The Big Kitty

23

In the darkness, Shadow crouched by the bushes at the end of the driveway. He’d enjoyed having Sunny pet him, but hadn’t liked the scents coming off her. She smelled of the old place where he’d lived, the place of death. And he caught a whiff of something else. It wasn’t quite fear—he knew that stink all too well. There was worry in there, too. He felt that in her touch. But there was also an odd tickle, the sort of thing he sensed when a strange cat had decided to fight.

Sunny was very quiet, talking with the Old One, so she wasn’t going to fight with him. Then the new male came in. Something was going on between them, though it didn’t seem like a fight, either. But something kept warning him of danger.

When he saw they were going out, he escaped before they could stop him. He heard Sunny calling to him, but stayed hidden. When she went to the door on the big vehicle, he dashed across the sidewalk and launched into a jump for the open back. His bruised ribs complained at the exertion, but he landed successfully.

Even better, no one had noticed him.

They didn’t go far. But even though he couldn’t look over the sides of this large box, his nose told him where they were. He stretched to hook his forepaws over the top of the wall, scrabbled over, and landed in the street.

Why did they keep coming back to the Dead One’s house? Didn’t they know that this was a Bad Place?

*

Sunny released a deep breath as she walked up the driveway to the rear of the Spruance place. She didn’t want to admit it, but the house definitely looked creepier in the dark.

Pulling out a pocket-sized LED flash, she lit her way down into the basement and up into the pantry. She flipped a switch, and the kitchen lights came on. Sunny breathed a sigh of relief. The power company hadn’t pulled the plug yet.

She prowled around the kitchen and then glanced at her watch. Five minutes had passed. Will should be in place by now. How to kill time before Shays turned up?

Sunny repressed a shiver. Maybe “kill” wasn’t a good word to use while waiting for a murderer. She decided that she might as well actually continue looking for the ticket to spend the time and drifted back to the pantry to finish the search that Shadow had interrupted earlier.

All she found was more canned goods, more dust, and an unidentifiable damp patch that was unpleasantly sticky. She washed her hands in the sink, then tackled the cabinets beneath.

No errant lottery ticket had fluttered down to land among the cleaning stuff. Sunny was on her knees, shifting the pots and pans, when the pantry door screeched open.

“Wow, that was quick. Did you get them already?” Sunny began, but she stopped when she saw who was standing there. “Raj? What are you—?”

Sunny stopped again when he brought up his right hand—the one with the pistol in it.

“Recognize it?” he asked, his voice more nasal and a lot less polished. “It’s your boyfriend’s.”

“He’s not—” Sunny broke off her denial, realizing it wouldn’t do much good arguing about her relationship status when a murderous character was holding a gun on her. Then a more important thought crowded out that reaction. “What did you do to him?”

“He just went nighty-night when a lost traveler asked him for help with an address, and then slugged him with a tire iron.” Raj thought that was really funny and gave her a smile; a real, openmouthed smile, one that revealed his distinctive, brown, mismatched teeth.

“Ron Shays,” Sunny said. “Well, you clean up pretty well.”

Shays made an airy gesture with his manicured hand—the one not holding the gun. “I do, even if I say so myself. Headed down to Boston for a haircut and beard trim, not to mention an improved wardrobe. Then I booked myself into an expensive spa—tanning bed, mani-pedi, all kinds of skin goo.” He gave her another snaggletoothed grin. “I came out a new man.”

“With a new name,” Sunny said.

He nodded. “A lot of people, when they got to change their identity, choose something with the same initials. You can almost pick ’em out. Me, I go by sounds. Lately, I was doing business as ‘Rob O’Shea.’ You hear that in a crowded room, and it almost sounds like ‘Ron Shays.’

“And so, in a slurred kind of way, does ‘Raj Richer.’” Shays beamed.

Sunny felt stupid to admit it, but she could see his point.

“A bit more upper-class,” he said, falling back into the vaguely European accent he’d been using in his latest identity. “The only problem was the teeth. No time to get them fixed. But that whole British tight-lipped thing really made it convincing.”

“Yeah.” Sunny grimaced at her gullibility. “What I don’t understand is why you came after me at all.”

Shays shrugged. “A customer from up this way tells me some local gossip about a down-on-her-luck newspaper reporter poking into the old woman’s death. I needed a place to lie low, and I wanted a look at the person who was following the news story. Figured I’d take care of both jobs by going to your office. And as soon as I saw you at work, finding me a place, digging up that genealogy crap, I knew you’d have to be stopped. You’d have kept digging, going after Gordo, until you found out about my business. So I figured I’d keep an eye on you—with an eye to getting rid of you.”

Sunny suddenly recalled how she’d always happened to bump into her new pal Raj right before bad stuff started happening. He identified her car before the bullet gizmo got placed in it. He spotted her on the bike when that SUV started following her. She’d told him about her dad’s truck being towed. And it would have been easy to have his stooges waiting for her when Ollie the Barnacle sent for that file. The only one that didn’t fit the pattern—

“Did you have somebody follow me to O’Dowd’s?”

Shays shook his head. “Eddie went in there for a beer and spotted you with Gordo. He called me, and I set something up quick.” His lips curled away from those ugly teeth again. “Only those nimrods screwed it up—like they did every time. Even when I dropped the pills in your glass, Gordo knocked it over before you drank the wine.” His teeth showed in an angry snarl. “I spent a lot of money acting like a rich guy. Now I gotta get paid.” He was still dressed like Raj Richer, but with his lips twisted and his eyes angry, he looked a hell of a lot more like crazy Ron Shays.

“It’s like there was a curse on us, right from the beginning, when the old biddy woke up and found me looking for her frigging ticket. I had to shut her up, and nothing’s gone right since.”

“Well, you kept me fooled,” Sunny hastily said, trying to calm him down. She glanced at a big, cast-iron frying pan just beside her knee. If she grabbed that, maybe threw it at his face—

Shays must have read something in her expression. “Don’t fool yourself, now. You’re too far away. I could put a bullet in you before you even get off the floor.”

For the first time, he seemed to notice the pots around her.

“You’re still looking?” the drug dealer burst out. “When I heard about you on the news, I figured you must have had some inside information from the old woman or Gordo.” His eyes skidded around the room, and Sunny could almost see the thoughts bouncing back and forth in his meth-fueled brain. Paranoia, low impulse control, and the coldhearted business acumen that had made him a successful criminal …

Sunny could read it in his eyes. He’d decided to cut his losses.

And that included her.

“Get up!” Shays said, his voice hard. “Get over here!”

Is this what happened to Ada? Sunny thought. Did she find him in here searching for the ticket? Did he try to get the location out of her?

As Sunny slowly rose to her feet, a bloodcurdling moaning noise came up from the basement.

“What the hell is that?” Shays snapped.

Sunny had no idea. Ada’s ghost?

The noise came closer, modulating into a deep, guttural growl.

“Shut up!” Shays’s eyes were wild now, and he waved the gun at the door.

It flew open with a wild screech, and a lean gray shape came rocketing into the room—seemingly aimed straight for Shays’s nose.

The man tried to twist aside, then screamed as Shadow caught him. Claws raked across Shays’s face, his hand jerked, and his gun went off.

Somehow Shays managed to shake the cat loose. Shadow landed on one of the pantry shelves, sending a row of cans cascading down, and bounced back at the killer.

That was what Shays looked like now—a killer. His lips were twisted back in a frozen snarl, baring his discolored teeth. Blood dribbled down from a set of deep gouges just over his left eye.

The claws on Shadow’s other paw must have caught Shays’s left ear. The lobe was torn, and blood poured down the side of his neck, soaking into his expensive coat.

Hissing and growling, Shadow was all over the dealer, clawing at clothing and whatever flesh he could reach.

Sunny snatched up the frying pan and tried to join the fight, but Shays saw her and snapped off a shot with his pistol.

The bullet must have hit the skillet, because it was torn from her grasp, leaving her hand numb. Sunny dived to the floor as more shots rang out. Something crashed behind her, but she didn’t bother trying to look.

The problem was, she had no place to go. Shays still stood in front of the only door out of this place.

Using both hands, Shays finally managed to push Shadow away, screaming again as the cat’s claws pulled out of whatever they’d dug into.

The dealer continued screaming, his lips writhing, as he tried to shoot Shadow. But the cat seemed to fly around the cramped quarters of the pantry, crossing back and forth between shelves, trying to get at Shays again.

For a second, he hung on to Shays’s back, his claws embedded into the side of the man’s neck on the unbloodied side. Of course, it wasn’t unbloodied after Shadow was done.

Shays twisted around, trying to aim his pistol over his left shoulder and between Shadow’s eyes.

Sunny grabbed the nearest pot—good, old-fashioned, heavy stainless steel—and flung it at the dealer’s head.

It hit with a satisfying clong! and knocked Shays off balance, his gun hand twitching. An instant later, the pistol went off. Shays staggered and spun, giving out his loudest scream yet. He stared at Sunny slack jawed for a moment. “Made me shoot myself!” he shrieked, barely audible over the ringing in Sunny’s ears.

Then she heard something else. Approaching sirens.

Ron Shays must have heard them, too. His face became a bloody, torn devil mask of pure malevolence as he raised his gun.

Sunny flung herself toward the dining room in a hopeless leap.

And Shadow made an incredible bank shot, springing up from the floor, rebounding off one of the shelves, and fastening claws and teeth onto Shays’s gun hand.

The weight of the cat pulled his hand down, and the pistol fired into the floor. The gun flew loose, going one way, the cat flying in the other. Shadow landed in a heap—Sunny did, too, half in, half out of the kitchen.

The pistol clattered on the linoleum floor.

Sunny saw her only chance. If she could get the pistol …

Ron Shays stood above her, his bleeding face contorted in pain, moaning and cursing. He’d clapped his left hand over the shredded flesh of the hand that had held the gun. But that must have aggravated the self-inflicted wound in his shoulder. He rocked back and forth, his face pale.

She scrambled across the floor, trying to get the weapon. But her movement brought Shays out of his stupor. He swooped down, snatching the gun almost from under Sunny’s nose. Shays straightened, reeling on his feet, needing both hands to aim the pistol.

It wobbled a little, but at this range it couldn’t miss Sunny’s head.

“Outta lives,” he gasped. “Both you and that damn cat …” His hand steadied—

And the door behind him almost tore off its hinges as it shrieked open, slamming into Shays’s back.

It crashed against him—right onto his wounded shoulder. That sudden pain was just too much for the dealer to deal with. His eyes rolled up, and he collapsed to the floor.

Will Price stood over him in the doorway, a snub-nosed revolver in his hand. His face was pale, with crusting blood smeared down one side. His eyes were wide and full of fear.

“Sunny!” he yelled. “Are you okay?”

She levered herself up. “Yeah!” she shouted back, her ears still ringing. “I thought he’d killed you!”

*

Shadow paid no attention as Will came in and hugged Sunny. All his attention was focused on the male on the floor. He wore a musky, spicy scent that should have been pleasant to smell. But under that, he was still marked with the poisonous stench, a hundred times worse than the Stinky One. This was the Other One, the one who had killed the old woman who had lived here, sheltering and feeding Shadow.

Until this one came and sent her down the stairs.

This was a Bad Place, a place of dread.

But now it could be a place of revenge.

With his battle song still rising from his gut, Shadow advanced on the form lying on the floor. His claws had done well, tearing one ear until the blood flowed—though even that stank with the Other One’s taint.

But the killer had another ear. And Shadow knew he could make it bleed as freely.

*

A low moan snapped Sunny and Will apart. They looked down to find Shadow single-mindedly savaging Ron Shays’s undamaged ear. The pain must have brought the drug lord around. Will moved quickly, kicking the pistol out of Shays’s reach.

He had a much harder time shooing the cat away from Shays. The cat wanted another piece of him … a bigger piece.

Ben Semple burst in, gun drawn, followed by several other Kittery Harbor constables.

“We got a report of shots fired—jeez!” He broke off, staring around at the carnage spread out before him. “What were you trying to do, reenact the gunfight at the OK Corral?”

“The man on the floor is a drug dealer, Ron Shays,” Sunny said, lurching to her feet and pointing. She needed the other hand to hold on to the countertop. “He’s the one who shot those two guys that turned up dead yesterday.”

Semple let his colleagues in blue have the job of stopping Shays’s bleeding while also getting him into handcuffs. “And what happened to you?” he asked Will.

“Shays clocked me while coming in to try and kill Sunny,” Will replied. “I came to, heard shots, dug out my backup gun, and tried to get in here ASAP.”

“You missed a real Wile E. Coyote moment,” Sunny told him. “Between Shadow and me, we managed to get Shays to shoot himself.”

“But not before he shot the hell out of the place,” Semple said. “He even killed the telephone.” The constable shook his head.

Sunny looked over her shoulder. One of Shays’s wild shots had indeed killed the old, 1960s-era phone hanging on Ada’s wall. Only the backboard remained in place, with a big hole in it. The receiver lay on the floor, its coiled cord stretching up to the shattered body of the phone lying on the countertop.

And atop all the wreckage lay a piece of paper.

Sunny had to look twice before she believed her eyes.

It was a lottery ticket.

And, luckily, the bullet hole punched through it hadn’t destroyed either the winning numbers or the date—which would expire tomorrow.