But maybe Emmylou Warren didn’t know nothing, was just out in the yard maybe feeding those cats that hung around her. Useless creatures, what were they good for? In the light from her porch he watched her poking around down in her yard and she didn’t once look his way. Dark as hell up behind the pines and heavy bushes. He watched her head up the steps to her back door, that big yellow cat walking along beside her, following her like a dog, old woman talking to it, crazy as hell, walking around in her yard in the middle of the night gabbing away to a cat, talking as if the damn thing would answer her.
9
MISTO GLANCED UP twice toward the woods as he followed Emmylou up the back stairs and inside. He was quite aware of the black car that had pulled in among the trees high above the stone house, though Emmylou was not. He could smell the fumes of its exhaust drifting down, cutting through the scent of the pines, and on the riffling breath of the night he caught a whiff of blood that tweaked his curiosity. Accompanying Emmylou inside, he leaped to the sill where he could look back up the hill, studying the denser blackness among the night woods where the big car stood. Pretty nice car to be jammed in among the trees that way. He’d like to tell Emmylou to turn the porch light off so he could see better but he never spoke to her, she didn’t share his secret, she was not among the few who knew the truth about the speaking cats, she was simply a kind and comfortable friend. Misto had, in fact, a number of secrets he didn’t share with Emmylou Warren—though it was she who had, unwittingly, opened a new door to Misto. Had, by accident or by strange circumstance, pulled aside a curtain into the tomcat’s ancient memory, had let cracks of light into a life he’d lived long before this present existence.
Maybe the memories began with the smell of the mildewed money there in Emmylou’s house, often it was a smell of some sort that stirred a lost vision. The sour stink of those three packets of old bills she’d found had nudged him as if a hand had reached up from his past, poking at him, bringing back scenes from a life nearly forgotten. Or maybe it was the grainy photograph in a tin frame that had awakened those long-ago moments, the picture of a child who had, by now, already grown up, grown old, and died. Maybe that little girl’s eager smile had stirred alive that lost time.
Back in February, when the cops found Sammie’s body, Misto had no idea who the dead woman was but he knew her name, it stuck in his thoughts and wouldn’t go away. He hadn’t put it together until later, that this Sammie was the little child from his own past, from a life lived many cat generations before this one.
Emmylou usually left the back door open while she was working inside, replacing Sheetrock and sawing and hammering. Hearing her at work, he’d slip in for a visit with the stringy, leathery woman. With his own humans away for the week, Dr. John Firetti and his wife, Mary, off at a veterinarian conference, he’d been up here every day. He was staying with Joe Grey and the Damens, which suited him just fine: sleeping on the love seat with the big Weimaraner and little Snowball, or up in the tower with Joe. But Ryan and Clyde were busy folks, Clyde with his upscale automotive business and Ryan with her construction firm. And Joe was off at all hours with his tabby lady, following their lust for crime, hanging out with the cops at MPPD, waiting eagerly for some scuzzy human to be nailed and jailed. Sometimes, then, Misto would slip up to visit this homey and comfortable woman, to stretch out on her windowsill as she went about her work. He liked to watch her tear out cabinets and finish the walls with new Sheetrock, and Emmylou was good company. That was how he came on the picture of the child, she had moved it back onto the dresser after shifting the furniture around. He’d hopped up there to be petted, and there it was, the picture of a child that so shocked him he let out a strange, gargling mewl.
“That’s Sammie,” Emmylou had said, looking down at him. “Sammie when she was little, so many years ago. My goodness, cat, you look frightened. How could an old picture scare you?”
The photo was sepia toned, and grainy. The child was dressed in an old-fashioned pinafore, crisply ironed, and little patent-leather shoes with a strap across the instep, over short white socks. He had known this child, he remembered her running through the grass beside a white picket fence, he could see her bouncing on her little bed with the pink ruffled spread, he could hear her laughing. Those moments from another life crowded in at him in much the same way he remembered fragments from a long-ago medieval village, scenes so clear and sudden he could smell offal in the streets and the stink of boiled cabbage and the rain-sodden rot of thatched rooftops.
Here in Emmylou’s house, the time of Sammie’s childhood grew so real he could smell the bruised grass on her little shoes, could feel her warmth when he curled up close to her, the softness of her baby skin, the smell of little girl and hot cocoa and peppermints, the sticky feel of peanut butter on her small fingers. How strange to think about that lost time. How clearly he remembered the humid Southern summers, the buzz of cicadas at night, the days as hot as hell itself, and so muggy your fur was never really dry. How had he been drawn here to this place where, so many long years later, the grown-up Sammie had lived and died?
Soon he wasn’t going off with Joe Grey at all, or even with his son, Pan, but heading up alone to see Emmylou and revisit those memories that so stirred him, to sit on the dresser looking at little Sammie while Emmylou hammered and sawed and talked away, and all the while it was Sammie’s young voice he wished he could hear.
He wasn’t sure how many of his nine cat lives he had spent, and he wasn’t sure what came after. Some of his lives were only vague sparks, bright moments or ugly, a scene, a few words spoken, and then gone again. Only his life with Sammie was so insistent. As each new memory nudged him, another piece of that life fell into place, toward whatever revelation he was meant to see, another moment teasing his sharp curiosity.
But tonight, crouched on Emmylou’s windowsill, a different kind of curiosity gripped Misto, too. He waited patiently until he saw the black car move on again down through the woods, following the lane that led to the old, narrow shed beneath the stone house. Misto guessed, with its wide, hinged doors, it was a kind of garage, maybe built for farm tractors or a Model A. Did the driver expect to fit that big car in there? Not likely, not that long, sleek vehicle. Though in the reflection of light from Emmylou’s back porch he could see dents and scrapes in the fenders, too, and a loose front bumper. The driver stepped out, left the motor running, the taller of the two men he’d seen coming up there before, shaggy brown ponytail hanging down the back of his dark windbreaker.
He opened the heavy swinging doors, got back in and, amazingly, he pulled the car on inside. It was a tight fit, barely enough room for him to help his companion out, the shorter man stumbling, and that’s where the smell of blood came from. Blood smeared down his face, soaking into the rag he held to his nose. Moving up the stone steps to the room above, he bore much of his weight on the wooden rail. The taller man closed the shed doors, replaced the padlock, and followed him up. Watched him struggle into the house but didn’t help him. The door closed behind them. Misto heard the lock snap home.
No lights came on inside, except the faintest glow as if they had an electric lantern up there. Wanting to see more, Misto dropped from Emmylou’s windowsill to the floor and trotted out through the old cat door that was cut in the back door. Emmylou’s own three cats used it, wild creatures he thought might have been feral, who came and went as they chose. Galloping up the hill and up the stone stairs, through the men’s scent, he leaped to the stone sill beside the door, peered in through the dirty glass.
10
HEAVY FOG HUGGED the coastal highway, slowing the king cab as Clyde negotiated the blind lanes following the dim taillights of the sheriff’s car that led them, both drivers watching for unexpected obstructions in the heavy mist. He and Ryan and the two tomcats were all fidgeting, thinking about Kit alone somewhere on the cliff ahead, her little tortoiseshell face peering out from some stony crevice that coul
d hardly protect her from larger predators, waiting for help to come rescue her. Kit might act brash and brave with her friends but tonight her voice on the phone had been shaky, scared, and uncertain.
“Good thing we have friends in the department,” Joe said, rearing up on the backseat peering out the side window into the rolling mist. “Someone to get us through the roadblock back there. I wouldn’t have wanted to climb up this damnable, fog-blind road ducking falling boulders you can’t even see coming down at you.”
“The rocks have quit falling,” Clyde said. “Ryan and I will be climbing, carrying you and Pan.”
Max Harper had called the Santa Cruz County Sheriff, who had, in turn, alerted his deputies to let them through the barrier down at the foot of the mountain. “Deputy will meet you,” Max had said, “lead you on up.” Now as they climbed above the flatland on the narrow, rising curves, the fog blew and shifted, arms of whiteness blinding and then revealing, playing with their senses, with their perception of place and balance. The streaming wisps made even the two cats giddy. Joe was glad they had the heavy king cab with its reliable four-wheel drive to keep them grounded. The only unsteadiness about the truck was Rock lunging nervously from one side of the backseat to the other, his eager weight rocking the heavy vehicle and, at each lunge, shouldering Joe and Pan aside.
“Settle down,” Ryan told him, “you’ll wear yourself out before you ever start to search.” Rock gave her a sullen look, but he lay down, sighing dramatically, sprawling across the wide seat. Ryan had, long ago, filled the leg space of the backseat with empty boxes, and laid a thin pad over both boxes and seat to make a solid platform, preventing the big dog from losing his balance on the narrow bench. The resultant bed would have accommodated all three animals nicely if Rock wasn’t hogging it all. Joe watched the deputy’s disembodied taillights leading them up through the shifting blanket of white, watched the blurred reflection of their two sets of headlights move along the black cliff in their ethereal, half-blind world. The deputy leading them, plump and baby faced, had told them the wind was stirring higher up the mountain, “Maybe the night’ll clear, make your tracking easier,” but his tone had implied that this venture was nonsense, to bring a tracking dog all the way up here in this weather to find some lost cat. Maybe the fog would clear, Joe thought, but right now they couldn’t even see the edge of the road where it dropped away to the sea; the muffled sound of the waves from far below seemed stealthy and threatening.
But central coast fog was notional, slipping along the base of Molena Point’s coastal hills one moment, rising the next to leave the lowland clear and enfold only the tallest peaks. Many afternoons the cats, hunting across the high meadows, would watch a thin, white scarf of fog creep in from the sea just above the Molena River, down below the hills that rose bright green and clear. And the next time they looked, the fog had expanded to cover all the hills and the sun, hiding the world around them.
Now suddenly Rock leaped up to pace again, and so did the red tomcat, the two shouldering past each other peering out one window and then Joe, too, caught a whiff of coyote mixed with the smell of the sea and of the pine forest. Pan’s ears twitched back and forth, his striped tail lashing as he fretted over Kit, his every movement urging them to hurry. The red tom had traveled this coast, one small cat alone following Highway One from Oregon to Molena Point, he knew the bold beasts that hunted these coastal mountains, he knew the way coyotes tear their prey, and that was not a pleasant picture. He was aware of the bobcats and owls, too, the silent night hunters, and he was frantic for Kit.
Even as Clyde had backed the king cab out of their drive, Max had called them back to tell them that Lucinda and Pedric were safe in the ER, in Santa Cruz, but that both were driving the staff crazy, fussing about their cat. “They’ve refused to have the X-rays and MRIs that were ordered,” he said crossly, “until they know someone’s gone to fetch the damn cat.” Max wasn’t big on cats—though he had grown unusually fond of Joe Grey, brightening at Joe’s presence on his desk or in his bookcase, and not a clue to the cat-sized detective lounging across his reports; to Max Harper the five cats were no more than housecats. “Why the hell did they take that cat with them? Try to control a cat, in a car? Why can’t they have a nice little lap dog that they can keep on a leash?”
Joe imagined the tall, lean chief and Charlie, his redheaded wife, disturbed from an evening at home, tucked up before a warm fire in their hilltop living room maybe with an after-dinner toddy, maybe watching an old movie. The chief didn’t get that many leisurely nights off without some emergency or another breaking in, too often taking him out again into the small hours. Max said, “You think Rock will track that cat?”
“Of course he will,” Ryan said indignantly, “he’s primed for the hunt.”
“Charlie’s making noises like she wants to head for the hospital. We may see you there, or she will,” and he’d clicked off.
They were high up the mountain when, around the next sharp bend, a line of sputtering orange flares broke the thinning fog. The deputy parked beside two more black-and-whites. The landslide loomed beyond, a ragged hill of fallen boulders blocking the highway, the tons of rock lit like a movie set by three spotlights fixed to tall tripods, their blaze picking out broken glass and twisted metal, too, where the wrecked truck and pickup lay tangled together in a deathly heap. Clyde parked beside the patrol car that had led them, both cars backing around so their rear bumpers were against the cliff. The deputy got out of his unit and stepped over to talk with them, his round face pulled into a frown. “Town Car was on this side. It barely slid through, or they’d be dead. Strange what some people will think of, time like that. Worried about a cat.”
He didn’t like bringing civilians up to a crash scene, he didn’t like them tramping around the scene of a wreck, and didn’t like the idea of these people going up the slide area with their dog, didn’t like that at all. Most likely they’d get in trouble, fall down the cliff, and that would complicate matters, but orders were orders. “Well, at least the fog’s lifted,” he said dourly. “There’s a hiking path on up the road another quarter mile. That’ll put you up to the tree line, and bring you back there, right above us. I want you to stay in the woods. You’re not to go down on the slide. Can you control your dog?” He looked doubtfully at Rock, who was huffing at the air, sucking in scent and staring up the tall, rocky cliff. “That cat could have taken off for anywhere. You ever try to catch a scared cat?” he said, backing away from Ryan’s door so she could get out of the truck.
“We’ll find her,” Clyde said mildly. He reached over the seat for his backpack as Ryan strapped on her own heavy pack. Neither Joe nor Pan was in sight. The deputy looked at Rock, and reached a hand for the Weimaraner to sniff. “Nice hound. Trouble is, when that cat sees this big beast it’ll take off like a bat in a windstorm, you never will find it.”
“Dog and cat are friends,” Clyde said, his voice slow and measured. “They eat out of the same supper bowl. Cat’ll be happy to see him.”
The deputy shrugged, unconvinced. “Wreckers and earthmovers’ll be here at daylight. If the wind dies and more fog rolls in, you won’t be able to see your own feet.”
Not until he had moved away did Ryan make a rude face, and she and Clyde grinned at each other. Joe peered out of Clyde’s pack, watching the pudgy officer depart, and from Ryan’s pack Pan uttered a low, angry growl.
Climbing gingerly over the rock pile toward the upper road and the trail, they left the key in the king cab in case the deputies needed to move it. Negotiating the unsteady boulders, they tested every step, moving with infinite care despite Rock’s eager pulling on his lead. Coming down onto the solid macadam again on the other side, past the wrecked trucks, they headed up the two-lane, passing two more sheriff’s cars that had come down from the north. Rock pulled Ryan up the steep grade, straining on his leash. He wasn’t expected to heel, he was working now, heeling and city manners w
eren’t part of this program. In her left hand Ryan carried the plastic bag with Kit’s scent. Once they’d left the rock slide, they didn’t talk. Clyde swept his beam along the road ahead, lighting their way, while Ryan shone her light up the cliff, cutting back and forth through dried-up vegetation and ragged outcroppings, all of them hoping to see a pair of bright eyes reflecting back from the stony drop. Joe, half smothered in Clyde’s backpack, didn’t like the silence, he didn’t like that there was no distant sound of coyotes yipping to one another, silent coyotes were bad news. Kit had said there were coyotes, he smelled coyotes, and their silence meant they were watching, well aware of them. But worse still, there was no sound from Kit, not the faintest mewl to tell them where she was.
Not likely she’d mewl with the coyotes so close, but I sure wish she would, wish she’d yowl like a banshee. Her silence made him shiver with dread.
11
THE HARSH RING of the phone woke Kate Osborne, but when she reached for the phone in the dark room, trying to sit up, tangled in the covers, she couldn’t find the damn thing. Feeling around her, she realized she wasn’t in bed; her bare legs were tangled in fur, making her shiver. She gingerly touched the animal feel of it, realized she was stroking the fur throw that she kept on the couch, that she’d gone to sleep in the living room. The phone was still ringing. Last night, she hadn’t bothered to turn on the answering machine. She used it when she went out, if she thought of it, but since she’d returned to San Francisco from her long, dark journey, she’d found even that innocuous electronic gadget annoying. This change in her life, leaving her cozy and successful designer’s position in Seattle, opting for unfettered freedom back in California with no obligations, taking the small apartment in the city, and then the amazing events that led her down through the cavernous tunnels into that terrifying other world, all of it had left her nervously intolerant of anything nonhuman speaking up for her. She found the phone on the ninth ring. Snatching it up, she pushed her pale hair out of her eyes, found the lamp, and switched it on. Her watch said ten o’clock, but it felt like way after midnight. “What?” she said. “If this is a sales pitch—”
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