Cat Striking Back

26

“I’M GETTING REALLY paranoid when Joe isn’t in for the night,” Ryan said.

“Shank of the evening,” Clyde said as he turned out the living room lights and they headed upstairs accompanied by Rock and Snowball. “You have to learn to live with it.”

“You don’t worry?”

“I worry all the time. I put it on the back burner, like a dull toothache.”

“That is really very encouraging,” she said, moving up the stairs beside him.

In the master bedroom Clyde lit a fire and pushed the sliding doors open between the two rooms so they could enjoy the cheerful blaze from the study. His desk was littered with the car ads he’d placed in various newspapers and magazines, with the “car collectors” columns from various newspapers, and with faxes and notations of phone calls to answer.

Ryan had set up a folding table next to the couch to serve as a temporary work space. This was stacked with real estate fliers and notes on the dozen pieces of property they were considering. The two of them were so jammed into the small study that neither one could move their chair without disturbing the other. Sitting down to sort through their prospective purchases, she looked up at the newly installed door that led into the new construction, eager to be finished and move into her spacious new studio. The big space was dried in, the roof on, but there was the tile floor still to lay and the rest of the interior to finish; she could hardly wait, she wanted her work space, wanted to get on with the bids on two new jobs plus whatever project she and Clyde decided on. As she considered the real estate material, Rock came to nose at her hand, restless and needy.

The big dog had paced the house since supper, and it was obvious he was looking for Joe, returning again and again to the downstairs cat door to sniff hopefully for any new scent. Now he looked pointedly at Ryan then directed his gaze to the rafters above, to the high and unreachable cat door that led out into Joe’s tower.

“Why’s he fussing?” Clyde said. “Joe’s out at night a lot, Rock never paces like this. Or does he only want a run?”

“He’s been with Dad and Lindsey all day, walking. They must have done ten miles, up in the forest.”

“I thought Lindsey didn’t like hiking in the rough outdoors.”

“She likes to hike with Dad,” Ryan said, smiling complacently. She was very much in favor of her widowed father’s romance. “What she doesn’t like is overnight camping-all the bugs and cooking on the bare ground and no shower.”

“But with an RV-”

“An RV isn’t camping. I mean real camping, that’s what Dad likes, but that isn’t for Lindsey.” She shrugged. “He doesn’t care, they do everything else together.”

Lindsey Wolf had only recently come back into Mike Flannery’s life after a long absence. He’d been working a cold case for the department, the ten-year-old murder of Lindsey’s fiancé. That case soon involved a second murder-it was the cats who’d discovered the body. Without their nosiness, Ryan thought, and without their stubborn efforts to bring that hidden grave to the attention of the law, that victim might never have been found, might have moldered among the Pamillon ruins until the world ended.

But with Joe’s involvement in the case, nudging the law to follow his lead, the gray tomcat had been stranded alone in a strange area fifty miles from home. A plight that, by the time they’d found and rescued him, had driven Ryan to tears though she seldom cried.

Now, as she and Clyde worked, silent and preoccupied, Rock at last gave up pacing, climbed up on the leather couch, and flopped down with a huge sigh. He left just enough room for Snowball, curled up at the far end on the afghan. The white cat woke long enough to lick the big dog’s nose, then went back to sleep. But as Clyde worked at getting the best prices for his collectors’ cars, and Ryan estimated the cost of a major remodel for her favorite of the houses they were considering, both remained tuned to the roof, listening for the sound of soft feet trotting across the shingles and for the flap of Joe’s cat door.

There remained only silence, Joe did not appear on the rafter above their heads yawning and demanding a late snack. It was an hour later that the phone rang, startling them both. Clyde glanced at the caller ID and picked up. Turning on the speaker, he imagined Wilma sitting up in bed with a book in her lap, her white hair loose around her shoulders, a cup of cocoa by her side, a fire burning in the cast-iron wood-burning stove.

Her voice was crisp with tension. “Is Joe home? Have you seen Dulcie or Kit? Lucinda just called, they haven’t seen Kit since their walk up in the hills late this afternoon.”

“Well, that isn’t-”

“Pedric’s worried, too, and he seldom worries. Lucinda said they were somewhere below Ryan’s remodel when Kit met up with a new cat, one of the ferals. She said the two went racing off toward the village. She’d thought that when it got dark, Kit might bring the little thing home, not let her go back alone to the hills, but…Clyde, a clowder cat has never come to the village like that, except when there’s trouble, when there’s some urgent need.

“The Greenlaws haven’t seen either cat since, and I haven’t seen Dulcie or Joe since Charlie came by, around noon. Have they gone up among the ferals in the middle of the night? I can hear coyotes and they sound pretty close.”

“I expect they’re all right,” Clyde said reassuringly, trying not to telegraph his concern. “Ryan’s here, the speaker’s on. Have you called Charlie?”

“I was about to. It’s so foolish to worry, but…”

Ryan moved closer to the phone, leaning into the speaker. “It gets no better, does it? Over time, you don’t worry less?”

“I still worry,” Wilma said reluctantly.

“Call Charlie,” Ryan said. “Then call us back.”

“Yes,” Wilma said, and hung up.

They waited, Clyde uneasily shuffling papers. Rock had left the couch and resumed pacing, with that quizzical Weimaraner frown on his face that made Ryan even more uneasy. Why were they all so tense? The cats were gone many nights, hunting. Joe would come in, in the small hours, and hop on the bed, nosing at her, his cold muzzle smelling of raw mouse-she was getting used to that. Now, watching her good dog worry and wondering what he sensed, she felt like pacing, too. When Rock looked at her again, the worry on his face even sharper, she went into the bedroom, turned off the gas logs, and stepped into the closet to change her slippers for jogging shoes. She had pulled on a sweater and was getting Clyde ’s coat when the phone rang.

Clyde switched on the speaker. Charlie said, “I’m in the car. This afternoon, before we chased that guy, Joe and Dulcie were really focused on the vacation houses, asking a lot of questions. I think…I have keys. You want to meet me there?”

“Yes,” Clyde said. “We’re on our way.”

Ryan tucked the afghan around Snowball and turned off the desk lamp. Clyde turned on the stairway lights and they hurried down. Grabbing Rock’s leash that hung by the front door, they headed for the roadster, which was handier on the narrow streets; with the top down they could better watch the yards and rooftops. Ryan wondered if they were being foolish, were overreacting. On the seat behind her, Rock paced from one side of the car to the other, staring into the night and up at the rooftops, sniffing the wind with such intensity that he made her even more nervous.