Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter And The Canary

When I got to the Bronco, I didn’t even look around. I got behind the wheel and shut the door as quietly as possible, then I closed my eyes and sat there for a good minute or so, watching the muted colors of the emergency lights as they played across the insides of my eyelids. I concentrated on willing whatever part of my brain was creating the smell of those magnolia blossoms to stop. Gradually, it faded—which was a good thing, because otherwise I would’ve thought I’d finally lost my mind.

The giant front gate was standing open, but I knew any minute they’d be stringing up police tape, so I started up the engine, sunk down in my seat, and rolled out the driveway. At the corner, I turned right and headed for Ocean Boulevard.

Third time’s a charm, the note had said.

Apparently not, I thought …

I’m still alive.

* * *

The whole way home, I felt surprisingly calm, despite the fact—or maybe because of it—that my brain was filled with blank noise, like a chalkboard that’s been written over so many times it’s turned completely white.

At some point, my cell phone rang but I didn’t bother to see who it was. Instead, I plugged it into the car charger and switched the ringer off, and then I focused on the road in the glow of the Bronco’s headlights. About a mile or so outside the village, something small darted into the bushes on my left—a squirrel or a rabbit—and I thought of Franklin and Gigi.

They were still waiting at the Kitty Haven. I figured I’d have to ask Ethan to go and check on them, and maybe even take them home when the investigators were done with Caroline’s house—although given what had just happened next door, I imagined that could very well be delayed even longer. Practically all of Old Vineyard Lane was an active crime scene now.

Long before I got to my house, I pulled over on the right, making sure there were no headlights coming in either direction, and then rolled into a sandy clearing, hidden from the road by a stand of scrubby pines and chest-high beach grass. Luckily, the moon had risen above the treetops, so I was able to make my way without much trouble. I followed a narrow trail through the brush down to the beach and then walked the rest of the way along the water’s edge. When I was about a hundred yards from the house, I sat down on an old overturned skiff that was tethered to a rusty pole stuck in the sand. It’d been there for as long as I could remember. When we were kids, Michael and I would paddle around in it, pretending we were marauding pirates, but to this day I have no idea who it belongs to. Probably no one.

I pulled out my cell phone. There were seven missed calls from Detective Carthage.

Ethan answered on the first ring.

“Dixie, the cops just called. Where are you?”

Keeping my voice to a whisper, I said, “I’m just down the beach from the house. Where are you?”

“I’m working late, but—”

I said, “Okay, listen, we need to talk.”

“You’re damn right we need to talk! The detective told me you just disappeared. What were you thinking?”

I said, “Okay, did he tell you what else happened?”

There was a pause. “Look, just stay where you are. I’ll be there in ten minutes, and we can figure it out.”

“No.” I shook my head. “There’s nothing to figure out. Somebody’s after me. They want to kill me, or terrify me, or just plain kill everybody around me. Either way, I can’t risk you or anybody else getting hurt too. I need to get as far away from here as possible.”

“Dixie, are you crazy? Just wait for me.”

“Ethan, no. I’ll be gone before you get here. It’s not safe. Promise me you won’t come.”

There was a long pause. “Okay. I promise.”

“And you have to get ahold of Michael and Paco and tell them everything. I don’t think it’s safe for anybody here.”

There was silence.

I said, “Did you hear me?”

“Yes, I’ll call them right now … but I don’t like this one bit.”

I said, “Me neither. You just have to trust I know what I’m doing.”

“Okay, I trust you. I really do. But where are you gonna go?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll call you when I get there.”

Before he could say another word, I snapped the phone shut and cringed. I hated hanging up on him, but he was right. I had no idea where I could go that was safe. All I knew was that whatever maniac was on my trail seemed to be constantly one step ahead. They’d known where I lived. They’d known I would be at Caroline’s house. They’d known I had an appointment with Elba Kramer.

But how?

I was still sitting on the edge of the boat in the dark, holding my cell phone. It was one of those old flip types, ancient by today’s standards. Ethan and Michael and Paco had been teasing me about it for years, but I’d stubbornly refused to exchange it for a more modern model, not only because I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Luddite when it comes to technology but also because it had originally belonged to Todd. I liked having it.

I looked down and turned it over a couple of times in my hand.

Was it possible someone was tracking my phone’s GPS signal? Were they using my phone to monitor my movement around the island? Or had they somehow listened in on my calls? I’d have thought that kind of thing would require some pretty sophisticated technical skills, or at least inside access to the phone company’s servers, but hacking is not exactly my field of expertise. For all I knew, anybody with half a brain and a fourth-grade education could pull it off.

I glanced up at the darkened ocean, its gentle waves twinkling in the moonlight like a field of fireflies.

“Huh.”

I stood up and flipped the boat over. The inside was covered in rust and filled with old cobwebs. Lashed to the seat was an old wooden oar that looked like it might fall apart if you touched it. In fact, I wondered if the whole boat wouldn’t break into pieces and sink the moment I put it in the water.

Well, I thought as I kicked off my shoes. There’s only one way to find out.

I dragged it across the sand into the surf until the waves were lapping at my knees and the boat was gently swaying up and down. Miraculously, it seemed more or less seaworthy. I untied the oar and used the frayed rope to secure my phone to the seat deck as snugly as possible—I didn’t want it to get thrown overboard if the waves got too rough—and then, without even the slightest nod to what surely would feel like a ceremonious occasion later, I gave the boat a good shove.

All the way to the house, I watched over my shoulder as the waves gently ferried it out into the darkness.

23

It’s strange …

I don’t consider myself to be particularly plugged into the modern world. I still have a rotary phone on my desk along with one of those old digital answering machines. I don’t have a Facebook account or, for that matter, a computer (shocking, I know), and I don’t tweet, poke, like, or click … ever. I’m totally fine with it. But as I made my way down the beach in the dark, with Todd’s old cell phone drifting out to sea behind me, I felt completely, thoroughly, inevitably … alone.

It wasn’t an altogether unpleasant feeling, though. In fact, for the first time in days, I felt like I was in complete control of my own world. If it was true that somebody was tracking my cell phone’s position, they’d think I was headed out into the Gulf right now, drifting to Mexico or Texas or wherever the waves wanted to carry that boat. Of course, it was entirely possible they’d carry the damn thing right back to shore, but I tried not to think about that. At least now I had time to make a plan.

I hadn’t wanted to leave a trail leading away from my launching point, so I stayed knee-deep in the water, about a yard out from the edge, shuffling my feet in the sand to ward off stingrays and praying there were no jellyfish floating around. When I got even with the house, I walked backward out of the water until I reached the dunes, slipped my shoes back on, and then snuck through the woods. At the edge of the courtyard, I crouched down behind an old coco-plum bush and waited.