Выбрать главу

She had to warn Juana, tell her the killer was just outside, tell her who he was. Had to tell her who he was. Had to find a phone, before Juana and the child left the condo or before he tried to break in.

Leaping up into a potted tree, she made a wild leap for the roof, heard the branch crack behind her. Scrambling up, nearly falling, she ran. Dulcie’s house was the closest. Fleeing across shingles and tiles, flying from peak to peak, she nearly outran the wind that scudded behind her. She reached Wilma’s panting and her heart pounding, scrambled backward down the nearest oak, and fled in through Dulcie’s cat door. The house was dark, as if Wilma had already left for Charlie’s party. She bolted through kitchen and dining room straight for the living-room phone. Pausing with one black-and-brown paw lifted, and then with the perfect recall that Joe Grey and Dulcie so admired, she punched in the number for Detective Davis’s cell phone.

34

I N THE SOFTLY lit café, a fire blazed on the hearth, its reflections dancing across the Christmas wreaths at the café windows and across the deep red poinsettias on the tables; firelight glanced through the archway into the bookstore, too, onto stacks of Charlie’s books, onto the bookstore’s Christmas tree, and onto enticing Christmas books that also stood waiting for small hands.

On the other side of the Hub, in the gallery, the white walls shone pristine, showing off only Charlie’s black-and-white drawings and etchings.

This was the children’s time, before the grown-ups arrived, and as Sicily welcomed the first visitors, Dorothy Street shepherded them on inside. None of them saw, behind their feet, the tortoiseshell kit slipping in, too.

Kit paused behind a sculpture stand, and then, seeing that no one had noticed her, she flew up the stairs that led to the gallery’s balcony. Having used Wilma’s phone to call Detective Davis, she’d left the darkened cottage again, racing away to the party. As she sailed over the roofs, the wind’s icy fingers had pushed down into her fur, chilling her through-even her paws felt frozen. Now, pausing halfway up the stairs, she turned to look down at the gallery and to bask in the delicious warmth that rose and spread from the blazing logs in the café’s fireplace.

Below her, the gallery’s white walls and panels handsomely set off Charlie’s drawings and prints, and Kit listened to a slim, dark-haired teacher telling the children about the animals-the wild animals that Charlie saw among the Molena Point hills, and the dogs and cats and horses, some of whom lived on Charlie’s ranch. As she explained which were drawings and which were etchings, Kit padded on up the stairs to the balcony and, warmer now, settled between two potted ferns to look down between the rails.

Fresh holly decorated the two archways; the windows of the raftered café were not only hung with wreaths but framed with evergreen branches, and in the garden beyond, five little trees wore fairy lights. Delicious smells rose from three long buffet tables in the center of the room, where hot entrées and salads and desserts waited, all arranged around a big bowl of Christmas eggnog. Soon, as the children finished up in the gallery, they’d be heading boisterously for the fine buffet.

Sicily Aronson had to be patient, caring person, Kit thought, to have invited that wriggly, busy, happy mob of kids before the elegant grown-up party began. Licking her whiskers, Kit tasted the delicious supper smells of turkey tetrazzini, lasagna, tamale pie; and only reluctantly did she remember Lucinda’s cautionary lecture.

“You must not,” Lucinda had said earlier that afternoon, “must not go begging among the gallery viewers, Kit, or among the children.”

“Oh,” Kit had said, “I would never…”

“And you must not,” Pedric had added prophetically, “panhandle the waiters and waitresses, in the kitchen.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t…” Kit had looked back at her dear old couple with well-practiced innocence. And now, as the children swarmed into the café and around the buffet tables, she remained obediently on the balcony, doing just as Lucinda and Pedric expected of her. So far. But, Kit thought sweetly, the night is still so young.

Dorothy Street and Sicily stood in the gallery archway below her, watching the children heap their plates, find tables, and tuck hungrily into the delicious fare.

“As if we never feed them,” Dorothy said.

Sicily laughed. “Those kids eat better than most of the village.”

Kit studied the two women. Dorothy, so tailored in black velvet pants and a creamy V-neck tunic, a simple silver belt, and her dark hair plain and sleek. Sicily was dressed, tonight, in a red gauze caftan over a white silk sheath printed with red poinsettias, her long hair twisted up high and held with glittering red clips. Pizzazz, Charlie called it fondly. Maybe, Kit thought. But Sicily Aronson wears exactly the clothes that make her feel good.

Detective Davis and the little girl had not arrived, and that worried Kit. When she’d placed the call in Wilma’s empty house, Davis had thanked her and had promised she’d be careful. That had to mean that, despite the man following her, the detective was still headed for the party. Davis’s implied information was a lot for a cop to tell a snitch; that sharing made Kit feel warm and pleased, that Davis trusted her-that the detective trusted her unknown informant.

Or was Davis jiving her, leading her on because she didn’t trust her, because she thought…Oh, Kit hoped not. That would be too bad.

She hoped, even more, that something would prove her wrong about the man she was sure was the killer, the man who had been watching Davis’s condo, surely waiting for the little girl to appear. Waiting so boldly, right there on the street.

She was lost in thought when Detective Davis and the child did appear suddenly, at the back of the bookstore, coming in from the stockroom, through the back door. Maybe Davis had parked her unit in the alley. The little girl clung close to Juana as the two joined the children crowding in around Charlie’s table, where stacks of books waited for Charlie to sign.

But Charlie wasn’t there, she had not arrived. Up on the balcony, Kit was starting to worry about her when suddenly there she was hurrying in, all out of breath, and causing a little stir as she headed for the low, round signing table just inside the archway to the bookstore.

Charlie might have hurried, Kit thought, she might have a few red hairs out of place, but she looked beautiful. She was wearing the simple gold sheath and the topaz choker Wilma had given her, and her red hair was piled high, strands escaping as usual from the clip that bound it. When all the children had gathered around the table, and Charlie had greeted them, the children sat down on the floor pillows that Sicily had piled and scattered all around, and Charlie told them about the story she’d written, and why she’d wanted to write it. Davis’s little charge sat among the youngest children; the detective took a chair near her, with her back to the wall, where she could see in all directions.

And as Charlie told about the little stray kitten who had no home and no mother, Kit squirmed farther out between the balcony rails, listening. Charlie told how the kitten had tagged along with a wild band because she was afraid to be alone in the wild hills, and how mean those cats had been to her. That’s me, Kit thought. That really did happen. That’s me in the story and in the pictures. And though she could never tell anyone that secret, Kit nearly burst with the excitement of starring in a real book that so many humans would read.

But then, as Charlie talked with the children, she glanced above their heads to the balcony, looking straight at Kit, and she gave Kit the faintest toss of her head. Clearly this meant, Come down, Kit, come here and join us.