“This is Patrick,” Rafe explained. “He’s Portia’s brother. I’m afraid he’s been sick for a while, so he’s been sticking pretty close to me.”
Patrick was a handsome cat, with white patches on his black fur. Sunny had heard some people refer to the color scheme as a tux. “He’s getting better, I hope?”
Rafe nodded. “But slowly.”
Mike glanced dubiously at the cat as he signed himself out. “Nothing catching, is it?”
Rafe surprised them by answering, “Cancer. Poor Patrick had to go through chemotherapy.”
Now Mike gave Patrick a long, thoughtful look. “I’ve had friends who went through that. Guess all I can say is good luck, Patrick.”
“Thanks, sir.” Rafe gently petted Patrick as Sunny signed out.
“I hope he’ll be okay,” she said. Mike was already ahead of her, opening the big door.
When they were outside, Sunny grinned at her dad. “Still so eager to have Rafe as a son-in-law?” she teased. “Love him, love his cats.”
“Hmmph,” Mike said, considering that unpleasant prospect.
Sunny decided to push the subject. “And speaking of prospective sons-in-law, how about Luke? He’s more my age, and a very nice guy, even if he can’t open a bag of chips without disastrous results.” He even had a nice, dark tan—probably thanks to his Italian genes. No sunburn that Sunny could spot.
“A musician?”
From the tone of his voice, it might as well have been, “An ax-murderer?” Sunny thought.
“Why not?” she said, rubbing it in. “Isn’t that what you wanted to be, back when you were with the Cosmic Rays?”
“The Cosmic Blade,” Mike corrected. “And I quickly gave that up.”
“Mom loved music,” Sunny pointed out.
“And your mom knew how hard it was to make money from music,” Mike replied testily. “She was always giving lessons to pay for that piano we got.”
“Sorry, Dad.” Sunny took his arm, genuinely penitent for upsetting him. “I was just teasing.”
For a second, Mike looked at her and then shook his head. “You had me going for a little while.”
“So I guess I’m stuck with Will for the time being.” She put her head on Mike’s shoulder with a wicked grin. “Unless Gardner Scatterwell offers to make me a rich widow.”
“If he ever became my son-in-law, I guarantee you’d soon be a widow,” Mike said in his sternest voice, but he was grinning, too.
*
When Shadow arranged himself for his afternoon nap, he’d draped himself along the top of the sofa. That way he could keep a drowsy eye on all the comings and goings along the street. So, even before Sunny and her father parked, Shadow was at the doorway. The Old One, as usual, held no scents of interest. But Sunny . . . he worked his way around her ankles, inhaling deeply. The mysterious She had marked Sunny very thoroughly.
For a second, Shadow wondered if he should worry about that. He’d been in a lot of homes during his wandering days—before he’d found Sunny and decided to settle down. Sometimes, in those other places, when a new pet came in Shadow had found himself out on the street. Then he caught a whiff of that intoxicating fragrance again, and he stopped thinking at all.
Even when Sunny almost tripped over him, he couldn’t stay away. The scent kept drawing him. While she prepared food and even while she ate it, Shadow couldn’t keep himself from under her feet.
She actually scolded him, and the Old One rumbled at him, too.
But Shadow couldn’t stay away.
*
Sunny began to suspect there might be a problem when Shadow arranged himself across her feet under the dinner table and just lay there, breathing deeply and purring. She reached down to stroke his fur, but he didn’t even raise his head to be petted.
Of course, I never got my hands on Portia today. She concentrated on my ankles—and now, so is Shadow.
He only stopped pestering her when she went up to her room and changed from the khakis she’d been wearing into a pair of shorts. And then he disappeared while Sunny and her dad watched some television in the living room.
Sunny decided on an early night, heading up the stairs to her room and yawning. Maybe she could make up some of the sleep she’d lost this morning.
She opened the door to her room and froze. Her khakis, which she’d hung from the back of a chair, were now on the floor in a heap. And lying on top of them, his head on the hems, was Shadow.
“Well, I guess I’m not wearing them again this week after all,” Sunny said. But the surprises weren’t over. When she tried to pull the pants out from under him, he looked up and actually hissed at her.
“Okay, buddy,” she told the cat, “you can have them for tonight. But after that outburst, don’t think you’re getting into bed with me.”
*
Sunny had a dreadful night, her dreams confused and disturbing. She stood at the doorway to a church—or was it the splendid entranceway to Bridgewater Hall? Sunny wasn’t sure, but she knew she was in a wedding gown. Her father stood beside her, a look of disapproval on his face. She was getting married—but to whom?
Rafe Warner came up, dressed in his guard’s uniform. But he walked by, into the church. So did Luke Daconto, carrying his guitar case. Gardner Scatterwell came rolling up in a wheelchair pushed by Alfred. Both of them smirked at her as they went past. Then came Will Price in his constable’s uniform. But he only looked at her sadly as he went into the church, too.
So who was the groom?
A limousine pulled up, and the chauffeur hustled round to open the door.
Shadow hopped out.
Sunny tried to say something, but there was no time. Shadow ran past her, and then the organ music started and her father took her arm.
And all the way down the long, long aisle, Sunny watched as Shadow kept going from bridesmaid to bridesmaid, sniffing their ankles.
Then the wedding bells began to peal.
No, wait a minute, that wasn’t the sound of wedding bells. It was the telephone. Sunny’s eyelids seemed gummed together, but she finally got them open. Woozily, she groped around for the phone. The bedside alarm read a few minutes after four.
“H’lo?” she managed to croak into the phone. If this turned out to be a wrong number—
“Sunny, that you? It’s Ollie—Oliver Barnstable.” His voice was tight and trembling. “I need you up here right away. Something’s going on. Gardner is dead.”
5
“Wh-What? Ollie? What happened? Hello?” Sunny realized she was almost shouting into the phone, but she got no answers. Ollie had already hung up. And when she dialed his number at Bridgewater Hall, she couldn’t get through. Instead, a recorded message came on, telling her that residents’ phones were not available from ten p.m. until nine a.m.
“Of course,” she muttered, staggering out of bed and heading for the bathroom. She almost stumbled over Shadow, who’d been awakened either by the ringing phone or by her end of the conversation. He hopped around her, obviously picking up on her anxiety.
“What is it? What’s going on?” Mike appeared in his doorway as Sunny stepped into the hall. Oh, wonderful. The ruckus had roused him out of bed, too. Sunny bit her lip, trying to decide on an answer. Early-morning alarms upset Mike, especially since over the past year he’d usually been the cause, awakening at ungodly hours suffering from angina attacks. But a phone call at four in the morning—he knew that meant bad news.
Finally, she decided to give it to him straight. “That was Ollie calling from Bridgewater Hall. Gardner Scatterwell passed away.” Slowly, the rest of what Ollie said percolated through her brain. “He said there was something wrong, and he wanted me up there right away.”