by Hailey North
When the receptionist answered, he asked for Penelope and gave his last name when asked, all the while picturing Penelope smiling when she heard his voice.
But the next voice on the line wasn’t Penelope’s.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Fields isn’t in. May I help you?” The woman sounded helpful enough, but Tony wanted Penelope. He’d never thought that she might be unavailable, or worse, might not take his call.
“It’s important I speak with her.” He put on his most businesslike voice. “This is Dr. Olano.”
“Oh, well, Doctor, why didn’t you say so?” The woman stressed the title in an impertinent way Tony had to admire. “But I’m afraid it doesn’t matter whether it’s a matter of life and death or merely a hangnail, you can’t speak to her because she’s not here.”
“What do you mean, she’s not there?” Tony glanced at his clock; it was still ten minutes shy of five o’clock quitting time.
“Is this really her doctor?” Suspicion sounded in the woman’s voice.
No, it’s her lover.” He couldn’t help himself, the words just rolled off his tongue.
The cat had padded into the room and sat watching him.
“The one who sent the roses?” Some inflection in her voice clued him in. Roses sounded like Hinson; he smiled grimly, hoping Penelope had tossed them into the trash.
“Do I sound like a guy who sends roses?”
“No, you don’t.” She caught her breath, then said, “Are you Mr. Can’t Do Dinner?”
“Guilty. So now may I talk to her?”
“When is the last time you saw Ms. Fields?”
Tony gripped the phone. “Are you telling me she didn’t come in today?”
“Not here, not at home.”
Tony’s knuckles went white. “I’ll find her,” he said.
“When you do, please tell her to call Jewel right away, no matter what time it is.”
“Sure, and if you hear from her, you tell her Tony’s looking for her.”
“Tony Olano?” He heard the recognition in her voice.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t break her heart or you’ll have me to answer to,” the woman said, then hung up.
Tony stood staring at the telephone, wondering whether Hinson had kidnapped her. The snake hated to be thwarted, but surely he couldn’t think to get away with forcing her to marry him.
He tossed the phone onto the kitchen table, made sure the burners on the stove were off, dashed for the front door, and slammed it behind him.
He heard the cat meowing loudly, obviously protesting its imprisonment on the other side of the door, but he didn’t turn back to let her outside. He had to be ready to meet Pretty-Boy by at least seven-thirty; in the meantime, he was going straight to Penelope’s apartment. If there was one sign that Hinson had played his hand, he was going straight to the top.
Even if it blew the entire investigation.
Penelope didn’t waste her breath crying for long. She’d been a cat long enough now to have learned that whatever humans were going to do, they were going to do.
Funny, though, she’d probably known that before becoming a cat; maybe it only seemed different because as a person, one had more options for responses.
She sprang onto the sofa under the living room window that overlooked the front of the house. Tail twitching, she considered the conversation she’d overheard between Tony and the unknown person in the Lincoln.
Something was rotten in Riverbend, Penelope told herself, sniffing the air. She mulled over what Jewel had told her about Hinson and his bad-guy associates. Had Tony fallen in with them? He’d raced off the other evening saying duty called.
Hmmm. Penelope licked one paw, wiping it meditatively over her face. Jewel had warned her off Tony, but not because he walked the wrong side of the law. Her assistant never hesitated to speak her mind; surely she would have lumped him in with Hinson, had that been the case.
Another idea occurred to her, one she liked much, much better, and she quit cleaning abruptly. She slowed the swishing of her tail and considered the possibility that Tony wasn’t an ex-cop, but an officer in good standing, assigned to a sting operation against Hinson and his cronies.
Forgetting that she’d ever been taken in by the smooth-talking attorney, Penelope practically started to purr, so pleased was she by her conclusion.
Of course, she had no confirmation, but her solution was one of the best fantasies she’d ever concocted. Until proven otherwise, she decided to embrace it.
The telephone rang and Penelope leaped off the sofa, chasing the sound. Out the room, down the hall, into the kitchen at the back of the house she sprinted. She made it to the kitchen, the phone still ringing, then froze in her tracks.
Silly cat, she said, you can’t answer the phone.
But she could listen to any answering machine. The phone in the kitchen was a portable one; she turned tail and raced into the bedroom.
There, next to the bed, sat another phone and an answering machine. She was just in time to hear Mrs. Merlin’s voice come on.
“Penelope, my dear friend, I am so sorry about landing you smack in the middle of this particular pickle! I’m okay now, but there’s been a teeny-weeny—”
A man’s voice came on, one that sounded familiar. “This is Mr. Gotho, Penelope. We think you’re with Tony, but we can’t be sure, and unfortunately—” a dry cough sounded, “we’re unable to leave where we are at the moment.”
“And you thought I was long-winded!”
Penelope smiled a kitty smile as Mrs. Merlin obviously took the phone back. “Just stay where you are no matter what happens. We’re setting up the spell of retroactivity and you’ll soon be back in your own body.”
“What do you mean, we?” Mr. Gotho said in the background.
The end-of-tape beep sounded on the answering machine, cutting them off.
At least Mrs. Merlin was trying to come to her rescue. Thankful to put that worry at rest, Penelope looked around Tony’s bedroom. Despite the proverbial curiosity of a cat, she hadn’t yet padded into this room to explore.
She liked what she saw.
The bed was a four-poster, covered in an old-fashioned Bates George Washington spread. On one bedside table sat the answering machine, phone, remote control, and a large framed photograph of a group of thirty or so people, all of whom looked a lot like Tony.
Penelope walked up to the photograph, studying the smiling faces. How wonderful to have such a large family. She rubbed her chin against the edge of the frame, imprinting it with her scent, asking to be invited in.
The table on the other side of the bed held an array of candles. Penelope’s eyes widened when she saw them. Mrs. Merlin always said there were no coincidences in candle magick.
Tony didn’t seem like the kind of guy to go for the romanticism of candles. But then, she reminded herself, she hadn’t suspected he made his own marinara sauce from scratch, either.
She walked among the candles, sniffing each one, deciding she preferred the squat, nectarine-scented one that seemed to chase away any worries and create what was awfully close to a feeling of euphoria.
When she got back to being a human, she was definitely going candle shopping.
She’d just jumped onto the bed, intending to sniff Tony’s pillow, when the phone rang again.
This time she was near enough to hear the greeting, which consisted of, “Hi, this is Tony. Leave a message.” There was nothing special about the words, except that they were spoken by Tony.
She began kneading her front paws on the bedspread while she waited for the caller to speak.
“Tony, Roy. Called to tell you there are twelve men on the field and all plays are off.”
Click.
The machine whirred as it reset.
Penelope stopped purring and scratched her ear. That sure sounded like a warning. And there was nothing she could do!
Oh, Mrs. Merlin, hurry up!
Chapter 24
I
t was all Mrs. Merlin could do to keep her tongue still and her lips clamped shut as Mr. Gotho pulled one item at a time from his duffel bag.
After they’d been locked in the policeman’s office, it hadn’t taken the two of them long to agree they needed to act quickly. Mr. Gotho had located a phone book; Mrs. Merlin called the first listing under Olano and chatted up the woman who answered the phone, thus obtaining Tony’s home number.
Mrs. Merlin had insisted on leaving a message at Penelope’s office and at her apartment, too, just in case she was wrong about what had gone wrong with the spell and Penelope strolled in very much in human, not feline, form.
If only they’d thought of calling the Olanos sooner, Mrs. Merlin fretted. All her sensors told her danger hovered on the horizon. And if something happened to Penelope and Mr. M—why, she’d be so shattered she’d probably not be able to practice candle magick ever again!
And that was unthinkable.
“While I’m preparing myself,” Mr. Gotho said, “will you please go sit or stand with your back to the door? If someone comes, tell them I’m deep in prayer, facing Mecca, and I’m not to be disturbed.”
“I didn’t know you were a Moslem,” Mrs. Merlin said, following his instructions, dragging the heavy desk chair along with her.
“I’m not,” Mr. Gotho said dryly, “just trying to help you out with an excuse.”
“Oh, well”—Mrs. Merlin brightened—”I never need much help in that category.”
“And I don’t need any assistance with this most difficult spell.” His tone warned her that what he really meant was he didn’t need her interfering.
Mrs. Merlin closed her eyes, deciding the best thing to do was visit her place of peace. She’d at least help put the room in harmony for the spell of retroactivity.
About thirty seconds later, she peeked from under her right eyelid. Mr. Gotho stood in front of the desk, gazing at a spot he had cleared. So far he had only the mirror and sand arranged.
Just knowing she was about to interfere, Mrs. Merlin squeezed her eyes shut tight and prepared to wait, for a longer time than she could ever remember waiting.
Tony barreled up his sidewalk, cursing himself and every fool he’d ever known as he played back in his mind his visit to Penelope’s apartment.
The guy he had tailing Penelope swore up and down she hadn’t left the building all day. Even threatened with the loss of his job, his manhood, and his precious four-wheel drive, the man stuck to his story.
Getting inside her building had been child’s play. The lock on her apartment door had given him a much harder time, he was happy to say. If he had trouble, so would anyone else.
He’d made it inside, though, to find absolutely no sign of Penelope, but also no signs of an intruder before him or a hasty departure.
An odd assortment of bric-a-brac and two candles sat atop sand and glass on her dining table, which suggested to Tony that he hadn’t been far off the mark in thinking when he’d seen the odd doll under her bed that Penelope dabbled in the otherworldly arts.
Still, a few things bothered him.
For one, the stereo had been left on. The compact disc in the unit was some sort of relaxation music, which went along with the candles, he assumed.
When he looked more closely at the table, he saw scattered ashes. Shaking his head, unable to figure it out, Tony moved into the bedroom.
A large orange cat, exactly like the one now occupying his house, sat on the bed.
Unmoving, not even blinking.
Tony approached it, then stopped abruptly. Jeez! Penelope had mentioned her cat dying, but having it stuffed and used as a pillow was too far out for his taste. Tony gave the bed wide berth and headed for the bathroom.
Something about the cat niggled at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t quite place what bothered him about the plump, stuffed feline. Mrs. Mer, Penelope had called her cat.
No signs of makeup, hair spray, or electric curlers showed in the bathroom. Amazingly neat, Tony observed, appreciative of the fact. His sisters had been bathroom hogs and his ex-wife, as practical as she’d been in most things, used to barricade herself in their only bathroom for an hour at a time, only to appear looking exactly as she had upon entering.
Back in her bedroom, Tony walked to the doorway leading to the front hall, then turned, viewing the room with a fresh eye, the eye of a man in love with the occupant.
At the sight of her worn slippers peeking out from under the bed, he smiled. She’d had them on the first day he’d come to her apartment, an endearing contrast to her proper slacks and blouse.
A bottle of Opium perfume sat on the dresser next to a pair of silver hairbrushes. He noted the perfume, then tiptoed over to the brushes. Lifting one, he rolled the rich brown hairs that clung to the bristles between his fingers. He smiled and returned the brush to the tray. One day soon, he promised himself, he’d brush her hair.
Long, soothing strokes, interspersed with kisses.
“Stop, Olano, you’re getting worked up,” he said aloud, and took one more look around, noting that while most of her bedroom was as orderly as a barracks room, one exception stood out.
All three shelves, plus the surface of the table next to Penelope’s bed, were piled with books. He moved over and checked a few titles. Several cookbooks, a biography of Sandra Day O’Connor, three books on the latest tax law changes, and, stuffed behind these, a paperback romance with a half-naked couple on the cover.
Tony grinned.
He bet he knew which one she read first when she crawled under the covers. “Oh, Raoul,” he said aloud, promising himself that as soon as he could, he’d make sure she’d forget all about that imaginary clod.
Looking again at the stacks of books, Tony thought maybe he’d take up reading. Thinking of the two of them curled up together in bed, books in hand, he could see for the first time in his life that reading truly could be a pleasurable pastime.
Not, he amended, that they’d read for long. The phone rang, interrupting the image forming in his mind.
Penelope’s proper voice sounded, asking callers to leave a message.
Starchy even on the answering machine. Tony smiled at the sound of her voice, then tensed, waiting to see who was calling.
“Penelope, it’s Mrs. Merlin, and in case you’re there, I wanted to let you know we’re working on setting things right. I don’t think it will be long now. If only Mr. Gotho would hurry a bit!”
The phone slammed down.
Tony furrowed his brows. Who in the hell was that?
Something strange was going on, Tony thought as he made his way out of the apartment, then raced back to his place. He’d spent longer than he should have interrogating his man outside the building, then mooning over Penelope’s personal effects.
He jerked his car to a halt in front of his house, jumped out, and was walking up the sidewalk when his memory cleared.
He remembered, very clearly, Penelope explaining that Mrs. Mer had been flattened.
If that was the case, what was up with the stuffed cat on her bed—a cat identical to the blue-eyed one who had appeared on his doorstep only hours earlier? The cat wearing a necklace exactly like Penelope’s?
His skin prickled and Tony told himself not to be ridiculous. He might have grown up accepting a certain amount of mysticism that attached itself to a city like New Orleans, a city as wed to the traditions of the Caribbean and the African as it was to the order-driven Americans who arrived late on the scene, but he’d learned to deal squarely in all that was rational.
He unlocked his front door and strode inside, headed for his bedroom to change for his meeting with Hinson and the old man.
At the doorway to his bedroom, he stopped. Curled up on the pillow he slept on every night was the blue-eyed cat. Curious, Tony tiptoed to the bed. Stroking the cat under the chin, he murmured, “Is there some secret you’d like to tell me, my lucky Penny?”
The cat stretched its front paws out, eyes still closed, and
snuggled deeper against the pillow.
Tony moved away, stripping off his basketball shoes, shorts, and T-shirt as he walked out of the room headed for the bathroom.
When he stepped out of the shower a few minutes later, the cat sat on the floor of the bathroom, staring at him with wide eyes. For some odd reason, Tony grabbed a towel and covered himself. The cat retreated to the doorway, walked a foot or so into the hall, then returned.
The forward and backward dance reminded Tony of the old Lassie reruns where the collie was trying to tell Timmy someone was in trouble.
Wrapping the towel around his waist, he followed the cat back to his bedroom, where she leaped gracefully to the bedside table, nose pointing to the blinking light on the answering machine.
“Prettier and smarter than Lassie,” Tony said, hitting the play button, then petting the cat while he waited for the messages to play back.
The first message brought out prickles on the back of his neck. He heard once more the voice of the woman on Penelope’s machine, accompanied by the deep voice of a man, again speaking of trying to fix things.
The second message, though, was far more critical.
Twelve men on the field was code for trouble—specifically, that someone had sold out to Hinson’s side. And if Roy was leaving the message, only Roy could be presumed to still be trustworthy.
Or was he playing both sides against the middle?
Tony mulled over that possibility as he threw on a pair of jeans and a short-sleeved cotton shirt. If the old man expected him to wear a suit for this meeting, he should have requested black tie, Tony thought, wondering whether they’d expect him to be packing his gun or be trusting enough to leave it at home.
What the hell. Better to be perceived as tough, he thought, and poked it in the waistband of his pants before shrugging into the one lightweight sports jacket he owned.
