Carole Douglas - Cat in a Red Hot Rage

She instantly saw what he meant. The ranks of solid black clothes inside had been shredded into clownish tatters, some dangling from their padded black satin hangers, others fallen to the floor in piles like charred autumn leaves.

Larry bent to run his fingers through the ruins.

“Cashmere. Silk. Italian wool. This guy knew how to dress."

“Yes."

“The magician?"

“Yes."

“And the slasher was—?"

“I don't know who, but let's check out the kitchen next.”

When he stepped close and put her good arm around his shoulder, she didn't object. Her other side was on fire. She needed more than Tylenol, but she wasn't going to get it just yet. She couldn't contain a small moan as she felt her lifted arm stretch the wound on the opposite side.

“Scars give a girl that lived-in look," he said.

“Don't make me laugh. It hurts too much.”

He ran a finger down her good side. "I think they're sexy."

“Everything hurts too much right now for nonsense, Larry.”

But he was right. She'd have a helluva scar from this. That reminded her of the thin straight razor scar Matt Devine's manly side carried, courtesy of the woman Temple Barr had christened "Kitty the Cutter.”

Payback time. Now Molina had her own Cutter Anonymous. Could the home invader here be her stalker? But what link did she have to Max Kinsella other than an itch to pin some crime or other on him?

When she and Larry shuffled into the kitchen, he turned on the overhead fluorescents. No point in being discreet. That time had passed long before.

He spotted the knife block. "One gone."

“I sensed that coming in, but didn't fully register what it meant until I heard those clothes being slashed, although I didn't realize what that sound was until I saw the evidence."

“Yeah. Our minds are like cameras. They record everything on a crime scene, but the whole picture doesn't snap into full focus right away. It's pretty plain. You were right on his heels. Someone must have a real bad hex on this missing magician."

“The magician might be more than missing. He might be dead."

“Really? You don't know?"

“He probably is dead. He'd never allow his stuff to be trashed like this if he were alive. Let's look around some more.”

They visited every room. One bedroom was stuffed with stage props and conjuring chests. Larry looked around and sniffed hard in there.

When Molina raised her eyebrows, he shrugged. "Checking to make sure no dead bodies are ripening here. This would be the perfect place to stash a dead magician."

“Yeah." She could barely focus even though they had all the lights on. She still wasn't sure the invader had arrived before her. Surely, she would have sensed movement from the git-go. Larry already had shown up inside. The slasher could have been him. "How'd you get in the front door?"

“Drug lords use this same level of high security. If I didn't know how to work it, I'd be dead."

“So this place is high-level secure."

“Right. Except that you got in the back. I got in the front, which was a lot harder, no offense. And an unknown actor got in somehow just before you did.”

He sure kept stressing that. Police instincts, or planting his own scenario? It was hell to be too jaded to trust anyone. "That was—" she began.

“What?"

“Creepy. Like shadowing a snake."

“Sick. I agree. And whoever it was had a hankering to slice up a human as well as a high-end wardrobe."

“The resident vic was pretty hate-worthy."

“The magician.”

She nodded.

“You?”

She nodded. "Among others."

“Anybody love him?”

She nodded. "That little blonde you saw at Mariah's Teen Idol gig, who I had you tail."

“She was making pretty innocuous rounds, but she led me—and you—here. And the tail was also pretty tasty."

“That is so sexist."

“Why? Because it's not your tail I' m talking about?”

“I don't have one."

“Yeah, you do." He grinned. "I just peeked.”

With as much blood as she had lost, Molina had enough left to flush. "Not funny."

“I was being serious.”

That was what she was afraid of. Thing was, Larry knew too much, way too much, about her recent, atypical acts of skirting the law, her own standards, everything.

Thing was, she couldn't decide whether that was sexy . . . or sinister.

Chapter 45

Toodle Who?

I must say one thing for my partner's basic instincts.

She sure does have a female knack for uncovering a crime in progress, even if it is only some poor dude trying to take a catnap.

I feel four shivs in my shoulder and hear a voice hissing, "Wake up, you layabout! I have been noticing some unwarranted activity around Mr. Max's supposedly sold and occupied house."

“Are you still playing that sad old tune, Louise?" I ask, unrolling from a warm and comfy ball in my own previously private quarters, i.e., Miss Temple's bed, sans Mr. Matt for once. "I thought we had decided to permit your Mr. Max to fade into the sunset until my Miss Temple's current domestic and on-the-job problems were settled."

“Her worst enemy has been prowling about the premises while I had it under surveillance.”

Well, that made me sit up and take notice. I cannot have mere shirttail relatives (maybe) taking over my primary job of protecting my Miss Temple!

“I wish you would get off this Mr. Max crusade, Louise. Gone is gone. Even Miss Temple has accepted that."

“Not to mention accepting a shaded golden into her bed where you black-haired boys used to loll at your leisure."

“I wish you would not refer to Mr. Matt as if he were a certain color of Persian," I snap. Literally.

“Aha!" She jumps back like a ninja. "Methinks a certain color of female Persian has soured your milk. Your so-called Divine Yvette is a shaded silver."

“I call her the Supine Yvette now," I say airily.

“Not for her bedtime manners, I bet:' she answers.

Little does Miss Midnight Louise know that it is because of her alley cat origins and rumored relationship to me (rumored mostly by herself) that I have been untimely dropped by She Who Was Formerly the Divine Yvette.

She eyes me slyly. "I would bet that there is not much peaceful resting space there for you on Miss Temple's zebra-striped comforter now. At least Mr. Max had the decency to absent himself frequently on impossibly dangerous secret missions.”

Her words sting like a cat's-claw cactus.

The fact is my various extremities have been subjected to certain heedless rollings and pinnings, as if I were mere bread dough to be mashed and smashed, on what should be my supreme sprawling space, the California king-size bed. Not to mention all the sweet nothings that I have been forced to overhear, which would be enough to curl the ears on a Swiss chocolate cat who did not even understand English.

So I admit to Miss Louise, "There may be some who enjoy kittenish caperings, not to mention squeals and mews and purrs, and find them amusing and even adorable, but I am not one. Not if it disturbs my sleep."

“Speaking of disturbed sleep, I have been spending my nights outside Chez Kinsella. I can tell you that what has been going on there lately may not be as titillating as late-night TV in your Circle Ritz boudoir, but it has been fairly puzzling, and ... now ... mind-blowing."

“Please, Louise. Do not resort to such uncouth and vulgar modern street expressions as 'mind-blowing:"

“I believe that is the only way to describe Miss Lieutenant C. R. Molina breaking into Mr. Max's ex-digs with that scruffy cop guy from her daughter's Teen Idol idyll hot on her heels. And I do mean hot. He is seriously after the crooning cop. And so may be an anonymous perp, who stuck her with a butcher knife before exiting the premises. Or so I learned from eavesdropping in the dark. I am thinking Midnight Inc. Investigations should ramble on over to examine the scene of the crimes.”