Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives

I zipped my backpack open and pawed through it, feeling around for my little plastic bag of cubed cheese, but of course with all the junk I carry around in there it wasn’t easy. I couldn’t very well use my tried and true method of dumping everything out and combing through it—that would have taken too long, and Mr. Silverthorn was waiting for me. Plus, no animal likes to be cornered. I knew Cosmo would eventually make a run for it given half a chance, and I could just see Mr. Silverthorn’s face when I explained why it took me so long to get to him.

I had worked my arm all the way down to the bottom of the backpack and was about to give up and dump the whole thing out in the street when finally my fingers slid across the crinkly plastic and my hand closed around the gumball-sized chunks of cheese inside. With a huge sigh of relief and a solemn promise to be less of a slob from now on, I wrestled the bag of treats out and stuffed it down in the pocket of my hoodie.

Even though the moon was casting a blue glow over the entire alley, it was dark. There was just one light on, midway down toward the north end, and I wondered why in the world Butch hadn’t at least kept his back light on so we could see what the heck we were doing. I was thinking I’d have to go back again and fish around in my backpack for my penlight when I heard a crunching sound behind me.

“Dixie? Is that you?”

I turned to find Mr. Silverthorn, about twenty feet past the butcher shop, his face illuminated with the light from his rusty old flashlight. “We’re over here.”

I let out a sigh of relief as I made my way to him. “I’m glad you thought to bring that flashlight. I left mine in the car.”

“Well, we may still need yours yet. The light on this one is getting dimmer and dimmer. I believe the batteries may be older than I am.”

I smiled. “Sorry it took me so long, I had a little trouble finding my cat treats.”

He directed the beam of the flashlight down a narrow loading area cut into one of the buildings, at the end of which was a metal Dumpster with what looked like a small tool shed to the left of it. “I think you’ll need them. He’s taken up a rather strong position there in the corner behind that shed. Nothing I say or do seems to have even the slightest effect on him, and I’m afraid I’m too old to crawl under there and grab him.”

I set the cat carrier down and patted the bag of treats in my pocket. “Hopefully we won’t need to crawl under there at all. Even the most stubborn cat can barely resist a piece of cheese.”

“Thank goodness you’re here, Miss Hemingway. And what a turn of luck that the butcher had your number.”

I nodded as I knelt down in front of the cat carrier. “I gave him my card and asked him to call me if he saw anything.”

“That was smart. He was surprisingly interested in the news that I’d found Cosmo, although he seems to have disappeared now.”

I opened up the front door of the carrier. “So if you can just stay close by with this, I’ll try to coax him out with the cheese, and if that doesn’t work and I can’t convince him to come out on his own, I’ll have to try to grab him. He won’t be one bit pleased with me if it comes to that, so the sooner I can get him in the carrier the better.”

He nodded firmly and handed me the flashlight as he picked up the carrier with both hands and readied himself. I had to smile. He seemed more than happy to follow orders, which shouldn’t have surprised me. If I lived with Mrs. Silverthorn I’d probably get used to following orders, too.

The flashlight was pretty dim, but I knew it was strong enough to do the trick, so I crouched down and directed its beam of light along the ground toward the back of the passageway and under the Dumpster. There, in the very back corner at the end of the shed, were two yellow points of light reflecting right back at me.

I whispered, “Mr. Cosmo, I presume?”

The two points of light blinked, and Mr. Silverthorn said, “Is it him?”

“I think so.”

I remembered Mrs. Silverthorn saying Cosmo wouldn’t answer to anything but his full name, but I had a feeling under these circumstances he might be willing to make an exception. I got down on my hands and knees and moved the light from side to side, but now he had turned his head in toward the corner. “I can’t see his face, but I see a lot of fluffy orange fur, and yep, I see a white-tipped tail.”

Mr. Silverthorn sighed with relief. “Oh, thank goodness! Mrs. Silverthorn will be so happy.”

I moved a little closer and lay down flat on the concrete so I could get a better reach. I knew the ground was probably filthy. Lucky for me I had Ethan’s black hoodie to cover my blouse, but my cream-colored capris would probably be ruined. I didn’t care. All I wanted to do was get Cosmo out of there as safely and quickly as possible.

Mr. Silverthorn said, “How does he look?”

I held the flashlight steady and reached down into my pocket to get a treat, working my fingers along the top of the plastic bag to pry it open. “He looks pretty well fed, actually, which may make this a little harder.” I extracted a cube of cheese between my thumb and forefinger and held it out in front of me, reaching under the Dumpster as far as my arm would go.

I said, “Cosmo … uh, I mean Moses Cosmo Thornwall, I know you’re probably quite satisfied with all those tasty scraps from Butch’s Dumpster, but I was just wondering if I might interest you in a little late-night snack of cheese…?”

For good measure I moved the flashlight over so Cosmo wasn’t blinded by the light, and then my jaw fell wide open.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

There, right in front of my face, was one of Mr. Hoskins’s chocolates, the ones he’d had in the bowl next to the register, the ones wrapped in shiny silver foil with red stripes. I could feel every neuron in my brain shifting into overdrive as I lay there in total silence, trying to explain it … trying to come up with some kind of reasonable explanation.

Mr. Silverthorn said, “Is everything alright?”

I blinked a couple of times. To be honest, I wasn’t sure. It felt like the entire alley was beginning to slowly spin around me. I guess under normal circumstances it wouldn’t have been that unusual to find one of Mr. Hoskins’s chocolates on the ground in the alley behind his store, but this was different. This particular chocolate wasn’t on the ground.

It was in my hand.

I was holding it between my thumb and forefinger.

I said, “I don’t know how this happened, but … I thought I had some cubes of cheese in my pocket, but I don’t. It’s chocolate.”

There was a pause. “Did you say chocolate?”

I instantly thought of Baldy … What you do with chocolate? I had just assumed he’d had a drug-induced dream, but was it possible that he was telling me the truth, that he had actually given me chocolate?

I pulled the plastic bag out of my pocket and pointed the flashlight at it. Sure enough, there were three other chocolates just like it inside. I shook my head. “I must have grabbed the wrong bag or something, but … I have no idea how I got them. They’re the same chocolates from the bookstore.”

I tried to think. I was certain that both times I had visited Baldy at the hospital, I’d left my backpack in the car. In fact, the only time my backpack had been anywhere near him was after the accident, when I’d put it down on the sidewalk next to him. Was it possible he’d secreted these chocolates in my bag when I wasn’t looking? And if so, why?

I heard Mr. Silverthorn take a couple of steps forward. “Here, I’ll take them. Unless this cat shares your weakness for chocolate, I’m afraid we’ll have to try something else.”