WILMA HAD SET up a bed for Sage near her desk in the living room where she and Dulcie liked to sit by the fire at night; she had covered the blue velvet chair with a puffy comforter, and had taped several sturdy boxes together to form a wide, shallow set of steps from the rug to the chair. Behind an end table was a sandbox, and on the floor beside Sage's chair was a plastic tray big enough to hold his water and kibble bowls. They entered the house through the back door, into Wilma's bright blue-and-white kitchen. A welcoming committee awaited them-Joe and Dulcie and Kit looked up from a plastic bowl where they had been enjoying leftovers from last night's dinner, and the three followed Wilma through to the living room where she set down the carrier.
As she and Charlie settled Sage in his new bed, Kit leaped up and curled carefully beside him on the soft comforter, staying away from his cast. Wilma headed for the kitchen, and soon the house smelled of fresh coffee, warm milk, and warming cinnamon buns, soon Charlie carried a tray through to the living room, setting it on the coffee table. "You're taking the week off?" she asked her aunt as Wilma poured the coffee.
Wilma nodded. "I plan to do my taxes-last minute, as usual, with Sage to keep me company. We'll have a cozy fire in the hearth, and I have the CD set up with Dulcie's favorite music, which maybe Sage will like."
"And my bandages off soon?" Sage asked shyly.
"As soon as the doctor allows," Wilma told him. "Meanwhile, all the steak and custard you can eat." She pushed back her long silver hair where it had escaped its ponytail. "You're our guest, Sage. You mustn't be shy about asking for what you want."
"Or shy about getting spoiled," Dulcie said. "A few days with Wilma and you won't want to go back to the clowder."
Sage looked uncertainly at Dulcie. The young cat was still trying to get used to the idea of feline/human conversations, was still trying to decide just how one behaved among humans.
And he was still trying to get used to being shut within solid walls. Confined in a man-made structure, it seemed to Sage that a part of him must have gone missing. The open hills, the wind, the shadowed woods had all been taken from him, had left him feeling incomplete and small.
Kit, lying close to him, watched him intently, her round yellow eyes just inches from his, gazing at him as if trying to see into his very soul, as if trying to know the young tom's deepest thoughts. That unnerved Sage, but excited him.
"You'll stay here with me," Wilma told Sage, "until I go back to work, then you'll go to Charlie's house, at the ranch, and that's nearer your own hills and woods." She looked at Charlie. "First day I get back, I start training the new reference librarian."
Charlie looked so alarmed that the cats came alert, watching her. "You're not planning to quit? The new librarian isn't taking your job?"
Dulcie looked at her housemate in amazement. She'd heard nothing of this. If Wilma quit her job as a reference librarian, she'd have to give up her library office where the cat door opened from among the bushes outside, the door that let Dulcie into the closed library at night.
No more midnight prowling among the books? No more pulling books from the shelves, dragging them up onto a table where she could read alone and unseen? No more nighttime adventures into exotic lands and distant times?
"I'm not quitting," Wilma said quickly. "Only cutting back. And we do need more help. The new librarian will be full-time, and that will give us more actual hours, even with the reduced schedule I've set for myself." Wilma didn't have to work, she had an adequate federal retirement pension from her first career as a probation officer.
Still, Charlie looked uneasy. "You're not…You're feeling all right?"
"I'm feeling fine. Don't fuss," Wilma scolded. "I'm not sick, there's nothing wrong with me, there are simply some other things I'd like to do. How could I quit? How could I give up my library key?" Wilma said, mirroring Dulcie's thoughts. "How could I give up my office, and Dulcie's cat door? Who knows, I might even start riding again."
"Are you serious? You can ride Redwing all you want, she really needs the exercise. If…"
Charlie paused, watching Joe. On the desk, the tomcat sat at rigid attention, studying Wilma and then turning his gaze on Charlie, watching the two of them so fixedly that Charlie shivered. Joe's yellow eyes were far too intent and calculating. Whatever he had in mind, he made Charlie feel like a cornered mouse.
"This is perfect," Joe said softly, turning to watch Wilma. "Are you serious about riding again?"
Wilma looked at him warily.
"This couldn't be better," Joe purred. "This fits right in with our plans."
"What plans?" Charlie and Wilma said together.
A slow smile spread over the tomcat's face, sending both women into a paroxysm of suspicion. "What?" Wilma said. "What's in that sneaky cat mind, that you think you can get me to do?"
14
A T LEAST CHARLIE'S acting sensibly, Joe thought as he leaped from a pine tree to the tiles of the courthouse roof-a lot more sensibly than Dulcie.
Dropping down onto the lower roof of Molena Point PD and then into the branches of the ancient oak that sheltered its front door, he stretched out along a branch, thinking about his plan.
"You're a fair poker player," Charlie had said when he'd told her what he had in mind. "Wilma and I get the book, which is too heavy for you to carry down the hills without tearing the pages, and you see that the department finds the body without involving me or involving you cats."
"That's it," Joe had said, smoothing his whiskers with a white-tipped paw. "I can talk with Ryan myself if you'd like, to put things in motion. But I'd have to wait until they get back, I don't think she's up to talking with me on the phone yet-she's still getting used to face-to-face discussion." Joe and Dulcie had been sitting on Wilma's desk as, on the blue velvet couch, Charlie and Wilma finished their coffee and cinnamon buns and, in the easy chair, Kit napped, curled up on the comforter with Sage.
"I'll call the honeymooners tonight," Charlie said. "I'm sure they can't wait for people to disturb them."
"It's a good deal for Ryan, too," Joe had pointed out. "She'll love the plan, she'll be happy you called."
Charlie sighed. "A honeymoon, Joe, by its very nature, is-"
"What kind of honeymoon? Those two are up there scrounging through junk shops and wrecking yards. How romantic is that?"
"I'll call her," Charlie said, looking helplessly at the tomcat.
Joe gave her a satisfied smile, leaped down from the desk, and headed for the kitchen, pausing only to scowl pointedly at Dulcie. He was nosing through Dulcie's cat door when Dulcie, following him, pushed him aside, cornering him against the washing machine. Her green eyes blazed. "What are you angry at me about? What did I do?"
"You're matchmaking, that's what you're doing."
"Matchmaking?"
"You needn't smile so fatuously over them, you needn't encourage them."
"Shhh, keep you voice down. I can't make her ignore him, he's her friend. And why would I? He's weak and hurting, the poor cat needs sympathy. Kit grew up with Sage, they were kittens together, she-"
"They're not kittens anymore. She's smitten with him. And you're not doing a thing to discourage her."
"Why would I discourage her? Why would I want to?"
"You're just like every other female! So damned romantic you lose all perspective. No more common sense than a chicken."
Dulcie stared at him, her paw lifted to slap him. "You're jealous!" she hissed. "You're…You…Oh!" And she spun away, her ears down, her tail tucked under.