Kelly, Sofie - Sleight of Paw

“I promise I won’t walk up to Hardwood Ridge,” I said solemnly.

“Fine. I’ll talk to you later.”

I hung up the phone. Two furry faces were at my feet glaring at me. “Don’t look at me like that,” I said. “I told Maggie the truth. I’m not going to walk up to Hardwood Ridge.” I gave them the Mr. Spock eyebrow. “I’m going to drive.”

Both cats followed me downstairs. Ruby had said Justin was going to be in Minneapolis for a couple of days. Now was my chance to look for the truck.

I got my old jacket and snow pants from the closet, pulled on an extra pair of heavy socks and got my big boots. As I put on the snow pants I looked up to see both cats standing by the messenger bag.

“No, no, no,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t take you with me.” They exchanged some kind of wordless cat telepathy. Then Hercules walked over to me while Owen used a paw to push open the top of the bag and climb in. “Very funny, Owen,” I said. “But when I said ‘I can’t take you with me’ I meant ‘I can’t take either of you with me.’ ”

Owen gave a snippy meow and pulled his head down inside the bag. I finished putting on my things, put my wallet and phone in my pocket. And started out. Hercules stepped in front of me. I moved to go around him and he did it again. This time with a loud yowl.

“What do you want?” I growled. He looked over at the bag. “I’m not taking Owen. All I’m going to do is look for the truck. That’s all.”

I went to step over him and he darted backward so quickly I almost fell trying not to step on him. “You’re crazy,” I said in frustration. “Both of you are crazy, and you’re making me crazy because I’m standing in the middle of my kitchen in twenty pounds of clothes, arguing with one cat about another.”

I stalked over to the bag and grabbed the strap. “Happy?” I snapped. A small meow came from inside.

There was a flashlight on the floor by the vent. I’d used it when the bulb had burned out in the porch light. I picked it up and slipped it into the bag next to the cat. “Here, hold this,” I said.

Inside the truck I slid the messenger bag along the seat. Owen immediately climbed out and put his paws on the door to look out the window. I leaned over to double-check that the door was locked, and I set the bag on the floor.

“I take it you’re riding shotgun,” I said. His response was to come back over, sit angelically on the seat and look straight ahead.

I started the truck, backed out of the driveway and headed for the highway, hoping the same karma that had given me a truck on the one day I really needed it would also help me find another truck.

I overshot the road to the camp the first time and had to turn around in the bar’s empty parking lot. We bounced over the icy ruts and a wide-eyed Owen went sliding across the seat. I thought I was on the wrong road and was about to give up and try to turn around when I spotted the handmade sign with an arrow pointing down a dirt track nailed to the tree.

I stopped in the road—there was no one behind us—and looked down the trail. It was plowed, but I didn’t dare chance getting stuck. “We’ll go up there and turn around,” I said to the cat, pointing to the slight rise ahead. “And I’ll be able to pull off to the side.”

So we did that. I got the truck off the road as far as I could. “What are the chances of you staying here?” I asked Owen. He jumped off the seat and dove into the bag. About what I had figured.

I picked up the bag, locked the truck and made my way to the turn off. One benefit of the cold temperatures was that the road was dry and frozen, although the ruts were more like trenches.

I stayed close to the edge just in case someone did start down, although I couldn’t see who would. Justin was the only person working out here and he was in Minneapolis.

The road cut into the woods in a slow arc, coming out into a cleared area amid the trees. There was a small log cabin and in back of it, off to one side, some kind of old metal-sided storage building

No one was there. I walked slowly around the cabin. The truck was behind the storage shed. Justin hadn’t even made the effort to hide it. I wasn’t sure if it was stupidity or arrogance.

I didn’t touch the truck, but even from a distance I could see the broken headlight and the front-end damage. It looked exactly like Ruby’s truck, even more so than the truck Harry had loaned to me, which had the primed replacement fender. This truck was dented and dirty and old.

“We got it,” I said to Owen. I pulled out my cell phone and took three pictures of the front of the truck. Then I called Marcus’s number. Nothing happened. I looked at the phone. The reception was almost nonexistent. I’d have to walk back out to the road and try there. I slung the bag back onto my shoulder and started around the building, past the cabin. Something stopped me.

Justin had killed Agatha. Had he taken the envelope? Whatever documents Agatha had in the old brown envelope could be Harry’s only chance to find his daughter. And as soon as the police came to the cabin the envelope would be part of the investigation and anything inside would be off-limits.

“We have to take a look inside the cabin,” I said to Owen. “If Justin has that envelope . . .”

The question was, How was I going to get inside? The answer was apparent as soon as I walked closer to the back door of the log cabin.

The back door was fastened with an old-fashioned padlock. I could pick a padlock in my sleep. It was one of the many skills I’d learned hanging around backstage at all those theaters my parents had performed at, along with street hockey, counting cards and a pretty decent fake British accent.

I hesitated. No matter how good my motives were, I was still breaking into Justin’s place. I remembered Agatha’s body, lying crumpled in the alley while tears slid down Ruby’s face. I swallowed and fished in my pockets. There was a paperclip in my jeans and another in my coat, along with Roma’s roll of duct tape that I kept forgetting to give back to her.

The back door opened into the kitchen. There was a small, round table with two chairs against the back wall, squeezed in between the refrigerator and a propane stove. Justin was clearly not spending much time at the cabin. There was nothing on the old wooden table. I checked the drawers and cupboards.

Nothing. I stepped out of my boots and went into the next room.

A sofa was against the end wall in the living room, along with a rocking chair and a banged-up rolltop desk. I went through everything on the desk, checking each piece of paper. All of it had something to do with the camp. Maybe Justin didn’t have the envelope. Maybe it really was gone.

There was one more room. The bedroom. The only things in the room were a mattress and box spring on a metal frame. There was no sign of the envelope.

Unless . . .

“What do you think?” I said to Owen, setting the bag on the floor. I lifted the edge of the tan blanket and slipped my hand between the mattress and box spring. Please don’t let me feel anything creepy, I thought.

The envelope was at the top edge of the bed. My hand shook as I slid it free. I did a little fist pump in the air and grabbed the messenger bag.

“Let’s go call Marcus,” I said to Owen.

I stepped into the other room just as Justin came through the front door.

“What are you doing here?” he said.

I slipped the hand with the envelope behind my back and pasted a smile, albeit a fake one, on my face. “Oh, good. You are here,” I said. “I’m sorry for just walking in, but the door was open and I’ve been looking for you.” I held the envelope against my back with my index finger and tried to use my thumb and middle finger to fish out some of the papers.