She thought, shivering, about her own wedding day tomorrow, about the gathering at the Harpers' house-so many law enforcement people in the wedding party, so many prime targets. And for a long moment, an unreasonable wave of dread held Ryan cold and still.
9
DON'T LET THE EXPLOSION at the Harpers' wedding eat at you," Mike said. "Things like that don't happen twice. Or…" He looked at her more closely. "Is there something else bothering you?" Sounds of the party drifted upstairs to them, and to the tomcat listening from the adjoining room beneath the king-size bed. "You don't have second thoughts about marrying Clyde?" Mike asked. "You're not regretting this new step in your life?"
"Oh, it isn't anything like that. It's just…Maybe I'm a bit tired."
There was something else, of course, something she couldn't share with her dad, ever. "It's…someone else's secret," she said inadequately, "that I'm committed to keep."
"Well, that's okay, then," he said easily. Then, "You care if I take Rock in to the station now and then? He'll be bored out of his mind if I leave him here all day, this breed was never meant to be idle."
"Take him, if Max doesn't mind. Rock loves a crowd, it would be good for him." She studied her dad. "Dallas and I've talked about training him to track. He tracked Charlie when she was kidnapped, he figured it out on his own, and showed a fine natural skill. But then, he loves Charlie."
"No question he's smart and eager," Mike said. "He's how old? Three? It's easier to start a puppy. But Rock…the way he watches a person, wanting to be part of the action, wanting to do something. He needs some kind of work."
She knew that too well. A dog like Rock, with so much desire and drive-he was too fine an animal to be lying around doing nothing, or looking for trouble. But she never seemed to have the time to give him what he needed, there weren't enough hours in the day.
From the shadows beneath the bed, Joe Grey listened first with amusement, then with rising interest at the idea of training Rock to track, to find felons or lost children. This, the tomcat realized, might solve the problem that had been eating at him. The dilemma for which, until this moment, he'd had no solution.
Rock could find the body that neither Charlie nor the secret snitches dared report. I can teach Rock to track! I can train a tracking dog in ways no human ever dreamed! And then…
The more he thought about the idea, the better he liked it. He lay working out the details, deciding which humans to enlist, to do the legwork, as it were, and by the time Ryan and her dad headed back downstairs, the gray tomcat was grinning with anticipation.
Quietly he followed father and daughter down to the living room where Clyde was changing discs in the CD player, putting on some old ragtime from early in the last century-how many cat lifetimes ago? Hiding his grin, he sauntered past Ryan and Mike and Clyde, leaped to the back of the love seat and to the top of the six-foot bookcase, startling Mike, who stared up at Joe as he stretched out with his paws hanging over the edge.
"That cat sneaks around like an undercover agent."
"Nature of the cat," Clyde said easily, setting aside some discs. "It's the sneaky cat that catches the mice." And he turned away to sort through the remaining CDs.
Ryan had turned away, too, hiding a grin as she brushed lint from her jeans. Behind Mike's back she glanced up to the bookshelf where Joe was washing his paws. She winked at him, then turned back to Clyde. "We were talking about Lindsey Wolf," she said. "She's lived in the village off and on. Do you know her?"
"I used to see her in the vet's office," Clyde said. "She had a golden retriever, and we'd swap anecdotes." He glanced at Mike. "Didn't you date her for a while? Is that the cold case you're working, her fiancé? What was his name? Chappell? Some people said he got cold feet, bailed out because he really didn't want to get married."
Mike nodded. " Carson Chappell. Lindsey came to Dallas because of an article in the paper, the skeleton of a hiker found up in Oregon. Apparently died about the time Chappell disappeared." Mike stepped to the bookcase to stroke Joe, wanting to know the tomcat he'd be caring for. "Not likely it's Chappell, but Lindsey's fixed on the idea."
"I heard Lindsey moved back," Clyde said, "moved her accounting practice up here. I've seen her sister around the village lately, too. That should be interesting, the two of them in the same small town again; I think they were both dating Chappell, and Lindsey was pretty angry about it."
Mike smiled. "I guess there's no love lost." He stroked Joe for a few moments, studying the tomcat a bit too keenly, then turned away and stretched out in a leather chair, eyeing Joe's clawed and furry easy chair with such obvious amusement that Joe bristled.
What's wrong with that chair? That chair is a masterpiece of feline creativity, it's a rare art form. Some people have no taste.
Clyde was saying, "Lindsey told me once that she and Ryder have been crosswise since they were kids. I guess, when Chappell started seeing Ryder on the sly, that didn't go down too well. Then Chappell and Lindsey announced their engagement, and then Chappell disappeared. About the same time, his partner's wife moved away, and of course village gossip had it that Nina Gibbs and Chappell ran off together."
"It isn't rumor," Mike said, "that after Lindsey moved back to L.A., her sister showed up with Ray Gibbs, Chappell's partner. He and Ryder are still together, they have a place in the city, and they're buying a condo in the village."
"You've been busy," Ryan said. "And Gibbs never found his wife? Never heard from her?"
"Not that anyone knows," Mike said. "I haven't talked with Gibbs yet."
Above, on the bookcase, Joe Grey might have added his own take to the scenario. His thoughts might be off the wall, but he couldn't leave it alone. That hiker up in Oregon died some ten years ago. And what about the skeleton Willow had found among the Pamillon ruins? How old was that body? Two unidentified skeletons, discovered within the same week. Nothing at all to indicate a connection. And yet…
The tomcat didn't believe in coincidence. Too often, in the world of criminal investigation, if one looked deeply enough one would come up with some oblique and overlooked relationship between seemingly unconnected incidents. While the assumption didn't hold true in every case, the general concept had served Joe well.
This time, am I way off base? When Dallas and Harper get a look at that body in the ruins-as soon as we set them up to find it without involving the secret snitches-and when the coroner establishes a time of death on it, what will we have then?
Only forensics could date the Pamillon body. And first, the law had to find it among those isolated ruins where no one ever went, not picnickers, not even many lovers wanting privacy, the Pamillon ruins being too eerie for most lovers.
In short, it wasn't likely anyone was going to accidentally stumble on that lost grave, not without help. And, for sure, the report daren't come from the cops' favorite but unidentified snitch.
The cops get a tip that something's dug up a body there-and how else would it get uncovered? And they wonder about the feral cats around the ruins. He could just hear Dallas: "Something dug it up. And there are cats all over that old estate. Would a band of cats dig up a body? But even if they did, who the hell found it? Who was up there to call in the report? That voice-sure as hell, that was our phantom snitch. What was he doing up there?"