Unknown - Cat_shining_bright_Merfi_630007

“You know a lot about them,” he said, watching her.

“I’ve read a lot about ferals. And I know one thing, no cat wants to hunt down there at Voletta’s, intently stalking a rabbit hole, when that bad-tempered donkey and those three billy goats might come charging down on them.” She was interested that he cared, that he had thought about the cats’ fear of the workmen and heavy equipment—but then he startled her sharply:

“Wilma says there are pictures in the library of feral cats centuries ago. Pictures that look just like Dulcie’s calico kitten. I told her, that seems pretty strange. Wilma said it must be some special breed of that time, that the kitten is some kind of throwback.”

“Could be,” she said. “Genetics is a complicated science, I don’t begin to understand it all.”

“Pedric has seen the pictures. He thinks that kitten has been reincarnated,” Scotty said, smiling. “That’s his Scots-Irish blood, Pedric loves the old, mythic tales—we Scots are all storytellers.”

“Are you a storyteller?”

“I can’t make up the wild tales that Pedric does,” he said easily. But Kate wished, oh how she wished, that Scotty could believe those ancient stories—that he could believe all the wonders that surrounded him right here and right now, miracles that she knew to be true.

12

The stalker returned to Wilma’s the next night. This time he didn’t just watch her house, nor had he followed her as she shopped. He had waited out in the night until he was sure she slept, waited long after the reading light went out in her bedroom, until the house was dark.

Wilma and Dulcie and the kittens were sound asleep, tangled together in the double bed, Courtney’s paws in Wilma’s hair, Dulcie’s head on Wilma’s shoulder. Buffin was snuggled close to Striker, who was curled around his bandaged paw to protect it. Striker was the first to wake, raising his head, softly hissing. “There’s a noise. Someone …”

Wilma sat up, listening. Dulcie reared up beside her. “Someone’s out there,” the tabby whispered. They all could hear scraping noises at the front window. Dulcie slipped off the bed, stood tall on her hind paws, her tail twitching, her ears sharp. The kittens slid stealthily down beside her, everyone listening.

But now there was no sound. Only silence.

Then the sudden sharp clink of shattering glass.

In a moment they heard the front window slide open, then another sliding noise as if someone was climbing in over the sill.

Quietly Wilma rose, pulled on her robe, lifted her revolver from the nightstand, unholstered it, and slipped it in her pocket. The kittens watched her wide-eyed. Without a sound she opened the bedroom window and silently slid back the screen. She motioned the four cats through—but Dulcie didn’t want to leave her.

“Go,” Wilma said softly. “Go now. Up to the neighbor’s roof, out of the way in case of gunfire.”

Dulcie just looked at her. Wilma picked her up forcefully and dropped her out the window, down among the waiting kittens. Thin light from a quarter moon followed the cats as they climbed the neighbor’s honeysuckle vine. When they were gone, safe on the roof, Wilma crouched by the bed, her voice muffled by its bulk and covers, and softly called 911. Then she moved to the bedroom door listening.

The invader was in the living room, trying to open desk drawers. She heard him try the large, locked file drawers first, then pull the small drawers open, heard him rummaging as if he might be looking for the file-drawer key. But why, what did he think she had? She had nothing of real value that she’d ever kept in the house—well, except the Thomas Bewick book, the rare collector’s volume that she had at one time hidden in the secret compartment behind the files in the locked drawer. The book that she and Charlie had dug from among the Pamillon ruins.

But how would a burglar know about that? Or know its value? No one knew about the Bewick book except her closest friends. If that was Calvin Alderson’s son out there, the young man who had been watching her, how could he know about the handmade, one-of-a-kind volume that they’d found on the estate? What connection could Rick Alderson, or his father, have had to the Pamillons?

How could he know about that one volume printed differently from the rest of the edition, the one book that because of what the author had added to it, held a secret that must never be told? A book that, despite its considerable value, she had at last destroyed? How would he know any of the Pamillon secrets?

Quietly she slid the bedroom door open and moved down the hall toward the living room. Across the room he was still rummaging at the desk, his back to her. She watched him trying to jimmy the file lock on her nice cherry desk and that made her mad. “Stand up,” she said, cocking the revolver. “Turn around, hands laced on top of your head.”

He spun around, staring at the gun. A slim man. In the dark, backlighted by faint moonlight, she couldn’t see his face but it was the same man, the same wide, slanted shoulders, exactly like Calvin Alderson twenty years ago. Seeing the cocked gun in her steady grip he was still for only a second then spun around grabbing at the front door, turning the lock, jerking it open, and was gone. In that second she could have fired, could easily have killed him.

She let the hammer down slowly. She heard his footsteps pounding down the walk, then heard a car take off. Quickly she found a tissue, put it over her hand to open the door. She ran, chasing the car … a pale SUV. What make? She couldn’t tell. Nor, in the faint moonlight, could she see the license number. She was shocked to see Dulcie chasing it, too, running down the street. Oh, Dulcie! She was half angry, half filled with love to see Dulcie’s dangerous, insane effort. When the brown tabby at last lost the car and returned, Wilma grabbed her up, hugging her.

“It was a Subaru,” Dulcie said, “but I only got the first three numbers.” Wilma grabbed the desk phone and called back to the dispatcher. Then, carrying her gun cocked once more, she cleared the house, though she felt certain he’d been alone. When at last she let down the hammer and pocketed the weapon she picked Dulcie up again, hugging and loving her. “The kittens are still on the roof?”

“Yes,” Dulcie said. “What was he after? Why didn’t you shoot him?”

“He didn’t come at me or I would have. Think of all the legal fuss that would bring down on us, when he didn’t actually attack me.”

They waited sitting together until Officer McFarland arrived. A second squad car stopped briefly. From the driver’s seat, Officer Brennan asked her a few questions. He double-checked on the license, on the car’s description, then took off fast in the direction Wilma had seen the SUV disappear.

In the house, young Jimmie McFarland, clean-cut, short brown hair, looked the damage over carefully. He took a dozen photos, then began to scan for prints on the window casing, on the front door and knob, on the broken glass, the desk. Most were Wilma’s prints, some smeared as if with gloves. He did find a few additional prints where the invader had apparently taken off his gloves to manipulate the locks on the desk. It was the half-dozen white flecks on the oriental rug near the desk that interested him most. “What are these?”

Kneeling to look, Wilma shook her head. McFarland picked them up with a needle, searched the rest of the room for more. He found one speck caught on the concrete step where it joined the doorsill, he put them all in a small plastic bottle and dropped it in his pocket.

“They look,” Wilma said, “like bits of Styrofoam packing. Could they have been caught in his shoes?”