Unknown - Cat_shining_bright_Merfi_630007

“Of course,” Wilma said coolly, pushing back her gray-white ponytail, frowning back at him as he turned onto the freeway.

“Ryan?” he said.

“Yes,” she told him, slipping an automatic and a shoulder holster from her handbag, buckling on the holster then pulling on her jacket.

Kit crowded onto Wilma’s shoulder, looking out the window, prayed the cops were ahead of them, already cornering the SUV. What if the dark car had turned off and somehow evaded the patrol cars? “Oh hurry, Clyde. Please hurry.”

“Driving as fast as I dare,” he snapped; he seldom snapped at Kit. The speedometer said eighty-five. “If we get a cop on our tail, it’ll only slow us down, trying to explain.”

When Kit looked at Pan, he was as nervous as she. She thought of the SUV’s tires that smelled of Voletta’s place. Could they be headed there?

Did they mean to take the book there to Voletta? Who else would know about a hidden book removed from the Pamillon mansion, who else but a Pamillon? Who else would have sent someone to steal it back? None of the family lived anywhere near nor seemed interested in anything about the old place, even Voletta’s niece, and she hadn’t been there often before her aunt got hurt. And if Voletta had hired those men, what was the relationship between them, that she would trust them to bring her the book?

Could Kit’s wild guess about the smells be right? Garlic, eucalyptus, and geranium, growing thick around the old barn. She prayed to the great cat god that her hunch was on target, that the crooks were headed there with their unknown captives, prayed as hard as a little cat can that Joe and Dulcie and Courtney would escape safely.

19

Something woke Kate. She glanced through the bedroom door to the shelter office and caught her breath. A dark figure stood at the window silhouetted by bright lights. Then she saw it was Scotty.

The bedside clock said 3 a.m. Pulling on her robe, she went to stand beside him. Below the shelter and the Pamillon ruins, a pool of light shone across Voletta’s yard, a wider circle than the porch light could ever make.

The wide, weedy yard was full of cars. Three darkly clad figures were pulling cars out of the old barn, lining them up facing the road. Most of them were new or late models, shining in the floodlights.

Only a few days ago the barn had been empty, she had seen Lena open it to get a length of hose. Just a few bales of hay in there, some farm tools and ladders. A couple of dusty trailers pulled in, at the far corner. Now, watching with disbelief, she looked up at Scotty. “Not the stolen cars! Here in Voletta’s yard! This can’t be part of the car ring!”

“I’ve already called the department.” Scotty, feeling her shiver, pulled her closer, his arm warm around her. “Where else would those cars come from?”

“But that gang isn’t working the village now. That night when the wind was so bad was the last night. The paper said they’ve moved on, that they’re somewhere up the coast. Eureka, I think. And Voletta—how could that frail old woman be mixed up in a crime ring? That’s ludicrous.”

Scotty hugged her closer. “Looks like they’re using her place as a storage stop. They might bring cars from anywhere. Or these could be the Molena Point cars, they steal the cars in the village and hide them here. Move them later, during the time the gang has gone on up the coast, drawing more of the highway patrol with them. That means they have more crew than we thought.” He looked down at Kate. “How long has this been going on? Have you seen this before? Seen lights down there?”

“No. But I haven’t been staying up here long, just since we moved the cats in. And I don’t usually wake at three in the morning—not until the storm hit, and you were knocking on my door,” she said, coloring slightly. “I’m up at midnight to check on the kennel cats, then fall back asleep until about six.”

He stood thinking, his red hair and beard caught in the light from below. “How often did Lena visit her aunt, before Voletta was hurt and Lena moved in?”

“Every few weeks, I guess. I didn’t make a point to go down and visit with her,” she said coolly.

Scotty laughed. “No girly chats over a cup of tea?”

She made a face at him.

It was then that Ryan called to tell them about Joe and Dulcie and Courtney. “There may be a car headed to Voletta’s. We … Kate, if a dark SUV pulls in, it’s Wilma’s stalker and that heavyset man. We don’t know where they’re going, but Kit says the scent on the tires could lead there, to Voletta’s place. Joe and Dulcie and Courtney are trapped in that car.”

“Oh my God.”

“The cats dove in behind the driver’s seat. When it stops, see if you can delay the car, give them a chance to get out …”

Kate said, “Voletta’s yard is full of cars, men we’ve never seen are moving cars out of the old barn. These have to be the stolen cars. Scotty’s already called the department.”

When they’d hung up, Scotty, moving into the bedroom, pulled on his boots and a jacket over his sweats and hurried outside. “I’m going over to the mansion,” he said, “where I can see better.”

She watched him cross her freshly mown yard and then the tall grass of the berm that separated the shelter from the mansion. He stood just inside the missing wall of the living room, keeping to the shadows. She dressed quickly in a sweatshirt and jeans, strapped on her shoulder holster feeling slightly foolish, and pulled on a vest to conceal it. Better foolish than unprepared. Max had insisted she be armed when she moved up here alone. “You have your permit, Kate. Use it.” He didn’t know, then, nor had she, that she wouldn’t be alone. She was watching Scotty again when something pale moved beside him. One of the feral cats? Surprised, she watched him crouch and reach out to it.

The ferals never came that near strangers. Even when they watched Scotty working on that part of the house, they were shy and wary. Scotty wasn’t one of the inner circle, those few who knew the speaking cats’ secret. She stood frowning and puzzled.

Yesterday morning when she woke at five, Scotty had already eaten and left; the apartment smelled of coffee and fried eggs and bacon. In the tiny kitchen she’d found his dishes neatly washed, resting in the drainer. Looking out at the frost-pale lawn she had seen where his dark footprints had crushed the frost from the mowed grass; had seen the taller, wild grass of the verge falling aside where he had walked through. Maybe, she’d thought, he’d had some new thoughts about the work on the living room, maybe he had gone over to the worksite to consider some change?

But his footprints did not lead to the front of the house, they went toward the back of the old mansion. Dressing quickly, she had gone into the biggest shelter, down at the end, petting cats as she went and talking to them. Standing on a log that was part of a tall cat tree, she could see Scotty behind the old house at the edge of the small, sheltered patio that joined a large bedroom—the private little garden where, not long ago, Ryan and Wilma had found the Bewick book buried.

She had watched him kneel down. She had frozen with surprise when three of the feral cats came out of the bushes and fairly near to him, stood watching him, unafraid: pale Willow and Tansy, and dark tabby Coyote.

She could swear he was talking to them, trying to entice them closer to be petted, these wild cats who would have nothing to do with most humans.

Did the feral cats sense something in Scotty that made them trust him? Did they see a quality in him that drew them, maybe sense the old Scots-Irish traits that might be sympathetic to their own heritage? The cats did not move closer, they were still for a few moments, listening to him, studying him with interest—but then they turned away, almost as if something he’d said had startled them. They drifted back into the shadows and were gone—and within Kate something joyful had exploded, a hope that bubbled up fiercely and made her smile.