Taking off, Ryan resisted the urge to burn rubber. In the back seat, Dillon gave Lori an amused glance. All the way to Clyde's, neither girl spoke. She must look mad enough to chew nails. Beside her, Rock looked back at the girls with a hangdog expression that made her want to laugh, and that shamed her.
But she was still puzzled by the change in Rock's reaction. Why growl at Roman, and the next minute cozy up to him? And the fact that he would so eagerly take food from a stranger frightened her badly. Looking into the rearview mirror, she tried to make small talk. "What did you have for breakfast?"
"Pancakes," Lori said hesitantly. "With a gallon of syrup," she said, rubbing her tummy. "Bacon, two eggs. A piece of chocolate cake."
"That should keep you until midmorning." These two would burn it off riding, cleaning stalls and doing chores for Charlie, burn it off just with the energy of their wild young spirits. Lori had so blossomed since she came out of hiding in her cave in the library basement, since going to live with Cora Lee French and the senior ladies. She was such a bright, eager child, and so resourceful and ready for adventure, now that she was among caring friends. Ryan hoped her adventures would remain positive.
"I'll only be a minute," she said, parking in front of Clyde's house. She grabbed the bag of faucets, took Rock with her, and left the girls in the truck. This project did make her laugh. Just thinking about it soothed her anger. The idea that Clyde's cats liked to drink from the bathroom sink and he was tired of waiting on them-and that he could teach four cats to turn on the water faucet by themselves. How many men would even have the patience to try? How many men would care where their cats drank?
She really didn't think this would work, but Clyde did. They had a dinner bet on the success of the project, steak and champagne at any upscale restaurant of the winner's choice. The whole project was a belly laugh.
But who knew? Maybe he could teach them; what did she know about cats? Swinging out of the truck, she stopped still.
The scene on Clyde's front porch amazed her. Made her angry all over again. Apparently, Chichi had left the cafe right after she did. The blond bimbo stood on Clyde's porch snuggling up to him, or trying to. She was all over him, petting his face and laughing with a high giggle that set Ryan right on edge; all that pulchritude and sex thrown at Clyde was just too much, made her feel like a jealous schoolgirl.
But then Ryan's commonsense took hold. Looking Chichi over, her sense of humor returned with an explosion that made her want to double over laughing. This was pitiful! The woman was more than a joke, this was a scene straight out of the daytime soaps or out of the cheapest comedy. Clyde's face was red with embarrassment or with anger, or both. Glancing past Chichi to Ryan, he looked so uncomfortable she thought he might expire right there on the porch. Even Clyde's cat seemed amused, staring out at them through the front window with, Ryan could swear, a malicious grin on his gray and white face.
17
Much earlier that morning, before Ryan left her apartment and before the Greenlaws entered the Swiss Cafe, Joe Grey was jerked from sleep. He'd been dozing in his tower after a little hunt. He woke to the sound of water pounding in the pipes, from the house next door-a sound for which he'd been listening, even as he slept. Chichi was up early again.
Slipping out from among the warm pillows and out of the tower, he sat down on the roof. Night was just drawing back, in the wake of a clear, silvered dawn. He gave himself a quick wash, working fastidiously on his front paws until he heard the rumbling in the pipes stop, then the faintest rustling from within the house next door, a sound no human would hear. Then, louder, an inner door closing, maybe the closet door. He waited until he heard Chichi's outer door open and close, and heard the lock turn. He listened to her walking through the grass below him, her footsteps softly swishing. Heard her hit the sidewalk in her soft shoes, walking quickly. Only then did he follow across the shingles, peering over.
Wearing a pale blue sweat suit and what looked like good running shoes, she was headed toward the heart of the village. Joe didn't picture Chichi as a runner, certainly not a serious one. As, above him, the silvered sky brightened, he watched her cross Ocean beneath its shelter of eucalyptus trees. He hungered to follow her. But he wished, far more, that he knew how long she'd be gone.
He'd heard her leave early like this on several mornings, but until the night of the robbery he hadn't paid much attention. He thought that those times she'd been gone for at least an hour. Dropping into the pine tree on the far side of her house, he backed down, sprang into the little lemon tree, cursing the sting of its thorns, and leaped to the sill, hoping she hadn't repaired the screen.
When he examined his recent handiwork, he almost laughed out loud.
Tape? She'd put duct tape on the torn screen? Smiling, Joe took a corner of the tape in his teeth and gently pulled, peeling it back neater than skinning a gopher.
But then, pressing his paw sideways against the glass and exerting all the force he could muster, he was unable to slide it.
Where before she'd had the slider locked open a few inches with a little peg, now she had secured the window completely closed. Had shut it tight so he wouldn't come back? He felt a chill course down through his fur.
But how likely was it that Chichi knew his special talents? He was just a cat; and she didn't like cats. He pressed his face against the glass, mashing his whiskers, to peer in.
He could just see the lock protruding. It was one of those that slid up or down along the metal frame when one closed the window, the kind that usually locked but not always. That sometimes, in these old windows, didn't work at all.
This one had caught, though. Hadn't it?
Pressing against the window, he shook and rattled the moveable section as hard as he could.
And at last, slowly, the little lock slid down the metal frame and dropped to the bottom. Now, with sufficient body pressure, he was able to slide the window back as far as the little peg, which was still in place. And in a nanosecond he was in, searching her room, his ears cocked for her approach through the overgrown yard.
Carefully, he went through every dresser drawer again, searching for the little black bag, flinching at every faintest sound. He didn't want to be caught in the closed room with her again. He told himself he was magnifying the danger, but there was something totally focused about Chichi Barbi, a singular determination that unnerved him.
He searched the closet among her few clothes and shoes, searched the top closet shelf, leaping up stubbornly forcing open three suitcases and badly bruising his paws. All were empty. The latches weren't as bad, though, as zippers, which were hell on the claws. He searched under the bed and in between the mattresses as far as his paw would reach, then as far as he could crawl without smothering. He'd hate like hell for her to catch him in that position. He searched the under-sink bathroom cabinet, the night-table drawer, peered into the two empty wastebaskets, checked the carpet for a loose corner under which she might have loosened a board.
He found nothing, nada. He was nosing with curiosity at the back of the little television set when he heard her coming, brushing past the overgrown bushes.
Leaping to the dresser he crouched, ready to bolt. He watched her pass the window, heading for the door. As the door handle turned, he slid out through the window and shouldered the glass closed behind him.
He hardly had time to paw the tape back over the torn screen when the inside light went on. Praying she wouldn't notice that the tape was wrinkled, not smooth the way she'd left it, he dropped down to the scruffy grass.
He was crouched in the dark bushes beside the foundation of the house, poised to scorch for home, when he thought about those two empty wastebaskets. And a sure feline instinct, or maybe acquired cop sense, stopped him in his tracks.