Beside the cave-hole, the two-leg paused and seemed to be listening. The cougar paused. And from deep in the shadows, Joe Grey watched the little drama. The four players were positioned as in a game of chess, but this game was played by scent and sound, as rook and knights and king pursued their opposing objectives.
And only one among the players understood the worlds of both his four-footed and two-footed opponents. Only one had the keener senses of the big, four-footed cat, yet the sophisticated mental skills of the two-legs.
Crouched beneath a massy bush of Mexican sage, some fifty feet from the stairs that led down to the cellar, Joe Grey watched the puma slide through the ruined house, stalking the dark-dressed figure, the big cat relaxed and easy, strolling along as if he owned the Pamillon estate. And certainly in his cougar mind, he did own it.
Joe didn’t know whether the dark-clad figure the big cat followed was male or female until that player paused at the head of the stairs, and Joe caught the glint of honey-colored hair. Crystal? He couldn’t smell her over the garden scents and the stink of the puma. She stood looking around her, listening.
And out on the road, the watcher shifted position, his black clothes darker than the night. Stubby Baker? Had Baker slipped away from Clyde and followed Crystal? Joe wanted to go have a look-but daren’t leave Crystal to slip down the steps and take Harper and Charlie by surprise; none of these players had made a sound; Harper would have no reason for sudden alarm. He and Charlie would still be sitting on the floor of the cellar, alert but caught in idle conversation.
Joe didn’t know if Crystal was armed. He didn’tthinkshe would hurt Dillon, but who knew? He thought she had held Dillon as security, to blackmail the killer. He figured Crystal as the go-between, liaison between the killer and whoever at San Quentin had done the hiring.
If Crystal was the banker, the mastermind at Quentin fully trusted her.
How ironic that the money to buy Helen Marner’s duplex was money Crystal earned by having Helen murdered.
Moving closer behind the cougar through the rubble of the kitchen, Joe leaped atop a tinder heap of rotting kitchen cabinets. The cougar twitched an ear, but remained intent on Crystal. And in a moment, Joe slipped wide around the big cat, positioning himself to scorch down past Crystal and warn Harper.
But the other figure had slipped nearer, entering the parlor, looming black against the graying sky. It was a man, Joe saw clearly now.
The cougar turned, watching the intruder, the tip of his tail twitching. The black-robed figure didn’t see him; he cut through the parlor running. Grabbing Crystal, he shoved a gun in her face. The cougar wheeled, leaping away twenty feet to the top of a broken wall, crouching to watch, his tail lashing.
Unaware, the man shook Crystal and hit her.“Where is she? Where is the girl?” His voice was raspy, whining, icing Joe Grey’s blood.
“I don’t have her.” Fear sharpened Crystal’s voice. “Why would I have her?”
Wark hit Crystal again.“Where?”
She pounded him and kneed him. He stumbled, beating her. Above them the cougar crouched. Fighting, the two fell writhing to the ground. The cougar was on them in a hot surge of power, snatching Crystal by the neck, knocking Wark against the wall.
Three shots rang out.
The cougar turned, snarling. Harper fired again into the sky. The big cat dropped Crystal and crouched facing Harper, poised between springing at him and running. His paw still held Crystal. He glanced at her once, licking blood from his whiskers. In that instant, Lee Wark spun away, running. Harper shouted and fired after him-Harper knew better than to run. Nor would he leave Crystal. The gunfire and shout decided the cougar. He fled up the hill into the black forest.
And Lee Wark, too, was gone. Harper looked after him for a moment, then knelt over Crystal, his gun on her as he spoke into his radio. The air stank of gunpowder and blood. Joe could see where the puma had torn her shoulder and arm. He backed away, fading into the shadows-and found Dulcie beside him, pressing close.
And when the two cats looked up the hill above the ruins, the cougar stood watching, sleek and powerful against the silver dawn. The big cat screamed once, wheeled, and vanished toward the wild mountains. They looked after him, shivering.
“Oh,” whispered a small voice behind them. “Oh, so beautiful.” And the kit pushed between them, her dark little face and round yellow eyes filled with yearning, her furry ears sharp forward as if waiting for another wild scream.
Joe couldn’t speak for the kit, but that golden image left him feeling as small and insignificant as a fly speck.
But then Dulcie brushed her whiskers against his, purring, and pressed close to him, and he felt fine and strong again, the boldest and most elegant of tomcats.
And Max Harper turned from his cuffed prisoner, where she lay curled into a fetal position, her head on Harper’s folded jacket. Harper had managed to stop some of the bleeding, using pressure. They could hear the ambulance screaming up the hills, and soon they could see its whirling red light and the lights of two squad cars.
As the cats came out from the shadows, Max Harper knelt and, in a rare gesture, reached to stroke Joe Grey.“Thanks, tomcat. With all that hissing and taking off up the stairs, you kept Crystal from slipping down on us. Maybe you stopped the cougar, too.” Harper grinned. “Maybe Clyde’s right, maybe catsaregood for something.”
26 [????????: pic_27.jpg]
DRIVINGUP the coast with Hanni, Kate couldn’t keep her mind off Lee Wark. She leaned back in the soft leather of Hanni’s SUV, meaning to enjoy the morning, and spent the entire drive staring into every car they passed, with the paranoid notion that she would see Wark.
The sun was bright, the air just cool enough to be fresh, their windows cracked to an ocean breeze, the sea on their left thundering with sufficient wildness to both beckon and repel. And all she could think of was Lee Wark.
Stubby Baker was in jail, this morning. And that was good news. And Crystal Ryder was under arrest, in the emergency wing of Molena Point Hospital. But Lee Wark was still free, and Dallas had reason to believe that Wark had killed Ruthie Marner.
What an amazing thing, that Crystal had been attacked by the cougar. What a strange end to Crystal’s part in a bizarre crime.
Certainly nothing had changed in the threat that she, Kate, felt from Wark. She was obsessed with the idea that he was near. When Hanni turned off the freeway into the city, just before noon, she was tense with nerves.
And alone again in her apartment, before she must return to work the next morning, she felt the afternoon stretching ahead, peculiarly unsettling.
She needed to lay to rest her fears-at least those surrounding the Cat Museum. That fear, she had come to realize, was in part fear of the museum itself. Fear of what she might learn there, as well as her unease that Wark would find her there and hurt her.
She wasn’t home half an hour, glancing through her mail that had been shoved through the door onto the rug, before she grabbed her jacket, locked the door behind her, and headed for the Iron Horse. She’d have a quick lunch, then call a cab. Wark wouldn’t be in the city.
He would be too busy, with the Marner murders hanging over him, too busy running from the police to think about her. To think about her possible connection to what she believed was a whole, traceable line of individuals possessed of the spirits of both cat and human. Certainly Wark would not be interested in her search for a man who might have been her grandfather.
Hurrying into the restaurant, heading for her usual table-praying that Ramon wouldn’t start about the cat killer-she greeted him with an unusual reserve.
“Buenos dias, senora.”
“Good afternoon, Ramon.”
She felt guilty at his puzzled look, that she hadn’t spoken in their usual joking Spanish. Why had she come in here, only to be rude to him?
“It’s good to see you, Ramon.”