Lilly looked resigned or too tired to argue. She backed away from the door, motioned him in, pointed to the couch. The woman wasn’t big on graciousness. But then Greeley guessed maybe he wasn’t so smooth, either, in the manners department. Mavity said that often enough. But what the hell difference, anyway?

“I can make you some frozen lemonade,” Lilly said shortly. “That’s the best I can do. There are some magazines there on the table. But he isn’t here, Greeley. And he won’t be.”

This, Greeley thought, was going to take a while. She’d kill time in the kitchen fiddling with the lemonade, and then the long process of drinking the sour stuff and trying to draw her out. He glanced around the tired-looking, faded room figuring out just what questions to ask her, how best to pull this off. Old woman was prickly as a cactus. Looked like she hadn’t changed a stick of furniture in the room since he and Cage was kids slipping up the stairs to Cage’s room and locking the door behind them.

When Lilly finally returned with the lemonade and handed him a glass and sat down, he took his time sipping and smacking, telling her how good it was. She looked at him coldly.

“What did you come for, Greeley?”

“Cage didn’t call you? Well, he figured he might not be able to, said he’d try. He needs some clothes and things, plans to…be gone awhile. He’s out, you know.”

“I thought you hadn’t seen him.”

“Well, he told me to be careful what I said. Until I saw you was alone, saw that the cops wasn’t here.”

“Hiding from the law again,” Lilly said dryly, not seeming at all curious about why or how Cage was out on the streets.

“Well, yes, ma’am. He didn’t have no clothes, and-”

“He can buy clothes.”

“He told me to come on down to the house, told me to check his closet, pretty much told me which ones to get. And his razor and toothbrush, like that…”

“Surely he has money to buy what he wants.”

“I guess he doesn’t want to be seen just now,” Greeley said diffidently.

“I should think not. He almost killed a man today.”

That shook Greeley, that she knew.

“That federal officer could die,” Lilly said. “Cage belongs in prison.”

Greeley wondered, if he was in this much trouble, would his sister, Mavity, be as hateful as Lilly Jones? He gave Lilly a gentle smile. “Cage said there was some kind of suitcase or duffle bag. Said to pack up his stuff, whatever I thought he’d need. If it’s all right with you, of course…” He was growing uneasy. This old woman was going to run him off-or try to.

It would be a sight easier if he had the house to himself. If he could search in his own way, take his time. But he hadn’t figured out, yet, how to accomplish that.

Lilly looked at him silently for a long time. He waited for her to tell him to get out, but then she settled back, watching him. “Tell me where he is. Tell me exactly what happened. Tell me why he shot that federal officer. If you tell me all of it, we’ll see about the clothes.”

D ulcie and Kit, too, were headed for the Jones house, racing up into the hills, skirting the canyon, where a fitful wind blew at their backs, pushing them along and ruffling their fur. Shouldering through tinder-dry weeds, they bounded into bright flower beds, then tangled grass, then across the back garden of the four senior ladies, on and on, up the ridge through all manner of backyards; at the crest of the hill, they circled around to the street, to the front entrance of the Jones house, just as Greeley had done.

The tall, brown, boxlike dwelling stood on the highest blunt ridge, nearly smothered by eucalyptus trees, a two-story structure with no architectural grace, though the trees hid most of its faults, the silvery-leafed giants crowding so close that their wind-tossed branches rattled against the siding, slapping the cracked wood.

The lumpy front yard was dry and bald, with a thin scattering of scruffy grass. There was no sign that anyone watered, or cared about growing things. Dulcie paused to pull a thorn from her paw, gripping it in her teeth and jerking hard, then spitting it out. A few parked cars stood along the street or in the narrow, cracked driveways. One imagined garages too full of trashy personal treasures to accommodate even a bicycle. No person could be seen in the yards or at the windows. In a few houses, though, lights were on. Above the darkening rooftops, the evening sky was still silvered with the fading day. Venetian blinds covered the windows of the Jones house. All were closed, so the cats could not see in; a faint light burned in what seemed to be the living room.

A block away, a water company truck was parked, as if out late on an emergency call, two uniformed men bent over the curbside meters. One was Officer Blake, a tall, balding, string bean of a man. The cats didn’t know the other officer. Down at the other end of the block, three PG &E employees were working, as if perhaps attending to the same emergency: two were older officers the cats had never seen. The cats knew that Max Harper had men on call for surveillance, when he might be shorthanded. Despite the late-afternoon heat, the windows of the Jones house were all closed.

“Must be like an oven in there,” Dulcie said. “Could Lilly have air-conditioning? Oh, not in this old house.” Most folks on the coast didn’t bother with artificial cooling; usually a sharp evening breeze took care of any unusual heat. Kit counted the windows and studied the size of the house, staring high above them. “Why would she live alone, in such a big old place?”

“It belongs half to her and half to Cage,” Dulcie said. “When he was on parole, Wilma suggested he get something smaller, put the money in savings, but he didn’t want to do that. I guess the house is paid for, so Lilly lives rent free. Their parents bought it years and years ago, when they were first married…I’ll bet they never dreamed it might be a place for their son to hide from the law.”

Circling the house, sniffing the front porch and along the narrow, leaf-covered driveway that slanted down to the basement garage, they caught not the faintest scent of Wilma.

“If she isn’t here,” Dulcie whispered, “where has he taken her?”

Kit studied the house, her yellow eyes burning with thoughts of getting inside. They checked the basement vents, but all were solidly screwed in place. They slipped up the eucalyptus trees, one after the other, to inspect the attic vents, but these, too, were securely fastened.

The back blinds and the upstairs blinds were all open, as if Lilly was concerned only with privacy from the street. Peering in from the trees through upstairs windows, they made out four sad-looking bedrooms and one old-fashioned bathroom. When they looked into the main floor from the back of the house, they found an equally outdated kitchen and bathroom, all grim, neglected rooms; it appeared that no one had painted those box tan walls or replaced any rug or piece of marred furniture since the place was built.

Was that because Lilly didn’t have the money, or because she didn’t care? Not likely Cage would care. There was a younger sister, but she had married and moved out shortly after the parents’ deaths. The cats pressed their noses to a living room window, trying to see through the cracks of the closed Venetian blinds; they could see nothing, but voices reached them…A TV? No, these were live voices, one scratchy and familiar. Dulcie looked at Kit. “Greeley? Greeley Urzey? It can’t be. Why would he be here? What would Mavity’s brother be doing here?” Tense with questions, she pressed her ear to the dusty pane.

“It’s Greeley, all right,” she said, listening. “Mavity told Wilma he was in town. Moved right in with her, freeloading as usual. But why would he be here? He doesn’t know…Oh,” she said. “He’d know Lilly!” The idea of a connection between Greeley and Lilly Jones, or Cage Jones, didn’t seem to wash until she remembered that Wilma had gone to school with Cage as well as with Mavity and Greeley. She thought Cage and Greeley had been friends, then. All children together, so very long ago.