Officers came running from the back offices, and out the front door. Before the cats could leap across the moonlit roofs to freedom, cops were swarming out wielding handheld searchlights, shining them toward the roof and into the tree. They hunched down deep among the deepest leaves, their reflective eyes tight shut.
Beside Dulcie, the kit was not secretly smiling at the commotion, as she usually would be. Her tail was not twitching and dancing with excitement. She was deeply quiet. The kit's grieving worried Dulcie.
When the torches swung away at last, to sweep on across the parking lot and gardens, within the prickly leaves the three cats peered out. Below them, patrol cars had swung around from the back of the building to angle across the driveways and along the street, blocking the escape of all other vehicles. And officers on foot surrounded the gardens, their searchlights leaping from bush to bush and into the parked cars. The lights shone across the moon-bright roofs behind the cats. They were trapped like three treed possums.
But while the cats crouched within the heavy oak leaves wishing the moonlight and searchlights would vanish, wishing mightily for absolute darkness, Kate Osborne was doing her best to avoid the dark.
She had left work a bit late, finishing up some ordering and some computer sketches. It was just six thirty, but she was so tired and so ravenously hungry that she hardly cared if tonight a whole battalion of strangers followed her. Going down the elevator from her office to the parking garage, slipping quickly into her car and pulling out into the lighted street, half of her wanted to go straight home, wolf down a sandwich, and fall into bed. The other half wanted a nice, warming dinner that she didn't have to lift a hand over, wanted to sit at a cozy table and be waited on-wanted not to be alone for a while longer, but to remain safely among people.
For days after the Greenlaws' deaths she didn't think she was followed. She kept watch around her but didn't see anyone; but then on Thursday when she looked out her apartment window she had seen the same man standing in a doorway across the street. She did not simply imagine it was the same man. His sloped shoulders and stance were the same. And this time she had gotten a good look at his pale muddy hair, his sloping forehead and large nose.
If he meant to harm her, why did he just stand there? She almost wished, with a perverse cold fear, that instead of following, he would approach her, that he would come upstairs and knock on her door because she had grown more angry than afraid. Angry at this harassment, at this invasion of her privacy, at this hampering of her free, easy movement around the city.
Besides the pepper spray, she had begun to carry a pair of scissors in her purse, a decision that was probably incredibly stupid. She wished she weren't such a wuss, that she'd learned karate or knew how to handle a gun, that she had some skill that would make her feel less vulnerable.
Both Hanni and Hanni's sister, Ryan, were comfortable and competent with firearms. Having grown up in a police family they had been trained early and well. And Charlie, too, since she married Max, had learned the same careful, responsible skills. Such expertise and confidence would be comforting now.
She decided to stop for dinner, and to hell with being followed. Driving through the crowded, narrow streets, she turned north up Columbus toward a favorite small seafood cafe. Dolphin's would be well lighted, and the sidewalk would be busy with pedestrians this time of evening. Just two blocks from the restaurant she was lucky to spot a car pulling out, and she swerved in.
Locking her car and hurrying up the street, she was half a block from Dolphin's when she glanced back and saw the same man following her. She was so angry she almost approached him, pepper spray in hand
But then fear filled her, and she hurried on toward Dolphin's, trying to stay among people, she did not like living this way. She thought, not for the first time, of how it would be when she chucked city life and moved home to Molena Point. Where she could indeed feel safe again. Crossing the street away from him as he followed, she hurried on-but when she glanced in the shop windows where she could see behind her, he had crossed, too. He was pacing her, his thin reflection moving jaggedly from one square of dark glass to the next. When she slowed, he slowed.
When she quickened her step, so did he. When she reached Dolphin's she slipped quickly inside and pulled the door closed hard behind her. She'd have liked to lock it.
Her favorite waitress, Annette, looked up from clearing a table and smiled, and nodded toward her usual table. Annette was rotund, in her thirties, with a slender, fine-boned face that seemed to belong to a much thinner woman. She had lovely dark eyes and a beautiful complexion. As Kate crossed the restaurant between the crowded tables she kept her back to the window. But when she glanced around, the man stood outside looking in through the glass.
When she stared hard at him, he moved on. When he'd passed beyond her view she sat down at the table with her back to the wall, where she could see the street. Annette brought her usual pot of tea and paused, a question in her eyes. Kate said nothing. She ordered a bourbon and soda as well, and a shrimp melt on French and a salad. Annette stood a few minutes making small talk, as Kate continued to watch the window.
Annette and her husband, an army sergeant, had moved to San Francisco when he was transferred to the Presidio. She liked to tell Kate of the new places she had discovered in the city, and Kate loved to make suggestions. The absence of the man outside the glass did not ease Kate's anxiety, he could be just down the street waiting for her, maybe standing against the next building just beyond the window. The early evening street did not, tonight, hold its usual charm. The cozy shops along this block presented, tonight, a more threatening aspect of North Beach. She felt safe only within the restaurant, she did not like to think about going out again. She thought, when she was ready to leave, she might call the police.
But what kind of complaint would she make? The man hadn't confronted her, he hadn't touched or spoken to her. She could only say she'd been followed. Very likely they would think she was a nut case, imagining things. She supposed she could go out through the kitchen, to the alley, slip around the block to her car. She closed her eyes, trying to slow her pounding heart.
When she opened her eyes she saw him directly across the street walking among a crowd of tourists. Same man, looking directly across to Dolphin's windows, his slumped shoulders and rocking walk making him easy to recognize. When he'd passed beyond her view she rose and moved to the front window, standing to the side where she wouldn't be seen.
He had crossed to her side of the street but was heading away; soon he disappeared. Had he followed her from her office? Followed her clear across town and somehow found a parking spot near where she parked? Or had he already known her favorite small restaurants? Had he simply swung by each, looking for her? Why hadn't she gone somewhere different, someplace she seldom frequented? She was still at the window when a young woman burst in through the front door, turning to look back at the street.
She looked familiar, and Kate watched her with curiosity. She was looking around for someone. When she spotted Kate she nearly lunged at her.
"Kate? Yes, you are Kate Osborne?"
Kate had started to back away-but she did know this woman. Nancy something, the design client who had approached her at the office, whom she had turned over to another designer. She was a delicate, elegant person, maybe in her early thirties. Beautifully groomed with a flawless creamy complexion, her face scrubbed clean, her blue-black hair smoothed into a simple chignon. She had wanted to do her apartment with South American furnishings; Kate had been sorry to turn down the project. The woman was simply dressed in a cream skirt and creamy sweater and carried a pale silk raincoat. Her dark eyes were huge. "You are Kate Osborne?" she repeated. "We met…"