Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter And The Canary

Luckily, he waited just long enough to make sure I got Gigi safely up the stairs and inside, and then he turned around and drove back down the lane toward the main road.

I said, “Oh. That was nobody.”

“Nobody?”

“Yeah, or a tourist. They saw me turn in and followed me up to the house. I think they thought it was an access road to the beach or something.”

“That’s weird.”

I shrugged, trying to change the subject. “It’s that time of year. Just yesterday morning a couple pulled up in a big SUV and walked all over the property.”

“Lost tourists?”

“That’s what I thought at first, but no. They were searching for property to build on. And they looked like they could practically afford to buy the whole island.”

Just then Paco emerged from the main house, balancing a platter of sand-dollar-size pancakes in one hand and a coffee carafe in the other. His hair was tousled and he was still in his pajamas: a white tank top and cotton pants printed all over with little cowboys. As he shuffled by, he gave me a kiss on the cheek.

He said, “Hi, sexy.”

Where Michael is fair and muscled, Paco is slim, dark, and handsome, with olive skin and a regal profile, not unlike a prince right out of the pages of The Arabian Nights . He’s an agent for Sarasota’s Special Investigative Bureau. He and Michael have been together so long—almost fifteen years now—that he feels like family.

Paco circled around Michael and put the pancakes and coffee down on the table.

Michael said, “Hey, don’t I get a kiss too?”

Paco rearranged the silverware on the table. “Nope.”

“Why?”

“You’re in trouble.”

“Huh? What did I do?”

He straightened up and leveled Michael with his dark brown eyes. “Well, who made breakfast?”

“Um. You.”

Paco nodded. “That’s right. And when I make breakfast, what are you supposed to do?”

“Um, take a shower?”

Paco rolled his eyes. “No. Guess again.”

Michael said, “Um, sit around and look handsome?”

“Very funny. You’re supposed to get the paper.”

Michael grimaced. “Oh, yeah. I forgot.”

I said, “I’ll get it.”

Paco said, “No, you sit down. I’ll get it.” He rolled his eyes at Michael again and set off down the lane.

Michael loaded up a plate and handed it to me. “Must have been a good party last night. You look beat.”

“It wasn’t a party. One of my clients had a … a thing they had to go to, so they asked me to stay late is all.”

I drizzled a little syrup on my pancakes, conscious of Michael’s eyes on me. The older he gets, the more I see our father in him, which of course is sweet on the one hand and annoying as hell on the other, but I can’t exactly blame him. Our grandparents gave us the happiest and safest childhood anyone could ever hope for, but Michael has felt responsible for me ever since we were little kids. In all honesty, I’m grateful, but sometimes it makes me feel like a perennial teenager.

Michael said, “We had a big fire down on Turtle Bay. Some fool fell asleep on his boat with a kerosene lamp and kicked it over.”

I winced. I hate knowing the details of Michael’s job. Picturing him running around in a fire makes my stomach hurt.

“That’s terrible. Is he okay?”

“Yeah. Smoke inhalation, but he managed to make it to the dock before it got out of control, so he’s fine … can’t say the same thing for his boat, though. Or the two boats he was moored next to. One of them sank and the other looks like a big floating hunk of charcoal now.”

I shook my head. “Ugh. I can’t stand thinking about it. Let’s talk about something else.”

Paco came back up the driveway with the paper tucked under his arm and a distant look on his face. He sat down in silence opposite me and unfolded the paper.

Michael stifled a grin. “So, how was your walk?”

“Fine.” He turned the page without looking up. “The magnolia tree is blooming.”

Michael said, “Nice.”

“And it looks like we’ve got a family of rabbits living at the base of it.”

“Oh, that’s cool.”

Paco nodded. “Mm-hmm. I’ve got some carrot tops I might take down there after breakfast.” He turned the page again. “Oh, and there’s a sheriff’s deputy staked out at the top of the driveway.”

Michael’s jaw dropped open. “A what ?”

“A sheriff’s deputy. Dixie, any idea what he’s doing there?”

He lowered the paper so I could see his eyes.

I said, “Huh?”

12

I always tell people I’ve never been across the Florida state line, but it’s a lie.

My mother took us on a surprise out-of-state trip when I was six years old and Michael was only eight. It was Christmas season, our father was working the overnight shift at the firehouse, and she had woken us up just as the sun was rising. Her face was flushed and there was a giggling exuberance about her that meant she’d already been drinking, either that or she’d been up all night and had never stopped. While she stuffed some of our clothes into a suitcase, she told us we were going on a “secret adventure,” which we both instinctively knew meant our dad didn’t know a thing about it.

The real adventure began about thirteen hours later, when she sobered up and found herself stranded on a train platform in a little town in Georgia, with two hungry, exhausted kids in tow and not a single quarter to call home. I remember rummaging through her purse because she couldn’t find her sunglasses, and I remember being afraid to ask why she needed them since the sun had long gone down. I finally found them in one of the interior pockets, hiding under a collection of little glass bottles and a crumpled receipt from Maas Brothers department store.

I can still see them. They were the big round kind with dark lenses—the ones you see on trendy models in vintage magazines from the sixties—with a tortoiseshell frame and two parallel rows of sparkling rhinestones arching across the top. As I handed them up to her, I noticed her eyes were bloodshot and glassy.

It was at that point that Michael took control. He marched over to a Salvation Army Santa that was standing just outside the ticket office and, with his eight-year-old face set in solemn, grave lines, said, “My little sister and I need help. Our mother is sick and we have to take her home.”

I think right then, at that exact moment, Michael came to the realization that his childhood had ended, that when our father wasn’t around to make sure we were safe, he was in charge. It was also the moment I knew that I could always depend on him.

Today, there are a growing number of silver hairs sprinkled throughout his blond locks, and I’m sorry to report that I’m probably responsible for most if not all of them. He inherited our father’s quiet stoicism, but he also got a good dose of our mother’s nervous anxiety, so whenever there’s even the tiniest bit of trouble, he takes it hard. The entire time I was talking, he kept his face buried in his hands, propped up on the table with his elbows.

I recounted the whole sordid story, beginning with my arrival at Caroline’s house two days earlier, how Mr. Scotland had been on Caroline’s porch with his big suitcase, and how Charlie had raced through the house and scratched up the living room door trying to get to the front foyer. I told them how after I’d cleaned Gigi’s cage, we’d all gone out to the lanai and fallen asleep on one of the lounge chairs, and how the young man from next door had woken us up.

Paco’s disposition is calm and quiet, the opposite of Michael’s, so he’s better at keeping his cards close. Until then he’d sat quietly and listened, but now he interrupted me.