Unknown - Cat_shining_bright_Merfi_630007

Yawning, knowing that Striker and Buffin were safe, he wondered again what had awakened him—then he was sharply alert thinking of the stakeout, of Wilma’s house empty but not empty, police moving unseen through the shadows of Wilma’s neighborhood, Jimmie McFarland dozing fully dressed atop Wilma’s bed with the light on as if Wilma were reading. Jimmie in dark sweats, soft shoes, gun, holster, radio …

Carefully Joe eased out from beside Dulcie and slid to the floor. When Rock raised his head, bumping against the closed door, Joe gave him that be quiet look. But Rock didn’t need it, he was as silent and alert as if he, too, were off to track a felon.

Joe shook his head. “You need to stay here.” He nudged Rock gently until the Weimaraner slid over a few inches, easing Snowball with him. Joe pulled the door open with his claws, gave Rock another look that told him to stay, and slipped through.

He trotted softly up the stairs, hopped up quietly on Clyde’s desk, leaped noiselessly to the rafter and out his cat door. Nudging open a window he hit the roof and took off running. He didn’t hear a sound behind him, heard no stir of soft paws in the fitful breeze as Courtney followed her daddy—and as Dulcie, angry at them both, raced to catch up, both females staying to the shadows, silent as velvet.

Jimmie McFarland woke as disoriented as Joe Grey—but only for a second. He sat up wide awake, swinging his feet noiselessly to the floor, hand on his holstered gun, listening.

He could hear a thief rummaging the house, moving the couch out from the wall, the hush of books being shuffled back and forth in the bookshelves, of the desk drawers opening. He listened to the prowler search the dining room, the buffet and china cabinet. The kitchen and refrigerator took a long time as he tried not to rattle the dishes and pots and pans. He went through the laundry, Jimmie heard him open the freezer, after a few minutes closing it again. Heard him move the washer and dryer as if to look behind them. Heard him come down the hall, check out the guest bath, then open the linen closet, listened to the soft hush as he shuffled towels and sheets. Then the thief was in the guest room.

The faint sounds of drawers opening, of bedding being tossed aside, of the bed being moved, perhaps so he could look at the back of the headboard. When Jimmie heard the closet door slide open he silently turned the lock on his own door, the heavy bolt that had been installed and oiled the night before.

Moving soundlessly down the hall, he heard the boxes on the shelves being shoved aside—then, a second too late, heard the guest room window slide open, heard the guy hit the ground running. Jimmie was down the hall, through the window after him, racing between the line of neighbors’ garages and the rising hill, moving south, half his thoughts on the two officers working the street, wondering where they were. Tall, big-handed Crowley, six feet four, could pick the thief up like a rag doll if he caught him. Portly Brennan was slower, but tough, and reliable with a gun.

He hadn’t stopped to see if the book was missing, he knew it would be. The guy running between the hill and the garages stopped sometimes as if to listen. Yes, as he fled again, a gleam of moonlight caught the corner of the package. Same size, same pale color like brown wrapping paper. Strange he didn’t climb the hill—except he’d make a perfect target against the moon-pale grass. The moon hung low in the west, hitting the hill, leaving the yards dark. Beyond Wilma’s, the houses were close together. The runner paused at each narrow, dark side yard then went on, dodging bushes and trees. Suddenly he vanished. No sound, no movement in the shadows.

Jimmie used his flashlight, shining it into the narrow yards, into the crowded shrubbery. He was about to double back when he heard someone running again, and then two men …

He knew Crowley’s footfall. He heard the faintest hush of a door closing. Crowley stopped, they both stood still, one at each end of a narrow yard, listening, the faintest streak of moonlight touching Crowley’s cap where he stood by the corner of the garage; the walk-in door was halfway between them.

When there was no more sound, when they shone their lights around the door and into the shrubbery there were only empty shadows. Jimmie flashed his light once, then covered his tall partner while Crowley, wearing gloves, tried the door.

It was locked.

Moments earlier when Wilma’s stalker had slipped out the guest room window carrying the box, he heard McFarland come out behind him. He knew there’d be other cops. Earlier, he had jimmied the lock of one of the garages down the row—when he heard McFarland drawing too near then heard a second man running, he eased open the door, slipped in, locked it from inside. He heard them try the door, fiddle with the lock, then soon they moved on down the row of houses, one at each end of the side yards.

The garage was neat and uncluttered. Low moonlight shone through the narrow, obscure glass in the big double door. There were two cars, both of them unlocked. Silently rummaging, he found little of value in the Ford Taurus.

In the black Mercedes he found, shoved back under a tangle of pamphlets in the glove compartment, the concierge key on a big ring. People were so stupid. They hid, or thought they had hidden, the nonelectronic model so when they went out to dinner or to a hotel they could give the attendant only the car key, no opening codes, no handy house key attached. He was thinking about starting the engine, opening the garage fast and taking off, when he heard a car start up the street, heard it move away south. A quiet, heavy vehicle that could be a cop car.

Quickly he left the garage, he couldn’t lock the side door behind him but the cops had already checked it. Slipping away, keeping to the shadows, he was lucky this time, the patrol car had gone on.

Moving fast and silently along the dirt path, he hustled down the last four blocks to the little corner grocery. He stepped behind it into the narrow strip of woods that separated it from the motel above and from Ocean Avenue. There were two homeless men asleep between the pines. They didn’t wake. The grocery’s little parking lot, which opened to the cross street, was empty. Staying beneath the bordering trees, he watched for the dark SUV that would pick him up. He had no notion that he was stalked by more than cops. When he heard a car coming he was prepared to race to it—until he saw the cop car behind it, and backed deeper into the woods. It wasn’t his ride anyway, but a white minivan.

Dulcie, running shoulder to shoulder with Courtney, didn’t say a word to her. She couldn’t talk, with cops down there on the street, and if she did speak, she didn’t know what would come out; she didn’t want this to end in a spitting match—she was so mad at Courtney for following Joe that she wanted to smack the headstrong kitten.

But Courtney had only meant to help her daddy. The calico’s busy paws tore across the shingles, her determined little face so coldly serious that Dulcie couldn’t scold her. They had crossed Ocean Avenue under dark trees, well behind Joe. There was no traffic. They climbed a vine silently and hit the roofs again. They were on the shop next to the little corner grocery when suddenly ahead of them Joe stopped. Dulcie and Courtney froze.

But he hadn’t seen them, he was peering over the roof’s edge where trees lined the market’s parking lot, intent on a man hidden in the trees’ shadows. When the figure heard a car coming he moved out among the row of trees that led to the street. Dulcie could barely make out his long thin face. He carried the box, wrapped in paper. He stepped back when a minivan passed below, moving slowly. A cop car followed it.