“Well, yeah. I was with her.” Those blue eyes went wide with innocence as he strode beside her.
“No, you weren’t.” Becca shook off his assertion as she kept walking. If her pace picked up a little, it was barely perceptible to any but the small cat who trotted by her side. “I was on the phone with her when she started getting sick. She was alone. I’m the one who called 9-1-1.”
As she talked, Becca turned a corner, and Clara saw the traffic of Harvard Square ahead. His bicycle at his side, Tiger lengthened his stride to move slightly ahead, a tilt of that handsome head as he tried once again to catch her eye. “And am I ever glad you did, but she called me first, and then I came by.” The assertion came out with force, like he was claiming the sick girl. “Truth is, I thought she was just being dramatic. Trying to get my attention.”
Becca shook her head again slowly and sighed, Clara thought, with a trace of sadness. “She wouldn’t do that. She broke up with you. She’s told me you’re the one who’s been trying to get back together.”
“Well, yeah.” That grin as he sped up, moving slightly ahead of Becca. Trying to get in front of her. To catch her eye. “The girl has some pride, after all. Good old Gaia. Crazy girl.”
“Not like her buddy Gail Linquist, huh?” Becca’s voice was flat. She was waiting as she walked, Clara realized, though for what, the loyal calico couldn’t tell.
“No way.” He was laughing, a broad chuckle that matched the slight rattle of his bike, as he shifted his grip on the black metal frame. “I never understood that friendship.”
“You don’t know her, do you?”
“Excuse me?” A burst of laughter followed, but when Becca finally turned to face him, she didn’t join in.
“Gaia—Gail—they’re the same person, and you don’t know her. You’re not her ex-boyfriend.” She said it simply, her voice a trifle sad. The noise of the traffic would have drowned out her words if they hadn’t stood so close to each other. “Your name isn’t Tiger.”
“I’m not?” One look. A laugh, and he gave it up. “Yeah, well…” With a tilt of his head, the tall, lean man smiled down at her. “You made that assumption, didn’t you? I just went with it. Come on, Becca. It was no big deal.”
“No big deal?” Her voice had taken on a steeliness that Clara didn’t recognize. “Why did you pursue me?”
Neither, apparently, did the cyclist beside her. “Why?” He chortled as if she had told a joke. “Why does a guy like me usually pursue a girl like you?”
“Why?” The steel replaced by ice. Another laugh, but something had shifted. He leaned back, straightening the bike. Becca started toward the intersection ahead, then stopped once more. “It had to do with the photos, didn’t it? The plant I saw, or…”
She paused, her eyes going wide. “You were the one who suggested I go back to the store. You egged me on, hoping I’d get caught. You called Margaret to tell her that you saw someone breaking in, only I hadn’t done it yet. But then, when I was foolish enough to break off a branch…” A gasp as the implications of that call—the missed messages, the police looking for her—hit home.
“Now wait a minute.” He reached out to take her hand, but she jerked her arm away. To Clara’s relief, Becca began to walk again, heading swiftly toward the noise and bustle of the busy street ahead. Taller than her by a head, the bike messenger had no problem keeping up, wheeling his black-framed bike by his side. They were almost at the corner. Clara lashed her tail, unsure what to do or how to intervene. “I never told you to climb in a window—”
“You knew I would.” Becca pulled her phone from her pocket and peered down at it as she walked, talking all the while. “You knew, because you saw me break into Frank Cross’s office. You must have been the one who told the police. Only you didn’t know what I’d found, did you? Until you saw…”
She slowed as she began poking at her phone.
“I’m sending that photo to the police.”
What happened next was too fast for Clara to react. Like a real jungle beast, the man they knew as Tiger lunged, grabbing for the phone in Becca’s hand. But Clara jumped as his bike clattered to the ground, tripping him as he surged forward.
“No, you don’t understand!” The fake Tiger struggled to his feet, reaching for Becca as she stumbled backward. Stumbled to the curb, desperate to get away. “I was trying to protect you. I would have if I could—”
To Clara’s dismay, Becca stopped. “What?”
“My bosses.” He stood and brushed off his knees as two women in suits pushed by. When he looked up, his face was sad. “They are not people you cross.”
“His new business partners…” Becca could have been talking to herself. “The ones Ande knew about but Margaret didn’t. The ones Gaia didn’t like…”
“I’m just the messenger,” he said, taking a careful step forward. “I pick things up and I drop them off. Sometimes, they have me clean up the mess.”
“Like Frank Cross?” Becca took another step backward. Already, the noise of the busy traffic was enough to nearly drown out her quiet query. “You knew about his affairs. About how he’d died before anyone else did.”
He nodded, coming closer. “He had a sweet deal, but he panicked. All he had to do was change out the plates and keep his mouth shut.”
Waves. The Ocean State, the symbol of Rhode Island. Clara didn’t know if she was picking up Becca’s thoughts or if she had heard this. Only that it was true.
“The hit-and-run?” Becca must have made the same connection. In the midst of the square’s bustle, she was a point of quiet inquiry.
The man before her nodded once again, his pale face sad. “It was an accident. One of the boss’s sons. He was drinking.” He shrugged. “We could get rid of the car, but we needed clean plates right away to make the trail disappear. All Frank had to do was keep quiet.”
Pedestrians parted around them. Behind her, the morning traffic was only beginning to die down.
“That’s all you have to do, too, Becca.” His voice was soft. The warmth had returned. “I don’t want to hurt you. Never did. Honest. I really like you. Now, just give me the phone.”
Time stood still as Clara looked from the man back to her person. Surely, the little device wasn’t worth the trouble. As the calico looked on, Becca held it up and took a step back.
He lunged. Grabbing the arm that held the phone, he wrestled it from her grasp. Only then did Clara see the cold glint in his eye as he pulled it free and pushed her backward into traffic.
“No!” Clara yowled. She was too small to push Becca to safety, too small to take down this predator with the assumed name. But appearing out of nowhere, she had the element of surprise. As Becca’s hat went flying, the calico leaped, making herself visible as her person stumbled after the little cloche, into the street.
“Clara?” Crying out the name, Becca caught herself, and, turning, fell to her knees beside the curb as a passing pickup truck crushed the hat into the pavement. “How…?”
But whatever she was going to say was caught up in a thunderclap of pain and noise, and Clara knew no more.
Chapter 38
“Wake up, little one.” A kind voice, long remembered. “Wake up!” The rough warmth of a tongue. “Wake up!”
“Mama?” Clara struggled to open her eyes, only to find Laurel’s steely blues glaring down at her.
“Move it!” Her sister’s hiss had an edge of—could it be?—fear, and Clara struggled to her feet. “Quickly!”
She was in Harvard Square, with Laurel’s shaded body, the merest hint of milky coffee in the afternoon light, propping her up against a curbstone.