Gone, Kitty, Gone

by Eileen Watkins

  The detective considered. “She’s onstage now. Besides, the cat may be evidence.”

  “Well, you don’t need to dust the carrier for prints to know that Dumas took the cat and was keeping him down here.”

  “No, I suppose not,” she relented.

  “Can I at least tell Jaki’s people that Gordie’s safe? Maybe e-mail her cousin?”

  Bonelli nodded permission, and I fired off a message to Mira. I hoped she would get a chance at some point to pass on the good news about Gordie and put Jaki’s mind at ease.

  As Officers Gardiner and Waller hustled Dumas out of the unfinished kitchen, a couple of other cops filed in to give the place a going-over, probably for more evidence. I pointed them toward the room service cart and the storage room beyond it, explaining that Gordie must have been shut up in there ever since he disappeared.

  My phone played “Stray Cat Strut” as Mira got back to me. “Cassie, you’re an angel! If you bring Gordie backstage, I can show him to Jaki and then take him up to the suite. Your boyfriend’s here, too, looking for you.”

  When I relayed all of this information to Bonelli, she finally agreed to let me go. “Come downtown tomorrow and give us your official statement. We already heard enough tonight to tack unlawful restraint and terroristic threats onto Dumas’s charges.”

  She told blond Officer Waller to escort me to the backstage of the theater. As I picked up Gordie’s carrier and headed for the door, Bonelli added, “And Cassie . . . nice work.”

  That floored me, since the detective usually warned or scolded me about sticking my nose too far into police business. Her rare compliment almost—maybe not quite—made up for everything I’d gone through over the past half hour.

  I certainly felt safer than I had all weekend, now that I was escorted by the youthful, broad-chested, and square-jawed Officer Chris Waller in his full uniform. We’d met once before, under similar hair-raising circumstances. After we got beyond earshot of Bonelli, he threw me a sideways look and cracked, “The department needs to form a special unit for cat crimes and put you in charge.”

  “It’s insane, isn’t it? The first time, I did poke my nose into a situation that I could have left alone. But now I’ve gotten such a rep that people actually try to recruit me, and it’s hard to say no.”

  “Especially when they’re as famous as Jaki Natal.”

  “And Alec MacMasters,” I reminded him, with a wink.

  Waller grinned. “None of that fazes Bonelli, though. She’ll grill a TV star the same as she would a gangbanger. But she’s one reason things stay lively around here. When she gets hold of a case and thinks there’s more beneath the surface, she doesn’t give up. She makes us work hard, but she always works harder.”

  “That’s what I figured.” It made me happy to hear one of the officers praise Angela so highly. She’d always come through for me and my friends, and it was good to know the rest of the squad appreciated her, too.

  As Waller, Gordie, and I entered the back of the theater by a side door, we could hear Jaki belting out “Shady Lady” with far more smolder and strut than she’d shown earlier at the rehearsal. I wondered if Mira had managed to tell her cousin that I’d found Gordie safe and well—the news might have raised Jaki’s spirits. At least she sounded in such good voice that her audience of well-heeled patrons should feel they were getting their money’s worth.

  I reached the wings, where Perry caught a glimpse of me and the aqua cat carrier. Grinning broadly with those spectacular teeth, he gave me a double thumbs-up. I guessed that Bonelli had kept him posted on Dumas’s capture.

  Mira dashed over to give me a hug and let out a muffled squeal. “I can’t believe you actually did it—tracked down Gordie and the stalker. That lady detective wasn’t lying, you really are amazing!”

  I felt myself blush and wondered if the restrained Bonelli had actually used such a word to describe my talents. “Just stubborn and more than a little crazy, I think. But very happy to be able to return this guy to you.”

  I handed over the carrier, and Mira fussed for a minute over the frightened cat. As the strains of Jaki’s amplified voice almost drowned us out, her cousin stage-whispered, “I can’t interrupt her now, but as soon as there’s a break, I’ll try to catch her eye.”

  She set the carrier down close to her foot, where I also could keep watch over it. Neither of us wanted to take the chance that anyone could make off with the cat again. So it spooked me a little, a second later, when I heard a male voice crooning softly, “How are ye, Gordie, m’boy? Been through a lot, have you?”

  I whipped around and saw some guy with wavy bronze hair squatting near the carrier. Wondering where Officer Waller had gone, I prepared to yank Jaki’s pet out of danger, until Gordie’s admirer smiled up at me.

  I’d only seen one episode of the Galaxy Wars TV series—while unwinding with Mark at his apartment on a quiet weekday evening—but that was enough for me to recognize Alec MacMasters. His thick hair dipped over his forehead, his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, and his choppers gleamed even whiter than Perry’s, almost glow-in-the-dark.

  Despite the shock, I managed down-to-earth conversation. “Got to him in time, I think. He seems a little thin, but not too rattled.”

  “Well, the doc can give him a quick checkup, right?” He glanced over his shoulder at Mark, who was walking quickly in our direction. Worried about my safety? Or about my exposure to the hunky male TV star?

  “Cassie, are you all right?” he asked. “Bonelli said—”

  “I’m fine, and she’s got the stalker in custody.”

  Mark wrapped me in a protective hug; until that moment, I hadn’t realized how badly I needed one. I hesitated to tell him any more and risk making him really upset with me. Luckily, at that point Jaki finished her number, and for a couple of minutes the audience’s applause made any conversation backstage impossible.

  While nodding her appreciation, Jaki glanced toward the wings. Mira waved to her, lifted the cat carrier, and pointed to it dramatically. Relief and affection swept over the singer’s face, giving it a glow beyond the effects of her stage makeup. She blew Gordie a kiss and, intentionally misinterpreting, Alec blew her one back. She responded with a wry shake of her head.

  Clasping the microphone against her modest cleavage with both hands, she spoke to the crowd again. “I was going to finish up tonight with ‘I Need My Space’”—people started clapping again, and she gave them time to settle down—“but I’d rather end with a song I wrote not long ago for someone who means a lot to me. I made a dumb mistake and let him down. I was afraid I’d lost him forever, but now I’m sure we’ve still got a lot of good years ahead of us, together.”

  She smiled brightly, and most of her audience would have been too far away to see the tears that glistened in her eyes. The pianist began a quiet ballad as Jaki sang.

  Another love affair gone sour, another night so far from home

  I’m by myself in my hotel room, at least I know I’m not alone

  You’re always happy just to listen to my sorrow or my joys

  You sit with me in wordless comfort, a welcome change from all the noise

  You give me strength to face the challenges of life

  And when I break, you help me mend

  I promise that just like you’re always there for me

  I will be there for you, my friend.

  I wondered if some in the audience, who might know that MacMasters had shown up at the hotel to help Jaki deal with some kind of crisis, assumed the song was dedicated to him. But the TV star himself was humble enough to know better. He bent down next to the carrier and whispered to the silver tabby, “How about that, Gordie? Your mum’s singing a song she wrote just for you!”

  * * *

  After the show ended, I learned that Becky and Chris had indeed been allowed to slip in and grab two unoccupied seats. Their efforts to get backstage for autographs were almost thwarted by a security guard, though, until I s
potted them and vouched for them. I even got to bring them along when Mark and I were invited to the after-party up in the Presidential Suite. At least for that evening, any friends of mine appeared to be welcome.

  Becky gushed over Jaki while the singer graciously signed her program, and Chris requested the same favor from Alec. Then both FOCA volunteers turned to me, wanting to know how we’d snared the stalker. I gave them only a superficial recap, throwing most of the credit to Bonelli, and promised to fill in more details another time. Because they knew no one else at the gathering, the two slipped away shortly after that.

  The closing cocktail party brought together everyone in Jaki’s entourage, as well as folks I hadn’t met before from the hotel’s promotional team and top management. Everyone seemed in high spirits, not totally fueled by trips to the bar.

  Once Jaki and Gordie had their joyful reunion, she introduced him to a few guests, then shut him away in the bedroom of her suite to finally give him some of his prescription food. That area was as large as a decent studio apartment, though, so it must have felt like cat heaven compared to the storage closet where he’d spent the last few days. While drinks and food were going around in the living/dining area, Mark took Gordie into the suite’s spacious bathroom to give him a quick check-over.

  Jaki’s reunion with Alec seemed on the warm side, too, considering that when she’d first heard about his arrival at the hotel she’d accused him of staging a publicity stunt. With a soft Scottish burr that he didn’t use on his TV show, Alec told Jaki, Hector, Mira, and me how he’d hired the PI.

  “My bodyguard recommended him, and he had great credentials, a military background,” he said. “But somehow this kid Dumas still must have gotten the drop on him. All of that still blows my mind!”

  “Having dealt with Stefan face-to-face, I have a theory,” I said. “Ordinarily, he didn’t look or act the least bit threatening. Even someone with all that training could have let their guard down around him.”

  Hector shook his head in wonder. “He told that lady detective he used some kind of tai chi move to get the guy’s gun, and ‘had to shoot him’ in self-defense. Said the same thing about the security guard, who caught him sneaking around in the stairwell with an iPad.”

  “So cold.” Mira shuddered and took another sip of her cocktail. “It’s one thing to murder someone you hate, in a rage, but just to eliminate any stranger who gets in your way . . .”

  But it totally fit the profile of a psychopath, I thought. “The only thing that mattered to him was getting to Jaki.”

  A shadow seemed to pass over the singer’s face, still beautiful as a china doll’s in her stage makeup. “I’m sure if I’d disappointed him in any way, I would have been eliminated, too.”

  Alec pulled her close in a one-armed hug that still let him hang onto his beer. “Well, that didn’t happen, because you had a lot of good people around who love you and went the extra mile to keep you safe.”

  Perry and Rose circulated among everyone at the party, including Bradburne management. Because the event had made decent money, all stresses over how closely they had skirted disaster seemed forgotten, or at least forgiven. Since in the end Jaki did perform, very few concert tickets had to be refunded, and some people who couldn’t make the Sunday night show had donated their ticket prices to the animal charities, anyway.

  So by tonight the sun-kissed color had returned to Perry’s face. When we met in the buffet line, he pulled me aside for a second. “Cassie, I know you don’t want too much made of your part in all this, especially in the press. But Bonelli told me how that guy cornered you in his hideout and you kept him talking until the cops arrived. That took guts, girl! I don’t know if I could have been that cool-headed.”

  Self-consciously, I chuckled. “Let’s just say that my BA in psychology never came in handier.”

  He swiped a hand through his artfully rumpled haircut. “You’ll probably never forgive me for involving you in such a dangerous mess, when you signed on just to give grooming demonstrations—for free, yet!”

  “I don’t blame you, Perry, or Jaki. I could have said no at any point, but I really wanted to help her get her cat back and end the threats against her and her family. She’s a brave lady, too, though I doubt that she’ll ever want her fans to know the whole story.”

  “Rose is cooperating with the police to play down the whole crisis as much as possible. The media will know that Jaki had a stalker, which was the reason for delaying her concert and for Alec flying in. They’ll also know that, with the help of the local cops and some expo volunteers, Stefan was located and arrested, so Jaki’s Sunday show went off as scheduled.”

  “Sounds smart,” I told him.

  Just then, my favorite vet emerged from the bedroom suite with his report on Gordie. He told Jaki that the cat had dropped a couple of pounds and showed a few other signs of stress, but nothing that a return to her usual TLC shouldn’t cure. “When you get back to LA, just have your regular vet run a blood test to make sure his kidney values are still okay.”

  The star offered to pay Mark for his trouble, but he waved that off. “All this excitement has definitely been a break from my routine. But there is one favor Alec can do for me. . . .”

  Jaki gestured with her whole arm for the movie star to join them. “Name it, I promise he’ll do it!”

  From the sideboard, Mark picked up a small notepad and a pen, both with the Bradburne logo. “My younger brother, Artie, is a huge fan of Galaxy Wars. If I can get your autograph, he’ll probably frame it.”

  MacMasters laughed and signed. “No problem, man.”

  No doubt he imagined Mark’s brother to be a teenager, and would have been surprised to know that Artie was in his mid-twenties. When I’d visited their family on holidays, his conversation had revolved mostly around sci-fi and fantasy video games, movies, and TV shows. It made sense that he also followed Alec’s series.

  While Mark and the TV star chatted, I took Jaki aside and quietly explained what I’d found in the unfinished catering kitchen. “In this stark, isolated space, Stefan had a whole table set up for the two of you. I can’t imagine how he thought you were going to react.”

  She shivered. “That’s so creepy! Well, I can’t ever thank you enough. I’ll feel so much safer now, traveling and going onstage. There are still other weirdos out there, but I don’t think very many are as determined and deadly as this guy was.” When her father passed by, Jaki caught his arm. “Dad, we owe Cassie some kind of reward for all of her help!”

  My cheeks warmed. “Oh, no, please. I was only too glad to do it. And as Mark said, it brought a little showbiz glamour into our lives.” Afraid she would insist on some extravagant gift, I glanced at the suite’s electronic clock. “Anyway, I should be getting back to my shop and my apartment. No telling what new catastrophe might be waiting for me.” I explained about the road work, the brown water, and the emergency methods I had used to get cleaned up for that evening. “Guess I’ll be showering in the van again tomorrow morning.”

  Mark draped an arm over my shoulders. “You could stay at my place, but you’d still have a drive back to town.”

  As Jaki listened to this, a gleam came into her dark eyes. “Cassie, do you have someone checking on your shop and your cats while you’re here?”

  “I usually rely on my friend Dawn, but she’s laid up with a broken foot.” Because I sensed the singer was hatching some kind of plan, I added, “Possibly her boyfriend, Keith, could sub for her. . . .”

  “Find out if he can. We booked this whole floor, and there’s at least one room still empty. Why don’t you and Mark stay the night here, on us? Then you’ll both be well rested—and showered—for work tomorrow.”

  That did sound tempting. I’d had a bit more than usual to drink, and from Mark’s festive glow, I suspected he had, too. The outfit I’d changed into for the concert would last through the next morning....

  And besides, Mark and I hadn’t had time to spend the night toge
ther in . . . a while.

  From his grin, I knew he found the invitation welcome, too.

  “Thanks, Jaki,” I told her. “That reward, I might just accept!”

  I called Dawn, hating to bother her after ten p.m. She’d already gone to bed, but Keith answered.

  “Sure, I’d be glad to pop over and feed the cats,” he said. “But what’s going on? Are you okay?”

  “Everybody’s fine: me, Mark, my mom, Harry, Jaki, and Gordie. The only one who’s not okay is a guy named Stefan Dumas, an old high school classmate of Jaki’s. He’s in the custody of the Chadwick PD.”

  “Sounds like a hell of a story,” Keith said.

  “It is. I’ll tell you and Dawn all about it tomorrow.”

  Neither Mark nor I had any luggage, but our room provided us with spa bath products, white terry robes and slippers, and fresh cotton sheets that felt like silk. Those things helped us both forget the stresses of the day—my actual life-and-death confrontation, and Mark’s concern over where I was and what kind of mess I’d gotten myself into this time.

  He still didn’t know that I’d actually faced down an armed Stefan Dumas one-on-one, and I wasn’t about to tell him that night. We were in high spirits, and I didn’t want to provoke another session where he would moan about me taking terrible risks and I would promise, really meaning it at the time, that I’d never, ever do such a thing again.

  Much better to keep dialogue to a minimum and communicate nonverbally. We both deserved to savor this rare taste of the good life.

  Tomorrow it would be back to reality.

  Chapter 21

  By the time I got back to my shop Monday morning, Sarah already had opened for business and greeted me with a big smile. “I guess you folks had a wild time last night. Detective Bonelli already called, said to get back to her when you can.”