Joe Grey and Dulcie and Kit glanced sideways, watching the little scene, and they smiled. Dulcie and Kit felt sad for Coyote, but Joe knew the challenge that gripped the striped, long-eared tom. The hunt was everything, the hunt for game, the hunt for a mate. And, in Joe’s life, the keen and wily search for human prey, the hunt that drove him ever more powerfully. He glanced at Dulcie and twitched a whisker. The hunt that absorbed them both, a hunt no other cat in the world but the three of them would understand or care about.
Looking up the hill, they watched Clyde hug Ryan and hold her for a moment as they talked, then Clyde sat down on a fragment of broken wall beside Charlie, who was wolfing down coffee and a sandwich. There was some laughter, a few tears, and a lot of hugging. But then at last Clyde rose and headed back for his car.
Wilma stepped out of the squad car and stood with Clyde beside the Lexus, looking up at the cats. At once, Dulcie tensed to leap down. With a lick at the ferals’ ears and a nudge of noses, a special nuzzle for Cotton by way of a thank-you, Dulcie dropped from the wall and streaked for the road where Clyde and Wilma stood waiting. Joe followed close on her heels. Behind them Kit made her own farewells, then raced for Lucinda and Pedric.
Parting from the wild band was hard for Kit-but she’d already made her choice many months ago about how she wanted to live her life. In her deepest heart, she’d already left their wild ways-she did not want to change her own life, she wished only to see them sometimes, here among the ruins. If they remained here. With a wild band, who knew where they would go? She could only wish them well, wish them happiness. Nuzzling each cat, she spun around and raced away following Dulcie and Joe, her little cat heart hurting, but not regretting.
From the top floor of the Pamillon mansion, from the old nursery, Violet Sears had stood for some time watching the scene below. She felt sick when Charlie shot Cage. She knew he deserved it, but he was still her brother. She watched Eddie run, and saw those cats leap on him. That had shocked and deeply frightened her.
She had watched the police clean up Eddie’s wounds and force him into a squad car, and she didn’t know how she felt about his arrest. Maybe she felt nothing.
Eddie would be in jail now. For a little while, she was free of him. She shivered at the thought that she was on her own; she didn’t know what to do about that. How would she live? Where would she live? There had always been someone else to decide about her life. Their parents. Lilly and Cage. And then Eddie. She thought that woman, Wilma, wouldn’t really help her. She stood watching the dark scene before her, shivering and afraid.
Watching Clyde step out of the squad car and head up in her direction, Charlie had suddenly and inexplicably found herself crying. Pressing her face into Max’s shoulder, when he turned back to her after briefing Brennan and a handful of other officers, she felt weak and shaky-but she was safe now, safe in Max’s arms. He held her away from him and wiped her tears. She looked up at him, ashamed of her weakness, embarrassed at crying in front of his men. He handed her a paper bag.
“Hunger’ll take all the starch out. Here’s Brennan’s lunch. Roast beef and coffee and you’ll be yourself again.”
“I can’t take his lunch, he…” Knowing how Brennan loved his meals made her tear up all over again.
Max laughed. “He kept one sandwich of the three, and a slice of cherry pie. He gave his coffee roll to Wilma.”
Charlie glanced across at Brennan and blew him a kiss. The portly officer looked embarrassed, grinned at her, and turned away. She had sat down on the remnants of a tumbled stone wall and was wolfing down the second of the sandwiches and slurping hot coffee, nearly scalding her mouth, when Clyde sat down beside her.
“Glad you got out of that.”
She nodded, her mouth full.
Clyde laughed. “Wilma’s pretty hungry, too. I’m taking her for a steak. Want to come?”
She swallowed. “Going to ride back with Max, take the horses back. I think Ryan’s going with Dallas, her truck is at our place.”
He nodded. “How did the snitch know where you were?” he said softly. “She called Max, but how did she know?”
“The white cat, Clyde. That feral cat. He…Against all odds, that wild little animal went down into the village. Went to Kit for help. Dulcie was there at the Greenlaws’ with Kit, and it was Dulcie who called.”
Clyde shook his head. “Seems impossible.”
“But then,” she said, “the other two ferals…all three of them and Dulcie and Kit chewed my ropes. They had me almost loose when Wilma found me.” She swallowed the last of the sandwich, washed it down with more coffee. “And there’s a lot that we don’t know yet, that Dulcie and Kit will tell us. But you…You and Joe…”
“Same thing,” Clyde said, grinning. “A lot to tell. Too much for now, Wilma’s starving.” He hugged her and rose, stood a moment with his hand on her shoulder. “She’s pretty upset that Jones dragged you into whatever he wanted from her.”
“She doesn’t know what he wanted?”
“Not a clue.” He leaned down to hug her again. “Have a good ride home.”
She watched him stop to talk with Ryan and make a date with her for the next night, then head down to fetch Wilma.
“Where’d the sandwiches go?” Max said, coming to join her, looking at the wadded-up paper bag. “I was gone no more than three minutes.”
Charlie laughed.
“That hold you until we get home? Take about an hour. You’ve had a long day, you feel up to the ride?”
“Oh yes. Can you do that, can you leave, with…?”
“Dallas is here. Prisoners are secured. Wilma’s safe, with Clyde. We’ll take her statement in the morning. Right now, I think it’s time for me to take your statement.”
Flushing, she moved away to the horses. Leaving Max to wrap up a few details, she stood with Ryan, leaning against her mare. “You found me gone, and you called Max.”
Ryan nodded and put her arm around her.
Charlie said, “Guess I owe you supper.”
“Guess you do,” Ryan said. “If you two take the horses back, I’ll never see that potato salad and roast beef you had laid out.”
“Guess I can make more potato salad,” Charlie said, hugging her back, and as Max turned to join them, she tightened Redwing’s cinch and mounted up.
30
I t was midnight when the old man descended to the basement and, working silently, moved the piled boxes out of the closet, shoving them in among the rest of the detritus that crowded the concrete room. He guessed Lilly had gotten nervous about that safe, so visible and all. The fact that it was covered up told him there was something to be nervous about.
Kneeling over the locked metal box he tried to remove it from the closet, but it was sunk deep in the floor. Probably bolted, the bolts removable only from inside, once it was open. When he couldn’t budge it, he took from his pocket a small, rechargeable electric drill and a miniature periscope, a tiny light on a long, thin, flexible neck, an eyepiece at the end.
The sound of the drill wasn’t loud. But twice he stopped to listen to the house above him, just in case Lilly woke and started down. The big old house remained silent, and within minutes the drill had gone through the thick metal lid, leaving a quarter-inch hole into which he slid the periscope.
Slowly he turned the safe’s dial, watching through the periscope as the plates moved, slowly working out the combination until, after maybe twenty minutes, he was able to apply that information and lift the heavy lid.