Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Alien X-Ray

Molina snatched the slipper up, up, and away.

“And Cinderella you’re not,” he commented. “Also not a size five, looked like—”

“None of your business.”

“Wrong. It’s my business. Any of your shoes or mates go missing during the stalking incidents?”

“No. I told you. The stalker added to my wardrobe.”

Max let his fingers page through the soft five-inch swatch of floor-length hanging gowns in deep jewel-toned silk velvet. “These are Carmen’s, your warbling alter ego’s. Which one didn’t you buy?”

She reached out to one. “The blue. At least I didn’t remember it.”

“It looks a lot like the others.”

“Gowns of that 1930s’ vintage are very similar and there isn’t much good light in the closets of these old houses.”

“So you can’t be sure.” Max leaned back to study the gowns. “They’re all the same length.”

She nodded. “That’s what made this first discovery creepy. I sensed it didn’t belong, but it looked like it should.”

“What was the next leaving?”

“Nasty. Obvious. Meant to chill.”

He waited and she averted her eyes.

She answered in a monotone, turning away. “It was a gift-wrapped slim little box on my bedspread, looked like candy. I couldn’t conceive that Mariah would do that, although teen girls often do owe their mothers an apology. But I opened it.”

“Not a letter bomb,” he said to diffuse the tension.

Her laugh was short. “A filmy piece of cheap lingerie, with a note: ‘You dress like a nun.’”

“And of course, that sealed the deal that it was me.”

She turned on him, blue eyes blazing like midnight specials. “You always like to … taunt me.”

“I honestly can’t remember.”

“You were doing it just now.”

He thought. “Yeah, I was—”

“You think I’m too buttoned-down and uptight.”

“I am getting a bit of that vibe, but it’s hitting me more like … that’s there because you’d be a lot hotter if it wasn’t.”

“That comment is sexist, not sexy. Like that invasive ‘gift’ was stalking, not … not courting behavior.”

“But you know now that it wasn’t me.”

“Mostly.” She sounded almost as sullen as a teenager fessing up. Learned that from Mariah, likely.

“Look. I’m sorry. I don’t think I’d do that. A magician gets used to manipulating people, to getting a reaction from an audience. It’s nothing personal.”

She shrugged, her anger and embarrassment spent.

“Um, I have to ask. Was the article of lingerie black?”

Oops. She was annoyed again.

“‘Articles’ like that usually are.”

“Then, Lieutenant. Molina. I think there’s a clue you’ve missed because you couldn’t possibly know it. That ‘gift’ wasn’t a sexual come-on. Not at all.”

“What?”

“You went to school with Catholic nuns.”

“I’m half Hispanic. Of course.”

“And the habits they used to wear were—?”

“Black.”

“You don’t wear black. Navy maybe, but not much in this broiler climate. I think that gown was left by a woman.”

She looked doubtful.

“Who was out to get me.”

“It’s always all about you.”

“In this case, it really is.”

“And the next time, when I came home to find the radio on and a trail of rose petals down the hall to Mariah’s bedroom?”

Max sighed. Kathleen O’Connor had done a job on Molina. No wonder she’d risked her career to break into Max’s house to prove he was the stalker, and then had the bad luck to run straight into Kitty the Cutter.

“She likes to play with her prey, but she is armed and dangerous. She slashed Matt Devine trying to get at me.”

Molina let herself sink down upon the bed, in a way reclaiming it from being a scene of a crime. Max didn’t want to loom, so he sat beside her, with no protestations.

“This monster was in my house? How do you know all this with a flawed memory?”

“My mentor, my foster father really, was the one who spirited me away from the Neon Nightmare. He filled in my history from the age of seventeen. And I have … flashes of recovering memory.”

“This woman, you think she has something against Catholic nuns?”

“And priests.”

“Hence Devine.” Molina nodded. “So it’s a vast anti-Catholic, anti-Max conspiracy?”

“Anti-me mostly.”

“Why?”

“I saw through her early. That made me the enemy. I’ve only just learned, in Northern Ireland, what a hellish history she had. People have died because of that.” Max bestirred himself to leave his recent, all-too-vivid memories. “I’ll tell you a story, all I was told and remember, about a girl named Kathleen O’Connor, who became a murderous, mad, vengeful force aptly renamed ‘Kitty the Cutter.’

“I think she’s safely out of your private life, Molina, but not your professional one. I once loved her, then hated her, and now I hunt her. As she hunts me and mine … and even my ‘frenemies’ … is that the word for us now?”

Molina nodded solemnly.

“I need your help, Carmen Regina, Lieutenant, sir.” He mustered a crooked smile. “And we none of us will sleep well until she’s cornered and confined.”

Chapter 25

Romance on the Rocks

“I need drinks and a dinner,” Temple briskly instructed the person on the other end of her home phone at 11 A.M. the next day.

“Ah, isn’t it usually dinner and drinks?” Matt sounded a bit fuzzy. “And are we still talking, much less dining and drinking?”

Temple knew he was just waking up after a long work night, poor guy, but she couldn’t wait a moment longer. “The message you left was suitably desperate. I am mollified. Matt, I know the insane pressure you’ve been under with your mother being threatened and then getting married and the job thing and us having to work with Max and knowing that Kitty the Cutter is out there somewhere. It’s completely normal you might feel a little jealous. You’ve never been in this position before.”

“You’re way more generous than I deserve.”

“Just keep that in mind.” Temple couldn’t contain something else a moment longer. Her indignation. “Just remember, this outing is drinks first, food later. A special occasion. I just fired a would-be client.”

“I thought the fir ee was the one who went out and solaced herself with good liquor and bad food.”

Temple sighed loud enough to be heard in the back row of a community theater building. “I’ve never had to give up on a project before, but this was the last indignity. Silas T. Farnum is a deceptive, screwy, irresponsible nutcase, even if he has the most mind-blowing venue in Las Vegas, and I have flacked my last flack on his behalf. Details at six o’clock.”

“Okay, okay. I see this calls for an emergency evening out. What would soothe the savaged soul? The Four Seasons, Palazzo? Or something down-home like the Bellagio?”

“Maybe,” Temple conceded.

“Maybe … which one?”

“Surprise me.”

“What? So it’s not the right one and you can fire me ?”

“No such luck. I’m done firing people. I don’t want to talk about this until we’re sitting someplace wonderful and I’ve had at least three sips of something very high proof. I’ll see you at my door at seven thirty.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

She was smiling as she hung up. She’d seen the strain on Matt’s face lately and should have held back and given him some space. Now she was getting the romantic time out they both deserved, and needed.

It was high time to cut Silas T. afloat and concentrate on her chaotic personal life. Temple was not liking the fact that no further word had been heard from the Chicago network execs. They’d been so interested in Matt’s talk show future during the recent trip to the Windy City. She knew media plans could fall flatter than a French crepe, faster than a three-minute egg, but … Gee, listen to her think. Crepes and eggs. She must really be hungry.