“The wild, speaking cats?” Courtney said. “But Wilma, you said they’re afraid of humans.”
Ryan said, “They like Kate and Wilma. And Charlie and I used to ride up there a lot. But still they’re shy of most humans, and that’s a good thing.”
Courtney drew herself up tall, lifting her front paw with the three black bracelets, the orange and black markings on her back bright even in the soft patio lights. “I want to go there. I want to talk with the ferals, I want to see the ruins, I want …”
Joe Grey looked hard at her. “If you go there, Courtney, Dulcie and I will take you. Or Kit and Pan will. You are not to go alone.”
“Why not? Kit goes alone.”
“It’s too far. Kit is not a half-grown kitten. You can’t run and dodge and disappear as fast, yet, as she can. You can’t climb as high and fast, yet. Do you remember Kit’s story of the mountain lion?”
“I remember.”
“Sometimes there are mountain lions there in the ruins. And bobcats, and always coyotes. You will not go alone, Courtney, until you are a grown-up fighter. And even then, alone isn’t safe.”
“But if you go with me … ?”
“We’ll think about it,” Joe and Dulcie said together.
“At least there’s no gang of thieves up there,” Pedric said. “What’s to steal at the ruins? Not a car in sight except Kate’s. And Lena’s car, down at her aunt’s. Those crooks want a crowded neighborhood, lots of cars to hit all at once.” The older man, tall and regal looking, took Lucinda’s hand. “I’m glad I got my gun permit.”
“I feel safer, too,” Lucinda said. “And I feel easier with Kit home safe at night, and now Pan, too. We missed you,” she said, stroking the red tabby’s back.
Pan said, “I do love John and Mary, but …”
“But,” Lucinda said, “you didn’t plan to stay forever. Now the kittens have taken over for a few days, and that’s good for all of them.”
Dulcie and Joe looked at each other, thinking about their boys going off into the world. Only a few days seemed to them like the prologue to forever. Did all parents feel this way?
But Courtney’s look was … What kind of look was that? Regret that her brothers might move away? Or a sly smugness at having Wilma and Dulcie to herself, having their house to herself? And at having their daddy all her own, at least some of the time.
When, even in the walled patio, the wind quickened and the clouds drew down, the party picked up their plates and leftovers, Clyde put out the fire in the grill, and they moved inside; the conversation turning again to Jimmie McFarland, tucked up in Wilma’s house, waiting for a window to break, a door to wrench open. But soon the Greenlaws headed home, Kit and Pan trotting close beside them as they unlocked their Lincoln, the car that had once nearly been the scene of Lucinda’s and Pedric’s own murders.
Well, that adventure came out all right, Kit thought, shivering, that night on the narrow mountain road when we nearly went over and I ran from the wrecked Lincoln and called for help for Pedric and Lucinda and the coyotes nearly had me.
When Clyde and Ryan came racing up the highway together with Rock and the cats, they saved me, Ryan shot the coyote and saved me. Life, Kit thought, life is good when you have strong and loving friends to help you. That night, she thought, trembling, they sure saved my little cat skin.
17
The Damen house was dark except for ghosts of moonlight shifting beyond the shades. Joe Grey woke feeling off center. What had woken him? He was not in his tower, nor was he in Clyde and Ryan’s bed. He was downstairs in the guest room stretched out on the quilt between Dulcie and Courtney, the three of them crowded against Wilma. He could just see Rock over by the door, lying on the throw rug, Snowball snuggled warm between his front legs. But where were Striker and Buffin, where were the boys?
When he remembered they were cuddled up with the Firettis, Joe scowled with jealousy. Their kittens were cozy in another household, with new friends. And again Joe felt abandoned.
But the two boy kittens were getting big, their blue eyes showing the first glints of yellow and gold in their pale buff faces. At their age, Joe had been on his own, making his own living—such as it was—evading bigger, vicious alley cats, hiding from stray dogs among the street rubble, rummaging for his supper in San Francisco’s garbage cans. Now, it was nearing the time when his own growing kittens would venture into the world for good, choosing the paths of their separate lives—choosing better than the homeless world where he’d first landed.
It hurt, deep down, to think of Buffin and Striker leaving the nest, it hurt Dulcie, and it upset Wilma. Wilma’s house was their nest, Dulcie had birthed the kittens there, had nursed and trained them, had watched them claw the furniture and climb the draperies and duck their heads in shame when they were scolded. Dulcie and Wilma had told the little ones myths, and Joe had told them stories about the real human world that amazed them. He recalled their heart-pounding delirium when each kitten spoke its first words, proved indeed that he or she was a speaking cat, was as rare and talented as everyone had hoped they would be.
Yawning, knowing that Striker and Buffin were safe, he wondered again what had awakened him—then he was sharply alert thinking of the stakeout, of Wilma’s house empty but not empty, police moving unseen through the shadows of Wilma’s neighborhood, Jimmie McFarland dozing fully dressed atop Wilma’s bed with the light on as if Wilma were reading. Jimmie in dark sweats, soft shoes, gun, holster, radio …
Carefully Joe eased out from beside Dulcie and slid to the floor. When Rock raised his head, bumping against the closed door, Joe gave him that be quiet look. But Rock didn’t need it, he was as silent and alert as if he, too, were off to track a felon.
Joe shook his head. “You need to stay here.” He nudged Rock gently until the Weimaraner slid over a few inches, easing Snowball with him. Joe pulled the door open with his claws, gave Rock another look that told him to stay, and slipped through.
He trotted softly up the stairs, hopped up quietly on Clyde’s desk, leaped noiselessly to the rafter and out his cat door. Nudging open a window he hit the roof and took off running. He didn’t hear a sound behind him, heard no stir of soft paws in the fitful breeze as Courtney followed her daddy—and as Dulcie, angry at them both, raced to catch up, both females staying to the shadows, silent as velvet.
Jimmie McFarland woke as disoriented as Joe Grey—but only for a second. He sat up wide awake, swinging his feet noiselessly to the floor, hand on his holstered gun, listening.
He could hear a thief rummaging the house, moving the couch out from the wall, the hush of books being shuffled back and forth in the bookshelves, of the desk drawers opening. He listened to the prowler search the dining room, the buffet and china cabinet. The kitchen and refrigerator took a long time as he tried not to rattle the dishes and pots and pans. He went through the laundry, Jimmie heard him open the freezer, after a few minutes closing it again. Heard him move the washer and dryer as if to look behind them. Heard him come down the hall, check out the guest bath, then open the linen closet, listened to the soft hush as he shuffled towels and sheets. Then the thief was in the guest room.
The faint sounds of drawers opening, of bedding being tossed aside, of the bed being moved, perhaps so he could look at the back of the headboard. When Jimmie heard the closet door slide open he silently turned the lock on his own door, the heavy bolt that had been installed and oiled the night before.
Moving soundlessly down the hall, he heard the boxes on the shelves being shoved aside—then, a second too late, heard the guest room window slide open, heard the guy hit the ground running. Jimmie was down the hall, through the window after him, racing between the line of neighbors’ garages and the rising hill, moving south, half his thoughts on the two officers working the street, wondering where they were. Tall, big-handed Crowley, six feet four, could pick the thief up like a rag doll if he caught him. Portly Brennan was slower, but tough, and reliable with a gun.