But why would he? This wasn't the main garage, only the paint shop. She could smell the automotive enamel, sharp and unpleasant. Running out again, she fell into the van, and they roared into the dark building.
Three cars left the big garage. The first, an old green Plymouth running with only parking lights turned toward Ocean. Clyde drove slowly, slipping around the darkest corners until he saw Crystal's Mercedes pull away from the curb where it had been parked with the lights out-as if watching for a car, any car, to come out of the dead-end alley. As Crystal settled in to follow, he concentrated on some fancy driving, as if seriously trying to lose her.
The other two vehicles left by a different route, running dark, heading east toward the hills. The dull, primer-coated BMW, reflecting no light, might have been only the ghost of a car. It turned northeast. Behind it, the black station wagon headed south.
Crossing above the Highway 1 tunnel, the BMW sped up into the hills, its driver and four passengers enjoying the luxury of the soft leather seats. Dillon and the kit were snuggled together next to the driver, in a warm blanket, Dillon half asleep, so tired that even fear couldn't keep her awake. Joe and Dulcie prowled from front seat to back, peering out, watching for approaching vehicles.
Neither cat saw the black station wagon double back to follow them where it would not be seen.
Moving higher along the narrow winding road, soon they had gained the long, overgrown drive into the Pamillon estate. Charlie wiggled the car in between the detritus of tumbled walls and dead oak trees, parking behind a ragged mass of broom bushes. Only when she cut the engine did she hear another car directly behind them, the sound of its motor bringing her up, ready to take off again.
Then she saw it was Harper. She had already cocked the.38 Clyde had given her, when they switched cars at the shop. Easing the hammer down, she holstered it and nudged the sleeping child. "Come on, it's Harper. Guess he decided to come with us-guess he lost Crystal. You okay? You remember how to get down there?"
Yawning, Dillon bundled out of the van and took Harper's hand. "We have to go through the house." The cats streaked out of the van behind her, pressing close to Charlie's heels. When Harper saw them, he did such a classic double take that Joe almost laughed.
Charlie looked at Harper blankly. "They were in the van, I didn't have time to get them out."
"They changed cars with you fast enough."
"I couldn't leave them in the shop, Max. Those paint fumes would have killed them; cats can't take that stuff."
Harper scowled at her and didn't point out that she could have let the cats out of the shop, that they'd been only a few blocks from home.
He looked down at Dillon. "What makes you so sure Crystal won't think you'd come here?"
"She found me here. Down where we're going. I was so scared, nearly in hysterics. So scared I couldn't talk."
"Then why…?"
Dillon looked up at him. "Later when I sassed her, she threatened to bring me back here-to leave me alone down there. I got hysterical. She thinks-I hope she thinks-I'd do anything to keep from coming here."
Harper grinned. "Good girl. And you're not scared to hide down there again?"
"Not with you here."
Harper made a sound halfway between a grumble and a laugh. Charlie glanced at him, wishing she could see his face.
Moving deeper in through the fallen limbs and dense growth and heaps of adobe bricks, Harper used his torch sparingly, turning it to a thin, low beam that the night seemed to swallow. Listening for any sound behind them, Charlie and Harper kept Dillon close between them. The three cats padded very close, pushing against Charlie's ankles, Joe and Dulcie peering into the grainy shadows, expecting to see yellow eyes flame suddenly in the torchlight. They might envy the king of cats, but they had no desire to be hors d'oeuvres. The kit, though staying close, seemed more fascinated than scared.
"Talk," Harper said as they moved in between the fallen walls. "Talk loud and bold. If the big cat's around, he won't bother three big, loud humans. Walk tall, Dillon."
Dillon stood straighter, holding tightly to Harper's arm, reaching several times to direct his light.
"Is it the old bomb shelter?" Harper said. "Is that where we're heading?"
"I guess that's what it is. It has bunks, scraps of blanket the mice have chewed up, old cans of food all swollen like they'll explode. It's down beside the root and canning cellars. Part of the roof has caved in, but you can hide back underneath."
"I know the place." He didn't sound thrilled.
"You've been down there," Charlie said.
"Didn't hang around. Those crumbling walls and stairs…" He shone his light among the standing walls of the house as if looking for an alternative place to hide Dillon.
This was not, Joe thought, an orthodox way for a chief of police to be rescuing a kidnapped child.
Which only pointed up mat he, Joe Grey, was not the only one who mistrusted Wendell.
He hated that, hated the thought of corruption among Harper's cops-corruption aimed straight at the captain.
And, like Max Harper, Joe wondered if it was smart to take refuge in a confining cellar where they might have only one route of escape.
Beside him, Dulcie was tense and watchful. But the kit padded along eagerly, listening to every tiniest sound, big-eyed with the thrill of adventure.
Charlie said, "I don't like it that Wilma didn't answer her phone."
Harper didn't seem concerned. "Maybe she unplugged it. She does that sometimes."
Charlie glanced down at Dulcie. Dulcie blinked in agreement.
"Here," Dillon said. "In the old kitchen, the stairs are here. They're crumbly."
As they started down, the cats caught the old, fading scent of puma. The stairway led down to a long, low-ceilinged cellar with thick adobe walls and heavy roof timbers, a chilly cavern that had been used for canning and root storage, in the days when families had to be self-sufficient. The human's footsteps echoed. Joe didn't like this descending into the earth; it made his paws sweat.
He'd never liked tight places, not since his San Francisco days of narrow, dead-end alleys where his only escape from mean-minded street kids was often down into some stinking cellar, with no idea whether the boys would follow him or not.
Dillon walked leaning against Charlie, nearly asleep on her feet, her head nodding, the blanket from the Mercedes that Charlie had wrapped around her half fallen off and slipping to the ground.
A door at the back of the long cellar led through a thick wall and down four more steps to the old World War II air raid shelter, its roof and one wall fallen in, open to the kitchen, above.
"When I hid here before," Dillon said, "I thought maybe a cougar wouldn't prowl so deep. That maybe he wouldn't come down here?"
"No sensible beast would come down here," Harper told her. "A cougar doesn't use caves. They want to see around them."
Right on, Joe thought, exchanging a look with Dulcie. No sensible beast, only humans. And cats stupid enough to follow humans.
But the kit padded ahead of them, all pricked ears and switching tail, looking about her bright-eyed at the mysterious and enchanting depths, her hunger for adventure and for deep, earthen places supplanting all caution.
The very tales that made Joe shiver, the old Celtic myths that spoke of wonders he didn't care to know about, drew the kit. The old Irish tales of a land beneath the earth, and of cats who could change to humans. The kit thrived on those stories; she hungered for the kind of tales that made Joe Grey cross.