified cats?

It was hard to think of Joe Grey frightened, but this time he had to be—terrified for little Courtney and for Dulcie, the three of them trapped in a strange car, traveling through the night with men who might be killers. Kate pressed against the office window. Where was the SUV? Was it coming here or headed somewhere else? Where were Ryan and Clyde, where were the cops?

In Clyde’s Jaguar, Kit stood on Wilma’s lap, her front paws on the back of the front seat, looking up the dark freeway, watching the SUV they followed. There was not much traffic at this hour—until they heard sirens behind them and saw flashing lights and Clyde pulled over into the right lane, out ofthe way. Two police cars passed them fast, rounding a curve where, ahead, emergency lights flashed from a fire engine and from rescue units. Two trucks were turned over, blocking both lanes. An officer was putting up barriers and red lanterns as a cop with a flashlight flagged Clyde down; he parkedon the shoulder.

A bright yellow pickup was rolled over, a blue and white bakery van half on top of it, one wheel still spinning. On the side of the road just ahead, the dark brown SUV stood parked, with a long dent down the left side. The left front door had been pried open or maybe sprung open at what appeared to be a sideswipe. The black-haired, muscled driver was leaning halfway out, trying to pull himself free. A CHP officer stood with a gun on the man. At last the big man, grabbing the roof, hoisted himself up and out. As he tried to stand erect, leaning on the door,the three cats exploded out behind him—they fled under the car away from the freeway, across the dirt shoulder and up the grassy hill to vanish among the oaks.

While two sheriff’s deputies shackled Randall, Ryan was out of the Jaguar chasing Joe and Dulcie and Courtney, Kit beside her, Rock and Pan racing ahead. Climbing the rough ground in the dark, trying to avoid protruding roots, Ryan called to the cats, “It’s all right, you can come down! Come down, kitties. Come down, Joe! Come here to me!” She knelt, waiting for them.

Slowly the three cats came out from among the trees. Even Joe Grey looked haggard, staying close to little Courtney, who was still shivering. Clyde and Wilma climbed up to kneel in the tall grass beside Ryan. Wilma picked up Dulcie and Courtney and held them close in her arms. Clyde hid his frown as Joe Grey clung to his shoulder, the tomcat’s face pressed against Clyde’s morning stubble, Joe’s sudden need for him bringing tears to Clyde’s eyes. Kit leaped to Wilma’s lap and began to wash Courtney. Rock, rearing up, licked the three escapees and sniffed them all over, picking up the scents of their journey in a strange car. No one scolded them for their wild expedition and for getting themselves trapped—but Wilma looked accusingly into Joe Grey’s yellow eyes.

Joe had gotten Dulcie and Courtney into this mess. She was thankful that at least the boy kittens were away at the Firettis’ and safe. But Joe, she thought, smiling just a little, he was only being his macho self; he was only trying to catch a killer. “Did they get the Bewick book?” she asked him.

“In the back,” Joe said, looking down the hill toward the SUV, where an MPPD officer was handcuffing Egan. “Maybe I can slip in and get it … It’s heavy as hell. If you …”

“Leave it there,” Wilma said. “It could be evidence, proof that Egan stole, as well as broke in.”

“But you paid a lot for that book.”

“It’s more secure at the PD. If he knows where it is, and if he’s released, he’d have a hard time trying to break into the department’s evidence room.”

Two MPPD vehicles were pulled up behind the brown Toyota. The cats went silent as McFarland and Crowley left the other officers, came across the road, and started up the hill to them. The humans rose, holding cats, wondering how they were going to explain having the five cats out here in the small hours of the morning during a car chase.

Rock, delighted to see his cop friends, trotted up to lick their hands, distracting Jimmie long enough for Clyde to say,“We’re headed for the shelter. Kate called, she’s been staying up there until she gets a live-in caretaker. She sounded scared, and that’s not like Kate. Sounded like she desperately wanted some backup, she said something was going on down at the Nestor place—men she’d never seen before, moving expensive cars out of that old barn. What would Voletta Nestor be doing with a bunch of fancy cars?” Clyde knew he was talking too much. “Kate said she called you?”

“She did,” Jimmie said. “We’re headed up there, backup behind us and roadblocks ahead. But what are you doing with your cats out here in the middle of the night? That is Joe Grey? Why … ?”

“The damn-fool tomcat,” Clyde said. “They leaped out of the SUV. I don’t know what happened, the driver must have left the window down, somewhere in town; maybe there’s food in there.”

McFarland just looked at him.

“I don’t know where they are half the time—but to see them jump out of that car … One of these is Joe’s kitten. Wilma was worried sick.” Clyde started down the hill. The cats watched young Jimmie McFarland, wishing he weren’t so nosy. And, walking down the hill, McFarland watched Clyde. He was silent for a long while, keeping pace with Clyde. “I guess,” he said at last, “unless something more turns up, we don’t need to bother the chief with the cat story. I don’t see how it affects the case.”

Down on the road, Officer Crowley was helping Randall, in leg irons and handcuffs, into the back of an MPPD squad car, pressing his head down so he wouldn’t crack his skull. Crowley’s big, bony hands handled Randall like a rag doll. On the other side of the seat, Egan was already confined. He looked across at Wilma so sadly that she approached the car. He said, through the cracked-open window, “I wanted to talk to you. When I was watching you?It was because I wanted to ask you something.”

She looked at him and said nothing.

“About my father,” he said. “You knew my father.”

“What’s your name—your real name?”

“Egan. Egan Borden. Randall, here, he’s my stepfather. I took his name, Borden.” He looked over at Randall. “You hurtin’ pretty bad?”

“Nah,” Randall growled. “Hitch in my side is all.”

Wilma looked at Egan.“What was your family name, who was your father?”

“My father was Calvin Alderson. He got the chair for murder, you helped send him there. I know he was executed for murder but that’s about all I know. A social worker told me that much, when I was older. They think he killed my mother, too.”

“What was your mother’s name?”

“Um … Marie. Marie Alderson.” Wilma watched him, knowing he was lying, and, again, she was silent. If this young man was Rick Alderson, he was seven years old when his father went to prison, he’d remember quite a bit about Calvin. And why lie about his mother’s name? But how could he be Rick when the fingerprints didn’t match? She was filled with questions—questions she couldn’t ask here, with officers listening. She wanted a proper interview with this man, maybe a recording—and so would Max.

She was convinced Randall was Barbara’s and Langston’s killer, but was his stepson—Rick or whoever this was—a part of that murder? “You’ll be in Molena Point jail,” she said. “We can talk there.” She turned away, walked over to the Jaguar, slid into the back between the cats and Rock. In the front seat, Ryan and Clyde were quietly talking.

McFarland, stepping over to the driver’s window, put a hand on Clyde’s shoulder. “CHP has cleared a path around the wreck, there against the hill. Wait until our units are through.” He scowled at Clyde. “Though I’d rather you turned around and went home. We don’t know what we have, up at Voletta’s.”

“Kate sounded pretty worked up,” Clyde said. “Sounded scared.” He didn’t mention that Scotty was there; their personal life was their business. He guessed Kate was frightened, if even tall, capable Scott Flannery wasn’t enough backup. “Whatever’s happening,” he told McFarland, “Kate asked us to come, and that’s where we’re headed.”

McFarland sighed.“Take the main road to the shelter, up above Voletta’s road. Stay off her place, and keep out of sight. Stay at the shelter with Kate, stay out of the way, Clyde.” No more was said about the two prisoners who were headed for jail. And McFarland said not another word about hitchhiking felines.

20

The five cats sat on the desk in the shelter office, their noses pressed to the window, watching the spotlighted farmyard below. The old place had once been a farm. The house, and the barn half hidden by eucalyptus woods, showed little change from their distant past except for the absence of crops and useful livestock. A once productive piece of land now dry and sour. Overhead the night sky had turned from black to the color of wet ashes. The cats’ tails were splayed out on the desk behind them, Dulcie’s striped tabby tail very still; Courtney’s orange, black, and white appendage twitching with interest; tortoiseshell Kit’s broad, fluffy flag flipping with her usual excitement. Pan’s orange-striped tail was curled around him, Pan himself rigid and predatory—as was Joe Grey as he joined them.

Across the way, Clyde and Ryan, Kate and Scotty, and Wilma stood in the shadows of the mansion’s open walls watching the cars lined up on the weedy gravel yard, the men and Lena milling around as if waiting for someone, perhaps waiting for more drivers.

Beside the desk Rock reared up, paws on the windowsill, wanting badly to bark; Dulcie had already silenced him twice, receiving that reluctant, I’m bigger than you look. Now Joe shut him up—Rock knew to mind Joe Grey.

“Where’s the PD?” Kit said. “Where’s McFarland? Where’s Dallas, and the chief?” They had thought the law would be there by now, would already have these men surrounded, would be shackling them, locking them in squad cars. There wasn’t a cop in sight. “If they get those cars away, if they head up the coast …”

“Not to worry,” Joe said, twitching a whisker. “Dallas just called Clyde. There won’t be any cops, they’re letting them go.”

“Letting them go?” They all stared at him. “They can’t let them go,” Dulcie said. “With all those cars … They can’t just …”

Kit’s yellow eyes blazed. “Why would … What is Dallas thinking, what did he say?”

“They’re not coming here,” Joe said. “They’ll tail the cars as they turn onto the freeway. He has eight men following for backup, in four unmarked cars, those older, used cars with police radios. They’ll follow them, with two sheriff’s backups way behind and three CHP units up ahead. They’ll see where they take the cars—chop shop, dealer, who knows? They’ll let them pull in and get on with their business, then nail them. Maybe I could just slip into one of the—”

“No you don’t,” Dulcie said, her ears back, her dagger paw lifted. “I’ve had enough scares for tonight.”

“I didn’t say you’d be …”

She just looked at him, her green eyes blazing.

Joe didn’t like that she was scared for him. But then he thought, maybe he did like it, maybe he liked that fierce female caring—maybe she was thinking about the kittens, about the safety of their father. Below them, the entourage, apparently deciding Egan and Randall weren’t going to show, began pulling out. Two of the five men who had arrived earlier were pulling the trailers with clamped-on hitches behind their stolen cars, the trailers loaded up with a Lexus and a Porsche, both nearly new. Leading the entourage was a short, fat man in a black Audi. Eight cars, and each would bring a nice piece of cash—and two more cars that should be following, left behind in the barn. Bringing up the rear, Lena drove her old white Ford station wagon. This would be their return vehicle, once they’d dumped the stolen cars. “I’m surprised,” Pan said caustically, “that Voletta isn’t driving.”

“I’m surprised,” Joe said, “that old woman allows this. She has to be part of it. From what Ryan and Kate say, she’s cranky as hell, but no one thought of her as a crook.”

“And sweet little Lena,” Dulcie said, “with her little-girl voice. Was she using this place, or letting them use it, before she ever moved in with her aunt? That Randall Borden is her husband, then? The dark-haired man headed for jail? You heard Egan.” She looked at him, scowling. “This is where Egan and Randall were headed, they’re the two missing drivers.”

“Just a cozy family business,” Joe said, smiling.

Lena had shut the barn door where the two cars remained, had left them in a dark corner next to the tired-looking stack of baled hay. There wasn’t much else now in the big, hollow building. A few hanging tools, shovels, two ladders propped against a blank wall, a cardboard box on the floor, pushed back into the empty space where the trailers had stood. As the cars left Voletta’s property, one could follow their parade by the faint reflections of lights up the trees, and the fine layer of dust rising against the slowly lightening sky.

The cats watched from the window as their human friends left the mansion, heading back for the shelter, Scotty and Kate lagging behind. When Scotty leaned over and kissed Kate on the forehead, the cats smiled. Courtney cocked her head with interest.

“I wouldn’t speak of kisses,” Dulcie told her. “They’re very shy about this new relationship. New,” she said, “but maybe thinking of marriage? We’ll know in time.” Oh my, Dulcie thought, how much I have to teach our kittens. Courtney didn’t ask questions, she only grew more thoughtful; behind that solemn little face, was she seeing fleeting visions of weddings from lives past, was she putting incidents together?

The entourage of stolen cars was gone a long time, but Scotty’s phone didn’t buzz, there was no word from Dallas. Kate and Wilma made breakfast in the tiny kitchen, scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast—just about the last scrap of food in the apartment, and the last of the coffee. No one wanted the remainder of the store-bought cookies. “When the sheltervolunteers get here,” Kate said, “I’ll make a grocery run.” They sat crowded around the tiny table, the five humans comfortable on the two kitchen chairs, the desk chair, and two wooden boxes. The cats had the desk to themselves, their plates laid out on newspapers. Rock lay in the doorway sighing because he never got human food, because he hadn’t been allowed to bark and protect the property, because he felt ignored. When they’d finished breakfast and Wilma had done up the dishes, still there was no word from Dallas; Dulcie fell soundly asleep on Kate’s bed, tired from a long night. Kit and Pan went off up the hills to hunt. Joe Grey, waiting for the call, began restlessly to pace, passing back and forth where Courtney lay deeply asleep on the desk. Before the call finally came, three unlikely events stirred the morning.

Young Courtney pretended to nap until everyone was off on their own business, Clyde walking Rock, Wilma helping Kate and the volunteers, her mama sound asleep in the bedroom. When Joe Grey quit pacing and left the shelter to be near Scotty and his phone, Courtney opened her eyes, leaped to the floor, and eased the outer door open with stubborn paws. Slipping out, pulling the door closed behind her, she was off on her own adventure. She could hear Scotty and Ryan and their two carpenters at work, could see Joe sitting atop Scotty’s truck. She could see Clyde far up the hills taking Rock for a run. Quietly she headed through the tall grass behind the Pamillon mansion, into its tangled gardens, fallen stone walls, its vine-invaded rooms, into the magical places where the feral cats lived.

Crossing the grassy berm she kept glancing back, but she was quite alone. She prowled the little courtyard where, Kit had said, Wilma and Charlie had dug up that valuable book, the book that Wilma had later burned. She knew nothing of the exact location and circumstances of that amazing find. It was the courtyard with its shadowy, overgrown bushes, walled on three sides by the old house, that drew her, a tangled garden mysterious and appealing, that smelled of the feral cats.

Leaping onto a boulder facing the patio, she sat as tall and straight as a small princess, looking into the old garden with its masses of roses and vines. In that fairy-tale world she watched for the feral, speaking cats, praying they would come out, praying they would be curious and acknowledge her.

She had waited a long time when a pale tabby appeared quite suddenly from the bushes beside the house. He leaped to a windowsill, his cream coat blending with the light stone. That was Sage, she knew from Kit’s description. Kit and Sage had almost been lovers, had almost become a pair—until Kit rejected him. Oh my, she thought, such a handsome cat. Farther along the wall Willow appeared, her bleached calico fur, too, matching the colors of the rock-walled house. Both cats watched Courtney, not withhissing confrontation, but with a look of amazement; both gave her ear gestures of greeting and a flicking of tails.

Should she come down off the boulder and approach them, or would they come to her? She felt shy and then bold. She was filled with awe at these cats who must know so much more than she of the history of their own race, more than Kit or her parents had ever told her. Willow approached first.

Willow knew, watching her, that this kitten had a secret. Whether the kitten herself knew, was another matter. A secret larger, even, than her heritage of speech. She is the image of the young queen, Willow thought, the once queen. And Sage was thinking the same.

The two cats came close through the grass, approaching the stone where she sat. She shivered at their look of intensity. They reared up and sniffed noses with her, they purred for her. They looked carefully at her markings of orange and black laid artfully across her white patches, they looked a long time at her three black bracelets.

“Joe Grey and Dulcie’s child,” Willow said. She said no more. Whatever she was thinking, Courtney was silenced by the wonder she saw in Willow’s eyes.

Willow was thinking of the Netherworld where she and Sage had traveled with the band of ferals, the hidden land that was part of the speaking cats’ past—and that was part of this kitten’s heritage. Though Willow would never tell her—that was for her parents to reveal, if they even knew. Much more of the speaking cats’ history, and thus Courtney’s history, lay in times and countries far more distant than the caves below this coast, lay in medieval lands in ancient times.

But, Willow thought, Kit and Pan know about the lower world, they have seen the old, old pictures there of a cat who looks like Courtney—pictures, Kit says, the same as the paintings and tapestries in books in the village library. Has Courtney seen those pictures? As young as she is, does she remember anything of those long-ago lives?

Sitting on the rock with Courtney, Willow licked the kitten’s ears, as she had mothered so many of the feral clowder. Then she and Sage led the young cat among the ruins, showed her secret dens and hiding places. But at last when they heard someone shout from below and heard a car take off, Courtney, frightened and expecting a scolding, streaked for Kate’s apartment, where she was supposed to be asleep.

21

The morning was growing bright and warm as Joe Grey slipped into the cavernous barn, but inside it was cool and dim. The vast space was high ceilinged and hollow, its distant rafters festooned with cobwebs as dirty gray as rotting lace curtains. The noise from within intrigued and puzzled him: a clawing, tearing sound.

Slipping into the shadows, he froze in place.

Across the barn was the giant of all rats. A monster rat chewing and clawing at a cardboard box, making so much noise it didn’t hear him, so preoccupied it didn’t see him in the darkness beside the door.

The box stood near the pile of baled hay, some of the bales so blackened with age they were unfit to feed any animal. But what matter, when Voletta let her donkey and goats graze on the neighbors’ gardens? The two stolen cars that remained were parked beside the hay, half hidden against the barn wall—a big gray Lincoln Town Car and a tiny black Mini Cooper left over from last night when Egan and Randall hadn’t shown up to drive. Beside the cardboard box, bubble wrap and white Styrofoam packing spilled out, littering the floor.

Was this the box from the BMW? Had the men tossed it aside thinking it was worthless? Joe could see where it had been slit open then taped closed again by human hands. Now the rat had opened it once more and was at it tooth and claw.

The rat himself looked almost as big as the Lincoln, Joe had never seen such a beast—bigger and heavier than Joe’s nearly grown kittens and looked a thousand times tougher. Where it had torn away one side of the box, scattering the wrappings, tiny white flecks shone on the dirt all around, like fallen stars, and led in a path under the Lincoln. What was in its simple mind? Nest making? Was it making a nest in the Lincoln? With its back to Joe, busily clawing and chewing, it still didn’t know it was watched—didn’t know it was stalked until Joe Grey, slipping up behind him, leaped on his back, dug all his claws in, and bit hard into his throat, expecting the beast togurgle and fight for breath.

Lightning fast the rat flipped Joe over. Now it was on top and somehow, despite Joe’s teeth in its throat, it managed to grab Joe’s face. Its teeth were like razors. Joe bit deeper. The rat choked and tried to squeal. Joe raked him in the belly, and bit harder. They flipped again, now Joe was on top and then on the bottom—blood was flying when something grabbed the rat. It screamed once and went still and limp.

Someone pulled the rat’s teeth gently from Joe’s face, pulled the rat away. Clyde. Clyde knelt beside him, his handkerchief stanching the blood, his own face white with shock. Rock, his mouth bloody, picked the rat up again where Clyde had dropped it, stood with it in his mouth once more like any good retriever, hisears up, his short tail wagging. How can a dog smile with a dead rat in its mouth? Shakily Joe stood up, put his face up so Clyde could clean it more easily. How could he let a rat get the best of him? He was ashamed and embarrassed and mad. “How bad is it?” Would he be marred for life? Or maybe infected with some horrifying and incurable disease? Joe and Dulcie never listened when Clyde warned them about the foolishness of hunting rats.

“It’s not bad,” Clyde lied. “Just bloody, must have hit a vein.” Reaching in his pocket for his phone, he called Ryan. “Bring the Jag down to the barn. Can you leave your work? We need to go to the vet. It’s not serious, but … Bring soap and water and towels from the shelter. And a heavy plastic bag.”

Ryan didn’t ask questions. “On my way,” she said, feeling shaky. Quickly she collected what he wanted from the little dispensary by the office and jumped in the Jaguar. Within minutes she was pulling the barn door wider to brighten the dim space.

They cleaned Joe up as best they could. Ryan dampened a washcloth from the water bottle she’d brought, squeezed on soap from a dispenser and washed Joe’s torn face, then bound the wound with gauze. “Thank God they’ve had their rabies shots.” She scowled up at Rock. The big dog still held his prize, wanting her to praise him. Instead she said, “Give.” She had to say it twicebefore he dropped it on the ground. She wet a clean towel, soaped it, washed Rock’s face then opened his mouth and washed it out, the poor dog backing away, gagging.

When they were finished, Ryan dropped the towels in the bag. She laid one towel over the rat, lifted it into the bag, tied the bag shut and handed it to Clyde. She started to pick Joe up but,“Now that I’m bundled up like a mummy,” the tomcat mumbled, hardly able to speak, “take a look in that box.”

Carefully Ryan pulled the wrappings back, revealing a delicate saucer and cup. There was a whole set, each piece secured separately in bubble wrap and packed among Styrofoam crumbles. One cup was broken, where the rat had knocked it from the box. When she held a piece up, it was so thin that light shone through around the hand-painted decorations: acanthus leaves, flowers, and in the center a little fox laughing at her. She held several pieces for Joe to see.“It’s not china,” she said, “it’s porcelain, worth ever so much more.” Gently she turned over a saucer. “Worcester, 1770.” She studied the delicate tea set, then unholstered her phone and called Kate.

“Could you and Wilma come down, and bring a big, strong box, like a big cat food carton? Better drive down, this will be cumbersome to carry. We think Joe found the box from the stolen BMW.

“It contains old, delicate porcelain. I’d like to leave it packed, but put its box into the larger box. I think we’ll leave the torn wrappings, and the little white flecks of Styrofoam, for Max or Dallas to deal with. The box will be safe in the house until he picks it up.”

While they talked, Clyde had wrapped a towel around Joe’s head where he was bleeding through the gauze, had gotten the tomcat settled in the car. Ryan grabbed the bag with the rat in it, signaled Rock to get in the back. They took off for Dr. Firetti’s just as Kate and Wilma pulled up; Ryan held Joe close as she phoned ahead to the clinic.

Kneeling by the box, Kate looked at the broken cup, then unwrapped an equally delicate saucer with three hunting dogs spaced around the circle among the floral design. She unwrapped a cup, then another. She looked at each then secured it again in its bubble wrap. One cup showed a long-legged bird, maybe an egret. The next, a prancing horse. The third cup featured a cat. Kate drew her breath, her green eyes widening. The cat was a calico. A perfect image of Courtney, the exact same markings, three soft calico ovals saddling her back above a white belly. The white and calico patterns on her face were the same—as were the three dark bracelets around her right front leg. She held the cup for a long moment, wishing Dulcie were there to see—but maybe not so good for Courtney to see? How much self-glorification did the kitten need, to play on her ego?

Yet the delicate painting was there, as were the paintings and tapestries they had found in the library’s reference books and that Kit had already shown to Courtney. Kate rewrapped the frail cups and saucers, including the broken cup, and packed it all back in the ripped-open box—a handmade treasure nearly three hundred years old, and, apparently, the thieves hadn’t a clue.

The way Clyde was driving, it didn’t take long and they were pulling up before the two-cottage complex with its high glass dome. A tech met them, hurried them through the reception room past waiting clients into a large convalescent area where most patrons were not allowed.

Their entry brought two yowls from an open cage. The first yowl sounded suspiciously like“Pa …” but quickly turned into “Pa … meoowww.” No one noticed Striker’s slip in language but John Firetti. As the kittens dropped from their open cage, Striker landing deftly on three paws, John took Joe from Ryan and settled him on the examining table; Buffin and Striker leaped up wanting to be all over Joe until John pulled them away.

“Wait until I examine him,” he scolded. “This isn’t for kittens. Look how patient Rock is, lying in the corner. What’s gotten into this family? A torn paw. And now this,” he said, removing Joe’s bloody bandage, seeing the misery in Joe’s eyes—misery not only because he hurt, but for letting a stupid rat nearly do him in.

Ryan had given the bagged rat to the technician; the middle-aged blonde already had instructions to pack it on ice, call a courier, and get it to the county lab at once.

“Usually the lab doesn’t test a rat for rabies,” John said. “Rats don’t get rabies.” This made Joe, and Ryan and Clyde, go limp with relief. “They can get it,” John added, “but their bodies kill the virus almost at once. This rat would have had to be in a fight directly before Rock killed him.”

“I only saw the one rat,” Joe said, “and he was busy tearing up papers, looked like he’d been at it a long time, dragging them under a big car. Not another animal in sight.”

“Making a nest,” John said. “Likely inside the engine. Some driver will suffer for that. Bats and skunks are the real danger for rabies.” He looked seriously at Joe. “You and Rock have your shots regularly. But even so, you’ll have to be confined for two days, until the report comes back. If it’s negative, you’re free to go home.”

At the word“confinement,” Joe stiffened.

“State law,” John said.

Joe knew that. It wasn’t John Firetti’s fault. Even so, he was rigid with anger as the good doctor worked on his wounds. John gave him a mild shot for the pain, cleaned out the deep bites, and put in three stitches, smearing the area with something that stunk. Joe watched John swab out Rock’s mouth and examine it for wounds. He gave them both antibiotic shots. The needles stung, Joe could feel it as much for Rock as for himself. John gave them each a loving pat, and the ordeal was over—this part of the ordeal.

But now, the cages. He and Rock would be in cages. Joe couldn’t even touch his two kittens who crouched at the end of the table, he couldn’t properly greet them, couldn’t even lick their faces, and how fair was that? Now Joe and Rock were the jailbirds, and Buffin and Striker could go home.

John hugged both Joe and Rock before he shut them in their cages—but he spent more time holding the kittens. Looking sad, he picked up the phone and called Mary. “The kittens are going home.”

Almost at once they heard the cottage door slam. She must have run across the garden; she burst into the room still in her apron, her shoulder-length brown hair in a tangle. She took the two kittens from John, cuddling them in her arms.

“They’ve been sleeping with us every night,” she said. “The kittens and little Lolly. She didn’t do so well at home, they brought her back for a while. I didn’t tell them I thought Buffin was helping to heal her.” Mary glanced toward the cage the kittens had occupied; the tiny brown poodle lay there shivering, watching Buffin longingly.

“Pancreatitis,” Mary said. “We’re flushing her with more liquids and giving her all she will drink, and of course an IV. But Buffin has been the real wonder.

“We don’t know how he does it, he just lies close to her when she looks like she’s hurting, and almost at once she grows more comfortable. You can see it in her eyes, in the way she relaxes. At night, in bed with us, Buffin wakes us when she’s about to throw up so we can put a towel under her and then give her more liquids. But now,” Mary said, “look at her. She knows Buffin’s leaving.”

“Can’t I stay?” Buffin said, looking up at Ryan and Clyde. “Just a few days? She hurts so bad. I don’t know how, I just know I help her. I can feel the change in her.”

“Could the kittens both stay?” Ryan said. “We could quarantine Joe and Rock at home, keep them away from Snowball, that would be easy.”

John said,“Snowball is due for her yearly exam and boosters. You could bring her in. If only Joe and Rock are at home, can you keep them away from other people, keep them confined in the house? It’s such a slim chance that the test will be positive.” He gave Joe Grey a hard look. “Would you promise to stay inside, away from other animals, away from Dulcie and Courtney?”

“I promise,” Joe said hastily, but with mixed feelings. Shut in the house for two days, hardly knowing what was going on in the world around him? Well hell, what choice did he have? Better that than a kennel.

Striker was just as dismayed. He wanted to be home, he wanted to run free, he wanted to wrestle with Courtney and, big tomcat that he was, he missed his mama—but he guessed he’d miss Buffin more, leaving him alone with just little Lolly. And he knew he’d miss the Firettis.

“I’ll stay,” Striker said. And as Joe Grey and Rock left the clinic, Rock prancing beside Clyde like a thief released from jail, and Joe resting in Ryan’s arms, Striker settled down in the big cage beside his brother and Lolly. And, Striker thought, I can run in the Firettis’ house at night, Mary and John don’t care. I can climb the furniture, leap on the bed—if I’m careful of my paw.

Riding home in the Jaguar, Joe Grey, warm in Ryan’s arms, was unusually silent. She frowned down at him. “It’s only two days. If we leave you alone in the house, Joe, you will do as the doctor told you?” He looked up at her innocently. They were just approaching home when Clyde’s phone buzzed. He clicked on the speaker so Joe could hear.

Dallas said,“We got our car thieves, all but one. It was some dustup. Two of their men were shot, but none of ours. Those two are in the infirmary in Salinas, the others in county jail. We lost Lena Borden—you did see her leave there with the cars?”

“We all saw her,” Clyde said. “Dark clothes, dark cap, but definitely Lena. Driving her old white Ford.”

“The Ford was there in the wreckers’ lot,” Dallas said, “with the other cars. She either ran from the scene when we showed, or had someone pick her up. We’re keeping Egan here, on charges of break and enter and theft. We’ll interrogate Randall, see what we can get out of him, then send him on over to county.

“We drove and hauled the stolen cars back here,” Dallas said. “They’re in our lockup.” This was a fenced, securely roofed compound behind the station next to where the police cars parked. Its gate was kept locked and the area furnished with surveillance cameras.

“It’ll take a while,” the detective said, “to collect evidence from the vehicles, and for the insurance adjusters to look them over, before their owners claim them.”

Joe could tell Dallas wasn’t in a good mood. Maybe because Lena had evaded them. Maybe, Joe wondered, Lena was more involved than anyone thought. How could she have escaped among all those cops? Who had picked her up? Clyde didn’t have time to ask anything more before the phone went dead.

At home, Joe and Rock were shut in the house. Ryan put Snowball in her carrier, to go to Dr. Firetti. Giving Joe a stern look, she phoned her father to come and check on the animals while she dropped the little white cat at the clinic, so Clyde could go on to work and she could return to her crew. This enraged Joe, that she had to call her dad to babysit, that she didn’t trust him. But luck was with him. When she couldn’t get her dad, she tried Lindsey. “We’re in Bodega Bay,” Lindsey said. “We …”

“It’s all right,” Ryan said. “I’ll work it out.” They talked a moment and Ryan hung up, looking deep into Joe’s eyes, “Rock can get out into his yard and so can you. But you can get over the wall. He can’t. You can also get out through your tower. I love you, Joe, and usually I trust you—though there have been times. If I leave you in the house, will you promise to do as I say, as John Firetti says? It could save a lot of trouble later. Rabies is a scary thing to deal with.”

Joe gave her as innocent a look as he could muster. He didn’t point out that his tower and the roof itself were both integral parts of their house. He promised himself that he’d stay to the physical body of their residence, the structural entity. And didn’t that include the roof?

What he’d really like to do was slip into her truck, ride back to the Pamillon estate, and have another look at the contents of that box. Courtney’s picture on the porcelain cup had shaken him considerably, combined with the pictures like her in so many library books. Those ancient tapestries and paintings and porcelain relics did not sit well with Joe Grey.

22

Kate approached Voletta’s house feeling silly with her little plate of store-bought cookies. But manners were manners. Voletta was a Pamillon, who knew what the old woman had once been used to in the way of neighborly visits?

Though the kitchen and living room were around at the back, facing the big yard, Kate chose the more formal front door, which was seldom used. She had started across the wide porch when she paused.

It was late morning but the blinds in all three bedrooms were drawn tight. If Voletta had company, besides Lena, were they still asleep after a busy night? Who would have slept here but someone connected to the thefts? She shivered, hoping they were all in jail.

There were no cars in the front yard, Lena and Voletta parked in back. Turning, she headed around to the kitchen. Yes, the lights were on in those windows, and she could smell coffee. Of course the big yard was empty, only Voletta’s old truck—and a blue Ford hatchback parked close to the back door. She knocked, hoping the lame little gift of stale cookies would give her an excuse to be invited in, not just stand awkwardly in the door and be sent rudely away.

She waited, then knocked again. She wanted to know how long those men had been using Voletta’s barn to store their hoard, concealing the stolen cars and, when the cops eased off in their search, moving them out again, at night. And how long had Voletta’s niece been involved? Lena visited Voletta every few weeks but Kate couldn’t remember whether those times coincided with the MolenaPoint car thefts. She hadn’t been staying up here at night, then, not until the shelter was finished and she moved the cats in. No one but Voletta had been here at night to know what went on. Even the feral cats, in the small hours, would have been up the hills hunting.

As Kate rounded the house she didn’t see Dulcie and Pan and Kit slip along behind her through the tall grass, didn’t see them pad silently up to the front porch. Kate was already at the back of the house when tortoiseshell Kit swung hopefully on the front latch, was thrilled to find the door unlocked and, kicking softly, swung it open. The three cats disappeared inside, pushing it not quite closed behind them. Already Dulcie missed Joe, off at home, in quarantine. She’d had the whole story from Kate.

The cats crouched in a small entry beneath a narrow table against one wall. A hall led left and right to the bedrooms and bath. All three bedroom doors were cracked open, the doors of the two end rooms at right angles to the hall. Kit and Pan watched Dulcie slip ahead into the living room and behind the couch where she could see into the kitchen.

At the back of the house Kate had to knock a third time before she heard footsteps. When Voletta opened the door Kate tried, awkwardly, to hand her the cookies.“I came to see how you’re feeling, after your trip to the hospital. To see if there’s anything I can do, any errands?”

“Lena’s here now,” Voletta said sourly, blocking the slightly open door. “We don’t eat cookies.” Kate could smell cinnamon rolls as well as coffee, could see three cups on the kitchen table. “Whatever you want,” Voletta said, “I’m busy.”

Kate slipped her foot against the door.“I thought maybe Ryan’s carpenters might help with the broken window, or anything else that was damaged. That was a terrible storm.”

“Ryan. That’s that woman carpenter?”

Kate nodded.

“Pretty nice truck she drives. Must be full of all kinds of tools, those locked cabinets along the sides, that locked lid on the truck bed. Well, a carpenter makes good money. We’ll do the repairs ourselves.” She yawned, and pushed the door forward in Kate’s face.

Kate shoved the door in gently with her foot as she faked a matching yawn.“You didn’t get much sleep, either?” she said, smiling kindly. “With all those lights down in the yard?”

“What lights?”

“I don’t know,” Kate said. “I woke around three, I saw lights reflected from down here. I thought your porch lights were on, but they seemed very bright. I thought about getting up to look but I guess I fell back asleep.”

“Lena turned the lights on when she got home. Their car was acting up, they were trying to fix it. Her son’s car, he’s visiting.” Voletta looked at her for a long moment, kicked Kate’s foot out of the way, and slammed the door.

Her son? Kate turned away and headed home with her plate of cookies. She didn’t know Lena had a son.

Dulcie, behind the couch, crept to the end where she could see better into the kitchen, could see the old woman more clearly. She, too, was surprised to hear of a son. She retreated a few steps when she heard voices from the living room, Lena’s voice, and a man. They moved to the kitchen, sat down at the table, Lena reaching for the coffeepot, filling their half-empty cups. But when the man appeared, a chill gripped Dulcie.

Egan! Egan Borden!… Egan Alderson, he’d said.

But Egan was arrested late last night. He should be in jail, not here in Voletta’s kitchen. Why had Max Harper let him go? Or had he broken out?

He was freshly shaved, his blond hair slicked back, and had changed clothes, a cream shirt and tan chinos. Watching him, she had to willfully stop her tail from lashing. Why had Harper released him?

Lena had driven off with those men last night, but when the rest were rounded up, she had disappeared. Had Egan somehow talked his way out of jail and raced north, to pick her up?

Or, Dulcie thought, startled, could this be Rick Alderson? In and out of prison, evading police inquiries, and now suddenly appearing out of nowhere? Oh, but that isn’t possible.

Last night Dulcie had had plenty of time to study Egan. No other man could look so exactly like him. Long, slim face, long thin nose, blond hair. Egan’s square shoulders thrust forward on his thin frame. Of course this was Egan but why was he out of jail? She wished Joe were there. Sometimes Joe Grey, fierce and predatory, was keener in what he observed than she was. Is this Rick Alderson, out of prison in Texas and secretly making his way here? But how can that be? Egan said Calvin Alderson was his father. The police think his mother is dead—but Voletta said this man, Egan, was Lena’s son.

Behind Dulcie, Kit and Pan had tunneled along under the couch to crowd against her peering into the kitchen. Lena and Egan sat guzzling coffee while Voletta laid bacon on a grill, broke eggs into a bowl. The two cats were as shocked as Dulcie, they had all seen Egan locked in a squad car, handcuffs, leg irons, the works, along with his stepfather—Randall mad as a stuck pig.

Now, before the bacon began to cook, Egan rose to open a loaf of bread. As he passed close to the living room they got a good scent of him. They looked at each other, ears back, tails twitching. This man wasn’t Egan, he didn’t smell like Egan though he looked more like him than a twin. Soon they crept away to the far end of the couch where they could talk softly.

“This,” Kit whispered so faintly they could hardly hear her, “this has to be Rick Alderson. He was waiting for Lena last night and gave her a ride away from the cops? And Egan is still in jail? Rick’s been here, been part of the gang all along? And what do we do now?”

Pan’s yellow eyes glowed. “What would Joe Grey do?”

Kit and Dulcie looked at him.

The red tom smiled.“Joe would go straight for the connection, for why those two look alike. Calvin Alderson had only one son when he was sent to prison, and the cops think he’d killed the wife as well as her lover.”

Pan turned away; Kit followed him up the hall to prowl the bedrooms. This man had to have some identification, maybe a billfold left on the dresser. Dulcie returned to watching the thieves.

In the corner bedroom Pan made a flehmen face; the clothes tossed about stunk of Randall Borden and Lena.

The middle room smelled of the young man they were sure was Rick Alderson. The room was painted tan, furnished with twin beds, old mahogany headboards, and a dresser that might have been there fifty years. And, again, decorated with strewn-about clothes, jeans, shirts, shorts, and smelly socks. When they heard a cell phone ring from the kitchen, heard Rick answer then chair legs scrape and his footsteps coming, they slipped under the bed.

Rick sat down on the bed, his cell phone to his ear.“Okay, I’m alone.” He listened, then, “What the hell, Randall!” Silence, then, “They’ll be after you like fleas on a dog. Where are you?” The cats could hear only one side of the conversation until he said, “We’re breaking up, my battery’s about dead, I’ll call you back on the house phone.”

Rising, he listened to the voices from the kitchen then sat down again, dialing the phone on the nightstand. When his back was to them, Kit and Pan slipped out of the room and past the bathroom into the farthest bedroom. This was Voletta’s room, her scent, the austere furnishings old and dark but the room neat and tidy, only a pink robe lying across a chair. Leaping to the nightstand, Kit slipped the phone’s headpiece off, lowered it silently to the tabletop. They crowded side by side, listening.

“… walked right out of that small-town jail,” Randall was saying, a smile in his gruff voice. “I told you my stomach hurt. I made it seem worse, like maybe appendicitis. That shook up the rookie on guard, he came right on in, the dummy. I knocked him out, took his keys and gun, locked him in and beat it out of there, out the back gate to the street. Tourists everywhere, I just fell in among them—they hadn’t made me change clothes because I was headed for county jail as soon as they interrogated me. They’d took my belt, though. And my phone and billfold.”

“Where are you calling from?”

“Woman working in her yard, back among some cottages. She left the front door unlocked. Don’t worry, I can see her from the window, she didn’t hear the phone ring, I put a pillow over it. I saw her husband leave, there’s not another sound in the house.”

“Oh hell, Randall. Get out of there.”

“Can you come get me?”

“Where? You can’t stay there.”

“It’ll take me a while through these fenced backyards—they’re bound to have patrols out. I can hide safe in that …” Footsteps were coming, Lena’s steps. Quickly they slipped the phone back on its cradle and dove under Voletta’s bed. At the other end of the hall, Rick was saying, “Hell, you can’t go there. That’s the first …” A pause, then, “That’s a damned stupid idea. But all right—though it could put us in a hell of a mess.”

He listened again, then,“I said, all right. Now get the hell out of that house before someone comes in.”

Above the cats, Lena was searching the drawers of Voletta’s nightstand. She rummaged until she found a bottle of pills, maybe Voletta’s pain medication. Turning to the mirror, she fussed with her hair, using Voletta’s brush before she returned to the kitchen.

In the other room, Rick had apparently hung up the phone. When the cats could hear him changing clothes, Kit beat it to the living room, leaving Pan slipping down the hall and under the hall table to watch him. Was Egan still in jail, had Randall just left him there?

Kit, crowded under the couch against Dulcie, wondered if, the next time someone cleaned house—and it could sure use it—they would puzzle over cat hairs mixed with the dust bunnies.

Rick came into the kitchen jangling his keys, Lena following him.“Going to pick up Randall.”

“Pick him up?” Voletta said. “He’s out of jail? How come they let him out?”

“He broke out,” Rick said, laughing. “Knocked out the guard. He left Egan locked up.”

Rick laid his keys on the table, picked up his cup to swallow down the last sip of coffee. Fast as a viper Lena grabbed the keys.“I’m going with you.” She spun around, headed for the bedroom, perhaps for her purse.

He snatched at her, hit her a glancing blow.“You’re staying here.” She hit him, pulled away, and raced to their corner bedroom.

In the hall, Pan crept out from beneath the table far enough to see her pull on a leather jacket and open the dresser drawer. She found a clean handkerchief, used it to lift out a revolver. She used a corner of the cloth to open the cylinder and check the load then wrapped the gun and slipped it in her jacket pocket. She fished through a lower drawer beneath silk undergarments, dropped some small item in her left pocket, stuffed her cell phone in on top. She raced for the kitchen, flung out the door leaving it open behind her, jumped in the car just as Rick put it in gear. Voletta watched them, not interfering, sour and expressionless.

When Lena ran for the kitchen, passing the couch a few feet from Dulcie’s and Kit’s noses, Dulcie lay quietly watching her. She didn’t want to follow and get tangled in this, she’d had enough of being trapped in cars. But Kit and Pan, their heads filled with Rick’s phone conversation, sped for the front door they’d left cracked open, leaped up the vine beside the porch, were across the roof to the back just as Lena raced out. All the car windows were open against the warm morning. Kit crouched to leap through behind Rick’s head into the backseat. There in the shadows they’d never be noticed, they could find where Randall was hiding, they could find a phone and call in, they could—

Sharp teeth in the nape of her neck jerked her away from the roof’s edge, Pan’s growl low and angry. Shouldering her down, he pressed her so firmly to the shingles that she couldn’t move, even when he let go his bite.

“What were you thinking?” he growled. “There’ve been enough wild car rides. What did you mean to do? You have no idea where they’re going.”

“I … but I …” She scowled at him, her yellow eyes blazing—and she exploded out of his grip, attacking him, biting him; they were into an angry scuffle, snarling and kicking. Kit had never dreamed they’d fight like this, she loved Pan. But now, raking him with her hind paws, she broke away and headed again for the edge of the roof—just as the blue Ford took off speeding across the big yard and onto the narrow road.

They were gone.

Neither Kit nor Pan knew where, they had no idea where the killer would be hiding.

Rick drove, scowling.“Your aunt—could she guess where we’re headed? Sure as hell she’ll call the cops.”

“Why would she call the cops? She’s as guilty as we are. And how could she guess? She didn’t hear anything, you never said where he is.”

“She calls the cops, it’ll be the last thing she does.”

She stared at him.“Don’t be such an ass. You’re in a vicious mood.”

He looked at her with surprise.“What the hell’s with you?”

“Tired, Rick. You’re getting as mean and rude as your father was—or as mean as Randall. Why did I marry someone so like Cal Alderson? I’m tired of Randall’s sarcasm. I’m tired of his cheap womanizing, of his coming home with another woman’s stink on him. I’m tired of him making me apart of this heist business. I’m tired of having to get up in the middle of the night and drive hot cars all over hell, my belly twisting for fear the cops will tail us. Tell the truth, I’m tired of Randall! I told him it was better to move the cars one at a time, not head out of there with a whole line of cars lit up like some damned parade. Now look at the mess he’s in—that we’re all in.”

“I think the cops were tipped,” Rick said. “Someone ratted on us.” He gave her a look cold as ice.

She said nothing.

“You tip the cops, Ma?”

“No, I didn’t tip the cops. Go to hell.” Then, smiling, “But I thought about it.”

“Maybe it was your aunt. After I came out from Texas and joined up with Randall … Well, hell, she never did like me. And why does she think Egan hung the moon, for crissake?”

Lena was silent, sudden tears running down. Her brown hair was mussed, her face pale but blotched with red. She felt carefully in her purse for a tissue but didn’t find one.

“As mad as you are at Randall,” Rick said, “I’m surprised you didn’t try to call the law.”

“How could I have? You wouldn’t wait for me, you didn’t say where he was. And Voletta wouldn’t, even if she knew where he’s going.”

But there was someone to call the law. As the blue Ford headed for the village, Kit and Pan streaked up to the ruins where Ryan’s truck was parked. Digging out the old cell phone that Ryan kept there—the phone with no GPS and no ID—they called the department. They had no destination, but they had the car’s description and part of the license number.

23

Joe’s quarantine grew boring pretty fast, he felt like a parolee under home confinement. It was a wonder he didn’t have an electronic leg bracelet to keep track of where he was, to make sure he didn’t stray. As for Rock, even with Joe for company he never liked being left for long without humans. Now, with his little white cat gone too, his little napping buddy, he was miserable and brooding, morosely pacing the house. If Joe started up to his tower, Rock would bark up a storm. The tomcat, dropping down again to the bedroom, pounced on Rock and teased him until at last the big dog gave chase: they ran up and down stairs, leaped over chairs, played tag until both were panting and the living room furnishings and rug were awry. Only then, when Joe had worn Rock out, when the silver dog climbed into Joe’s chair for a nap, did Joe Grey head for his rooftop aerie.

Clyde had agreed that the tower was part of the house, so was also quarantine territory. He wouldn’t agree to the roof itself, but Joe reasoned that of course roof and house were all one structure. Padding on through his tower into the sunshine that warmed the shingles, he stretched and yawned. He rolled on his back, he snoozed for a few moments in the sun; but then he sat up, and considered.

No one had ever said exactly where the roof ended. With the line of roofs on their block all so close, and joined by tree branches reaching across lacing them together, no one had ever drawn a line to show where that vast, shingled territory ceased to be a single entity. If one could move so easily from one patch of shingles to the next over heavy, tangled branches, then in sensible feline logic the roof ended at the next cross street.

Off he trotted, filled with his virtuous decision that he was still in the quarantine area. At the side street where the roofs ended he crouched, looking down. Of course he would go no farther.

Two blocks away stood Barbara Conley’s house, yellow crime tape still surrounding the property. He was watching it idly when he saw, in the high attic window, a shadow move, a figure looking out.

There was no police car parked nearby, no car in front or in the drive—and no one should be there but the cops, the house was off-limits. Curious, he abandoned all thoughts of his quarantine in favor of expediency. Whatever was going on was more important than the unlikely danger that he’d bite someone and give them rabies.

Crossing the streets on overhanging branches, soon he crouched in the rain gutter just across the street from Barbara’s house. Directly below, only scattered cars were parked, though usually the curb was bumper to bumper. A blue Ford cruised slowly by, heading west toward the seashore, the driver slowing to gawk at the crime tape. The driver … Joe came to full attention.

Egan Borden. Long thin face, pale blond hair, a thrust of his broad slanted shoulders against the side window—but Egan was in jail. Joe had seen him shackled and shoved into a squad car. The man drove on to the next intersection, made a U-turn, came back and parked just below Joe, headed in the direction of the freeway. Now Joe could see his passenger, a thin middle-aged woman with medium-length brown hair. Lena? He had seen her around Voletta Nestor’s place when he rode up to the ruins with Ryan; he had heard Ryan describe her, not flatteringly. Their voices were sharp with argument. Straining to hear, he almost lost his footing, almost fell off the gutter.

Backing away, forgetting about quarantine promises, he slipped down a stone pine that grew against the end of the house. There he crouched in the bushes beside the car not three feet from Lena’s open window. When Egan started to get out, she reached a hand to stop him.

“Stay here, Rick. For once, will you do it my way!”

Rick? This was Rick Alderson? The executed guy’s kid who might be in jail or might not, who might have warrants out for him or might not? Rearing up to get a better look, still Joe couldn’t see much of him. Where had he come from? What was he doing in Molena Point? And who the hell was Egan?

“I told him I’d park around the corner,” Rick said. “He can see out the side window. What do you mean to do?”

“Just stay in the car and watch for Randall, we don’t know if he’s even here yet. How dumb can he get, breaking out of jail? What a stupid place to hide, right under the cops’ noses. Stay here and watch for street patrol. I’ll see if he’s in there.”

“When he sees the car, he’ll come out. What’s taking him so long? If someone sees you go in there, if you blow his cover, he’ll be mad as hell.”

“I told you, the way Randall’s treated me, I don’t give a damn. I don’t feel the same about him anymore, I hate his guts. It’s you who wanted to rescue him.”

“He’s my father—my stepfather! He didn’t always treat you this way. And he always treated me decent. Why were you so hot to come along, when you hate him?”

She leaned over, looked through the windshield at the upper story of the frame house, up at the attic window high in the peak. Did she see the faint movement there, a disappearing shadow beyond the dirty glass? She had her hand on the door handle.

“How you going to get in? If he has the key from under the back porch …”

“I have the front-door key—I think that’s what this is. Randall took it off his key ring, the morning after the murder. Took it off and hid it. What else could it be but Barbara Conley’s key? He wanted to get rid of it before the cops found it on him.”

“What else do you have in your purse? Is that Randall’s gun, wrapped in that handkerchief?”

“You’re a nosy bastard. Yes, it’s Randall’s gun. I know enough about you, Rick, that the cops don’t know, you’d better mind your own business.”

He raised his hand to slap her; he seemed to have no more love for his mother than she for him, had no compunction against hitting her. But then, what kind of mother was she? She had run off and left him there that night, a seven-year-old kid in the midst of a grisly murder. She had run away and never tried to help him.

Lena got out, slid the wrapped gun into her right pocket. The tomcat followed her among the tree shadows as she headed across the street. She stepped up on the narrow porch, tried the key, and unlocked the door. She stood in the open door listening, looking around the living room. In that instant Joe Grey was behind her and inside, slipping beyond a wicker chest. The house had that empty, musty, unoccupied smell.

“Randall?” she whispered softly and moved on in, leaving the door on the latch. Again, a louder whisper. “Randall?”

No answer.

She began to prowl the rooms, her footsteps echoing faintly, her hand in her pocket on the gun. Joe could see into the kitchen, and into the hall where there would be bedrooms. If she found Randall, what did she mean to do? Hadn’t they come to rescue him, to get him away from the cops? Then why the gun? Would she shoot a cop, would she put herself in that jeopardy to save a husband she’d grown to hate?

Having covered all the rooms, she opened the door of the hall closet. There wasn’t much there, a few coats thrown to the floor. She knelt, examined the floor, brushed at something that looked like dirt or sawdust, then looked up.

A string hung from the ceiling, with a metal washer knotted at the end. She used both hands to pull open the trapdoor, its mechanism lowering a folding wooden ladder.

“Randall?”

A moan echoed from the hollow attic. Quickly she climbed—as Joe Grey slipped into the closet behind the pile of coats.

“Randall? Come on, the car’s waiting.”

A long silence, then another moan. Joe heard her move across the attic, imagined her ducking under its beams. He could see enough of its low ceiling to wonder how much head room Randall had, up there. When he heard another groan, Joe abandoned common sense, scrambled up the ladder and crouched among the shadows. The long dim space was lighted only by a tiny window at each end.

Randall lay on the dusty wooden floor, his knees pulled up, his arms wrapped around himself, his face, even in shadow, pale and twisted. It was strange to see the heavy, muscled man huddled on the floor, helpless. Lena knelt beside him, her expression unreadable.“What is it? What’s wrong? Were you shot?” She leaned down, looking for blood, her expression half of concern and half of cold satisfaction.

“Not shot,” he mumbled. “The pain … Can you get me down the steps? Something’s bad wrong. I think I need a doctor … someone that won’t call the cops.”

She reached in the pocket where she’d had the key. Joe saw her phone light up, saw her press a single button. When Randall realized she was calling 911 he tried to get up, tried to grab the phone. “I said a doctor, not the cops!” He fell back clutching his belly, letting out an animal-like cry. She stood looking down at him, dropped the phone in her pocket, and removed the wrapped revolver. Cradling it, she looked steadily at Randall, her expression ice-cold.

“Where’s the book, Randall?”

“Cops have it,” he groaned.

“Well, that was smart. That’s a one-of-a-kind edition. When a collector sees what’s in it, it’s worth more than a few hundred thousand. That information, if it’s true …”

From a few blocks away, a medics’ siren screamed—and from the street below they heard a car take off, moving fast. Lena, ducking under the rafters, raced to the little window to peer out.

“Gone! The damned bastard took off on me!” Spinning around she paused again over Randall, the revolver pointed directly at him. “You sure the cops have the book?”

“They have the whole damn car. Book was … right there in the back.” Again a groan, and he pulled up his legs to ease his belly. Outside, the sirens screamed to a halt. Joe watched Lena unwrap the revolver not touching the metal, keeping only the grip wrapped. She stood a moment, the gun pointed at him, a hungry look on her face.

At last she knelt, moved his hands from his belly, rolled him on his side making him cry out with pain, and slipped the gun in his pocket. She eased the handkerchief out and stuffed it in her own pocket, and she fled down the ladder into the shadowed closet. Left the ladder down for the cops to see, and ran out the back door. Joe could hear her outside crashing through the bushes. Would she vanish, to lose herself in the village? Or did she think Rick would wait for her, farther up the block? Fat chance, the tomcat thought.

But he was wrong. As the cop cars and medics pulled in, Joe was out the back door behind Lena, chasing her through the neighbors’ yards to the next street where he heard a horn toot softly.

There stood the blue Ford, its passenger door open. Lena swung in, they took off fast onto a narrow side street to disappear among the crowded cottages. She hadn’t, in her rage, shot Randall as Joe had guessed she would. Maybe she thought, whatever his pain was, it would do him in. And if he didn’t die, she had left the gun to entrap him, certain proof he’d shot Barbara and Langston.

Was part of her hatred, her disgust for Randall, a mirror reflection of twenty years gone, when her first husband shot her own lover? Frowning over her mixed signals of hatred and maybe regret, Joe sped up a pine to the roofs trying to see which way they were headed, but they were already long gone. Spinning around he raced for home, for a phone, to get the cops on the Ford’s tail. Both passengers were wanted: Lena for helping highjack cars, Rick with at least one warrant out on him, and both of them for helping a killer escape. Fleeing across to his own line of roofs, Joe looked back once to see Max Harper and Detective Garza arrive in a squad car, parking beside the medical van. He didn’t wait to see the medics ease Randall down the attic steps on a stretcher, to see Dallas, wearing gloves, frisk Randall, bag the revolver and hand it to Max—but he could imagine the scene. Racing across the roofs for home, Joe didn’t see Clyde’s truck coming down thestreet behind him.

24

Clyde, heading home to check on the quarantined animals—not that they would get into trouble, he thought wryly—found patrol cars and the medics’ van blocking the street at Barbara Conley’s corner house. Turning, he went around the block and swung onto his own street again—as a flash of movement across the roofs made him slow, a streak of grayracing for home, white paws flashing, and a hot anger struck Clyde. This was Joe’s idea of quarantine? Not only his tower but a whole block of rooftops and how much farther? What happened to the tomcat’s solemn promise? Whatever was going on at Barbara’s house, that’s where he’d been. Damn cat heard a siren, he took off across the village like a fire horse to a three-alarm blaze. Had he been inside that house, as well, watching, hiding from the cops? What was going on?

Joe had never before broken a promise, that Clyde knew of. He wanted to honk the horn and shout at the racing little liar. Instead, as Joe swerved into his tower, Clyde pulled quietly into the drive. Getting out, he didn’t click the car door shut, he made no sound. Quick and silent, he unlocked the front door, slipped in, pulled off his shoes, and in stocking feet, headed for the stairs. He paused at the bottom, listening. There was silence for a moment, then—who was he talking to? Had he dialed the dispatcher? But why? The cops were already there.

“… Yes,” Joe was saying, “in the attic with him. She called you from there, then she ran out the back.” … Silence, then, “Blue Ford hatchback, Rick Alderson driving. Yes, Rick Alderson. Don’t you have Egan in the lockup? You do have a warrant for Rick?” Another silence, Joe gave the license number, then he must have hung up, Clyde heard him drop to the floor.

By the time Clyde reached the top of the stairs the gray tomcat was curled up on the love seat with Rock, lying against Rock’s chest appearing to be sound asleep, the gray dog’s paws wrapped around him. Clyde stood looking down at them. Rock was asleep, snoring slightly, maybe worn out with playing, because the living room was a shambles. The Weimaraner probably hadn’t stirred when Joe Grey slipped in between his big paws.

Clyde pulled the desk chair around, sat down facing the two animals, fixing his gaze on Joe, staring at him intently.

Joe, feigning sleep, could feel Clyde’s gaze sharp as a laser beam. He daren’t even slit an eye open; the minute he stirred a whisker he’d get a dressing-down that would be the grandfather of all lectures.

But what had he done wrong? His promise was that he’d stay in the house, not go through Rock’s door in the patio; they’d agreed that he could go into his tower. So he had pushed a little in his own mind, for purposes of clarification, reasoning that the roof was part of the house. So what was the big deal? And, where had Clyde seen him? Not racing across the neighbors’ roofs, he hoped. Or worse, coming out of Barbara’s house.

Could he help it if, when one thing led to another, he found himself past his own block and into the extended crime scene? Joe ignored the word“deception.” This was simply good detecting.

When Clyde, admiring the faking ability of the gray tomcat, could stand it no longer he picked Joe up from Rock’s protecting forearms and held him dangling, scowling angrily into Joe’s startled yellow eyes.

“What happened to the quarantine promise?”

“We agreed that the tower was part of our house, so I figured the roof was, too. I said I’d keep away from other cats.”

“How did our roof, Joe, turn into three full blocks of rooftops? You want to explain how that could happen?”

“You are so picky. They’re all laced together with tree branches. Where do you draw the line? And that rat … You know there’s little chance that rat had rabies. A rabid rat would have been nervous and probably would have attacked us all, it wouldn’t have been busy tearing up boxes. It wasonly a female rat making a nest.”

He looked intently at Clyde.“This was urgent. This was … if I hadn’t called the department they wouldn’t know what kind of car they were driving. Those two are wanted … Rick Alderson for grand theft auto, and Lena … I don’t know what that charge will be.”

Clyde was silent a long moment.“Rick Alderson?”

“Would you mind not dangling me?”

Clyde, despite his anger, gathered Joe over his shoulder, cradling him in a more comfortable position.“So you sneaked into the crime scene. But where did Rick come from? And who called the medics? Who was hurt? What happened in there?”

“Randall Borden. He was in the attic. He apparently escaped from jail. He’s sick, I don’t know what’s wrong. Lena found him, called the meds then she got the hell out. Rick was waiting, in a blue Ford. Bear in mind, Clyde, the police have warrants for both Rick and Lena.”

“You said that. But where did Rick come from?”

“I haven’t a clue. He was just there. Lena called him Rick. When I looked closely I could see a little difference between him and Egan, a tiny difference to the shape of their noses and ears. I think they’re headed for Voletta’s place. We need to get Courtney and Dulcie, and Kit and Pan away from there. At least the boys are safe with the Firettis. We need to get Wilma and Kate out, I don’t feel good about this. Those people are … I thought Lena was going to shoot Randall, going to shoot her own husband.”

The tomcat scratched his ear.“I don’t know why they’d bother the cats, but … their interest in the Bewick book with pages about speaking cats … and Voletta’s interest in the feral cats … I want my family away from there. I want them home, and Kit and Pan, too.”

Clyde picked up the phone and called Ryan. Briefly he gave her the picture.“You have time to bring the cats down, or shall I come up?”

“I’ll bring them now—as soon as we round them up, as soon as we find Courtney.” Joe imagined Ryan on the jobsite, pulling off her cap from her dark, mussed hair, hastily putting her tools away. How long would it take to round up the cats? They’d all come to her … all but Courtney, who, at times, had surprisingly selective hearing.

But the cats were all together, crouched on a bed of boulders high above the ruins. Courtney sat straight and wide-eyed among the circle of ferals, joined by Dulcie and Kit and Pan. A little breeze stirred their whiskers and stirred the tall grass. They sat fascinated as the ferals took turns telling tales. The ancient Celtic and Irish and Scottish myths, the Welsh legends. Kit had told Courtney a few of these but they both liked hearing them again, they liked best the way pale-calico Willow told them. Nine ferals were there, some of them having returned only recently from the underearth lands of the Netherworld.

It was the tales of the Netherworld that Dulcie really didn’t want Courtney to hear just yet, but that was hard to prevent. Already Kit had told the kitten enough about that land where Kit and Pan had ventured, that realm of mythical beasts, and of powers that had destroyed many parts of its kingdoms. One could hardly stop Kit from telling the stories around the fire at Kit’s own house, or at Wilma’s house, with Courtney ever demanding to hear more. (Striker and Buffin preferred sagas of the Irish wars.) Dulcie didn’t want Courtney’s head filled, yet, with the Netherworld, to which the strong-minded calico might decide to slip away alone and wander down into its deep tunnels, to see its marvels for herself.

But before the tales began, Dulcie had asked Willow about the lights at Voletta’s and the gathered cars.

“It’s the first time we’ve seen them,” Willow said, “we watched them pull out, but we didn’t see them come in. That must have been the night of the terrible wind, we were deep in a cellar, out of the blow, sleeping warm and cozy. We couldn’t have seen the cars drive in, and in that storm we couldn’t have heard them.”

“But had you seen them before?” Dulcie said. “Maybe weeks ago?”

“No. We’d see a car or two pull into the woods behind the barn, but never a whole fleet of them. Not going into the barn or coming out. Those few we saw parked back in the woods were lovers, the way young people do.”

“They could have put a lot of cars back in the trees,” Sage said. “That night maybe they put them in the barn to keep them from being dented and scratched with falling branches, there were trees down all over.”

Kate found them there, the cats so immersed in the stories they had ignored her searching calls, ignored Ryan’s calls farther up the hills. They were gathered among the boulders, and for a few moments she crouched nearby, enjoying the stories, too. But there was another event tangled in that moment, a glimpse that shocked and thrilled Kate. Watching Courtney, Kate started suddenly when she saw movement in the deep shadows of a crumbled doorway, a tall shape that disappeared at once beyond the door’s darkness, a tall figure, as she had seen that night standing at the office window looking out.

Had Scotty been standing there listening to the cats’ stories? Listening to them speak, and had slipped away when she saw him? A thrill of amazement filled Kate, a joy that brought tears—or had she not seen him at all, was it only the breeze stirring the vines that grew up the side of the house?

If Scotty knew about the cats, why hadn’t he told her? She almost ran to find him. But no, it couldn’t have been Scotty. Why would he not tell her? Shivering, she remained crouched in the grass not looking in that direction, pretending to have seen nothing.

It was here that Ryan found Kate and the cats. She waited for a tale to end, then told the Molena Point cats that Clyde wanted them at home, that he felt Rick Alderson might be a danger to them—and that the ferals should stay away from him, too. She bundled up Kit and Pan, Pan shining golden against her dark hair. Kate settled Dulcie and Courtney on her shoulders, and they returned to the shelter to find Wilma.

When Wilma and the four cats had headed home in Ryan’s king cab, Kate turned back to the rocky meadow. She approached the back of the mansion where she thought Scotty had stood.

She paused and stepped back.

Scotty sat on a boulder, his back to her but in plain sight, talking with Willow, the faded calico comfortable on the smooth rock next to him, one paw on Scotty’s knee. Willow was saying, “Kate has known for ever so long, for many years. But how could she agree to marry you, when she thought you didn’t know? When she would, for all your lives, have to keep the secret?”

“But—” Scotty began.

“But what?” said Willow. “You only found out by accident, when you were moving those boards. When we weren’t careful, and you heard us talking.” The matronly cat looked hard at him. She had the look of the leader she was, queen of the feral band, a cat who had reprimanded and coddled generations of kittens and perhaps a human or two. “I think,” Willow said, “it’s time you two had a talk.” She patted Scotty’s knee with a soft paw, sprang from the boulder lithe and quick, and bounded away, losing herself among the walls of the old house, leaving Scotty and Kate alone.

Scotty looked at her, and took her hand, and for some time, neither spoke. A little breeze blew the tall, wild grass against the rocks. Scotty took her in his arms. If a feral cat or two watched from among the fallen walls, neither Kate nor Scotty minded.

“So now,” Scotty said, “so now that you know my secret—was this your secret, all along?”

“It was,” she said shakily.

“And now,” he said, “now that all is clear between us, will you marry me?”

She couldn’t answer, she could only nod against him, and try to wipe away her tears.

25

The four cats rode crowded on Wilma’s lap, spilling across the front seat as Ryan’s king cab headed for the highway. Dulcie and Kit dreaming of the old tales, Courtney with lingering visions of the Netherworld. Pan stretched out between the girl cats and Ryan, and who knew what he was dreaming?

“You can take us to my house,” Wilma said. “Egan’s in jail, and Randall’s in the hospital, there’s no one to bother us.” She smiled. “No reason to toss my place again, anyway. They got the book, or think they did. They know the police have it.”

“Rick and Lena aren’t in jail,” Ryan said.

Wilma was silent.

“Lena isn’t stable,” Ryan said, “but she’s clever. She might guess there was another volume, might wonder if that one was a substitute, if you still have the valuable copy. Who knows, at auction, what the original would have been worth? And if she knows the whole story, she might come after …” She glanced down at the tangle of cats. Dulcie and Kit stared up at her, wary and silent.

“No one knows if she’ll break in,” Ryan said “no one knows what she’ll do—she knows she could never catch the feral cats. And Rick, he has a long, ugly record—while they’re both still free, you’re coming home with us.”

“But what about your quarantine?” Kit said.

“Joe and Rock can stay in my studio, it’s nice and light and there’s a soft couch to share. The isolation will be over by tomorrow night, the two of them will be free. Striker and Buffin can come home, Joe and Dulcie can cuddle their kittens. Maybe, by that time, Lena and Rick will be locked up, instead of our poor animals.”

With Wilma and the cats settled in, Ryan didn’t go back up the hills to work. She thawed a pot of bean soup for dinner and made corn bread—while the four cats galloped upstairs to rub against the glass door of her study. And Joe Grey, inside, did the same, his nose and whiskers pressed against the cold door, as close as he could get to Dulcie and Courtney, to his calico child and his lady. Rock paced the length of the studio restlessly, more interested in getting out than in the cats’ familial concerns. When Clyde got home Rock barked up a storm until Clyde put a leash and muzzle on the Weimaraner and took him for a long run.

When Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw came down to get Kit and Pan, of course they stayed for supper, for Ryan’s good comfort food and to catch up on the tangle of events. They were sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea as Clyde and Rock came storming in the back gate to the patio. Clyde brushed sand from the silver dog and wiped the sand from his feet. He fed Rock in the patio then took him upstairs to his prison. He sent the four cats down to the kitchen, knowing very well the two inmates didn’t have rabies, but obedient to John’s instructions. Pan, leaping to the table with the lady cats, had started to tell about Kate’s visit to Voletta when Kit jumped in with her usual monologue. “… and that wasn’t Egan, it was Rick Alderson with the long record and Voletta pretended she never heard them moving all those cars that night and didn’t see lights but how could she not, she’s a mean woman, I don’t like her even if she was hurt when the window broke, I don’t even like the way she smells and—”

“Slow down!” Dulcie and Pan hissed.

“And then Lena’s husband Randall called Rick and said he broke out of jail and we couldn’t hear all the conversation because Lena came in and we had to hang up the phone and hide and when they drove off to get him I wanted to jump in the car but they were too fast and Pan grabbed me and bit me hard and they were gone before I could leap off the roof and then we couldn’t call the cops because we didn’t know where they were going and …”

“Kit …” Ryan said, scooping up the tortoiseshell, snuggling Kit against her. Kit looked up at Ryan innocently, yellow eyes wide.

“They’re gone now,” Ryan said, holding Kit tight. “Long gone. Joe found them and he did call 911. Maybe the cops have them by now. Oh, Kit, do settle down.”

Clyde was silent, taking it all in, putting the pieces together from Joe’s story and Kit’s. Only when Ryan put supper on the table, steaming bowls of bean soup, cooler bowls for the cats, big slices of corn bread all around, was Kit wordless, settling greedily in to her feast.

It was after supper, when they’d gathered around a warm fire, that Ryan thought again about Kate and Scotty up at the mansion—about Scotty standing in the shadows listening to the cats’ ancient tales. She wondered what had happened after she left. Surely all the cats had seen him, but no one said a word, not even talkative Kit. Ryan started to say, “I wonder if —” when Kit interrupted.

“Now Scotty knows about us,” she said as if she had read Ryan’s thoughts, “and Kate knows that he knows and there won’t be any secrets between them now and I think they’ll get married.”

They all looked at her. She had to tell that tale, too, about sitting among the boulders with the ferals hearing the old stories—she ran on until Dulcie hushed her. Courtney wished her daddy were there with them so he could hear all Kit had to tell—but then, maybe it was better that he didn’t hear. She didn’t look at her mother, she knew Dulcie didn’t like her listening to tales of the Netherworld that so thrilledher. Dulcie didn’t like hearing that Courtney’s own pictures were there in that underground world, as Willow had told, antique paintings of a long-ago cat who looked exactly like Courtney—those visions too sharply stirred Courtney’s dreams of that magical land.

When the living room fire had burned nearly to coals, the Greenlaws rose to leave, Pan happy to be going home with Kit. As much as he loved the Firettis, he hadn’t meant to move in with them forever, only long enough to comfort them in their loss over Misto. But how could he tell when that was? John and Mary would grieve for Misto forever, they all would. But now, at least for a few days, the Firettis had Buffin and Striker to ease them, while Pan himself hunted with Kit and lounged in the tree house.

It wasn’t long until the Damens’ lights went out, until they were all asleep, Rock and Joe in the upstairs studio, Wilma tucked up in the guest room with Dulcie and Courtney. The cats slept lightly, their ears at alert. There was no attempt at a breakin with Egan in jail and with Randall under guard in a hospital bed, probably hooked up to plastic tubes and with a uniformed guard at his door. And, hopefully, Lena and Rick on their way to jail, though they had had no word from Dallas or Max Harper.

At three that afternoon, the call came. Not from Max, but from John Firetti.

Clyde was just home from work. When he answered the phone, John nearly shouted in his ear,“Negative, Clyde! The test was negative! No rabies! Joe and Rock are free, you can let them run. My God, this waiting has been hell. Shall I bring the boys and Snowball home?” he asked hesitantly.

“I’ll come,” Clyde said. “I’m on my way.”

But the conversation, when Clyde arrived at the clinic, was not at all what he’d expected. They stood in the recovery room, Striker, freed from his cage, racing the length of the room round and round on three legs, working off an endless burst of energy—while Buffin remained curled up close to the fluffy little dog. Watching Buffin and Lolly, Clyde felt a hollowness in the pit of his stomach at separating them.

John seemed to have trouble putting his words together. This was the first time Clyde had ever seen John Firetti shy and uncertain. They were both watching Lolly and the buff kitten pressed lovingly together.

“I think our little dog is going to make it,” John said. “We’ve done everything we can for her. It’s Buffin who has kept her comfortable without heavy drugs. The minute he hops in her cage and curls up beside her she sighs, you can see her muscles ease as the pain subsides, as she relaxesagainst him.

“I don’t know how he does it,” John said. “It’s a quite amazing talent, it’s the kind of healing that scientists have argued about for centuries. And here it is, in this young, half-grown kitten.”

Clyde moved closer to the cage, looking in at Buffin then glancing at John.“Would you like him to stay for a while longer?”

“I would indeed …” John began. “Until she’s completely healed.”

“Yes,” Buffin told Clyde, his blue eyes pleading. “I want to do that. She’s better but there’s still some pain, she still needs comforting.” The big kitten looked up intently at Clyde. “Is this what I was born for? To help other animals, to help them heal?”

“To help heal,” John said, nodding. “To give solace. Everyone is born for some special reason, some special good.” He sighed. “But so many never find it.”

Clyde smiled.“Wilma told me once, everyone is born about something, some passion or talent that will guide his or her life. If he doesn’t have such a longing, or never discovers and uses it, he is only a shell, empty, to be filled with something ugly instead.”

Buffin looked from John to Clyde.“May I stay, then? For a little while? Maybe …” he said, looking up at the doctor, “maybe John and Mary need me, too?”

“We need you very much,” John said, reaching into the open cage to stroke Buffin.

“And maybe they need me,” Striker said, jumping up into the cage, rearing up to touch his nose to Clyde’s, then placing a paw on John Firetti’s shoulder. “And Pan can be home with Kit, in the tree house.”

So it was that only Snowball went home to Rock and Joe, the little white cat kittenish with delight to be back with her big dog to snuggle and protect her. So it was that Wilma and Dulcie and Courtney were at home—without Courtney’s brothers—and Dulcie’s heart was heavy. Her two boys had left the nest, had left so much sooner than she had ever imagined.

Wilma said,“It won’t be long and they’ll be home again. It’s no different than human children off to camp.”

Dulcie wasn’t sure it was the same. Buffin and Striker might be home again for a while. But this sudden parting was the first of many, of a long voyage for her children as they started out on their own. They would be back, might be in and out of the house, but they would never again be homebound kittens needing only this one shelter, needing only her and Joe, needing only this one safe place in their lives. Now, already, they were heading out into the bigger world.

Though maybe, she thought, maybe Striker with his predatory nature might decide to join her and Joe in their own pursuits, might hunger for secret investigation, hunger to stalk the bad guys who preyed on the world. That would comfort her, and would make Joe Grey more than happy.

And Courtney? Dulcie nuzzled her calico kitten. She knew where Courtney’s dreams lay, where perhaps an ancient fate waited. Courtney’s longings frightened Dulcie, but she knew she couldn’t change them. This young lady had been born knowing images of distant times, and of times perhaps yet to come. Dulcie and Joe could only love her and keep her close when she was willing—or could only love her from a distance when she was far away.

But that day hadn’t come yet. Now, Dulcie would treasure the time they had with their kittens and not dwell needlessly on the future.

26

When Ryan opened the studio door and released Joe and Rock from their glass-walled prison they burst through Clyde’s study and raced down the stairs, Rock leaping over Joe, dog and cat circling through the house upsetting furniture again, then pounding into the kitchen looking pitifully up at Ryan as if they had been on starvation rations for weeks. Trying not to laugh, she gave Rock a big hug, as Joe Grey leaped to the table.

“So where’s supper?” said the tomcat. There was no food in sight, nothing but scattered sections of the morning paper.

“It’s a little early. It’s not like you haven’t been eating, I’ve waited on you hand and foot, treats from the deli, the works.”

Joe stared at her unblinking, his yellow eyes intent, one white paw lifted, whether in supplication or threat wasn’t clear. Ryan turned away, amused, and fixed a plate for him of cold steak and sardines. She fed Rock his usual homemade vegetable and chicken stew with slices of steak on top. Joe ate standing on the open paper reading the latest details of the local car heists; eight cars had been examined andphotographed for evidence and returned to their owners. All the thieves were behind bars, either in the village jail or in county lockup. All except Randall Borden, in the surgery wing of the village hospital. One woman was on her own recognizance as a person of interest. That could be Voletta. Thepaper was tight as hell with its information. He wasn’t going to learn anything more until he hit the station.

Quickly swallowing the last sardine, he dropped from the table and took off for MPPD, not even waiting for Clyde and the kittens to get home. He was up the stairs, up on his rafter, and out through his tower racing across the rooftops.

He entered the department on the heels of tall, thin Officer Blake and Detective Juana Davis, both in uniform, holstered weapons, radios, phones, nightsticks, Tasers, the works. When Blake turned into the conference room, Joe stepped up to walk beside Juana as casually as would another officer. She looked down at him, her black eyes laughing.

They got a laugh, as well, when Joe marched into Max Harper’s office beside her. “You two working the streets together?” Max said; then, “How was San Francisco?”

“Foggy,” Juana said. “The three days did me good, nice hotel, breakfast in bed, shopping.” She sat down at the other end of the leather couch from Detective Garza. As Joe strolled in, Dallas gave him that look that always made the tomcat uneasy. That what are you up to? gaze that Joe could never quite decipher, that he didn’t want to decipher. The detective was dressed in a tweed sport coat and jeans. His half of the couch was scattered with files and an electronic notebook.

Ignoring the softer furniture, Joe leaped to the chief’s desk and past him into the bookcase, purring at Max’s familiar scent of fresh hay and clean horses, at his comfortable jeans and frontier shirt. Only a police chief with Harper’s reputation, and maybe in a small town like Molena Point, could get away with the casual clothes and western boots that he preferred.

Making himself comfortable between two piles of reports, Joe scanned the papers on the chief’s desk and the notes on his clipboard. A list of the stolen cars, check marks as to whether they had been recovered (including the two that had been left behind in the old barn). There were check marks indicating whether each car had yet been gone over for prints and other evidence and whether it had been returned to its owners.

Max was saying,“Barbara Conley dated Robert Teague, too. My guess is, Randall saw them together. When, maybe weeks ago, they left Teague’s BMW parked on the street, Randall had the equipment to hack into the electronic security, including the garage door opener. Then, the night that Teague got back from the city, the night of the heists, Randall opened the garage door, cranked the car, and drove off neat as you please.”

“With that box of porcelain in the back,” Davis said. “You think Randall even knew it was there? Think he knew what was in it? Didn’t Teague say the porcelain was worth over thirty thousand?” She was quiet a moment, then, “You’re not looking at Teague in connection with Barbara’s murder?”

Max shook his head.“We’ve got the gun that killed her and Prince, got the report from ballistics. It was in Randall’s pocket when they brought him out of the attic. Question is, between the time he was arrested, then escaped to Barbara’s house and crawled up in the attic, where did he have the gun stashed? Itwasn’t on him or on Egan when we hauled them out of Randall’s car and locked them up.”

Dallas said,“Possible he hid it in the attic after the murder, before we knew that house was connected to the car heists. The fingerprints were smeared like there’d been a cloth wrapped around it, but we got some clear ones. What makes me mad is losing the young girl who called that the BMW was there. She wasn’t one of our snitches, I know their voices too well.”

She was my daughter, Joe Grey thought smugly, hiding his smile.

“But the guy who called later, after Randall escaped from jail,” Max said, “we know him all right. Randall didn’t have a phone but he contacted Lena somehow. She’s there to pick him up, then finds he’s too sick to move, even with a partner to help her—sure as hell Rick was in the car,waiting. She calls the medics.

“Then we get our snitch’s call about the Ford, driver, and a passenger. Less than three minutes we have five cars on the street and freeway, plus a couple of sheriff’s units, but not a sign of them.”

Dallas said,“How does the snitch do that? He had to be there in the house with them. Did he follow Lena there? Or follow Randall?” The detective shook his head. “Pretty quick moves. This stuff gives me the creeps. And,” he said, “he knew who Rick Alderson was, he knew both Rick and Egan.”

Dallas was silent, looking at the chief and Juana, knowing they didn’t have any more answers than he did. No one glanced at the tomcat snoring on the shelf behind Max, no one had a notion that their snitch was listening right there beside them.

“Then,” Dallas said, “we get that call from the woman who works over at the drama center.”

“I haven’t heard this part,” Juana said. “Only what McFarland told me on the phone, then my phone cut out. Borden escaped, to the embarrassment of Officer Bonner,” she said, grinning. “You got a call on Randall, the medics haul him out of the attic, and he’s in surgery for appendicitis. Very nice. He goes to emergency and the state pays for it. But what’s with the woman from the drama center?”

“She was parked in that big lot behind the classrooms,” Dallas said. “Came back to get a sweater from her car, saw this guy crouched down between two parked cars removing a license plate. She drew back, watched him replace it with another. Removed California plates, bolted on plates from Washington State, the front plate dented.”

“So,” Max said, “our men are already out on the highway while they’re still in the village changing plates. The traffic was heavy, a lot of trucks—somehow the Ford slipped in between the big rigs. Even our patrol unit parked by the high school missed them, and that sure as hell made me feel lame.

“But then,” Max said, “you’ll like this part. Two CHP units are still patrolling up Highway One along near the Pamillon land, near Voletta Nestor’s place. They knew, from Randall, that he and Lena had been staying there. They turn on up the narrow road, pull around behind that dense eucalyptus stand—and there’s the Ford jammed in among the trees, almost invisible. Dented Washington plates. Lena and the driver were gone.

“Well, our guys ease around behind the barn; the barn doors are open and here comes barreling out a gray Lincoln Town Car. They radio ahead for the units on the freeway and they take off after it. That road, dirt and gravel, is rough as hell. Lincoln is scorching toward the freeway as two more ofour units pull in, damn near hit the Lincoln. Our guys swerve into the dirt embankment—at the same moment, the Lincoln coughs a couple of times, bucks to a stop, and just sits there. Stalled on that narrow dirt road. Brennan said the driver looked like Egan Borden. He’s cranking and grinding, but can’t get a rumble out of the Lincoln. Lena’s crouched down in the front seat, and now they’re surrounded by cops. Officers pull them out, secure him in a squad car, lock Lena in another unit, leg irons, the works. Called a tow truck to haul the two cars in.”

“How could it be Egan?” Juana said. “He’s already locked … Oh! Rick Alderson!”

Max nodded.“Both Egan Borden and Rick Alderson are in the jail. No release, no bail. Lena’s in the women’s cell. She can go on home if she can make bail, so she can take care of her aunt—but only with the condition of home confinement for both her and Voletta.”

Juana rose to make fresh coffee.“So what made the car stop?”

“The box of porcelain you were wondering about? Thieves had put it in the barn with the missing Lincoln and Mini Cooper, just dumped it on the floor like they thought it was worth nothing.”

Max leaned back, smiling.“While it was in the barn a mouse or rat got into it, pulled out the stuffing and dragged that under the Lincoln. It was building a nest under the hood. I’d say a rat, the way it had chewed the car’s electrical wires. So bad that, coming down that rough road, the last bit of wire broke and that’s all it took, the car stopped cold and we had them.”

Juana doubled over laughing. Dallas and the chief sat smiling. As the coffee started to gurgle, Joe Grey curled up tighter to hide his own grin. That rat, he thought, even if she is dead now, even if she did get me and Rock locked up, she ought to get some of the credit for rounding up the last of those no-goods.

27

Kate and Scotty’s small, casual wedding was held at the Damens’ house late Sunday afternoon. But hours before the ceremony, the happy couple was honored with a secret gathering behind the Pamillon mansion. The time was early dawn, the sun’s first orange glow edging the eastern hills, shining into the ancient courtyard where Courtney had first met the feral band. Where Kate had discovered Scotty watching the speaking cats, listening to their tales and in that moment the restraint between the two lovers vanished.

Sunrise glowed on the big boulder where pale Willow sat, the bleached calico leader of the feral band. Feral cats and the little group of four village cats and two kittens gathered before her. Only young Buffin was absent, he would not leave his small patient even for such an important event. Ryan and Clyde, Wilma and Charlie, the Firettis, and the Greenlaws stood close behind the feline celebrants.

Kate and Scotty knelt at the foot of the boulder, so as to be face-to-face with Willow. For a long moment she looked silently at the quiet couple, gentle and thoughtful. She touched her nose to their cheeks in a simple feline benediction, a rare endearment of friendship for humans to receive from the cat community. She put a paw on Scotty’s shoulder, placed her other paw on Kate’s hand. The words she spoke seemed to join their two spirits more closely and to join them securely to the cat family.

May the stars shine bright above you,

May the sun warm you,

And the world hold you softly.

May your thoughts and needs be as one,

For all time,

Your joys and conquests as one,

In this world and forever.

Then all the cats gathered around closer, clowder cats and village cats leaping up on the boulder, purring and caressing and nosing at the couple, rubbing their faces against them. So the Pamillon cats celebrated their acceptance of two people they had come to love, these feral cats who, for long generations, had feared and avoided humans. Now they and their human friends shared a long moment of joyful bonding. But then as the sun rose higher and the golden light spread, the ferals slipped away. They purred a good-bye, offered a last nuzzle, and they were gone. Suddenly the glade was empty, not a clowder cat to be seen.

Kate and Scotty stood a moment, holding hands, then the little party of humans and village cats headed back across the grassy berm to the shelter, the warmth of the ceremony a part of them now as it always would be.

They were in the apartment, the four cats and two kittens on the desk, Kate and Ryan and Wilma making breakfast, when Dulcie said,“Look, where’s Voletta going? How can she drive with her leg all bound up and her stitches still healing?”

In the yard below, Voletta’s dirt-covered pickup was heading across the big yard for the road, Voletta’s tangle of white hair blowing where the window was down. They all watched, cats and humans, until, at a turn in the road the truck disappeared, hidden by eucalyptus trees.

“She’s going to bail Lena out,” Joe said.

Everyone looked at him.

“I guess she made bail, after they arrested her with Rick.”

“Where,” Dulcie said, “would Voletta get enough money for bail?”

“Bail bondsman,” Joe said. “He can meet Voletta at the station, she gives him ten percent of whatever the bail is, and Lena walks. You can bet that old woman isn’t destitute.”

“No, she isn’t,” Kate said. “When I kept raising the offer on the house and land, she didn’t blink an eye. Refused it cool as you please. She’s a Pamillon. As little as the family thinks of her, I’ll bet there’s a trust fund, a nice yearly income.”

“That may be,” Wilma said, “but I’ve seen her in the village carrying that old shopping bag, moving among the aisles of some small shop in a way that made me wonder.”

“Rich people shoplift, too,” Dulcie said. She and Joe had seen Voletta in the village, slipping along between the counters with her shopping bag. They had never pursued the matter, maybe because Voletta looked so alone and poor—though it was not in their predatory nature to be that forgiving.

Whatever the case, long before the volunteers had arrived at the shelter for duty, Voletta’s dirt-encrusted truck came lumbering home, Lena driving. A white Prius followed them, a shiny, new model. It pulled up in front of the house, to park beside Voletta’s truck. A small, bespectacled driver stepped out. He was neat as a pin, dressed in a pale gray suit and gray tie; he stood waiting for Lena and Voletta. The older woman was slow and stiff getting out of the passenger’s seat and into the walker that Lena pulled out of the truck bed.

“Probation officer,” Scotty said, “come to check out where she lives, to look at the living conditions.”

“How do you …?” Kate began.

“I talked with Max, when he called about that box of porcelain. Lena will be on probation, under home confinement. He said Voletta needs someone to care for her until her leg heals.”

“That means Lena can’t go anywhere,” Kate said.

“She can if she calls in—grocery, drugstore, essential trips. I guess, for a while, she’ll be driving Voletta where she needs to go, like to the doctor. Max said he let her out, in part, to take care of the old woman.” Scotty looked at Joe, wondering how much Joe Grey already knew, hanging around MPPD.

Kate said,“She was well enough to drive to the station to bail Lena out.”

Scotty smiled.“Maybe she was embarrassed to ask us, or didn’t want us into her business. You can tell it didn’t do her any good, the way she’s limping, going up the steps.” Scotty sipped his coffee. “I don’t think the department knows, yet, exactly how involved Lena was in the car heists. But Randall is her husband. Max thinks Randall may have run the show.”

Kate looked again at the little, neat man entering the front door behind Voletta and Lena.“Will he be nosing around up here, too, getting in our way?”

Scotty laughed.“He’s not an out-for-blood building inspector, just a county PO doing his job. I guess we’ll see him around every few weeks—until we find a caretaker and move into a place of our own.”

“Well, at least we have the Wilsons to stay for a couple of nights,” Kate said. “They’re a nice couple. I called Ryan’s dad, hoping he and Lindsey would volunteer.” She shook her head. “They’re off on another fishing trip, up in Oregon. Took Rock with them again. I think they mean to kidnap that good dog.”

“I wouldn’t blame them,” Scotty said.

“They were sorry to miss the wedding. They sent their love to us both. But poor Rock will miss a good party, he’ll miss snatching treats. A party does set him off, trying to greet everyone at once and to work them for handouts.”

Scotty put his arm around her.“Just a two-night honeymoon. But we’ll take a longer trip later. The Bahamas? Alaska? And,” he said softly, “our whole life will be a honeymoon.” Kate had never guessed, the years she’d known Scotty as a quiet, no-nonsense friend, a rough-hewn kind of guy, how romantic he could be.

The Damens’ driveway and the street were solid with cars. Clyde’s Jaguar and Ryan’s red king cab were trapped in the carport, three rows of cars behind them. Joe, looking down from the roof, thought the scene resembled another gathering of stolen vehicles—except that he knew most of these cars and, cozied in among them, a number of friendly black-and-whites lent a different interpretation. As did the open front door with talk and laughter spilling out and the good smells of the buffet supper. It was the aroma of food that drew Joe from the roof through his tower and onto the rafter, down to Clyde’s desk, scattering papers, and down the stairs—where Dulcie and Kit and Pan were already working the room. Striker and Courtney sat obediently on the mantel, sniffing at the good smells.

Casually Joe finessed a hand-offered snack here, then crab salad on a paper plate, a slice of chicken. A stack of small paper plates stood on the coffee table. The Greenlaws were there, and Wilma, and Max and Charlie; the four senior ladies had arrived, and a dozen officers including detectives Davis and Ray, both with cameras to take wedding pictures. John and Mary Firetti came in, Mary carrying Buffin on her shoulder.

“We won’t stay too long,” she told Ryan, “but Buffin’s little dog is better.” She watched John pick up Striker from the mantel, to have a look at his paw. Striker and Courtney had been restricted there to avoid being stepped on, and to stay away from human food. John insisted on a limited diet until, as the kittens grew older, he was sure that human treats were as agreeable to them as to the older cats.

Now, taking Striker into the guest room, John removed the weed-covered, damp wrappings from his paw, examined the stitches, applied a salve and a clean white bandage. That was better, Striker thought. His paw had felt damp and grainy. When they returned to the living room, everyone was headed for the patio. The minister had arrived. Tall, bent Reverend Samuel, in his dark suit, stood before the barbecue, which was covered with a fresh white sheet and pots of white daisies. The walled brick terrace was crowded with folding chairs. When John and Mary, carrying the three kittens, took seats beneath the young maple tree, immediately the kittens climbed up its branches to join Dulcie and Kit and Pan for a fine view down on the wedding party. One could hardly see Joe Grey on the roof above, peering over the edge, beneath the maple’s foliage.

The music was the same collection of folk tunes that Charlie had selected for Ryan and Clyde’s wedding, happy Irish music. Quietly the bride and groom took their places before the reverend. Scotty’s brother-in-law, Dallas, stood next to the groom, as best man. Ryan, as matron of honor, did not lead Kate to her place but stood beside her, her pale brown shift setting off Kate’s rich cream suit that shone softly with her blond hair. Scotty wore a pale tweed sport coat and light slacks. Clyde, who would give the bride away, wore tan slacks and a light linen sport coat. Yes, Joe thought, Clyde should give the bride away when, at one time, he came near to marrying Kate himself. Andit had been the same with Charlie. Joe had been sure that she and Clyde were headed for wedding bells—until Max stepped in, until he and Charlie were suddenly head-over-heels, had set the wedding date, and before you could shake a paw, the deed was done. Joe had been sorry about that, he loved Charlie. But Max and Charlie were a better match—and now he was mighty glad that Clyde had waited for Ryan.

In the years Joe had known Clyde, he’d had more women than a stray tomcat. It was luck when he met Ryan Flannery, when she remodeled their house and they started dating. Clyde didn’t know that Joe had used every wile he knew, to charm Ryan. Maybe Clyde and Ryan’s romance would have happened without his help, maybe not.

Ryan had been clever enough to discover, on her own, that Joe could talk. She had been wise not to go to Clyde with her discovery, but to discuss the matter directly with Joe. None of your“kitty, kitty, can you speak to me” foolishness. She just came right out with it, person to person—though Joe had remained shy and startled for some time. But Ryan was a true gem. She could not only cook, she could fix the roof and the plumbing, she had rebuilt their poky cottage into a handsome home. She had built Joe’s tower and, best of all, she knew how to handle Clyde.

The minister had begun his short reading. He was blessing this union that was for all time, then soon was asking Scotty if he took this woman to love, to honor and cherish. He was asking Kate the same when Joe, from up on the roof, heard the sound of metal scraping on metal, a harsh grating that came from the carport below him.

He couldn’t see under the carport from this angle. Trotting across the shingles to the front of the house, he looked beneath the shelter that jutted out in front of the garage. A person with tangled white hair was at work on the far side of Ryan’s red king cab, she was at the lockboxes that ran along the side of the truck. Voletta! What was she doing? He watched, unbelieving, as she worked away at one of the compartments. When he looked up for an instant, looked down the block to the side street, there was Voletta’s muddy blue pickup parked along the curb.

Moving across the carport roof, where he could see her better, he watched her remove Ryan’s newest, most expensive Skilsaw from a lockbox and slip it into a canvas carryall. She had all the locker doors on her side open, she had hauled out all kinds of tools, the two other carryalls were already full.

Stealthily Joe slipped into the neighbors’ pepper tree. Mad as hell, he eased down above the truck, leaped to its roof just inches from Voletta’s face snarling and growling and raising threatening claws. Voletta yipped and flew backward against the carport wall, her cry choking her, Joe slashing out at her, keening and yowling, his gray coat standing stiff, his yellow eyes fierce with rage. He slashed out again with a roaring scream but he daren’t bloody her, he didn’t want quarantine again. He struck so close that her hands flew up to protect her face; and suddenly behind Joe, Pan came racing.

The red tom sailed onto the truck growling like a tiger. Joe could see now that Voletta had wrenched and bent most of the cabinet doors open rather than trying to unlock them. The old woman, white hair flying, slapped at them with a leather carpenter’s apron, trying to drive them away—and over the roof came the other cats, all in attack mode. Kit, in the lead, crouched to leap. Behind them, the wedding party streamed out.

Joe hissed at Kit to stop her, thinking of the trouble a wound would cause. Dulcie was slashing hard at the woman, but then, thinking the same, she drew back. The three kittens crowded the roof behind them, all wanting to jump Voletta. It was then that Ryan came running, grabbed Voletta, grabbed a box of drills from her hand—it was then that Joe saw the bride and groom. They stood a little apart on the sidewalk, Scotty’s arm around Kate. He was grinning, but Kate was laughing so hard, leaning against him, that Joe wondered if she could stop laughing. He did see, looking carefully, that the ring was on her finger, that the ceremony had not been interrupted, that among all the furor and cat screams, Kate Osborne had become, officially, Mrs. Scott Flannery. He envisioned Scotty placing the ring on her finger and kissing her while, from the carport, bloodcurdling feline challenges cut through the soft Irish music; and Joe Grey, himself, had a hard time trying not to laugh.

But stern Reverend Samuel? Tall and bent, he stood a little way from the bride and groom, solemn faced and grim. This was not how weddings were supposed to proceed. Weddings were courteous, proper affairs. Yet was there, Joe wondered, was there the shine of a smile in the reverend’s dark eyes?

Joe daren’t look at Clyde. He knew the look he’d see on Clyde’s face, as if this were all Joe’s fault. When again he looked at Ryan, she had backed away from Voletta, letting Max and Dallas handle her, but Ryan’s green eyes still blazed. Joe watched Max take Voletta gently by her arm, lead her to a squad car, carefully help her in, locking her in the back. Already Juana Davis and Kathleen Ray were taking pictures of the stolen items jumbled in the bags, and of the jimmied lockers.

Why had Voletta done this? Why had she come here? Now she was in as much trouble as her thieving niece. If Voletta wanted the expensive tools to sell, why didn’t she sneak them from the truck up at the job? Joe thought. Too risky, with Ryan, and Scotty and the other men working there in broad daylight?

Or did Voletta create this disturbance to purposely put an ugly note on the wedding, to turn Kate’s happy day sour? A crazy, vindictive old woman with no love for Kate, who had tried hard to buy her land. No love for Kate and Scotty, who had surely reported the movement of the cars that night. What could be better than an ugly burglary right in the middle of their wedding?

And what better victim to steal from than Ryan Flannery, who was tearing up the old mansion of the family estate, and who had put that big cat shelter on the open land so near to Voletta, spoiling her privacy? Voletta might have little to do with the rest of the Pamillons, Joe thought, but she still looked upon the abandoned estate as her land, as her heritage. She might easily hate anyone who moved onto it with, in her mind, no right at all to be there.

28

The wedding party resumed as congenially as if there had never been an ugly disturbance, as if Voletta’s wicked destruction and the cats’ screaming confrontation had never occurred—as if Ryan’s beautiful king cab did not sit in the carport cruelly battered and forlorn. While the old woman was escorted to MPPD and booked by officers Wrigley and Brown, the wedding guests crowded into the Damens’ big family kitchen, where the bride and groom cut the cake, exchanged bites and, laughing, smeared each other’s faces with white icing. The only folks who had missed the excitement were Ryan’s dad, his lovely wife, Lindsey, and Rock, who, trying to keep his balance in the small outboard, watched his companions reel in their catch, reaching a paw now and then to pat at the long string of trout already dragging beside the boat.

The half-demolished wedding cake sat on the decorated kitchen table; guests carried plates of cake and canap?s to the patio where the chairs had been rearranged, small tables were unfolded, and Ryan and Charlie poured coffee. The three kittens roamed the top of the patio wall, leaping down to the white-covered barbecue to bat at the pots of daisies. The four older cats settled in friendly laps near to Max and Dallas. Max had just taken a call: Randall Borden was out of surgery, his appendix removed with no complications. He would remain in the hospital, then be sent to a recovery unit until he was well enough to be transported to county jail, facing arraignment for two counts of murder and for cartheft.

The cats knew that Egan Borden would soon be arraigned for car theft and on breaking and entering, which, though it was only a misdemeanor, carried a jail sentence. His brother, Rick, would board a flight for Texas accompanied by two U.S. marshals, his hefty list of charges enough to keep him locked away for some long time. Life, it seemed to Joe Grey, had a way of rolling over just as pleasantly as he rolled over now on Ryan’s lap. Life, the tomcat thought with uncommon sentiment, is not only challenging, wild sometimes, it can be tender, too. Warm and tender and good.

When Ryan looked down at him, her green eyes amused, he again had that feeling that she could almost read his thoughts. Across the table, Clyde grinned at them, and reached to take Ryan’s hand—but soon Ryan picked Joe up and wandered across the patio holding him against her face, whispering to him. “They didn’t see Courtney’s picture, no one saw the teacup. Max and Dallas must have examined that box before Robert Teague picked it up, but maybe none of them noticed the painted cat or that she looked like Courtney.”

Joe Grey smiled. It was enough that the cats’ attack on Voletta Nestor had alarmed everyone present—and had more than alerted the cops, the cats were still getting thoughtful glances from them. We don’t need that, Joe thought, and we don’t need the chief and detectives thinking about our attack or about the teacup, either. About Courtney’s likeness on a centuries-old porcelain treasure. We don’t need any more questions.

Ryan returned to the table, tucked Joe back on her lap and took Clyde’s hand again. As Joe watched the two of them, and watched the happy newlyweds across the patio, he was filled with pleasant thoughts—but when he glanced up at the three kittens playing, suddenly his spirit dropped like a heavy weight. Suddenly he realized how lonely life would be now, how veryempty with Striker and Buffin leaving home, leaving their mother and Wilma, leaving the nest where they were born. Joe watched the two buff kittens batting at Courtney through the potted daisies, he watched them look up as if laughing, to where the Firettis sat, and the sad feeling filled him, the cold knowledge that tonight their two boy kittens would have a new home.

Buffin and Striker had made their own decision. Not Joe nor Dulcie nor Wilma meant to forbid them. The boys had bonded with the Firettis, with these two loving humans; they had bonded with the life of the hospital. They would not be going home with Dulcie and Wilma when the party was over. Even when he looked up at Courtney playing happily with her brothers, he saw a lonely sadness touch the little calico’s face, he knew she’d miss Buffin and Striker, and his own dismay nearly choked him. Dulcie reached out to him from where she lay in Wilma’s lap, her soft paw covered his paw and he saw the same loneliness on both Dulcie’s and Wilma’s faces.

But it was the kittens’ right to step out into the first chapter in their new lives. He looked around the patio at the rest of the party, so happy, talking, laughing, congratulating bride and groom. He didn’t want Kate and Scotty to see his sour mood, to put a painful note on the wedding—Voletta had done enough ofthat. Though her destructive temper tantrum had caused as much amusement as anger.

Clyde rose to change the music to the old forties hits that they all loved, and as a CD belted out Artie Shaw, half a dozen couples were soon dancing. Max danced the first dance with the bride. At the next number he handed her over to Scotty. After several dances, Kate returned to the kitchen to cut small slices of what was left of the wedding cake. She wrapped each in foil, and handed them around to all the single officers, gleaning laughs and a few startled looks.“This is not to eat, it’s to sleep on. It might not be traditional,” she said, “for men to get the wedding cake and dream of their brides. But who knows, stranger things have happened.” That gained more laughter and rude teasing, enough to make her blush. When she gave the two female detectives their cake, Juana Davis said it was a bit late in her life, when she was already expecting a grandchild. But beautiful young Detective Ray smiled and tucked the cake safely in her pocket.

The bride and groom stayed for a half-dozen more dances before they departed. They were there for the sad moment when Mary and John Firetti cuddled the two boy kittens and headed home—the kittens receiving many kisses from Dulcie and Courtney and Wilma, and nose nudges from Kit and Joe and Pan. It wasn’t as if they were leaving Molena Point, they were only a few rooftops away. Joe thought of Buffin’s future, of the many animals he might help, and maybe humans, too. As forStriker, that kitten knew the number of roofs from the clinic to MPPD as well as to his father’s house, and of course he knew the way back to his mother.

“I’m not leaving for good,” he told Joe. “But right now Buffin needs me, and the Firettis need both of us. And,” the big kitten said, “the first time you need a partner, I’m right there with you.”

Wilma and Dulcie and Courtney left shortly afterward, Wilma carrying them both, Dulcie wiping tears with her paw. Heading home, Wilma was satisfied that the threat of housebreakers was past. Those who had wanted the Bewick book knew well enough it was locked in MPPD’s evidence room—or, they thought the rare volume was there. They had no idea the real book was only ashes. Now the thieves’ minds would be on other matters, on lawyers, on the county attorney, and on their imminent indictments.

Party-cleanup time was plate-licking time for Joe and Pan and Kit. Trash was bagged and taken out, the kitchen given a quick wipe-down, the chairs and tables folded and stacked, then Ryan collapsed on the couch. Upstairs, Snowball woke at the silence and came padding down from her retreat to be hugged and petted and loved; the little cat might not like crowds and parties but she loved the attention afterward that centered on her, alone.

Ryan went out once to look at her poor truck, but soon came in again. They had already brought the bags of tools and power tools inside. Now, Clyde held her close.“I’ll take it to the shop in the morning. We’ll have it right in a day or two if we can get all the parts. You’ll look mighty grand, taking the Jaguar to work among lumber and torn-out walls.”

“I’ll look mighty grand to Lena,” she said coldly. “I wonder if Max will keep Voletta in jail or set bail and send her home. They can’t care for her wounds very well in a jail cell, and he did release Lena to take care of her. At least Lena’s good for something. And,” she said, smiling, “will Voletta get bail under the same conditions? Home confinement and a PO?”

“And a leg bracelet?” Clyde said. That set them laughing, until Snowball, with too much noise again or maybe feeling left out, went back upstairs. But soon they were all in bed, doors locked, lights out, Snowball and Joe Grey snuggled close to Ryan and Clyde.

At the Firetti cottage, Buffin cuddled with his little dog, Lolly, who felt well enough to caper around the bedroom before she settled on the bed, the three animals and Mary and John cozy together.

At the Greenlaw house, Kit and Pan started out in the big bed with Lucinda and Pedric as they usually did. Maybe later, in the small hours, they would head for the tree house and, if the moon grew brighter, maybe for a short hunt.

The clouds did clear, and up the coast where the moon gleamed over the sea, at a small, exclusive inn, embers burned in the fireplace and the terrace doors stood open. The bride and groom, having risen from bed, sat on the wide deck, a quilt wrapped around them, listening to the breakers crashing below.“It wasn’t the usual wedding,” Scotty said, “thanks to Voletta and to our wild little cats.”

“It was the best wedding,” Kate said. “I hope Juana and Kathleen got some pictures of the cats going after that woman and all of us crowding to help them, what a wedding album that will make.”

“That, and the picture of you with icing all over your face.”

“Pictures of both of us with icing,” she said, leaning close against him. “This is a marriage of sharing.”

And it would be. They both knew that, just as the cats knew. At Wilma’s house, where Dulcie and Wilma and Courtney were tucked up in bed, Dulcie said, “They will be happy. Happy because they love each other and because now they don’t need to keep secrets, because they can talk together honestly. And because, knowing those two, they won’t fight but will talk things over, come to a sensible understanding, the way two cats would do.”

“Always?” said Wilma, turning to look wryly at her.

“Almost always,” Dulcie said; and she smiled and rolled over and in seconds she was asleep. Wilma slept, too.

But Courtney pawed under the pillow for the tiny foil package of wedding cake that Kate had given Wilma to save for her. She lay holding it in her paws, sniffing it, at first dreaming wide-awake memories: but soon dreaming visions of times long past, pictures of lands far away, of handsome tomcats suddenly remembered. Yawning, she drifted into sleep clutching her little cake against her whiskers, wondering if the wedding cake would tell her where her future lay, tell her where this new life in which she had landed might take her. Tell her what grand dreams this new world would unfold for her.

21. CAT CHASE THE MOON

Prologue

The old man didn’t want to wake up, he didn’t want to get out of bed, he felt so heavy he longed only to drop back into sleep. Through the curtain of the east window the first smear of fog-dimmed sun sulked lifeless and depressing. Even the hens outside sounded dreary, as if they had nodesire at all to lay an egg or peck at the scattered grain. The world was without joy, no smallest pleasure awaited him, no sound of Mindy running and laughing and talking to her pony, or galloping across the field.

It was two weeks since her parents had left, taking the child with them, taking his little granddaughter away to live in town, Mindy shouting,“I don’t want to go! You can’t make me go,” crying so hard she nearly threw up. But of course they had taken her. Mindy was a brat when she was around her parents. She was nice as pie when she was just with him, or with her pony; she was full of life and fun. Why couldn’t Nevin and Thelma have left her here? Now, every day, every hour that she was gone the emptiness grew worse. He’d thought it would get better, but it hadn’t. No more than two weeks earlier he had begun to come to terms with Nell’s death. Then the last of their three grown sons left so soon after his mother’s funeral, taking Zeb’s only grandchild away and not giving a damn if he was alone, never caring if he was still filled with pain over Nell’s passing, never caring if Mindy might have been a solace to him. Never even wondering if he could manage the farm without a little help from Mindy.

Well, at least Nevin, his youngest, and his wife, Thelma,had waited until Nell was gone, they hadn’t hurt Grandma like Varney had, his middle son leaving six months ago, walking out on Nell while she was so sick. (Ever since Mindy was born, all three grown boys called their mother Grandma.) Varney said he’d gotten a job in town, one too good to refuse. He didn’t say what kind of job and Zeb didn’t ask. Varney hadn’t cared that he was breaking his dying mother’s heart. Maybe her hurt over Varney’s abandonment had made the cancer worse, Zeb would never know. Well, Varney’s leaving hadn’t been so bad in the end. Without his temper the house had been quieter for Nell.

But then his Nell died, of the pain and cancer or maybe of the medicine itself, how could anyone know? As soon as she was buried, Nevin and Thelma packed right up and moved into the village and never asked if Mindy could stay here with him. Mindy, with her curly brown hair, brown eyes, and turned-up nose, was twelve, bright and loving, and she was all he’d had left. Thelma might have let Mindy stay but she was too scared of Nevin to disobey him. Zeb and Nell had been married fifty years and just the one grandchild, and now suddenly everyone was gone. Zebulon Luther was alone.

Fifty years of marriage, a happy marriage. But as soon as his Nell passed, after all the illness, the last boy hauled out. Left Zeb when he wasn’t so well, either, with the arthritis and the kidneys. Left him to do for himself, cook, keep up the garden and farm work, though there wasn’t much of that anymore. He’d stopped haying some years back, when he was in his sixties. The two younger boys wouldn’t hay, they had let the land go to weeds not even fit for pasture. And DeWayne, his oldest, had never taken to farming. He liked the city life, he liked to travel. Zeb didn’t know how he made his living, he wondered a lot about that, but Zebulon seldom saw him.

Well, at least he had the two horses for company. But what good was the pony when the child missed him, and the pony missed her.“You can’t keep a horse in town!” Thelma had mocked when Mindy begged. And the pony without Mindy was growing as lifeless and sad as Zeb himself.

Earlier this morning, before dawn, something had waked him; or maybe he was dreaming that cold eeriness, the moon drowning in thick fog above a battered body that lay struggling in an open grave; and above it stood the shadow of a big tomcat. He lay half awake and puzzled; but the dream faded and was gone. Shivering, he pulled the quilts up and crawled back into sleep.

1

The sea crashed behind Joe Grey, the tomcat standing tall on a heap of broken branches; the night’s heavy fog admitted only a smear of light from the low moon, just enough to brighten the hushing waves. The sound of digging had drawn the gray tomcat up the beach to the little sandy park, to the oak tree that had long ago fallen, a dry and twisted relic from last spring’s storms. The shoveling noise stopped abruptly when Joe Grey inadvertently stepped on a twig: a sudden silence cut the night, then the sound of running through the sand and dry grass among the scattered trees.

He couldn’t see much of the runner in the heavy mist and tangled branches but he could tell it was a man, heavy footfalls among the dead branches. He could see dark clothes, a dark floppy hat, brim pulled down. Joe heard him hit the sidewalk, hard rubber-soled shoes, heard a car door open. Heard an engine start and the car pull away, a dark, long shadow in the mist. Joe leaped to the highest branch of the fallen tree, looked down where the man had been digging.

A body lay beside the dead tree where dirt had been scooped out. A half-dug grave in which a woman lay nearly buried, bruised and bloodied, fresh earth thrown over her lower body and legs—but she couldn’t be dead, blood still flowed, her heart would still be beating.

At the edge of the grave, in the damp, heavy sand, he could see the shovel marks, small, sharp curves in the shape of those spades people carried in their cars for an emergency.

She was slim and tall, her long black hair was tangled but, except for the blood, clean and shining. She would be beautiful under the purple bruises across her face and what looked like purple finger marks circling her throat. Her right earring was missing, the lobe torn sharply in two: the two ragged flaps bleeding down her white shirt. Her left ear was red and bloody, swollen around a lump of smashed gold, as if the side of her head had been pounded against a log. Flecks of bark clung to her face.

Dropping down from one fallen branch to the next, Joe Grey stepped into the half-dug grave and put his nose to her mouth. Yes, the faintest breath.

He pushed his mouth to hers, feeling weird at the contact; he breathed in and out, forcing air into her lungs until her gasping came stronger. Her right hand moved faintly. The tomcat, even after the dead bodies he had confronted at so many crime scenes, felt sick that the grave digger had meant, apparently, to bury her alive.

A patrol car passed slowly, making its rounds. The fog was so thick the officer didn’t see a thing among the tangled tree branches nor would he have heard any strangled cry, over the static of his radio. As the unit passed, Joe considered yelling out for help.

Right, and have the guy’s strobe light catch him, a tomcat, yelling“Help!” and then running. Worse, Joe knew most of the officers and they knew him, dark gray tomcat, white paws and thin white strip down his gray face. He was in and out of the station all the time, was practically the station cat. For a cop to see him here on what would turn out to be a crime scene wasn’t smart. One more puzzle for the department, Joe Grey nosing around a crime scene at just about the time the “phantom snitch” called in the report—if he could find a phone. His presence here would be one more coincidence he didn’t need. He prayed that Haley would pull over, get out of the car, find the half-buried victim himself and call the dispatcher—while Joe fled among the rubble of the wild little park and vanished.

When the officer had noticed nothing suspicious among the fallen and tangled trees, when the car had passed and turned back toward the village, when Joe was convinced the woman would keep breathing on her own, he raced for a ramshackle cottage at the edge of the shore. Leaping to a sill, he clawed his way through the rusty screen and slid open the rickety window. This house was the only relic in the long line of seafront homes, the rest all restored to elegance or replaced by new dwellings. This old place smelled of cats but he didn’t see any.

Slipping through the dim kitchen he found a phone in the hall. He called 911 and relayed his message, then beat it out of there, the torn screen clawing at his fur. Racing back across the dead-end street, crossing the narrow lane where it ended at the sea, he kicked away pawprints in the drifted sand—but there were cats in the village. Why would he be suspected of being the phantom caller? He had been faced with this dilemma before and never been caught. Slipping out of sight among the fallen branches just as the first siren screamed, he searched hastily for the woman’s purse, for a billfold or ID, but found nothing. She was still breathing but the oozing blood had slowed, not a good sign. He was looking for the shovel her attacker might have buried when the medics screeched to a halt, cop cars behind them; Joe Grey dove into the tall grass and bushes and was gone.

He watched from across the street as the medics worked on her: oxygen, all kinds of tubes, then loaded her into the ambulance. He would know little more until the information was on Captain Harper’s desk, until he could saunter into the chief’s office and have a look at the report.

Ordinarily Joe would stay after the medics left, would watch from the bushes to see if the cops found any clues he’d missed. But this was Saturday morning and he was already late. His tabby lady would be waiting with her striped ears back, her striped tail switching, sitting rigid among the small children on the library window seat, her green eyes flashing at his tardiness.

How many tough tomcats spent their Saturday mornings in the library among a bunch of snively little kids listening to story hour? How many patrons smiled with amusement at Joe and the other four cats snuggled among the children: Joe’s lady, Dulcie. Their grown kitten, Courtney. (Courtney’s two brothers were otherwise occupied.) Tortoiseshell Kit and her mate, red tabby Pan, as macho a tomcat as Joe Grey himself, all curled up among warm and cuddling children listening to a tale of magic.

But the cats were there for more than the story. Intently they watched for the mysterious man who had appeared these last few Saturdays prowling among the books, striking their curiosity and sometimes their concern.

Ever since Dulcie, who was Molena Point’s official library cat, first saw the shadowy figure slip behind the book stacks and stand watching the children, the cats’ curiosity had drawn them. Browsing among the books, he kept his eyes on one lone child, then another.

Public libraries were not the welcome retreats they had once been, peaceful and safe. These days, even small libraries had guards on the premises. Plainclothes officers walked through the paneled, silent rooms, sometimes arresting a stoned man, taking him away to sleep it off in jail. All across the country, addicts were frequenting the book rooms, hiding their stashes among the shelved volumes or concluding their sales in the towns’ most innocent refuges. It was not uncommon, at closing hour, for a librarian to find a drugged man asleep in a soft chair, a newspaper spread over his face.

Molena Point Library was a handsome building with pale stone walls, mullioned windows, and carpeted floors, a peaceful retreat set back from the sidewalk by a deep garden graced with flowers, small ornamental trees, and stone benches. This morning when Joe Grey had entered, trotting among the blooms and up four stone steps, crossing the stone porch to the carved oak door and pushing inside, he knew he was laughed at, but in a friendly way. Most of the patrons knew him. Padding down six steps to the big reading room, sauntering across in plain sight of half a dozen elderly men sitting in comfortable chairs reading, he had leaped onto the wide, cushioned window seat and settled down beside his tabby lady in the lap of a blond little girl who smelled of peppermint. Two women at a reading table watched the five cats among the children and laughed and whispered to each other. Three old men smiled, and one laughed softly.Smile if you want, Joe thought, half amused himself.Better than a couple of drug dealers settling in, waiting for their contacts.

He heard from across the village the short blast of a police siren that made him want to leap away and follow, racing across the rooftops as he usually did. But Dulcie gave him a look that settled him down. Every siren wasn’t a major crime; this one could be anything: traffic violation, fender bender. Or a domestic argument. They’d had plenty of those since Zeb Luther’s family all moved out, leaving the old man alone. Moved in across the street from Joe, shouting altercations in the middle of the night that woke Joe and his housemates and left them all cranky, to say nothing of enraging the neighbors.

He was wondering if the adults in the library were listening to the story, too, only pretending to read the papers. And, speak of the devil, here came his quarrelsome new neighbor Thelma in the front door dragging her little girl. At once Mindy broke away and ran to the window seat, crowding in at the end. But when she spotted Joe and started to scramble to him, the librarian Wilma Getz, Dulcie’s silver-haired housemate, told her kindly to sit down where she was. The tale Wilma was reading was one of the Narnia books; the boys and girls were already entranced, as were the cats, drawn to the war-refugee children and the secret world they found at the back of a closet—but soon again the cats’ attention was drawn away to the open balcony, to the second-floor bookshelves that looked down on the reading room. Even as the world of Narnia unfolded in snow and ice, a figure appeared on the balcony among the deepest row of bookshelves. In the shadows he was hardly visible. As on every other Saturday morning, he was watching the children. The same man, the shadow of his close-clipped, pointed beard, dark cap pulled down over shaggy, dark hair.Whywas he watching the children? Or was he watching the cats, was he some kind of mentally obsessed cat fancier?

Not liking to be stared at, and quick-tempered, Joe wanted to race across the room, leap up through the rail, knock the man down and question him until he knew what the guy wanted.

Oh, right! And tell the whole world I can talk.

The man stood still for a while, looking, watching brown-haired Mindy, Joe’s new neighbor. But then he turned away, faded into the shadows of the back row of bookshelves, and glided toward the stairs that led down to the main floor. Joe knew that Wilma Getz watched him, too, as she read aloud the tale of Narnia.

The next the cats saw of the man he was at the nonfiction shelves just across the room, flipping through bright, oversized books. He was wearing thin pigskin gloves, expensive ones, new and pale. He carried half a dozen books to a table, spread them out, and began to make long, careful notes from the front and back pages of each. While he recorded his references he would glance up now and then around the room or at their little group. Joe wanted to wander over, hop casually on the table and see what subjects he was recording from the title pages and index, what pictures he was lingering over. The tomcat was about to slide down and pad across to take an innocent look when a nailed paw stopped him and Dulcie’s green eyes pulled him back. She could see he was warming up for trouble, she could sense his rising challenge.

It was at that moment that Officer McFarland came in the front door, brown hair uncombed, dressed in badly worn jeans, wrinkled cotton shirt, a stubble of beard, looking more like a vagrant than the neatly groomed young cop he usually was.

He spotted the stranger, picked up a newspaper off the hanging rack and sat down across the room, half out of sight behind its pages. At the other end of the window seat, tortoiseshell Kit and red tabby Pan watched McFarland. And they keenly watched the intruder, who remained for some time working away at his notes, calm and preoccupied. His little beard was perfectly trimmed and neat compared to his shaggy hair and wrinkled cap. At last, apparently finished, he returned the books to the shelves and left the library.

The cats watched him through the big, curved window. He crossed the garden, moved around the corner, and disappeared up the side street. In a moment McFarland put down his paper and slipped away following him. Joe wanted to scramble up to the roof and track them, but Dulcie gave him another look, a look that said,He knows you’re watching him. He scowled back at her. After all, the man had really done nothing wrong.

Except that everything he did was off-key.

Was he planning to kidnap one of the children? It happened often enough, all over the country. Or had he been watching the cats? Maybe watching Courtney? But that was silly, there were calico cats all over the village, what would he want with this one? Joe looked at his beautiful daughter, the delicate black bracelets around her right front leg. He would kill anyone who touched her. So would Dulcie—and Courtney could land a few bloody strikes herself, the kitten having learned to fight early on, from her two teasing brothers.

When story hour was finished, when the children broke away talking and laughing, running, checking out books, meeting their mothers, Kit and Pan streaked out the front door belatedly following Officer McFarland. Dulcie and Courtney, thinking of a late breakfast, followed Wilma into her office; but Joe Grey never hesitated, he charged on past them through her office, through the cat door into the alley, up the bougainvillea vine onto the roof, and raced toward the side street, where Kit and Pan followed McFarland below. All three saw McFarland turn the corner then pull back as the shadowy man entered the Swiss Caf?. McFarland moved on up the street among a crowd of tourists and stepped into an old car parked at the curb. Slumping down, he used the newspaper guise. Jimmie had been in the library last Saturday, but had left before the snooping stranger did. Maybe he’d followed the man several times, maybe knew his habits. This wasn’t a case yet, it was a question, a quiet surveillance.

Joe Grey watched four little girls and two women crowd into the caf?—well, the snooper couldn’t snatch a child from that crowd.Growing restless, knowing McFarland would stay with the guy, knowing that if something ugly happened he’d hear sirens, Joe took off fast, hitting the roofs with determined paws, heading back to Dulcie and Courtney, who would be waiting in Wilma’s office.

Though he did wonder if by now the chief had returned from the hospital, should have gotten what information he could on the battered woman—if she could talk at all, with that black-and-blue throat. If her windpipe wasn’t torn or collapsed, the tomcat thought sickly; and his mind was on both cases, the nearly dead woman, a beautiful woman and not a sign of ID that he had found; and then the shadowy prowler.If the man was watching one of the children, if he meant to kidnap a child, this was the worst crime of all.

Or, at that moment, Joe Grey thought it was.

One Saturday, Joe had seen Jimmie McFarland photograph the guy’s footprints after he’d crossed the polished floor of the front entrance; and both Dulcie and Kit had seen Jimmie taking fingerprints one evening after the library had closed—and Joe couldn’t shake his unease, couldn’t forget the chill gleam in the man’s pale eyes.

What Joe Grey didn’t see, nor did Jimmie McFarland, was the prowler slip into a men’s shop, casually lift two shirts and several jackets off a rack, smile and nod at a salesman, and take them into a dressing room. No one saw him facing the mirror removing the mustache and his cap with thetangled hair attached to it. They didn’t see him take out a handkerchief and wipe his handsome bald head until it shone, didn’t see him fold the objects of disguise, wrap the handkerchief smoothly around them, and slip the package in his own jacket pocket. Departing the store, he left the new clothes neatly on their hangers in the dressing room. He thanked the nearest salesman, the first one was with a customer. He stopped at the front counter to buy two pairs of socks which he paid for with cash, and he was gone.

That was why, when Jimmie and his fellow officers kept a watch for the library prowler as they went about their routes, no one ever did see him—or didn’t know that they saw him.

But now, Joe slipped into Wilma’s office to snuggle down with his family—though he didn’t stay long.

2

“Let him go, you can’t change him,” Wilma said as Joe Grey soon raced out the cat door. Dulcie started after him, but then she sighed and turned back. Half of her wanted to follow Joe, to see what he’d find; the other half told her to stay out of it. The guy was interested in children, not cats. Anyway, Officer McFarland was on his tail. Andthey could shadow him all over the village, from the rooftops, until they picked up a clue or two, until they had enough to call in valuable information that Jimmie McFarland might miss.

But neither the cats nor Jimmie picked up much more information. Except for what, later, Courtney herself found out, to her dismay.

Now, Wilma sat down in her desk chair, took the clip from her long gray hair where the children had tangled it, brushed it smooth and reclipped it. Dulcie’s housemate was a tall, strong woman, a retired federal parole officer and now a part-time reference librarian. She loved best reading to the children, just as she read to Dulcie and Courtney at home, just as she had read to all three of Dulcie’s kittens until Courtney’s brothers moved away, starting their own lives.

Dulcie had lived with Wilma since she was a kitten; she was less than a year old when she discovered that she could speak. Her first words, blurted out without thought, had shocked them both. They had stared at each other in frightened silence. That moment had changed their lives forever.

They were alarmed and frightened, but then all at once they found themselves talking up a storm, both woman and cat wild with delight at being able to communicate.

Soon their household was a different place. They shared every thought, every memory. They were like long-lost roommates newly reunited, trading every secret. Ornearlyevery secret. Dulcie might leave out some of her and Joe’s most frightening adventures, though Wilma eventually learned about most of them and either scolded or laughed at them. Dulcie had learned to read, as Wilma read to her, the pretty tabby picking out the sound of each word, then of each letter. She learned the written word fast, took great delight in that new joy as she learned to pick out words on the computer. Soon Dulcie, listening to her own muse, found her head full of poems that she had to write down, and they were both amazed. The word pictures were simply there, something in her cat nature heard the cadences and had to save them, had to read them back to herself.

Even now, trying to ease her fear of the prowler, she padded across the desk to the computer, clenched her paws tight, and gently touching the keys, she opened her own personal document and started a new page—seeking to drown her fear of the prowling man, to calm that fluttering feeling that made her paws tremble. Whatever he wanted, she hoped Jimmie McFarland nailed him, and soon.

Now, longing to bring back the fairy-tale joy of Narnia, wanting to return to that magical world and drive back the ugly parts of life, she began a poem,

White witch before the moon,

Cold witch, cold as moon …

Little animals turned to stone,

Moonlight on them

Cold, alone …

But these were frightening words, and no others would come. Despite the fun of the book, the evil in it mixed too well with the man on the balcony, driving the goodness away. She looked at Courtney, expecting to see a shiver of fear in her young daughter’s amber eyes—but Courtney was not upset. Courtney the dreamer was still deep in the wonders of Narnia, still in the ice and snow, still with the magical beavers, hardly thinking of the stranger in the shadows. “Anyway,” Courtney said, reading her mother’s look, “anyway, he’s gone now. And what harm did he do?”

Wilma, with a glance at Dulcie, took calico Courtney in her arms and they headed out the back door for her car.For home and safety, Dulcie thought. While at the same moment, up on the roofs Joe Grey was streaking for the police department, for his own brand of safety among MPPD’s family of cops.

The old man, having left his truck parked against the heavy bushes beside the grocery, was coming out of his lawyer’s office feeling better. Maybe he wasn’t as old and half dead as he’d thought. Finally getting his will and trust in order, signing the last papers. Wiping out everyone but little Mindy and the two trustees he had chosen, leaving her the house and land, the two horses, the tractor and haying machines, and what money he had—which was more than his three sons knew—he felt more like the old Zebulon Luther once more. He figured no one would take better care of Mindy than Police Chief Harper and Charlie, his redheaded wife. He lived close enough to the Harper ranch to ride over there sometimes, or to see Charlie riding by on her sorrel mare, to stop and talk with her for a while or ask her in for coffee. Sometimes Charlie would bake a carrot cake or bring him a bag of oatmeal cookies. He and Mindy kept that secret, the two hiding them and sharing them alone. Yes, Charlie and Max would make fine guardians, if it came to that. Zeb knew a lot about Max Harper, and all of it good except for what Thelma and Nevin said, and that translated easily into the real truth.

His attorney, Eric Lock, was an easygoing guy raised in Montana, and about Zebulon’s own age. It was mighty nice of him coming into the office on a Saturday. He insisted on getting the Harpers’ written permission before finalizing the trust. It didn’t give Zeb custody but it gave him a leg up, to take better care of his granddaughter. Lock took careof it all, and Zeb, leaving his office, felt pretty good.

He pulled back as Thelma and Mindy passed by, headed on down the block. He was so excited to see his granddaughter he started to run over and grab her up and hug her. Instead, he pulled deeper into the shadows of a camera shop, stood watching her sadly as she disappeared.

He could see a black stretch limo parked down the street and he got a glimpse of the driver, crew-cut white hair as his third and oldest son straightened his cap. What was DeWayne doing here in the village? He’d thought he was on the East Coast. Zebulon hadn’t seen his oldest son in more than three years and he never heard from him, never a call or a letter, nor did he expect any. DeWayne dressed the best of the three boys, was the slickest. Had a fancy girlfriend, everythinghe did was to act big-time—but Zeb never saw the boy. DeWayne had e-mailed the girlfriend’s picture to Varney, not to his own father.

DeWayne was in South America for a while, then returned to drive limos for a small company in San Francisco. Even when he came down here, he never called or stopped by.

Well, he was here now. Zeb guessed with the car show, with all the tourists in town, more limos had been hired.

Or did DeWayne’s presence mean something more? In this crowd, he could sure figure a way to pick up some loose cash. DeWayne had sticky fingers even worse than his brothers.

Zeb had tried for years to change them but they wouldn’t listen so what was the use? He and Nell had done everything they knew to keep them straight; their crimes were never anything too bad, as far as he knew: misdemeanors like minor stealing, shoplifting. He and Nell had ended up not prying into their business, life was easier that way. To talk about it only made Nell sicker.

He turned away when Charlie Harper and that young female building contractor, Ryan Flannery, came out of the PD and, some distance behind them, the chief. Max Harper was in uniform today, not in his usual jeans and boots.

He waited until Max had pulled out, and Mindy and Thelma had gone on. He didn’t want Mindy to see him here in town and shout “Grandpa!” and run up to him making a fuss, no matter how much he missed her. Heading back down the street for his truck, he felt in his pocket for his grocery list. Lonely old man shopping to cook for himself like so many single “seniors” in the village, left to waste alone; and his cooking never tasted as good as Nell’s had, or even Thelma’s, after she took over. Glancing back once at the courthouse, he saw a cat on the roof behind him but paid little attention; except he wondered if he should get a cat. For the mice. And, to be honest, for the company, a warm, friendly animal to cuddle down with at night.

From the roof of Molena Point PD, Joe Grey hardly noticed the old man; he seemed vaguely familiar, some local Joe had seen around. The tomcat had backed halfway down the oak trunk by the department’s glass door when Charlie Harper and Joe’s own housemate, dark-haired Ryan Flannery, came out, her tousled bob lightly flecked with sawdust, her carpenter’s tools still hanging at her belt. Charlie Harper’s red hair was tied back with a pink scarf, she was wearing apink T-shirt, new jeans, and sandals. Looked like she’d meant to go out to lunch with Max and had been stood up by some emergency or official appointment. Too bad. Some distance behind them, the chief appeared, dressed in uniform as was Detective Dallas Garza, the two heading for the chief’s squad car. Max turned to wave to Charlie, and she blew him a kiss. He glanced at Joe, frowned, and the two cops were gone, turning out into village traffic—and Joe would have to wait until they returned to get any information about the woman he had found, or about the library snooper. Maybe they’d have something soon, with McFarland tailing the guy.

He could slip in the station and prowl Max’s desk. But eavesdropping when the detectives were present was better than snooping alone through the chief’s notes and reports. Listening to Max and his staff toss a problem around while Joe himself sat reading Max’s handwritten notes and scanning the computer screenusually added up to a bundle of facts worth waiting for.

Now, he dropped on down the oak tree and followed Ryan and Charlie who looked like they were headed for lunch. Ryan had just come from work, khaki shirt and work pants, and heavy boots. When she saw Joe, she grinned and beckoned to him. He followed them down the sidewalk and into the flowery little tearoom that Ryan had said no cop would ever be caught entering. As the door swung closed Ryan caught the heavy glass, Joe slid through, and they made for an isolated corner table, passing the elderly tearoom cat asleep on the window seat. The old fellow hardly stirred, hardly opened his eyes when he caught a whiff of Joe Grey. There were no other cats in the room at the moment, though most of the tables were taken.

Joe leaped into the corner chair between Ryan and Charlie, and Ryan ordered for him, Joe’s ear twitch of agreement at a smoked-salmon sandwich, hold the bread, and a crab salad, hold the mayo. When the waitress had left, Charlie launched softly into a discussion of facts that Ryan must already know, thus telling Joe what he hadn’t had a chance to hear in the chief’s office where he’d been headed.

Charlie said,“Max meant to get to the hospital early, see that battered woman again that the medics picked up, then have a quick lunch. But he’s running late for some meeting, he stayed at the hospital quite a while. She’s in bad shape, the guy almost broke her neck. She was lucky someone found her.” She didn’t glance down at Joe but she stroked him lovingly—and Joe could feel her shudder, as he did himself, thinking of the woman nearly buried alive. He looked up at Charlie and rubbed his head back and forth against her caressing hand.

“She’s still on life support,” Charlie said. “She can hardly speak, her throat is so injured. Looks like she speaks Spanish more easily, maybe one of the Latin American countries. Dallas will sort out what the other guys miss.”

“What made her attacker leave so suddenly?” Ryan said softly, looking down at Joe Grey. “Lucky for her someone came along. I’ve seen enough grisly murders, but to be buried alive …” She leaned down to hug Joe Grey and kiss the top of his head. It embarrassedhim for her to kiss him, even when they were home alone. She said, “I wish I’d learned Spanish when Dallas was living with us.” Ryan’s two uncles had moved in with her dad and the three little girls after their mother died. Dallas was her mother’s brother, the Latino half of the family, with his dark hair and nearly black eyes. Ryan had the dark hair, but her green eyes were like her dad’s, Mike Flannery, and his brother Scotty’s. The Scots-Irish part of the family.And tempers to match, Joe thought, smiling.

“And then later this morning,” Charlie said, talking to Ryan as she filled Joe in, “another street robbery. Victim was carrying a canvas bag with cash, another bank deposit.”

That brought the tomcat to attention. He’d heard nothing about this. He must have been lolling with the kiddies at story hour when that went down. Maybe that was where the siren they’d heard was heading.

“It was out in the valley,” Charlie said. “That victim’s in emergency, too.”

“I think …” Ryan paused, looked startled as the front door opened and their new neighbors, the brown-haired little girl and her plain, unhappy mother, came in. Mindy spotted Charlie and took off running. She threw her arms around her redheaded neighbor, who often rode the trails with her—but Thelma grabbed the child, pulled her across the room, and sat down with their backs to them but where they could see out the window. Mindy looked around at Joe as if she would grab him, too, but at her mother’s look she sat still.

Joe just looked at her. He had had enough of the Luther family since Thelma and Nevin and Mindy moved in with Varney. Nevin was the youngest, Varney the middle brother. He’d moved into the rental across from Joe Grey’s house about six months ago. Neither Joe, Ryan, nor Clyde had had a full night’s sleep since the other three joined him. The two brothers were always at it, shouting and arguing over nothing. Joe, when he was in at night—which wasn’t often—had slept in the kitchen with Snowball and the big silver Weimaraner where they couldn’t hear so clearly; the aging, loving, nonspeaking little white cat considered the Weimaraner her protector. She slept nearly buried between the big dog’s chest and paws. Joe Grey would lie draped over Rock’s flank, their gray coloring so similar it was hard to tell cat from dog.

“I keep wondering,” Ryan said softly, “if there’s a connection between the battered woman and the street robberies. I don’t know why there would be, except that during the car festival there’s big money around. And these last three robberies, two of them just before the bank closed, were all large cash deposits from restaurants that are crowded to the hilt. Bar owners getting rid of their surplus cash.”

Restaurant bars usually got rid of what cash they could before the crowds gathered. Dinner customers most often paid by credit card, while those at the bar shelled out greenbacks. Joe knew that from slipping into any number of village restaurants, watching the crowd from some dark corner as he spied on a suspect, collecting information that he could pass anonymously to Max Harper—if he wasn’t tossed out by the ma?tre d’, thrown unceremoniously out in the parking lot, angry and clawing. Ryan glanced at him, a teasing look in her eyes. “This latest robbery just after the bank closed, no sign of a witness, even the phantom snitch missed the action. But then, that was clear up the valley.”

“But therewas a witness,” Charlie said, looking at Ryan. “That robbery,after the Mid-Valley Bank closed. Though the witness didn’t see much, she couldn’t run after him. She was way pregnant and pushing two kids in a stroller—Max said so pregnant that if she’d chased the robber she might have delivered right there on the street. She whipped out her phone and called the dispatcher, but the small squad working that area was clear up the valley, and the guy got away.

“She called the medics, too,” she said, laughing. “Baby boy, born on the medics’ stretcher before they even got her in the ambulance.

“She said the man was dressed in dark gray and a tan jacket, old jogging shoes, cap pulled down over dark shaggy hair. She didn’t see his face, he fled around a corner and she didn’t see or hear a car.” Charlie pushed back her red hair. “Max was mad as hell that they lost him.” She lowered her voice when a black limo pulled up in front of the tea shop, the driver in black uniform, black cap; they could see someone tall slumped in the backseat, only a shadow behind the dark glass.

The driver got out and came in, crossing the room directly to Thelma Luther’s table. Dark auburn hair, liver-colored freckles running into his sideburns and scalp. He sat down, they said nothing but looked at each other comfortably. The moment he appeared, the shop cat woke, hissed fiercely at him, and fled for the kitchen.

Mindy, having had little response from Joe Grey but a growl, raced at once for the older cat. She snatched him up near the back door; but she held him gently, petting him despite his angry snarls. Joe Grey, with the window seat empty, flew across the room and jumped up on the padded bench that stood against the window, sitting tall as he took silent possession, smugly defending the warm place the old cat had abandoned.

The driver was a middle-aged man, of middle height. Joe didn’t like his eyes, they were small and mean. He ordered coffee and a sweet roll, a second one to go. When the waitress had left, he turned to Thelma. “We’ve changed our plans, we’re moving on for a few days.”

Her look was puzzled, questioning.

“Too many tourists. I thought Car Show Week would be good cover, tourists thick as cockroaches. I’dcounted on cops everywhere, but notthis many and not at three in the morning. Early last night, Maurita began to get edgy, there was a big fight. She doesn’t like the crowds, either, you know how temperamental she is.”

Thelma looked at him nervously.

“The bars close at one,” he said. “I thought the village would quiet down but it doesn’t.”

Of course it quiets down, Joe Grey thought. Last night—this morning—I was out at three, middle of town, all over town. Quiet as a tomb. The thought of a tomb made him claw nervously at the seat cushion.

“But you’ve …” Thelma began.

The man nodded.“We’d already done the casing. Maurita did the inventory, she knows her business. But then afterward when she was done …” He paused, looked uncertain. “Afterward, she just fell apart, lost her nerve. She was shaking and she started crying. They fought, and shebegan throwing things in her suitcase. He stomped out, called her some pretty raunchy names, and left the motel. She took off alone in one of the backup cars, headed for San Francisco, she said. He let her go. They’ll both cool down by morning.

“We’ll put it off until the crowd eases up. Hit San Francisco for the rest of the week, until these tourists thin out and the cops pull back, and pull back their part-time crew.” He was speaking softly. He glanced several times at Ryan and Charlie but there was no way they could hear him; it would take a cat, a cat sitting alert and close to him, to hear the auburn-haired man’s whisper.

Maxhad brought in extra forces, because of the trouble they’d had at last year’s car show: robberies, three small riots that filled up the jail, and despite the tight surveillance at the show itself, two thefts of antique cars that had been parked on the village street, each worth over a million.

The driver rose.“Got to get to work. We’ll be in touch. Our little company, getting this gig with ALS, we don’t want to blow that.” American Limo, which served Molena Point and up the coast, was a big corporation, but even they hired smaller companies to fill in during the busiest times. The man paid his check, picked up the wrapped sweet bun, and left.

Little Mindy was still in the kitchen, waitresses stepping around her as she restrained and petted the old cat, some of the women frowning because she was in the way, some just smiling; the shaggy old cat looked somewhat happier now that he was being petted, until one of the waitresses reached to pick him up and toss him out and he started snarling again and striking at her. Joe abandoned the scene, turning back to the window as the limo pulled away. He got the license number and just caught the little sticker with the name of the company, Maitre D’ Limo.

Whatever that’s about,he thought,it’s sure as hell dicey. It can’t hurt to give the chief a call. I wish Thelma had mentioned the guy’s name. They seemed casual enough, almost like family. Or does Thelma have something going, on the side?

3

As Joe leaped into Ryan’s red king cab she pulled her notebook from the center console and wrote down the license number he gave her: the make of the limo, the logo that said ALS.

Driving home, they caught a glimpse of Charlie’s red hair in her SUV, headed toward the gallery that handled her work, and Joe told Ryan about the man who’d been casing the library. Ryan and Charlie had already heard the rough details in Max’s office before the chief left for lunch, and she knew that Jimmie McFarland was tailing the stalker or whatever he was. She looked over at Joe, frowning. “It could be nothing. Some guy doing research for a college class or a private project, that’s the way Max seemed to take it—except,” she said, “he does have McFarland keeping an eye on him.”

“And what has Jimmie found out?”

“Not much so far,” Ryan said. “He’s checked for prints—but in a library? Fingerprints all over the place. And when the guy took the books from the shelf he was wearing pigskin gloves. That’s what set Max off. Do you know how clumsy it is to flip through books andtry to write down notes while wearing gloves?”

Joe snorted.“Try that with cat paws, see what you get.”

She couldn’t help grinning. But then, looking over at him, she turned solemn. “What’s happening to the village, Joe? We always have some crime, a murder or two, a few burglaries, just like every town—a few really bad ones, thatyou’ve helped solve, that might never have been sorted out without our phantom snitch, without the evidence you’ve tipped to Max and the department.”

She turned a corner, stopping for a half dozen giggling young tourists, and turned to look at Joe.“That poor beaten woman, half buried alive, that gives me the sick shudders. Itwas you who tipped Max off?”

“Yes, and scared the killer off,” he said, “when I stepped on a dry twig. I couldn’t see much of him in the fog, just his shadow, heavyset or heavy coat; hard to tell much, except he was tall. Did anyone find the shovel? Did they find anything after I belted out of there?”

“Max didn’t say. Except there was dirt on the curb where the snitch …”—she grinned—“where you said her attacker had parked.”

“Did anyone report the torn screen across the street,” Joe said, “where I made the call?”

She shook her head.“Max didn’t mention it. With that old house, who would notice? In that house, all the screens could be rotted. Now, with the fog cleared, Kathleen and Davis are working the area.” She glanced at him. “You don’t think they’ll find pawprints around the phone?”

“That house has cats, I could smell them.”

As she pulled into their drive, across the street in front of Varney Luther’s rental, he and Nevin were standing in the scruffy yard close together arguing in each other’s faces—not loud, not mad, just arguing. Maybe that was natural behavior, Joe thought. Maybe they grew up that way. At least they weren’t pounding each other in the middle of the street again, where someone would call the station. Neither one wanted to go to jail, Joe knew enough about them to know that. One more loud fistfight, Max had told them, and they’d be in the lockup.

When Thelma pulled up, parking her old green Volvo in front, the two brothers scowled at her and at Mindy and went in the house. Getting out hastily, Thelma followed them, dragging Mindy by the hand—and looking back at the squad car that had been easing along some distance behind her.

The patrol unit pulled on up, Chief Harper sat a few minutes, double-parked, looking at the Luthers’ rental. The old, plastered building was set back from the street farther than the larger houses on either side. It had once been a cramped duplex. Now, with the removal of several interior walls, it afforded room for Varney, for Nevin and Thelma, and a tiny room for the child. Joe and Dulcie had prowled it months ago among timbers and Sheetrock during the reconstruction before Varney ever moved in. Ryan’s firm hadn’t done the work. The landlord had gotten someone cheap. Cheap and shoddy, Joe thought, not anywhere near Ryan’s high professional standards.

Max’s squad car sat a few more moments, the chief looking at the now-empty yard, then he moved ahead and turned into the Damens’ drive, parking beside Ryan’s king cab.

“I wish,” Joe said, “those two had been pounding each other so bad that Max wouldhave to lock them up.”

As Max got out of the squad car, Clyde’s Jaguar came up the street and slid into the remaining space. Stepping out he raised a hand to Max, leaned in through Ryan’s window to kiss her, but looked suspiciously at Joe Grey. Why did Clyde always suspect he was up to some kind of trouble?

“Anything for lunch?” Clyde said as he and Max headed for the front door. “Max hasn’t eaten.”

“Those impromptu meetings take forever,” Max said, “and accomplish nothing.”

Ryan moved on inside to the big kitchen, where she started coffee and began to make sandwiches.“What happened at the hospital, Max? Oh, the woman isn’t dead?”

“She’s still with us, and doing better than anyone thought. Still in a lot of pain. A cracked jaw, they’ve wired that up. She can’t talk much. Amazing that there’s nothing worse broken. Two ribs, a number of small bones, a lot of deep bruises.”

Ryan opened a fresh loaf of rye, spread on cream cheese, layered on salami, buttered the outsides and laid them on the grill, two for Max, two for Clyde, and despite the fact that Joe had just eaten, one for the tomcat.

Max sat down in his usual place, pushing aside the neatly opened morning paper which, Joe noticed, did not mention the open grave and attempted murder. It featured instead the winners of the state’s high school spelling bee, a big spread above the fold. And, below the fold, a young black bear that had wandered into the village from a nearby canyon. The bear had escaped two foot-patrol officers by climbing a pine tree near the village church. Now, this morning, he was drawing quite a crowd.

Max said,“We managed to dodge the press on the open grave. The woman was already tucked away in the emergency room with guards. Reporters were up front asking questions. They got no answers. Still no match for her prints, and no ID. But I want her out of there, too many civilians nosing up and down the halls.” He looked at Clyde. “I still can’t believe what you said about the cat.”

Joe nearly choked on his sandwich. He looked at Clyde, shocked, his yellow eyes narrowed.What are you doing? What the hell did you tell Max?

Clyde dealt out a handful of napkins and poured fresh coffee.“That sort of talent isn’t as unusual as you think, cats and dogs scenting to find the start of cancer, find a whole list of diseases.And, some of those animals have already been proven to help heal their patients.”

Joe relaxed, or nearly so. Except, they had to be talking about Joe’s young son, Buffin, who had found his healing talents while nursing a little dog at Dr. Firetti’s clinic. Max didn’t need to know any more, he was already too often puzzled by Joe and his family. What had Clyde told him, what had he suggested?

“I’ve been looking at cats on the Internet,” Clyde said. “A cat up in Oregon who knew when someone was going to die. He wouldn’t leave their bed, cuddling against them trying to soothe them as long as they were alive. Maybe it’s the same thing with the healing.”

Max shrugged.“I suppose,” he said doubtfully. “Like the scent detection of a good drug dog. Except drug dogs are trained to the skill. These sensing animals, if there is such a thing, would have to beborn with the ability. And as to healing …”

Clyde picked up half his sandwich.“Same with healing. Ask John Firetti. He said the first time the kitten was in the clinic he hopped right up into that pup’s cage, snuggled up to the sick dog, and at once the dog wagged his tail and rested against Buffin. In a little while the dog was smiling and wanting to get up, wanting to walk around, acting as if the pain was gone.” Though Clyde himself was still puzzled over the event.

Ryan said,“John Firetti will tell you, he’ll tell you what Buffin can do. Besides, what harm to try? Yousaid if the woman doesn’t get better in Recovery the hospital wants her in a nursing home, that she needs more quiet and rest.” She looked at Max quietly. “She needs to get well enough to give you some information. And maybe Buffin can help heal her. She’ll have good care, good nurses, she’ll be just five minutes from Emergency. Why not try it?”

The chief said nothing.

“Having a pet,” Ryan said, “a little cat to cuddle, could calm her, might cheer her where nothing else would.” But Ryan knew that Joe’s buff kitten could do more than just calm a patient.

Max said,“No nursing home would bother with an animal. And the cost … My budget won’t handle guards twenty-four/seven.”

“That new little nursing home over near the foreign car sales,” Ryan said, “near Clyde’s shop. They’re small. Ten patients, and they’re nice people, I know the manager and one of the nurses. I could talk with them. It isn’t far from the vet clinic, John Firetticould check on Buffin, check on them both,” she said, grinning. “It has no business sign, it looks like an ordinary house. Mirrored windows so when the lights are off you can’t see in, alarms on all the windows. The owner and two of the nurses carry, and are well trained. Is she well enough to go there?”

“And,” Max said, “if her attacker sees us move her? Sees the ambulance and follows it, knows she’s there? Is waiting for another chance at her before she talks? We have guards on her room, but if he catches us moving her out …”

“You’re a cop, you can figure that out. Dress her as a medic, switch with a woman medic bringing in a patient? Send her away in the supposedly empty ambulance … Is she well enough to walk? Drive the ‘empty’ ambulance into the fire station like they always do, and switch her into an old car?”

Max sighed. Arguing with Ryan was as bad as arguing with Charlie. Except that Ryan didn’t give him the hug-and-kiss routine that his redheaded wife would, to soften him up. He got up, frowning. “No more arguments, we’ll talk about it later.”

“Wilma’s coming to dinner,” she said, waiting for the next round, letting him think about it. “And the Greenlaws. Potluck. Charlie said she’d drop by from the gallery if they finish early enough. What about you?”

“Not tonight. I think I’ll head back to the hospital. At least she speaks English, Dallas found out that much—as garbled as it was with her wired jaw and her bruised throat.”

This grisly attempted burial would hold Max and the detectives twenty-four/seven until they nailed the near-murderer; the chief had no notion that the case pulled at Joe Grey in the same intense manner. Max thanked Ryan for the sandwich, gave her an unexpected kiss on the forehead, and left them, swinging out the front door and into his squad car. Joe watched him from the living room window as he cruised slowly by the Luther house, giving the place another look-over.

What so interested him about their bickering neighbors? Well, domestic casescould turn into big trouble, could explode in a flash. A good cop was always watchful; such conflict, even from a distance, always put an officer on alert.

Joe Grey dug his claws into the back of the couch, wondering if Max knew something that he didn’t. Was there a connection between the Luthers and some other crime? The library prowler? The beaten woman?

Maybe he’d hit the station later, stretch out on Harper’s bookcase, try to put the pieces together.

4

It was over three weeks after Nevin and Thelma and Mindy moved out and left him that Zeb found the letter. He found it on a Friday, the day Mindy had always started begging about going to the library for Saturday. He wondered if Thelma was taking her to story hour since they’d moved away from the ranch and into the village, with the library and shops right there close. Thelma always grumbled about story hour, she didn’t like sitting around listening to what she called “kiddies’ books.” The librarian, Ms. Getz, said you had to grow up,grow truly mature in the way you looked at life, before you began to enjoy reading again the best children’s stories.

Well, this Friday he’d gone out to the road to get the mail and the paper, all junk mail usually that he’d throw in the trash. Except his bank statement was in there and he tossed it on the table. Varney had had his mail forwarded to a post office box when he left six months ago. Nevin and Thelma did the same just a few days before they moved out.

Before they left, Zeb had hardly ever brought in the mail. Mindy did it, or Nevin. Zeb didn’t get much mail himself, only an occasional postcard from a cousin or some old friend or one of Nell’s friends; and their statement. Just to be sure he hadn’t missed anything, he shuffled methodically through the junk ads, tossed them in the trash, and turned to pick up the bank statement.

But this wasn’t his statement. It was Nevin’s. And not Nevin and Thelma’s regular account. Just Nevin Luther, alone. And it wasn’t from their bank, either, the one in the village. This was from the Bank of Walnut Creek, way up the coast.

Nevin had never had an account in that bank. Why would he? Why drive way up there? Zeb had never seen a statement marked like this. He sat down at the kitchen table with the envelope before him, deciding if he should open it or direct it on, mark it“wrong address”? It wasn’t his business.

He made himself a cup of coffee. Waiting while it brewed, he sat staring at the bank logo and at Nevin’s neatly typed name, with this address. Maybe the bank had made a mistake when they were sorting out changes of address on the computer.

Pouring his coffee, sitting down again, he ripped open the envelope before he had time to think about it, wasn’t even careful how he tore it. Pulled out the statement and stared at the front page where it gave the monthly total, which made him gag on his coffee.

Total assets: $1,271,899.10.One million? He read it again.

Total liabilities: $0.00.

Qualifying balance: $1,271,899.10. One million, two hundred and seventy-one thousand, eight hundred and ninety-nine dollars, and ten cents.

Zeb sat for a long time. He checked the amounts and dates of the individual deposits. None were too large, but many were just a few days apart. Took a lot of gas to drive up there that often. Would Nevin have done the banking by mail? That wasn’t like him, he didn’t trust the mail. He refilled his coffee cup and made a ham sandwich. Went out to the shed, picked up the two dozen newspapers stacked neatly on top of an empty crate, papers he kept for blocking the doors during a flooding rain and for sopping up water when he defrosted the freezer. The discarded papers were pretty much in order.

It took him the rest of the afternoon to find and tear out the pages with articles about the recent increase in bank-withdrawal thefts. And all the time thinking about where Nevin would have put the rest of the statements.

If Varney or Thelma knew nothing about this, Nevin might have figured it was safer to leave them here. He began to search the house, Nevin and Thelma’s room first, closet, between the mattress and the springs, the dresser. He found them wrapped in a woolen sweater that Thelma had told Nevin to keep in a zippered plastic bag because of moths. A thin stack of statements with a rubber band around them, folded inside the gray sweater. The same bank, the top one dated the month before the current one, which he slipped in with the others.

Zeb woke real early Saturday morning. He fed and watered the horses, made one phone call, one of the few real friends he had left in the world. He and Robert Blake had ridden broncs together when they were young. Young and strong—and rode the bulls, too, crazy kids. He left the ranch in the old truck, the only transportation he had.

He swung through the village; he was there at eight when the UPS store opened. He made copies of all the statements, at a machine where he was somewhat shielded from the view of prying eyes. He didn’t copy the clippings. He put the copies in a brown envelope and shoved that under the floor mat on the driver’s side. He returned to the house, put the original statements back the way he’d found them, with the new one, folded into the sweater. He was in Santa Cruz bymid-morning, turning in at his friend’s used-car lot.

Robert had pulled one of his cars up to the front of the lot, ones he hadn’t done much cosmetics on yet though he’d maybe fixed up the engines, replaced a few tires. This one was just what he wanted, eighteen-year-old Ford coupe, blue paint so faded it was almost gray. It had nearly new tires, though, and Rob had washed it and polished it as best he could. They hitched the car behind the truck with a car dolly, so Zeb could haul it safely home. They had a beer, shot the bull for a few minutes. Zeb paid for the car with his credit card, which he had used for Nell’s medical bills. He was home again around one, he had plenty of time. Passing the Harpers’ ranch he noted Charlie’s SUV parked by the house, the light in her studio reflecting against the hay barn.

At home he unhitched the car and backed it deep in the shed, tucked the envelope of copied statements in his pocket. Parked the truck just outside where he always did. He checked his watch again. This was Saturday, the best night to try, but he had plenty of time. He knew that little area, it was closer than the village, he knew most of the shopkeepers. The bank stayed open until six on Saturdays so people could deposit their pay, and the restaurant owners could make big deposits to nearly empty their safes before the busiest night of the week when robberies would be lucrative. Restaurant safes were weaker than a bank vault.

Throwing a saddle on his bay gelding he headed at a jog then an easy canter for the Harper place. It was Charlie who had taught Mindy to guide a horse with body movement, easy and nice, a little pressure, a little shift of weight.

He could see Charlie in the kitchen pouring a cup of coffee. She waved him in, and reached for another cup. She had cut her curly red hair short, a bright cap where it used to be a long flaming tangle tied back out of the wind.

Throwing his reins over the hitching rack near the pasture fence, he entered through the all-purpose front door into a big, tile-floored mud room, hooks for jackets, shelves for boots, long sink for scrubbing up hands and arms, pots of flowers on the windowsill. One door stood open to the kitchen, another to the big, high-raftered living room that looked out across the pastures to the sea. When he entered the kitchen, Charlie looked at his expression for a long minute, gave him a hello hug and led him to the table. He didn’t visit often without phoning, didn’t visit for no reason. She looked at the brown envelope he laid on the table, her bright, freckled face puzzled and then uneasy. She reached to the kitchen counter, fetched a plate of gingerbread; looked back at the envelope then at Zebulon, waiting.

“Would you hide it for me where no one else will find it? Well, if Max finds it, that’s okay. At my house, nothing’s very secure. Hide it from Max and not tell him unless hedoes find it. Or until the time is right. Is that putting too much on a cop’s wife?”

Charlie laughed.“Can you tell me what it is, or is that a secret, too?”

“It’s copies of Nevin’s bank statements, a bank up the coast. I don’t know if they mean anything. I think they do, and that Max will want them. The originals are in Nevin’s dresser. Are you okay with them here, or do they put you in trouble?”

Charlie touched the shoulder holster under her light vest, and grinned at him. The statements would be safe here. She took the envelope, stepped into the living room and behind the fireplace. He heard a stone slide, then a lock click and turn several times. Heard a metal door open.

She returned without the envelope, her stardust of freckles bright with interest, her green eyes wide with questions she wouldn’t ask. Whatever this was about, she knew he had his reasons. That he was doing the right thing, or getting ready to do it. She knew Zeb wouldn’t make trouble for Max.

As for Zeb, he trusted Charlie as he trusted the chief himself. He finished his coffee and gingerbread. He rose, gave her a hug, left quietly out the mud entry. He untied his gelding and headed home, the back way again, they were hardly seen as the bay moved quietly through the woods. At home Zeb unsaddled him, rubbed him down, and went inside to his room.

He had a little nap, drifting off wondering how all this would turn out, wondering if he was making too much of nothing.

He was up and left the house around five, drove in to the shopping center across Highway One from the village: newer grocery, drugstore, lots of casual restaurants and shops, fire station across the side road. He’d liked Molena Point when it was smaller, when this here land was all dairy barns and pastures, before the village started to outgrow itself.

He pulled into a small alley behind the drugstore where he could see the backs of a row of restaurants; and just across the blacktop, cars parked before the bank, its fluorescent lights reflected in their windows. He killed the engine and sat in his car watching for a possible shopkeeper on his way to make a deposit.

Yes, he didn’t wait long and here came Jon Jaarel driving into the lot in his new, white Lexus hatchback. Older, blond man, his once athletic trim still thin but going soft. Jon pulled in carefully between a bread delivery truck and a tall, rented camper, a narrow space where he wouldn’t readily be seen by some pickpocket; the way Jaarel acted, Zeb knew he had money on him. As Jaarel opened the door and started to step out, his trench coat pooched in front as if he were pregnant. In the shadows of the tall vehicles, a car drew up nosing into the narrow space between Jaarel’s door and the truck; the driver swung out, bundled up in the chill dusk, heavy jacket, hood pulled up. As Jaarel stepped out, the driver hauled back and slammed the door against Jaarel, knocking him hard into his own steering wheel and slamming the door against him. Jaarel struggled as the robber leaned in, ripped open Jaarel’s trench coat, snatched out the money bag, and slammed the door in Jon Jaarel’s face, a terrible blow. And the man was gone, barely a flash of his green car as he spun and sped away.

Jaarel lay still in his white hatchback, bleeding, as Thelma’s car disappeared among the shops and small streets.

Nevin. The robber was Nevin.

Shamed and shocked, Zebulon wanted to run across and help Jaarel but he didn’t have the nerve to be seen there. He was certain Jon was dead, the way the blood was gushing. And what if Nevin saw him? Grabbing his old phone, he hit the emergency button and alerted the local branch of the fire department, which was right across the highway. He backedout of the alley looking for Nevin but didn’t see him. Didn’t see any cops. He drove sedately up a side street as an ambulance screamed out of the station and across the main road.

Joe Grey waited, pacing with hunger, for their friends to arrive with their potluck supper offerings. At last here came Wilma, sliding out of her car carrying a wrapped casserole, Dulcie and Courtney leaping out behind her, noses to the air sniffing the good smell of her tamale pie. As Wilma headed for the kitchen, the Greenlaws double-parked in the drive. Kit and Pan jumped out of the black Lincoln Town Car and raced in the house, Pedric behind them carrying a tray covered with clear wrap that smelled like a field of ripe strawberries. Joe was rearing up sniffing the good scents of supper when they heard, from across the street, a car start. Curious, Joe raced to the front window to look, the other cats crowding behind him. Thelma’s car, the green Volvo, was just turning the corner up toward Highway One, Nevin driving. Thelma stood in the yard looking sour, then turned back in the house scowling and dragging Mindy behind her. Maybe Nevin was going to the store, they always fought over that. Nevin said it was Thelma’s place to do the shopping. She said she’d shop if he’d cook, but he never did. Maybe he’d said her car needed running so the battery wouldn’t die.

Abandoning the sleazy couple, the cats returned to the kitchen; the big room was full of talk and laughter, the sounds of plates and silverware, and the aroma of supper and of the garlic bread that Charlie had just brought in. She didn’t have to say,Max is working. He usually was. Clyde was saying,“It’s Dulcie and Courtney and Kit that I worry about—it’s the sweet cuddly ones that a cat dealer would steal and sell.”

Joe gave Clyde a hard look.“You’re saying I’m not sweet and cuddly?”

“Sweet as syrup,” Clyde said, cuffing him on the shoulder. “Who wouldn’t love to steal a mean-looking tomcat with teeth like rapiers?”

But the idea of a cat thief was too bizarre.“Why would anyone steal a cat?” Joe said. “If that guy knew we could speak, he’d have snatched us all up long ago. And why come to the library for an ordinary cat, there are cats all over the village, neighborhood cats wandering everywhere. As far as cuddly, little children are the cuddly ones. Little kids are kidnapped all the time.”

But then he was sorry he’d said that, the thought of what happened to those kids made his paws go cold and his stomach queasy—and Clyde looked at Joe a long time. He said, “And there sure as hell aren’t cats like Courtney all over the village, with her picture in half the history books. What about those books he was poring over, what was that about? All McFarland said when he looked later, after the guy had put the books back, was that they were from the shelves on ancient art.”

Dulcie said,“The watcher looked a lot like the bank robber that pregnant woman described. Dark rumpled clothes, long black hair, wrinkled cap, old worn-out coat. It could be the same guy … Andhe stole a bundle of money.”

Clyde shook his head.“How would a robbery fit in with his prowling the library, watching cats and children?” He glanced at the Greenlaws and at Wilma. “I think the cats would be smart to stay in tonight.”

Before anyone could argue, Ryan said,“Dinner,” loud enough to stop a barrage of hot feline arguments. She had set out the cats’ plates in grand style on the kitchen counter, each with a blue place mat, each with a nice serving of Wilma’s tamale pie, garlic bread, Ryan’s fresh green salad, and half a strawberry tart. No one paid much attention to the sirens from up the hill at the shopping center, such wails were common from the smaller fire station that served the valley—fire trucks and maybe an ambulance headed to one of the fancy older folks’ communities: elderly people living together, many with no real family and too often needing medical help. Dulcie looked at Joe, feeling suddenly sad for those lonely folks—and feeling sad for herself and for Joe, now that their kittens were nearly full grown, the boys already off on their own andCourtney so wild with adventure that she would be leaving home soon. Dulcie looked at Joe. “I miss the boys.”

Joe rubbed his head against hers.“So do I, but they’re growing up, they’re doing what they want to do. Buffin has settled in, like a miracle, to what he was meant to be.”

He twitched a whisker.“And doesn’t that make John Firetti happy. It’s like having a new hospital assistant, only better. And for now, Striker’s happy there, too. Now, our two kittens are all the doctor and Mary have to comfort them, since Misto died.”

Dulcie smiled, her ears up again.“Maybe we haven’t lost Striker, maybe he’ll hang around the cop shop more than you guess.”

Courtney exchanged a glance with Kit, a look of understanding. Courtneydid miss her brothers—but perhaps only a little, now that she had her mama and Wilma all to herself, the three of them had the house to themselves, andshe, the one remaining kitten, had things pretty much as she wanted.

But Striker and Buffin, the two stars in the Firetti household, had what they wanted, too. They got to wander the hospital, they got to go to the shore every morning and evening to watch John and Mary feed the wild ferals.

Courtney got to do that sometimes, running on the shore among the wild beach cats, leaving her own pawprints in the wet sand.But, she thought,whatwill my grown-up life be like?Buffin has found his place, he healed that little dog and sent him home happy, and he’s healed more.Dr.Firetti says he has a rare talent. And Striker, all claws and teeth, he wants to chase the bad guys like our daddy. But there’s something more, too, for Striker. Some other talent, I can sense it; but no one knows yet what that is.

But what will I do with my life? This right-now-today life? And she thought,even this very village sometimes brings back such strange memories. Brings back long-past times, Medieval times that, when I wake, I can’t stop wondering about.

In the library she would look at her own pictures in ancient books, see herself in woven tapestries, yet when she tried to remember more about those long-ago ages, she knew thatright now in this life, something maybe even more exciting waited for her, that a wonderful adventure waited, she could sense it like a bright glow all around her. She thought about that mystery all through dinner.

Afterward, when the cats and humans gathered in the living room by the fire, no one turned on the TV or a radio, no one knew there had been another robbery, another theft of money that had been headed for deposit in the bank. No one knew that the victim was dead.

Max Harper was still in the hospital with the woman from the grave when a second call came through from the dispatcher to his cell phone. Though the rescue units and his officers were careful not to pass information on to the news media, the local paper would have this one soon enough.

The caller wasn’t his regular snitch, wasn’t the familiar voice he was used to. Though the man’s style was the same, passing on the information quickly, and immediately hanging up. And, like Max’s usual snitch, his phone was untraceable. Likely an ancient cell phone with no GPS. The voice was that of an old man, shaky, frightened, and distraught. This disturbed him. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with another mangled body, this one decidedly dead. For one of the few times in his life Max Harper called in one of the detectives to work the case with theattending coroner—Jane Cameron might be young and beautiful, but she was a tough investigator, she had just been promoted in rank, and she didn’t get sick at the sight of a gory corpse.

The old man grew more and more upset as he drove the back way to Highway One and up past the turnoff to the Harpers’ ranch. There was no one outside in the pastures to see him drive by and head up his own lane for home.

Having left the scene as the sirens came screaming, he had felt steady enough then, filled with a sense that he’d done the right thing. That he might have saved Jon Jaarel’s life.

Could there have been any life left in the man after that brutal attack? What if itwas murder, what if Nevinhad killed him?

That was when his stomach really started to churn, when he began to feel pale and sick. Nevin, his own son … Over the years he’d known when Nevin was in trouble, and had tried to ignore it; and he had tried to keep the boy’s earlier troublemaking from Nell.

As he approached his empty house, evening began to close down around him. He couldn’t stop thinking about Jon Jaarel, injured and bloodied. The hardworking restaurant owner was a kind, steady man. Zeb prayed that he was alive yet was pretty sure he wasn’t. The old man was filled with a hollow emptiness, with futility at the brutal ways of his own boys,his own family.

He should have made a second call to the dispatcher, should have told Harper who the attacker was. He hadn’t seen Nevin full face in the dark but he saw enough to be sure; and he was sure that was Thelma’s car. He was sick inside, he didn’t know what to do, he felt so unsteady he could hardly drive.

How could he report his own son? All bundled up in old clothes like that, like a homeless man. He had moved so fast to get away that Zeb really hadn’t seen his face. He never saw which way Nevin went, he’d been too busy calling the medics—but he knew. He knew, from the way the man moved. He knew the body language of his boys.

This wasn’t the first bank-deposit robbery in the shopping area or in the village; and maybe Varney and Nevin were both responsible.

Pulling up before the house feeling even sicker, he saw his old truck sitting there and remembered to hide the car, get it out of sight. He wouldn’t want one of the boys to see he had another car. In case he … What? Decided to follow them, to see what else they were up to?

After he backed into the shed in the far corner and got out, he felt so shaky that he had to brace himself against the swinging wooden shed door as he closed it. Going inside he gripped the porch rail then the back door, then hung on to a kitchen chair as he sat down at the table. He wished he had some whiskey; there was no liquor in the house. What do you do when you feel scared hollow right down to your very soul?

He couldn’t even call the PD and ask if Jon Jaarel was alive; and ask if they’d caught the thief. Even if his phone was so old that it didn’t have GPS he was afraid to make another call. How did he know what kind of equipment the cops used?

He sat still for a long time, his head bent on his clenched hands. At last he went in the living room and lay down on the couch. He covered himself with Nell’s quilt and closed his eyes. His own boy. One of his boys. He guessed in the dark it could have been Varney but he was almost certain it was Nevin. He felt as weak as an old, old horse about to go under. Was there a place in the hereafter for worn-out horses and worn-out old men with nothing to look forward to? His life was gone. Nell gone, and the three boys turned out like this. Mindy was the only decent one, and the boys and Thelma had taken her away.

Max Harper was bound to find who did the killing—if Jaarelwas dead. And then prison for the boy, or worse. And, he thought, if both boys were involved, if both were convicted even for short sentences, what would happen to Mindy?

Would Harper leave her in the care of her mother?

But Thelma would refuse to come back here. No telling where she’d take Mindy. Likely she’d head for the city. Turning over, not wanting to think any more, he felt himself drop into a hard, deep sleep. He wouldn’t have thought he could sleep, in this state. He felt himself fall into a black emptiness that, he’d read once, came from depression or fear.

On the Damens’ roof, late after supper, the cats sat watching the chill fog roll in, its promise making them smile. Soon the streets and rooftops would be all but hidden, they could slip away and go anywhere they wanted, totally unseen. Their human families couldn’t object to that. Who could see a cat in this hazy overcast? Already a long white tail of thick ocean mist crept low along the face of the hills, a dark dragon making its way up the valley, obliterating the lower fields. It would soon grow longer and wider to cover all the hills and valley and then sink down to hide the village.

Then it would be hunting time. No one to see and snatch up a prowling cat as they slipped down from the roofs and maybe to the little park to have another look for the earring—if the cops hadn’t found it, or the guy hadn’t taken it with him.

The earring was tiny. It might be crushed, but it could still be lying in the sand, lost or buried where the earth was soft and deep. It might never be discovered unless sensitive cat paws dug into every corner of the park and maybe beyond. Could you smell gold? Joe didn’t think so, but he very much wanted that little piece of evidence.

The victim’s testimony would be powerful, as would the cops’ color photos of her lying bleeding and nearly dead, half buried in the rough grave—this, backed by minute bits of evidence the detectives had collected. But to have the torn-off earring with her blood on it and maybe bits of torn flesh and, hopefully, both sets of fingerprints—that should go even further toward convicting the guy, if they ever caught him.

5

The only sound the three lady cats could hear through the heavy fog was the hush of the sea from four blocks down where the injured woman had been found, where the two tomcats had already disappeared searching for the earring or maybe for other clues the cops might have missed, though that wasn’t likely. Dulcie and Kit and Courtney had stopped“foronly a minute” in the heavy haze to peer through a softly lit shop window. Standing on their hind paws, their front paws on the sill, their tails twitching, their noses pressed to the glass, they admired the lovely dresses, the tight pants and vests, and they imagined how it would feel to be real human ladies all dressed up.

The only glow to cut the mist was the faint light from the windows and, overhead, the diffused gleam of the fog-scarfed moon. In the thick haze, the three furry shoppers were only the faintest shadows, and at this hour, who was to see them? The streets were empty, the haze so thick you couldn’t have seen a streetlight even if there had been any. Not a soul, no one here to laugh at the cute kitties looking in the shops, no one to be amused at them as the library patrons had been. The fog turned Dulcie’s dark tabby stripes silver, and softened the orange of Courtney’s bright patchwork; vapor so heavy it feathered Kit’s tortoiseshell fur into curly tangles. They felt smug that they had slipped out of Clyde’s house against orders only long after the Damens slept, when the fog was so thick that no one could see them anyway—and who would kidnap a cat!

Now, the girl cats didn’t speak, even if the street was empty, but they could guess each other’s thoughts. Dulcie’s green eyes were bright with the dream of being a tall, beautiful woman, elegant in the red silk dress; Kit admired the lady wearing khaki hiking shorts and a leather vest—notthat Dulcie or Kit would want to stay in human form, they just wanted to know how it would feel, how they would look. Courtney, unlike her striped mother and tortoiseshell Kit, did not often imagine herself as a lovely human. Truly, only a few of their special breedcould change. Courtney dreamed of other kinds of magic, of centuries long gone, of ancient realms deep in her memory. As the other two lingered, she moved around the corner to peer in the end window at a soft-toned rain cape which, if she were human, would go well with her calico hair.Would I still be calico?Amused, she moved along toward the corner window looking at handsome luggage, at satin stoles, fancy hats and silk scarves, dreaming each into scenes from distant times.

When next Dulcie looked, Courtney had disappeared.

Galloping after her, skidding around the corner, Dulcie expected to see her daughter farther down the side street still peering in windows. She and Kit ran along the building mewing softly. Not seeing Courtney they stared across the street to the other stores, photography shop, art shop, small caf?—they found her scent, crossed to that side, and ran following her trail behind potted flowers and under porches. Courtney wasn’t one to play tricks on her mother. Or, not usually. At the end of the next block her trail ran along beside a stucco wall, they could smell where she had rubbed against it—but suddenly her scent was joined by the smell of a man. Someone they didn’t know. Then just as suddenly Courtney’s scent vanished. As if he had picked her up?

They air-scented for her, but they smelled only blood. Human blood—and they smelled Courtney’s anger, her rage. They hoped she’d clawed him good, hoped he’d dropped her, not liking her sharp rapiers. They could find no trail as if she had run from him. Was he still carrying her as she raked him? Had he hurt her? They followed his trail and the blood trail until the smells stopped at the curb.

Now they smelled canvas. A canvas bag? Then the hot stink of exhaust, and of tires taking off. Little pieces of bloody, torn canvas lay on the wet street. Why hadn’t Courtney cried out, why hadn’t she yowled for help? They followed his fresh tire tracks fast along the fog-wet street. At the next intersection, the marks of five cars coming out of driveways, turning as if headed for the freeway, maybe for a long drive to work; thesecrossed over the marks that the cats followed. But one car had turned around in the intersection smearing the other wet tracks, mixing them all up. Kit confusedly raced away down Ocean Avenue to find Joe and Pan, to find help. Dulcie was shaking with fear when the tomcats came running.

Joe licked Dulcie’s face. “We’ll find her, she can’t have gone far.”

“Joe, a man grabbed her. We didn’t see him, we didn’t recognize his smell. Hetook her, he caught her, took her away in a car. We smelledhis blood, she must have fought hard, scratched him good. What will he do to her?” She was sick with terror. “Can we tell the cops? Will they listen? Will the department put out a BOL for a cat?”

“Harper might,” Joe said, “if Clyde or Ryan ask him. If Charlie asks him.” He was scared as hell, too. “We need help, now.” Without another word he hit the roofs scrambling up a sagging vine and over the peaks for home, for his two housemates; Dulcie headed for her own home with Wilma, streaking along the sidewalk, Kit running beside her, stopping to scent at the bushes, to smell every shop door, peer under every porch, sniff at every car and into every dark corner praying that Courtney had gotten away from him. They searched behind every flower box, up every tree, through the fog-heavy night for the little cat’s scent and bright colors, all the time praying,He hasn’t hurt her. Oh, he hasn’t hurt Courtney. Dulcie’s heart was pounding.What has he done to her, what does he want with my baby?And in her mind she saw Courtney lying hurt and alone, trapped inside a bag, unable to free herself.

6

But Courtney wasn’t hurt. She was quite safe, at least for the moment, though she was still mad as hell. What did he want with her? Having driven only a few blocks, with her in the bag on the floor of the front seat, he had turned into a drive and killed the engine. When he lifted the bag out of the car, that was when she nearly got away, pushing through the hole she’d torn, yowling and spitting. He’d clutched the bag closed, carried her through one door and then another; doors close together as if he’d crossed a small room, and closing each behind him. She tried to think which direction they had come, where she might be.

He opened another door and carried her up a hard stairway, his shoes scuffing on something that sounded like rubber matting. Up the flight of steps and through another door that he slammed behind him, too, and he dumped the bag on the floor. She lay shivering. She had gone through a whole range of emotions—terror, rage, and earlier when he had stuffed her in the bag holding her mouth shut, she had been so wild she’d ripped the bag nearly apart. Now, lying in the bag undisturbed, she listened. When he didn’t move or speak, she clawed her way out through the bloody hole she’d made.

She was in an upstairs apartment.

She could have run but she didn’t. She stood looking up at her captor. But this was not the prowler in the library. This man was quite different. His head and face were clean shaven, smooth and lightly tanned; his eyes were as blue as her kitten eyes had been, before they turned a deep amber. He was well groomed and clean, neatly dressed. He looked down at her with interest, and then with a smile of gentle caring—and did she see a touch of amusement? Maybe because she was scowling at him? He did not look cruel. Strange that even at first, capturing her on the street, he had carried her so gently that he hadn’t hurt her, even though she’d fought and ripped at him. Most of the blood was his. Even gripping her by the back of her neck so tightly, he had been careful not to injure her, he had endured her slashing without striking back.

But did his gentle look hold something else, too? For an instant she had the sense of a big, friendly-appearing dog peering down innocently at a smaller animal that he meant, the next moment, to tear apart.

But that was foolish. He stroked her back then patted the cushions of the brocade couch inviting her up.“Come, my dear. Make yourself comfortable. You’ll enjoy living here. Don’t be afraid. You can see that the apartment is lovely, and the antiques shop downstairs, which will be yours later, all the beautiful furniture and sculpture to rub against. Come up, my dear, and make yourself at home.” And he fluffed up the folded throw at one end.

She leaped to the couch onto the cashmere throw, but she sat tall and still, full of defiance. All this elegance had begun to make her uneasy—yet the living roomwas lovely: ivory satin draperies closing out the night; lovely, carved antique chairs and chests. Wilma had taught her a little about antiques but she didn’t know enough to sort these out. There were stained-glass lamps, too, and a rich Persian rug all in deep tones that had felt thick and soft under her paws.

“You’ll so love living here—until we go on to New York, of course. Until you really become famous. Then, oh, you’ll love living in such elegance.” And he smiled and knelt and stroked her back in just the right way. How could he intend any harm?

He sat down at the other end of the couch, comfortable and easy.“You will be happy with me, my dear, and with our adventures. You will know luxuries you would find nowhere else, not in this day. And you will soon be famous. Oh, very famous when our project is complete. You will be on television, in the magazines, and then we will go for the movies. What can you learn, my dear? Can you learn tricks? That would be a nice touch. Oh, you will be idolized in the city.”

His grand words began to excite her … but then they made her shiver. Were those words what her daddy called con talk, enticing promises that Joe Grey said meant trouble?Big trouble,the tomcat had said. You might find that out soon enough if you’re not a wary young cat.

But the visions this man painted for her glowed too bright in her imagination, galleries richer even than this beautiful apartment, richer than his grand downstairs showroom where she and Dulcie and Kit had sometimes looked in the windows at his lovely wares. She had seen him then, waiting on customers when they had thought he was just another shopper.

And now, when she looked down at the coffee table, at the small silver tray of business cards, they said:UlrichSeaver, SEAVER’S ANTIQUES.The cards were all in gold and silver as elegant as the shop. He was saying,“First we’ll go to the San Francisco gallery, you will be the star, and that show is already scheduled. We’ll get a nice start there, I’ll have the brochures printed by then, I already have the copy ready.”

How could he“have the show already scheduled”—whatever exactly that meant—before he was sure he could catch her or even find her? When he couldn’t be sure at all that she would be his star?

She was certain, by now, that he didn’t know she could speak. She could tell by his expression that he didn’t imagine she understood him, his look didn’t change as if he expected her response. He didn’t wait to see her brighten with joy at what he told her. He was talking only so his voice would reassure her, hoping that his gentle tone would make her feel safe and loved.

Or maybe he was talking, too, to congratulate himself on the project that lay ahead.That he thinks lies ahead, she thought warily.

Maybe it was her color, her markings, that he thought would charm people, like the pictures in the library books.

Could he be connected to that shaggy library prowler? If they were both interested in the old tapestries … Maybe Seaver had pored over them just as the prowler had? Were they partners? But where was that man now? And how would those pictures make her famous anyway? For people to see her, then see the same cat in the old tapestries? Why would anyone care? And how strange that the two would be connected, this bald, sleek, well-dressed man, and the library prowler as shaggy as a street person?

He looked at her solemnly.“I wish you could understand me, my dear. I wish you could answer me, could tell me how excited you would be at our new adventure. What an amazement that will be, what fun we’ll have.”

Yes,Courtney thought with another shiver, and what would you do if Idid speak? What would you do with me then?And the fear returned, the bright glamour fading to mist.

She stiffened as he rose, but he only turned away.“I will leave you to explore, my dear.” He opened the pale cream draperies to the foggy dawn. “You will find breakfast in the kitchen. A sand box in the laundry room. You will see the gallery later, you will see the paintings and tapestries of you that I have so far collected, and photos of those I have ordered. Those pieces will remain at the New York gallery when they arrive.” He held out his hand to see if she would be gentle or if she would try to scratch again. She swallowed her uncertainty, swallowed her resurging temper, and sniffed hesitantly at his fingers. He smiled with satisfaction, as if they had finally made friends, then he went downstairs to the shop, locking the door behind him.

Free to roam the apartment, she first checked every window but they were all locked tight. In the kitchen, on a tray on the floor, there was fresh salmon and clean water. She didn’t want to eat, her stomach was already roiling. But her fear had made her thirsty, and she drank. She wished, for the first time in her short life, that she could take human form as some speaking cats could do. If she could become a human person she could get out of therein a second, could break a window with a chair, open it, turn back into a cat and be gone across the rooftops.

But she couldn’t change. That was a rare skill indeed, belonging to only a few of her kind.

In less than a year of kittenhood, she had learned a lot, from her mama and Joe Grey, from Kit and Pan and from their human friends; had learned a lot when Wilma read to her. Her and Dulcie’s tall, gray-haired housemate was an ex–federal parole officer, she knew about the human world and, somehow, she knew how to share it in easy terms with a little cat.

Well, and she had learned from her brothers, too. She could fight as hard as Striker and Buffin. She would fight Seaver again even harder if he tried to harm her. Though he hadn’t so far. Even when she left him good and bloodied he hadn’t hit her, and she didn’t think he would.

She had learned to fight from her brothers and from her pa, and learned to swear from them, too. If he touched her with cruel intent just once, she would fight as hard as they, she would kill the bastard, she would shred Ulrich Seaver.

He said she would be happy and famous and that he had wonderful plans for her, but now those words, so softly spoken, made her feel sick again; her emotions swung back and forth until she didn’t know what she believed. The sense of luxury, of being loved by this kind-appearing, elegant stranger, slowly vanished as she prowled the apartment searching for a way out. Searching, the fear returned; she was all at sixes and sevens, she didn’t know what she believed.

She entered the bedroom last, after she’d prowled the living room and through the big open kitchen with an eating area that looked out on the street. The bedroom had a view of Ocean Avenue, and a connected small, bright bathroom. It was these rooms that held her, staring with surprise.

In the bathroom, a lady’s powder box, bottles of lady’s makeup, and a few lace-edged towels. And in the bedroom, in one of two closets, ladies’ clothes, finely tailored suits and blouses, sleek dresses; lovely shoes with low heels. A woman’s expensive purses on the top shelf, everything neat and dust-free.

A woman lived with him, but where was she? Seaver hadn’t mentioned her, not once. When he referred to “we,” she had thought he meant herself: Courtney and Seaver. But had he meant the woman? A wife? There was no picture of her on the dresser, no framed wedding pictures as there were in her own human friends’ homes. Maybe his wife had just taken a trip, leaving him to tend the shop. Or maybe she had gone herself to try to capture the calico cat for whom they had such plans.

Thinking about this, she hopped to the bedroom window to look down on the main street. It was then that she saw the cats below and her human friends, saw almost everyone she knew down on the streets among the shoppers, saw them searching for her. Saw Pan stalking the rooftops, saw Kit across the street peering in among the shadowed peaks—saw her own parents prowling a little garden between buildings; they appeared to be calling her name but she knew they were softly mewling, that was all they dared to do.

She saw Charlie Harper enter a dress shop, maybe to put up a poster. She was carrying a thick roll of heavy paper, her red hair reflecting in the windows. Courtney watched Ryan and Clyde, Joe’s housemates, tacking up posters, too, or taping them to windows. Both were wearing old jeans, faded Tshirts, and baseball caps, ordinary and unremarkable.

Each poster had a big calico drawing of her, her own face, her own right front leg with the three black bracelets, a picture as lifelike as if she were looking in a mirror. That was Charlie Harper’s drawing, sharply reproduced above the words reward: one thousand dollars.

One thousand dollars! Oh my!She backed away, shocked that anyone would lay out money like that. She might be young but she read the paper and she listened to her human friends. She didn’t know what the stock market was except it was all about trading and Clyde said even a thousand dollars was a “nice piece of money.” Wasshe worth a thousand dollars? And she was more confused than ever.

Until now, she’d been thinking only about herself trapped in this apartment. One minute imagining her grand new future, people crowding to see the tapestries of her past lives and to learn their ancient storiesand to look at her! The next minute she’d been filled with cold fear at what such a future might really mean, the two emotions racing back and forth, muddling her head until she didn’t know what to think.

She thought about the woman nearly dead out there in the sand, beaten and almost buried alive. Was that Seaver’s wife? Was that where she was? Was there more to his plan, more to this seemingly kind man than she imagined? Why hadn’t Seaver mentioned his wife’s name as he talked about the gallery exhibits? Had she refused to help him in some ugly plot that involved more than stealing a cat, and he had beaten and tried to kill her? Maybe they had fought, maybe he thought hehad killed her, he was trying to bury her when something frightened him, made him run, made him leave her there half alive? If that woman was his wife, maybe Courtney’s own kidnapping was part of some far more grisly scheme? Letting her imagination run, she tried to think how to escape.I could be alone with a killer and no one knows where I am. Everyone is out searching for me, they’re all looking, my parents, my friends all hurrying out on this cold morning while I’m thinking only of myself, of whatSeaver really means to do to me.

She began to examine the windows again, trying to find one that was loose, one that she could claw open and at least cry out her meows. But this apartment, as Joe Grey might have said, was built like a steel jail cell.

7

Joe Grey was searching frantically for Courtney when he skidded to a halt before a newspaper stand, scanning the details of a bank-money theft and murder last evening that he’d known nothing about. It happened shortly after they sat down to supper. But there wasn’t much story there, it looked like Max had held out a lot. Joe got more details when he saw Clyde on the next corner—by now everyone, cat and human friends alike, was out looking for Courtney. Even a few cops were watching as they went about their patrols. When Joe and Clyde stepped into an alley behind some trash cans where they could talk, Clyde gave him a few more specifics: how fast the rough-voiced snitch clicked off, and his words exactly as Joewould have said them …

“ButI didn’t make that call, I was …”

“Max knows it wasn’t his regular snitch, he said the voice was totally different, but the message was just as brief, as businesslike and curt. He kept as much out of the paper as he could, until he gets it sorted out.”

That was often Max’s way, when a crime looked dicey. Joe could understand that. In fact, he realized, the half-buried woman had been kept out of the papers and off the TV completely. Even the crime tape had vanished as soon as the detectives finished investigating the site and filling in the grave.

Earlier that predawn, when Courtney first went missing in the small hours, Joe had raced home in the dark and fog to wake Clyde and Ryan to tell them she had vanished, that they needed help, that they couldn’t find her anywhere; that she was there with Kit and Dulcie one minute, and gone the next. At his alarm his housemates had risen, scrambled into their clothes, and they were gone before daylight, the three of them looking for the little calico, as was Wilma, and soon the Greenlaws. All this, long before the morning paper came out.

Wilma had called Charlie on her cell, so not to wake Max. But Max was at the station. Charlie, in her pajamas, had gone to her studio, found a drawing she had done recently of Courtney. Putting heavy paper in the copier, she ran off two hundred posters with the words reward: one thousand dollars at the bottom, and with several phone numbers that could be called. She was dressed and half out the door headed for her SUV when Max got home. He raised an eyebrow at the stack of signs. She said,“Something’s happened to Courtney. Wilma called. The kitten’s gone. The posters … Everyone’s out looking.”

“I know. Someone called the station. Hell, Charlie, those cats wander the village all the time—and Courtney’s not a kitten, she’s nearly grown. What does Wilma mean, gone?”

“She said it was pitch-dark when all the cats woke her barging in through the cat door and into her bedroom. They were meowing and crying, very upset. And Courtney, she wasn’t with them. They kept crying and clawing at the skirt of her robe. ‘Courtney?’ she asked them, and they yowled louder.”

She looked up at Max.“You think dogs are smarter than cats, but I don’t think so. They were trying to tell her as best they could, that was the only way theycould tell her. They were too shaken over Courtney’s disappearance for her to have just wandered off.” She could imagine what they were really crying out, a narrative no cop could believe.

“Wilma tried to calm them but they kept running back and forth between her and the door. She thought maybe Courtney had been hit by a car. She pulled on her clothes, grabbed her cell phone and followed them, they all piled in the car, heading for the village.

“It was then she got the call,” Charlie said. “Someone in the village, in an upstairs apartment just off Ocean—a Robby Arlen. He had gotten out of bed to close the window, he saw a young calico cat wandering the street below, he described the stripes on her leg. He knew Wilma had a kitten like that, he had seen it in the library when he took his granddaughter to story hour. He said she went on up the street and disappeared in the shadows. It was still dark, just the moonlit fog. He said that in a minute the other cats she hangs out with,he thought some of them were Wilma’s, they came up the street looking all around, meowing, excited, searching and nearly frantic. He was sure they were looking for the kitten, he said there was no other explanation, said it was the strangest thing he’d ever seen. He apologized for waking her, but he was worried—he’s one of the CatFriends group. He’s out helping look.”

Charlie wondered if she was talking too much.

Max looked at her for a long time. He said nothing.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. “Robby told Wilma some of them ran up the street as if maybe they’d caught her scent. Then in a while they came back, their tails and ears down, and started searching around the shops. He said he started back to bed, then grabbed up his phone and called her.”

“Is Wilma all right? Has she been having bouts of … ?”

She stared at him.“Dementia? My aunt Wilma?” That made her furious.“Of course not. She’s sound as a rock. Something happened to that kitten. Maybe someone stole her.”

“Cats don’t get stolen, Charlie. Why would someone … ?” But therewere reasons to steal a cat, ones Max didn’t like to mention.

As Charlie left, he started a pot of coffee, frowning. He had wanted to make breakfast for her but she wouldn’t wait even for a sip of coffee; carrying the stack of posters, she was already headed for town.

It seemed like something weird happened with those cats every week or two. You could have dogs, and no problem, but cats … Though he knew that wasn’t true, dogs could get into almost as much trouble; except these cats always seemed too closely involved with some village crime.

And still, as he puzzled over the cats and the calico kitten, most of his mind was on the snitch’s call last evening, that gravelly old man’s voice; and on the crushed body. Though that guy hadn’t been his regular snitch, not with that rusty voice, hehad had the same brief way of passing on information; he had given Max the same kind of short, curt facts as his own snitch would—describing the robbery, describing the murder that Kathleen and the coroner were now investigating.

It was amazing that someone as delicate and beautiful as Kathleen Ray could deal with the gory coroner’s job with no trouble, no pallor and shakes, no throwing up on the job. That was why Dr. Bern liked working with her.

Charlie, on her way to hang posters, found Joe and Wilma on Ocean Avenue searching between the shops; she pulled over and parked. She could see others, cat and human, looking for the calico and softly calling her. Wilma, Charlie’s tall, gray-haired aunt, picked Joe up and slipped into the passenger seat of Charlie’s car. They sat for a few moments, Charlie combing out her short, tangled red hair, she and Wilma getting their stories straight on what they had told Max, or what they would tell him.

Charlie had wanted to leave out the part about a man stealing Courtney. She didn’t know what kind of city council brouhaha that would cause, what kind of position that would put Max in if his officers went pounding on doors and searching the shops for a cat; though she didn’t think Max would ever suggest that. All she wanted was a story that Max would believe, and that might encourage his men to keep an eye out for Courtney without puzzling questions. Courtney had been stolen, in Charlie’s mind the pictures and tapestries of her had prompted the theft, there was no other way to look at the kidnapping.

As full daylight crept into the village, the cats’ human friends were all out nailing or taping up Charlie’s posters, and of course still searching for Courtney, walking the little courtyards between buildings, peering under porches, under and over fences, among huge pots of flowering trees and bushes, looking down occasional alleys that held only grubby garbage cans. Had the small calico escaped from her captor, or did she lie somewhere hurt, or worse?

And while everyone looked for her, Courtney was just as fiercely searching for a way out. In the chill morning, when Seaver went downstairs to ready the shop for opening, she prowled the apartment once again from window to window, seeking a loose latch, for a way to freedom. She had awakened on the couch edgy and frightened, and knowing she was done with dreaming of Seaver’s bright and impossible future—she was cold and frightened one moment, excited the next; and she began again to wonder where his missing wife had gone. Perhaps shewasn’t the woman in the grave? Maybe he hadn’t tried to kill her? Whatever he’d done with her, and whatever plans he had for Courtney herself, she wanted only to be out of there.

Putting aside thoughts of grand gallery exhibits and the TV shows he’d promised featuring her, still she prowled the apartment pawing at the locks, her ears down, her calico tail lashing. Peering out the tall glass windows she could see her mama and daddy and the other cats down on the streets with her human friends, all looking for her. She wanted to wrap her paws around every one of them, she wanted to be held, wanted to be loved by those she trusted, she wanted to be safe.

The way the windows were set into deep stone sills, though she could see down, it would be hard for anyone below to get a glimpse of her up here. She watched Joe Grey scramble to the roofs searching the windows of other apartments, but even when she stood up tall, looking across, and scratching down the glass, there were too many reflections, slants of first sunlight bouncing off other buildings so he must not see her at all. His ears flat, he backed down the oak tree again, she watched him pause beside another newsstand and rear up to read the front page of theGazette that had just been put in the rack. Could that be abouther? But soon he went racing away once more, heading for the courthouse, for MPPD.

8

Joe Grey entered through the bulletproof glass doors of MPPD on the heels of two garbagemen marching a dirty-faced young boy between them. Their truck was parked in the red zone. The taller, better-groomed city servant held a young calico cat close against his shoulder, held her tight but gently. Joe, only glimpsing her, thought for a second it was Courtney but then saw that it was not. He felt further dismay when he realized that his office friend, blond, plump Mabel Farthy, was not at the dispatcher’s desk with her welcoming smile. Instead, sour-faced EvaJean Simpson scowled at the calico, at the dirty, fighting boy being dragged through the door, and at the garbagemen. She gave Joe himself a poisonous stare.

The real surprise was that the waiting room was half full of calico cats, each in a battered carrier, the cages lined up in the far corner between the long counter and the window. Joe pushed in behind the garbagemen and fighting kid and ducked under a folding chair, searching through the bars of each cage for Courtney.

She wasn’t there, no one looked back at him with eager amber eyes, no one yowled out to her daddy.

Where had these cats come from? Had they been collected by sticky-fingered little thieves like that kid, after reading Charlie’s posters? Clean, healthy neighborhood cats maybe snatched from their own front porches, each “rescuer” eager for his thousand dollars.

Money they’ll never see, Joe thought, extending his claws.

He was only partly hidden in the chair’s shadow. In a minute EvaJean would see him and make a royal fuss—once she was finished dressing down the garbagemen. “That cat does not belong here. Look at the poster, at the phone numbers. Call them, call the shelter, call those rescue people. All this fuss over a cat. This is a police department, not an animal pound.”

The man with the cat fetched an empty cage from those stacked to one side. He put the cat gently in, gave her a last pet, and set the cage with the others.

EvaJean said,“I suppose you want to book that boy. People don’t realize …”

“We don’t need to book him. Just take his name and address and file a complaint. We already gave him a talking-to that ought to cool him for a while. If he pulls something like this again, you can take care of him.”

“I don’t take care of little boys, or cats. I want him and those cats out of here.”

The glass door opened and Charlie Harper came in. She nodded curtly to EvaJean and began collecting the cats in their cages. The two men helped her carry the calicos out to her SUV where she had backed into the red zone and opened the rear door. She carried in some extra cages, for further contributions.

“Where will you take them?” said the shorter, unshaven man.

“To the vet, to be checked for an identification. You know, those implanted chips. If we can’t find all the owners, we’ll take those cats to our shelter.” She glanced under the chair at Joe Grey, her green eyes laughing as he left the shadows and walked boldly past EvaJean’s counter, following Charlie as she headed for the hall and Max’s office.

“The cat can’t go back there,” the clerk said sourly. “Catch him, Mrs. Harper. Take him away. Your husband doesn’t need a cat in there, he’s in a meeting.”

Charlie smiled.“Joe spends half his life in that office, he’s been in meetings before. You’re a temp, EvaJean. You’re signed up to work here all week, until Mabel gets back. You wouldn’t want to be in the chief’s bad graces all week, let alone the rest of the department?”

EvaJean’s look was snake-cold. Ignoring Charlie, she turned away to the copy machine.

But Charlie didn’t want to break into the meeting. She loaded the last of the caged cats in her SUV and took off for Dr. Firetti’s. Joe Grey smiled as he sauntered on down the hall and pushed into the chief’s office through the slightly open door. If Max was in a meeting, it would most likely be about yesterday evening’s murder and robbery and their connection to the other bank thefts. Maybe he’d also hear some casual mention of missing Courtney, maybe some of the guys were keeping an eye out as they went about their patrols. To a cop, a vanished cat doesn’t compete with theft and murder. But maybe Charliehad sweet-talked Max into seeing that his men keep a lookout. Courtneywas Joe Grey’s own kitten, and most of the officers considered Joe family, a part of the department, though they had no idea that Joe, so many times, had helped them wrap up a case.

Now, maybe it was their turn to help Joe.

Max and three detectives were crowded around the desk examining half a dozen pages of what looked like the coroner’s preliminary report, with graphs, colored photographs, charts, and various printouts. Leaping to the desk, Joe pushed comfortably between Detective Juana Davis and the chief. Max looked down at him like,What the hell do you want? Maybe he was grumpy from being awakened at three in the morning.

Juana’s dark eyes smiled down at Joe, and she scratched his ears. Her black hair had just been cut, straight black bangs, smooth black bob above her collar, a few streaks of gray that gave it a nice flair. Her black uniform smelled of her two young cats. Max Harper’s western shirt and jeans smelled of horses. Across the desk, Dallas Garza looked at Joe with interest just as Max was looking, Dallas’s dark Latin eyes half amused, half questioning. “Why do you always show up when new information has just hit the desk?”

“Leave the poor cat alone,” Juana said. “Look how frazzled he is, he’s probably been out half the night hunting for his kitten. Looks like the whole village is looking for her.”

“Not thewhole village,” Dallas said, reaching to pet Joe. “Though there are a lot of people wandering around and looking in windows. I know Joe’s bright, but to hunt for hours for his lost kitten?” He looked up at Detective Davis. “Hell, Juana, she’ll show up.”

Pretending ignorance, Joe stepped delicately around Max’s assorted papers, onto the edges of camera views and X-rays of the robbery victim’s injured head, of his bloody neck and shoulder. That whole upper part of his body had been hit when the thief slammed the door on him, grisly color shots of blood and crushed bone. The victim’s foot and leg were twisted and looked broken. The coroner’s written report lay right in front of him, facing Max. Joe would have to read it upside down, but he didn’t think that would fly. A cat reading right side up, nose to the page, would be incriminating enough. He caught the name, Jon Jaarel. Jaarel’s charming bar and grill had been a Molena Point landmark for years. Now Jaarel was gone, Joe thought sadly. And would the treasured restaurant soon vanish, too?

“The killer must have thrown all his weight against that door,” Dallas said.

For some reason, Joe had the strange feeling that when the robber slammed the car door, he didn’t mean tokill Jaarel. A man so eager for the money that he did in his victim with more speed than thought, striking fast but clumsily.

And who was the witness, the unknown snitch who had called Max?

Max’s careful notes were there. The snitch had given him a more detailed description of the crime than Joe himself usually gave—yet this snitch had offered little to describe the killer, he said he hardly saw the man.

Well, Joe’s own tips were often just as disjointed: details left out or confused in the fast action of the crime. A witness couldn’t catch everything. And how could the killer vanish so quickly in that small, crowded shopping center?

But Max and Juana Davis were talking about what to do with Joe’s own case, as he thought of it. Whether to transfer the woman from the hospital to a nursing home where she could rest and heal, under police guard, when Kit came bolting in through Max’s door, wild-eyed. Joe crouched to leap down. Had she found Courtney? Had somethingterrible happened? She could say nothing until he’d raced out behind her, until they’d bolted to the roof and were alone, Joe nervous with worst-case scenarios.

In the office behind them Harper, Davis, and Garza stared after the cats, uncomfortably puzzled.“Cats,” Dallas said. “Flighty as a drunk squirrel.”

Juana smiled indulgently, thinking of her own cats.“Who knows what’s in their minds?”

Max’s expression didn’t change, no one knew what he was thinking.

9

It was Kit who found Courtney, who came bolting down the sidewalk and in through the door of MPPD dodging two cops coming out. Ignoring EvaJean, she fled into Max’s office following Joe’s scent, so excited she could hardly help but shout out the whole story.

She had, searching for the calico, coming along the alley behind Seaver’s Antiques, stopped suddenly and sniffed at the garbage truck that was idling there as two men dumped the week’s collection. The back of the building had carved molding, and the front of the two-story structure facing the street was even more ornate: fancily decorated framing all along the windows and above the shop’s wide glass door. Maybe the building was Victorian or maybe a mix of styles, but it seemed to fit the village. Kit stood inhaling the violent stink of garbage—but then sharply above that odor she caught the sweet scent of Courtney. Every cat has his own aroma, there was no doubt the calico was here, or had been. Staring into the truck’s open tailgate, she was gripped by fear. Was Courtney in there among the trash, and hurt? Had she been picked up by accident, too injured to leap away or cry out?

Kit climbed up to look in, feeling sick at the thoughts that filled her. She turned to look for Dulcie who was down the alley behind her. She mewed, calling her, asking for help, she felt sicker as the men continued emptying trash cans and Courtney’s scent came stronger.

Yes, it was from one of the cans. She dodged the empty bin as they tossed it down. It bounced twice and nearly hit her, rolled across the alley and hit the brick wall of the building on the other side. She approached the can warily, stuck her head in and sniffed again.

She could see kitty litter clinging to the can’s sides where someone had emptied Courtney’s cat box. She whirled around and meowed again. Dulcie had paused to scent at a garage door; she looked up at Kit, raced to the truck, and nowshe got a full whiff of Courtney. At the same moment they heard a noise from above, a sound like claws on glass.

The men were getting back in the truck.

Before they could drive away Dulcie shouldered Kit aside and leaped to the truck’s hot hood, scorching her paws: the scratching from above came louder. Dulcie jumped from the hood to the top of the closed cab, Kit right behind her, as the truck began to move.

“Damn cats,” said the driver, “cats all over this town.”

Above, through the apartment window, the flash of white and orange was still wildly clawing.

Hearts pounding, they flew from the truck across space to the wide, decorative ledge that ran beneath the second-floor windows, its concrete curlicues embellished with pigeon droppings. Courtney peered out at them, her busy paws raking glass, her amber eyes flashing. The iron frames that bound the windows looked as solid as an iron safe.

“We need Joe,”Kit said, “we need help.”

Dulcie rubbed her face against the glass, loving her child, as Kit raced away across the rooftops for where she’d last seen Joe Grey. There she dropped down the twisted oak and in through the glass door behind a pair of cops, ignoring EvaJean, praying Joe was there. Yes, she followed Joe’s fresh scent, ignoring EvaJean’s tirade. When she burst into Max’s office, the tomcat knew by her expression that she’d found Courtney. He leaped down from the desk and they fled the station—glass door, oak tree, courthouse roof—and raced six blocks of jagged peaks headed for the antiques shop, Joe Grey hissing, “Where is she? Where is Courtney, and where is Dulcie?”

“Dulcie’s with her. I don’t know where Pan is, hunting for her somewhere.” That was all she had the breath to say.

By the time Kit and Joe reached Seaver’s Antiques, Courtney had moved along the inside of the upstairs windows to the front of the building. On the outside, on the ledge, Dulcie followed, the two together trying every window. Maybe Courtney had already tried them, alone, while Seaver was downstairs in the shop; Joe could hear customers down there. Joe was so glad to see Courtney he almost yowled. But as he tried to help them loosen a slider, the attempt seemed useless, those windows looked like they didn’t open at all, looked like they’d been installed to stay forever. They tried another and another, but nothing gave.

Pressing their ears to the glass, and whispering, the three cats could just hear each other. Courtney said,“This is not the same man as in the library. This one’s bald, no beard or mustache—bald all over. I think this man is Ulrich Seaver.”

“But why did he capture you?” Dulcie said. “He’s …”

“Did he hurt you?” Joe said. “What does he want? Why … ?”

“So far, he’s been kind to me, nice salmon, a soft blanket.”

“But after that, what?” Joe said crossly.

“He wants to make a show cat of her,” Dulcie said with fury. “He has some of the old tapestries, the real ones all in frames, and he has a gallery in San Francisco and has a museum show booked in New York just of her …”

“And I’ll have my own Web site with colored pictures and maybe a movie and …”

Joe hissed and growled at his daughter.“What kind of damn foolishness has he been feeding you! You get your tail out of there, Courtney, and do it now! Before he skins and framesyou!”

“I can’t get out,” she said demurely. “I’ve tried every window. But he told me, at night when he locks the big glass doors he’ll let me downstairs. All by myself,” she said, gloating.

She looked at Dulcie and Joe and Kit, her eyes sparkling.“He carried me all around the store when there were no customers, but he locked the glass doors first. Oh, it’s beautiful, he turns the lights real soft and there are damask couches and marble statues and gold screens and all kinds of ancient, carved furniture and cloisonn? vases, I read the little signs. And things I don’t know what they are and can’t name them. At night I’ll have the whole store to myself, until he comes to get me in the morning and then I’ll have the upstairs and a breakfast of salmon before he opens the downstairs doors to let customers in.”

They all just looked at her.

“There is one thing,” Courtney whispered. “A woman. A woman lives here—but she isn’t here now. She must be elegant, she has tailored suits and expensive shoes, I looked in the closets. Is she his wife? They share a bedroom, lacy nightgowns and panties in the drawers, but no pictures of her and he didn’t mention her. He doesn’t seem to have any letters from her, I went through a stack of mail on the desk. How long has she been gone? There are two cars in the garage.” Courtney looked at her daddy. “Has she disappeared? Couldshe be the woman in the grave?”

Joe was amazed at how much the young cat already knew about the ways of the human world. He said,“She’s in the hospital. Max and the detectives were talking about it.” As he sat thinking, a flock of pigeons dove down at the sill; when one pecked at him, he struck and hissed at it, and they flew on.

“There was no ID on that battered woman, they got no make on her fingerprints, nothing in AFIS, nothing anywhere that the department can find. If that woman is Seaver’s wife she’d have some kind of identification, her prints would bring up a driver’s license or maybecity records.”

“But the woman is gone,” Courtney said. “No purse, no billfold or driver’s license, I looked all over the apartment. And she wears gold earrings, a whole drawer full of them, the kind with the little rings or buttons to hold them on.”

“For pierced ears,” Dulcie said. “When he lets you downstairs at night, can’t you open any of those windows?”

“They’re all like these. Except the powder room window. A tiny one, but even it has metal bars outside.”

“Piece of cake,” Joe said. “We can handle that small window and we can sure squeeze through the bars.”

Courtney flicked her bright tail.

Joe said,“We wait until afternoon when he’s busy with a customer, we slip in, hide under the couches, in dark places.” He looked at Courtney. “Tonight after he locks up, goes upstairs and lets you down into the store, we get to work. The five of us ought to be able to …”

“The latch is a metal tab,” Courtney said, “about four inches long. I think a person is supposed to squeeze it, then slide the glass open.” She looked uncertain. “Can we do that? I tried, but paws aren’t very good for squeezing. I guess the screen is on the outside but I can’t see it, the glass is that …”

“Obscure glass?” Joe said. “With a bumpy surface? We can take care of the screen earlier, from outside.” He went silent as footsteps came up from downstairs, then the turn of the doorknob.

When the apartment door opened Courtney was curled up on a blanket, on the big chair below the window. There was no other cat to be seen, the window ledge was blank, decorated only by pigeon droppings. A lone pigeon fluttered down to land on the carved rim: but it looked at the cats and it was gone again, in a flurry of wings. And as Courtney pretended to sleep on her blanket, she thought about Joe’s plan.

But then she wondered. Did she really want to get away yet?

What she wanted, before she escaped, was to find Seaver’s missing wife or find out who that woman was. Find out if it was she who had been beaten and nearly buried alive—find out if Seaver had done that. Sometimes he reallydid give her the shivers.

She wanted to stay until she found out if he was what he pretended to be.

Or did she? If he had beaten, nearly killed that woman, she wanted out of therenow. Even as a little voice in the back of her head sang of glamour, of museums and bright magazine pictures, she saw too clearly the body that Joe had described and the bloody grave, and her own kitten blood filled with ice.

Shivering, she tucked deeper under the blanket thinking of ways she might force open that downstairs window.

10

Late that evening, with the store’s lights dimmed and the big glass doors securely locked, Joe, Dulcie, Pan, and Kit waited, hidden under the antique furniture, for the upstairs door to open. When at last it did open and Courtney came out, she paused on the top step, looking up at Seaver. He smiled and leaned down and petted her and handed her a little treat. “Go on, my dear, the antiques store is yours now. Have a good time. It’s a lovely place for you to roam, to get used to the finer furnishings among which you will be living. I’m sure you won’t scratch anything, Iknow you’ll be a good girl.”

His words made Courtney want to throw up. She glanced up at him innocently, as sweetly as she could manage, and raced down the steps. Moving out of his sight, she leaped to the top of a small, hand-carved writing desk that stood against the inner wall. The subtly lit display windows formed a background to the rich brocades, golden pitchers, gilded chairs all artfully arranged. She sat looking out among the shadows. She listened to the upstairs door close. Slowly, in the whisper of light from the windows, the shadows began to take shape, to morph into vague forms that only a cat could see. She sat watching until at last a cat slipped out, then another, each watching the door above in case it might open again.

Dulcie appeared from under a settee, Kit and Pan from behind a china cabinet. Then Joe Grey from an elegantly arranged tangle of gold satin draped over a chair. As he reared up, the tomcat’s silver-gray coat glowed against the gold like another piece of rare artwork.

Courtney sat tall on the desk before them, between a 1900 silver centaur priced at eight thousand dollars, and a seventeenth-century stone lion at twenty thousand, each price on a little card slipped beneath the object. Joe Grey, looking up at her, knew she was the most beautiful of the three. When finally she leaped down she led them winding through the store and into the little powder room with its gilt mirror, lace-edged curtains, and hand-painted tile.

The window had bars behind the ruffles. The spaces between the outside, decorative iron grill were too small for a human but plenty big for a cat. Joe Grey returned to the showroom and dragged an antique wicker stool into the powder room, pushing it beneath the closed window.

Earlier, before the store closed, before they had sneaked in, the four cats had inspected from outside the little window with its fancy barrier—and with a row of heavy wooden shipping crates, marked with Seaver’s address, lined up against the outside wall. Crates set up on heavy timbers and covered with plastic to keep them dry, containers used presumably for antiques coming into the store, and for sending soldtreasures out again.

Joe Grey had, standing on the tallest crate and using his claws, already loosened two of the flimsy turn-screws of the window screen. Now, with little effort, one could ease out one corner of the screen. With a good swipe of determined claws, one could bring down the whole thing if he chose.

Now, inside the powder room standing on the wicker stool, Joe and Pan tackled the wide metal window latch with their paws—white paw, red tabby, white paw, red overlapping, pressing as hard as they could while the three girl cats held the stool steady.

The latch barely moved. Straining, they pressed harder. They changed positions so they could pull. Pulling and pressing, wiggling it back and forth, they began to loosen it.

The latch gave all at once. Whack. The window slid open right in their faces.

With that half of the window open, Joe Grey leaned out through the bars and pushed one corner of the screen loose. They slid through and were out of there in a tumble …

All but Courtney.

Balanced on the sill ready to leap out, she paused and looked back. She stepped back inside onto the decorative tile counter, stood looking out at the four cats below her, at three tails lashing, and one very angry tomcat, his short tail down, his ears flat, his yellow eyes blazing up at her.“Get the hell out of there!”

“I’m not going. I’m staying. Just for a little while. I’ll slide the window almost shut so I can get out again later.”

“What the hell do you mean, staying? What do you mean, later?You can’tstay. Why do you think we went to all this trouble! Get the hell down from there, get out here NOW, Courtney. Out here with us NOW! Do it NOW.”

She looked through the bars at her daddy, both cats’ ears back, Joe’s scowl so fierce he frightened her, and her own amber eyes flashed defiantly. “I will stay here for now. I want to know if that woman is his wife, that woman lying in the hospital all beaten up. I want to know if that’s where his wife went, I want to know if it was Seaver who nearly buried her alive. I mean to stay until I find out.”

“If she’s Seaver’s wife, the cops would have a make on her prints,” Joe said. “They’dknow who she is. The guys at the department would know her, would have seen her around. I don’t even know if hehas a wife.”

“What if she’s his girlfriend?” Courtney said. “A … what do you call it? A pickup. Maybe someone with false identities, the way criminals do, the way you told me about? So Seaver knew the cops wouldn’t find anything.”

Joe Grey sighed. Sometimes he wished he’d keep his big mouth shut. Besides her faulty logic, and an imagination Courtney must have picked up from Kit, what kind of child had he raised? “Come out from there, Courtney. Come out NOW …” But then they all heard it, the upstairs door open, footsteps comingdown. Courtney slid the window nearly closed and beat it into the shadows under a couch just as Seaver’s dark silhouette appeared.

He came down, sat down at his desk, switched on the light, and picked up a ledger. The cats had fled through the powder room window, making not the slightest sound. But Joe Grey turned and was slipping back to remain watching when the phone rang. Seaver picked up.

Joe eased up onto the crate, lying just beneath the window with his ear to the crack.“Yes?” Seaver said, then was silent for a long moment, then began tapping his pencil on the blotter. “That won’t work, you ninny. She’s not …” Another wait, then he laughed. “Youare kidding? Everyone in townknows her. That red hair … What do youthink would happen? She’s the chief of police’s wife, you dummy. You don’t need a shill, a ‘lady companion,’ to make your rounds of the store. Do an appraisal as best you can without expert advice, just get on with it then drift away into the crowds.”

Silence, then,“Well, of course she was better. That can’t be helped now.”

Another, longer pause, then … “Oh, right. Just an afternoon of shopping to help out a neighbor. So your fatheris her neighbor. Has she ever metyou? She and Harper have only been married a few years, she was straight down from San Francisco, she didn’t know anyone but her aunt. No. I don’t want any part of that and neither do you. You try that, any of you try it, and we’re done, I’m out of it. The cops’ve likelyseen you going in or out my back door. Ifyou get in trouble, we’re all in the muck. Just go on the way you were.”

There was a tiny click from the other end. Seaver stared at the phone, and banged down the receiver. He sat a minute, swearing softly, then put the ledger in a drawer as if bored with his bookwork, turned off the light, and went back upstairs. Courtney watched him, sleepy and innocent, from a brocade couch.

Outside, the minute Seaver was gone, Joe Grey was off the crates and catching up with the other three where they waited in the alley behind the store—but suddenly Dulcie wasn’t with them. She flew past Joe, leaped to the crate, eased the window open andshe was inside. Inside with Courtney, with her child. Joe Grey didn’t stop her, she had that intent mothering look when it was best to leave her alone. What did she have in mind? Was she going to babysit all night? She was as stubborn as her kitten, as stubborn as Joe himself—but he did feel better with Dulcie on guard. He stood in the weeds looking up at the sky; the fog had cleared, the moon was bright. A perfect night to hunt. But they had better things to do. He and Kit and Pan, crouched in the alley, laid out their plan; then Kit slipped back to hiss through the window, to tell Courtney and Dulcie whatthey meant to do—and hoping Courtney wouldn’t go all stubborn again.

When Kit returned to the alley, each cat headed home to tell their respective housemates that they’d found Courtney—though they were all three still angry at the young calico’s hardheadedness. They would go to Wilma to tell her the news, and to Kit and Pan’s old couple, and to Ryan and Clyde.

As they parted, Pan said,“Courtney will be all right. He’s treated her well this far, he hasn’t hurt her. If he thinks he can make money off her, why would he harm her? And, if he does get mean, she’s safer with one of us here each night, to fight and to go for the phone.”

Their plan seemed simple enough. Each cat’s housemate would alert their few human friends who knew the cats could speak, would tell them they’d found Courtney, tell them the cats’ routines and where she was, but they would tell no one else. They would leave the posters up, pretend to still be looking for her;they would not alert even the other members of CatFriends who did not know the cats could talk.

If they took down the posters, if everyone in the village knew she’d been found, Seaver would begin to watch for what kind of trick she was up to. And when she did escape, after the trouble he’d gone to to find and catch her the first time, during a second hunt she might not be safe anywhere.

Each evening before the store closed, one of the cats, taking turns, would slip inside. Would watch the young clerk leave, watch Seaver lock the glass doors securing his valuable wares. They would watch Seaver go back upstairs, watch him let Courtney out of his apartment, watch her race down—and once the clerk left, the rest of the night would be theirs.

If the chosen cat couldn’t slip in through the open front doors unseen, he or she would wait until pale, thin Bert had locked up, scuffling footsteps, heavy coat pulled tight around him as he headed home. When all was quiet, the chosen guard, eyes aglow and tail switching, would crawl in through the powder room window between the bars, under the loose screen and through the barely open glass, to spend the softly lit night with Courtney among gold-decorated and priceless antiques. With a phone on the desk and one in the back room, if something happened they could callthe Damens or Wilma or the cops—why would he hurt her if he wanted to make a show cat of her?

But still, Joe was all atremble. The time would come, he knew, when the next step in Seaver’s plan would take shape, a plan that might carry Seaver’s calico prize miles away, first to the gallery in the city and then clear across the country, and how would they find her, then?

11

Joe Grey went on with the others, leaving Courtney and Dulcie in the antiques store but worrying about them both. On the rooftops he parted from Kit and Pan, their two tails, one golden, the other fluffy dark, flipping away under the risen moon as they headed home to their tree house—to Lucinda and Pedric, and to call Wilma.

And Joe raced home over the shingles, his claws scritching as he balanced across heavy oak branches. He heard music playing from the cottages below and smelled late suppers cooking. Then, close to home, the loud and familiar rancor of angry voices. Another Luther Domestic.

Did they have to be so loud? Couldn’t they fight quietly? Did all that shouting help release their anger? Thelma’s and Nevin’s voices came from the house, they were in their bedroom but they might as well have been outside in the yard putting on a two-person play for the neighbors who stood, now, staring in through the window. What were they fighting about this time? What had happened now?

Mindy crouched outside in the bushes beneath the kitchen window, wiping her nose on the arm of the sweater she’d pulled around her. Her silent shaking wasn’t from the cold. From where she huddled, the way the windows were open, she could hear her parents’ every word clearly, something about bank statements, and about “Too loose around the cops,” at which Nevin gave a snorting laugh. Joe climbed into the cypress tree outside their window, its furry branches dense as a jungle—that was when he saw Zeb Luther parked around the corner in an old, faded car, not his own truck, his window down as he listened. Peering through the branches, Joe could just pick out the old man, his ragged gray hair, faded flannel shirt, and worn leather jacket. Mindy’s grandfather. Ryan had said he hadn’t come to visit since the family moved in, she had heard Mindy shouting at her mother and crying about that. What was he doing here this time of night? Spying, listening instead of coming right on in?

This was the man Joe had seen in the village peering across the street into the tearoom at Thelma and Mindy and the freckled auburn-haired man. Joe had seen him standing outside the PD, too, looking uncertain, as if he was trying to decide whether to go in, his frown reflecting some painful decision that had interested Joe even then. The old man who had at last turned away shaking his head, looking so sad. If he hadn’t been such an old man, Joe would have thought he was crying.

Now, the tomcat didn’t think Nevin and Thelma could see Nevin’s father from the bedroom, the way he was parked and with the tree in the way. They faced each other hissing and snarling like fighting cats themselves, they sure didn’t care who heard them. Not a speck of dignity, Joe thought,nor did they have much feeling for their frightened little girl crouched under their window listening.

But then the subject grew more explicit, Thelma hissed something so quietly that Joe missed it and Nevin snarled angrily,“The hell I won’t and what right do you have to tell me what to do?” Thelma stared down at the neighbors in the street and told him to lower his voice. Joe Grey, in his tree, drew closer.

“You’ll gonow!” Thelma snapped. “Right now! And you’llstay away, the farther the better. You think them cops won’t have figured it out? You think they won’t come … ?”

“I’m not leaving until I find that envelope.You think the old bastard won’t go digging into it? What the hell do you …” His voice was like daggers. “It’s over a week since I called the bank and they said they’d mailed it and I’m not leaving without it. And the rest of the statements, as well. Just like him to go prying around among my papers. I don’t need him poking into my stuff and I don’t needyou poking into my business! And what were you doing with my checkbook? You had to dig deep to find it in my dresser. Give it to me now.” There was a sound as if he’d slapped her. Joe saw her draw back looking shocked.

“Bastard!” she snarled and slapped him in return. “Why the hell did you leave it lying around if you didn’t want me to see it! And that stack of statements. I told you, bring everything with you. Why didn’t … ?”

When Joe looked up, Zebulon and his battered car were gone.

So, Joe thought, Nevin moves out of the family house, leaves some of his records and papers. Changes their mail from the rural address to a village PO box. There’s a mix-up at the post office, his bank statement is delivered to the old address. Zebulon gets curious and opens it. And—what? What’s so important? What’s in the bank that Nevin doesn’t want the old man to know about? Or maybe that Thelma doesn’t know everything about? Who does the couple’s banking? Does Nevin do it all? Maybe more money in that account than she thinks they have? Maybe lots more?

“And then you move that money up the coast,” she said. “Why did you put it way up there in the first place, that was really stupid.”

“I’m moving it farther than that, first thing in the morning. And to more than one bank, more places than you’ll ever know. Hell, Thelma. You know where a good part of the moneyyou stole is at, and some of mine and Varney’s, too. The rest of it’s none of your business, you needn’t bother yourself about it.”

“If the cops find last night’s money, maybe with blood on it, you’re in big trouble, Nevin. And where does that put me! You were using my car when that went down! If you go to jail on that kind of charge, they collar me as an accessory even whenI didn’t do anything. I land in jail, and where does that leave the kid? Your father can’t take care of her.”

“I’m out of here before they find me. If they put you in jail, if they ID your car—or maybe find evidence that you and Varney have been into the robbing, too—they’ll lock you both up, put the kid in child care and you won’t have to worry about her.”

In the shadows of the yard Mindy left the bushes and slipped in the back door. In a minute Joe could see her in her own bedroom standing nearly out of sight within the thin curtains and he could hear a muffled sniffle. He wanted to leap up and snuggle her; as cranky as Mindy could be, or as sweet, she was, after all, only a confused and needful little girl, hurt and afraid. He was sickened by this family’s lack of love for her, and for each other. He wondered whatwould happen to her. A child whose only real family, in her own mind, was her grandfather. Whose only other solace was the companionship of her pony.

Joe had heard her tell Thelma, in a lonely little voice, that she only wanted to be home with Grandpa and Tango, heard Thelma’s cold laugh. “You’re no better off with a helpless old man and a dumb horse. What good could either ofthem do you!” and that was the end of that.

A child with a father and two uncles who didn’t give a damn for her, and a mother who, if she did care, didn’t show it. Thelma didn’t know how to love a child, maybe she had no love in her. There didn’t seem much else in her, either. Though she might talk tough to Nevin and threaten him, she apparently didn’tdo anything to change his way of life. It looked to Joe like she just followed along in the same path.

If that murder and robbery last nightwasNevin’s work, the thought gave the tomcat shivers: a body crushed to death in a car door.

Nevin and Thelma went silent when a police car came by outside. Nevin looked out the window, watched it cruise quietly away tailing the car it followed, maybe just tourists rubbernecking. But the cop car shook Nevin; he began hastily throwing clothes, a razor, and various toilet articles in a duffel bag and in a few minutes he was gone, out the bedroom, silent as he crossed the living room. Joe heard him quietly open and close the front door, watched him cross the drive and slide into his gray Suzuki, heard the engine as he backed out and took off.

Thelma, still in her robe, crawled into bed and turned out the light. You’d think she would come into Mindy’s room, give her a little hug and some sympathy, spend some time with her to ease the pain of her daddy leaving. But no way.

Maybe better, though, if she left the child alone; Mindy was still crying and Thelma would only say something mean.

Joe watched Mindy’s light go out but he didn’t hear the rustle of covers as if she was getting into bed. He slipped to her sill where he could see in. She was still dressed in jeans and a shirt, and was pulling on a bulkier sweater. She put her ear to the wall of her parents’ room. Joeheard only silence, and so must she. In a minute she softly opened her bedroom door, he could hear her slipping along the hall, headed for the kitchen.

Coming down from the tree, Joe went around the side to the kitchen window. Leaping up and hanging from the sill, he could hear her talking, could see her at the wall phone. His ear to the glass, he could hear her whisper—the gist of which was that her daddy had left, that maybe he wasn’t coming back and good riddance.

“You’re not home yet. Why didn’t you take your cell phone? I saw you parked here, I wanted to sneak over but … He’s comingthere, Grandpa,” she said, sniffling. “Coming to get some papers, he acted like you stole them. He’s in a mean mood, real mean. Oh, when you get home please pick up the recording, please see the flashing light when you come in—then get out of there. Go back in the woods or to the Harpers’. Hurry, he’s already left, maybe ten minutes. Don’t stay there, Grandpa, I’m afraid of him.” She was sobbing again. She choked, “I love you, I pray you get my message,” and she hung up.

12

Joe watched Mindy make a peanut butter sandwich and pour a glass of milk. He watched her leave the kitchen taking her lone supper down the hall. He climbed the cypress again and looked in her bedroom window—not like a human voyeur, he thought, amused, but feeling only pity. Now the room was dimly lit, she had turned on two tiny night-lights plugged in just above the floor; she sat up in bed, in her clothes, wolfing the sandwich and gulping the milk between sobs. Did she turnon those lights every night to give herself comfort? He wondered if she’d done that at her grandfather’s house or only here where she felt alone and unwanted. Her red sweater hung on the bedpost, her shoes and socks lay underneath, her school backpack beside them, he could see a white T-shirt stuffed in on top.

Finished eating, she set the empty plate and glass on the night table and tucked down under the covers. Joe watched her roll herself in the blankets, trembling with sobs, and pull one blanket over her head. The moon was starting to brighten the eastern treetops and the tops of the hills. He waited a long time until she swallowed back the last gulp of crying and began slowly, slowly to ease into the calmer breathing of sleep.

Only when he was sure she slept did he leave the cypress tree, moving away through its branches to the springy limbs of a small pine and across to his own roof, to his private tower. There he slid through its open window, looked out once more at Mindy, then burrowed among his scattered pillows where there was only peace: no crying, hurt child, no hateful human mothers. He could just see, in Mindy’s shadowed room, the child cocooned in her blankets. Curling down among his cushions in his own safe place, Joe positioned himself so he could keep an eye on her. Yawning, he wondered what would happen at Zebulon Luther’s house when Nevin slipped in—or marched boldly in—to retrieve his bank statements, wondered if Zeb would be there, if he’d gotten Mindy’s message? Or had he left it unnoticed on the recorder?

If Nevin got there first, as mad as he was, how cruel could he get with his own father? And Joe wondered if he should go down to Clyde’s desk and call Harper.

Or was their argument only a family hassle that would end up amounting to nothing? Even if Nevin did leave, would he have cooled down before he got to Zeb’s place? Joe avoided vague tips to the law that could turn into nothing. That would only make Harper unsure of the reliability of his snitch. Yawning, meaning to think about it for a minute as he watched Mindy, he was soon sound asleep.

He must have been asleep when she left, he woke to see the moon shining straight in onto her bed, onto a mound of covers thrown back. Her shoes and sweater were gone. Her school backpack that had been leaning against the bed was no longer there. That’s when Joe leaped from his tower into the house onto his rafter, down to the king-sized bed, and pawed at Ryan’s face.

“Mindy’s gone. Run away … clothes, backpack.”

But Clyde was already up and dressed. Ryan rolled out of bed, pulling on sweats.“Mindy’s not the only one.”

“What?” Joe said. “What else … ?”

“That woman,” Clyde said, “who was nearly buried, the woman Max moved to the care home … she slipped out of the home when Buffin was asleep. Buffin woke and couldn’t find her. He couldn’t shout for the nurses. He leaped to the phone and called the Firettis then followed her trail straight out the front door. She must have known where they hid the keys. Mary and John and Buffin are out looking for her and so are the cops. We … Butno one’s looking for the kid. A child alone, right now she’s more important.” He grabbed his jacket. “Come on, Joe, get a move on before she hits the highway.”

Dulcie and Courtney prowled the antiques shop touching a soft paw to the old, delicate pieces, guessing at their age and origin; though some were already tagged, telling which century each hand-shaped, hand-glazed porcelain piece came from, each handwoven tapestry or rug. They curled up at last in a delicate Queen Anne love seat, on a cashmere throw. Mother and daughter were whispering to each other ancient tales when the door at the top of the stairs opened. Dulcie vanished behind an ancient cast-iron stove. Courtney pretended to be comfortably dozing, snoring just a little in a ladylike manner.

Two men came down the stairs, softly talking: Ulrich Seaver and, yes, Joe’s new neighbor Nevin Luther. They turned right, toward the workroom and the outside door that led to the alley. The cats heard the softtick-tick as Seaver turned the dial of a huge iron safe as tall as the men. Nevin handed him a package, a bulging brown envelope. Seaver pulled on a pair of cotton gloves, opened it, and removed a stack of money, fanning out hundred-dollar bills like shuffling decks of cards.

He didn’t count it; maybe he could guess about how much. Closing the envelope, leaning deep into the safe, he concealed the money beneath a stack of envelopes and papers far at the back, and locked the safe again.

Nevin said,“I’ll pick this up in a few days, once I have some accounts set up; maybe leave some of it here. What about that cat, what are you going to do with it now? They’ve put out a reward for it, there’re signs all over the village, a thousand dollars. No cat is worth …”

Seaver said,“I’m getting it up to the city pronto. I have a fellow up there building a nice big cage, three stories, little beds so she can change around, a scratching post, everything fancy for the looks of it, and everything a cat would want. She’ll be happy there. You can’t train a cat that isn’t happy. It’s a nice enough cat—but its color and markings, that’s what we’ve been searching for, you’ve seen the antique pictures, the old tapestries. The training, the tricks, that’ll be the icing on the cake.”

Courtney, pretending to sleep, thought she was going to throw up.A three-story cage—everything a cat would want.A cage, and he said she’d be happy there.

The hell she would.And you,Seaver, you don’t know the half of what we found, and saw, tonight.

She and Dulcie had not only enjoyed the wonders of the gallery, they had searched behind furniture, searched the shop’s hidden crevices, pried and prowled not knowing exactly what they were looking for—until they found a prize that had them both smiling; and Courtney meant to find more.

In an elegantly carved rolltop desk with dozens of little drawers inside, they had found one drawer which, when they pulled it all the way out, revealed an opening behind, a cherrywood cubicle filled with something furry and dark that made them draw back, claws raised.

But then they relaxed. Dulcie reached a paw in, and smiled. Courtney took a good sniff, and laughed softly.

The shelf held a man’s neatly trimmed beard and mustache, all in one piece, with some sort of sticky stuff on the back. That didn’t taste good when they licked it off their paws. Beneath this, neatly folded, was a navy blue cap and, when they pulled it out, long, dark hair hung down, shaggyhair the same color as the mustache. This was the library prowler’s disguise.

This was a find they could take to Harper. But,“No, don’t take it,” Dulcie said, “to move it is to contaminate evidence. But we can tell him where it is. The disguise of the man in the library.”

“And tomorrow,” Courtney said, lashing her calico tail, “tomorrow Ireallystart to search. First,her side of the bedroom, the missing woman. Tomorrow, while I’m alone upstairs, I’ll find more clues for Max Harper, and then we’ll call him. Tomorrow maybe I’ll find out who this woman is who was almost buried alive.”

“If it’s the same woman,” Dulcie said. “And pray to the great cat god you don’t get yourself into big trouble.” She licked her child’s calico ear, reminding herself that Courtney was nearly grown and that she was strong and clever. They finished the shrimp and kibble that Seaver had put down for Courtney, and curled up for another little nap.

Lucinda and Pedric had finished supper, Lucinda setting aside an ample helping of hot beef stew for Kit and Pan. Its scent embraced the neighbors’ yards and drifted across the rooftops as the two cats raced along the oak branch and in through the cat door in the dining room window, Kit already telling their housemates about finding Courtney; she was halfway through her story as she flew to the table so she had to start over again. “Slowly,” said Pan and Lucinda and Pedric together. She tried, she told the whole tale of Joe Grey finding Courtney, of their secret entry into the antiques store to get her out, jimmying the powder room window; but she forgot to tell it slowly, her monologue raced faster and faster …“and Courtney was so willful and stubborn she wouldn’t leave. After we all got out the window safely, she leaped back in and sassed Joe but refused to come out, she means to stay there until she finds out who that woman is, if she’s his wife and if he tried to kill her and bury her alive and …”

Lucinda and Pan both hushed her. Lucinda rose, turned on the phone’s speaker, and began making calls to tell their closest friends that Courtney had been found—while Kit stuck her face in the phone’s speaker, adding her own long comments. They called Wilma first, because Wilma had fretted so about the lost kitten. When they called the Damens, Ryan answered. “The victim—Joe thinks her name is Maurita, he heard it in the tearoom—she walked out of the care home. We’re in the car, looking. And looking for Mindy Luther, she ran away, too. She—”

“Oh, my!” Kit didn’t wait for the end of the call, she spun around crowding Pan as they bolted out the cat door to look for Maurita. Lucinda watched them vanish.

Ryan said,“Joe’s with us. He told us about finding Courtney. Thank God for that—but how strange that Maurita disappears on the same night that Courtney is found, and then Mindy runs away.”

“Where do you want us to look?” Lucinda said. “Who shall we search for? If you’ll tell us where to start …”

“Why don’t you wait, Lucinda. Wilma and half the department—patrol cars and foot officers—are out searching …”

Lucinda didn’t want to wait at home feeling helpless. But for the moment she and Pedric settled back, building up the fire. While on the roofs, the cats ran, the bright night pulling at them, the moon making Kit so giddy she wanted to dance across the shingles except they were on moreserious business. They peered down into every courtyard and alley, every garden, looking for the child who might still be nearby hiding—but always they moved toward Ocean Avenue. Maurita had a whole crew searching for her, while Mindy was alone and, most likely, was headedfor the freeway, for Zeb’s farm, for her own true home.

As Kit searched and scented out in the moonlit night, part of her was still filled with Courtney’s ancient myths—until her dreams were jerked back. When, as they galloped up the roofs beside Ocean, they saw on the light-struck street below a little girl running. Red sweater, brown backpack. They scrambled down a camellia tree and ran silently behind her as she raced up the sidewalk’s steep hill heading for the highway alone, in the middle of the night.

“Damn kid,” Pan breathed. “Some no-good will have her. We need to turn her back before she hits the freeway.”

“Or before her family finds her,” Kit said. “Her father and uncles are as mean as hornets and her mother not much better.”

He turned to look at her.“I’ll catch up, I’m stronger, maybe I can stop her. The vet clinic is right over there, go ask for help.”

And Kit was off, across Ocean Avenue among a tangle of cottages, past the automotive shop, through Mary Firetti’s garden heading for the cat door when she stopped.

Neither car was in the drive. No porch light shining. She slipped into the house through the little door they had installed for Misto before he died.

The house was totally dark, only a few shrinking coals left in the fireplace, enclosed by its glass door. Only silence, no soft breathing from the bedroom. Where had they gone? They were not party people, Dr. Firetti got up early, and so did Mary. Were they out searching, too? Kit leaped to the living room desk and called Ryan’s cell phone.

Ryan answered:“Mary? John?”

“It’s Kit. The house is empty, both cars gone. Where are they? Where are you? Looking for Maurita? Mindy’s run away, too, Pan’s following her toward the highway, I came here for help but no one’s home and …”

“Shehas run away,” Ryan said, “we’re looking for her. Mary and John are … oh, but that’s a long story. Kit, you said Mindy’s headed for the freeway? What’s the child thinking! We’ll be right there …”

Kit hung up and fled back through the cat door toward Ocean and the freeway watching for Mindy and Pan, looking around for Ryan’s red truck, but the first car she saw was Clyde’s dark green Jaguar gleaming in the moonlight. Clyde pulled over. Kit leaped in beside Ryan and Joe.

“There,” Joe said, front paws on the dashboard, staring ahead where Mindy and Pan were almost to the highway, Pan pressing against her legs, rearing up, pushing her back. When Clyde pulled up just ahead of them Mindy looked shocked and turned to run, but not before Ryan bailed out, grabbed her, knelt and put her arms around the frightened child. “Were you going home, Mindy? To your grandpa?”

The child looked uncertain, and nodded.

“In the night? Alone? You don’t know what kind of dangers …”

Mindy tried to break away.“Let me go. I won’t go back, not to that apartment. My father’s gone and good riddance. Now my uncle’s gone, too, and anyway he’s just as mean. So is my mother, most of the time. I don’t want to live there, they argue about money and about stealing and … Iwon’t go back.”

“If you want to go to your grandpa, we’ll take you there,” Ryan said, looking at her deeply, stroking the child’s mussed hair.

Mindy still looked uncertain.

Clyde said,“We trust your grandpa, and we trust you with him.”

“We’ve heard your parents fighting,” Ryan said. “We know how that must make you feel.”

Mindy’s look softened. Hesitantly she climbed in the front seat next to Joe Grey, putting her arms around him. Kit and Pan leaped in beside them, crowding onto her lap, while Ryan climbed in the back.

“Will you park away from the house, let me go in alone?”

“Yes,” Ryan said. “But we’ll wait, to make sure everything’s all right.” They were just passing the Harper ranch. All the lights were off except the outside yard lights. Cops got up early, Mindy guessed, and so did writers.

If anything happened at Grandpa’s house, once they were alone, if tomorrow Mama came to get her she could run to the Harpers, and hide. If Charlie wasn’t home, Billy would hide her, he took kind care of the horses and dogs and cats. For fourteen, he was responsible and smart, he’d know where she could be safe. Billy Young was an orphan, too. She wasn’t an orphan, but she felt like one—except that she had Grandpa.

At the next road, Grandpa’s house was dark, too, and tonight it looked coldly forbidding; they could see no movement within, beyond the moonstruck glass, no one looking out. Sometimes Zeb went to bed early, but sometimes he sat up watching old westerns. Clyde parked halfway up the gravel drive. Mindy flung the door open, untangled herself from the cats, and leaped out. “Will you wait for me? Until I make sure he’s home? Everything’s so still …”

“Of course we’ll wait,” Ryan said as Clyde turned off the engine.

But not everything was still. At the sound of the child’s voice a nicker came from the far field, loud and eager in the night, and then the sound of hoofbeats.

“Tango,” she cried, and a louder whinny reached them and Mindy was racing across the moonlit yard past the house, dropping her backpack, her sweater flying, the child herself flying to the back fence and under it where the big buckskin pony came galloping, still whinnying, so excited he rushed the fence and rushed Mindy. He slid to a stop beside her as she ducked between the rails; her arms went around his neck, he nuzzled and pushed and mumbled the child’s cheek, nosing at her tears, and that made her bawl the harder. Ryan had gotten out,and she was crying, too. And were those tears in Clyde’s eyes? Kit wiped her black-and-brown face with a tortoiseshell paw. If Joe Grey and Pan turned away, it was only because tomcats weren’t supposed to be softhearted. They all watched Mindy slide bareback onto the pony, without even a halter, and ride away into the moonlight.

13

When Mindy scrambled on Tango, she looked back toward the house, too, longing for her grandpa. But he would be asleep, and Grandpa was hard to wake—while Tangowas wide awake, bright and sassy with the excitement of her return; he looked away through the pasture and beyond, ready to go anywhere; Tango loved the night; and when she leaned forward he broke into a canter. Her thrill of being home, of being on his back, of guiding the pony with no halter, with only her gentle movements; the thrill of his loving response filled her with the joy she had so longed for. They were together, free, with miles of country around them, just the two of them alone in the moonlight.

Far behind her at the house, Clyde tried the kitchen door, found it unlocked, and he and Ryan stepped in, the door squeaking, the three cats crowding against their ankles. Ryan found the wall switch and turned on the overhead bulb. Harsh light glared in their faces.

They stopped cold.

They stood looking, both guns drawn, as the cats slipped back silently into the shadows. They scanned the open doors and what they could see of the living room—then stared at the floor where the old man lay sprawled silent and unmoving, blood seeping from his torn arm. Blood flowed from his wounded head and face, running across the scarred linoleum. Clyde grabbed his phone and called the chief’s house as Ryan called 911.

Max said,“On my way. Call the station, get a medic. Are you carrying?”

“Did that. Of course we are.” Clyde grabbed the kitchen towels Ryan handed him, they both knelt trying to ease the bleeding but still watching the open doors to the bedrooms and the living room. The three cats slipped away staying to the shadows, meaning to inspect thoserooms even before the cops arrived. Ryan couldn’t tell if Zeb was conscious but when she took his hand, his eyes flashed open filled with rage and he came up swinging.

Then he saw who it was, and he lay back down; gently she helped him, supporting his undamaged arm. Clyde said,“Lie still, it makes the bleeding worse. The medics are on the way.” And in the silent night they heard a truck come barreling over the back road from the Harper place, soon they saw its lights out the kitchen window and saw, at the far end of the pasture, the pony veer away to safety, Mindy leaning over him. In minutes they heard the medics’ sirens, too, from the highway, and could hear two cop cars, could see their flashing lights.

As the rescue team pulled into the drive, the kitchen door squeaked open and Mindy stood in the doorway staring down at her grandpa, her face white, the pony pushing through where she’d forgotten to latch the gate, pushing into the house behind her. Ryan put her hand on his nose and backed him out as the little girl knelt beside Zeb.

The next half hour was all confusion, front and back doors wide as the cops cleared the house, the four EMTs bringing in their equipment and a gurney. Ryan led the pony into the pasture and locked the gate properly. Max arrived in wrinkled jeans and a work shirt. He questioned the old man as much as he could, with the medics hushing him as they tried to do their work. Mindy tried to cling to Zeb, but a medic gently moved her away. When Zeb did talk, his speech was shaky, sometimes muddled.“It was the boys, fighting. Fighting bad …”

He spit up blood, then spoke more clearly.“I was in bed, I heard a car pull up, heard someone come in … I thought a burglar was in Nevin’s bedroom … a light went on … I put on a robe and went out. It was Nevin … rummaging like he was packing some of the stuff he’d left …”

He was quiet for a while, then,“I sat down at the table … another car wheeled in … the kitchen door opened again, I’d forgot to lock it … Footsteps …”

A medic tried to hush him.“If you’ll be still, maybe I can bring your blood pressure down.”

Zeb paid no attention.“His white hair … It was DeWayne, he headed right to Nevin’s bedroom, he must’ve seen his brother’s car … maybe seen the light … They began talking real loud then yelling at each other. I got myself some crackers and a glass of milk … I sat listening to them fighting. I shouted, ‘Keep it down.’ I didn’t give a damn what they were arguing about, I just wanted them out of there.

“Nevin yelled that DeWayne was into his bank statements, that they were all out of order. ‘Oryou were,’ he shouted at me. He said he saw my horse one day over at the Harpers’, said maybe I showed them to Harper. He looked back at DeWayne, said, ‘Either him or you were pawing through them.’ They came reeling out to the kitchen stumbling and pounding each other … red faces … then stopped and stood staring atme.”

Zeb was running out of steam, his voice dropped to a whisper, weak and angry.“I was afraid. Afraid of my own boys.

“Nevin grabbed me, shouted, ‘You know, don’t you, old man! You know about the money. And you know what happened at the bank. You say a word, and Thelma goes to jail right along with me—it was her car—there’ll be no one left at home, and where does that leave yourprecious Mindy? Child welfare.’”

Mindy stood in the corner against the old refrigerator, stood straight and silent, her face white. She hurt for her grandpa and she prayed for him; but she knew the medics and the doctors would make him all right. And there was something else in her brown eyes besides her worry and pain for Zeb; there was a gleam of fear which, slowly, morphed into the hard look of fight.

This wasnot the end of her life as she knew it! This wasnot the beginning of something far worse, of years in child welfare! She’d run away, first, where they’d never find her.

But, watching Max Harper kneeling beside Zeb, she knew that, despite what might happen to her thieving family, Max wouldn’t let her be sent to welfare, that Max and Charlie would somehow see that she stayed with Grandpa; and she leaned down and kissed Zeb on his forehead.

The medic sighed, and grabbed fresh ice packs to ease the bleeding. He wished the child would back off, wished the old man would shut up. The old guy was hyped with anger, and if he had a concussion they couldn’t give him a sedative. He wanted to get him on the gurney, get him to the emergency room.

Zeb took a sip of water from a straw the medic gave him. For an old man with a head injury he was talking too much.“Nevin shouted about some big jewel robbery then about murders and warrants … it didn’t make sense. They were fighting so bad I swung up out of the chair …” He stopped to cough. “And all of a sudden they both laid intome. DeWayne shoved me and hit me real hard … Nevin yelled, ‘You were into my bank papers. What kind of fatherareyou!’ He grabbed DeWayne, said, ‘You knew, too.’ He hit DeWayne again, knocked him into the table … kicked him until he was down, until DeWayne’s white hair was all bloody.”

By this time the old man’s voice was about gone. The blond medic gave him a cool cloth. Joe could see, by the blood pressure gauge, that Zeb was pushing takeoff.

Zeb said,“DeWayne staggered up and out to his car, I heard the door slam, heard it race away, roaring rough up Highway One like it needed an engine job. Not one of those limos they drive but one of those old rough-running cars they brought with ’em, and I hope he doesn’t come back.”

Officer Crowley went outside, walked around the place; he came back in, avoiding others’ footprints and tire tracks. “Both cars gone,” he said needlessly. “What is this about bank statements?”

Max said,“Let him rest.” Crowley nodded, said no more. A car pulled up out front, Charlie’s SUV. She came in the front door, stood out of the medics’ way watching, and then followed Max outside where they could talk; of course Joe Grey followed.

“He said it was about the statements,” Max said. “What statements?”

“Zeb brought them to me,” Charlie said. “Nevin’s bank statements that Zeb copied, in town. He put the originals back in Nevin’s dresser where he found them. He said to give you the copies when the time was right. He said he didn’t want to be seen going in the station.” She grinned at him. “Now, I guess the time is right.”

“Statements from a Molena Point bank?”

“No. Santa Cruz and three others.”

“And the originals? Zeb has them here?”

“That’s what he said, that he’d put them back where Nevin hid them, folded in a gray sweater—but that he also found a stack of newspapers in the trash that gave the dates of the robberies. He compared them with the statements, cut them out and made copies. He gave those to me, too. It’s all at home, in the safe.” Charlie had never done anything like this, had never hidden evidence from Max or lied to him—except the one secret she had sworn to keep, about the speaking cats. Now, it took her a while to tell Max all that Zeb had told her. “But why is … ?”

“It’s only corroborating evidence,” Max said. “Might not mean much now. But it could mean a lot if Zeb knows even more than he’s telling. The snitch’s voice, the night of the murder and bank-money theft, pretty much matched Zebulon’s. What else did he see, thathe didn’t tell you about? And why not?”

“Maybe because he wasn’t sure?” Charlie said.

“Maybe because hewas sure,” said the chief. “Because he’s scared as hell to lay out the truth.”

They went back through the house to the front, watched the medics load the gurney into the emergency unit and strap it down. Detectives Kathleen Ray and Dallas Garza had arrived. Both were shooting pictures of the many tire marks, those that their own units had driven around trying to leave the suspect ones clear. Two officers were still searching the house, and taking pictures in Nevin’s room. Kathleen smiled as she took shots of the pony’s hoofmarks cutting over the tire prints they thought were DeWayne’s and Nevin’s, pony prints that went right into the house then out again.

Max went into the bedroom carrying the uniform Charlie had brought him. Mindy was crying again, she escaped outdoors, avoiding sympathetic looks for a few minutes. The cats followed her; Joe Grey, Pan, and Kit sat on the fence nuzzled by the pony, who in turn was hugged by Mindy, the child bawling into his buckskin neck. The pony was her comfort, but she wanted to hold Grandpa tight, too. The medics had three times chased her away. When Ryan came outside and put her arm around the child, Mindy cried against her, cried all the harder.

Joe could see Max in Nevin’s bedroom hastily changing into the uniform. “To impress the hospital staff,” Charlie had said. Hospital social workers, if they started asking questions, could be surly about Zeb’s living arrangements when he was sent home, an injured old man living alone trying totake care of a little child. They would be asking questions like, Where is her mother? Where is her father? Why doesn’t the child live with them? How can an old man who needs a nurse himself care for a child? Can he cook? How would he get her to school?

It would be easier for a chief in full uniform to subdue the complaints of those with an overblown sense of authority. Easier to drill into them thathe had complete jurisdiction over Mindy. And, Joe thought, Maxdid have jurisdiction or might soon have it if Nevinhad robbed and killed Jon Jaarel and if Thelma had contributed her car, making her an accomplice.

A breeze stirred Ryan’s dark curly hair, tangling it with Mindy’s brown hair and with the pony’s black mane. “Your grandpa will get good care. Do you want to go to the hospital with us? You can be in his room with him at least part of the time. They’ll wheel him away for X-rays and whatever else is needed, and bring him back to you.”

Mindy nodded, very serious. She was filled with questions she didn’t ask, the one big question she daren’t ask.

“It’s more than a shallow scalp wound,” Ryan said, “but they don’t think it’s too deep. They won’t know more until they’ve done the tests. Head wounds often look worse than they are, and they always bleed a lot.”

Mindy hugged Ryan, pressing her face hard against her.“If he has to stay in the hospital I’m going to stay with him, I’m not leaving him alone.” She studied Ryan’s green eyes. “Can I do that?”

“I don’t know, we won’t know if he’ll need to stay until the doctors are done. If he must stay, and they’lllet you stay, I’ll be there with you.” Ryan pulled on her jacket. “Here comes Clyde.”

The cats slipped down from the fence as the medics’ van pulled away. When Clyde’s Jaguar eased up, Kit and Pan jumped in the backseat with Mindy. Clyde idled the engine waiting for Joe. In the front seat Ryan leaned out her window. “You coming? What’s the matter with you?”

Joe Grey stared back at her for only a moment then beat it for Charlie’s SUV. She was going home, followed by Officers McFarland and Crowley to help her clear their house and the barn area. Joe wanted a look, too. The Harpers’ was the closest ranch to the Luthers’, in this open part of the hills. It wasn’t likely, but if Nevin was hurtbad enough, he might think it a good place to lay up for a few hours, gather his strength until he felt like moving on; it probably wouldn’t occur to him that he could weaken and get worse, that he might need a doctor.

They were halfway to the Harpers’ place when Charlie’s phone rang. She turned on the speaker. “Billy?”

Their young stable hand’s voice was soft, as if someone might be listening. “There’s an old gray car, maybe a Suzuki, parked back in the woods. Its lights woke me and then went dark. I can just pick out a shine of moonlight on the fenders.”

Joe could picture the boy in his room above the barn, rising from bed to look out his windows into the woods, maybe a rifle already propped by his side, a gun that Max had trained him to use carefully and with skill.

Billy was fourteen, a member of Max’s young police cadets. He had lived with the Harpers since he was twelve, since his grandmother died. He could use a firearm as well as Charlie. But just the two of them, on that large piece of land, might not be enough.

But, Joe thought, if that was Nevin there in the woods, if he was hurt bad enough to need to rest, maybe he’d soon be gone. He’d sure not stay around the chief’s place long, not with possible murder and burglary raps hanging over him. Three hundred thousand dollars had vanished in that last robbery, and plenty more from earlier thefts. To say nothing of whatever Varney had stolen. Joe Grey didn’t trust those Luther sons any more than Max did—he sure didn’t trust them after they nearly killed their own father.

Still on the highway, far ahead they could hear the Harpers’ two big dogs barking. Charlie dimmed their lights, as did the squad car behind them. She looked over at Joe. “Too bad you can’t handle a shotgun.”

“I never tried. But it’s amazing what some cats can do … Wait, slow down …” She slowed. “There’s the car, sticking out between the trees …”

She moved on.“Get in the backseat, on the floor.” He did as he was told just as her phone rang again. She hit the speaker but kept moving.

Billy said,“He’s in the stable, right below me.” The dogs were barking so loud they could hardly hear Billy. They heard a horse scream. Billy said, “I’m going down.” Before Charlie could stop him the phone went dead. She punched in the one digit for McFarland, and repeated Billy’s message.

Joe said,“You still have that black stallion, that boarder? Isn’t his stall back there?”

“We have, yes. Last stall. Max is sending him away in the morning, before he hurts someone. He was gentle as pie when the man’s wife brought him in, they hauled him down from San Andreas so she could ride in the hunter trials at Pebble Beach, they’re waiting for a stall there. I expect the folks at Pebble aren’t anxious to have him, though they do have several women grooms. His owner said he hates men, that he can be vicious around men. Once he’s moved over there, the woman is planning to take care of him herself.” She looked over atJoe. “What’s on your mind? What are you thinking?”

Joe looked at her innocently, gave her a sly tomcat smile, and said nothing.

She said,“He was barred from the racetrack because he bucked off the male jockeys. Max is sure that when they brought him in, they had him on drugs, to quiet him—so we wouldn’t know how mean he can be. When the ACE or whatever it was wore off, that stud turned crazy. She showedme how to handle him. I laid down the law to Max and Billy: he’s off limits to them both, and I’m real careful with him.” She turned into the long drive slowly, as quietly as she could on the gravel. She pulled up to the stable, to the big, sliding front entry, which was closed tight. She parked in front of it; the squad car pulled up next to her.

At the sound of her car, the dogs in the barn had gone quiet. They heard a tortured moan, from a man, at the back of the stable. The stallion screamed, a startled, angry retort, and they could hear water running, the hard hissing of a hose. The dogs started barking again. Charlie got out and slid open the big front doors just enough for a person to slip through, the deputies behind her. She looked back at McFarland, he always made her feel more comfortable.

“Whatever happens in there, Jimmie, stay out of reach of that stallion, he’s crazy mean, he’d kill a man.” The two officers looked skeptical, then looked at each other with an amused hope. And they sure weren’t bothered by the dogs, who were leaping at the stall and barking. The officers knew them and had played with them both. Charlie looked around for Joe Grey, who had already fled the car. She didn’t see him but she knew he’d be watching. Her concerned and searching glance told him to keep out of the way—as if he needed telling.

At the far end of the stables, those sliding doors were closed, too. Along the alleyway, all the stall doors were closed, Dutch doors with heavy wood below, strong woven wire forming the upper half. The doors on the far side of the stalls stood open to paddocks, to vast fences seven feet tall with hotwire at the top to discourage the occasional cougar. The stallion was in the last stall, charging the closed door, fussing and screaming, snorting as if he were drowning. Billy stood at the closed stall door with a big, heavy hose, squirting a powerful stream through the screen into the horse’s face. Nevin lay at the far end of the stall, curled up, bleeding and groaning and covering his head as if the stud were still attacking.

Billy wielded the hose like a rifle, making the stallion back away from the man.

Encouraged by Billy’s attack, Joe Grey left the tack room where he’d taken refuge, crossed the wide alleyway, and jumped on McFarland’s shoulder for a better view. Jimmie gave him a sidelong glance, half a stern cop look, half amusement as Joe sat working out the scenario of what had happened.

Nevin must have slipped in the back stable doors. The dogs were watching silently from the shadows, as they usually did. When he slid the doors closed thinking he was alone, they attacked him. He wrenched open the nearest stall door, squeezed through, and shut it in their faces. Maybe he didn’t think a horse was in there, or think that it might be mean. He knew only the horses his father had had, and they’d all been gentle. Joe watched Billy wield the hose like a fireman until they could see he was getting tired.

Crowley moved up to take it from him, but Charlie slipped in past him. She took the hose from Billy, getting herself drenched, and held the power steady in the stallion’s face. She heard Jimmie latch the gate behind her but she knew he was holding the lock for her quick escape. She drove the stallion back and back into the empty corner, working close to him, strong squirts in his nose and ears making him duck away. She reached and pushedopen the paddock door, then changed position with the hose, driving him through the opening. “Get out,” she yelled. “Get out now, you son of a bitch.”

Hearing a woman’s angry voice confused him, women didn’t treat him like this; he stared at her, reared, struck at her twice but she backed away: he missed her and, avoiding the fury of the hose again, he spun and raced for the paddock. Charlie locked the door behind him. No one had paid any attention to Nevin. When the medics’ van came screaming, Officer Crowley slid the front doors wide to let them in; and Joe Grey curled more comfortably across McFarland’s shoulder; he watched Nevin look up in gratitude for medical help—and in cold fear at being surrounded, at being trapped by the law.

14

If those hours at the Harpers’ ranch were terrifying to Nevin Luther, those same hours for Mindy, with Grandpa Zeb at the hospital, were nearly as frightening—as X-rays were done, and tests in strange machines, as some of the kinder technicians let her watch the scans; and later as diagnoses were pronounced by an array of doctors. Max Harper had given permission for her to stay through it all; Ryan sat with her, holding her close.

Kit and Pan had not, as they had planned, been allowed inside to watch the amazing details of hospital procedures that they could only imagine. Earlier, riding in the backseat of the Jaguar, Kit had said,“We’re going in the hospital, too,” thinking of the patients in their beds hooked up to all the fancy equipment, looking ahead as they approached the handsome white building. “We can go in the patients’ rooms and look all around and see the huge waterfall like Joe did, we can beg bites in the cafeteria, we can stay with Zebulon all night, snuggle with him and keep him warm.”

“I don’t think so,” Ryan had said, pushing back her short, dark hair as she suppressed a smile. “The nurses are more alert for a cat slipping around, since the time Joe Grey prowled the rooms and offices and upset half the staff, since he enraged the doctors—and the nurses thought he was trying to smother a patient. Since then, hospital policy has probably been changed to throw any cat they see out on its furry behind. I’m taking you two home.”

Long before the sun came up, Kit and Panwere at home, asleep in their tree house; and long before the sun came up, Zebulon was pronounced out of immediate danger and was moved to Intensive Care. Mindy and Ryan were allowed to stay with him—in a room the size of a storage closet. The two had had little sleep; Ryan dozed on a cot crowded against Zebulon’s bed, Mindy napped on pillows on the floor, the room so crowded that the nurses could hardly tend to Zebulon; some were amused, some highly annoyed. A nurse came in frequently, stepping around Mindy to wake Zeb. He accepted water and his medications willingly, he ate lightly. Each time he woke he reached down to take Mindy’s hand, then soon he slept again.

In the dim environs of Seaver’s Antiques, low moonlight shone soft through the west windows where Dulcie and Courtney dozed on a brocade settee after a long night of telling each other ancient tales, Courtney telling her own half-remembered stories of palaces, and repeating tales of the Netherworld that Kit and Pan had told her and Dulcie wished they hadn’t. But now suddenly Courtney woke, she stood up on the settee, one paw in Dulcie’s face. “Something’s happening! Wake up! Oh, my!”

What woke her was a sense of her daddy and of danger and of men fighting, it was at the Luthers’ place; but then she saw the Harper ranch, she felt a man’s fear, and Charlie’s anger and the hard wariness of cops; she saw a wild horse rearing up screaming and striking out, and it was the worst nightmare she’d ever imagined.

At nearly the same moment the upstairs door of the antiques shop opened. Footsteps were coming down, Seaver’s steps. Dulcie ducked deep under the pillows out of sight while Courtney stretched out languidly on top as if she were sound asleep.

But Seaver barely looked their way. He went out the first back door, through the workroom, through the second door to the garage. They heard its door slide up, and in a minute heard his car start, heard it back out. Where was he going this time of night?

When the garage door had gone down again Courtney said,“He goes out late sometimes. If his wife is dead, maybe there are other women.”

Dulcie, squirming out from under the pillows, said,“Maybe there are other women anyway.” Her daughter was growing up, she needed to know how humans led their lives. They were not the same as cats—as speaking cats. She crawled out from under, and licked Courtney’s ears and face as if the calico were still a small kitten, and she cuddled Courtney as they settled down. “Come now, sleep. You can do nothing about Seaver—not just now. And your dream … It was only a dream, Courtney, and soon it will vanish,” and she could only hope the source of the dream was like that, like steam from a kettle, that it would hang in her memory for a few moments, then dissolve into nothing and go away.

But Courtney’s dream had been so real. She snuggled against Dulcie, trying to cling only to her mama’s comforting ministrations; and at last, under Dulcie’s mothering, the terror did begin to fade, the fear and the screaming horse to slide away, until she began to feel safe again,and she knew that her daddy was safe, that he was with Charlie, and safe; and she began to feel sleepy and soft once more. Dulcie watched her child until all the fear was gone, until she slept.

Earlier, when the medics had come for Nevin, he still lay hunched up, his leather jacket twisted around him—and Joe Grey slipped in through the open stall door for a look. Atop Nevin’s earlier wounds, received in his father’s kitchen, a bloody tattoo of hoofprints marked his neck, and his left cheek was already swelling. There was a long wound on his chest where the horse’s shoe had torn down his shirt. His leather coat had a ripped side pocket with a pale cream envelope spilled out, hundred-dollar bills scattered thick across the straw bedding. Joe Grey’s idea to trap Nevin had proceeded on its own, without his help; yet a sudden shame held the tomcat as his belated conscience kicked in: this might be the result he’d hoped for, but he hadn’t planned on Nevin being hurt this bad—Joe really didn’t care so much about Nevin’s condition, he looked like he’d live to stand trial. But the way things had turned out could have gotten Charlie hurt, bad, and that did give the tomcat a guilt trip.

When the medics entered, the two big dogs dropped down at Charlie’s command, and were quiet. They felt certain that it was their barking that had saved the day. At the far end of the paddock, the stud was nibbling grass. He’d worked off his rage, for the moment. But when he saw McFarland and Crowley enter the stall to photograph Nevinand collect evidence, his ears went flat and he headed fast for the closed paddock doors. When Charlie spoke to him, he quieted. She walked into the paddock carrying a small bucket of oats; a halter with a stud chain hung over her arm. The black horse put his ears up listening to the rattle of grain in the bucket, he gave Charlie a more kindly look and came right to her. Greedily he ate the oats, gave her a friendly nudge, and settled down again.

“That’s better,” she said. She shut the door to the paddock, locking him out of the stall as two of the same young medics who had rescued Zebulon hurried in, ragging Charlie for making a busy night; in fact it was nearly morning, the moon almost gone, its last gleam dull and fading to nothing out across the face of the sea.

Moonlight gleamed on the locked glass doors of Seaver’s Antiques where Courtney had settled down, putting her fear away, feeling now that her daddy was safe; and her mama was right there cuddling and calming her. Dulcie did not say,For a great big, grown kitten, you are as spooky as a wildcat. Dulcie had no idea whether Courtney’s sudden alarm had sprung from some keen feline telepathy—another wonder of the kitten’s amazing nature; or only from too much storytelling. But all in all, good and bad, the sun would soon rise, and wherever Seaver had gone was his own business.

And if, Dulcie thought, the weeks to follow were filled with more puzzling situations than a cat wanted to deal with, if no two events seemed to fit together—and then if all of a sudden they alldid fit, smooth as a paw in a mitten, wouldn’t that be fine.

But who, she thought, would be responsible for that? The skill of the cats themselves and of the cops? Or, she wondered, a power greater than theirs?

15

On the night that Buffin’s patient slipped away from the convalescent home, when the young cat woke to find Maurita gone, he was more than ashamed. He knew that she was healing, that the nurses had had her up during the day, walking with her. He felt so close to her, could feel her getting stronger. He could feel her needing him, could feel that she was happier. If she had seen the man again, why hadn’t she rung the nurse?

She had a corner room, small but with heavily mirrored windows looking out on two sides, her own bathroom, a little desk and a phone. If she’d seen the prowler again—even if he couldn’t see much through that heavy, prisonlike mirror—whyhadn’t she grabbed the phone and called the cops? She could speak that much, even if her voice was garbled.

On this night when he didn’t appear, she had crept completely under the covers, and they slept peacefully. But even in sleep, something within Buffin remained focused on Maurita, stubbornly maintaining the mysterious strength that burned within him, to ease her, helping her to rest, to heal in waysthat he did not understand. He was just a plain buff-colored kitten with nothing special about him, yet he could feel the sickness and pain in someone, in an animal, in a human, and soon, if he gave himself to them, if he put all his soul into them, he could feel the patientslowly, slowly growing stronger.

But now, tonight, when he came half awake, chilled, and heard no breathing beside him, felt no warmth there, he woke fully. Maurita was gone. The patient he had grown to love, with whom he had spent cozy days and nights, wasn’t there. Maurita was not in the bed.

She was not in the bathroom, that door was open, the room dark, he could hear no sound from within.

But the door to the hall was open, and in the room across the way where a gleam of moonlight shone in, where the nurses and attendants hung their dark blue scrubs and extra sweaters, a closet door stood open. He could see where hangers had been pulled back, could see Maurita’s nightgown lying on the closet floor—and he heard the front door open. The big, main door that led past the admitting desk and outdoors. At first he heard some scraping and rattling, then heard the lock give; she had found where they hid the key. He was out of bed on the nightstand reaching a paw to the phone. He started to punch 911, then instead called the Firettis. He had learned early from his parents how urgent it was to remember phone numbers—and had learned from Kit her tricks of concentration that set facts and imprinted stories and numbers forever in her head. Although she was fluffy brained sometimes in her wild conversations, the information shemeant to remember was imprinted as solid as hieroglyphs carved in stone.

In the Firetti cottage, the phone rang only once, John answered half awake.

“Maurita’s run away, out the front door. I’ll follow her, but can you follow me?” Buffin dropped the phone and raced out the door tracking Maurita’s scent.

Pausing in the shadows, he couldn’t see her on the street. So slim and beautiful, with that long black hair, how could he miss her? He followed her trail mixed with the smell of the uniform she’d taken from the closet, and of the borrowed nurse’s shoes. Followed her down the sidewalk clinging to the dark side of the convalescent home, clinging to the next building, then across a yard where she couldn’t help but be seen in the moonlight—but she had already passed.

He followed her borrowed scents among the shadows of peaked roofs that further darkened the street—but here came a car driving slowly. Its lights picked her out, and Buffin raced after her. He wanted to shout that this was the Firettis’ car, that they had come to help her. How many times, in Buffin’s life to come, would he fight the terrible urge to yell out human words? To cry out,Stop!Wait, please!To yowl out an urgent message that he dare not utter?

And now, behind Buffin came Striker running and scenting out, both young cats wanting to jump on her shoulder, to tell her they came to help, tell her the Firettis wanted to help her escape the prowler. John pulled up beside her and got out, he reached kindly to stop her, taking her hand.“It’s all right, Maurita, we’ll take you where you want to go.” But then here came the cops.

Maurita froze, surrounded by the Firettis’ car and two patrol cars in the narrow street, the drivers jumping out facing her, their holstered guns in clear sight and John holding her, and she didn’t know what to do. Her whole being was still traumatized by her near murder, and then her attacker prowling, trying to look in the windows. Now, she could only stand shivering.

The last of her bruises shone dark in the car lights. Her long black hair was tangled, covering her lumpy ear. The cats could see the stitched-up scar down the other ear where the one earring had been ripped away. John Firetti still held her hand but he was as gentle with Maurita as he would be with a tiny animal, gentle and kind; he put his other arm around her shoulder so she wouldn’t run away.

Only slowly did her dark, frightened eyes look directly at the doctor and the two officers. Only reluctantly did she warm to the kindness in their faces. She watched Mary Firetti step out of the car, and Mary, too, drew her closer.

Leaning against Mary, Maurita said,“There was a man, looking in the windows. Back and forth, but I don’t think he could see in. When, tonight, he wasn’t there, I knew I had to get away … I know him … I need … I need to see Captain Harper.”

The Firettis didn’t know why she hadn’t called the station, just as Buffin had wondered. Both young cats watched as plump Officer Green helped her into the backseat of his squad car. Buffin leaped in and she held him close. Green said, “Captain Harper’s at the hospital, with a prisoner. Detective Davis will take good care of you, she’s on her way to the station. I think Dr. Firetti had better take the cat, there could be a lot of turmoil, he might try to run away. The night clerk …”

John said,“Let me ride in back with Maurita and the cat. Mary can follow us and then take the cat and me on home.” Buffin scowled at him, he didn’t like being calledthe cat, but when Green grinned and nodded and Dr. Firetti slid in beside Maurita, the tan cat didn’t fuss.

Mary, in their own car, called Ryan on her cell phone to tell her that Maurita was all right and they were headed for the station.

In the squad car, Green glanced in the rearview mirror at Maurita.“This isn’t exactly protocol, taking you to jail when you’ve committed no crime. But Davis will see that you’re safe. You two will get along fine, Davis has cats, too, she loves them like babies.” Green didn’t look as if he was comfortable dealing with nervous women. Mauritawas still shaking, she did want to get into the station with a female detective who would care for her, who would understand. Her trauma from the grave had not left her, she was not herself again, not yet.

“Except,” she said, thinking of MPPD, “that man will find me here, the station’s so open. The bars …” As if the stalker wanted so badly to finish the job. As if, if she were put behind bars, he could easily see her and shoot her there, would finish her before she was securely hidden. Cops had been shot in other PDs. Prisoners had been shot in front of police stations in sudden gun battles—had been sent to their demise by their enemies while being arrested and before they could talk.

She wanted to hide somewhere secret and unobserved. The information she had for Max Harper embraced more than one well-timed robbery that her attacker planned. He and his partners had talked over a number of breakins, all lucrative, all clearly laid out. But Maurita had, as well, evidence on newsworthy robberies in other cities and other countries, cases that distant law enforcement agencies were already working; some spectacular thefts that she had participated in and about which she might offer additional facts.

Green pulled into a red zone before the station. Mary parked a few spaces away. Both John and Mary walked in with them, Mary hugging Maurita, who in turn hugged Buffin securely in her arms. She glanced over at Green, then looked down at Buffin.

Green winked at her.“It’ll be all right.” But, entering the station through the bulletproof glass doors, Officer Green and the Firettis paused.

EvaJean was at the desk, finishing her temporary assignment of night duty. As Green guided them past her, she snapped,“Wait there, Green. What are you doing? You can’t bring acat in here. And you have to book your prisoners in, you know that. How long have you worked for this department! Fingerprints, forms to fill out. You know the routine,” she said coldly.

Green kept walking, past the desk and down the hall, one hand lightly on Maurita’s shoulder.

“You can’t take a prisoner back there, Green. You have to have identification, fingerprints.Officer Green …”

Green continued to ignore her, his short brown hair catching the overhead light; his uniform had been recently getting too tight. He said it was his age, not the lunches he ate. Never glancing at EvaJean, he guided Maurita down the hall to the third door on the left.

Alerted by EvaJean, Juana Davis stepped out of her office. Her black Latin eyes were like Maurita’s. But Juana was shorter, more squarely built; black uniform, black skirt and hose, black regulation shoes. Davis seldom took liberties like the other three detectives, who might come to work in jeans and a sweatshirt. Why would Max Harper care, when he preferred jeans to his own uniform. Davis’s square face softened as she smiled at Maurita and petted Buffin. Mary, turning to leave, started to take Buffin from Maurita but the tan cat put his paws tighter around Maurita’s neck. She held him close and kissed the kitten on the head.

“Let him stay,” Juana said, “she needs him.”

Maurita looked gratefully at Davis as Officer Green and the Firettis headed out. Green, glaring at EvaJean, paused long enough to put a guard in place by Juana’s door.

In her office, when the Firettis and Green had left, Davis took a look at the thin blue scrubs Maurita was wearing, and pulled a blanket from the closet. She found a pillow, and got woman and cat settled on the love seat.“You’ve been lying in that bed a long time, and then the stress of the escape. A little more rest won’t hurt.”

Maurita was embarrassed at being so raggedly dressed in the company of a uniformed detective. She pulled the warm blanket over her as Buffin snuggled into it, and she felt a tear come. She was being treated not as some kind of abandoned refugee, but only with thoughtfulness.

Juana cracked open the door, asked the armed officer who was sitting outside if he would have someone bring them a cup of tea, then she looked back at Maurita.“Do you feel like answering some questions? You’ve told no one who attacked you?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Do you know him?”

Maurita nodded.

“And do you know who found you?”

There was a knock on the door, and a young officer poked his head in, offering two cups of tea and a sweet roll.

“That’s the strange thing,” Maurita said, accepting the tea and roll gratefully. “I was hurting so bad, and bleeding, I felt like all my insides were broken. I must have passed out. Iwoke so dizzy. It was dark but when I looked up I saw the moon, then I went dizzy again. I hearda little noise like a branch snapping then heard the man who hurt me running away, I heard a car start and recognized the sound. I tried to look around toward the street but he was gone, I didn’t see anyone.”

“You knew your attacker. Was it the same man as outside your window, the man you ran from tonight?”

“Yes. Oh, please. He’s known in the village. He has a record, enough to send him up for life. If he finds out you’re looking for him, with what I know about him, he’ll kill me before you catch him, he’ll keep looking until I’m dead.”

“He almost did kill you! How can we stop him if you won’t help us? We’ve combed the whole crime scene, not a hair, not a thread or button. His footprints all scuffed in dry grass and sand. It looked like he was wearing some kind of cloth booties over his shoes.” Juana looked at her for a long time. “You know him but you won’t tell me his name—a man who almost buried you alive. What did you do, to put him in such a rage?”

The young woman was silent. Then,“It’s what Iwouldn’t do, that’s why he wanted to kill me. That, and what Iknow. He’ll kill me because of what I could tell. Don’t be hurt, or angry, but … I have to tell Captain Harper first. Do you understand that?”

“I understand,” Juana said gently. Then, “You said someone else was there, whoever found you. The crack of a branch. You heard someone else, then heard your attacker running. But you saw no one else, no one chasing him?”

“No one; and that was odd. Maybe someone heard him digging and came to look, and he saw them and ran, but I didn’t see anyone, not from down in the ditch—from in that grave,” she said, shivering. “I heard little sounds but no one was there. How can that be?”

Juana lifted a second blanket from the closet, and covered her more warmly. She turned off the overhead lights, leaving only her desk light burning.“Rest a little while, until I finish up some work. There’s a guard sitting outside the door. He can call more officers if we need to. Someone will bring fresh clothes for you, and we have a secure place for you to stay.”

Maurita nodded gratefully; she sipped her tea, set the cup down, closed her eyes and, already half asleep, pulled Buffin close against her cheek.

She had no idea how long she slept. It was daylight through the office window. She sat up, swallowed down her cold tea and ate the breakfast roll, ate the still warm breakfast that sat on the table, a pancake, bacon, and scrambled eggs, sharing them with Buffin. Were they treating her so well only to get the information about the attacker, or were these cops really that kind? She’d known others that weren’t. Latin American cops that treated you like dirt. She looked up at Juana’s back, her face reflected in the computer screen.

“Feel better?”

“Yes, thank you.” Maurita yawned, hugged Buffin, and sat up. “Much better.” Did Detective Davis know how soothing her treatment was? And this little cat, he was amazing, healing in a different way.

There was a light knock, and the door opened. Another detective entered, a tall woman, as slim as a model in her uniform, and beautiful, long black hair shining down her back, as sleek as Maurita’s should be when she took care of it. She carried a black camera bag open at the top with a dark garment sticking out, perhaps a jacket.

“I’m Detective Ray. Kathleen.” She put out her hand, shook Maurita’s bruised hand carefully, and sat down beside her. “I brought you some clothes.” She opened the camera bag, took out a folded suit coat, nearly black but not quite. Police blue. Maurita glanced atJuana, frowning.

Davis said,“See what you think of our plan.”

In the dim shadows of Seaver’s Antiques, Courtney, in sleep, had slipped away from her nightmares about the dangers to her daddy, into softer dreams. Dulcie continued to talk to her, reminding her how bold and strong Joe Grey was, trying to ease her into happier environs, to help the soft night soothe the young calico until she was peaceful once more. As the moon sank lower toward the sea, Courtney and her mother dozed.

But soon Courtney woke again and sat up, her mind full of the sharpest dream yet, a spark of gold shining among ragged logs, blood on the sand and on the grass. She couldn’t make out the golden spark, but she saw moonlight touch a woman’s face, her delicate earlobe ripped and bleeding, torn in half as if by a scythe from some medieval tale, rough steel through tender skin. She saw the vision for only an instant, then it was gone—and that’s when she heard the sound. The same sound she’d heard days before, the faint hum of a car stopping behind the building, a ring of the upstairs phone, Ulrich’s voice as he answered, and then Ulrich padding down the stairs barefoot or in slippers, quietly opening the inside door to the storage room, closing it behind him. She heard the outside door open to the driveway; it didn’t close.

Ulrich’s voice and that of another man. Brief words. The sound of the safe being dialed. She heard it open and then close again. The back door closed. She heard Ulrich lock it, and the car pulled away.

Before the sounds and voices,had she been dreaming? That shifting ray of moonlight among blood and sand.Had she glimpsed the torn-away earring? No one knew what it looked like, Courtney thought. Joe Grey hadn’t seen it, he’d seen only the torn ear and the flowing blood. He had told her what he heard at MPPD, that when the coroner and Detective Kathleen Ray examined the other earring, the crushed gold wires embedded in Maurita’s other lobe, no one could be sure what shape it might have been; that puzzle was now at the jewelers, to see what they could make of it. Her daddy said it might mean nothing at all, but the earrings were part of the case and should not be overlooked.

As the moon eased lower, its glow touched Kit and Pan where they slept in their tree house. It touched Joe Grey in his tower. All had arrived back in the village, Ryan taking Kit and Pan home from the hospital, where the two quietly snuggled down in their tree house. They didn’t go inside to wake Lucinda and Pedric, to launch into a long tale at this late hour.

Charlie had brought Joe Grey home, leaving Officers McFarland and Crowley still at the ranch working the scene, photographing and printing Nevin’s car, photographing the stall, taking blood samples. The three cats were still edgy with the emotions of the night, unease born of the storm of human anger at the Luther house, the smell of human blood, the rage of shouting and hard-hitting fists—and for Joe the thud of the stallion’s hooves striking human flesh, nightmare images that, even in sleep, made him growl and made his ears go flat, made his fur stand stiff.

But Courtney and Dulcie slept peacefully now, feeling sheltered and safe, mother and daughter snuggled together, Courtney willing herself to forget the ugly dream of the woman in the grave, forget the hate that lay beyond her cloistered world of velvet and carved rosewood. They slept soothed by the magic of the tales they had told each other, Dulcie’s dreamy fairy tales, and Courtney’s sharp images from her past and then from the underground that Kit and Pan had described. On that journey into the Netherworld, her two friends had seen wonders beyond most cats’ imagining. Wonders that Dulcie wished Courtney didn’t know. When Kit started telling an adventure, it was nearly impossible to stop her.

That evening, listening to Courtney’s retelling of Kit’s tales, Dulcie had found it hard to quiet her own distress. Courtney relished those stories; she was so intense with longing to see those wonders that Dulcie didn’t like to think where this might lead.

But maybe it was better that Courtney’s thoughts were trapped, for a little while, in the Netherworld’s wild and impossible lands, than trapped in the dreams of fame and stardom that Ulrich Seaver fed her—visions that might lead to far more misery than any Netherworld haunts.

16

It was earlier when Joe Grey woke in his tower, listening. Downstairs, the phone had rung once, in the master bedroom. It hadn’t awakened Clyde, Joe could hear him still snoring; but he could hear clearly Ryan’s sleepy voice as she picked up. Outside Joe’s windows, clouds had gathered so thickly that there were only occasional smears of moonlight. When Charlie had brought him home, he had leaped out of her SUV, had gone straight up to the roof, to his tower, and collapsed among his pillows yawning hugely.

“They did?” Ryan was saying. “She’s coming there with you? Well, that’s good news.” She sat up in bed holding the phone, pushing back her dark, rumpled hair. “She managed to unlock the front door? But she’s all right, Juana? She didn’t mind being brought into the station?”

She listened, then,“Trying to look in the windows.Was that her attacker? After all your trouble to hide her, the guy tracked her there? But why did she run? Why didn’t she call the station?”

Another silence, then,“Maybe the patrols will corner him.” Then, “You do?” She smiled. “Sure you can. That will be a blast. Let us know when.” They talked for a few minutes more. Ryan said, “I will,” then a little click as she put the phone back in its cradle. Joe peered down overthe edge of his cat door, watched her stretch out again and pull the covers up as if to catch another few winks. Clyde was still snoring.

All over the village, Joe thought, while night patrols searched for Maurita’s stalker—andhad searched for Maurita—other officers would soon be getting ready for first watch. The tomcat felt smug that he didn’t have to answer to MPPD hours and rules,and that he didn’t have to shave, shower, and put on a uniform.

But, too curious about Maurita to stay in his warm nest for long, Joe Grey gave his sleek coat a couple of licks, skipped breakfast, and headed for the station.

He had known that Maurita was getting better in the nursing home, word passed quickly from John Firetti among their friends. But to know that a man, likely the same man who nearly killed her, had found where she was, must have triggered her fear all over again—frightening her enough to run.

Well, she was with the cops now, and safe.

Making straight for MPPD, Joe hit the roofs running—hoping that Mabel Farthy, their motherly desk clerk, was back at work after her flu and had brought something good to slake his hunger. Sugar doughnuts? Oatmeal cookies? Fried chicken? Hoped he could get at the goodies before the guys in the department scoffed them all up.

Leaping to the courthouse roof, racing for the oak tree at the far end, he was backing down its rough bark when he paused, clinging among the branches. He didn’t need to peer inside to know that Mabel wasn’t at her desk; even through the bulletproof glass doors, EvaJean Simpson’s scolding voice made his fur crawl. The temp he hated, whom they all hated. Ifshe ever brought him breakfast, it would be laced with strychnine.

A squad car stood in front, beside the Firettis’ car. Officer Green, Maurita, and the Firettis were just headed in through the glass doors. Mauritawas beautiful, even in cotton scrubs, her bruises nearly gone, the thin woman looking far better than she had lying half dead and nearly buried in the sand. She was carrying Buffin close against her shoulder. Only the young cat spotted Joe Grey, or caught his scent. His ears went up, he gave his daddy a silly cat grin, then turned innocently away. Joe wanted to slip in, too, but one look at EvaJean, and he stayed where he was. She was in a hell of a temper. He backed down the tree and peered in through the glass, cringing at the clerk’s bossy voice. He watched Officer Green urge Maurita and the Firettis on down the hall, saw Juana’s door open and they all disappeared inside, EvaJean still fussing. The door had already closed as she shouted, “And get that cat out of there or I’ll call an officer who will.”

That made Joe laugh. Anyone in the department would offer ear rubs and back scratches, but no one would toss a cat out, certainly not one of Joe Grey’s own kittens.

Joe backed into the bushes when a squad car pulled up in the red zone. Officers Carlos and Haley opened its back door and ushered out a tattooed prisoner, at least six feet four and hard muscled. They had him in handcuffs and leg irons but he was still fighting them, he was so angry he was probably on drugs, which would make him harder than hell to handle. Joe knew better than to try to slip past this bunch, which might explode despite the chains—but against better judgment he was through the door behind them anyway and into the holding cell hoping they wouldn’t put the guy in there with him.

It took a long time to book the prisoner, he wouldn’t answer questions without being strong-armed. They should have been booking him in the back by the jail. He fought the fingerprint routine, he swore he didn’t have a driver’s license, they had to frisk him for it. Twice Joe pushed out through the bars and started to make a dash down the hall, but the guy began to fight again, and the tomcat drew back. He could have made it fine, he thought, but a cop had set up a folding chair outside Juana’s office to guard Maurita, and how could a cat eavesdrop now?

He waited forever until the prisoner was dragged away down the hall to the jail, and until Maurita’s guard rose as Davis’s door opened, and moved away as if on an errand. In that moment Joe fled down the hall and in through the crack in Max’s door. He had slid deep under the console into the shadows when he heard a knock on Juana’s door and could smell tea and sweet rolls. He heard the guard sit down again. The best he could do, to eavesdrop, was catch every third or fourth word, he couldn’t make much of it. Someone else went in and out, he could smell bacon and eggs, which didn’t help his hungry mood much. Two women talking. Then someone left heading down the hall, then silence for a little while, so quiet that Joe dozed, jerked awake now and then by the creak of the guard’s metal chair. He woke fully when he heard the steps of two women leave the office. He watched Detectives Juana Davis and Kathleen Ray head down the hall and out the rear door. He could just see them through the bars as they crossed the back street toward Juana’s condo. He slipped out of Max’s office, following them, ignoring the guard. Kathleen was carrying a camera case, slightly open. As they started up the condo steps they were joined by two fellow officers. They’d left Maurita alone in Davis’s office? But the deputy was guarding her.

Curious, Joe eased behind the officer’s back and into Davis’s office, listening to the faint click of computer keys.

He faced Kathleen’s back where she worked at Juana’s computer, her long black hair hanging over the chair. Officer Bonner sat on the couch reading aloud a report as if Kathleen was typing it for him—but Kathleen couldn’t be here. By this time she’d be in Juana Davis’s condo. No way she could be here, working at Davis’s desk.

With Kathleen sitting right here, who the hellwas with Davis? No one in the office looked like Kathleen, tall and as slim as a model, long black hair like Maurita’s, like …

Joe Grey’s eyes widened. He leaped to the desk, stepped around behind the computer monitor and stared into the woman’s face.

Kathleen looked back at him, startled.“What? What, Joe Grey? What’s that expression, what’s the matter with you?”

He slipped around the monitor and rubbed his face against hers, comforted by her familiar scent. The computer itself and the desk still smelled as they should, smelled like Juana Davis. When he leaped to the couch beside Bonner, the scent at the other end of the cushions took Joe a minute to sort out: yes, it smelled pleasantly of Maurita. A pair of blue scrubs lay over a chair, a pair of white nurse’s shoes were pushed underneath. He looked up when Davis entered alone. Kathleen looked around at her. “All settled?”

“Clean sheets,” Juana said. “Maurita has the other twin bed in my room, two officers to rotate in my office-guest-room. That’ll be pretty crowded. I’m sending my two cats to board with the Firettis, Ryan’s picking them up. And she’s dropping Rock off at my place. He might lack a little in some finer points of training, but he’s a good guard dog. And a good loud alarm,” she said with a warm Latino smile. “And he likes cats just fine. But my two cats’ view of dogs … they don’t like them so much. They’ll be better with John and Mary. Ryan’s bringing Rock’s special diet and a leash and choke chain. She’ll teach Maurita Rock’s commands, which she and our officers will need to know.”

Joe Grey didn’t think much of the condoas Maurita’s hiding place. Two walls ofsecond-floor windows with easy locks, the windows on the north open to a small rooftop surrounded by staggered walls and crannies and taller roofs, a little retreat where anyone could stand, looking in.

Between the condo’s front door and the side windows, glass sliders opened to a wide deck, from which Juana could see the back of MPPD. That, at least, was screened and roofed with wire mesh so Juana’s two cats could play outside. A straggly young bougainvillea vine led up to it. A cat could bypass the deck and slip right up onto the open roof beneath the side windows.

Could a prowler do the same, crawl up that flimsy vine and over? They would have to be lightweight, and agile.

But when he thought of sharp Weimaraner teeth and of well-used service revolvers resting in the officers’ holsters, he guessed that would be a hazardous climb, even if Maurita’s stalkerwas superathletic. Smiling, he hoped Rock and the cops got a good bloody crack at him.

17

Early sun shone in through the display windows and big glass doors of Seaver’s Antiques. The store wasn’t yet open but passersby, glancing in, could see Bert, in his brown store smock, vacuuming the ornate rugs and carefully dusting the intricately carved furniture and brightly glazed porcelain. Bert was quiet and shy but he was a good assistant, he knew his antiques, and he had a businesslike and friendly way with the clients; he wasn’t reluctant to shop the auctions for a special piece for a customer, or to call around the country for an item a client wanted. Now as he did the daily cleaning he paid no attentionto Courtney; he knew where she was, could see her sleeping in a stack of pillows. The doors were all locked, and he had strict instructions to keep her inside. He did not see Dulcie beneath the pillows, he had no idea she was in the building. When he heard the garage doors slide open he turned, smiling. Ulrich was back. Courtney raised her head to look, then tucked her nose into her paws again as if she were asleep.

Where, she thought, had Ulrich been all night?Did he have a girlfriend on the side, besides his supposed wife? She felt Dulcie wriggle deeper under the pillows and slip to the floor, heard her brush against the furniture looking for a way to escape. Courtney belonged here. Dulcie didn’t. Her presence would stir questions as fierce as nesting hornets.

They heard the outer door open and close, footsteps coming through the workroom then the inner door opened and they heard voices, two people coming in, and one was a woman. That made the cats stiffen with alarm. Bert kept vacuuming but gave the arrivals a smile and a wave—while behind the couch Dulcie vanished, racing for the powder room. Praying she was unheard over the continuing sound of the vacuum, she pushed open the powder room door and was on the counter at the window. Fighting it open a few inches, with fierce claws she ripped the corner of the new screen. Made a hole big enough to slide through, the rough edges tearing at her tabby fur. She pushed the window closed behind her but not enough to lock. She hit the crate below, leaped soundlessly onto the sand and kept running, into the weedy, tree-shadedpark.

Courtney lay listening to the couple. Was this Ulrich’s wife, did he have a wife after all? Or was this his lover, visiting while his wife was absent?

Absent for good? Courtney thought. Or couldthis be the victim from the grave, healed and able to move about once more? That didn’t seem likely, as badly as Joe said she was hurt. And why would she be here with Seaver, if he had attacked her so cruelly? So many questions. If she was his girlfriend, if hehad nearly killed her, she couldn’t be dumb enough to let him lure her to him again.

And if this was his wife, returned from some trip, Courtney didn’t know whether to hide from the woman or play “loving kitty,” and pretend to like her.

When Ulrich switched on the hall light and Courtney got a look at her, she was so elegant and neat, and with no scars or wounds, that Courtney was sure this wasn’t the injured woman.

Wife, Courtney thought, and she even smelled like the lavender scent in their bedroom. Wife or not, this was the woman who lived with him and who talked to him on the phone—he called her Fay. Fay Seaver? They talked about their grand plans for “the calico,” about exhibits and crowds and flights to New York, causing her shivers of excitement, but then of fear. With the two of them together keeping her captive, maybe she should escape right now, chase after Dulcie—if Dulcie had gotten out.

Yet if she ran away, how could she find out any more about Fay, any more than she’d learned from prowling her closet and her dresser drawers? How could she find out the rest of their plan? Because therewas more. Little innuendos on the phone—she thought that was the word—that she didn’t understand, but things that Ulrich didn’t want the cops to know.

But now, when Seaver switched on the desk light, too, so it shone across directly on Courtney, Fay stood looking at her, smiling with delight.“Oh, my, she’s beautiful! She’s elegant, with those striking bracelets, and that wonderful mix of colors down her back—like the queen’s robes. She outshines all the photos you sent me.”

Fay was nearly as tall as Ulrich, slim and sleekly dressed in a tailored suit as handsome as the others in her closet. She was wearing expensive hose and low leather shoes that looked hand-stitched, striking but comfortable. Courtney was surprised at how much she’d learned about people’s clothes and the habits of humans in the short time she’d been on this earth—or maybe she’d known from lives already past, and was just beginning to remember. Or maybe, she thought, amused, she had learned from watching those mind-numbing TV shows?

Seaver set Fay’s small suitcase and leather overnight bag down by the stairs. Her luggage had carry-on tags. Her hair was the color of deep maple, sleekly styled, with a bun in the back, a gold pin through it. Her eyes were brown. She watched Courtney sit up taller between the pillows. She took a step toward the calico and gently put out her hand.

“You’re lovely, my dear.” She said nothing more, she didn’t gush; but her eyes were bright with pleasure, and only softly did she move closer, as if wondering whether Courtney would tolerate being petted or stroked on their first meeting; as if Courtney might be too shy, or too austere, and would need to be courted, like the real queen she was. “And you’re smart,” she said, “I can tell by your looks; you’ll learn your tricks in no time.”

Courtney went very still.Tricks. She considered Fay for some time, then decided to play Fay’s game, for a little while. She lifted her right foot prettily, her three black bracelets bright in the lamplight. Fay looked and looked at the calico’s vivid markings. “So perfect,” she said, and gently she sat down near her.

Courtney eased closer, sniffing her scent, admiring the looks of this finely turned-out woman who intended to make her famous …

This woman, a little voice in Courtney’s head whispered, this woman who means to keep me captive just as Seaver is doing? This woman who, no matter how nice she seems, means to teach me tricks and show me off to crowds of strangers and make lots of money on me?

Sitting close to Fay and enjoying her petting, or pretending to, pretending to be a loving kitty, Courtney was all mixed up. Was she, all her life, going to be so excited by fame one minute, but as confused as a trapped mouse the next?

While Bert put away his vacuum and opened the shop, the three of them went upstairs, Fay carrying Courtney tenderly over her shoulder—a tender but very firm grip that offered little chance of escape. Upstairs in the little kitchen, Ulrich made a cup of tea for Fay, while Fay opened her overnight bag and spread out a stack of oversized photographs across the coffee table. He set her tea on an end table, and they sat on the couch, Fay shuffling the pictures as they looked. “All taken at the museum gallery,” she said, “a preview of the show, though the finished exhibit will be far more wonderful.”

Ulrich exclaimed and admired, and Courtney couldn’t help purring as she was held across Fay’s shoulder. Some were of Courtney herself that Ulrich had sent Fay. Some were of tapestries of her. All were framed, and some already hung on the gallery walls; some were of the museum building itself, so elegant that the calicowas wide-eyed with pride.

“You see how much she likes the pictures,” Fay said inanely. “And she’s already cuddling up to me. Oh, she’ll love her new home, and she’ll love learning her new tricks—she’ll love the audiences’ applause, she’ll be so happy in her new life.” She turnedto rub her face against Courtney’s. “Oh, you’ll be such a wealthy cat, my dear,” but her glance at Ulrich held a twisted smile that turned Courtney cold; it might be a very long time before Joe Grey’s daughter learned to trust this woman.

18

While Joe Grey watched Maurita’s drama play out at MPPD and considered her new hiding place, Dulcie, on the rooftop outside Seaver’s second-floor apartment, having scrambled out through the powder room window, climbed up a spindly tree to join Kit and Pan. Where the draperies were partially open, thegolden tom and his fluffy tortoiseshell lady were crouched beneath the sill peering into the living room. Dulcie joined them; all three cats were impressed by the elegant woman who sat at the oversized coffee table with Ulrich, holding Courtney on her shoulder. They had spread out a stack of enlarged color photographs; most were pictures of Courtney herself, flattering her little cat ego. Some were of a museum gallery, its high ceiling lighted through an impressive glass dome, the walls hung with framed pictures and tapestries of cats exactly like her, each within an ornate gold frame. The works were from many centuries and many lands. Each piece had a printed card on the wall beside it telling the story of its history.

One oversized, bright photograph showed a velvet-draped corner of the gallery where a queen’s throne might stand. Here rose the calico queen’s aerie, a satin bed within a tall cage rising up, hand carved of what might be rosewood, a bright, three-tiered structure big enough for a dozen cats, its many nooks and shelves embellished with embroidered pillows and handwoven throws. This was Courtney’s home-to-be. But this enclosure, instead of impressing her, totally undid the young calico. When she looked past Fay, out the window at the three cats, her amber eyes were big and frightened. Suddenly she wanted out—out of the apartment, out of the antiques store, outside on the far rooftops, and free.

Yet her look was determined, too. Dulcie could read her calico kitten’s intent: she did not mean to leave this place until she knew what final fate these two meant for her.

When Seaver rose, the three cats dropped flat and backed away on their bellies, sickened by the kitten’s fear and uncertainty. She might revel in thoughts of fame for a while, and then in fame itself. But what next? Would she live all her life as a captive, a caged show cat? When the woman rose and closed the draperies, they could still see beneath, through a tiny space. They looked at each other, and backed away. They hated leaving Courtney but at that moment there was nothing they could do to free her, even if shehad been ready to escape.

All these windows were beyond opening, and the door to the stairs seemed always to be closed tight. They wished Joe Grey were there. Watching Courtney, they knew that deep in her calico soul she was as conflicted as a kitten ever could be. One minute happily purring with thoughts of a life as glamorous as a movie star’s, the next minute her eyes wide with fear, imagining herself forever locked in a cage stared at by strangers while the Seavers’ gold-framed tapestries of her raked in the money—and who knew how many of those beautiful pieces were even authentic?

The three cats left Seaver’s feeling grim, trying every way they could to work out a plan, to get Courtney out of there. At least the Seavers seemed to be treating her well, cushions strewn around, a soft blanket, and they were feeding her lovely delicacies—though they didn’t know much about cats. If she were an ordinary feline, she’d be sick as hell from that diet, and soon she’d be dead. Speaking cats did fine on human food, but ordinary cats did not. With all Dr. Firetti’s tedious research, with all his blood tests, he had never found the answer as to why.

As they prowled the rooftops, Dulcie’s mind on Courtney and on the fancy promises that the Seavers had laid out, shame touched her—how could a kitten of hers, certainly not one with Courtney’s beauty and intelligence, stupidly hand over her life to captivity, how could she sell out cheap to this shoddy deception?

Heading over the shingles for MPPD, they stayed close together, each trying to think of a plan to free her and wondering if one of them, in the role of snitch, should report to the cops that they knew where the lost cat was, and that she had been stolen.Was there a law against stealing cats?

Or they could capture Courtney themselves. If they could still get out the window. If they could, but she refused to go with them, their claws and teeth might force her out of the shop.

But how do you imprison your own kitten? Maybe they could lock her up at home with Wilma until she found her senses. Dulcie could imagine her tall, gray-haired housemate, her retired parole officer housemate, nailing the guest-room windows shut and standing guard at the door, and that made her roll over laughing. They had reached the roof of the station and were about to drop down the oak tree when a sheriff’s car pulled up, a deputy got out, opened the back door, and hauled out two young boys handcuffed together.

“We didn’tdo anything, that’s my uncle’s house, we were only—”

The deputy laughed.“With three broken windows, and a pile of jewelry and electronics already in your car … ?” He marched them into the station fighting and kicking. The three cats slid in behind them, Kit trying so hard not to laugh that she almost got kicked, herself, by the little varmints. The cats fled down the hall past the young officer at the desk who was standing in for EvaJean; he glanced down at them and smiled. The deputy from the sheriff’s department, unfamiliar with MPPD’s casual routine, grinned broadly. Usually the cats were more careful around officers from other departments. Now they sped past the counter as fast as they could run. Behind them the desk clerk started to book the boys while the sheriff’s deputy called their parents.

On down the hall, Kit and Pan and Dulcie sniffed at Max’s door, listened, then peered in. They did the same at Davis’s office and then Kathleen’s. Not a sign of anyone. Joe Grey’s scent lingered at all three doors. They found the back door closed, both the barred door and the heavy wooden one. They waited in the shadows for some time until the boys were booked and led back to a cell. As the two angry youngsters were pushed into their cage, the cats were through, too, between the bars behind them. They leaped up through the open, barred window as the boys jumped at them and shouted, and they hightailed it across the police lot between parked black-and-whites, following Joe’s scent.

Crossing the street avoiding slow-moving cars that had dutifully lowered their speed when passing the PD, they were soon up a small vine to the roof that joined Juana Davis’s condo; her second-floor retreat was one of two dozen, worked into a design as complicated as a three-dimensional chessboard. Climbing the bougainvillea to the low roof, they crouched low beneath Juana’s side window.

Juana had drawn the draperies against any glimpse within. Though with the roofs tilted and angled all around, it would be hard for a prowler to gain that flat area and see in—except for the three cats, crouched below the sill; even with sharp reflections of rising sun from the other, distant apartments, they could peer up below the drape for an occasional look. Now, they pressed their ears to the wall.

They could hear Chief Harper, Juana Davis, Detective Dallas Garza, and Kathleen. And the low, unfamiliar voice of a woman they didn’t know—then they caught the scent of Joe Grey and heard a short purr behind them. The next instant he was crouched below the sill beside Dulcie, his ears flat, his short tail down, leaving no eye-catching appendage sticking up. Juana had left the drapery slightly open but as the sun moved higher sending a bright gleam off the tangle of roofs, she rose and pulled them fully closed; the dazzle ended. The cats could see only by crowding at a tiny crack in the corner—but they had gotten a glimpse of Maurita. “That,” Joe said, “is the lady of the grave.”

She lay on the couch, a blanket around her, talking with Captain Harper; her scars and bruises were fading, there were still bandages on her face and ears, and one large scar wrapping her throat. She was nearly as pale as the room itself, which Juana had recently redone. Clear white walls, soft white furniture, stainproof but decorated with a number of multicolored cat hairs, an expensive sisal rug that showed only a few kitty claw marks. It wasn’t a large room, the five officers and Maurita took up all the furniture. Rock’s blanket was folded in the corner where the big silver dog, scenting the cats, was intently sniffing. Dallas told him to be still, then looked again at Maurita.

“How long have they been at this? You had nothing to do with the first robberies?”

“I was with him maybe five years. Enough to be part of the last seven thefts … Brazil, Colombia, Panama, New York, but every one of them frightened me more. I wanted out. I didn’t know how long they’d been pulling these jobs, but I didn’t like it.

“With each one he got less loving, soon he was treating me like a slave. He made me dress real refined to do the shopping—pretend-shopping while I made the jewelry inventory. He always had to be sure I had it right, the prices, the value of the gems, always asking questions, when I knew more than he did. I managed a jewelry store for ten years in Panama City.

“That’s why he wanted me. He’d be nervous, but real loving, until a job was over, until I’d done my part and we’d gotten away clean. Then he’d forget me, treat me like mud. Like a trick dog that, after its act, got put in a kennel and forgotten.”

Like Courtney will be, Dulcie thought. And Joe and Kit and Pan thought the same.

“When I got up the nerve to tell him I didn’t want to do the robberies anymore, he blew up. I knew he would, but I wanted out real bad. I had a bag packed. I didn’t like the danger, the tight planning, avoiding cops all the time, watching for store detectives. I didn’t like any of it. We fought a lot between jobs. The other guys didn’t care when he hit me. I was his woman, he could do what he wanted, it was none of their affair.

“That night when I told him I was leaving him, he beat me really hard.” Her eyes teared up. “I was half unconscious when he dragged me into one of the older cars. I tried to fight but I was already hurt pretty bad. I remember the smell of dirt. I don’t know, maybe I fainted. I was lying on the dirt, I could see fallen trees, night-dark clouds and a smear of moonlight. I heard him digging. I was dizzy, sticky with blood. When he pulled me into the grave I fought him harder. He clutched at my throat, I couldn’t breathe, I was thrashing and kicking him. When I kneed him, he grunted and let go. And then the real pain …” She caught her breath. “Pain like knives when he ripped off my earring.”

At the mention of the earring, tears came to her eyes again, as if the lost piece of jewelry meant far more to her than a mere earring.

It was then that Kit, listening at the window, sneezed. Rock heard her, and saw a small movement beyond the crack of drapery; he let out a bark and leaped for the window. All four cats reared up, they didn’t realize until too late that their shadows showed through the draperies. Seeing the faint shapes, everyone but Maurita stood up to look. Dulcie, Kit, and Pan fled the scene fast, down the bougainvillea to the sidewalk and they were gone, into the early sun and the fog that crept after it.

Joe Grey stayed where he was. He strolled to the center of the window and stood tall, scratching at the glass, yowling at Rock’s leaping shadow; the excited Weimaraner could see Joe’s silhouette and could clearly smell him. Dallas rose and took Rock by the collar. His vocabulary, at Rock’s bad manners, was the law’s finest.

But he wasn’t going to shut the dog up until he let Joe Grey in—the two were pals, housemates, sometime fellow guardians. The detective opened the drapery and the glass and slid back the screen. “What the hell do you want?”

Joe came flying in, leaping at Rock as if he hadn’t seen him in months; the two wrestled, banging against furniture and uniformed legs until Max and Dallas settled them with a few sharp words and Rock lay down, pressing his head against Max for sympathy. Juana and Kathleen were bent over laughing. Maurita only looked startled, then turned away from where the low rays of the sun shone directly at her, sharpening the scars on her face.

As Juana rose to more securely draw the draperies, Joe glimpsed Dulcie and Kit and Pan fleeing across the courthouse roof, flipping their tails with annoyance. They’d be thinking,Too many cats converging all at once, too many cops wondering why, too many cops asking questions.

Max petted Rock, then sat looking at Maurita.“Can we get to the logistics, to just how he laid out these jobs?”

He, who? Joe thought, watching the chief.She must have told Max who her attacker was before I got here. If the guy thinks she’s still alive, he’ll keep looking until he finishes her—and Maurita mirrored his thought. “If DeWayne sees me in here he’ll find some way in, and he’ll kill me.”

DeWayne Luther! Joe thought, sitting up to stare at her, then hastily rolling over.DeWayne Luther!A sharp picture in his mind of Maurita lying battered in that damp and moonlit grave, and now he could see Zeb’s white-haired son bending over her … A vision he hadn’t seen but felt as if he had, as if he had seen the killer as well as his victim. On the couch, he stretched out innocently pretending to nap while Maurita gave Max and the detectives details of every crime that she and DeWayne and his partners had committed.

“And the earring,” Max said. “He must have been really in a rage to rip it off like that.”

“Those earrings were the only gift he ever gave me, part of our first burglary, from the museum of Panama. They were ancient Peruvian, and valuable. They were among the few pieces that remained when the Spaniards melted down all that beautiful work just for the gold. Did they even know what a real fortune they destroyed? It was the only sign, right at first, that he loved me—or, I thought he did.”

She said,“A locksmith with an electrician’s skills traveled with us. He quietly cased the lock mechanisms while I assessed the jewelry and handbags and luxury items. Every job went down without a hitch.” She twisted her long black hair. “At least, every robbery since we became a twosome. A twosome,” she said, laughing. “Such as it was. The bastard.”

She looked at Max.“My blood should be on the earring, but I guess no prints, he was wearing gloves. I suppose it’s not much use as evidence, now that you know who he is.”

“With your blood and flesh on it, it could corroborate your testimony.”

She said,“It’s silly, but I want the earring back. If anyone ever finds it, and when the police are done with it, I want it.”

It was late afternoon, nearly dusk when Max, Kathleen, and Dallas left the condo, crossing the back street hastily to the department—three uniforms: the chief and two of his detectives. Juana stayed with Maurita until Officers McFarland and Crowley arrived through the back door, the two officers dressed in jeans, sport shirts, and loose vests. Young McFarland was neatly shaven, hair trimmed short; tall, big-boned Crowley with such large hands that Joe always thought he should be farming or felling timber. Both were armed, both carried black camera bags, which Joe and Rock immediately inspected. It took only one sniff to know that these were packed with a few clothes and with a supply of groceries. Juana busied herself making sandwiches until Clyde arrived to show them Rock’s commands, and to give the big dog a last run for the night. When they returned, McFarland, Crowley, and Juana, and Maurita wearing Juana’s blue robe, had settled in for their supper. As Clyde headed home, Joe Grey followed him, leaped in through the Jaguar’s open driver’s door, and lay down on Clyde’s smoothly folded sport coat.

Clyde scowled down at him.“I just had that coat cleaned. I suppose you think you’re going home to pig out as usual on our dinner. Why didn’t you eat with Maurita and the cops? You too good to beg?”

“I’m going with you because you smell like lasagna, that’s why.”

19

Clyde turned the corner on the green light.“So you’ve been spying on the law, watching Maurita dress up like Detective Ray.”

“Not a bad likeness. If Max would let her carry, just in case …”

“That’s not up to Max. That’s the governor’s call. Max hasgiven her two guards.”

“And for how long will that condo be safe?”

“A long time with two or three cops and Rock. I wouldn’t want to tangle with them. But I don’t think Max will keep her in one place very long. Every time I think of that grave I wonder all over again, what kind of society has this turned into?”

Joe sighed.“A culture of kidnappers, rapists, killers, and druggies.”

“And porn addicts,” Clyde added, “their minds gone. And the meth kids, if the usershave kids, born already twisted or half crazy.” He slowed at a light. Joe looked over at him. “You missed the part about the grave digger. It was DeWayne Luther.”

The light changed. Clyde didn’t move, he sat staring at Joe. “DeWayne Luther?DeWayne beat up Maurita, tried to bury her alive? My God, Joe.”

“Well, the guyis mean as hell, he half killed his own father. I hope Max doesn’t let the hospital discharge the grandfather to Thelma. No telling what more those boys would do to him.”

Car horns started to honk, and Clyde moved on.

“At least Nevin’s locked up in a prison hospital,” Joe said. “Thelma didn’t seem so broken up over her husband being injured so bad and arraigned for murder and attempted murders. Mindy didn’t seem very upset, either. Maybe he’ll end his days right there in prison.”

Clyde turned into their driveway beside Ryan’s truck; they could smell the lasagna, a breath from heaven. He said, “Thelma told Zeb’s doctor she’s taking him to her place, that she’s going to take care of him, not take him back to that dirty farm, as she put it. She takes him back to that apartment, Varney will be all over him.”

Joe scratched his ear and turned to hop out of the Jaguar.“She won’t. She’ll find out differently when Max gets hold of her. He’s not letting Zeb stay there. Even with Nevin gone, Varney has a long record, all small arrests but enough that I don’t trust him, enough he should be off the streets. And Thelma herself is ripe for accessory to murder,” the tomcat said, leaping out of the car between Clyde’s feet and racing for his cat door.

“Accessory,” Clyde said, opening the front door and wiping his feet on the mat. “If itwas her car that Nevin used.” He looked down at Joe, shrugged, and headed for the kitchen; he kissed Ryan, her dark, bouncy hair freshly brushed, her flowered apron tied prettily over her black work jeans, which were streaked with caulking, and a clean blue denim shirt. Her bare feet were snug in bunny slippers, her boots stood on the front porch. Joe leaped to the table, onto his place mat, and sat eyeing her impatiently.

“DeWayne Luther,” Clyde told her. “It was DeWayne Luther who tried to do in Maurita, and who dug the grave.”

“Oh my God,” Ryan said, sitting down. “Is there a warrant?”

Clyde nodded.“So far, five stops, heading east. All the wrong guy. Two of the officers swore he looked exactly like DeWayne’s picture, but his driver’s license, name, everything was different, so they let them go—and those could all be fake.”

“What about prints? On the … on Maurita, on her throat … ?”

“He was wearing gloves.”

Joe said,“Poor Mindy. Her dad in county prison hospital, her grandfather beaten up and mad as hell. And a warrant out on her uncle DeWayne. Varney’s at home, maybe he’ll take pity and decide to be a good uncle.”

Ryan and Clyde looked at him as if he’d lost his reason.

Joe said,“So far, is Mindy all right?”

“From what I’ve seen of her today,” Ryan said, pouring olive oil on the salad. “I don’t think she wastes much love on that family, except for her grandpa. She wants …” She looked up at Clyde. “She wants Zeb to come stay with us, she says she can take care of him here. I told her it’s too close. But she knows that—right across the street. Thelma would be all over her, telling her what to do—unless Thelma goes to jail as an accessory to Jon Jaarel’s murder. It was her car that Nevin used to kill him. I talked with Charlie about Mindy and Zeb staying there. She said she’d talk with Max.”

Clyde raised an eyebrow.“Wouldn’t that make Max look bad, his protecting a witness at his home … ?”

“He’d be under guard, for his safety. Mindy under police protection, to get her out of that family. That’s just good law enforcement.”

Clyde didn’t look convinced.

She lifted a hand, smeared lasagna sauce smartly on his cheek and turned away before he could smear it back.“The Harpers have the Luthers’ two horses at their place, so why not the child and the old man?”

“Max can’t afford any more men on guard duty twenty-four-seven. And a child living with the chief? No department in the country could operate under such casual rules—except maybe Max Harper’s shop.”

As Ryan put supper on the table, the little white cat came yawning down the stairs, looking for Rock. When Snowball didn’t see the big dog or smell him, didn’t hear him, she rubbed lovingly against Joe Grey … but Rock was her real protector, she needed his company. Ryan picked her up, petted and cuddled her, then settled her in the overstuffed chair at the end of the kitchen and set her dish of cat food and pumpkin beside her. They had learned, several years back, that a little pumpkin was good for aging cats, along with a saucer of chicken broth, to keep their tummies clear. Despite her nice supper, Snowball looked up at them forlornly, missing Rock.

Ryan set the salad on the table.“I was in the bank this morning making a deposit. Fay Seaver got home this morning. Ulrich was in there. We talked a little while. That made me feel weird, to be talking to the person who kidnapped Courtney—I wanted to punch him out.

“He said Fay would be back at work tomorrow. You’d think she’d want a day or two off. He said they were taking a vacation together soon. He looked at me with that amused, sarcastic expression and turned away. It was all I could do not to snatch him up, march him home, and make him give Courtney to me; we don’t know half of what goes on in there.”

“So far,” Joe said, “they’re treating her all right, spoiling her. She seems happy, most of the time.”

Clyde’s face was frozen. “I told you, Joe, if we don’t get her out of there soon, it’ll be too late, she’ll be on a plane for New York.”

“She won’tcome out,” Joe said. “When we got her out the window, she dove right back in. She’s scared of Seaver one minute and wants to get out. The next minute she’s giddy with vanity at being in such a fine place, filled with big dreams from the stories he tells her. We should have forced her back out that window even if it meant a cat fight.”

Ryan said,“Now that Fay’s home, I’m really afraid for Courtney. That woman gives me the shivers, I can hardly stand her. For one thing, she smiles too much, fake smiles. Doesn’t Courtney notice?”

Clyde said,“You cats got in after they closed, you could have let us in.”

“Those locks on the big doors, you’d need a locksmith and an electrician. And that bathroom window,” he said, looking keenly at Clyde, “you’d have a hard time getting in there, with those bars on the outside.”

Clyde sighed. Ryan thought of the many times one or another of their friends had walked by the open shop and glanced in knowing Courtney was shut in upstairs, wanting to race up and grab her but afraid Ulrich would follow, that he would snatch her away and hurt her. She felt like there was nothing they could do—nothing Clydesaid they could do. He said to wait for the right chance and until Courtney really wanted out.

“I still say …” Clyde began.

Ryan gave him another small serving of lasagna to shut him up and stop the argument, and opened a second beer for him. Clyde shook his head at the beer, glanced at Joe, and pushed his plate away. Joe demolished the several bites of extra supper thinking that, with Fay home, they had to do somethingnow,despite what Courtney wanted.

Giving Ryan a lick on the cheek, Joe hissed smartly at Clyde and headed away up the stairs. Up onto Clyde’s desk. A leap to the rafter. Out his cat door and across the darkening roofs to the Seavers’ where he had a feeling that, with Fay home, some kind of change was about to begin. He felt that time was running short, that they had to find awayout for Courtney even if their humanshad to storm the place, even if they had to call 911 and claim the building was on fire. Galloping over redwood shingles to the Seavers’, he wondered if Dulcie and Kit and Pan had returned and were once more clawing at that small bathroom window, fighting for a way in … To do what, when his daughter was so damn stubborn?

20

Peering over from Seaver’s roof, Joe looked down at Dulcie, working awayat the powder room window.She should have been inside, this was her night to stay with Courtney. When he hissed softly, she looked up. She was standing on the tallest crate digging away at the window screen—even as he watched, the screen flew to the ground ripped aside, lay tilted atop the fallen dead branches and tall grass.

The evening was nearly dark, the antiques shop had been closed for some time. At this angle, from the shop’s roof, Joe could see only the softly lit sidewalk, a reflection from the display windows; he couldn’t see into the windows themselves, not without hanging by his hind feet. As Kit and Pan appeared, from the higher roof of the apartment, Joe leaped into a shaggy stone pine and to the ground, the golden tom and Kit behind him. They stood looking at the screen and at Dulcie.

“I pulled the screen off,” Dulcie said proudly. “That woman is back, her name is Fay. I think she’s his wife, the way she acts. Courtney’s upstairs with them. When Fay and Ulrich came in, with her suitcases, Courtney and I were asleep. Courtney didn’t stir, she just slit her eyes open. Shebelongs here, or they think she does. The minute I heard them I flew into the powder room, pulled the window open a few inches, dove through so fast the whole screen went flying. I’d closed the glass and I’m sure I left it unlocked but I was in such a fright. Bert was still in the back. I guess he heard me, he looked out, saw the screen off but didn’t see me. Maybe he thought it just fell off, it was that old. He put it back. Maybe he found the window cracked open and locked it.” She looked at Joe and Pan. “I came back when he left andlistened at the glass, that’s how I know her name. If we can open the window again, just a crack, maybe he won’t notice when he puts a screen up?”

And maybe he will, Joe thought. Pan thought the same. They could see inside where already a box of tools sat on the tile counter.

For a while, all claws dug fiercely at the window latch. If they could only open the glass, they could get in and Courtney could get out, and this time they’d make her come with them. Pan had a dry stick in his mouth, he was forcing at the edge of the latch. They had loosened it before, but now it had been made tighter. Pan looked at Joe, looked down at the towel they had left behind the crate. Wrapping it around the outside of the latch, they tried again. It took a long while before they knew they couldn’t open it. Together, the three of them headed for the roof, to make sure Courtney was all right and to get a look at Fay Seaver.

One would think that all the times they’d passed this shop, and the few times Dulcie and Kit had slipped in to admire the lovely relics, they would remember seeing Fay. The tomcats weren’t big on antiques; and all Kit had remembered was Ulrich Seaver, and the clerk. Maybe she’d thought Fay was one of the customers, or an interior designer; they came in here often, bringing their clients; the cats, staying in the shadows, had paid no attention to them; most interior designers were handsome, well-turned-out women.

Climbing the stone pine to the roof again, they made their way across the roof of the shop to the upstairs apartment. On the other side of that smaller structure they eased down onto the fancily sculpted edge of the overhang, its pie-crust d?cor iced with pigeon droppings. They arrived just as a woman was closing the draperies.

Was this Fay Seaver or someone else, maybe his lover? A handsome, auburn-haired woman about Ulrich’s age. As the draperies closed they left a little tiny slit at the end where a bookcase jutted out. The cats, crowding close, could just see through—and Joe Grey swallowed back a hiss.

Just look how Courtney had taken to this woman. Fay was gently holding his grown kitten, sweet-talking and cuddling her. Neither Dulcie nor Joe could bear to see Courtney smile up at her, they could both see that the calico was purring and they watched her lift a paw with delight. Joe was so disgusted he nearly bailed over the edge and left the scene.

When Fay turned to speak to Ulrich, he nodded and left the room. With both preoccupied, Courtney looked from Fay’s shoulder directly across to the slit in the draperies. From out on the ledge, four pairs of eyes looked in at her. Courtney, draped over Fay’s back, let her claws come out in fighting mode, long and sharp, not touching Fay but catching the light like rapiers, and she gave her family a wicked cat laugh. But when Ulrich returned with a large hoop such as a child would play with, and with a ball and a box, her expression changed to one of dismay.

Fay hugged her and set her down by the hoop.“Let’s start our training, shall we?”

Courtney didn’t run off, she waited patiently, but as Joe watched Fay try to manipulate his grown kitten, rage flared deep within him. He tried to think,What harm can a few tricks do? But the idea sickened him, to make his beautiful child into a slave cat. He wanted his girl out of there, and when he looked at Dulcie, she had a cold snarl on her tabby face—but now, as Fay tried to get her to jump through the hoop, the calico looked across into her daddy’s eyes with sly cunning.

It wasn’t easy to watch Fay try to teach Courtney, at this first lesson. The cats could see, from across the room and into the bedroom, Fay’s unpacked suitcase open on the bed; she seemed so eager to get started that she hadn’t even taken time to unpack. She called Courtney her “little prize,” her “shining star.” Courtney, seeming not to get the hang of this, again peered behind Fay not only scowling but sticking out her tongue, showing her hidden audience her real feelings.

Fay put Courtney down on the carpet in a better position and held the upright hoop at floor level. She held a little treat on the other side to get Courtney to walk through. Such a simple beginning; but Courtney seemed not to get it. She walked around the hoop to Fay’s side and tried to accept the bit of salmon from her hand. Fay withdrew it.

Fay tried again, and again, until at last she had Courtney stepping through. But when she lifted the hoop four inches, she never did get Courtney to hop or even step through. All four cats knew Courtney could have leaped to the ceiling, could have done all Fay’s tricks as slick as a circus tiger. Fay, frowning more and more, at last turned away looking as sour as spoiled pickles. “Is this what you brought me? Your famous exhibition cat?”

“She’s afraid, it’s something new for her, give her time. Or,” he said, looking intently at Courtney, “she’s bluffing, she doesn’t want to do tricks. Maybe …”

“Well, she’s not going downstairs to entertain herself, with that attitude. She can sleep up here.” Turning, she marched away to the bedroom. Ulrich joined her, just as annoyed, shutting the door behind them.

Courtney sat in the middle of the room looking at both doors. She turned to look at her cat family. She was half laughing, half weeping with frustration.

When the four cats could hear Ulrich snoring, Courtney began to leap at the door that led downstairs, wrapping her paws around the knob and swinging her hind legs. No matter how she swung, it was impossible to gain enough leverage. Was it locked? She couldn’t turn the bolt above the knob, either. She tried until Ulrich quit snoring. At once she went quiet, dropped softly down and came to the corner of the window. She touched noses through the glass with her daddy and her tabby mama, with Kit and Pan. Though barely whispering, they could hear one another well enough; but their ears were cocked for any more sound from the bedroom.

“You’re getting out of here,” Joe said through the corner of the window. “Now. No arguments. No matter what dreams they’ve sold you, you’re out of here as soon as we can get you out. We may have to ask Clyde’s help but I don’t like the idea, I don’t want him arrested for break and enter.” He looked hard at Courtney. “No more changing your mind. No more wild visions that could lead to a cage, for the rest of your life!” He glanced at his mate. “If Dulcie hadn’t accidentally locked that window …”

“I didn’t,” Dulcie hissed. “Burt did!”

“If I go now,” Courtney said, “if we can get me out, I’ll never know what else is going on here. Those Luthers coming in the back, opening the safe … counting all that money, so much money … things Ulrich and Fay said on the phone … Things I wantto know and Max Harper will want to know …”

Her great adventure was now only ugly. Her dreams of living as a beautiful princess—a beautiful show-off, she thought, ashamed—were no more. She’d stay until she knew all the story, then she was out of there, away from this trap, free of the Seavers’ control. She needed only one more chance, and this time nothing would stop her. She’d be fast and sly and she would absolutely make her escape.

Outside the glass the four cats looked at each other.“Until we get her out,” Dulcie said, “we take turns watching, upstairs and down. Whoever’s on duty, if something bad happens we’ll get help somehow. But right now,” she said, yawning, “I’m going home for a nap.” She was so angry at Courtney she almost didn’t care—almost.

At home, once she’d had a little snack, she curled up on the couch so as not to bother Wilma. She slept deeply, escaping her anger and frustration—slept far longer than she meant to and woke awash with guilt for her anger at Courtney. She leaped up and raced straight out of the house, out her cat door, longing, now, only for her dear, headstrong youngster.

When Joe and Dulcie and Kit left Courtney locked in the apartment, Pan remained outside the window. He would stay until the store opened in the morning, then Kit would come back to switch places. That would give his lady some rest at home snuggled by the fire with her old couple; Pan knew they missed one another, these three who were so close—he knew the Greenlaws missed him, too, that they were family. But the relationship Lucinda and Pedric and Kit had wasn’t the same, Kit had been the wonder of their lives long before Pan came to them, long before Pan and the lovely tortoiseshell became a pair.

Kit was to the Greenlaws a magical creature; she had found them and they had found her as if by some mystical charm, found one another out on the empty green hills high above the village.

Kit had been watching the old couple for some days, hiding from them. She had never in her life been around humans. She was amazed at the tales that Pedric told Lucinda, many of the same stories she’d learned as a kitten tagging along with the wild clowder. Those speaking cats had let the starving kitten follow, but they were never fond of her. When they had set out to travel north along the green and empty hills, she had wanted to break away from them but she didn’t know if she could live on her own yet, and she kept following.

But then, above Molena Point, slipping off by herself among the boulders, she had heard Pedric talking. Startled by human voices, she had crept up to listen. She had found the tall, elderly couple sitting among the great rocks having a picnic. She had padded closer, had sat listening to Pedric’s stories for a long time. Then, boldly, she had stepped through the tall grass and onto their picnic blanket. Just like that, the little cat was suddenly with them. Pedric and Lucinda almost felt she had appeared out of nowhere, and it was love at first sight. From the first moment they saw her, Pedric, with his Scots-Irish background, knew that shaggy little kitten had been listening, that she could understand them, that she was different, and had the true Celtic spirit. Her delight in finding them and in listening to his stories had made her golden eyes gleam with joy.

And, Pan thought now, watching through the window as Courtney curled up on a blanket on the Seavers’ couch, Courtney has magic, too. But it is a different magic. Like my father had—like Misto still has now, living a mysterious new life in another dimension. I know Misto remembers his past lives and everyone he loved—and Courtney remembers her past lives just as he did, she can tell them just as if she sees them again, and that is the greatest wonder of all.

Sitting close to the corner of the window trying to keep warm, intending to watch Courtney the rest of the night but tired and hungry and cold, the orange tomcat, despite all attempts at vigilance, was soon sound asleep. He didn’t hear the apartment phone ring. He didn’t see Courtney wake suddenly and sit up, listening.

21

Joe Grey arrived home to a dark house. From the roof, slipping in through a window of his tall glass tower, he waded through his pillows and nudged open his cat door to the inner rafters of the master bedroom. He could hear from just below the comforting rhythm of Clyde’s snoring, and that eased his nerves. It had seemed a bitter night, Courtney being prodded to do tricks that she refused to do, his young calico so distressed that Joe could see tears in her amber eyes; and on his way home it had started to rain, hard little drops piercing his coat and driving into his ears—the whole night seemed to have turned sour. Even the Luther apartment across the street looked grim, dark, and silent. The wet street below was deserted, both Thelma’s and Varney’s cars gone. All the house windows were black except for one tiny, blurred light behind Mindy’s curtain; a sheltered glow as if, left alone, she didn’t want to be noticed from outside. Looked like she had turned on a flashlight beneath her quilt and was reading, pushing away her loneliness.

How long had they left the house empty, Mindy vulnerable to whoever might want to break in, no one to watch over her? He wondered if they had even locked the front door? Did either one of themcare what happened to the child? And where the hell were they at this hour?

Into some kind of trouble, you could bet. At least Varney would be. Likely out robbing some poor citizen or knocking around a pair of lovers in a parked car, taking their petty cash and cell phones.

It wouldn’t surprise him if all the scattered robberies that had occurred on the outskirts of the village over the last months were Varney’s doing, or Nevin’s. Maybe even DeWayne, maybe he’d been in town longer than anyone knew. If so, he’d been slick, to evade Harper and his men.

Joe was used to Varney being gone all hours of the night. As for Thelma, she was no better, likely up to the same thefts as the Luther brothers—scattered crimes at the edges of the village that had gone on for months: assaults totally different from the slick and professional daytime thefts right in town: fast, well-planned heists and the thief gone so quickly that no one but the victim knew anything had happened—then suddenly, those snatch-and-grabs had ceased altogether, and that was puzzling.

As he settled among his pillows licking his fur dry and watching Mindy across the way, she sat up sleepily, pushed back her quilt, and peered out through the curtain. The rain had eased. Could she see him watching her? She was staring straight at him. Rain-smeared moonlight shifted across his face, maybe causing his eyes to flash yellow, maybe that had drawn her attention. He turned away and curled down deeper. Was she wishing, all alone, that she could be in his cozy tower with him cuddled close and warm, soothed by his welcoming purrs? Wishing she wasn’t shut up by herself in that dark and empty apartment?

So many souls closed up alone tonight. Mindy. Courtney locked upstairs after her disgraceful performance. Maurita huddled inside Juana’s condo, although at least her guards were friends.

Someday, the way the world seemed to be traveling—more crime, more fear, less joy—would everyone isolate themselves alone? No more friends or groups of friends, no more loving families? Was that what life would be like in the future, a multiplicity of electronic horrors to run what was left; living creatures cast aside, abandoned as afterthoughts? Was that how the world would end?

Well, hell, didn’t that make him feel great! Angry at his own stupid ideas, he pushed deeper into the pillows and turned his mind to how to free his own young captive, how to help Courtney escape, how to spring her without human help.

He and Clyde had argued more than once about that. Clyde wanted to barge in when the store was open, charge up the stairs, bust through the door and grab her—or wait until midnight, break out a showroom window with a sledgehammer and order her straight out of there.

“Sure,” Joe had said, “you can do that, and have the Seavers after you, maybe with a gun. And what if she runs from you, if she doesn’t want to come? They call the cops, you’d be hauled into the station, you’d have Harper, your best friend, in a hell of a mess. The judges …”

This had gone on with increasing heat, over several uncomfortable meals and in between, until Ryan put a stop to it, read them both off with amazingly colorful language. She told Clyde that Joe was right, that human interference would put Clydeand the department in trouble, and could get Courtney hurt. She had left the table, Clyde glaring after her as snarly as a mad possum, only Joe Grey hiding a smile.

Now, from under her quilt, Mindy peered out at Joe again. A little earlier, she had watched the gray tomcat come across the rooftops nearly invisible in the rain and moving fast, his white paws, the white strip of nose and chest like pale moths winging above the shingles. The Damens’ cat heading home for his tower.

Slipping back beneath her covers, still she looked out admiring the tomcat, wishing that she, like that free soul, were out in the small hours, free and on her own.

But more than admiring Joe Grey’s freedom, she coveted the tomcat’s tower. She wished that washer elegant little house, she knew she would feel safer there, with Ryan and Clyde present in the room below. Two people and the gray cat whom she was sure cared for her and would love her. She’d like to crawl across to Joe’s roof and in through his window and snuggle up against his soft gray fur. The tower would be plenty big enough for her and Joe if she curled up just right among the pillows. It had glass windows all around, at least one unlocked, she’d seen him go through. Her mother always closed Mindy’s bedroom windows at night even when it was too hot, she said it was dangerous to leave them open, that someone might break in. So why was it all right to leave her alone and leave the downstairs windows and doors unlocked?

She watched Joe Grey turn over yawning. She got out of bed and looked up and down the street below. Empty, no cars. She pulled on a dark sweater over her pajamas and put on her slippers. She unlocked and opened her window, unlatched the screen and stepped out onto the wet roof.

The big pine tree that she remembered being there when she was younger was gone now, it had blown down in the last storm. She could easily have gotten across on its heavy branches. Instead, she headed for a smaller and spindly pine down at the end of her house near the Damens’ driveway.

Its branches swayed unsteadily when she put her weight on them. She worked slowly across toward their living room, swinging like a monkey from branch to branch, getting soaked and soon full of scratches. She clung finally to their living room roof, scrambling precariously until she was safely on top of it. There she crawled along the wet shingles to Joe Grey’s tower and looked in at him asleep, his paws limp over his belly, his eyes closed. She eased a window open and slipped in, closed it, and curled down around the tomcat among the pillows. Joe Grey didn’t move. She smiled, getting him damp again after he’d dried himself, but also getting herself warm against his thick fur. She was almost asleep when suddenly his yellow eyes were open looking directly into hers. A knowing look that told her he’d been aware of her all along.

She stared back uncertainly. Was he angry at her coming in here, was he about to scratch her? But Joe Grey wouldn’t do that. Was that piercing look only a sly smile?Did cats smile? When he didn’t seem disturbed at her presence she pressed closer against him. He eased closer, too, and began to purr, and Mindy felt safe and peaceful. Even if she was hogging his space, he was kind and caring and therewas goodness in the world. Here was someone, here was a whole family, cat and humans, that she could trust and love, with whom she was safe. She drifted off, secure and warm.

She didn’t know how long she slept; seemed like hours but it was still dark when lights woke her and woke Joe Grey. He sat up and slipped out of the tower to the edge of the roof as car lights came along the street, two sets of lights, one from either direction. Thelma’s car, and Varney’s.

They pulled up next to each other in the middle of the street, their engines idling, the drivers sitting face-to-face where they could speak softly through their open windows:

Varney handed his sister-in-law a package, which Thelma shoved deep in her jacket pocket. They talked for a minute, mumbling so softly that neither Joe nor Mindy could understand much; Joe thought they were talking about money. It sounded like hundreds of thousands, like something you’d hear in a movie or on the news.

Thelma said,“Of course I know the combination. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, he’s there, I called him.” They closed their windows and Thelma headed away into the center of the village. Varney parked in his usual place in front of the apartment, Mindy watched him get out and go in the front door. She waited, looking across, but no lights came on in the living room or kitchen. In a moment the light in Varney’s room shone. He hadn’t bothered to stop and check on her, hadn’t had time to see if she was all right after being left alone, to maybe pull up her covers and tuck her in, the tender things that Grandpa or Grandma had done. What if hehad gone in her room and found her gone? Would he even care? She was glad to be out of there, to not be alone in the house with Varney.

When she turned to look at Joe Grey he was wide awake, alert and poised for flight, watching where Thelma’s taillights vanished around the corner turning left—and suddenly he fled away over the slick rooftops, following her.

Why would a cat care where Thelma was going? Mindy herself didn’t care. All she cared about was getting Grandpa home from the hospital. Until then she wouldn’t think about her mother’s nighttime prowling, she’d think only about Grandpa.

Earlier in the evening, after Dulcie and Joe and Kit had left the Seavers’ roof, and golden Pan curled up outside the Seavers’ upstairs window intending to watch Courtney for the rest of the night, a fitful rain blew then eased. He pushed closer under the window’s ledge. Tired and hungry and cold, trying to keep dry against the plaster wall, the orange tomcat did indeed fall asleep, didn’t hear the phone ring, didn’t see Courtney wake and rise—the phone had startled her from her warm spot on the couch. She felt grouchy anyway from being shut upstairs all night—retribution for her stubborn response to Fay’s lessons. She listened to the second ring and to Ulrich’s low, gruff answer; she heard him get out of bed.

She rose and shook herself and changed position to make sure shewas awake, that this wasn’t another dream. Ulrich said something she couldn’t understand, she heard him moving around then the bedroom door opened and he headed, in his robe, through the living room straight for the door to the stairs. He looked over at her where she’d curled up again, her eyes closed as if asleep. Did he expect her to wake up and watch him, expect her to know or care what he was doing?

Maybe, she thought, if she had done the tricks tonight, if she had made the Seavers proud of her cleverness, if she showed them how she really could perform, it might be easier to escape; they would be more loving again and less bossy. Maybe if she were more obedient she’d earn more freedom, maybe find a careless moment when she could pull off a fast vanishing act.

Yes, and maybe not.

Ulrich, turning the upper knob for the bolt, then the doorknob below it, glanced over at her then eased the door open and shut it quickly behind him. For an instant she considered darting through between his feet and leaping to freedom, but she thought better of that. She looked at the door with interest. He hadn’t locked it behind him, there was just the knob to deal with.

Slipping from the couch, she listened through the door as his slippers padded down the stairs, the back door opened, and he scuffed across the storeroom toward the outer door to the alley. Trotting into the kitchen, she put her ear to the floor just above where he had stopped. The outside door opened and there were low voices.

She approached the door again, at the head of the stairs. Leaping, she swung on the knob. She worked at it with all her might, swinging, swinging harder. She felt the knob turn, she was almost out when she caught her pad on a screw and blood ran down, soon making her paws so slippery that the knob wouldn’t turn at all. Leaping to the kitchen sink, she took the dishcloth in her teeth.

After what seemed hours, swinging with the cloth wrapped around the knob, pushing with her hind feet against the molding, she was able to turn the knob far enough so she could force the door open. She wiped blood from her paws on the cloth, slipped through, pulled the door softly closed behind her, and hurried down the stairs where she stuffed the cloth under an Egyptian dresser. She paused, listening.

Two voices coming from the storeroom, Ulrich and a woman. Was that Thelma Luther? The inner door stood half open. Peering through, she saw the door to the alley open, too. Thelma’s car stood there. Ulrich must be certain that his “little cat” couldn’t get out the upstairs door, that she wouldn’t know how to open the knob. In the workroom itself, the big door to the safe hung open.Now!She thought.Do it now!

She crawled beneath a carved armoire, deciding. She’d have only a second—could she pull this off? Joe Grey had told and told her, it was time to get out. She could imagine her daddy’s voice echoing,“Get the hell out,Courtney! Now! Do it now! What are you, a sissy little housecat? Do it now! Right now!”

Ulrich and Thelma had removed the safe’s contents, they were laying out thick envelopes and packets on the worktable. Thelma was removing packs of money from each, counting it on a little hand computer, recording it in a ledger and putting it back in the envelope. At first Courtney hardly knew Thelma, she was dressed like a man, dark jeans, black shirt, heavy-shouldered black jacket, her hair tucked under a black knitted cap pulled low in front, even a man’s thick shoes. She had removed her thin black gloves to be able to count the cash. Adding up each packet, she wrote the total on a list with a name written at the top, and put the envelope back in the safe. When they were turned away Courtney crept closer, under a buffet carved in gold and red. A cloth lay beneath, a dust cloth that Bert must have dropped. Using one front paw, then the other, she managed to drape it over her back and shoulders, covering her bright colors, all but a few smears of blood on her paws.

With the two thus occupied jotting down numbers she ducked her head, tucked her tail under her belly, and crept behind their backs through the workroom like a pale ghost; there she eased among some packing boxes into a draft of cold air coming from the open door—but just as she started to dart out, a small noise from above, a creak in the upstairs floor, made Thelma glance around the storeroom then look up at the top of the stairs. But that door was shut tight. Maybe Fay had gotten up for a moment.

“No worries,” Ulrich said. “It’s just the cat.” He laughed. “It can’t get out, no cat would think to turn a doorknob, not when she couldn’t even jump through a hoop last night.” Then in low voices, they began arguing.

In that instant the dust rag flew behind the two of them like a gray ghost and Courtney was gone into the alley. The two thieves were after her as she headed for the street, racing through the shadows into the bushes, losing her dusty cloth on thorns and tangles, panting at the sound of their pounding footsteps. She didn’t hear Joe Grey bolting over the rooftops, she didn’t hear Pan leap from his cold nest against the apartment wall and race to join him, she only ran.

22

Shortly before Courtney fought the apartment door open and followed Ulrich down the stairs and across the shop to the storeroom, across the village Joe Grey leaped from his tower racing after Thelma’s car. A cold flash of fear had awakened him, almost a vision—though he’d never believed in visions. He had imagined bloody pawprints going down the Seavers’ stairs, more bloody prints leading behind the fancy furniture, then a gray rag draped over Courtney. What the hell was the matter with him, what was he seeing? Back there in the tower, had he had some crazy premonition? The scene was still with him as he raced across the wet shingles and peaks following Thelma, he was so uneasy he could feel his belly churn. He’d heard enough of Thelma’s “… I won’t need the safe number,” Varney’s indecipherable mumble then Thelma’s “I already called …”

Now, not seeing Thelma’s car parked before the antiques shop he galloped along the front and side looking in through the big display windows. He didn’t see Courtney. When he climbed to the roof and padded along the edge peering into the second-floor apartment, into the bedroom and living room, he didn’t find her. Fay was sound asleep. He crossed the roof and looked down, and there was Thelma’s car backed into the alley; leaning down right over it, he could feel the engine still breathing warm air. Why had she backed in? Lying flat on his belly just above the outer door to the storeroom, his head cocked over the edge, he saw that the alley door was open—and the inner door open wider. Had Ulrich shut Courtney upstairs knowing she couldn’t get out, that she wouldn’t know how to turn the knob?

Right. His vision, that impossible dream-picture that only Kit might have seen, had shown him bloody pawprints on the knob and on the stairs.Well,she’s sure as hell out now,he thought, smiling.At least she’s out of the apartment.

He heard Thelma Luther’s voice from the workroom beneath him, and then Ulrich; sounded like they were counting money. He could just see the door to the safe standing open. “Nine hundred and eighty-two,” she said. “That’s a total.” Then the faint sound of clicking, like an adding machine. “Five thousand, ninety-six. Next column?” It was then that he saw the faintest movement among the shadows behind the two figures.

Leaning so far over the gutter he had to claw hard not to fall, he prayed that was Courtney, that she was positioning herself for escape. Even from the roof he caught a whiff of her, faint but fresh. Was she waiting for a chance to bolt into the alley and be gone?

Maybe he should climb down the ivy vine to the alley and make a great yowling and scuffling like a giant cat fight, bring the two crooks racing out to see what was going on, and Courtney could dart away behind them?

Would that work, or would it only screw up her own plan? He almost jumped out of his skin when Pan, making no sound, appeared out of nowhere pushing against him. The yellow tom must have dozed on his watch at the window where he was supposed to be alert. Had he seen or heard any of what went on? Pan eased down beside Joe. It had started to rain again, a shower of small, sharp needles. Below them, Thelma and Ulrich were arguing, Thelma’s voice coldly angry. “Nevin was stupid to do that! Stupid and just asking for prison—and putting me in a hell of a fix.” The outside door opened wider, the tomcats ducked back, and Thelma hurried out, angrily pulling on her jacket against the blowing shower …

In that instant, the dust rag flew out the door behind her and Courtney fled for the alley, followed by her bloody pawprints, a streak vanishing in the rain, Ulrich and Thelma after her at a dead run. Ulrich grabbed at her, missed her, grabbed again and caught her tail. She swung around slashing him, she raked down his arm and leaped into the ivy vine; she was halfway up when Ulrich jumped, reaching for her—and Joe and Pan exploded onto him from the roof so hard they knocked him to the asphalt; the tomcats were all over him scratching his head and shoulders, he tried to get up and they knocked him hard against the alley wall—while Courtney flew to the top of Thelma’s carand from there to the stone pine that crept up the neighboring building.

She leaped from the pine to the next-door roof and ran, she vanished among the peaks that rose around her. Ulrich ran along the alley looking up where Courtney had disappeared. From the shadows the calico heard Ulrich swearing, calling her names she had never heard before. She knew that if she moved again, they would hear her running on the wet gravel. Ulrich paused frequently, listening for the sound of scrabbling paws or the occasional flip of tiny pebbles. Courtney crept along as quiet as a frightened rabbit until her footfalls grew silent on the wet wood shingles of the steeper roofs.

When they couldn’t hear her anymore, Thelma returned for her car; but even circling the block peering up at the rooftops, circling the next block and the next, she could see nothing, no distant flash of bright calico, no flying streak of color. Neither Thelma nor Ulrich glimpsed the racing tomcats following Courtney at a distance, hidden in shadows or around corners so as not to lead her pursuers to her. It had stopped raining but the air was heavy and damp.

Just once did the tomcats catch up with Courtney, deep between two peaks.“The PD,” Joe whispered, “they won’t come there.” Courtney gave him a bright and devilish look. As if this were a game, and not a race for her life. Swerving into the shelter of a stone chimney, she spun backward when she saw Ulrich straight ahead. He was racing upthe stairway between two apartments. Courtney leaped to the adjoining roof, vanished beneath a steep overhang, bellying down beneath a heap of rotting leaves.

There she crouched shivering—until Ulrich saw her. He came right at her, reaching. She flew out past him scattering leaves, she was gone between chimneys and ledges, her heart thundering so loud she couldn’t hear her own footfalls. She leaped to a steep dormer where Ulrich had to scramble to get up. She could sense Joe and Pan behind them, she knew they were gaining; she thought they’d jump him again. Ulrich Seaver, so kind and sweet-talking—plunging after her now with rage enough to kill her.

Thelma’s car was still cruising the streets, maybe she was afraid, in the dark and wet, to climb to the roofs. Ahead, across the street, was the courthouse and its big parking area, she was near the north end where its tower rose up. Police cars were parked at the other end, in front of the station, and more black-and-whites were lined up in the back. Oh, Courtney ran for the PD, her breath nearly gone. She dove into a giant pine that spanned the street to the court building, and crossed the heavy branches onto the courthouse roof. As she looked ahead to the police station, she heard Joe and Pan scramble across and they were beside her. She heard Ulrich behind them crawling clumsily across the biggest limb, and the three cats flew up the tower’s steps, six feet, ten feet, Ulrich close behind them. He was up the stairsreaching for Courtney when she clawed his hand and leaped away. She flew straight down to the courthouse roof again, the tomcats guarding her, rearing up snarling at Ulrich, their claws flashing until Ulrich drew back, he’d had enough of cat scratches.

Nor did he like being this close to the station and the cops. He started down the stairs scanning the roofs and streets, but the cats had vanished. Thelma’s car had drawn up below him. He swung down the last steps and into the front seat. “Get out of here, they’re gone. Where the hell did they go?” He touched a contact on his phone. “Send the men up by the courthouse. Damn cat is out, running across the roofs. See if you can catch it. Search the whole damn town until you find it.”

Thelma said,“When Fay wakes, when she gets up to get ready for work, when she can’t find the cat, what will you tell her? And what will she say when she sees the safe and the back door open?”

“Oh, the damn safe.”

She glanced at him and put her foot to the pedal, more anxious about the money than the cat. If that money was gone, nearly a fourth of it belonging to her, she swore she’d kill Ulrich.

They skidded into the alley, found the door and safe open as they’d left them. That was a load of luck. Making sure the money was all there, and that the way the envelopes were arranged was the same, they locked up and took off again. They didn’t see small, wizened Officer Bean standing deep in the shadows of the workroom among cratesand stored furniture, a camera in his hand.

Bean had shot the envelopes in the safe without moving anything. Hehad slipped out one envelope, opened it, and photographed and fingerprinted the money, but so carefully that Ulrich would never know. When he heard no one coming, he had been able to fingerprint several envelopes and their contents without leaving a trace of his own prints. And Bean, with what amounted to a criminal’s degree in safecracking, now had the combination to the safe. He prowled the office as well, took some additional pictures, let himself out, pocketed the key that had hung on the inside of the open door, and he was gone into the night.

As Thelma and Ulrich left the antiques store, headed back for the courthouse, three of DeWayne’s men appeared behind them in a small gray Audi. The two cars parked behind the courthouse on a narrow side street. The men climbed out, pulled a ladder from a rack on top of the Audi, and they hit the roofs. Seaver had pulled on a cap from among the junk on Thelma’s backseat and had wrapped a scarf around his neck. He looked as much like his companions as DeWayne did, where he watched, wrapped in darkness.

23

The courthouse roof didn’t thunder under their paws like the gravel had; they fled along the sloping far side, out of sight of Thelma and, hopefully, of the men racing the roofs behind them. But when the cats dropped down to the lower roof of MPPD, praying the window of the holding cell was open,their pursuers saw them and saw the barred window and they fled, evading the nearby cops. Bailing over the side of the building, swinging down clutching the window moldings and dropping to the sidewalk, they piled into the two cars and were gone. The cats crouched in the shadows smiling, watching them race away.

The high window was wide open to dispel the ripe scent of the holding cell, of the occasional drunken detainee—but tonight, when they looked in, the cell was empty. Though if the rain increased, some homeless people might come in trying to haggle for a bed. Quickly the cats slipped through the small window between the bars, dropped down six feet onto the thin mattress of the narrow bunk and dove under, Courtney pale with fear, her pink nose and ears nearly white.

Even before they could huddle together in the darkest corner, so the young officer at the desk might not see them, a squad car pulled up in the red zone. Peering out, they could see Max Harper at the wheel looking in through the bulletproof glass doors and through the cell bars straight at them, straight into the shadows beneath the cot. Had he seen them racing across the roof, had he seen the men chasing them?

Max sat a minute, frowning. Well, hell, there was the lost calico everyone had made such a fuss over, and Joe Grey and Pan were with her. All three cats were scared as hell! The calico was trembling, the look on her face one of icy fear. Joe Grey and the orange tomcat looked nearly as frightened.

He’d seen those guys chasing them across the roofs, seen the four figures get in their cars and take off. One could be a woman, it was hard to tell, the way the person was dressed. Thelma Luther? He recognized Ulrich Seaver, but he didn’t get a good look at the other two sleazebags; both looked like limo drivers for DeWayne Luther. Why would they be interested in a lost cat? And other men had run, into the night. Max could have followed any of them; but he knew Thelma’s car.Was that Thelma, bundled up like a man? His thoughts about following them were mixed.

For days, everything had been crazy. Everything that happened seemed to rotate around cats. Posters all over the village and in nearly every shop. His friends and all the folks from CatRescue combing the neighborhood searching for the calico, for Joe Grey’s grown kitten. While all that time, a few people knew very well where she was, and had said nothing. Not even Charlie, and he trusted her with his life. Ryan and Clyde, Wilma and the Greenlaws had been just as secretive, not a word. Those five, and Kate Osborne and ScottFlannery. He knew and loved them all, he trusted them all, but they too often made him wonder.

Whatever, it looked like the calico herself had finally made the decision. Max guessed that when she did escape, Seaver had seen her and given chase. He must have called DeWayne’s drivers to help him—his fellow thieves. But he couldn’t call DeWayne himself, he was long gone, by the reports they were getting from across the country. Those departments would keep looking until they had DeWayne locked up. He was wanted locally for assault and attempted murder, they had three more warrants for murder out of state, more than a dozen warrants for big-time robbery, to say nothing of the out-of-the-country extradition papers for his return.

Before Max left the squad car he called the desk, sent three officers to work the streets for the men who had run. There was more to this than just a cat. He didn’t know what they’d arrest them for … Making a disturbance … Trespassing on the roofs? They’d think of something. He told the young clerk to put the coffee on for roll call. “And lay out the doughnuts Kathleen brought in last night.” That got the young man out of the front office for a few minutes. When he was gone, Max stepped from the squad car, stood at its open back door rearranging something inside. He returned with a small and ancient suitcase the cats knew well. It was the shape of a two-centuries-old carpetbag, soft leather, a solid bottom, a clasp and two handles together at the top. Joe Grey imagined him emptying the bag in the car, pulling out his neatly folded uniform, his regulation cap and black shoes, and setting them on the seat. These were the spares he carried in case he hadto go to court or see the judge or the mayor unexpectedly. For serious occasions, Max didn’t often wear jeans and a western shirt as he was wearing now. Before he left the car he made one more call. Then, moving in through the glass doors, he knelt before the holding-cell bars adjusting his boot, his back to the desk, hiding the cats, looking down at the fear on their faces—but not fear of Max.

Joe Grey had no reason to fear the chief, the tomcat slept all over Max’s reports, he practically lived at the station—despite Harper’s crankiness when he couldn’t find a document, Joe and Max were pals. The thought did cross Max’s mind that Joe Grey himself might somehow have found and released the young calico, but that idea was beyond bizarre, cats weren’t that clever or that handy; and the tall, tanned chief didn’t like fantasies muddling his reason. Courtney looked up at him, frightened and pleading. The chase, those men pounding across the roofs grabbing for her, had left her rigid with fear.

Courtney was indeed shaking so badly her stomach felt sick. She wanted to curl up in the darkest corner and vanish. Watching Max, she didn’t know what he’d do. When she looked at Joe and Pan, both tomcats looked unwell, themselves; too much running, too much fear—and Max had never caught them being chased into the station, hiding from crooks in the station. This would not look good for the department, men chasing cats all over the rooftops and then the chief finding them hiding in the holding cell. Max knelt by the bars, looking in at them, looking as distressed as she’d ever seen him.

A hurt or frightened animal got to Max, where a defiant felon only made him mad. He glanced toward the desk but the clerk was still in the conference room. He opened the bag he had emptied.“Inside, Joe. Quick.” Reaching through the bars he pulled Joe unceremoniously into the bag, picked up Courtney more gently and settled her beside him. “Pan, get in here.”

Within seconds the cats were being carried down the hall, peering out the thin crack that Max had left in the nearly closed suitcase. Past the conference room where Jerry was laying out paper plates and they could smell the coffee start to brew. Past the closed doors of the other offices and out the back door beside the jail. Crossing the police parking lot, Max swung into a decrepit old Ford, one of the shabby cars the department kept for when officers didn’t want to be spotted. Pulling into the street, he turned left. Then a right, and two more rights into a shadowed space tucked between two condos.

Joe couldn’t see much from the bag, but they had to be behind Juana’s condo where, upstairs, Maurita was hidden. What was this, a group shelter? Max carried them up the back steps, and knocked softly. Juana let them in at once, shut the door behind them and opened the bag. Reaching in, she stroked the three huddled felines, seeking to calm them. The dark-haired Latina cop looked nearly as square in her pale blue sweats as she did in uniform. Seeing the distress in Courtney’s eyes, she took the calico in her arms. Courtney purred and rubbed against her—but when she saw Buffin snuggled on the couch in Maurita’s lap, she was so glad to see her brother she leaped straight for him, burrowing on the blanket between them, smearing blood across them from her injured paw. Maurita, in her scrubs and a robe, ignored the blood and snuggled Courtney close.

Juana brought salve and bandages; she knelt and began to help Maurita doctor Courtney’s white and calico paws, examining each tiny bone. No shrieks, nothing seemed broken. Maurita found a tissue in her pocket and wiped the heaviest blood from her calico coat, then gently she ran her hands over the rest of Courtney, flexing her legs for injuries, running her hands down her sides while watching the calico’s face for any sign of pain. Maurita’s black hair was tied back in a knot, her bruises and scars were fading. When she looked into the calico’s frightened eyes, she saw the same fear as her own—they stared at each other, the look between them filled with their mutual need for comforting, sharing the distress that would take a long time to heal. Courtney put a gentle, carefully wrapped paw on Maurita’s arm, and the young woman held the calico tighter; she could feel her shivering; they clung close to Buffin, too, his curing strength warming them both.

When Juana turned away to join Max and the two deputies, the men were smiling, watching the warm scene, and then watching Rock and Joe Grey. The minute Joe bellied out of the leather bag, the big silver dog had been all over his housemate, licking and nibbling at him while Joe slapped at Rock playfully and purred against his sleek coat. Such warm, innocent moments were all too rare in the life of a cop. Tall, big-boned Officer Crowley, looking very tender, rose to stack the breakfast dishes and carry them into the kitchen. Jimmie McFarland gathered up the cups and cream and sugar, still watching the two animals. His short brown hair was neatly trimmed and he was clean shaven, his uniform sharply pressed.“So the lost cat is found,” he said, grinning.

Max said,“Someone chased the hell out of them.”

“No wonder they’re scared. I’ve never seen Joe Grey frightened—but where are Dulcie and Kit? Did those guys catch them or did they escape? And what the hell do they want with cats?”

Max said,“I hope they escaped, and are unhurt. These three got away with a lot of fight, from the amount of blood on them. All the posters about her being lost, everyone searching for her, all that time someone had her locked up, maybe in a cage.”

Juana said,“What kind of person would do that, yet apparently not harm her? Whatdo they want … ?” She paused, staring at the window. They all turned to look. Rock and Joe Grey abandoned their tussle and leaped on a chair nosing at the drawn drapery, at the open corner where, in the soft lamplight, a pair of green eyes shone and a dark tabby face looked in. When Dulcie saw Courtney inside she rose up, meowed softly, and scratched frantically at the glass. As Juana opened the window, Rock stuck his nose in the tabby’s face; gently she nipped the big gray dog and pushed past him, leaping to join her escaped kitten. She wanted to cry, she wanted to praise Courtney. All she could do was meow.

“Come up,” Maurita said.

Dulcie landed softly on the blanket between her two kittens and curled down, licking Courtney’s ears. Her child was free. They couldn’t talk, she’d hear the story of Courtney’s escape later. Right now all that mattered was that her child was safe. Buffin put a paw on Dulcie’s face and licked her nose, and she could almost feel him healing her, as he seemedto be soothing Courtney and Maurita; and Dulcie sighed. They were all together, and they were safe. They were secure under the protection of the cops, of friends they could count on and trust.

Jimmie McFarland watched them with interest, this close and loving cat family. He watched Maurita, her own eyes damp. When she looked up, he handed her a tissue, watched her wipe her tears then wipe remaining blood from Courtney. He hoped most of it was human blood. The way she held and stroked the cats touched Jimmie deep down. This was not the hard-cop part of him, as he thought he should behave. Their eyes met for a moment, Maurita’s dark eyes wide with a sudden surprise as well as with tenderness. McFarland blushed and looked away.

Earlier, when Kit awakened from her nap in her tree house, she hadn’t gone along the branch that led in through the dining room window, she hadn’t wanted to wake Lucinda and Pedric and get caught up in a long explanation; that could come later. She had left the tree house backing down the broad trunk of her oak tree, racing through the rain, across the yards to where the village roofs would take her to Seaver’s Antiques, on her way to relieve Pan at his watch; it would be dawn soon, the sky in the east was barely turning light.

But when she got there, she couldn’t find Pan. Dropping down to the sidewalk by way of a potted bush, she peered in the windows of the closed store looking for Courtney. Not finding her, she climbed the tall pine at the side of the building and went across the flat roof, looking in the second-floor apartment. No sign of her kitten. Circling the apartment on the window ledge, she didn’t find Pan crouched outside in the sheltered corner where he had chosen to keep watch. But when she padded along the ledge back to the alley, she smelled blood. Human blood and cat blood.Courtney’s blood?

She could see no one. Scrambling down the ivy vine to the alley she found spots of Courtney’s blood glistening on the wet macadam. She could smell both the calico’s and Pan’s fresh scents, and the trail of Ulrich and Thelma. But the smells that alarmed her were where they were all mixed together: Courtney’s blood, Joe Grey’s and Pan’s scents and the two humans, tangled with the lingering smell of fear and of rage, a fighting stink that sent Kit racing away to the rooftops again following where the three cats had fled, and Thelma and Ulrich had climbed after them.

Earlier, looking down from the roofs, she’d thought she glimpsed DeWayne Luther for an instant. A tall man with a touch of white hair under a floppy cap—but no, this man smelled like a gas station. He had a mustache, his service jacket was stained with grease, and his shoes were filthy. Anyway, DeWayne wouldn’t be here in the village when there was a warrant out on him. And why would he care about Seaver’s crazy plan? DeWayne Luther ran to high-toned robberies, to the most exclusive stores, to jewelry worth millions, not to stealing cats; and why would he care about ancient, ragged tapestries and old fairy tales surrounding a stolen cat?

Had that been DeWayne back there despite his looks and smell?Had he been part of the chase? Pan said she had too much imagination, that her wild ideas sent her flying off into tangents.

But right now she wanted to know if the three catshad escaped, and where they had gone, she had to find them. Following their scents over the roofs to the station, she could smell several men’s, and Thelma’s, trails along the shingles, they crossed back and forth then separated. Thelma and Ulrich had gone down some steps to the street. But Kit followed the path of Courtney and Joe and Pan past where the humans had turned away, followed them toward the PD. When she found the cats’ scents strong on the bars of the holding-cell window, she sighed with relief.

But when she looked down into the cell, no one was there. Not even a drunken prisoner—then, looking across the roofs, she saw Joe Grey at Juana’s condo, leaping out a slightly open window. Juana and two officers stood behind him. For an instant, Joe turned back to rub his face against Juana’s hand then he was gone, heading over the rooftops toward homelooking very happy. As if, for the moment, his job was done. Kit raced over the roofs and branches for the window, mewling and mewling at Juana before she closed the glass. She burst into the room, into the detective’s arms, and was amazed at the gathering.

She looked shyly at the chief and the two deputies, flicking her tail in a demure greeting. She thought at first the dark-haired woman on the couch was Detective Kathleen Ray snuggled with Courtney, Buffin, and Dulcie; then she saw the woman’s scars, the bruises, the stitched-up ear: the lady from the grave. And Kit found it hard not to speak right out, to shout out her surprise and her joy.

24

The rain had eased. Low in the east, thin, orange streaks of dawn shone into Joe Grey’s tower, waking Mindy. She felt around among his pillows and found she was alone, Joe was gone. She pushed up and looked out the open window. Yes, earlier in the night the tomcat had raced away chasing her mother’s car, heading into the village.

Why would acat want to follow Thelma? Why would a catcare where she was going? When she looked across toward her room and down at the street, she eased back deeper among the pillows out of sight. Her mother was home. Even in the first whisper of dawn, Thelma might glimpse her dark silhouette up here in the tower.

How would she explain how she’d gotten over here on the Damens’ roof and why? Thelma’s Volvo was parked behind Varney’s Toyota. She didn’t want to go home; if Thelma caught her coming in she’d fuss and haggle at her for being outside and she’d ask a hundred questions.

But maybe her mother would go right up to bed and wouldn’t know she was gone, wouldn’t bother to check on her. Varney hadn’t, when he came in. It would be nice to have a mother who looked in on her after she’d been left alone all night, someone to just glance in and see if she was okay, if she hadn’t been abducted or murdered.

But why should Thelma care, any more than Varney did? Or than her own father had cared, afterhe’dbeen out all night, stealing? He’d never checked on her, never pulled up her covers like fathers in movies did.

Well, her father wasn’t out stealing now, Nevin was in county prison in a barred hospital room, maybe never to get out again. Never to rob again, never to steal anymore. And why did she care what he did with his life?

All shedid care about was Grandpa in the hospital. He was coming home today, she thought with excitement. He’d be here by noon, home with her, and she could take care of him because Mama sure as hell wouldn’t.

So he’d demand to go to his own house. So he’d make a big scene. So what? Maybe she could figure out a way the two of them could go home. She could order groceries delivered, they had chickens and eggs at home, they had flour and cornmeal; she could cook as good as Grandma—well, the simple things Gram had taught her.

A streak of moonlight shone low in the west as the clouds shifted away. And in the east the touch of dawn returned, so light shone within the tower. If Thelma looked out and saw her, there’d be trouble. Slipping out the tower window, she didn’t head for the wobbly overhanging branch to sneak back home as if she’d never been gone. She crawled along the Damens’ roof to the far end, above their driveway where Ryan parked her truck.

Yes, the big red truck was there, ladders chained on top, locked cupboards along the sides for building tools. It was pulled up close to the house to make room for Clyde’s two cars, his Jaguar and an old car he was working on. She pulled off her slippers, tossed them down to the driveway. She slid down to the top of the truck’s cab, from there to the hood and then to the ground next to the Jaguar.

The truck’s hood was warm, so the engine would be, too. It wasn’t really light yet, and she wondered where they had been.

When she looked up, Ryan was standing in her open front door, a soft light behind her, her short, dark hair curlier than usual from the damp air. Her work boots stood by the door. She was wearing worn jeans, a gray sweatshirt, pink fuzzy slippers, and a flowery ruffled apron. She looked drawn, as if maybe she hadn’t slept; or as if something was wrong. Mindy would wait to ask. She could smell coffee, hot syrup, pancakes and bacon. She looked down at her thin pajamas and realized how cold she was without the warmth of Joe Grey and his pillows.

“Mindy, it’s wet and freezing. Come in, I’ll get you something dry.” Ryan picked up Mindy’s slippers and the child followed her inside. Ryan got her a long T-shirt, a pair of her own wool socks, then wrapped her in a long, fuzzy sweater.

The kitchen was warm and homey, with a flowered, overstuffed chair at the far end beside some inviting shelves of books. Clyde was already eating. They both looked worried, and as if they had been up most of the night. But Clyde was freshly shaven, she could barely smell his aftershave, and was dressed in sharply pressed chinos and a pale blue shirt. Ryan poured pancake batter for Mindy, and a cup half of coffee and half of creamy milk. Mindy added sugar. Clyde didn’t ask why she was up before dawn or what she had been doing on the roof. After three pancakes and two slices of bacon she sighed, her hunger slaked; she looked at the handsome couple who made her feel so welcome. “I slept with Joe Grey in his tower. I was scared in the house alone. Mama and Uncle Varney were both gone. Usually I push the dresser against the door but I fell asleep and then something woke me. I thought it was Varney or Mama getting home but it wasn’t and I wanted out of there.

“When the noise stopped, a kind of creaking wooden sound, I looked across at Joe Grey’s tower and he was there; the rain was mistier and a little moonlight shone through. Joe Grey was sitting up among the pillows looking across right at me. Could a catsee me, in the dark bedroom? He looked so warm and cozy I climbed out my window into the oak tree and up to our roof. I crossed over the street on that spindly pine tree to your roof and into Joe’s tower and cuddled up with him. We were nice and warm and I felt safe. Until later, when lights in the street woke us, and the sound of cars.

“Mama and Varney were parked in the middle of the street in opposite directions, their engines running, their windows open so they could talk. Varney handed her a thick package. She said something about going to Seaver’s, something about a locked safe …”

A noise from upstairs stopped her; it sounded like the flap of the cat door that led inside from Joe Grey’s tower. Last night she had looked through it down into the master bedroom. Now she imagined Joe stepping inside onto a bedroom rafter, maybe dropping to the desk below. She had seen a stairway leading down, and the next instant they heard him pounding down the steps, racing for the kitchen. Who knew a cat could make so much noise just coming downstairs, even a heavy tomcat?

Joe flew through the kitchen door, took one look at Mindy, and landed on the table beside her empty plate. He was frowning, too. Mindy looked at him, puzzled. Who knew a cat could frown so hard? They all three looked miserable. What had happened? Ryan was pouring pancakes for Joe, and she looked a question at Mindy.“More?”

“Maybe two,” she said, fascinated that they let a cat on the table, even this very nice tomcat. Shehad begun to think of Joe Grey as a special cat, the way he’d looked across at her last night, his yellow eyes wide, the way he’d welcomed her into his tower among his warm pillows, and then later his strange behavior when he raced off following her mother. That was a puzzle: whywould he care where Thelma went? And now, whatever worried the Damens worried Joe Grey, and how could that be? When Ryan put a place mat down for Joe, Mindy had a hard time not laughing—and Ryan and Clyde had a hard time, with Mindy present, not to ask Joe a hundred questions they hadn’t asked when they were out looking for Maurita.

Joe, too, needed badly to ask questions.Could he keep quiet until Mindy left? When across the street a car door slammed, and another opened, Mindy stepped to the living room window, standing out of sight.

A light was on in the apartment kitchen, the front door was open, and Thelma was outside looking in Varney’s car and then again in her own car, searching among a tangle of sweaters and jackets.

“Looking for me,” Mindy said. “Can I go out the back door? Maybe I can slip in behind her, get back in bed before she searches the house. If she finds me over here, she’ll throw a fit.” She grinned at Ryan. “Thanks for the pancakes.” She petted Joe Grey, gave Clyde a loving look as he walked her to the door—but Thelma heard the door open and came flying across the street, her hair a tangle, her black shirt torn, her heavy jacket gone. Her arms and face were scratched, the wounds long and deep like cat scratches. Ryan and Clyde looked at Joe, and at the disarray of his own fur; Joe Grey looked back at them with a studiously blank expression. Clyde took Mindy’s hand and stepped out into the street. The child followed reluctantly. He pulled her close to him and, on her other side, Ryan put a protective arm around her.

Thelma was in such a temper they didn’t know what she would do. She was reaching for Mindy when a car came down the street, a squad car, its headlights on though the morning was beginning to grow light. Max Harper stopped and got out, looking at the little scene, looking Thelma over. He looked at the two parked cars. He got out and felt their hoods. Joe Grey followed him, no more nosy than usual. Both cars were warm and still smelled of exhaust. Max looked at Mindy, at her solemn, frightened face.

“Were you alone in the house all night?”

She looked at the chief. She couldn’t be afraid of Max Harper but she could be plenty afraid of what Thelma would do if she admitted she had been alone there. Even when Harper looked angry, somehow she wanted to hug him. “Yes,” she said softly. “I got scared and I came here. I slept in Joe Grey’s tower. He didn’t mind. When Ryan got up, I came downstairs. She made pancakes.”

Max’s eyes held Mindy’s, amused and caring; but not caring when he turned on Thelma. “Where’s Varney?”

“In the house, probably already asleep,” Thelma said, having watched Max check the heat of both car engines.

“Was he out all night? Where was he?”

“I have no idea.”

As the two faced each other, both angry, Joe Grey slipped behind Ryan and Clyde into his own yard, behind the bushes.

“Of course you know where Varney was,” Max said. “I know where you both were, and the other three.”

Thelma suddenly looked like she wanted to run.

“I’m not going to cite you,” Max said. “I could arrest you, take you in on several charges. Child neglect. Robbery, several counts. I could leave you in jail, or the judge could put you under house arrest. For now, I want to see how you two respond to a serious warning. And how you do when we bring Zebulon home, how well you take care of him.”

“We’ll do just fine. I’m to pick him up this morning.”

“You and I will pick him up together. I signed him in. I sign him out. They’ll be sending a physical therapist for a few days, and a visiting nurse. While Zebulon’s here, I want at least one adult with him and Mindy. You are not to leave either one alone,” Max said. “The hospital has him ready and waiting. Are you ready? Do you have a bed made up for him?”

“He’s well enough now to be up and around.”

“Do you have a comfortable bedroom for him?”

“He’ll sleep in Mindy’s bed. I have a cot for her. I’ll wake Varney, tell him to change the sheets. I’ll only be a minute.” She was a little more diffident now. Despite his usually easy ways, Max Harper could be frightening.

Max and the Damens sat on the Damens’ front porch, out of the thin rain, waiting for Thelma. Joe always felt irritable when he could listen to his friends talking but could say nothing, not the smallest comment. When Ryan brought Max a cup of coffee, Joe wondered if he’d like some pancakes but, again, there was no way he could offer. At last he watched the two cars leave, Max’s squad car following Thelma and Mindy.

A cop car following her made Thelma decidedly nervous. She made sure to come to a full stop at every signal, to watch if a tourist even set foot off the sidewalk, to follow every traffic rule. Don’t tailgate, stay in the proper lane. The fact that the chief followed behind her was the same principle as, at the station, a cop always walked behind his visitor or detainee, never in front. Thelma had changed clothes and combed her hair, which was an improvement, and she had dug out a pair of pants and a shirt for Zebulon.

Joe Grey knew that Zeb would refuse to go to the apartment. That he’d pitch a fit all the way, that he would remain cranky until Thelma took him back to the ranch, to his own home. And Thelma wasn’t about to do that.

Restless, Joe galloped up to his tower where he could look down into Mindy’s window as Varney moved the child’s bed to the back of the room and set up the cot by her own night table and dresser. Varney was tousled from sleep, was wearing an old corduroy robe over bare, hairy legs, and he was still yawning. He made up both beds with clean sheets, but making a mess of it. Even a cat could do better. He found an old tattered quilt for Mindy, and gave Zeb her warm covers. Yawning again, he wandered off toward his room; Joe watched him crawl back into his tangled bed, watched with disgust as Varney drifted off, snoring with his mouth open. The tomcat had the feeling that this last distasteful hour marked the tone of the days ahead, that whatever happened next would be ugly. He felt as if the whole village had fallen into a tangle of confusion. Yet there was no way, he told himself, that a simple cat could right all the wrongs in the world.

25

It was shortly before Fay Seaver arrived home, and before Courtney escaped, that the usual scattered crimes on the outskirts of the village began to decrease. A few breakins, a missing billfold slyly slipped from someone’s back pocket by a young entrepreneur, the annoying offenses that a small town might experience. The snatching of a purse in the late evening, a briefcase missing from an unlocked car. Max’s crew patrolled the streets, answered routine calls, made a few arrests for breakins, but his officers were beginning to grow bored; though they were always on alert for any domestic battle that could turn into murder as sudden and volatile as a lit cigarette thrown on gasoline. And still the crime numbers dropped—but then a new round of serious thefts jarred the department’s attention.

Several quick daylight attacks on empty streets, the robber escaping with a thick pack of fresh new bills. Slick, midday snatches and the thief gone with an impressively large sum of cash as the lone victim left the village bank walking swiftly toward their car or their home or shop. This brought out the foot patrols dressed in civilian clothes wandering innocently among local shoppers, new hires that most village folks didn’t recognize.

But younger men and boys wandered the streets, too, fellows who weren’t hunting bank customers but were still looking for the lost cat. Looking for the nice reward if they found her, an incentive that Seaver had offered on the new posters he’d put up over the older, ragged signs. He had no idea at all where the calico was hidden, nor, he thought, did his accomplices. All over the village folks wandered casually, women and girls seeming preoccupied with clothes shopping while searching for the bright calico with the striped leg, thinking what they’d do with five thousand dollars. Even on the roofs, more catsthan usual were seen boldly prowling, not hunting birds and rats among overhanging branches but slyly spying on the village humans.

Some of the cats, the villagers knew well: dark gray tomcat. Dark, striped tabby. Yellow tomcat. Windblown tortoiseshell, all appearing for a moment, moving from roof to roof, disappearing into the trees watching the seeking pedestrians. Other cats, just as quick and wary, were from the wild feral band, coaxed down by Joe Grey from their hidden clowder in the hills among the ruined mansion to help alert Courtney if they were needed; cats come to help because their human friends had helped them many times, wild, speaking cats generally afraid of humans. Cats who had sometimes looked to Joe Grey for their own protection. Cats who knew, better than any, the rare and intrinsic value of young Courtney, of the bracelet calico with the long and amazing lives.

This late afternoon Joe Grey prowled a roof near the village bank, not looking for Courtney—he knew where she was—but looking for a connection, for a link, for a key to the disappearing bank money. Now as he leaped to a building next to the bank, the drizzle increased. He found shelter against a second-floor wall behind a lacy acacia tree where he could look down into the bank windows. He felt the rain decrease; the low sun slipped out over the sea, the rain clouds driven back to lie dark and heavy among the far eastern hills. He could see through the big glass windows into the tellers’ cages where Fay Seaver was back at work in her fancy cashier’s cage, wearing, of course, one of her neat little suits and nice jewelry.

She was watching the streets as much as Joe was, glancing up frequently as she counted out money, peering under parked cars for Courtney, under stair steps and into the niches of alleys. Looking for the damned cat, for the headstrong, willful calico that had escaped them. She watched the cats on the rooftops, but Courtney wouldn’t be there in plain sight. She looked, as well, for the cats that had run away with Courtney, the ones that had, earlier, hung around the antiques shop looking in, the ones that had clawed Ulrich.

Sometimes Fay would see a cat down on the street sniffing at the open cans of cat food that Ulrich had set out under steps and behind potted trees. No cat would touch it, though the air was rank with its smell. Ulrich, and DeWayne’s drivers, had waited for hours near the cans, well before daylight, carrying heavy canvas bags; Courtney hadn’t shown, and they were all tired and cranky. As excited as Fay had been about the museum, as hard as she had worked putting the project together, she’d known all along, somewhere down inside, the folly of the endeavor. Maybe they could have made money from it. Or maybe they would have gone under, ended up selling the tapestries for little more than they had in them, selling the cat to some breeder, or for a few dollars as a cured cat skin.

Joe Grey, looking boldly down from the shingles, watched wandering men, some of them DeWayne’s drivers carrying rolled-up canvas bags. Young boys carried bags, too, stuffed in their back pockets, the kids scattered out searching, each with a look of greed wanting to be the one to find the stripe-legged calico for which Ulrich Seaver had offered five thousand dollars. Who knew, he might even increase the rich incentive. Pacing, Joe stopped beside Dulcie in the shade of a roof’s low overhang. Together they watched Fay as she straightened her hair clip: at once they came alert as Varney Luther watched her and then wanderedoff following a customer who was just leaving the bank, a tall, bent man. When a patrol car appeared moving slowly by the bank between pedestrians, Varney turned away into a camera shop and vanished.

Fay had done that little gesture twice before at intervals, that tweaking of her hair clip, each time as a patron departed stuffing a heavy envelope in his pocket. Each time, as the patron walked briskly away, he was followed.

The first time, Joe Grey had watched Fay say good-bye to the customer, brushing at her hair, the tomcat had paid little attention. The second time she fiddled with her hair clip, the departing customer was clearly followed—and this time Joe followed, too, fast across the shingles, while Dulcie continued to stand watch.

When Joe found the victim two blocks away, the little, pale-haired man stood in the middle of the street looking perplexed, his cell phone dangling in his hand as he talked to an officer in a squad car.

“I don’t know how he knew,” the little man said. “It was just a plain bank envelope, like they give everyone. I put it right in my pocket. I had my back to the windows when the teller counted it. How could he know how much was in it? Teller was very careful, countingit below the counter, slipping the envelope across. How could anyone know I withdrew that kind of money?”

“Which teller did you go to?”

“Well, I … a woman. I … dark hair, I think.” He looked back toward the bank, but he couldn’t see in from there.

“You want to come on into the station, give us a formal report?”

The little man nodded.

“Slow down when we pass the bank, take a good look, see if you recognize her.”

In front of the bank, the little man stopped his Prius and stared in through the big glass window; but Joe Grey, even from the roof, could see that Fay had left her station and a young blonde had taken her place. The Prius moved on, turning the corner toward the station, the squad car behind it.

“That’s it,” Joe said. “I’m calling Harper.”

Dulcie said,“That rookie’s already figured it out.”

“Maybe. But I’m calling anyway.” He gave her a whisker kiss and took off for home, for the nearest phone. The rain had gone, the daylight was softening, the bank was just closing, the last customers, most of them unaware of any robberies, were hurrying away to supper. That day, five arrests had been made. No one on the street had paid much attention, squad cars were common in the village. The thieves who were caught had been marched to a small, deserted alley, were locked in a paddy wagon and were now on their way to jail. But maybe someone else had seen Fay’s signal, Joe thought with interest. Maybe some citizen had seen the clue repeated earlier, had figured it out, and had already called the station.

If EvaJean took the call, she’d likely laugh and hang up.

Dulcie, watching Joe race away, knowing that Harper would soon have the message—and knowing that Courtney was safe—left the scene herself, striking across the rooftops for home and supper and to tell Wilma what was happening. Kit and Pan, taking her cue, flew up the rising roofs streaking for home, too, wanting their own suppers and maybe a little nap. They would tell Lucinda and Pedric about the bank robberies later. Now that Courtney was secure, their heads were, for the moment, filled with Fay and the robberies; and somehow they could sense more excitement building with the coming evening.

Kit could almost feel cop anger, almost hear gunshots, could feel danger coming as the rain increased for a moment and then drew back, as a streak of moonlight shone behind the east hills then vanished like some kind of celestial prophecy. Pan looked at her and knew that something was brewing. The fluffy tortoiseshell had that talent sometimes, to sense danger, and Pan never doubted her.

And Kit was right; Fay and her little game were only a part of the action.

Even as Joe headed home, making a detour around MPPD, he wished he could just run in andtell Max about Fay’s signal. He drew back into the shadows as a figure moved deep under the awnings and overhangs, a man walking along watching Juana’s condo, a white-haired figure who, even as Joe himself ducked out of the fitful gust, pulled down the hood of his dark slicker over that glimpse of snowy hair—Joe watched him, shivering, then raced for home and a phone.

Max was in his office when a call came through that, because of the robberies, Max thought might be the snitch. He and Detective Garza were interviewing the third bank thief, bringing them up from the jail one at a time, all duly handcuffed and in leg irons, a precaution Max had learned long ago as a young officer after losing an escaped arrestee. So far, information from the robbery victims had given the total cash lost as some two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. Now, when the phone rang and Max picked up, Garza caught the chief’s look, and called two deputies to usher the arrestee back to the jail.

On the other end of the line was a sheriff in Texas, Luke Wilson, whom Max knew well. He liked hearing Luke’s Texas drawl. “All useless information, Max, but I thought I’d call anyway. DeWayne Luther was spotted outside Houston, taken in to a substation. One more fiasco. They printed him, did a DNA. They had to release him, they had the wrong man. You picked a good one, a BOL with a hundred doubles.”

“I’d like to lock up all the doubles until we catch this guy.” How could there be so many tall, white-haired younger men in the world that people would mistake for one wanted felon.

They talked for a while about old times, about their ranches, their horses. Max enjoyed the contact with his old friend, but he wasn’t happy. These misguided identifications put him in such a bad temper that when he got home, when he and Charlie sat down to supper and the phone rang, even if the voice was that of his favorite snitch, he almost banged down the phone.

26

“DeWayne Luther’s back,” the caller said. “Spotted him outside Juana Davis’s condo.” Max snorted with disbelief. One more damned double. But thiswas his regular snitch, there was no mistaking his voice, even over the sudden gusts of rain pounding against the roof.

“He was there in front of the condo, wearing a slicker open over ragged clothes. He looked like he meant to go on up the steps but then a light went on inside. He swung into the dark between two condos, stood there waiting. Maybe,” the snitch said, “our luck is changing. You do have those five bank withdrawal thieves locked up, you have the money they stole. You’ve checked out the cash in Seaver’s safe, and that should bring up plenty of prints.” The snitch was talkative tonight, Max had never heard him go on like this.

“All that stolen cash that Davis and Garza locked in the evidence room, it has to be a fortune. And with plenty of prints and photos,” the snitch said.

Max was silent. The snitch’s comments made him more than edgy. How did he know this stuff? How did he know that one of his officers had slipped into the antiques workroom? That Bean had opened the safe, photographed the money, memorized the safe’s combination and locked it up again, leaving the cash for the detectives to bag as evidence?

Max hadn’t made any arrests. He had his reasons. He’d seen the Luther boys hanging around Seaver’s alley. He didn’t want to make waves until the next big move went down, most likely the Seavers and Luthers together. He didn’t know how the two families had made a connection, but they’d both been in town for years—crook drawn to crook.

The phone had gone dead. Max was about to call the department, send a couple of men to nail DeWayne, when his phone rang again.

But this was a woman, one he’d never heard—until she identified herself, and then he knew Maurita’s whisper, shy and hesitant, still hoarse from her injuries.

“DeWayne is back. He’s just outside Juana’s living room window, in the rain. I’m standing in the shadows in the hall. I guess he woke me working on the window lock, he has some kind of tool, I can see it flash but now I can’t hear a sound, over the rain.

“Juana’s asleep. So is Jimmie. Crowley was standing guard but fell asleep in his chair. The rain’s so loud that even Rock is snoring. When I came down the hall, DeWayne was at the window. Dark slicker, hood pulled down. I don’t think he saw me. I’ve got to get out of here.”

“Wake Juana, put her on the line.”

But Juana had heard, and was up, she had pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt. She and the two officers stood by Maurita’s side, out of sight from the window as the hooded figure worked on the lock. When Maurita shivered, Juana put her arm around the frightened girl, and took the phone from her; she turned on the speaker so softly they had to press their heads together, listening to Max order his men out on the street and to the roof. He said, “Juana, get a squad car, pull up front.

“Tell Jimmie and Crowley to take Maurita up to the ruins. Kate and Scotty will hide her. Take the calico, too, where Seaver won’t find her—though I still don’t get what that’s about, stealing a cat, all the chase and fuss.”

The lock clicked. The window slid open.

“He’s in the house,” Juana whispered as DeWayne swung in over the sill—swung straight into Jimmie’s and Crowley’s fists.

But this wasn’t DeWayne.

Jimmie had the man down punching him hard, then jerked him up, swinging him around, twisting his arm behind him so hard he yelped. Crowley grabbed him, threw him to the floor facedown, and handcuffed him. And the real DeWayne was gone, speeding away across the roofs, hood blown back, a flash of white hair, heading for the far end of the condo building, dodging its tangle of patios and jutting walls—and Juana was gone, racing across the street, using the numbers lock to retrieve one of the squad cars. Wheeling it out of the lot and across, she parked in front of her steps—while inside her apartment, Crowley rolled the man over.

DeWayne’s driver, Stope, scowled up at Crowley, his cap knocked off, revealing tangled auburn hair running into liver-colored freckles; he was drenched with rain, soaking Juana’s carpet; he twisted, fighting and swearing, as the big officer flipped him again, bent him backward,and cuffed his ankles to his wrists.

Outside in the blowing rain, cops were spilling out of the station searching the streets. Three officers, catching a glimpse of white hair, headed fast for the man racing across the far roofs. Crowley saw DeWayne double back, and was out the window chasing him—but Rock leaped past him. Racing, flying, the big dog nailed DeWayne, too, and knocked him down, his teeth in the man’s throat. Fighting and twisting, DeWayne grabbed the Weimaraner’s jaws, was just able to pull them apart so he could breathe; with one hand he managedto draw his gun. McFarland was on him, kicking him in the stomach, wrenching away the automatic—while across the roof, among the far peaks and out of sight, Joe Grey raced, searching for DeWayne, missing all the real action.

Just outside the condo in the easing rain, Rock sat as he was told but was still primed to attack as Crowley fitted DeWayne with leg irons, locked his hands and feet together, then made the emergency call for the medics. Jimmie put pressure on the bleeding, but Rock had not cut a vein. Hastily Jimmie bound DeWayne’s wound and then ignored him as they examined Rock, making sure this fine dog was all right.

Maurita wished Rock had killed DeWayne, that he lay, now, deep in the grave that he had dug for her.

Buffin hopped out the window, stood looking with disgust at the two captives, then turned away to lick Rock’s face. The medics’ van arrived as Juana called Clyde then called the vet clinic. Four medics came up the front stairs and out through the window. They examined Stope first, lifted him onto a stretcher and carried him down to the van. Before they finished with DeWayne, Maurita and her two guards were out the back door racing for the squad left parked, piling in, getting Maurita and Courtney settled. Crowley driving as they sped through the back streets heading for the Pamillon ruins.

Joe Grey saw them as he returned to the condo. He was tempted to leap down into the cop car and ride along, but somehow this moment belonged to Maurita and Courtney. He paused on the condo’s window ledge, nuzzled Davis, and he was gone, heading home. Behind him, Juana closed the window watching the squad car disappear, hugging Buffin against her and holding Rock’s collar as he fussed, wanting to follow.

In the squad car, Jimmie sat in the back, Maurita hunched down on the seat beside him out of sight, cuddling Courtney. Before they left the condo she had returned to the bedroom, pulled on a warm coat, and opened the lock of Juana’s dresser drawer that she had jimmied earlier. She reached back beneath a stack of papers, removed a small revolver, checked the load and slipped it in her pocket; it must be a spare that Juana seldom used, but it was kept clean and loaded.

If she got caught, she would put Juana in big trouble. But if she swore in courtthat she’d jimmied the lock and stolen it, that she’d sniffed at the dresser and smelled gun oil … would that clear the detective?

But if they found DeWayne and if she could kill him, she’d be the one in trouble.

She didn’t care, she wanted him dead.

When Crowley turned sharply up a narrow street, the careening car threw her against Jimmie’s shoulder, he put his arm around her to support her. He had to smile at the way the calico cat clutched her paws around the young woman’s neck, clinging to her fellow escapee.

They came out of the village through a tangle of twisted roads and small cottages onto Highway One and turned north, in the direction of the old Pamillon estate. The rain, which had come and gone all day, now had nearly stopped again, had turned into a drizzle and soon to a mist. High up, wind must be blowing hard, driving the clouds away. Soon they could see hints of moonlight and then a glimpse of the full moon.

The moon, Courtney thought,the full moon means good fortune.She glanced up at Maurita and hoped it shone for them both.And now they could see the mansion rising higher up the hills. Even the two cops admired the sudden view as they watched, as well, for anyone following them.

The stone of the ancient mansion shone pale in the moonlight. The once-neglected dwelling was very different from when Kate first bought it and began to remodel it, dreaming of the museum she hoped it would one day become. Glass had been restored in the front windows of the jutting front wing that had stood open to the weather for so many years. The feral cats had often hung out there, watching to leap down on the small game below, enjoying the view of village and sea, sleeping on an ancient, moldering sofa. Now there was a new ceiling, new rafters, fresh white paint; but mostly glass to enhance the interior. The far wings of the compound were still in ruins; the feral cats thrived there, dining on rats and field mice. The wild little cats had made friends with Kate and Scotty, and Kate knew they would be kind to Courtney. Redheaded, red-bearded Scott Flannery was Kate’s new husband; they had been friends for years, their romance had been sudden and surprising. Scotty was Ryan Damen’s uncle and was, as well, her building foreman.

The upstairs and downstairs of the large front wing would be the main art galleries. The one-story wing on the far side had been rebuilt into an airy but cozy apartment. The remaining rooms, as they were finished, would offer more space for special exhibits—but an environment nothing like the Seavers’ too-fancy plan.

They pulled up beside the cat shelter, which now had a tall stone wall between it and the mansion, perhaps to give it privacy from the galleries. This, plus another stone wall on the land below, partially concealing a little wooden house, made the property seem drawn together into a more handsome unit, made it blend more cozily among the hills. Jimmie glanced at Maurita, imagining her living in the empty house; he wondered what shewould do if she escaped DeWayne, if he were locked in prison for a long stretch, leaving her free to make a new life.

Kate came out to greet them. Levi’s, work boots, she was all carpenter today—some carpenter with that strikingly beautiful face and tousled blond hair. Scotty came to join them. They’d had a short honeymoon, then had gotten back to work on their apartment and on the cat shelter.

Kate looked into the car, greeting Maurita gently, then studying Courtney’s amber eyes. “So you escaped, too. What could be so valuable,” she said slyly, “about an ordinary calico cat?”

Courtney looked back at her, equally sly and amused. Not everyone present knew that certain cats could speak. Kate said,“What crazy plan could Seaver have had for her, that made him and those thugs chase her all over the village? He has to be insane.”

Earlier, in the squad car, before Crowley turned onto the narrow road that led up to the mansion, Maurita had said,“Kate will hide the little calico where Seaver will never find her, she’ll take good care of her. But I’m coming back with you.”

“The hell you are,” Jimmie said. “Why do you think we brought you out here? Not to hide just the cat but to hide you! What the hell, Maurita. Max wants you away from DeWayne, not there in town with him. You want to end up in another grave, a permanent one?”

She went pale and very still—and beautiful, Jimmie thought, despite the fading bruises. The look she gave him was unreadable. “They’re getting ready to pull off the Saks job, you knew it would be soon. On our way out of the village, didn’t you see those old gray cars pulled in behind the motel,the cars they use for robberies, the ones they usually leave scattered around town? This has to be the night.”

Jimmie glanced up at Crowley, who was looking back at him in the mirror. Of course they had seen them. Crowley had already made the call so Maurita wouldn’t hear, texting skillfully with his big farmer’s hands, a talent that always amazed Jimmie. By dark tonight Max would have their units in place, far better hidden than DeWayne’s crew would be.

“That’s why he kept me around in the first place, to make sure they didn’t miss the best jewelry, the finest designs and highest quality stones. The best antiques, that he stole on the East Coast and sent to his brothers, the Luther boys passed them on to Seaver. I hadto pick them out, do the shipping to a storage unit. DeWayne has no taste, no training. He always made me stay with him, there was no way I could shake them, there was always one of the drivers or DeWayne practically on top of me, even outside a restroom door. He kept me like a slave, made me do all the estimates and inventories—until the night they finished casing the village, settled on Saks, and sat around the motel drinking beer, planning their moves. Suddenly I’d had enough. I got up, I told him I was finished, and ran out. Didn’t stop to pack anything or even grab my purse, I just got out.”

“He comes after you and nearly kills you,” Jimmie snapped. “So now you want to go back and help him rob Saks. You help him pull off this heist, and then he kills you.”

“No. I thought … I know all their moves, their exact plans. I thought I couldhelp you, that I could watch, maybe slip inside if you’d give me a phone …”

“You already told Harper every detail. What else do we need? What do you … ?”

She was crying. When she fished in her pocket for a tissue, holding Courtney close and drawing her jacket around them, that was when Jimmie saw the outline of the gun. She saw him looking.

He studied her for a long time.“I won’t ask any questions. If you meant to slip in among them as they loot the place, if you meant to kill DeWayne in there, you’re putting yourself in big trouble.” He reached to touch her face. Even crying, her dark eyes were beautiful. “Maurita, I want you to promise to stay up here at the mansion and do as we say. As Kate and Scotty say. Will you show it to me?”

Frowning, she removed the revolver carefully, aiming it away from Jimmie and the cat.

“Juana’s Smith and Wesson.”

“I took it from the dresser. I thought … I wanted …”

“Are you going to give it to me willingly, or do I have to take it from you and maybe get one of us shot?” He looked at her tenderly. “Maurita, I’ll have to take the gun eventually. Juana will have to know, you’ll have to give it back to her.” She could feel Courtney stiffen, ready to break from her grasp. Jimmie said, “We have to tell Max. I don’t keep secrets from the chief or from anyone in the department—except EvaJean,” he said, grinning.

He touched her face.“Before this is over, if you don’t mess it up, we’ll have DeWayne in jail and then federal prison. With his rap sheet, count the years. He might never get out, you’ll be free of him. You shoot him now, you’ll findyourself in a cell for a long time.”

She looked at him stubbornly. She wanted to kill DeWayne herself, she wanted to hurt DeWayne, hurt him bad. She started to slip the gun back in her pocket.

Jimmie had it before she could blink, her wrist bent back, her other arm twisted and helpless. Courtney had fled under the seat.

Jimmie opened the revolver’s cylinder and removed the bullets. He dropped the gun in an evidence bag, the bullets in another, and put both in his pocket. “Scotty and Kate will keep you safe, they’re both armed—legally,” he said wryly. “Keep you safe so you can testify in court. That should damage DeWayne more than shooting him.” When he gently turned her face toward him and kissed her on the forehead, Courtney crept out and sat at her feet, watching. Thinking about the ways of humans. Were they so different from the ways of cats? What would it be like to behuman? What would it be like to feel the power of that tender look?

27

Zeb Luther was home from the hospital by mid-afternoon—if you could call that fusty apartment home. Hospitals were so damn slow, with all their paperwork. Riding in the backseat of Thelma’s Volvo with Mindy beside him, he had his walker folded in the trunk; not that he intended to use it. “I’m not crippled. Ain’t no broken leg, no need for that contraption.”

Joe Grey sat across the street in his tower watching Mindy help the old man to the curb and Thelma wrestle out the walker as if it weighed a ton; he watched Zebulon manage the four front steps just fine without any hospital equipment, leaving the walker propped against the rail.

Thelma scowled at Mindy.“You can get him some lunch or an early supper. Both of you better eat, there’s peanut butter and jelly, and milk if it hasn’t gone sour. Then Grandpa might want to lie down.”

“I had peanut butter and jelly in the hospital until it’s running out my ears. And why would I want to lay down, I’ve been in that damned bed for three days. Mindy and I will take a walk.”

Thelma made a rude comment and left the house saying something about groceries.

Thus the neighborhood disturbances began again, bursting forth from within, quite audible at all hours as Grandpa argued that he was going home—to his ownhome—as Thelma and Varney shouted at him, and as neighbors walked the street staring in, then began calling the station; as the dispatcher sent out an officer on a domestic that ended in nothing but a warning. Zebulon was so loud, and Varney’s language so vile that, after the second domestic call, the responding officer threatened to take them in. Thelma managed to talk him out of it because Grandpa was just home from the hospital and how could she take care of him in jail?

Officer Wrigley frowned.“One more complaint, Grandpa goes back to the hospital and the rest of you to jail.”

“Not my little girl,” Thelma howled. “You can’t put …”

“She goes to Children’s Services,” Wrigley said. As he left, Thelma swore and slammed the door behind him. When she headed for her bedroom, Varney came down the hall wearing wrinkled jeans and an old jacket and stomped out of the house; who knew where he went? Joe didn’t hear his car start.

Mindy and Zeb didn’t hear it, either, but they heard Varney go out the front door. He did that sometimes, left his car at home. Mindy looked out the window, saw him walking away, up the hill toward the freeway.

When the house was quiet, when they knew Varney was gone, and thought that Thelma slept, Grandpa and Mindy, alone in Mindy’s room, packed a few necessities in a small duffel and hid it under his bed. They went up the hall to the kitchen and as Zeb listened for Thelma, Mindy hastily packed some food in two grocery bags. She made some canned-ham sandwiches, taking two back to her room for their supper. They went to bed fully dressed. Whether or not they slept, Joe Grey himself dozed off.

Around midnight, Mindy put her ear to Thelma’s door making sure her mother still slept; she slipped into the room as silent as a mouse and lifted Thelma’s car keys from the dresser. Zebulon fetched the grocery bags from the kitchen broom closet and they fled the house.

The sound of a car starting woke Joe, he rose up among the pillows to see Thelma’s parking lights on, and Zeb at the wheel. He watched Mindy hop in with an armload of blankets. The two grocery bags were already on the backseat, with the duffel, and Joe Grey smiled. Zeb Luther was having his way, he and Mindy were going home.Oh, wouldn’t Thelma pitcha fit!

The rain was gone but the clouds still hung thick covering the moon, the night so black he could hardly see where street and parked cars met. Only up the block past a few dark cottages and shops did faint lights shine where the shopping plaza stretched away behind his own house: softly illuminated courtyard, subtly lit first-floor display windows. And on the dark street, only the trail of Zebulon’s taillights headed toward the freeway. His dashboard lights were off, and he must be driving with only his parking lights. He’d be lucky not to crash into a parked car before he reached traffic andhad to turn the headlamps higher. The village was so still, the only movement Joe could see was Thelma’s “borrowed” car creeping along …

But when he looked again he saw movement at the front of the plaza, faint lights moving inside Saks’s elegant second floor.

Leaving his warm cushions, Joe leaped up onto the top of his tower. From that height, perched on its slanted shingles, he could easily see past the roof of his own house. Yes, faint lights moving deep within Saks’s second-floor display windows, the faintest of soft blue lights. Deeper in, black shadows moved behind the fashionably posed models. And in front of Saks, on Ocean Avenue, three old gray cars were parked half on the sidewalk with their backs to Saks’s front door. Tonightwas the night.

Dropping down from the top of his tower, Joe galloped across the bedroom roof and dropped to the kitchen roof; he jumped down to the barbecue counter and around the patio wall that Ryan had designed and built. Here he made a long leap to the top of the higher wall that separated the back of their property, and the entire residential block, from the plaza.

From that wall he could see behind the plaza buildings to the wide strip where buses and trucks could pull off the side street and park during the day. Four tour buses were parked there now, effectively concealing the back of Saks from the street, their occupants most likely tucked in for the night at the several motels that stood among the trees and village shops. Between the buses and Saks, two large black limos had been squeezed in close to the store’s delivery doors, their lights out, nearly invisible in the blackness. Was this a new twist, DeWayne had split up the cars and the retreat routes? Maybe thinking that Maurita had told the department how he usually operated: all out at once, through one door, loaded down with their loot, gone before the cops had a clue?

Now, there was not a cop in sight, in front or in back of Saks. Not a squad car, not a single foot patrol that Joe could see standing in the shadows. He was about to spin around and head home to the phone when, through the upstairs store windows, lights flashed and the shadows moved fast in one direction, converging at the back, hauling cumbersome bags. They disappeared downward as if on service stairs. Where the hell were the cops? The men came out the back of the building, piled their black plastic bags into the limos, swung in themselves and were gone, turning left to Ocean Avenue then right, heading up the hill for the freeway. He heard the cars in front start up and follow them, those figures so stealthy he hadn’t seen them. And still not a cop anywhere. He watched the line of cars turn south onto the freeway, and Joe Grey sped for home.

Bursting into the kitchen through Rock’s dog door and leaping to the counter, he had knocked off the phone’s speaker, forgetting that this call would be ID’d, when up on the freeway he heard tires squeal and sirens scream. He pushed the phone back in place, realizing only then how close the snitch had cometo getting caught.

Just ahead of the mixed entourage of crooks, Zeb and Mindy, still driving slowly, saw the pack of cars bearing down behind them. They saw and heard the scream of squad cars, saw their lights flashing, coming fast, and they made a sharp skid onto the right shoulder; they were almost scraped over by the speeding limos. Zeb pulled over farther onto an embankment, tilting the Volvo nearly beyond recovery.

“Get out, Mindy, before we go over.”

“You get out,” she said, grabbing her cell phone and opening her door, watching Zebulon slide out to safety; and they both scrambled down the ditch.

“No point to call 911, the cops are here.” Zeb smiled when he caught a glimpse of white hair among the escaping limos. When the chase had passed, they climbed the bank again and walked along the highway, then sat with their backs against a tree, watching. It was there that Joe Grey found them.

Ahead, the limos and gray cars had slammed on their brakes, skidding and sliding into each other as cop cars circled them, cops appearing out of nowhere hazing them together like sharks closing in on their prey. Gray cars, black limos, black-and-white patrol cars all in a tangle, cops with short-barrel shotguns stepping out, ordering drivers out of their cars and facedown on the ground. A shot was fired, and another. And Zebulon ran, back along the berm. He piled into his car and took off rocking along the berm until he was steady again, turning his lights high, reaching over to open the passenger door as Mindy and Joe Grey jumped in. Praying for the first time since Nell died, Zeb fled along the highway as a shot blasted too close to their back window. So far, the cops had paid no attention to them. He floorboarded the car up the road half a mile past the Harper ranch, he was sweating; he swerved into his own turnoff and it was then he realized there was a cat in the car, sitting calmly on Mindy’s lap.

She said,“You saw him when he found us, back there on the berm. Yousaw him jump in the car, Grandpa.” Zeb glanced at the cat and at Mindy, and said nothing. They heard the distant scream of sirens as CHP officers joined MPPD, speeding down the freeway from the north, these blending with the howl of medics’ units from the village. Zeb skidded up his own drive, around the outside of the fenced house and pasture, and straight for the woods.

“The horses …” He spun around in the seat, looking. “Where are the horses?”

“At the Harpers’. I told you.”

“Oh, yes, that was nice of them. Of course I remember.” But in truth, he hadn’t, no more than he’d remembered the cat. Since DeWayne beat on him, things had seemed to get a little mixed up. He turned onto the narrow path through the woods, scraping the top of Thelma’s car against the hanging branches. A quarter mile, and he parked behind the Harpers’ barn, out of sight from the highway. They didn’t need Thelma or Varney coming after them.

Where was Varney? Had he joined DeWayne and his pack of thieves? Zeb had looked for him down on the highway, but in that mess of course he hadn’t seen him.

They got out of the car and headed around the Harpers’ barn and down the long drive. At the gate, halfway to the highway, Charlie Harper and their young hand, Billy, were standing watch in case one of those guys got loose, in case there was a chase. Both of them had shotguns. That much vigilance might seem amusing to Mindy, but Zeb and Joe Grey knew better—and it was Joe Grey, rearing up beside Charlie, looking down at the confusion of cars and cops, of medics and injured men, who saw DeWayne Luther, his white hair catching car lights where he lay on a stretcher, the coroner leaning over him. DeWayne lying death still beside the hearse, pale face caught in a squad car’s headlights. Zeb let out a gasp, and turned away.

But what turned Joe Grey’s stomach was not this dead man, but two police officers on stretchers, new young men that Joe hardly knew. They were being worked on by medics: tourniquets, oxygen tanks, emergency wrappings. Both were already secured in an ambulance, ready to head for the hospital. To see a cop who had been shot upset Joe so badly that he threw up, retching, in the tall grass.

Charlie handed Billy her shotgun, picked Joe up, wiped his mouth with a tissue and kissed him on top of his head, her red hair falling over his eyes. She gave him a gentle hug, put him down again, and reached to Billy for her weapon. They watched the coroner start to wrap DeWayne in a body bag. Zebulon stood looking with no expression on his face. Looking at his oldest son, dead. His son who had beaten him so badly and who had tried to kill that woman he ran with. Zeb opened the gate and started down toward the hearse, down the rest of the long drive, Charlie and Billy walking beside him gently supporting him. Mindy followed, her own face white, as Max Harper started up the drive to them. Down by the hearse the coroner had stopped working, he stood looking up to Max for a sign to proceed or to back off.

Max paused, looking up at Zeb.“Do you want to come down?”

Zeb was silent. He looked at Max for a long time, then shook his head.“After all these years, he deserved what he got. Now, I don’t need to see him chewed up with bullets.” He turned away in the direction of the barn. But then he paused, turned back, took a key from his pocket and handed it to Max.

“Thelma’s Volvo. It’s behind the hay barn, we borrowed it. Shall I take it back?”

“She won’t need it, she’ll be in jail with the rest of them, at least for a while.” Max accepted the key. “We’ll see that it’s impounded.” He looked down at Mindy. “You were headed home, to Zeb’s place?”

She and Zeb nodded.

“Children’s Services gets a whiff of that, you two alone there, and Zeb just out of the hospital, they won’t like it. Thelma may try for dismissal or maybe home confinement on the excuse that she needs to take care of you.”

Mindy looked stricken.

“Do you have anyone?” Max said. “Someone, maybe a relative who can live in, to get the welfare people off your back?”

“We don’t need …” Mindy began.

Charlie shook back her red hair, and looked a question at Max. He nodded. She said,“You can stay here, until you find someone.”

Max said,“Varney will be locked up, too. There’ll be no one in that apartment, welfare would be all over you. But if you could be in your own place … what about your daughter-in-law?”

Zeb frowned.“You said Thelma was going to jail.”

“Yourother daughter-in-law,” Max said. “Maurita told me DeWayne demanded they get married, several years ago. A mark of ownership, she told me bitterly. To keep his partners off her.”

Even Joe Grey didn’t know that. He was so surprised he reared up in the bushes, startling Max. When the chief looked at him, the tomcat could almost read what he was thinking:How did that damn cat get up here in the middle of another crime scene? Why did he rear up just now? Why the hell does he always … ?

Charlie said,“The Damens live right behind the plaza, that could certainly explain his presence: the cat hears sounds, car doors closing. He jumped on the wall and saw the limos take off, saw them hit the freeway. He heard the crash and sirens and, with that cat’s annoying curiosity,he raced along the highway, to have a look.”

She looked back at Mindy and Zeb.“I think you twoshould stay with us until Children’s Services stops nosing around. And,” she said, looking at Max, “do you think Zeb should meet the daughter-in-law he’s never known? That Zeb and Mindy and I should take a run up to … where Maurita is staying?”

Max scowled at her.“It’s the middle of the night, Charlie.”

“While we’re gone, Billy can make up their beds.”

Billy nodded, and grinned at Mindy.“And set out some pie and milk?”

The chief gave Charlie that sly, sideways look.“So just why are you going up to see Maurita, at midnight?”

“Someone has to tell her about DeWayne. And you have your hands full. Don’t you think she’ll want to know that DeWayne is no longer a threat? That she’s free, that she doesn’t have to fear him anymore? And that his crew, with this burglary and their long records, will be on their way to prison where they can’t get at her?”

Max considered her with a steady half frown.“You know that’s my job, Charlie. To inform the wife of the deceased.”

“This one time, Max? It’ll be hours before you can tear yourself away from this mess, with officers all over Saks taking pictures, gathering evidence, lifting prints, and with two cops in the hospital. You’ll be up all night.”

They could see, even from the distance where they stood, that all the interior lights in Saks burned brightly, shining out over the village as MPPD went about its work.“Don’t you think, this once … ?” Charlie said. “Don’t you think she’ll be anxious?”

“How would she know this was coming down?”

“You all guessed it would be tonight, or soon. When McFarland and Crowley took her to Kate’s, while DeWayne was still hunting for her, and they saw the gray cars all lined up as if DeWayne was ready to pull a job, and Crowley texted you …” Charlie shrugged. “Or maybe she heard it on the police radio,” she said noncommittally.

Joe Grey moved away, smiling. Harper’s favorite snitch hadn’t made the call on this one. But, except for their two young cops getting shot, it was turning out all right. So far.He wanted to ask Max how bad the officers were hurt, but there was no way he could do that.

28

Joe watched Zeb and Mindy move their meager belongings from Thelma’s Volvo into the Harpers’ barn. Zeb still looked shocked. Perhaps not so much that DeWayne was dead, but that the woman DeWayne had run with all those years was his own daughter-in-law. That made Maurita family, and to Zeb Luther, family was important.Maybe, Joe thought,because his own children hadn’t turned out so great?

Would this woman be any different, this female jewel thief?

Thinking more about Maurita and Zeb than about the Saks burglary, Joe watched Max take Thelma’s car on down to the highway, parking it among the limos. Some were shot up, some dented, all under police custody and filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stolen property. Already officers were starting them up, driving them back to the station to unload. An armored truck stood waiting in the background. The beautiful shoes and wallets and handbags, the designer suits and coats and dresses, would be locked in the heavily reinforced evidence room. The jewelry, each piece, would be photographed, fingerprinted, and locked in the strong iron safe that was bolted to the floor there. Max didn’t like having this kind of wealth stored in the department. As soon as daylight shone, the stolen goods, all inventoried, would be sent by armed guard to the nearest Saks warehouse.

Joe wondered, as he and Mindy and Zeb piled into Charlie’s SUV and headed for the Pamillon estate, how Zeb would respond to Maurita. Would he have only disdain for the battered woman because she had been a thief, like DeWayne?

But why should he, when DeWayne had forced her to follow his orders? When DeWayne tried to kill her when she finally ran—when she was soon too beaten to fight back?

Maurita was still under protection. Even though DeWayne was dead, his scuzzy partners were not. This young woman knew enough about their past records to help convict them, and they could be as mean as DeWayne. Joe Grey hoped they would remain in prison, that they would not be free again—but until sentences were passed, or until some of them died of their wounds, he’d feel edgy for the young woman.

He thought Maurita and Zebulon had a lot in common, losing DeWayne even though they’d hated him. He wanted them to bond, to feel only tenderness for each other.And he was off on the kind of daydream that Dulcie or Kit might imagine, happy thoughts about Zeb and his newly discovered daughter-in-law. He was so involved in hoping they would become a real family that, traveling up the dark highway, they were at the mansion before he knew it. A soft light burned at the cat shelter, in the little office. They parked by the door. Charlie stepped out, Joe leaping past her. She knocked and called out.

The minute Scotty opened the door, bare legged and wearing a short robe, Joe Grey slipped past him into the office where the light burned, where Maurita’s cot was neatly made up. As if she hadn’t slept in it, as if maybe she had paced all night. Joe couldn’t speak to Scotty, with Maurita present and with Zebulon standing in the doorway. She sat on the cot looking up at them, her expression both desolate and hopeful. She looked at Zeb and she knew who he was—and, from his look, she knew what had happened—and there was nothing she could say.

Kate appeared from the bedroom wearing an extra-long shirt of Scotty’s, her short blond hair a tangle. Charlie, her red hair just as ruffled, moved inside past Scotty and into the little office. She sat down on the cot and put her arms around Maurita.

Maurita leaned against her.“It’s come down,” she said. “They took out Saks.” She looked at Charlie. “When we passed their motel, the way the cars and limos were arranged, I knew. I couldn’t sleep, for the scared feeling—scared that a cop would be hurt. I tried the radio but I couldn’t get much but static.” A tiny radio sat on the desk, turned low. It was more squawk than clarity and was, at the moment, occupied with a disgusting melody that no one wanted to hear. “When I called the dispatcher, she would tell me nothing. She said, ‘I am not allowed to give out that information.’”

Charlie rolled her eyes.“EvaJean, the bitch.” Then, in a kinder tone, “I asked Max to let me come out and tell you, though it’s his job to do this.”

Maurita’s eyes looked deep into hers, waiting.

“Maurita, several of the burglars were killed tonight. DeWayne was shot when he charged two officers. He died at once.”

The young woman leaned against her; she was shaking. Charlie didn’t know what else to say. She had a right to cry; after all, hehad been her husband.

But when Joe Grey jumped up and pawed at them, when Maurita turned to look at him, the tears in her eyes were a mix of not only shock, but laughter. Her expression was uncertain for a moment but then replaced by a deep and satisfying contentment. Joe wanted to shout,You’re free. He’s dead and you’re done with him, done with those brutes he ran with. They’re either dead themselves, or will be locked away for good. You’re free, Maurita, to do with your life as you please.

Charlie was thinking the same: Maurita was free of her imprisonment, and there was one less scum in the world.

“But two fine young police officers were shot,” Charlie said sickly, and she prayed that they had received only surface wounds, that they wouldn’t go through the hell that some injured officers suffered.

That day at the mansion, and the night to come, turned into a tangle of emotions as cars began to arrive. Only Zeb, Mindy, and Maurita didn’t know what the gathering was about as people began to pull in. Kate said, “I invited a few friends over, they’re bringing takeout breakfast.”

Wilma and Dulcie arrived with tears in their eyes, but they weren’t crying for DeWayne. Lucinda and Pedric and Kit and Pan drew up in the Greenlaws’ Lincoln Town Car, their faces filled with sadness. They all knew that DeWayne Luther was dead and folks looked at Zeb shyly. They got back only a handshake and a nod. Ryan and Clyde slipped in, Ryan snatching up Joe Grey, crying into his fur.

But none of it was about DeWayne Luther.

John and Mary Firetti were right behind them, Buffin and Striker on John’s shoulder. Dulcie mewed at them. Wilma, her gray hair tied back crookedly in its ponytail, put her arm around John. Wilma had helped Dulcie to raise the three kittens, but Dr. Firetti had helped to birth them—this gathering was about the girl kitten.

If Zeb and Maurita and Mindy guessed that the poignant celebration was because Maurita was free, they were right in part, but that was not the cause of the sadness that filled the little office—Maurita was free, but Courtney was not, and Ulrich might never stop looking for her. He and Fay might go to prison for involvement with the Luthers’ crimes, or they might get probation and walk free, and Courtney could always be in danger.

Now, with the young calico’s final and distant escape to come, her friends began the real grieving. For years hence, they would find that day resonating in waking memories and in nighttime dreams as real as this day itself.

As they all crowded around the table, Zebulon’s mood softened and he laughed. Soon noise and laughter rocked the tiny apartment, driving away the sadness, but causing Maurita to draw back in shy silence. And still, during the friends’ arrivals, no one had seen Courtney.

The six other cats ate their own takeout quickly, clambered down from laps and side tables and headed for the ruins. Still no Courtney. She would not show herself, thinking the Seavers might be out looking for her, not when Seaver might see all the cars up here and wonder. Who knew where they would choose to search? Courtney had no idea they might be in jail.

Down in the depths of the ruins, the cats spent a long time with Courtney alone. There wasn’t much time left together. Now, when folks began to leave, Wilma took all seven cats to her place to wait for dark, for a last visit, where the three kittens had been born. In their own first home, they curled up on the couch with Wilma, a gentle fire burning on the hearth, Joe Grey and Dulcie snuggled close to their calico kitten, Buffin and Striker lying nearly on top of her. Kit and Pan lay sprawled on her other side, their noses against her calico coat.

Only after supper, when darkness fell, would they all go together, the cats and their families, back to the Pamillon ruins. There they would say good-bye to Joe and Dulcie’s calico daughter.

Zebulon, before leaving the Pamillon estate after breakfast, took Maurita’s hand solemnly. “Will you come home with us? Will you be part of our family—will you want us, the same as we want you?” He put his arm around her. “We need you, Maurita.”

“And I need you,” Maurita said softly. “I’ve never had a family.”

We’re lucky, Mindy thought.And we’ll be happy—if Mama and Varney get hauled off to jail and can’t come bothering us.

“It might be well,” Charlie said, “if you three stay at our house for a few days, where Maurita will be safer until we’re sure those men are all in custody.”

Maurita hugged Charlie; she had begun to feel more at ease, more in charge of herself. As if she had found something of herself that was lost—lost or maybe never discovered.

“Meanwhile,” Charlie said, “we can dust up your house a bit, change the sheets, get in some groceries.” And the four of them headed for Zebulon’s place, to brighten Maurita’s new home, to make it ready and welcoming. Mindy and Maurita, Charlie and Zebulon worked for the rest of the day, washing windows, cleaning the kitchen. Rearranging Maurita’s new room, which had been Nevin’s. The room of no-good Thelma’s husband, but that didn’t bother Maurita.

With freshly washed curtains and clean windows, she would see, in early morning, the sun rise over the eastern hills, would see at night the sun set above the sea. Looking around her, she felt clean, she felt new. The way she used to wish life would be. All she’d needed was a little help. The terror of DeWayne’s brutality was beginning to fade, wiped away by human friends, human love. By the surprise of being part of her own family. And, earlier, by the warmth of those long, quiet days of cat love.

When Charlie and the Luthers arrived back at the Harper ranch for an early supper, Max’s truck was parked by the house. “I took off early,” he said, coming in, yawning. “Handed it over to Cameron for the night—all those bastards are snug in their cells. Dallas and I are on call.”

Across from the house, above the hay barn, the Luthers’ beds were already made up in two rooms next to Billy’s. Both Zeb and Maurita found they were able to handle the stairs, with Mindy’s help; and Billy Young had been busy. The outside alarm was set, two loaded firearms stood inside Billy’s and Zeb’s bedroom doors, and the two big dogs ran loose and watchful in the fenced entry yard. Mindy had strict instructions not to touch the shotgun and rifle. “When you are old enough,” Max said, “and that will be soon, you will have the same safety training as Billy is getting. Maybe even take the same classes as a police cadet, if you like.”

Mindy grinned at him with delight, and so did Zebulon. Zeb would much rather have her thoroughly trained by a professional, than to do a bad job himself.

It was that night, during supper, that the earring appeared.

Supper was a tamale pie that Charlie had taken from the freezer, and a salad that Mindy made. They had just sat down when they heard Jimmie McFarland’s car pull up in front, parking next to Max’s truck. Charlie let him in and asked him to join them. He was carrying a small white box. He said he had eaten, but accepted a slice of lemon pie and coffee. Jimmie, glancing kindly at Maurita, held out the box to Max.

“Dallas found this, just a little while ago. Or, Joe Grey found it.”

“Joe Grey found it,” Max said in a flat, uneasy voice. Charlie’s stomach lurched. Max said, “Let’s hear it,” in that same suspicious tone.

They all knew the Saks crime scene extended from the store itself to the pile-up of cars being hauled away on the highway; but that it also included the motel rooms where the burglars had stayed as they posed as limo drivers. The sun was setting when Detective Garza and Jimmie McFarland went to work on that part of the scene. At the same moment, Joe Grey was running the rooftops, working off some of his grieving before they all returned to the Pamillon estate to bid Courtney a last good-bye. Racing the shingles among the smell of restaurant suppers, he saw a squad car and Jimmie’s car below him and yellow crime tape strung around the motel and parking lot. He backed down a young acacia tree and was about to slip into the motel to see what Jimmie was doing, when, deep in the flowery ground cover, he stepped on something that hurt.

Something hard but delicate, buried deep among the blooms. He pawed it gently out.

There was the earring.

The ornately fashioned gold loop looked, indeed, as if it had been made by Peruvian hands, like pictures of that ancient jewelry he had seen, an intricately carved crescent moon hanging from its center. He was sniffing at it when he heard footsteps.

Dallas Garza stood over him.

He looked up at Dallas and pawed at the earring as if playing, as would a kitten with a toy. Dallas looked back at him with all the suspicion he’d ever felt about Joe Grey. Not cold, cop suspicion, but startled disbelief.

The detective turned away, fetched a small box from his glove compartment, emptied it and lay the earring inside, then slipped the box into a small evidence bag. Returning to Joe, he called Jimmie over.“Take this up to Max. He went home early.”

Now, at the Harpers’, before Jimmie tied into his pie and coffee, he handed the box to Max. “Dallas found this near the motel. They’re finished with it, fingerprints, DNA, photos—didn’t take long. He thought Maurita might want it.”

As long as DeWayne was dead, and Maurita hadn’t wanted to press charges, there wasn’t much point in keeping this one piece of evidence. They had the bloody pictures, the doctors’ reports, the other, smashed earring. And DeWayne’s accomplices had plenty of other charges against them, in case they were involved.

Max took the box from Jimmie and opened it. He studied the contents, then held it out to Maurita. She accepted it, looking sick. The earring lay on a clean cotton pad, it was battered only a little, an ornate gold loop with an intricate crescent moon suspended inside. She touched the scar down her torn ear, felt the surgeon’s stitching. She sat looking at the earring for a long time, thinking, then looked up at Max. “Do you have a spade, or a short shovel?”

Max rose from the table. But Jimmie said,“I know where they are,” and he was out through the tiled mud room that served as the house’s one entry. Heading for the stable, the two big half-Danes leaped all over him barking and licking his face. Jimmie ruffled their ears and told them to get down. They obeyed him, watching as he put a shovel and a spade in his car, then stood waiting for Maurita.

“We won’t be long,” Maurita said in the doorway as she stopped to hug Charlie. “I’ll do dish duty tomorrow, and I’ll cook.” Zeb and Max watched her with interest. Already she looked stronger, as if doing a day’s work, as if beginning to make a new home, was already driving back the weakness that had overwhelmed her.

In Jimmie’s car, they turned north up the highway, then left down Ocean Avenue to the beach. Here it was darker as thick fog rolled in, hiding the last of the sunset. Jimmie opened the trunk while Maurita prowled the sandy park, stepping carefully, looking down at the sand and the way the fallen trees lay. When she had her bearings she took the shovel, and slipped the spade in her belt. When he moved to help, she looked at him with an expression he couldn’t read.

“I want to do this, Jimmie.”

She dug for a long time, but the sandy dirt was soft. She dug nearly as deep as she could reach, then she used the spade to make a tiny hole. She dropped in the box. She wrote nothing on it, she said no word. She filled in the little hole, pounding the dirt with the handle of the spade, then shoveled back the dirt she had removed. She smoothed it over roughly with the shovel, then walked across it a few times, kicked some grass across it and tossed on a few small stones so it resembled its surround, matching the rest of the park.

She cleaned off the tools with a tissue and put them back in the trunk. He closed the trunk and took her hand. They walked across the little road that ended where the beach began; the waves were high, crashing in. They climbed the cliff high above the sand, sat hand in hand, in silence, Maurita’s long black hair blowing in her face. Her expression was a church kind of look, deep and thankful. As if she had buried the last of her hatred. As if her anger and resentment would lie there deep beneath the earth until time ended, completely removed from her. She lookedpast the breakers to the soft blanket of fog, and she leaned silently against Jimmie.

29

It was dark when the cats gathered in the mansion’s north grotto, deep down but where, in one adjoining alcove, their human friends could crowd in. Those who could speak to them, who could say good-bye to Courtney and the ferals. The ferals had, most of them, promised to return. Courtney made no such promises. She said only, “I’ll try. I think I will come back.”

Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw had picked up Dulcie and Courtney and Wilma at her cottage. Ryan and Clyde and Joe Grey had squeezed John and Mary Firetti and the two boy kittens in the back of Clyde’s Jaguar. Kate and Scotty had walked down through the ruins and were already in the cavern. Charlie was absent but she had sent a loving message by way of Ryan; there was no way she could leave her new guests tonight when they needed the warmth of friends around them. Andno way she cared to leave Max when he was still scowling with suspicion about Joe Grey.

Dulcie was crying as they gathered in the grotto. Kit was crying so hard she had to keep wiping her nose on Pan’s golden fur, which didn’t please him. His own eyes were both sad and yearning. He’d very much like to go back with Courtney, as would Kit. They had traveled to the Netherworld, they had thrilled and shivered at its wonders and they were sharply drawn, now, to return with the calico and the ferals.

But Kit couldn’t leave Lucinda and Pedric a second time, nor could Pan. How many years did their old couple have left? When she watched Courtney’s two brothers licking and snuggling their sister and listened to their sad mewls, it was too much. Kit yowled until Pan cuffed her and she went silent, pressing against him; and Courtney watched them all with painfully mixed feelings.

She knew she had to go down, she wasn’t safe here. She knew there was a place for her, a special place for the calico with the three bracelets, she believed what the ferals had told her. She was filled with excitement at what she would discover in that new world, and was terrified at what she might confront. She looked helplessly at her family and friends, confusion boiling in her heart—but something called to her, from that world. And she was glad the ferals would be with her, she would be terrified to go down alone.

She rose. She faced her parents and her dear friends. She whispered, but then she said boldly,“Good-bye. I love you. I love you all as I love the spirit who made us. I will come back to you.” Turning, not looking back again, she headed for the little hidden cave that would drop down to the rocky tunnel that would lead, by morning, into the Netherworld: the feralswere all around her, some disappeared ahead of her, racing down into the black tunnel, dropping down and down, abandoning the upper world.

They were gone. Courtney was gone.

Courtney’s friends and family went away silently, in twos and threes, back into the village where the calico would no longer be present; leaving the Pamillon estate where there would no longer be any speaking ferals. Everyone was crying, Scotty and Clyde hiding their tears.

What would occur in the world of speaking cats, in the future, no one knew.

That night, Joe and Dulcie sat together atop Wilma’s roof looking east toward the hills where hidden chasms fell down into that other world. There was fog low over the hills, veiling a thin smear of moonlight. They didn’t speak. Until Dulcie said, “We raised a strong girl. What amazing things will she do there?”

“We raised three strong kittens,” Joe Grey said. “Each has chosen a useful life, each will make their mark. This is not the end. This is the beginning.”

But there would be many nights when they would sit together brooding, looking up at the hills or out across the sea. Or they would sit with Wilma watching the moon rise, contemplating the lives that had come before and those that will come after. Knowing there was cruelty and pain in this world, but knowing this wasn’t the last life. Knowing that the true living spirit was courage, mixed with love, and Courtney had that. And, as Ryan and Clyde reminded them, the calico carried within her the genes of their own spirits. A part of Joe and Dulcie would always be with her.