Carefully she'd drawn out the handwritten pages. She'd thought at first these were Bewick's letters, and wouldn't that be a find. The papers were yellowed and dry, the ink faded.
But though the letters were old, they were not by the author. She had read them through, then put the frail missives in a heavy envelope and tucked it into her lower desk drawer along with Bewick's book, and had carefully locked the drawer.
Now this morning, because of the cats' angry confrontation, she'd retrieved the letters and read them aloud. They chronicled the experiences by three generations of Pamillons with a succession of speaking cats. She wanted to show Sage that others had known about them yet had been careful to keep their secret. But she also wanted to show Kit that secrets did get passed on, that Sage was right to be wary-she'd shared the letters hoping to foster a better understanding between the two cats.
Once she read them aloud, she'd locked up the envelope and the book again and had gone off to work, leaving the three cats to wait for Charlie and praying they'd settle their differences.
But immediately the argument began. Sage wanted to try the lock, get at the book, and destroy it at once. Dropping awkwardly down from his kitchen chair, he'd hobbled through to the living room and attacked the drawer, clawing at the lock until Dulcie drove him back.
"This is my house! Wilma will take care of the book in her own time, in her own way."
"How can you be sure?" Sage hissed.
"I am sure. I trust her with my life-every day I trust her to keep our secret."
"Even if she means well," Sage had growled, "even if she means to destroy it sometime, if she doesn't do it now, someone could find it. If it's so valuable, someone could steal it, to sell. Maybe someone's already looking for it-Willow said there was someone searching among the ruins.
"If they find it and read it," he hissed, "they'll come looking for us, too, looking for speaking cats!" He'd glared at Dulcie, his ears flat, his eyes blazing, and he'd attacked the desk again.
Together Dulcie and Kit drove him through the house and out the cat door into the garden, both lady cats hissing and clawing at him. There he'd waited alone, crouched miserably among the poppies, watching for Charlie's car, waiting to be taken away from this place.
But then at last Kit had slipped out again among the flowers to make up and be with him; Sage was her lifetime friend, her dear companion, and Kit did not want to see him hurting.
Dulcie had followed her, but then drew back as Sage told Kit how Stone Eye would have destroyed the book. "That was why we attacked Willow's band," he said angrily. "Because they knew where the book was hidden. Stone Eye had known about the book for a long time, and he wanted it gone. He would have clawed it to shreds."
Dulcie listened, shocked. She had watched Kit race back into the house lashing her fluffy tail, and when Charlie came to pick up Sage and Kit, only Sage was there, alone among the poppies.
"Where are Dulcie and Kit?" Charlie asked, glancing toward the house and then kneeling among the flowers, lifting his calico-smudged white face to look at him more clearly. "What's wrong?"
"Dulcie's in the house," he growled.
"And Kit?"
Sage shrugged. "With her, I guess."
Charlie looked at him for a long time, then picked him up and settled him in the car. "Stay here, Sage. Be still and stay here." Her voice said she would brook no nonsense. And she went in to find the lady cats.
She found Dulcie sitting on the desk, but Kit was huddled behind the couch. When Charlie hauled her out, and got to the cause of the argument, she insisted Kit come up to the ranch with the young tom.
"I mean to show Sage my book, Kit, with the drawings of you. I'm thinking of doing some drawings of Sage, and of you two together." This was what Charlie called a white lie, but it forced Kit's attention, bristling with jealousy.
"You wouldn't draw him," the tortoiseshell whispered.
"Why wouldn't I? He's a very handsome young cat."
"Because…Because he's all in bandages. You don't want-"
"That might be quite interesting," Charlie said. "I might even do a book about Sage and how he was attacked."
"You wouldn't!" Kit hissed, flattening her ears, glaring up at Charlie. "You wrote a book about me. Why would you want to write one about Sage!"
"Well, of course if you don't want me to take him up to the ranch and take care of him…Don't want me to fix him a big bed and special treats, if you don't want to come up and share the nice shrimp I bought, and the roast beef and rum custard, and make sure I change his bandages the way Wilma does-if you want Sage to be all alone, to go back alone to the clowder and never see him again…"
Glowering at Charlie's blackmail, Kit stalked through the house and out the cat door to the car, her ears flat, her tail low. When Charlie opened the door, she leaped in past Sage like a streak, over the back of the seat and down onto the shadowed floor among a tangle of bridle parts and sketch pads. There, crawling under a strong-smelling saddle blanket, she rode in sulking silence.
Kit didn't know how she felt. She cared for Sage, but he enraged her. She wanted to be with him, but she didn't. She felt a terrible disappointment in him for wanting to destroy the beautiful book. And why did he have to admire and try to be like Stone Eye? Wasn't there more to Sage than that hard and narrow view? Hunched in the dark under the horse blanket, Kit put her chin down on her paws and tried not to think about Sage, and could think of nothing else.
And when they got to the ranch, the moment Charlie parked and opened the door, Kit leaped out and raced straight to the barn and burrowed in a pile of straw. There she spent the rest of the morning, wishing Sage would come out and apologize, and ready to tear him apart if he tried.
26
CORONER JOHN BERN'S bald head and glasses caught the light as he turned to look at Lindsey. "Who did you say this is?"
She stood at the edge of the freshly turned earth looking down at the grave, at the frail dark bones, at the thin legs in their heavy boots, at the skeletal arm and gold bracelet. "I said I don't think this is Olivia Pamillon."
She was surprised when Bern nodded as if agreeing with her. "This is a far younger woman. The incomplete fusion of the skull, the lack of degenerative changes…We'll do some studies in the lab, but this can't be Olivia. She was active in the village well into her seventies." He looked at her questioningly. "Do you know who this might be?"
Everyone was still, watching Lindsey. She glanced across the grotto to Dallas. "Nina Gibbs?" she said hesitantly, looking back at Bern. "Could this be Ray Gibbs's wife, who went missing?"
Above, on the roof, Joe watched her with interest. Despite the hesitancy of her response, he thought she was very sure.
"But that has to be Olivia," Ryan said. "The bracelet…I remember now, I read about it when I was doing research for the Stanhope studio renovation. She always wore it, didn't she? A gold bracelet with a cat on it, a one-of-a kind piece that was designed for her." She'd started to say, that seemed to have some special meaning, then realized what she would be saying, and became silent.
Dr. Bern shook his head. "I don't know about the bracelet, but this isn't Olivia. These are the bones of a woman half her age, maybe thirty to forty."
"And," Lindsey said, "Nina has…had the bracelet. She wore it long after Olivia died. She told me there was only one, that her aunt had left it to her." She looked at Dallas, and glanced toward the Blazer.