"Stop, Kit! Stop and listen! Window seats, yes. Trees and a tangle of garden just the way you like. There's no tower but it does have a surprise…"
"What surprise, Lucinda? What?"
"Would it be a surprise if I told you? You'll have to wait and see. Of course there's a fireplace. You'll love this house. We'll pick you up first thing in the morning, seven-thirty, have breakfast in the village, then meet the Realtor at nine. Oh, Kit, we can hardly wait for you to see it."
Kit was purring so loud that it was hard for Charlie to get a word in. "Shhh, Kit." She stroked the excited tortoiseshell. "Lucinda, have breakfast here! A mushroom omelet and fresh mangoes?"
"That sounds wonderful, Charlie, but that's way too early to be entertaining company."
"No it isn't. You're not company, you're family. Ryan's bringing the girls, to ride. They can help me before they saddle their horses."
When Lucinda said they'd come, Charlie clicked the phone off, and looked into Kit's wide, yellow eyes. The little cat was seething with anticipation, so wired that Charlie thought she'd fly apart. It took a long time for Kit to settle down again and to resume telling the story she had begun.
Charlie felt certain that Kit's early life, with a judicious retelling to remove the little cat's unusual talents, could be a wonderful book-if she could do the story justice. Wilma had read the first five chapters, which were in rough draft, and she thought the story was as compelling and as real as Watership Down. Charlie knew it was foolhardy to ask the opinion of one's friends when it came to creative matters, whether to the written word or to a painting. But Wilma was, after all, a well-read librarian with a keen perception of what her own readers loved. The fact that both Wilma, and Charlie's agent, were excited about the beginning chapters had left Charlie amazed and even more eager to write the finest book she could. Life was, indeed, full of wonders.
Now, long after Max got home and they were tucked up in bed, and both cats were settled in with Wilma in Charlie's studio, Charlie lay awake, filled with too many thoughts to find sleep. The fire in the master bedroom had burned to coals, and still she lay thinking about the book and about the pictures she was doing for it; seeing the newest drawing clearly, as she liked to do before she began it. Beside her, Max tossed restlessly. Even in sleep, his mind would be busy with police matters.
She thought about the jewel theft and the increasing complexity of the suspects; profiles that Max and Dallas had put together. About their growing suspicion of a larger scenario, perhaps a dozen burglaries to hit the village at one time. Though she tried never to succumb to fear, the more she learned about this little nondescript Luis Rivas and his men, the more uneasy she felt. She turned over, shivering, pressing close to Max, clinging to the comforting sense of his goodness and strong capability. He and Dallas and Davis had the situation well under control, she told herself, or they soon would have.
But still the worries were there, silly, disjointed fears about matters that probably meant nothing, like Ryan's dinner with Roman Slayter and his accusation of Clyde's neighbor.
Ryan had called her when she left the restaurant, so mad she could hardly talk. Charlie lay puzzling over what Slayter had told Ryan, puzzling over Slayter's arrival in the village at just this time, as well as Chichi's sudden appearance right next door to Clyde. And she began to wonder why Max had received no anonymous phone tips on this case.
Still, though, Max and Dallas were gathering information and biding their time, waiting for more police files to come in from L.A. So maybe Joe and Dulcie were doing that, too.
She was smiling to herself in the dark, thinking about two little cats wandering the station, pawing through reports, tucking away sensitive facts, when she heard, in the still night, one of the cats in the kitchen crunching kibble.
That would be the kit, she thought, grinning. In a little while, she saw the little cat's shadow prowling the patio, restlessly stalking, her long, fluffy tail twitching. Was Kit, too, thinking about the jewel robbery? More likely, about the new house. Charlie thought about the amazing accident that had brought Kit here, to the Greenlaws. That wild band had never before, in Kit's lifetime, traveled this far north. What had drawn the clowder to Hellhag Hill, and drawn the Greenlaws to picnic there? Surely that had been a wonderfully happy accident. Or had it been more than an accident?
That meeting between Kit and the Greenlaws, then Charlie herself moving to Molena Point, had resulted in Charlie's book in progress. Serendipity? A happy accident? Or a gift of grace? A gift she would do her best to honor.
Snuggled close to Max, Charlie promised herself that she would produce, in this book, the best work she could create, an adventure to touch the heart of every reader. She lay smiling, lost again in the story-and the next thing she knew the alarm was buzzing and she was out of bed before she came fully awake. Pulling on her jeans and sweatshirt and boots, she went to feed the horses and dogs and then to start breakfast.
20
Picking up the two girls again the next morning, Ryan headed straight for the ranch, no stopping this morning for breakfast; she and Rock had shared a bowl of cereal; though he'd had his dog food to himself. She wanted to get the upstairs dried in before any chance of rain. Early spring on the central coast could be temperamental, California wasn't all sunshine and warm beaches. The roughing in was finished, the roof raised and the new studs in place. Today they would get the exterior sheeting and roof sheeting on. The flooring was being delivered this morning, too, and the drywall, all of which needed to be stacked under cover before bad weather hit. When she stopped for the girls, they climbed in the back seat sleepy and quiet; they were silent until, in the center of the village, Dillon came alert, suddenly glued to the window.
"There she is again!" They were passing a small cafe patio that was half filled with early breakfast customers. "What does she do, at the crack of dawn? For hours, like that? Looking up and down the street and writing things down. She's spying on someone. How long's she been sitting there?"
Ryan glanced in her rearview mirror. "What?'
"That same blonde," Dillon said, "that lives next door to Clyde, that bimbo who was all over him yesterday when we pulled up at his house. Who is she?"
"That cheap blonde with the tight sweaters and big boobs," Lori specified.
Ryan glanced at Lori, amused, and turned off Ocean up the highway, heading for the Harper place.
"We've seen her four times," Lori said, "sitting in different restaurants early in the morning. For hours, alone, watching the street. Writing something in a notebook. She's never eating, just coffee. How much coffee can a person drink?"
"Hours, Lori? How would you know that?' "We've been taking the dogs to the beach," Lori said. "Susan Brittain's dogs." Susan was one of the four senior ladies Lori had lived with since her father went to prison. Lori loved the standard poodle and the Dalmatian, and got along well with them. "I don't like that woman, she's a tramp."
Ryan gave her a stern look in the mirror, trying not to laugh.
"Well she is. She's there when we go down, real early before school, and she's there when we come back. Once was later, Saturday. We were in the library." She glanced at Dillon, who grinned sheepishly.
Dillon's current English teacher was assigning long, detailed papers, and would not let the kids go online to do their research. It had to be from books, with the sources properly noted, all footnotes in correct form-and no adult help.
Dillon had never worked this way, she said all the kids complained. Two dozen parents were so angry they were trying to get the teacher fired. But a dozen more applauded her. Dillon found the new method very hard and demanding. She didn't care, at the moment, that the training would put her in the top ranks when applying for college. She didn't care that she was learning to do far more thorough and accurate research than anyone could ever do online, or that you couldn't do adequate college work without those basics. But while Dillon wasn't happy with the assignments, Lori was having a ball.