22
ONE LOOK AT the yellow tomcat and all Kit’s grand dreams slid away, crumbled like the walls of a ruined castle; she was as shocked as if the fairy-tale prince had turned into a toad. This was not the fine young tom she’d dreamed of, this was not the mate she’d waited for, whom she’d thought had finally found her. This cat was incredibly old.
She could see that he had once been powerful, even now his bony shoulders were broad beneath his ragged yellow fur. But his tail was thin in the way of an old cat, his muzzle was extended with age, his skin hung slack. Now he was frail and ancient, more in need of tender kindness than a wild romp over the green hills. Now for the first time, with the sea wind blowing in her face, she caught his scent clearly enough to realize it was the scent of an old cat, very different from a strapping young tom. And as Kit’s heart made the painful adjustment, her eager longing turned away from romantic dreams and she was filled with a shaky sense of desperation at the terrible frailty of old age.
But the tomcat’s yellow eyes were clear and intelligent, and when he turned away, following the black sedan, breaking into a gallop, he was surprisingly fast for someone his age. Not lithe or agile, but he kept up with the car and pickup for several blocks before they left him, vanishing down the hill. His interest in this human drama intrigued her. Why did he care? Who was he? Where he had come from, and what had brought him here?
Now that she was aware of his venerable age, she could imagine no aura of evil about him. He was not like the black tom, Azrael, who had once come on to her, rude and bold and demanding, who had helped his drunken human companion rob the village shops.
She’d wanted to follow him, but somewhere nearby an invasion had occurred, and her urgency to find the house, find the victim, and to know how badly those men had hurt her was stronger.
The house had to be nearby, if those men had just come from there. She had studied the dark yards below, willing herself to hear any faintest cry. She’d heard nothing but the distant surf and the sea wind fingering through the treetops. She’d wandered the roofs looking and listening but had heard nothing until the wind slackened, and then she heard a woman’s faint, thin cry, a plaintive voice that sent Kit bolting across the shingles and across the gaps between roofs to where an olive tree hugged a modest frame house. When the cry came again she dropped down through the branches and slipped along through the yard through the soft crowns of coral bell bushes. Again the cry, and Kit had looked for a way in, maybe a window open to the cool evening or the front door jimmied. The tomcat had disappeared.
The front door was locked. The high little decorative glass window was broken, but the glass shards stuck up like giant shark’s teeth, ready to cut a little cat in two. At the spot along the wall where the cry came loudest, she caught the scent of blood, a metallic whiff seeping even through the wood siding that sent her leaping up at the nearest closed window. Clinging to the sill, pulling and clawing at the casing with one small armored paw, she fought to slide the glass back. When that failed, she tried the other windows, she’d tried all the way around the house, when she heard sirens. Were they coming here? Had someone seen the invasion and called the dispatcher?
But then she heard their wail fade to silence off in the center of the village. That would be the diversionary burglary to distract the cops. Two crimes, committed within minutes of each other. But, she thought, smiling, this time there would be no long delay before the invasion was discovered—provided she could find a phone and alert the department; and off she went, circling the neighbors’ houses looking for an unlocked window, peering up, leaping up at closed windows until, doubling back to the invaded house, she heard snores softly from above, from the house next door. She peered up to the second floor, then scrambled up a ragged rosebush, sticking her paw with a thorn.
Yes, an open window, and within, a man’s soft snores. Heart thudding, she clawed through the screen with a dry, ripping sound. When the snores faltered, she waited until they steadied again, then pawed the screen out of the way so it wouldn’t catch in her fur, and quickly slipped inside.
She’d stood picking out the black shapes of dresser, desk, easy chair. She padded past the bed, watching warily the stout young man who sprawled asleep, the covers thrown back, the cool breeze blowing in on his bare skin. Rearing up to look atop the nightstand, she’d found no phone. She leaped atop the desk, then the dresser. Nothing. Maybe he used a cell phone, though none was in sight. Slipping out the open bedroom door and down the hall, she’d found two unoccupied bedrooms, their doors standing open. She prowled within, her breath coming quick with the need to hurry. Neither room had a phone. The door of the next bedroom was closed. When she sniffed at the crack beneath, she could taste the heavy smell of sleeping humans. Hurrying past, to the end of the hall, she found, tucked beside the descending stairs, a small home office.
Slipping inside, she leaped to the desk, nearly on top of the phone. She hit the speaker button, then scrambled to soften the sound of the dial tone which came in way too loud. When she pawed in 911, June Alpine answered, her young voice high and light, but steady. Kit kept her own voice to a whisper, terrified she’d wake someone in the next room. If the householders heard her and came searching for a prowler, they might be armed. As rigid as the California gun laws were, there was no law against arming oneself at home—with the laughable provision that the gun must be kept unloaded and locked away, separate from the locked-up ammunition. Which, if she heard anyone rise in alarm, would give her plenty of time to escape down the hall, through the far bedroom past the young sleeper, and out the torn screen before they had time to load a weapon and come searching.
She reported the injured woman to June, and gave her street directions. Molena Point cottages had no house numbers. Hitting the speaker button again to break the connection, she padded soundlessly back through the house and across the roofs to the invaded house, where she hid herself at the base of the chimney in the blackest shadows. As she waited for the patrol cars she’d summoned, the words of the invaders echoed in her head … can’t untie herself … How bad did you hurt her? She thought about the smooth-talking man who sounded so familiar and so cold, and she hoped the poor woman would be all right. That man was someone from the past, she thought, her ears back and her tail switching. But she couldn’t think who, she couldn’t give him a name or think when or where she’d seen him, only that he frightened her.
23
PULLED FROM SOUND sleep, Dulcie sat straight up on the desk and peered out the front window where sirens cut through the night, echoing from the center of the village. She’d been so deeply asleep, waiting for Wilma to get home from playing poker at the Damens’, had fallen asleep after she answered Wilma’s phone call. Another blast ripped the night, whooping then dying, and she imagined squad cars gathered around another violent and destructive store break-in.
If that was where the cops were gathered, would another kind of crime have occurred as well, blocks away, and in silence? If the pattern ran true to form, there would be no 911 call for help. That victim, unable to reach a phone or cry out, would suffer alone, perhaps for how many hours before someone found her and an alarm went out. Springing off the desk, she fled for her cat door.
Despite the squad cars converged in the center of the village, she knew that doubled patrols would be searching the dark streets, watching for another, silent crime, shining their spotlights among the cottages and into dark gardens, looking for a running figure. Darkly clad officers would be walking the streets hoping to locate a victim who was unable to alert them, too injured to cry out and be heard. At times like this, Dulcie thought, the village seemed too big, too impersonal and dark; no way one small cat could hope to find a lone victim—but she could try. Scrambling up to the roofs, she raced for the middle of town first, guided by the burst of exploding lights.