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Dulcie had that same sick feeling about the missing tortoiseshell that Wilma or Clyde must feel when she and Joe were gone for several days; surely it was the same uneasy worry that filled her now. They had looked everywhere for the kit; no oneknewwhere else to look.
And she felt edgy about Joe, too. A dozen times last night as they searched for the kit, she’d wanted to tell him the secret that lay between them, tell him where she’d been going for the past two weeks. But every time she started to mention Lori, she reminded herself that shehad,in her own heart, promised the child. That when Lori whispered, “You won’t tell anyone, Dulcie,” she had, by her purring and cuddling, really promised Lori, just as much as if she had whispered, “I’ll never say a word.”
Now, agonizing, all she did was get her mind in a muddle. She went into the library at last, not through Lori’s secretly unlocked basement window, but through the open front door. As library cat, she had as much business padding in through the main entrance as had the head librarian-and there had been times in the past, with another head librarian, when Dulcie had been more welcome. Her appearance in the library always generated smiles and greetings and pets, and today was no different. Except that she made quick work of the petting and cuddling, only pretending to linger. Purring and winding around the patrons’ reaching hands, she sidled toward the stairs in an oblique dance until she was able to disappear among the stacks. And in an instant she was down the steps and into the basement workroom.
She had been visiting the runaway child for nearly two weeks, but she still hadn’t learned much about her. Lori’s casual, disjointed remarks were only frustrating. And how maddening were their one-sided conversations, when Dulcie had to remain mute, when she couldn’t ask questions.
She’d fared no better listening to conversations around the library and watching the daily paper. She heard nothing about a runaway child, and no missing child was reported anywhere near Molena Point. No mention on the local radio station or TV And surely theMolena Point Gazettewould jump on that kind of story.
Certainly there was no recent police report; she would have heard about that from Wilma or Charlie or Clyde-from Max Harper’s own wife and his two closest friends. Max had grown up with Clyde; they were like brothers, brothers who had indulged in a good deal of beer drinking and bar fights during their young days on the rodeo circuit, Dulcie thought, smiling. It always amused her, and amazed her, to imagine either of the two men crouched atop the chute, settling down onto the back of a bull as the gate was opened; to imagine them riding the lunging, twisting, hard-landing bulls. Though she didn’t like to think of the end of the ride, of the terrible, lunging horned danger, when they were on the ground once more.
In the basement, two librarians were working on a book order, sitting at the big, scarred worktable. The room was cool, its concrete walls emitting a perpetual chill that on a hot day was delightful, but was not so pleasant in the winter. Both ladies were wearing heavy sweaters. Dulcie, leaping onto an empty table, lay down between the stacks of new books where a slant of watery sunlight seeped in through a basement window. Five basement windows opened into deep wells that were cut into the sidewalk. All but one was securely locked, although all of them appeared to be locked. Settling down for a light nap, waiting for a chance to get in to Lori, Dulcie sleepily watched the librarian at the computer preparing orders. She was worn out, what with keeping Lori’s secret from Joe and with worry over the kit.
Well, she could do nothing about Joe at the moment; he would just have to sulk. And they’d have to trust the kit. Just as she herself wanted Wilma to trustherand not always to be calling her and hovering. Kit was a big cat now; she would have to take care of herself.
But the worst of her tiredness came from her pain over Patty’s death. Patty Rose, who would have hurt no one. No one� She was nearly asleep when the two librarians rose from their desks, picked up their purses, and headed for the stairs to go to lunch. She waited for some time, to be sure they didn’t come back, hadn’t forgotten anything. When neither hurried back down the stairs, she squeezed behind the small bookcase; there was barely room between it and the wall.
She didn’t try to shove the bricks aside to reveal Lori’s hidden entryway. Instead, pawing at the loose heat vent, she reared up, pushing the swinging grid aside. Crawling up and in, scrambling through where the big plastic pipe had fallen away from its connection, she entered the hidden part of the basement.
She had always known that grid was loose, hanging by one rusty screw, the other three screws not secure in the soft, old plaster. Long ago she had sniffed around there for mice but had never found fresh scent. She was more likely to find the occasional unwary mouse in the workroom itself, drawn by a candy bar left in a desk drawer, or upstairs among the books and the reading-room couches, both of which offered delightful nesting material for a mouse family. While she had long ago eradicated the main populations of library mice, an occasional optimistic newcomer would venture in, only to find itself summarily dispatched and on its way to mouse heaven.
Slipping in, pausing in the darkness, sniffing child scent and the sharp aroma of peanut butter, she dropped to the cold concrete floor. The cement-walled room was so dark that even a cat had to squeeze her eyes closed for a moment before she could see anything at all. But she could hear the child’s slow, even breathing.
It still dismayed her that, all these years, she hadn’t a clue that this room was here. She had assumed that behind the vent was just crawl space, dirt and foundation and spiders. Apparently the library’s drainage system was well constructed, because the little basement room had remained dry even during this winter’s heavy rains. The floor beneath her paws was dry as dust, though icy cold. And there was no faintest scent of mildew. Moving by the thin light that seeped through the vent behind her, she approached the sleeping child.
Lori lay curled up on her old sun pad, which maybe Lori’s mother had once used. She had pulled her thin blanket tight around her as if to shut out the tiniest finger of cold, and had spread her windbreaker over that. For a long while, Dulcie stood watching Lori nap, her little hand under her cheek, her brown hair tangled across the stained old pillow.
Lori had moved into the hidden room surprisingly well equipped: the thin little pad, the old blanket, the backpack on the floor beside her with its canned provisions-though the pack was thinner now. Dulcie thought the child had brought as much food as she had been able to carry, but it wouldn’t last much longer. Whatever the reason for her running away, and wherever she had come from, this little girl wasn’t playing games. The puzzle was, if no one had reported a child missing, and if no one was looking for her, did she not have a family? That hardly seemed possible. Where, then, had she come from?
Or was someone searching secretly for her, someone who did not want to go to the police, who wanted to remain unknown? And why? Because they had hurt her, or meant to harm her? The child woke suddenly and sat up, startled, knowing someone was in the room. But then, staring into the darkness, she saw Dulcie. Catching her breath with pleasure, she put out her arms. Her voice was a whisper.
“Dulcie? You mustn’t let them see you come in here.” She glanced warily toward the workroom. “You mustn’t let them know. Maybe they’re at lunch? Oh,” she said, shivering, “I wish you could understand. No one must find me! I wish I could make you understand.”
But I do understand,Dulcie thought.I wish I could speak, I wish we could talk. Who would find you? Where do you come from and what are you afraid of?Leaping onto the blanket, Dulcie curled up close to Lori, basking in Lori’s warmth, breathing in her little-girl scent-and wishing not only that she dared speak, but that she could share this child with Joe Grey. She longed to tell Joe about Lori, to discuss the child with him. Longed for Joe to help her come up with some answers. But she didn’t dare, not until she knew who or what Lori was hiding from.