Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Alien X-Ray

“Why didn’t he call Molina?”

“Not without checking with us Round Table members.” Temple frowned at the message on the screen.

“Maybe he just wanted to interfere with our sleep.”

“Poor baby.” She put a hand on Matt’s arm and he jumped. “You’ve been losing too much sleep over those post-show sessions with Leticia Brown. Her Ambrosia brand will still thrive without you as a follow-up. Are you breaking in someone to replace you? A secret candidate?”

“No.” Matt risked a glance away from threading through the curving residential streets. “That’s over, Temple. No more late nights out. I’m pulling the plug.”

“Really! We can get back to normal. I’m thrilled!”

Matt spared her a quirky smile. “As a professional counselor, I can’t promise any one can get back to normal.”

She grinned. “Just think. If Max has cracked the mystery, maybe we can put Kitty the Cutter in the hands of the police for whatever crime she’s been doing and we’ll all be safe and happy and able to go our own ways.”

“You are way too bouncy for five in the morning. This the street?”

“Yes, eighth house on the right, with the shutters.”

“Nice.”

“They’re metal and close over the windows.”

“ Hmm. Fort Knox. I’m going to approach with caution.” Matt slowed the Jaguar to a silent idle. “Let’s just leave the car doors ajar, instead of slamming them. This is where Molina was attacked.”

“That’s silly,” Temple whispered, doing as he said. “Max is in residence there now. Mr. International Agent.”

Nevertheless, they both walked along the grass, not on the walkway.

Near the front door, a black cat waited.

“A stray. Five A.M. is when feral cats hunt. Way too small to be Louie,” Temple whispered to Matt.

“More the type of the Crystal Phoenix mascot,” he agreed.

“Midnight Louise. Face it, Matt, every black cat looks alike in the dark. Except Louie with his white whiskers.”

By then, the cat was twining in and out of their ankles so persistently that they almost tripped over it. As they moved to step past, the cat arched its back, flared its fluffy fur into a dark spiky halo.

Then it stared intently behind them and darted away.

Matt was staring ahead. “The door’s ajar. I don’t like that.”

“Max is expecting us.”

“He’s a security freak. He’d never do that.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” Temple said. “What do we do?”

“Backtrack and call the police.”

“Not Molina?”

“Regular police,” Matt said. “Report a robbery. We don’t want to get Max in deeper with Molina.”

“Good plan.”

That hadn’t been Temple speaking, but a woman from inside the house. She had a faint Irish accent. She also held a gun that caught a bit of streetlight gleam.

She came out, as sleek as Louie in a black spandex catsuit, and walked around them more than once, like a human version of the curious cat on the doorstep.

“Go in. I’ll follow.”

Matt stepped directly between Temple and Kathleen O’Connor and her gun. They walked in like convicts, in a single row.

“Go right in, and go right,” Kathleen said.

Temple led them into the main room, where Max was crumpled on the floor in front of one of two massive leather theater-style chairs. Kathleen perched her hip on the other chair’s arm, swinging her free leg.

Her foot nudged Max’s hip. “Had a sudden urge to nap and forgot to bring his gun along.”

Temple eyed the blood streaks running down the side of Max’s face.

“May be out cold,” Kathleen told her. “Maybe has a concussion, poor lad. Maybe a blow to the head will revive his absent memory. Maybe it has killed him. I haven’t time or inclination to look.”

Temple supposed Kathleen had lured them there via Max’s cell phone. But why?

“Here we are,” Kathleen said. “Four sides of a romantic quadrangle.” She used the gun as a pointer. “I was with Max. Then he was with Temple, then she was with Matt. Then Matt was with me.”

Temple stared wildly at Matt.

“It was a platonic relationship,” Matt said calmly. “That was a healthy change for her, and, of course, I was coerced into it.”

“How?” Temple asked.

“The usual threats against a significant other. That’s been her modus operandi from the first.”

“Don’t!” Kathleen yelled, spitting out each of the next words separately. “Don’t speak about me as if I wasn’t here.” She pointed the gun at all three in turn: Max, Temple, Matt.

“You’ve always been here with us,” Matt said gently. “Nobody’s thought more about you, learned more about you, cared more about you, in a way, than anybody.”

Kathleen paused, suspicious, but caught by the idea, a new way of looking at the lethal dance she’d involved them all in.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sensed something moving. It was the black cat from outside, padding silently into the room. It walked over to a waist-high bookcase and lofted elegantly atop it, behind Kathleen.

“Do you care about me?” Kathleen gibed, jerking the gun toward Temple.

Temple considered, trying not to watch the second black cat silently entering and circling around behind Kathleen O’Connor to jump atop a desk. She adopted Matt’s steady, reasonable tone.

“Max did, for a few days long ago. He remembered that only days ago. He loved you long ago in Northern Ireland. I don’t know if you’ve knocked that out of his memory again, if he isn’t dead. Matt has to love you, not personally, but because of his idiotically forgiving religious beliefs. Love the sinner, hate the sin. Me? Not so much.”

Kathleen’s short breathy laugh almost made Temple jump more than the gun had. “Women don’t forgive. That’s our advantage. Men think they control everything, including us, so they can afford to condescend.”

The third black cat moved in the same stately, silent manner into the room and circled all the way around to Kathleen’s left side.

Temple risked a glance at Matt. He was trying not to stare at Kathleen’s gun-bearing arm. The weapon was pretty unnerving. In all her risky adventures, Temple had never been held at gunpoint like this. Fear had twisted her guts into a Celtic knot of anxiety.

The subtle purposeful entrance of the cats had been calming. If Kitty the Cutter had been the second Darth Vader at Neon Nightmare, she’d know how much damage a coordinated pack of angry cats could do.

But who were these cats, beyond the two she knew, Midnight Louise, the first in, and Midnight Louie, not present and accounted for? She recalled the eerie way she’d suddenly find Louie sitting beside her on the sofa, and notice him gone later, never suspecting he’d come or gone until he was just there. Or not.

Matt tried to deflect Kathleen’s attention from Temple. “You haven’t found another razor,” he noted.

Kathleen stared daggers at him, and the gun trembled in her tighter, angry grip.

“Better you use a gun,” Matt said. “You can’t cut yourself with it, hurt yourself again.”

That triggered some hesitancy. She licked her lips. Lifted her other palm to expose a dark slash, a long scab.

The fourth black cat was shambling down the hall, limping but silent. Temple glimpsed ragged fur. It circled the chair directly behind Kathleen and leaped atop the opposite arm to stare balefully at the woman. Temple held her breath.

She kept her eyes firmly away, but had an impression of a “cat from alley cat hell” expression. This was the nerviest cat present, and it was not Midnight Louie. Yet.

“Why did you really come here?” Matt was asking. “It wasn’t for us. What did you want from Max, because you will never get it now, whether he’s dead or alive. You can kill everyone you ever thought took something from you because they tried to have a good life, and then what will you do? You destroy your oldest enemy, you’re alone.”