Carole douglas - Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt

"Ah, but they did." Matt ignored Max's gibe at his own state of possible virginity. "That's what I'm trying to get at. You were so hurt by your cousin's death that you broke off the relationship."

"Guilt."

"You turned your political sympathies inside out to pursue a course in reckless revenge that would have easily gotten another boy killed. I suppose your magic training made you more formidable for your age."

"I suppose. Look, the problem is not the past. That's. . . dead and gone. The problem is Kitty now. Why she targeted you and Temple. Where she is. What side she's hiding behind now. It's ridiculous to say she betrayed Sean. I did it, with my horny little hormones. I learned to live with that a long time ago. She was just the means and the opportunity."

Matt shook his head. "I don't think so. The woman I met was lethal. She didn't get that way overnight. Whatever cause she pretends to serve, and may actually believe she does serve, her real motives are more complex than geopolitical agendas. They are deep-down and personal and you're the key. I think she killed your cousin, indirectly, but as surely as if she'd built the bomb."

"But why?"

"Because she needs to wreak the most damage possible. Which is why I was attacked and Temple was taken. She's found you again. And she is out to make you pay. 'Remember me, you bastard.' That's what she said as she simultaneously kissed me and cut me. I think she was talking to you."

"She said that to you ?"

Temple sat wide-eyed, like an audience, as these two men who competed for a woman--

her, omigosh, not Kathleen but her-- also competed for a piece of another woman's enmity.

Matt nodded. "I couldn't figure out why it all seemed so personal, but it's obvious now that her personal issues are with you, and that, as before, she'll try to get at you through those around you."

"But . . . why? Why hate me so much? I . . . Sean and I, we thought we were in love with her.

We were high on Ireland and noble causes and a beautiful girl who seemed to be part of it all.

Maybe we were selfish in our infatuation, but we were basically innocent, stupid kids.-Why hate us?"

"Maybe because you were so innocent." Matt pushed away the sketch of Kitty, as if disowning it, as if renouncing the fact that it came from his mind and memory. "All I'm saying is that I don't think she'll go away, and I don't think any one of us is safe with her around." He glanced at Midnight Louie still claiming his substantial portion of the coffee table. "Not even Louie."

Temple could be silent no longer. "You mean she'd even hurt a cat?"

"Especially a cat," Matt said soberly. "The more innocent the victim--the more helpless--

the better."

"You make her sound like a monster," Max objected.

Matt's brown eyes were darkly serious. "You haven't encountered her in, what, fifteen years? I thought I had met a demon."

"Surely you exaggerate."

"No, I don't think I do."

Max buried his face in his hands. "Jesus. I was so close to getting away from that life. And now you're saying that one girl from sixteen years ago has become a vengeance machine, when she actually wronged me far more than I could have ever wronged her? It doesn't make sense."

"It won't until we know why."

"I don't want to know why. I want it to stop."

Matt shrugged. "It won't until we know why. You need to trace her, from then to now. You must have connections."

"I do. If I have anything, it's connections. But she'd dropped out of sight very effectively for well over a decade."

"Tells you something, doesn't it?" Matt stood. "Meanwhile, we'll have to watch ourselves.

And each other."

Max's gaze snapped up to his face. "Maybe that's her revenge. Forcing us to depend on each other."

Matt nodded. "No Exit. By Jean Paul Sartre. Recommended reading." He picked up the sketch. "I suppose you both should have a copy of this." He glanced ironically at Temple. "This time I'll have the copy place only reduce it to half-size. I don't suppose we want to spread wallet-size copies of this around. Might tip off Molina."

Temple had to jar herself alert to catch up with Matt before he got out the door.

"Thanks for sharing this bombshell with Max. I guess. We need to know. I didn't know what she did and said when she hurt you. That's so sick. . . ."

"You don't want to fall into the hands of her henchmen again." His hands tightened on her elbows. "I mean it, Temple. Be on guard for your life. If he doesn't think of it, it might be best to

... disassociate."

"I can't. Especially not now. Besides, Max is trained in stuff like this. But thanks for thinking of me." She lifted up to kiss him. "Remember me," she said.

The kiss didn't start anything, but it didn't end anything either.

Her life lately, Temple thought as she returned from seeing Matt out, was becoming an eternal ellipsis. Dots, trailing off to uncertainty, like unending sentences . ..

Max was still sitting midsofa, absently patting Midnight Louie's head. The cat was so apparently taken aback by this liberty that he tolerated it.

"Hurt Louie?" Temple sat down beside Max.

"He was taken too. Devine is right. Warnings. And I didn't want to see them. Dammit, I wanted all the past connections to be less of a problem, not more."

"It's not your fault."

"No, on the surface, nothing has been my fault. But it always feels like all of it has been."

"Well, why not? You were brought up in the Church of Mea Maximus Culpa too."

" 'My most grievous fault'... haven't thought of that old childhood Latin in years. Is Devine turning you away from the Unitarian Church?"

"I was already turned. Too wishy-washy. No searing, impossible moral dilemmas. Obviously, a totally sissy faith."

Max laughed and leaned back in the sofa pillows, sighing. "You certainly got a tawdry glimpse into my sixteenth summer."

"I think you've paid enough penance by now for getting laid, even for a Catholic boy."

"I hate to think he's right."

"But you do."

"I do. And I hate* like hell to think he came to harm at her hands because of me. It makes it harder to dislike him."

"Do you have to dislike him?"

Max watched her through the disguising green contact lenses, which only changed surface color, after all, not expression or emotion. "Yeah. He likes you too much, and vice versa. I can't believe I'm back in the past, only now I know enough to worry about something happening to him. If it did, we'd never be the same again, Temple."

"Poor Max. Now you've got three people to look after."

"Four," he added, frowning mockingly at Midnight Louie. "If anything happened to that cat, you'd really never forgive me."

"I did notice that you sprung him first."

"That's because he yells louder than you do."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah."

Max pulled her into an encompassing embrace. "So. We have to fight to survive physically as well as emotionally. So what's new under the empyrean? I wonder if I could use Molina's obsession to tack something prosecutable onto me to help me flush out Kathleen. Or Kitty, as she calls herself now. You realize that Molina had us tailed when we left the truck stop, so to speak."

"Tailed? Molina?"

"I bet she wants to find me almost as bad as Miss Kitty. It's heads or tails which is the more serious stalker. But don't worry, love. I ditched Molina's man, and I can outmaneuver Kitty the Cutter too."

Temple shivered in his arms. "Life is getting too complex, Max."

"So is death, my love. So is death."

Chapter 51

Louie Takes Stock

What a miserable kettle of carp this is!

I hear it all with my own two ears, which have been fanning this way and that to catch every tidbit of meaning that was passed out over the appetizing image of Miss Kitty the Cutter O'Connor. She is certainly an object lesson on the fact that a beautiful visage can hide a shrunken soul. I am also thinking of the svelte but treacherous Hyacinth. No doubt she will be as vengeful as Miss Kitty when she realizes that she has forever lost the sensual services of the only feline sleuth in Las Vegas who is licensed to thrill without any untoward aftereffects, like kitty litters.