by Clea Simon
“I wish I understood.” Clara looked up to see Becca chewing on her lower lip, a sure sign that she was deep in thought. When she once again consulted her phone, Clara breathed a sigh of relief. Surely, her person was going to call for aid or a consult. As much as her cats were not fans of Becca’s coven, there was a place for other humans in their person’s life. But when Becca simply stood there, staring at the device, she realized something else was going on.
“Is it possible?” Becca’s voice was too quiet for any but her cat to hear. But lacking Laurel’s particular skill, the shadowed feline could do nothing but wait.
The hospital lobby, however, was not a safe place for a small creature. Although Becca was standing by the door, Clara soon realized that she needed to take cover. The same craft that enabled her to virtually disappear could all too easily cause even the most careful pet lover to trip over the little feline. So after the third near collision, Clara scooted over to a bench that ran along the window. She might not be able to hear everything that Becca said from here, but she could keep an eye on her and keep herself safe.
“Watch it!”
Clara whirled at the unmistakable hiss. “Laurel?”
A slow blink made the almond-shaped blue eyes disappear and then appear again in the shadow by the bench’s legs. “I was wondering when you’d have the sense to get out of the way.”
“What are you doing here?” This was the second time Laurel had surprised her, and as much as she welcomed her sister’s assistance, Clara had to admit the sealpoint’s sudden appearance had unnerved her.
“What aren’t you doing is more like it.” Laurel’s distinctive voice wound her own question up into a caterwaul, and Clara looked around in concern. “Oh, don’t be such a clown, Clara! You think these people can even hear themselves think?”
That stopped her, and she looked toward where her sister’s shadow could be seen as a vaguely lighter area against the bench. “Laurel, can you hear what Becca’s thinking? The way she was staring at her phone has me a little concerned.”
The eyes went wide in mock surprise. “But I thought you didn’t want me listening in on Becca. Now this is interesting…”
“Please, Laurel.” Clara was at a loss to explain. “Something is going on, and I’m worried.”
“Why don’t you just go back out there?” Her sister blinked, her shade retreating into the darkness. “And listen for yourself?”
Sure enough, Clara saw, Becca was no longer staring at her phone. Instead, she held it up to her ear. But even feline senses were no match for the cacophony of the lobby, and so Clara made her way back to her person, darting around a family of four and a large man on crutches to stand as close to Becca’s feet as she could without touching.
“Detective Abrams, please.” She kept walking, the phone up to her ear. “It’s Becca Colwin returning his call. Calls, I guess. He’s…what? He’s looking for me? I’m—no, you don’t have to pick me up. I’m going to Charm and Cherish. I should be there in about fifteen minutes. If he can meet me there, I expect to have something to show him.”
Chapter 37
Clara looked around for her sister, but Laurel’s blue eyes didn’t peer back from under the bench. When the calico’s sensitive nose failed to catch any hint of another feline in the crowded foyer, she realized her sister had slipped away without her.
For one awful moment, Clara thought Becca had, too. Then she saw her person on the sidewalk and with a leap made it through the glass of the front window to land on the sidewalk beside her. But even had Clara not been shaded, Becca might not have noticed the sudden appearance of her pet beside her. As she walked through the small crowd of a taxi line, Clara’s person seemed to be focusing on another world. Almost, the cat thought, as if she could see the unseen.
Could it be? As recently as a week before, the little cat would have thought this to be impossible. As much as Becca wanted to have magical powers, such abilities were solely the province of cats, or so the little calico had always believed. And although Becca’s research had brought her perilously close to the truth about her ancestors—those brave women who assisted their felines in the application of the craft—her approach was all wrong. As much as she loved the three littermates she’d adopted, Becca still viewed them merely as pets, rather than guides and teachers, a mistake that Clara had blithely assumed doomed any attempts at magic to failure.
In the last few days, however, Clara had found some of her core beliefs about her beloved person, and about her own powers, to be challenged. She simply didn’t know.
To be on the safe side, Clara kept herself cloaked as she tagged along after her person. Although they had cleared the crowd immediately outside the hospital, the little cat was concerned. Becca seemed to be lost in thought, oblivious to the city around her. Trotting alongside her person, Clara saw that she was frowning, her sweet face intent on something beyond the little cat’s perception. But since Clara could not smell any predators in the immediate vicinity, all she could do was fret over what was occupying her person so.
Hearing, however, was different. Clara was a city cat, and from her earliest days in the shelter she had become accustomed to the sounds of people and their machines. As a reasonable creature, she had an aversion to cars, and thus she was grateful when Becca turned down a residential street. She had a sense of where her person was heading—the store where she had asked that big detective to meet her was not that far away, especially if she took the bus from Harvard Square. Still, she stuck close by Becca’s feet.
As they turned down another corner, Clara realized that Becca was retracing her path of the other day, when she and the bike messenger had walked to the nearby square. This route was not only quieter, it was, Clara suspected, what her person would term a “shortcut,” a very human concept, but one that she accepted as her person’s choice.
As one tree-lined block followed another, Clara began to relax. The roar of the city’s traffic never totally disappeared, but as she trotted alongside Becca, she could hear other sounds that recalled different times. A bird sang somewhere unseen, and two squirrels squabbled over the first of the season’s acorns. In such a setting, the click of a bicycle gear merited no more than the flick of an ear. The squeak of a brake, though, that caused the cat to turn, as a sudden whiff of a familiar scent made her fur begin to rise.
“Becca!” The voice, friendly if a bit breathless, startled Clara’s person, who whirled around with a gasp.
“Sorry.” He smiled as he jumped off his bike and walked it up to her. He reached to embrace her and Becca almost tripped as she scrambled out of reach. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Tiger! Goddess bless.” Those were strong words for Becca, and for a moment Clara worried that her person had fallen harder than her pet knew. Only, there was a note in Becca’s voice that Clara couldn’t place. What was her person thinking? “It’s Gaia. I think she’s in trouble,” she started to explain, her face clouded with worry.
“Gaia?” He stepped back, considering.
“Yeah, I came by to talk to her. Only she left with someone, and, well, I’m heading over to meet with the police now.” Becca could have been talking to herself, she seemed so preoccupied. “But I think you were right. I think maybe Elizabeth was behind the poisoning.”
“I knew it.” Tiger nodded, a grim half smile spreading across his face. “I bet they’ll tie the poison in with Frank’s death, too.”
“That’s right.” Becca looked up at him. “You said Frank was poisoned from the start. Back before any of us had heard anything.”
She paused ever so briefly, lost in thought, and began to walk once more, heading, Clara knew, into the square. “Before Gaia had heard anything, come to think of it. Although, didn’t you say Gaia knew he had a bad heart?”
“Yeah, she did.” His face was unreadable as he walked beside her, rolling his bike by his side. “I remember her telling me. She must’ve forgot.”
&n
bsp; “Funny thing for her to forget.” Becca could have been addressing the bricks of the sidewalk. “Come to think of it, you knew about Gaia being poisoned before anyone else, too.”
“Well, yeah. I was with her.” Those blue eyes went wide with innocence as he strode beside her.
“No, you weren’t.” Becca shook off his assertion as she kept walking. If her pace picked up a little, it was barely perceptible to any but the small cat who trotted by her side. “I was on the phone with her when she started getting sick. She was alone. I’m the one who called 9-1-1.”
As she talked, Becca turned a corner, and Clara saw the traffic of Harvard Square ahead. His bicycle at his side, Tiger lengthened his stride to move slightly ahead, a tilt of that handsome head as he tried once again to catch her eye. “And am I ever glad you did, but she called me first, and then I came by.” The assertion came out with force, like he was claiming the sick girl. “Truth is, I thought she was just being dramatic. Trying to get my attention.”
Becca shook her head again slowly and sighed, Clara thought, with a trace of sadness. “She wouldn’t do that. She broke up with you. She’s told me you’re the one who’s been trying to get back together.”
“Well, yeah.” That grin as he sped up, moving slightly ahead of Becca. Trying to get in front of her. To catch her eye. “The girl has some pride, after all. Good old Gaia. Crazy girl.”
“Not like her buddy Gail Linquist, huh?” Becca’s voice was flat. She was waiting as she walked, Clara realized, though for what, the loyal calico couldn’t tell.
“No way.” He was laughing, a broad chuckle that matched the slight rattle of his bike, as he shifted his grip on the black metal frame. “I never understood that friendship.”
“You don’t know her, do you?”
“Excuse me?” A burst of laughter followed, but when Becca finally turned to face him, she didn’t join in.
“Gaia—Gail—they’re the same person, and you don’t know her. You’re not her ex-boyfriend.” She said it simply, her voice a trifle sad. The noise of the traffic would have drowned out her words if they hadn’t stood so close to each other. “Your name isn’t Tiger.”
“I’m not?” One look. A laugh, and he gave it up. “Yeah, well…” With a tilt of his head, the tall, lean man smiled down at her. “You made that assumption, didn’t you? I just went with it. Come on, Becca. It was no big deal.”
“No big deal?” Her voice had taken on a steeliness that Clara didn’t recognize. “Why did you pursue me?”
Neither, apparently, did the cyclist beside her. “Why?” He chortled as if she had told a joke. “Why does a guy like me usually pursue a girl like you?”
“Why?” The steel replaced by ice. Another laugh, but something had shifted. He leaned back, straightening the bike. Becca started toward the intersection ahead, then stopped once more. “It had to do with the photos, didn’t it? The plant I saw, or…”
She paused, her eyes going wide. “You were the one who suggested I go back to the store. You egged me on, hoping I’d get caught. You called Margaret to tell her that you saw someone breaking in, only I hadn’t done it yet. But then, when I was foolish enough to break off a branch…” A gasp as the implications of that call—the missed messages, the police looking for her—hit home.
“Now wait a minute.” He reached out to take her hand, but she jerked her arm away. To Clara’s relief, Becca began to walk again, heading swiftly toward the noise and bustle of the busy street ahead. Taller than her by a head, the bike messenger had no problem keeping up, wheeling his black-framed bike by his side. They were almost at the corner. Clara lashed her tail, unsure what to do or how to intervene. “I never told you to climb in a window—”
“You knew I would.” Becca pulled her phone from her pocket and peered down at it as she walked, talking all the while. “You knew, because you saw me break into Frank Cross’s office. You must have been the one who told the police. Only you didn’t know what I’d found, did you? Until you saw…”
She slowed as she began poking at her phone.
“I’m sending that photo to the police.”
What happened next was too fast for Clara to react. Like a real jungle beast, the man they knew as Tiger lunged, grabbing for the phone in Becca’s hand. But Clara jumped as his bike clattered to the ground, tripping him as he surged forward.
“No, you don’t understand!” The fake Tiger struggled to his feet, reaching for Becca as she stumbled backward. Stumbled to the curb, desperate to get away. “I was trying to protect you. I would have if I could—”
To Clara’s dismay, Becca stopped. “What?”
“My bosses.” He stood and brushed off his knees as two women in suits pushed by. When he looked up, his face was sad. “They are not people you cross.”
“His new business partners…” Becca could have been talking to herself. “The ones Ande knew about but Margaret didn’t. The ones Gaia didn’t like…”
“I’m just the messenger,” he said, taking a careful step forward. “I pick things up and I drop them off. Sometimes, they have me clean up the mess.”
“Like Frank Cross?” Becca took another step backward. Already, the noise of the busy traffic was enough to nearly drown out her quiet query. “You knew about his affairs. About how he’d died before anyone else did.”
He nodded, coming closer. “He had a sweet deal, but he panicked. All he had to do was change out the plates and keep his mouth shut.”
Waves. The Ocean State, the symbol of Rhode Island. Clara didn’t know if she was picking up Becca’s thoughts or if she had heard this. Only that it was true.
“The hit-and-run?” Becca must have made the same connection. In the midst of the square’s bustle, she was a point of quiet inquiry.
The man before her nodded once again, his pale face sad. “It was an accident. One of the boss’s sons. He was drinking.” He shrugged. “We could get rid of the car, but we needed clean plates right away to make the trail disappear. All Frank had to do was keep quiet.”
Pedestrians parted around them. Behind her, the morning traffic was only beginning to die down.
“That’s all you have to do, too, Becca.” His voice was soft. The warmth had returned. “I don’t want to hurt you. Never did. Honest. I really like you. Now, just give me the phone.”
Time stood still as Clara looked from the man back to her person. Surely, the little device wasn’t worth the trouble. As the calico looked on, Becca held it up and took a step back.
He lunged. Grabbing the arm that held the phone, he wrestled it from her grasp. Only then did Clara see the cold glint in his eye as he pulled it free and pushed her backward into traffic.
“No!” Clara yowled. She was too small to push Becca to safety, too small to take down this predator with the assumed name. But appearing out of nowhere, she had the element of surprise. As Becca’s hat went flying, the calico leaped, making herself visible as her person stumbled after the little cloche, into the street.
“Clara?” Crying out the name, Becca caught herself, and, turning, fell to her knees beside the curb as a passing pickup truck crushed the hat into the pavement. “How…?”
But whatever she was going to say was caught up in a thunderclap of pain and noise, and Clara knew no more.
Chapter 38
“Wake up, little one.” A kind voice, long remembered. “Wake up!” The rough warmth of a tongue. “Wake up!”
“Mama?” Clara struggled to open her eyes, only to find Laurel’s steely blues glaring down at her.
“Move it!” Her sister’s hiss had an edge of—could it be?—fear, and Clara struggled to her feet. “Quickly!”
She was in Harvard Square, with Laurel’s shaded body, the merest hint of milky coffee in the afternoon light, propping her up against a curbstone.
“What happened?” Clara took a step and nearly fell as her right front leg gave out. Before she could hit the pavement, however, she felt he
rself pulled upright. Laurel had her by the scruff of the neck. Despite the pain—her paw was throbbing—the grip was strangely comforting, and Clara relaxed.
“Great Bast, you’re heavy!” Laurel muttered, her breath warm on Clara’s neck. “All righty, then. Off we go!”
Clara felt herself being lifted into the air, and the strange tingling of her guard hairs that signaled a passage through an earthly barrier. “Wait!” she managed to yell as she felt her sister begin to take flight. “We can’t leave Becca!”
“Becca’s fine.” Laurel growled through clenched teeth. “See for yourself.”
She turned, maneuvering Clara like a kitten. Sure enough, Becca was standing on the sidewalk, alone. The man she had known as Tiger appeared to have fled, leaving her gaping, her head swiveling between the sidewalk and the hat that now lay squashed flat in the road before her. But it wasn’t the cloche she seemed to see.
“Clara?” She was blinking at the traffic, which sped past unabated. “Clara kitty?”
“She can’t see us.” Laurel muttered. “Not now.”
“But she’ll be worried.” Despite the pulse of pain, she yearned to be back on the ground with her person.
“She’s about to be very busy,” said her sister. Sure enough, a siren added its wail to the noise, causing Becca to turn in its direction and set off at a run. “Now are you content, you silly clown? Because I’ve got enough to do to get us both home without having to answer all your questions.”
With that, Laurel began to purr, and the rising and falling vibration lulled Clara, who closed her eyes and felt herself a kitten again. She was carried like this once. She recalled a storm and a sudden exodus. The abandoned shed where she and her sisters had been born was no longer safe, a soft voice purred. They were going to a new home and to a new responsibility. They were to take up the mantle of the cats before them, joining forces to assist a young woman who was also just beginning to make her way in the world.
