Клеа Саймон - An Incantation Of Cats

“Maybe you didn’t hear, but the neighbors are saying that the wife is always the obvious suspect.” When Becca still didn’t respond, Gaia went on. “Of course, they don’t even know about her sister, most of them. Everyone just knew Margaret and Frank weren’t getting along, and that she had a temper. Though they could’ve been in on it.”

“You think she—they made him have a heart attack? They brought it about?” Becca’s voice trailed off. Clara looked up, waiting. Surely, her person was going to bring up the previous night’s discussion. The subtleties of poisonings seemed inconsequential to a cat. The only real way to dispatch something was with a good, fast shake. But cats would never be so brutal to one of their own, anyway. And secretly, Clara had always been grateful for that one mouse’s speedy retreat.

“Some heart attack.” A dramatic eye roll dismissed that. “Tiger thinks there’s something else going on, maybe something with Frank’s business, such as it is. Some kind of conspiracy, even.”

Becca looked faintly green, but Gaia didn’t seem to notice.

“Makes me kind of glad her old witch of a sister got rid of my plant. Right? Because otherwise they might be looking at me.”

“I–I guess.” Becca’s brow furrowed, as it did when she was thinking.

“So, we can toss this, right?” Gaia poked at the baggie as if it were a hairball. “I mean, I’ll pay you for your time.”

“You don’t have to.” Becca sounded relieved. “Though maybe Tiger should talk to the police. I mean, if he’s seen someone suspicious hanging around…”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” With a shrug, the goth girl dismissed her sometime boyfriend’s concern. She seemed lighter now and was already turning toward the shelves behind her, ready to re-start her day. “He’s a bit of a drama king, anyway.”

Her own concerns dismissed, the young woman didn’t seem to think anything of it as Becca nodded and left the shop without another word. Clara, however, thought the behavior odd. As she watched, Becca strode, quickly but not breaking into a run, back toward the end of the block. Before Clara could catch up, however, she stopped cold, inches from a dark opening in the brick wall at the edge of the storefront. Carefully shading herself, Clara passed by and immediately saw what had caught Becca’s eye.

A shadow—no, a person had slipped into the yawning alley and was moving slowly along its wall. That had been what Becca spied outside the window while Gaia had been going on about the store’s owner, Clara realized. Someone walking too slowly and too close to the store to be an ordinary pedestrian.

Clara kicked herself for not paying attention. She could have easily slipped out and followed the figure in the shadows. Even if she couldn’t have passed along her findings to Becca, she might have prevailed on Laurel to convey some message. Only now, it was too late. There was no way that Clara was going to leave her person.

Instead, she stood by, guarding faithfully while her person waited, frozen in place, as the figure crept to the end of the alley. For a moment, he was caught in the sun—blond-tipped hair, denim jacket, and eyes wide with fright as he turned the corner and disappeared.

Chapter 14

“No!” Clara wailed as Becca took off down the alley. “Becca, don’t!” Of course, being a cat, her mewl of horror came out as a caterwaul—a faint one at that, her ordinary cat voice muted by the magic that helped her blend into the shadows around her. More like the wheeze of a passing bus or the squeak of a bicycle’s brakes than a cry of panic, her yowl blended in with the street noise of the busy Monday morning and died away, unnoticed.

Not that this mattered. Even if the young woman in the alley could have heard her terrified pet, she wouldn’t have understood her. Not unless Clara could suddenly assume Laurel’s gift of implanting ideas in a human’s mind, her pet thought with growing frustration.

But Clara had no time for envy or even the most natural sibling resentment. And so, although her own fur was standing on end with fear, Clara darted after Becca, determined to do what she could to aid the person she loved.

“Bother!” Unseen by Clara, Becca stopped short, and only by a quick leap sideways did the little cat manage to avoid colliding with her at the passage’s end. Panting, more from the stress than the exertion, the calico looked up as her person craned her head, peeking beyond the brick wall. The alley, Clara could now see, opened onto a paved lot, barely big enough for the two cars and the dumpster parked there. Unaware of the faithful feline nervously shadowing her every move, Becca slipped out to make a careful examination of the space. She started with the cars. As Clara watched, the young woman crouched beside the first, rising up so that only the maroon cloche and the few curls that escaped were visible as she peered through the windows. She needn’t have been so careful. These vehicles were empty; their passenger compartments gave off no vibrations, their engines cool and still. Clara could have saved Becca the effort—and the worry—of examining them so carefully had she been able to communicate with her person.

That lack continued to try the pet’s patience, but her own superior senses helped her keep her temper. By the time Becca had progressed to the dumpster, checking around the back before peeking inside, Clara had even begun to relax. Just as they hadn’t picked up any signs of life in those cars, her whiskers hadn’t picked up the vibrations of anything man-sized between the metal receptacle and the brick wall. Becca might not like the family of rodents who had made their home in the storm drain tucked in the corner, but Clara knew they were no real threat to her person, even if their presence might make her squeal.

If Clara was hoping that Becca would ignore the metal door that led out to the alley, however, she was disappointed. As she watched, the young woman strode up to it and tried the handle. Locked tight, the latch barely responded to her energetic pull; the dull gray door not at all. With a sigh of exasperation, she proceeded to examine the frame and then the wall. A frosted window to the right of the door was set too high for her to reach, and no bell or buzzer could be seen. Increasingly exasperated, Becca rapped on the door with her knuckle, but the thick metal only gave up a dull thud in return. Only after a few more tries did she finally give up. But instead of moving along, as her pet would have hoped, Becca began to backtrack. Perusing the little lot and the adjacent street one more time, she peered down the alley and then started the longer walk around the block back up to the store’s front.

“Her boyfriend was right.” Becca was speaking to herself, but Clara, trotting to keep up, heard her loud and clear. So clearly, in fact, that she found it a bit unnerving. Becca’s words could have been her own. “I need to reach her,” she was saying. “To warn her…”

But all the cat could do was tag along back to the brightly painted little shop, which was now locked tight.

“Gaia?” Becca called as she knocked on the glass door, and then leaned in, trying to peek through a green and yellow yin-and-yang symbol. “Are you there?”

Becca squinted. The morning sun reflected off the glass, making it difficult for her to see if her former client was inside or, indeed, if the little shop’s lights were even on. Clara could have told her that nothing was stirring, but the neatly lettered sign taped to the door— Back in Fifteen! —should have been enough. Still, Becca kept at it for at least that long before turning with a sigh and slumping back against the metal frame.

Clara waited with her, tail curled around her paws, willing herself to be grateful for the respite. But although she would have appeared the model of patience if her person could have seen her, the little cat fretted. The shop girl had made no attempt to hide her own erratic work habits. The fact that she had a sign to post should have reminded Becca of this. Besides, if something had happened—Clara’s ears flicked in search of any indication of a struggle that she might have somehow missed—there was little her person could do about it now. As Becca waited, one foot tapping in impatience, Clara found herself channeling her sister Harriet. Maybe it would be better if Becca never left the house.