Shirley Murphy - Cat Breaking Free

A dark shape clung to the sill. The kit stared in at her, pressing so hard against the glass that her whiskers were flat; her round yellow eyes were huge with fear.

Hurrying to open the door, Charlie was nearly bowled over as Kit flew into her arms. The little cat clung against her, shivering, her heart pounding so hard that Charlie feared for her. Holding Kit close, she returned to the window seat and sat down to cuddle her. Kit's coat was matted and wet from the early morning dew, and full of trash and leaves. Her paws were ice-cold. She stared, terrified, into Charlie's face, but she said no word.

"It's all right," Charlie said softly. "We can talk, Ryan and Scotty are both on the roof, I can see them. No one else is here." Tucking Kit warm among the pillows, she rose long enough to snatch up the milk bottle, pour some in a bowl, and nuke it for half a minute. Setting it down, watching Kit inhale it, she opened a can of chicken, which Kit gobbled.

Sitting down beside her again, Charlie rubbed her ears. "What happened? What happened? What chased you? Where have you been? We thought…"

Kit looked up at her tiredly, still shivering.

"Worn out," Charlie said, hoping that was all. "You're exhausted. Oh, Kit, you mustn't be sick!" Picking Kit up and hugging her close, Charlie carried her to the table. She was reaching for the phone, to call Lucinda or the vet, when the phone rang. Charlie snatched it up with a shaking hand.

Lucinda's voice, agitated, cutting in and out. "Have you seen her? Have you seen Kit? Is she there with you? She hasn't come home at all."

"She…"

Lucinda pressed on, giving her no chance to speak. "I thought she might come there to you because you're closer to Hellhag Hill. We've walked all over the hills and down into Hellhag Cave…"

"You're in Hellhag Cave? Oh, Lucinda, come out of there. She's…"

"We're out now, you can't use a phone in there. But if the ferals didn't go down into the caves," Lucinda blurted breathlessly, "then they've headed back where they came from to their clowder, and the kit…"

"Lucinda! She's here!"

"There? Oh, my dear…"

"Kit's here! Right here beside me. Safe in my arms. What in the world happened?"

"You didn't know? Is she all right?"

"She's fine! Hungry, but that's nothing new. Didn't know what?"

"Clyde found three ferals from Kit's clowder, locked cruelly in a cage. Kit led him there, and he freed them-but she ran off with them. We thought… Pedric and I thought…"

Kit had her face in the phone. "I'm here, Lucinda! I'm fine. I'm right here with Charlie and I'm fine!"

Lucinda sighed, then was silent. Charlie pushed Kit away. "I didn't know," she said in a small voice, looking sternly at the kit.

"We thought she was just leading them away through the village and that she'd be back. When she didn't come home, we thought… No one told you? Wilma didn't call?"

Kit looked up at Charlie. Charlie looked at Kit. A little smile touched the kit's darkly mottled face, the first smile Charlie had seen. Pulling the wet, dirty cat warm against her, Charlie imagined Lucinda and Pedric tramping up Hellhag Hill in the dark, imagined those two old people going down into Hellhag Cave, calling and calling the kit, and she shuddered.

"When she didn't come home," Lucinda said, "we were terrified she'd gone forever."

Kit scrambled back to Charlie's shoulder, nearly shouting into the phone. "I didn't… I didn't mean to worry you, Lucinda. I love you!"

"We'll be there," Lucinda said. "Ten minutes, as soon as we can get down the hill, we'll be there to get you."

When they'd hung up, Charlie gave Kit some more chicken, and finished making her own sandwich. "Those caves go on forever, Kit! They could have been lost down there!" Though it was hard to be mad at the kit. Charlie had never been able to find anything written, and had found no person who could tell her, where those black fissures ended; but the tales about Hellhag Cave were not pleasant. Carrying her sandwich and Kit back to her studio, she tucked the little cat into an easy chair, in a warm blanket, and sat down at her computer. Already Kit was nodding off.

But she couldn't work, she sat watching Kit sleep, watching the nervous twitch of Kit's paws, as if she was still running; and Charlie's heart twisted at Kit's occasional sharp mewls of fear.

As Charlie waited for Lucinda and Pedric to come for their lost kit, Joe Grey and Dulcie were preparing to search for Roman Slayter's gun, relying on Kit's information. They were flying blind, not at all sure what finding a gun would prove- unless it was the gun that killed Dufio. Or, if Chichi was looking for a gun, and if Chichi had been so pushy trying to learn where Slayter was staying… Though that didn't add up to much, it was enough to put them on Slayter's case. Cop sense or cat sense, Joe had the gut feeling this was worth a shot.

If they did find a gun in Slayter's room, and could hide it where the cops could find it, they might fit together a couple more pieces of the puzzle-a puzzle that seemed as nebulous as smoke on the wind.

They knew that Lucinda and Pedric were searching for Kit, that the old couple had been out since before daylight, and Dulcie was frantic for the kit; she alternated between feeling bad that she and Joe weren't searching, and sensibly admitting that Joe was right, that this was Kit's call, Kit's responsibility. Though Joe had, Dulcie noticed, glanced up to the southerly hills several times with a listening and worried frown.

Now the two cats lay comfortably on a warm, tarred rooftop across the street from the Gardenview Inn, scanning the windows and balconies hoping to spot Slayter. Kit had not heard which room. They knew better than to call and ask for a guest's room number; no respectable hotel would divulge that information. The building was a creamy stucco of Mediterranean style, three stories high, topped by a low, red clay roof and a dozen chimneys, implying that each large room boasted a fireplace. In the center of the long building three steps led up to an entry that opened directly into a small, bright lobby-they could see through it to glass doors at the back, opening out again to a garden and terrace between beds of roses. "You want to do the diversion?" Joe said. "Or shall I?"

Dulcie sighed. "You do it. I'll slip up on the desk, see if I can find the room number."

"Dulcie, if you don't quit worrying about the kit, I swear…"

"She could be in trouble."

"And if she is? How do you propose we find her out on a thousand acres of open land?"

"Lucinda and Pedric have gone looking."

"Lucinda and Pedric have a car."

"We could…"

Joe sat back down on the warming black rooftop, looking hard at her. "She's a big cat now. She is not a kitten anymore."

"But that Stone Eye… If she… I'm sorry, Joe. I just can't get it out of my mind that she needs us."

"That's the mothering instinct. If you want to go look for her, fine. Maybe you can find Lucinda and Pedric, join up with them. I'm going to find that gun or whatever Chichi's looking for."

Dulcie sighed again, and followed Joe as he dropped down onto a copper awning, then to a raised planter, and to the street and across on the heels of a half dozen tourists.

Earlier this morning, coming from home, she had detoured by the Greenlaws' second-floor terrace, had stood pressed against the glass door, looking in. The old couple's apartment had been dark and empty. Wilma had said they were out searching. And Wilma would be, too, Dulcie thought, except that she was the only reference librarian on duty this morning. Trotting with Joe across the street, she paused beneath a little bench. She watched him strut into the lobby and on through, bold as brass, and out the back to the patio. In a moment, his tomcat yells and blood-curdling screams filled the hotel, the street, the block.