Pulling out half a dozen bulky white bags, most with her right hand and favoring her left arm, she eased the trunk lid closed and turned back toward the house. Loaded with packages, she had paused to peer over them to find her footing on the curb when, up the hill, the same brown pickup appeared again suddenly, racing around the corner, barreling straight down at Maudie, its engine roaring, its sides rattling, the driver only a shadow behind the smeared window.
“Get back!” Ryan shouted as she dove for Maudie, grabbed her, jerked her from the truck’s path onto the curb, Maudie’s packages scattering around them, one bag hitting the curb with a crash of broken china. Inches from them, the truck veered out again to avoid the Lincoln, scraping down the car’s length as it passed, a violent wrenching of metal, then skidded into a sharp turn onto the side street and vanished.
The two women stood on the sidewalk, the Lincoln between them and the street. Behind them on the porch, little Benny stood frozen, white-faced and seemingly unable to move. The cats’ own involuntary cries of warning had been drowned in Ryan’s shout. They raced down across the roofs for Maudie’s roof as Ryan snatched her cell phone from her belt. She was pressing 911 when Maudie grabbed the phone and hit the end button.
“What are you doing?” Ryan snapped. “We need the police.”
Maudie shook her head. She was as pale as Benny.
“He could have killed you,” Ryan looked at her, incredulous. “Maybe they can catch him, you need to call in a report.”
Maudie looked back at her, shaking her head. Behind them the sound of the Skilsaw had ceased, and Scotty appeared in the open doorway. Benny turned and clung to him. The big, steady man put his arm around the little boy, drawing him close.
“Give me the phone,” Ryan said, biting back her temper. The cats expected her to force the phone from Maudie’s hand. She didn’t, but her voice was low with anger. “You have to report this, Maudie. If only for the insurance claim.”
Maudie put her hand on Ryan’s arm. “I wouldn’t file for insurance. My … my deductible’s too high.” She studied Ryan. “Let it go. Please, just let it be.”
Ryan stared at her then turned away and began picking up packages. Maudie took two white plastic bags from her and headed for the house. When the cats, peering over, got a good look at Maudie’s face, she looked far more excited than frightened. What was that about? As Maudie and Benny moved inside, the cats scrambled down an oak tree and followed them through the open door into the house where they could watch Maudie and listen.
6
AN HOUR BEFORE the truck came roaring down at Maudie, and a dozen blocks away, the tortoiseshell cat paced the early-morning rooftops looking down from between the peaks and chimneys at the village shops below. Kit’s black and brown coat shone dark within the fog, drops of fog clinging to the tips of her long fur like tiny jewels. Below her, the shop windows were bright with a dazzle of small, lavishly decorated Christmas trees, with silver and gold packages which, while only empty inside, were festive and enticing. Several windows featured carefully arranged crèche scenes, and these always drew Kit. In the small hours of the nights before Christmas, when the streets were at last deserted, she and Dulcie would prowl the dark, empty village, standing tall on their hind paws peering in at the baby Jesus and the wise men and the little miniature animals all snuggled in their beds of straw—but there was never a cat, the crèches never had cats. Dulcie said there were no cats in the Bible, but Kit wasn’t sure she believed that. Why would there be horses and cows and dogs, wild pigs and weasels, but no cats? Why, when everyone knew that a little cat would have to be God’s favorite?
She’d left home this morning before daylight while her human housemates still dozed. Though Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw, at eighty-some, liked to be up for an early breakfast and an early walk in the hills, they’d been out late last night. They’d been fast asleep as Kit bolted through the dining room, through her cat door that was cut into the window, trotted across the oak branch to her tree house, and took off to the next roof. And the next roof and the next, heading for the village, traveling high above the ground as handily as any squirrel among the leafy canopy.
Now in the center of the village, she listened to the rhythmic thudding as an early jogger fled past, and watched a gray-haired dog walker heading for the shore pulled along by an eager red setter. A young man in sport coat and chinos stepped out from a nearby motel and, two blocks down, turned in at the nearest bakery seeking his morning coffee and, most likely, some delectable and sugary confection. As he disappeared inside the steamy café, two runners came up the hill from the shore, breathing hard, looking smug with their efforts. Humans wore themselves out running from nothing, but too often had no clue when to run from danger. Kit watched the human scene with interest, but she watched the rooftops around her with sharper scrutiny. She was looking for the stranger, for the yellow tomcat.
She’d glimpsed him over the past days only briefly, had seen him watching her from among shadows, from leafy cover, but had never gotten a close look at him. He was a big cat, his fur as pale yellow as sunshine. He had watched Joe and Dulcie, too, but why was he so shy, why did he keep his distance so stubbornly as he followed them? She knew he was no ordinary cat, the way he watched them, she knew he could have spoken to them if he chose. What did he want, to follow them but then refuse to approach? What was he doing in the village? Where had he come from? The mystery of him sent her heart pounding with excitement and with challenge, sent her imagination rocketing as she searched for the elusive stranger.
A sound startled her. Did she hear a soft yowl, a tomcat’s yowl? She leaped to a high peak, listening. But no, what she heard was not a cat at all but the faintest screech of nails being pulled, and then the distant thunk of boards being tossed in a heap, and Kit smiled. That was only Ryan, pulling off the siding, at work renovating that little frame cottage—had to be Ryan, from the direction, and the early hour. What other carpenter or contractor started work so early? Looking around at the empty and silent roofs, Kit licked her cold paws, and then headed across the roofs toward the residential hills where Ryan would be working. If she couldn’t find the mysterious tom, she would ease her restlessness among friends, and away she went, racing over the shingles and across the oaks’ spanning branches.
She stopped suddenly when three cop cars streamed past along the street below, moving without sirens and in a hell of a hurry. And here came an EMT right behind them, all as quiet as soaring hawks watching for prey. Spinning around, Kit followed them, praying this wasn’t another invasion but, racing over the rooftops, meaning to be there if it was, hoping to get a look at the invaders, this time.
She thought about the women who had been beaten and robbed: a lone woman in her garden picking roses, the front door left unlocked behind her and no one else at home. A lone woman opening her door at night to a stranger because he said his car wouldn’t start. He’d pulled her onto her darkened porch, where he’d already unscrewed the lightbulb, had knocked her around, trashed her house breaking furniture, taken a few small items, and left. The third woman was attacked in the dark stairway of her condo, again when the lightbulb had been unscrewed. Why had she gone in there when there was no light?