Unknown - Cat_shining_bright_Merfi_630007

Above the cats, Lena was searching the drawers of Voletta’s nightstand. She rummaged until she found a bottle of pills, maybe Voletta’s pain medication. Turning to the mirror, she fussed with her hair, using Voletta’s brush before she returned to the kitchen.

In the other room, Rick had apparently hung up the phone. When the cats could hear him changing clothes, Kit beat it to the living room, leaving Pan slipping down the hall and under the hall table to watch him. Was Egan still in jail, had Randall just left him there?

Kit, crowded under the couch against Dulcie, wondered if, the next time someone cleaned house—and it could sure use it—they would puzzle over cat hairs mixed with the dust bunnies.

Rick came into the kitchen jangling his keys, Lena following him. “Going to pick up Randall.”

“Pick him up?” Voletta said. “He’s out of jail? How come they let him out?”

“He broke out,” Rick said, laughing. “Knocked out the guard. He left Egan locked up.”

Rick laid his keys on the table, picked up his cup to swallow down the last sip of coffee. Fast as a viper Lena grabbed the keys. “I’m going with you.” She spun around, headed for the bedroom, perhaps for her purse.

He snatched at her, hit her a glancing blow. “You’re staying here.” She hit him, pulled away, and raced to their corner bedroom.

In the hall, Pan crept out from beneath the table far enough to see her pull on a leather jacket and open the dresser drawer. She found a clean handkerchief, used it to lift out a revolver. She used a corner of the cloth to open the cylinder and check the load then wrapped the gun and slipped it in her jacket pocket. She fished through a lower drawer beneath silk undergarments, dropped some small item in her left pocket, stuffed her cell phone in on top. She raced for the kitchen, flung out the door leaving it open behind her, jumped in the car just as Rick put it in gear. Voletta watched them, not interfering, sour and expressionless.

When Lena ran for the kitchen, passing the couch a few feet from Dulcie’s and Kit’s noses, Dulcie lay quietly watching her. She didn’t want to follow and get tangled in this, she’d had enough of being trapped in cars. But Kit and Pan, their heads filled with Rick’s phone conversation, sped for the front door they’d left cracked open, leaped up the vine beside the porch, were across the roof to the back just as Lena raced out. All the car windows were open against the warm morning. Kit crouched to leap through behind Rick’s head into the backseat. There in the shadows they’d never be noticed, they could find where Randall was hiding, they could find a phone and call in, they could—

Sharp teeth in the nape of her neck jerked her away from the roof’s edge, Pan’s growl low and angry. Shouldering her down, he pressed her so firmly to the shingles that she couldn’t move, even when he let go his bite.

“What were you thinking?” he growled. “There’ve been enough wild car rides. What did you mean to do? You have no idea where they’re going.”

“I … but I …” She scowled at him, her yellow eyes blazing—and she exploded out of his grip, attacking him, biting him; they were into an angry scuffle, snarling and kicking. Kit had never dreamed they’d fight like this, she loved Pan. But now, raking him with her hind paws, she broke away and headed again for the edge of the roof—just as the blue Ford took off speeding across the big yard and onto the narrow road.

They were gone.

Neither Kit nor Pan knew where, they had no idea where the killer would be hiding.

Rick drove, scowling. “Your aunt—could she guess where we’re headed? Sure as hell she’ll call the cops.”

“Why would she call the cops? She’s as guilty as we are. And how could she guess? She didn’t hear anything, you never said where he is.”

“She calls the cops, it’ll be the last thing she does.”

She stared at him. “Don’t be such an ass. You’re in a vicious mood.”

He looked at her with surprise. “What the hell’s with you?”

“Tired, Rick. You’re getting as mean and rude as your father was—or as mean as Randall. Why did I marry someone so like Cal Alderson? I’m tired of Randall’s sarcasm. I’m tired of his cheap womanizing, of his coming home with another woman’s stink on him. I’m tired of him making me a part of this heist business. I’m tired of having to get up in the middle of the night and drive hot cars all over hell, my belly twisting for fear the cops will tail us. Tell the truth, I’m tired of Randall! I told him it was better to move the cars one at a time, not head out of there with a whole line of cars lit up like some damned parade. Now look at the mess he’s in—that we’re all in.”

“I think the cops were tipped,” Rick said. “Someone ratted on us.” He gave her a look cold as ice.

She said nothing.

“You tip the cops, Ma?”

“No, I didn’t tip the cops. Go to hell.” Then, smiling, “But I thought about it.”

“Maybe it was your aunt. After I came out from Texas and joined up with Randall … Well, hell, she never did like me. And why does she think Egan hung the moon, for crissake?”

Lena was silent, sudden tears running down. Her brown hair was mussed, her face pale but blotched with red. She felt carefully in her purse for a tissue but didn’t find one.

“As mad as you are at Randall,” Rick said, “I’m surprised you didn’t try to call the law.”

“How could I have? You wouldn’t wait for me, you didn’t say where he was. And Voletta wouldn’t, even if she knew where he’s going.”

But there was someone to call the law. As the blue Ford headed for the village, Kit and Pan streaked up to the ruins where Ryan’s truck was parked. Digging out the old cell phone that Ryan kept there—the phone with no GPS and no ID—they called the department. They had no destination, but they had the car’s description and part of the license number.

23

Joe’s quarantine grew boring pretty fast, he felt like a parolee under home confinement. It was a wonder he didn’t have an electronic leg bracelet to keep track of where he was, to make sure he didn’t stray. As for Rock, even with Joe for company he never liked being left for long without humans. Now, with his little white cat gone too, his little napping buddy, he was miserable and brooding, morosely pacing the house. If Joe started up to his tower, Rock would bark up a storm. The tomcat, dropping down again to the bedroom, pounced on Rock and teased him until at last the big dog gave chase: they ran up and down stairs, leaped over chairs, played tag until both were panting and the living room furnishings and rug were awry. Only then, when Joe had worn Rock out, when the silver dog climbed into Joe’s chair for a nap, did Joe Grey head for his rooftop aerie.

Clyde had agreed that the tower was part of the house, so was also quarantine territory. He wouldn’t agree to the roof itself, but Joe reasoned that of course roof and house were all one structure. Padding on through his tower into the sunshine that warmed the shingles, he stretched and yawned. He rolled on his back, he snoozed for a few moments in the sun; but then he sat up, and considered.

No one had ever said exactly where the roof ended. With the line of roofs on their block all so close, and joined by tree branches reaching across lacing them together, no one had ever drawn a line to show where that vast, shingled territory ceased to be a single entity. If one could move so easily from one patch of shingles to the next over heavy, tangled branches, then in sensible feline logic the roof ended at the next cross street.

Off he trotted, filled with his virtuous decision that he was still in the quarantine area. At the side street where the roofs ended he crouched, looking down. Of course he would go no farther.