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“Can’t I stay?” Buffin said, looking up at Ryan and Clyde. “Just a few days? She hurts so bad. I don’t know how, I just know I help her. I can feel the change in her.”

“Could the kittens both stay?” Ryan said. “We could quarantine Joe and Rock at home, keep them away from Snowball, that would be easy.”

John said, “Snowball is due for her yearly exam and boosters. You could bring her in. If only Joe and Rock are at home, can you keep them away from other people, keep them confined in the house? It’s such a slim chance that the test will be positive.” He gave Joe Grey a hard look. “Would you promise to stay inside, away from other animals, away from Dulcie and Courtney?”

“I promise,” Joe said hastily, but with mixed feelings. Shut in the house for two days, hardly knowing what was going on in the world around him? Well hell, what choice did he have? Better that than a kennel.

Striker was just as dismayed. He wanted to be home, he wanted to run free, he wanted to wrestle with Courtney and, big tomcat that he was, he missed his mama—but he guessed he’d miss Buffin more, leaving him alone with just little Lolly. And he knew he’d miss the Firettis.

“I’ll stay,” Striker said. And as Joe Grey and Rock left the clinic, Rock prancing beside Clyde like a thief released from jail, and Joe resting in Ryan’s arms, Striker settled down in the big cage beside his brother and Lolly. And, Striker thought, I can run in the Firettis’ house at night, Mary and John don’t care. I can climb the furniture, leap on the bed—if I’m careful of my paw.

Riding home in the Jaguar, Joe Grey, warm in Ryan’s arms, was unusually silent. She frowned down at him. “It’s only two days. If we leave you alone in the house, Joe, you will do as the doctor told you?” He looked up at her innocently. They were just approaching home when Clyde’s phone buzzed. He clicked on the speaker so Joe could hear.

Dallas said, “We got our car thieves, all but one. It was some dustup. Two of their men were shot, but none of ours. Those two are in the infirmary in Salinas, the others in county jail. We lost Lena Borden—you did see her leave there with the cars?”

“We all saw her,” Clyde said. “Dark clothes, dark cap, but definitely Lena. Driving her old white Ford.”

“The Ford was there in the wreckers’ lot,” Dallas said, “with the other cars. She either ran from the scene when we showed, or had someone pick her up. We’re keeping Egan here, on charges of break and enter and theft. We’ll interrogate Randall, see what we can get out of him, then send him on over to county.

“We drove and hauled the stolen cars back here,” Dallas said. “They’re in our lockup.” This was a fenced, securely roofed compound behind the station next to where the police cars parked. Its gate was kept locked and the area furnished with surveillance cameras.

“It’ll take a while,” the detective said, “to collect evidence from the vehicles, and for the insurance adjusters to look them over, before their owners claim them.”

Joe could tell Dallas wasn’t in a good mood. Maybe because Lena had evaded them. Maybe, Joe wondered, Lena was more involved than anyone thought. How could she have escaped among all those cops? Who had picked her up? Clyde didn’t have time to ask anything more before the phone went dead.

At home, Joe and Rock were shut in the house. Ryan put Snowball in her carrier, to go to Dr. Firetti. Giving Joe a stern look, she phoned her father to come and check on the animals while she dropped the little white cat at the clinic, so Clyde could go on to work and she could return to her crew. This enraged Joe, that she had to call her dad to babysit, that she didn’t trust him. But luck was with him. When she couldn’t get her dad, she tried Lindsey. “We’re in Bodega Bay,” Lindsey said. “We …”

“It’s all right,” Ryan said. “I’ll work it out.” They talked a moment and Ryan hung up, looking deep into Joe’s eyes, “Rock can get out into his yard and so can you. But you can get over the wall. He can’t. You can also get out through your tower. I love you, Joe, and usually I trust you—though there have been times. If I leave you in the house, will you promise to do as I say, as John Firetti says? It could save a lot of trouble later. Rabies is a scary thing to deal with.”

Joe gave her as innocent a look as he could muster. He didn’t point out that his tower and the roof itself were both integral parts of their house. He promised himself that he’d stay to the physical body of their residence, the structural entity. And didn’t that include the roof?

What he’d really like to do was slip into her truck, ride back to the Pamillon estate, and have another look at the contents of that box. Courtney’s picture on the porcelain cup had shaken him considerably, combined with the pictures like her in so many library books. Those ancient tapestries and paintings and porcelain relics did not sit well with Joe Grey.

22

Kate approached Voletta’s house feeling silly with her little plate of store-bought cookies. But manners were manners. Voletta was a Pamillon, who knew what the old woman had once been used to in the way of neighborly visits?

Though the kitchen and living room were around at the back, facing the big yard, Kate chose the more formal front door, which was seldom used. She had started across the wide porch when she paused.

It was late morning but the blinds in all three bedrooms were drawn tight. If Voletta had company, besides Lena, were they still asleep after a busy night? Who would have slept here but someone connected to the thefts? She shivered, hoping they were all in jail.

There were no cars in the front yard, Lena and Voletta parked in back. Turning, she headed around to the kitchen. Yes, the lights were on in those windows, and she could smell coffee. Of course the big yard was empty, only Voletta’s old truck—and a blue Ford hatchback parked close to the back door. She knocked, hoping the lame little gift of stale cookies would give her an excuse to be invited in, not just stand awkwardly in the door and be sent rudely away.

She waited, then knocked again. She wanted to know how long those men had been using Voletta’s barn to store their hoard, concealing the stolen cars and, when the cops eased off in their search, moving them out again, at night. And how long had Voletta’s niece been involved? Lena visited Voletta every few weeks but Kate couldn’t remember whether those times coincided with the Molena Point car thefts. She hadn’t been staying up here at night, then, not until the shelter was finished and she moved the cats in. No one but Voletta had been here at night to know what went on. Even the feral cats, in the small hours, would have been up the hills hunting.

As Kate rounded the house she didn’t see Dulcie and Pan and Kit slip along behind her through the tall grass, didn’t see them pad silently up to the front porch. Kate was already at the back of the house when tortoiseshell Kit swung hopefully on the front latch, was thrilled to find the door unlocked and, kicking softly, swung it open. The three cats disappeared inside, pushing it not quite closed behind them. Already Dulcie missed Joe, off at home, in quarantine. She’d had the whole story from Kate.

The cats crouched in a small entry beneath a narrow table against one wall. A hall led left and right to the bedrooms and bath. All three bedroom doors were cracked open, the doors of the two end rooms at right angles to the hall. Kit and Pan watched Dulcie slip ahead into the living room and behind the couch where she could see into the kitchen.

At the back of the house Kate had to knock a third time before she heard footsteps. When Voletta opened the door Kate tried, awkwardly, to hand her the cookies. “I came to see how you’re feeling, after your trip to the hospital. To see if there’s anything I can do, any errands?”