“You know that winter is our slow season,” Sunny told him. “What you’re paying me for is to have a human on hand to take care of things when they need to be taken care of.”
As if on cue, the phone rang. Sunny reached across the desk to pick it up. She grinned as she listened. Thank God, another shopping expedition to outlet-land.
“And you’ll need accommodations for how many?” she asked in her most professional voice. “A full busload—twenty-six people! Will they want motel or B&B lodgings?”
Sunny came around the desk, shooing Ollie away. He vacated the chair—making money was more important to him than comfort. Sunny began calling up pages on her computer, discussing locations and rates. By the time she was done, she looked up to discover that Ollie had quietly left.
Well, now he knew what he was paying her for. It wasn’t the hours; it was what she knew.
Yeah, knowledge is power, Sunny thought, flopping back in her seat. Too bad it’s not money, too.
*
Shadow lay on the topmost shelf of the bookcase, surveying his prison. It had been a good thing to work off some of his pent-up energy in climbing. And it was always good to be able to look down on everything around him.
He stared at the door between him and freedom. However hard he wished, though, it wouldn’t fall down, or break, or just swing open. But the next time the One Who Reeks opened it . . .
Shadow tried to estimate the angles. If he pushed off from here with all his strength, how high would he be when he reached the other side of the room? If he were head high, he could go for the face of the human who imprisoned him. The last two times she’d come in, she’d been carrying food, so her hands would be occupied.
He blinked that thought away, pleasant as it might be to consider. It was a long, dangerous leap from up here to down there, and most likely he would be much lower by the time he reached her. If he landed on her clothes, he wouldn’t be able to do much damage. And Shadow knew he’d have to hurt her, not just surprise her, if he really hoped to escape.
Finally, there was the thought of landing on her, of having to cling to the source of that awful stench . . .
He shuddered for a second, fighting to make that thought go away. Then, laying his head on his paws, he closed his eyes, trying to relax. Speaking of scents . . .
Maybe Shadow’s sense of smell had suffered, being trapped in close quarters with a human that emitted such an offensive odor. But up here, as he put his face close to the wooden shelving, he caught a trace of a different fragrance, a trace left by one of his own kind, not a human smell.
He rose on all four paws, nosing along the wood. Yes, definitely he was sniffing another cat. It reminded him of the scent of a she that he’d encountered down on the floor by the bowls. But he’d sensed sickness down there, pain and sickness nearly to death.
Then he realized. This was the scent of the she before she became ill. Yes, it made sense. A cat that sick wouldn’t be able to climb any great height. This was where she had gone before she became weak.
He followed the spoor to the other side of the shelf, noticing it get stronger as he moved. Not only did she come up here, but she spent a lot of time coming up here.
Well, if I were trapped in a room like this, with a human like the One Who Reeks, maybe I’d look for the farthest place away.
Realization made him stop in his tracks. He was trapped, just as the she had been. Would sickness and death be his only escape?
He reared back at the thought, sitting on his haunches. And when he did, Shadow discovered the real reason the lost she had come up here. Somehow, he caught a whiff of fresh air!
Shadow peered up at the ceiling above him. It wasn’t like the walls or floor—or the ceiling in Sunny’s room, which he’d explored one day from the top of her bookcase. The noise she made when she found he’d left a paw print up there! But that had been all in one piece, solid and immovable. This ceiling, though, was broken into squares, with thick borders. Looking more closely, he saw seams at the end of those borders. That’s where the trace of fresh air came from.
He stretched out a paw—no, still too short. So he pushed up with his rear legs. That was dangerous; it nearly sent him toppling to the floor. Was that what had happened to the she? Had she perhaps fallen and injured herself? Maybe she was just too short to reach that tantalizing square above.
But Shadow was longer than most cats. He backed up a little on the shelf and then extended his rear legs as strongly as he could, trying for a vertical jump while pressing up with his forepaws. He struck the rough-textured square—and it moved!
Again and again he tried, leaping at full extension, sometimes having to dance back desperately to avoid plunging off. A low guttural growl came from deep in his chest as he leaped, catching his claws in the rough-textured stuff . . .
He fell back again. But he had dislodged the square so that a narrow sliver of darkness showed above him.
A way out!
*
Sunny sat at her desk, watching the clock on the wall reach quitting time. At least, it would have been quitting time, except for the hour that Ollie the Barnacle was holding over her head.
Should I just call him now and say I’m staying late to pay off my debt?
She made a face, looking down at her computer screen. The problem was, nothing was happening now. No one would be calling or getting in touch when they expected the office to be closed. It wasn’t just unfair, putting in an empty hour to make up for what Ollie had described as an empty hour. It seemed stupid.
“To hell with this,” Sunny muttered, closing down her computer and then the office. Standing outside, she still felt rebellious—ready to do something stupid. So she left her Wrangler parked on the street and started walking toward the harbor.
The weather was milder this evening, and the wind had died down. When Sunny reached Spill the Beans, the café had a lot more people. Sunny could care less—she didn’t want a table; she just wanted a whoopie pie. All they had to do was sell her one, maybe put it in a bag so she could carry it to eat on the drive home.
Sunny looked around to ask if they did takeout—and froze. The table in the corner, the one where she and Will had sat and talked, was occupied by people she knew. Jane Rigsdale and Tobe Phillips sat with their knees touching below the tiny little tabletop, and their faces nearly touching above.
They burst into laughter. Seems as if they do that a lot, the tough reporter in the back of Sunny’s brain commented. And she couldn’t fail to notice the high color in both their cheeks. I don’t think that’s from the coffee—or from the overhead heater.
A waitress finally noticed her and came over. “How may I help you?” she asked.
Sunny shook her head. “You know, I don’t think you can.”
She got out of there. Better to leave the two some privacy. The whoopie pie would have to wait.
20
Before going up into the darkness overhead, Shadow climbed down to the floor, to the food and water bowls. Better to finish off what he had before venturing into the unknown. With a full belly, he scaled the shelves again. Then he positioned himself under the opening he’d created and leaped. After a brief, undignified scrabble, he was up in a dim world, sneezing. Well, he’d learned one thing: the unknown was dusty.
Using his forepaw, he batted at the square he’d dislodged. Finally, he managed to get it back in place. That made the dimness darker. But unless the One Who Reeks could track by scent, she wouldn’t know where he’d gone.
Shadow set off across this new domain, walking slowly and carefully. Now that they were underfoot, the squares that made up the ceiling tended to give alarmingly as he stepped on them. By trial and error, he learned where to put his weight—and where not to.
Then he raised his head, trying to follow the crosscurrents of air up here. He also flicked his ears around. There was some sort of low, machine-made noise ahead and off to the left.
Shadow padded along gingerly, letting the soun
d get louder until he came to the source, a boxy metal construction that stretched off on either side into the darkness. When he extended a paw, Shadow found it was warm to the touch and let off a low, droning vibration. When he climbed on top, it felt a little bit like the refrigerator back in Sunny’s house.
For a second, he felt so low, he wanted to yowl.
Oh, Sunny! Why did I leave you? Nothing has been good since. If I could come back, I wouldn’t mind the Old One’s friend bringing the Biscuit Eater around. You could have a house full of Biscuit Eaters, so long as I had you.
But then he roused himself. This was no time to give in to feelings. If he wanted to get back to Sunny, he had to get out of here first. This metal was much steadier underfoot than the squares. He’d follow this pathway and see where it led.
The first place it led was to a wall—a very solid wall. But a hole had been roughly cut through it to accommodate the metal path, and by pressing himself almost flat against the metal, Shadow managed to squeeze through the jagged opening. It was dirty work, and when Shadow reached the other side, he paused for a moment to try and clean himself. That tasted terrible. He quickly gave up the attempt. Who knew what other unpleasant things he’d have to crawl through to get out of here?
Shadow closed his eyes, trying to get a sense of this new space. There must be a bigger room below. He heard music, muffled by the squares of the ceiling, and a stronger sense of the stink coming off the One Who Reeks. Either she spent a lot of time in the room under his feet, or she was there now.
Taking care to be silent, he continued along the path.
It was many more steps before he came to another wall, this one flimsier. He was able to claw himself a bigger opening to get through. But a short journey after that, he came to a dead end. The metal path he’d been following didn’t go through this wall, it went into it. Tapping and scratching showed this was a formidable wall, indeed. And when Shadow crouched to examine where the metal went into the wall, he smelled clean air, sweet, fresh . . . and chilly. Beyond this wall was the outside world. The problem was, there was no way he could get through.
He shook himself philosophically. This was only one end of the path. Where did the other go?
Turning around, he retraced his steps until he reached the room where he’d been incarcerated. He heard a voice below, calling his name, getting louder and angrier. He recognized that screech. It was the One Who Reeks. He lay silent as he heard the voice again, calling to him, making kissing noises. From the sound of it, the One Who Reeks was moving among several rooms. So she realized that, somehow, he’d gotten out of the room. He heard the sound of full bowls tapping together and suffered a moment of temptation that was easily fought off. It was better to crouch up here in the dark, dusty and hungry, than to put up with that one below.
*
Sunny came home to find Mike and Mrs. Martinson sitting on the couch, a bit of space between them. But from the self-satisfied look on Mike’s face, they’d probably been a lot closer before Sunny’s key rattled in the lock. Mrs. M. just ran a hand through her hair, looking prim and proper.
I guess without Shadow around to cramp his style, Dad’s getting a lot luckier these days. The flip comment from Sunny’s reporter alter ego failed to amuse. It just reminded Sunny that Shadow was gone, and that the new normal was also lonelier. At least for her.
Still, she tried to look cheerful, engaging in a little chitchat.
“George Welling is debating putting an addition on his house,” Mike announced. “Between his son who’s finished college and can’t afford to move out, and a mother-in-law who had to move in, he’s running out of space.”
Helena Martinson nodded. “A lot of people who thought they’d be facing empty nests are finding them filling up again nowadays.”
Sunny didn’t say anything to that, painfully aware that she was one of those birdies who’d been forced home to roost.
Maybe Mike realized that, too, because he quickly shifted the topic. “Anyhow, George was talking about Allerton Contractors—”
“More likely he was hearing about them from Carolyn Dowdey.” Mrs. Martinson pursed her lips in disapproval. “She tells everyone that Joe Allerton is a wonderful builder. I’m afraid he’s more of a wonderful actor, always very deferential when Carolyn is around.”
“From what I’ve seen of her, she’d like that a lot,” Sunny said.
Helena nodded. “You think she’d have more sense, but I’m sorry to say you’re right. She recommended Joe to Martin Rigsdale when he built that new office. I wonder how that turned out.”
“It looked pretty good—what I could see of it.” Sunny remembered some of the comments Dani Shostak had made about Martin getting into his financial hole. “I think it might have turned out more expensive than anticipated, though.”
“That’s usually the case with Joe Allerton,” Mrs. M. said grimly. “And however nice it looks, you can bet he cut corners wherever it didn’t show.” She shook her head. “And the people he works with! The Dowdey place was a nice, classic Colonial house. But the architect Joe brought in added this thing to the side of the house where everyone has to see it. He didn’t even have the decency to hide it in the backyard.”
“A thing?” Mike asked, taking the words right out of Sunny’s mouth.
“Makes it looks as if a house from here had a head-on collision with one of those glass and cedar places you see in California,” Helena complained. “It’s one thing to add a sunroom or maybe enlarge the kitchen, but it seems just vulgar to tack a whole wing onto a house—especially when it’s a completely different style.”
She sighed. “They put drop ceilings in to give it a more ‘intimate’ feeling, and added a new fireplace for the family room. Not that there’s any family. Carolyn is alone in the place. But it’s very modern, and she tells everyone that she loves it.”
“So long as it makes her happy,” Sunny offered with a shrug.
Mrs. M. looked doubtful. “I’m not sure Carolyn knows what might make her happy anymore.”
She stopped, suddenly self-conscious, and looked at her watch. “I don’t know where the time goes when I sit with you, Mike. I should be working on my supper.”
“And so should we, I guess.” Sunny said good-bye and headed back to the kitchen to start whipping up a meal, giving her dad and Helena Martinson some privacy for a warmer farewell.
Later, at dinner, Mike asked his usual half-jocular question: “Anything exciting happen today?”
“Well, I got hauled off to the Portsmouth hoosegow for a while,” Sunny told him. “Detective Trumbull wanted to ask me some questions, and did it in the most disruptive way possible—damn!” She broke off.
“Finally think of something good to say to him?” Mike joked.
“No, it’s something I should have said to somebody else.” After dealing with Ollie and proving she had a job to do, she hadn’t contacted Jane or Tobe about Trumbull’s game playing.
And they were right in front of me at Spill the Beans. Sunny shook her head. I must really be losing it.
On the other hand, she didn’t know if they’d have welcomed the interruption. It hadn’t looked like a legal consultation to her.
“Would you mind dealing with the dishes tonight?” she asked Mike. “I have to go upstairs and make a phone call.”
Jane picked up her home phone when Sunny punched in the number. So I guess coffee after work didn’t turn into something more elaborate—unless Tobe is sitting there beside her.
“Sunny!” Jane said. “What’s up?”
I was wondering the same about you. But Sunny quickly quashed that thought. “Trumbull had me come down to the station today.”
“The guy just doesn’t stop, does he?” Sunny could imagine Jane scowling on the other end of the line. Then, “Are you okay?”
“They didn’t bring out the rubber hose,” Sunny told her. “Fitch was his usual sunny self, but he didn’t give me much attitude. Trumbull tried to pick my story apart wh
en I told him about meeting the waitress, but all in all, he was just double-checking.”
“Even so, it can’t have been fun.” Jane spoke with the certainty of someone who’d gone through a real interrogation. “I’m sorry you had to get hauled off. Seems to me he could have come to you, or even sent Fitch to ask his questions.”
“He could have,” Sunny said. “But I think he had another reason for getting me down there.”
She described the byplay between Fitch and Trumbull. “They had no reason to discuss alibis in front of me,” Sunny finished. “And knowing that I’m friendly with you, they had good reason not to.”
“Unless they wanted me to hear about it.” Jane’s voice grew tight. “If he’s crossed Ralph and Christine Venables off his suspect list, then he’ll be coming after me again.”
“If.” Sunny emphasized the word. “The thing is, police can lie.”
“So we’ve got to check up on those alibis right away,” Jane said. “I’ve got to call Tobe.” But instead of hanging up, she paused. “How would you feel about an undercover assignment?”
“Questioning Ralph or Christine? I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Sunny said.
“Actually, I was thinking you might have a chat with their daughter, Kristi.” Jane rushed on before Sunny could interrupt with objections. “I happen to know where she’ll be from about noon till one tomorrow. I always bump into her at the beauty salon.”
“It’s a small world,” Sunny said. And a weird one, she silently added. This Kristi kid is supposed to be unemployed. How can she afford a weekly visit to a pricey salon? It must be nice to have well-off parents. For that matter, why would someone as gorgeous as Jane need such regular beauty treatments?
“I can switch you into my appointment,” Jane went on, her enthusiasm growing. “And you can do your reporter thing on her. It would be perfect. And you know you need a trim, Sunny. Come on. I’ll pick up the tab.”
“All right,” Sunny capitulated. “On one condition. You’ll have to cover for me at the office. If any important calls come in, you’ll have to get me on my cell.”
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