Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives

“A rosary pea.”

“Oh! I see you’ve been reading your book. You’re quite remarkable, aren’t you? Yes, a rosary pea. I knew from my wife that Mr. Hoskins never left the store without finishing off the chocolates in that bowl, so my plan was perfect. However, Mr. Vladim seems to have had a change of heart at the last minute. He apparently decided he’d rather die in a car crash than take part in a murder, and I imagine he thought he had thwarted my plan—for a bank robber, quite an honorable act when you think about it. But he didn’t die in that crash, did he?”

I just stared at him, dumbfounded.

“Miss Hemingway, your attention to detail is impressive, so I’m rather surprised you don’t remember me. I was there when you saved Mr. Vladim. I was right in front of you … in a black Cadillac…?”

As I stood there staring into his steel gray eyes, the barrel of the gun trembling in the space between us, a series of images played through my mind, like a montage in fast motion. The old woman in the Cadillac in front of me, her mannish jaw, her white gloves stretched over her hands, her perfectly coiffed hair like a wig, and that lavender scarf tied around her neck …

Mr. Silverthorn seemed to be a man of more than a few disguises.

He shifted the gun from one hand to the other, and even in the low light I could tell it was fitted with a small, cylindrical piece of metal … a silencer.

He nodded at the bag of chocolates in my hand. “I assumed those chocolates were destroyed in the fire, but apparently he put them in your bag at some point. He’s a smart fellow. I should have known. He probably thought they could be used to incriminate me.”

I shook my head and tried to concentrate. “Why drag him into it at all?”

“Culpability, Miss Hemingway. Had everything gone as planned, I knew the police would scan the footage from that webcam across the street, and they would have seen Vladim entering the store. Once I’d turned him in, it would only have been a matter of time before they traced the poisoned chocolate to our kitchen, where Janet prepares our meals. Then they would have found the cash from Mr. Hoskins’s register, the cash that I had hidden somewhere in Vladim’s bedroom.”

I closed my eyes and slowly shook my head. He had probably asked Janet to make the chocolates. Either she’d put the rosary peas in herself or he had added them later. Either way, the whole time Vladim and Janet had been working for Mr. Silverthorn, they’d been afraid he would turn them in to the police, and here he’d planned on doing exactly that, and framing them for the murder of Mr. Hoskins on top of it.

I said, “You’ve forgotten one thing, Mr. Silverthorn.”

“What is that?”

“You have no power over Mr. Vladim now. The police have identified him. When he’s well enough he’ll go to trial, and I imagine they’ll be very happy to give him a lighter sentence in exchange for the story he’ll tell about you.”

“Yes, I’ve considered that possibility already. I’ll be paying Mr. Vladim a visit as soon as I leave here.”

My heart stopped. “No. You’ll be caught. They’ll figure it out.”

“I appreciate your concern, but they won’t. I wasn’t seen going in or leaving the bookstore, and I didn’t touch a thing without gloves on, so there are no fingerprints. And with no one left to testify otherwise, I’ll be quite fine.”

His words were confident and assured, but I could see he was still trembling, and there was fear in his voice. I was certain he never thought it would come to this, and in spite of myself I felt a momentary pang of sorrow for him.

I shook my head. “Mr. Silverthorn, is this really the story you want to be told about you?”

His eyes softened. “My dear, the story ends here.”

I saw the blast more than felt it. A small flash of light. I remember thinking of the brilliant shade of yellow the sun turns as it dips its hazy edge into the sea, and as my head hit the pavement, I thought of Cosmo. It’s funny how the mind works. I thought to myself, Now I’ll never catch him.

I lay there on my back and listened to the clicking of Mr. Silverthorn’s footsteps receding in the distance, and then shortly thereafter the low rumble of a car starting up and speeding out of the alley.

I waited.

There wasn’t any pain, just a vague and distant ache in the back of my head where it hit the concrete, and then a strange feeling of pressure on my sternum. The pressure shifted slightly, and I opened my eyes. At that point, I was certain it was a dream. There, in the center of my chest, was a big fluffy orange cat, sitting primly and looking down on me with a slightly curious expression in his deep green eyes.

I whispered, “Cosmo?”

He purred gently and his eyes narrowed, as if to say, “Pleased to meet you.”

A tiny smile played across my lips. “Likewise.”

As slowly as possible, I inched my left hand down along the concrete and eased my cell phone out of my side pocket. When she didn’t answer at first, my heart started racing, but luckily, after the third ring, the line clicked and I heard McKenzie’s familiar voice. “Dixie?”

I tried to keep myself as calm as possible, but my voice was shaky. I said, “Samantha?”

There was a pause. “Dixie, what’s wrong?”

I took a deep breath, “Mr. Silverthorn killed Mr. Hoskins. And he’s on his way to the hospital right now to kill Vladim, the bank robber I pulled out of that car crash.”

I heard a sharp intake of breath. She said, “Where are you?”

“I’m in the alley behind the bookstore. He just left me. If you go now you’ll get to the hospital before him. Sarasota Memorial Hospital. And I think he might be dressed up like an old woman.”

“An old woman?”

“Like the old woman in the video.”

“Dixie, what—”

I interrupted. “You have to trust me this time.”

There was a pause. “I’m sending my men to the hospital now. Are you sure you’re okay?”

I said, “I’m sure,” and then I just clicked the phone off. I didn’t think there was much more to say.

I lay there and watched the stars overhead pull in and out of focus. It was completely quiet, except I thought I could just make out the gentle hum of the ocean and the rhythmic song of its waves rolling in to shore, the song I’ve heard my whole life. In a little while I started to shiver slightly, and I could feel my hands and feet beginning to turn cold.

As gently as possible, I eased myself up on my elbows and slowly turned my head over to my left shoulder. In the bunched black fabric of Ethan’s big hoodie were two burned, dime-sized holes, one where the bullet went in, and another where it went out.

It had completely missed me.

29

For a long time, longer than I care to admit, I dreamed about Christy every night. I’d dream I was tucking her in at bedtime, or cleaning her Popsicle-stained fingers with a warm washcloth … just little things, little moments that either did or didn’t actually happen. She was always giggling and happy. She’d tell me not to be sad, because even though she was gone, she was always with me. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and chase after the scattering remnants of those dreams, like dissolving vapor trails from a jet plane.

Most mornings I’d have her clothes for the day neatly laid out on her bed, but she’d paw through all the closets like a wild animal and come downstairs in an outfit of her own making—one of my T-shirts over a sundress with baggy leggings and oversized sunglasses, or a fluffy pink tutu over faded jeans with one of Todd’s ties draped casually around her neck.

As I drove home through the darkened, moonlit streets of Siesta Key with all the windows open and the cool, salty air streaming through the Bronco, I thought about Baldy and Janet, driving across Texas and holding up banks to save their child. I couldn’t exactly condone what they’d done, but I certainly understood it. If I’d been given half a chance to save Christy, nothing could have stopped me.