Beside the desk Rock reared up, paws on the windowsill, wanting badly to bark; Dulcie had already silenced him twice, receiving that reluctant, I’m bigger than you look. Now Joe shut him up—Rock knew to mind Joe Grey.
“Where’s the PD?” Kit said. “Where’s McFarland? Where’s Dallas, and the chief?” They had thought the law would be there by now, would already have these men surrounded, would be shackling them, locking them in squad cars. There wasn’t a cop in sight. “If they get those cars away, if they head up the coast …”
“Not to worry,” Joe said, twitching a whisker. “Dallas just called Clyde. There won’t be any cops, they’re letting them go.”
“Letting them go?” They all stared at him. “They can’t let them go,” Dulcie said. “With all those cars … They can’t just …”
Kit’s yellow eyes blazed. “Why would … What is Dallas thinking, what did he say?”
“They’re not coming here,” Joe said. “They’ll tail the cars as they turn onto the freeway. He has eight men following for backup, in four unmarked cars, those older, used cars with police radios. They’ll follow them, with two sheriff’s backups way behind and three CHP units up ahead. They’ll see where they take the cars—chop shop, dealer, who knows? They’ll let them pull in and get on with their business, then nail them. Maybe I could just slip into one of the—”
“No you don’t,” Dulcie said, her ears back, her dagger paw lifted. “I’ve had enough scares for tonight.”
“I didn’t say you’d be …”
She just looked at him, her green eyes blazing.
Joe didn’t like that she was scared for him. But then he thought, maybe he did like it, maybe he liked that fierce female caring—maybe she was thinking about the kittens, about the safety of their father. Below them, the entourage, apparently deciding Egan and Randall weren’t going to show, began pulling out. Two of the five men who had arrived earlier were pulling the trailers with clamped-on hitches behind their stolen cars, the trailers loaded up with a Lexus and a Porsche, both nearly new. Leading the entourage was a short, fat man in a black Audi. Eight cars, and each would bring a nice piece of cash—and two more cars that should be following, left behind in the barn. Bringing up the rear, Lena drove her old white Ford station wagon. This would be their return vehicle, once they’d dumped the stolen cars. “I’m surprised,” Pan said caustically, “that Voletta isn’t driving.”
“I’m surprised,” Joe said, “that old woman allows this. She has to be part of it. From what Ryan and Kate say, she’s cranky as hell, but no one thought of her as a crook.”
“And sweet little Lena,” Dulcie said, “with her little-girl voice. Was she using this place, or letting them use it, before she ever moved in with her aunt? That Randall Borden is her husband, then? The dark-haired man headed for jail? You heard Egan.” She looked at him, scowling. “This is where Egan and Randall were headed, they’re the two missing drivers.”
“Just a cozy family business,” Joe said, smiling.
Lena had shut the barn door where the two cars remained, had left them in a dark corner next to the tired-looking stack of baled hay. There wasn’t much else now in the big, hollow building. A few hanging tools, shovels, two ladders propped against a blank wall, a cardboard box on the floor, pushed back into the empty space where the trailers had stood. As the cars left Voletta’s property, one could follow their parade by the faint reflections of lights up the trees, and the fine layer of dust rising against the slowly lightening sky.
The cats watched from the window as their human friends left the mansion, heading back for the shelter, Scotty and Kate lagging behind. When Scotty leaned over and kissed Kate on the forehead, the cats smiled. Courtney cocked her head with interest.
“I wouldn’t speak of kisses,” Dulcie told her. “They’re very shy about this new relationship. New,” she said, “but maybe thinking of marriage? We’ll know in time.” Oh my, Dulcie thought, how much I have to teach our kittens. Courtney didn’t ask questions, she only grew more thoughtful; behind that solemn little face, was she seeing fleeting visions of weddings from lives past, was she putting incidents together?
The entourage of stolen cars was gone a long time, but Scotty’s phone didn’t buzz, there was no word from Dallas. Kate and Wilma made breakfast in the tiny kitchen, scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast—just about the last scrap of food in the apartment, and the last of the coffee. No one wanted the remainder of the store-bought cookies. “When the shelter volunteers get here,” Kate said, “I’ll make a grocery run.” They sat crowded around the tiny table, the five humans comfortable on the two kitchen chairs, the desk chair, and two wooden boxes. The cats had the desk to themselves, their plates laid out on newspapers. Rock lay in the doorway sighing because he never got human food, because he hadn’t been allowed to bark and protect the property, because he felt ignored. When they’d finished breakfast and Wilma had done up the dishes, still there was no word from Dallas; Dulcie fell soundly asleep on Kate’s bed, tired from a long night. Kit and Pan went off up the hills to hunt. Joe Grey, waiting for the call, began restlessly to pace, passing back and forth where Courtney lay deeply asleep on the desk. Before the call finally came, three unlikely events stirred the morning.
Young Courtney pretended to nap until everyone was off on their own business, Clyde walking Rock, Wilma helping Kate and the volunteers, her mama sound asleep in the bedroom. When Joe Grey quit pacing and left the shelter to be near Scotty and his phone, Courtney opened her eyes, leaped to the floor, and eased the outer door open with stubborn paws. Slipping out, pulling the door closed behind her, she was off on her own adventure. She could hear Scotty and Ryan and their two carpenters at work, could see Joe sitting atop Scotty’s truck. She could see Clyde far up the hills taking Rock for a run. Quietly she headed through the tall grass behind the Pamillon mansion, into its tangled gardens, fallen stone walls, its vine-invaded rooms, into the magical places where the feral cats lived.
Crossing the grassy berm she kept glancing back, but she was quite alone. She prowled the little courtyard where, Kit had said, Wilma and Charlie had dug up that valuable book, the book that Wilma had later burned. She knew nothing of the exact location and circumstances of that amazing find. It was the courtyard with its shadowy, overgrown bushes, walled on three sides by the old house, that drew her, a tangled garden mysterious and appealing, that smelled of the feral cats.
Leaping onto a boulder facing the patio, she sat as tall and straight as a small princess, looking into the old garden with its masses of roses and vines. In that fairy-tale world she watched for the feral, speaking cats, praying they would come out, praying they would be curious and acknowledge her.
She had waited a long time when a pale tabby appeared quite suddenly from the bushes beside the house. He leaped to a windowsill, his cream coat blending with the light stone. That was Sage, she knew from Kit’s description. Kit and Sage had almost been lovers, had almost become a pair—until Kit rejected him. Oh my, she thought, such a handsome cat. Farther along the wall Willow appeared, her bleached calico fur, too, matching the colors of the rock-walled house. Both cats watched Courtney, not with hissing confrontation, but with a look of amazement; both gave her ear gestures of greeting and a flicking of tails.
Should she come down off the boulder and approach them, or would they come to her? She felt shy and then bold. She was filled with awe at these cats who must know so much more than she of the history of their own race, more than Kit or her parents had ever told her. Willow approached first.