She'd had no idea how Traynor's prose would affect her-no notion of the sudden, perplexed unease that would wash over her.
She had laid the pages down, had stood beside the desk staring out at the empty drive, confused and puzzled, not understanding why he had written this-how he could have written this.
This was not the lyric prose she had so admired from Elliott Traynor; his sentences were awkward and confused. The experience had shocked and saddened her. There was no other explanation than that his illness had affected his work. She had turned away filled almost with a personal loss. And ashamed, too, that she had pried-and she was touched as well with a cold little fear for herself, with a sharp sense of helplessness, that creative skills might so suddenly be diminished.
8
Clyde woke in the dark predawn when he felt Joe drop off the far side of the bed. He hadn't slept well, had just managed to drift into sleep, and wasn't happy to be jerked awake again. He'd dreamed of Kate, not pleasant dreams. Why did she insist on staying in San Francisco? Jimmie was safely in prison, he couldn't hurt her now. In the dream, she'd been so- distant. So removed, darkly preoccupied, not at all like the bright, sunny Kate Osborne he knew.
He could feel the warmth at his back where the tomcat, moments before, had been curled up asleep before he thumped softly to the wood floor, apparently trying to be silent. Why all the stealth; what was he up to? Joe's usual departure was a four-star performance, tramping across Clyde's stomach with those big, hard paws, dropping to the floor with all the finesse of a truckload of rocks.
In the near-dark, Clyde watched Joe pad softly around the end of the bed, a shadow sneaking across the Sarouk rug, heading away down the hall.
In a moment he heard Joe's cat door slap, swinging against its metal frame.
Between Joe's unusual behavior and his own unpleasant dreams, Clyde was wide awake. Leaving the warm bed, he stood at the open window, peering out from behind the curtain like some little old lady spying on the neighbors. The sea breeze was cool against his skin. In the faint moonlight that filtered through the blowing oak leaves, he could see Joe fast disappearing up the sidewalk, his gray coat nearly lost among the leafy shadows, only his white paws clearly visible, flashing along with swift determination.
Joe went out every night to hunt rabbits or, if he was obsessed with some police business that was none of his business, to peer into windows or slip into people's houses, poking and prying- Clyde had ceased to ask for details. But the tomcat was seldom silent in his nocturnal departures. And it wasn't like there was some big crime under current investigation-nothing but that break-in at Susan Brittain's place. No jewel heist or bank robbery, no murder that they knew of. Well, the damn cat wouldn't leave anything alone. Let someone steal a pencil, Joe was on their case.
Wide awake and angry, he had half a mind to pull on his jeans and shoes and follow Joe. He could see him, almost to Ocean now, hardly visible in the blowing night. Clyde reached for his jeans but didn't pull them on. If he tried to follow, the tomcat would simply take to the roofs and vanish.
His dream of Kate was still vivid; he'd been with her in San Francisco, walking the windy midnight streets. She told him she wasn't coming back to Molena Point ever, that she wouldn't see him again, that they didn't belong together, that he wasn't right for her.
But they had been right for each other, they'd known it long before she left Jimmie, though neither did anything about it. And then suddenly Jimmie was involved in murder and car theft; those days came back to him sharply. A killer loose in the village, hired by Jimmie to murder Kate-an incredible scenario, and the Welshman killer also had personal reasons for stalking Joe Grey and Dulcie.
That was when Clyde first learned that Joe Grey could speak, and Joe himself first became aware of that alarming talent-as if the shock of seeing a man murdered had thrust Joe from one facet of his existence into a deeper consciousness. That was when Joe's true nature had come to light, and of course Dulcie's hidden abilities as well.
Standing before the open window in his shorts, holding his jeans and a sweatshirt, he wondered how long before Kate would get over her fear of being in the village and decide to move back home. He thought of her not as in the dream, but as she really was, imagined her there with him, her golden hair catching the faint moonlight, her eyes loving and kind. Dreaming of Kate, he started when a dark shape leaped to the window, crouching on the sill, pressed against the screen.
In the darkness, Joe's white paws and chest were sharply defined, the white triangle down his nose pinched into a scowl. He looked intently at Clyde, at the jeans and sweatshirt. "What are you doing, Clyde? You weren't going to follow me?"
Clyde looked at him innocently. "Couldn't sleep," Clyde said inadequately.
"You weren't going to sneak out into the night and follow me? Pry into my private business? At three in the morning?"
"Would I do that? That's very insulting. In all the hundreds of times you've gone out looking for trouble, in all the nights I've lain in bed worrying that you'd got yourself killed, have I ever followed you?"
"So why were you putting on your jeans?"
"I wasn't putting them on. I was holding them. And is there any law against putting my pants on, going into my own kitchen, and making a sandwich? I couldn't sleep. All right?"
"You never put your pants on when you invade the kitchen in the middle of the night, waking up old Rube and the other cats. Why are you so testy? Why would you want to follow me?"
Clyde glowered. Why did he have to get involved with a tomcat who seemed to know exactly what he was thinking?
"You were dreaming about Kate, calling her name in your sleep. Go on out in the kitchen, Clyde. Drink some hot milk and brandy, maybe that will help you sleep."
Clyde just looked at him.
"You want to know where I'm going," Joe said. "What difference does it make? You can't stop me, and you can't help me. You're getting way too nosy in your advanced years."
"Forty-some is not advanced, as you put it. I had no intention of stopping you. I simply wondered where were you going. Wondered why the secrecy? Why all the silence, slipping out trying not to wake me?"
"For your information, I was being thoughtful. Apparently that concept escapes you. You were obviously having trouble sleeping. You'd dozed off at last, and I didn't want to wake you. Okay?"
"So where are you going? This is some kind of state secret? I know what you do at night, I know about your snooping. Someday, Joe-"
"If it's any of you business, Dulcie and I thought we'd wander over to Hidalgo Plaza and check out the shops."
"At three in the morning."
"Why not? We can look in the windows. Dulcie loves to look in shop windows."
"So you're nosing around Casselrod's Antiques, just because he snatched that old chest from Cora Lee. And would this have anything to do with the break-in at Susan Brittain's?"
Joe sighed. "For your edification, antique stores, estate sales, yard sales… That's where any cop would start looking for the guy who trashed Susan's place."
"That's so simplistic. Max Harper would laugh his head off."
"Not at all. A cop checks out the obvious first, even if it is simplistic. Take my word. Dallas Garza will be having a good look among the local junk dealers." Joe gave Clyde a toothy smile, twitched a whisker, and was gone as swiftly as he had appeared, swarming up the oak tree to the roof, where he would again head for Ocean Avenue. Clyde imagined Dulcie waiting for him there among the trees of Ocean's wide, grassy median, imagined the two galloping up the median to disappear in the direction of the long, wild park that bordered Molena Point on the southeast.