Moving out from beneath the bush, Joe looked up at the vents of the attic.

"Wait for me," he whispered. "Watch the window." And he was gone up the rose trellis, his white paws flashing as he skillfully avoided the thorns. She watched nervously from the bushes, wishing she didn't feel so edgy. In a moment she heard him scratching and tearing at the wall, rustling within the foliage. She had never seen Joe so interested, when no serious crime had been committed. Usually he reserved his predatory sleuthing for some major transgression, but tonight he was keen to break and enter, hot on the trail-of what? Oh, Vivi and Elliott did put him off, did make him uneasy. Above her, Joe snatched and clawed at the vent as he swung from the trellis anchored only by his hind paws, fighting to get inside, following his instincts.

Max Harper, she thought, would never move on cop sense alone, on some itchy feeling, without due cause. Whatever problems the Traynors had, such as their avoidance of Ryan Flannery, and Vivi's nervousness around police, didn't necessarily point to criminal activity. And yet…

She wondered if they could be dealing drugs. She didn't like to think that about someone like Elliott Traynor. Were his medical bills so high that he was desperate, hard up for cash even if he was a famous writer? Cancer treatment must be very expensive. Maybe writers didn't have medical insurance. Certainly drugs were easy to sell. On the streets of New York and San Francisco there would be plenty of buyers eager to hand over their money.

But she was letting her imagination go wild. And how was Garza's niece involved? Did Ryan know more about the Traynors than she was saying-more than she wanted to tell her uncle?

"I could go to the door," the kit said. "Scratch at the door."

"Do what, Kit?" Dulcie stared at her, then looked up to where Joe had his claws hooked in the vent, stubbornly pulling.

"I could play lost kitty like Joe did at Detective Garza's house, when he moved in to spy. Like you did with that old lady, after Janet Jeannot was killed. You lived with that old woman for a week, and look how much you found out! I could-"

The vent came loose and fell, as Joe leaped clear. It clattered loudly to the brick walk-and Elliott's typing stopped. Dulcie and the kit froze, ready to run. Above them, Joe disappeared into the attic.

In a moment the typing started again. The kit, fascinated with her idea, went on as if she'd never been interrupted. "I could make nice to Elliott Traynor and Vivi and get them to feed me and make a bed for me and I would purr for them, and when they went to sleep I would open the door for you, catch the knob in my paws, and swing and hold tight-I can do that. I could-"

"Hush, Kit, you're making me crazy. You mustn't do any of that. Be still." She could hear sounds from the front of the garden. Someone was coming. She pulled the kit deeper under the hydrangea bush. Crouching among the leaves and branches, they listened.

Was it a person approaching in the dark? More likely a dog, Dulcie thought. The brushing noise was too low to the ground for a human. The kit, very still now, pressed close to her as something came lumbering in their direction, waddling back and forth on all fours.

This was no dog. Dulcie could feel the kit's heart pounding against her. She could see the beast's stripes now, his black beady eyes, could see the mask across his face. He was bigger than a bulldog and seemed twice as broad, and behind him came four smaller raccoons looking out from behind identical masks, swinging along predatory and bold on their dainty black paws. Five lethal fighting machines. Dulcie and the kit didn't breathe.

The raccoons lurched past not ten feet from them, their raised noses sucking in the lingering smell of enchiladas. Maybe that garlicky confection of meat and chilies and cilantro would hide the smell of cat. Lurching toward the back of the house and the garbage cans, they were soon scrabbling on metal and chittering impatiently, pawing to get the lids off. A lid dropped into the bushes. The can fell, breaking leafy twigs and immediately the raccoons were into it, scrabbling and fighting.

Dulcie led the kit back up the trellis, the kit's long fine fur catching in the thorns with little ripping sounds.

"We're safe now," the kit whispered, edging toward the hole that Joe Grey had opened to the dark attic.

"Hush!" Dulcie said. "They can climb, too. Get yourself inside!" Below them, the sounds of bickering and of claws tearing at Styrofoam gave her the shivers. She imagined the animals devouring enchilada-flavored Styrofoam as if it were candy. But when they finished with the garbage, what would they do next?

Following the kit into the dusty, mouse-scent dark of the attic, she mewed softly for Joe Grey. There was no answer, no movement among the shadows. She heard, from the yard below, the sounds of the raccoons change from gorging garbage to little chirps of curiosity, then heard the beasts coming back, shouldering through the bushes toward the trellis that she and the kit had climbed. Beside her, the kit peered down. "What are they doing? Why…?"

"Be still! They'll climb up here quick as squirrels!" She looked hard at the kit, whose tail was twitching with that devilish, looking-for-trouble rhythm.

"Didn't you ever have to battle raccoons, Kit, when you lived with that traveling band of cats? They're as dangerous as coyotes or bobcats."

"The big cats fought them. I was too little. I always hid. But I'm big now, and you and Joe are big. They wouldn't-"

"Oh wouldn't they?" She turned blazing eyes on the kit. "Have you never seen a cat torn apart by raccoons? Like you would tear apart a little mouse!"

The kit's eyes grew round. She dropped her tail, dropped her ears flat to her head, and backed away from the vent into the deeper shadows of the attic. And Dulcie began to search for something heavy they could push against the vent hole.

In the black attic Dulcie raced among hulking furniture, clawing at cartons, searching for a box that she could move, could shove against the hole to block the raccoons' entrance. In the little square of moonlit sky that marked the vent hole, a black shape loomed, and another was coming fast up the trellis. Her nose was filled with the smells of mildew and dust and ancient mouse droppings, as if all the house dirt of generations had been sucked upward into this dank space. Searching, pulling at heavy boxes, she watched the lead raccoon forcing himself through the little vent, could hear the others behind him pushing up the trellis following the scent of cat.

They daren't shout; the Traynors would hear them-she wondered if Elliott heard the raccoons scrabbling up the wall of the house. She attacked another box, straining with claws and teeth to drag it toward the opening. Where was Joe? Cats weren't built to move heavy loads. If she got a grip with her claws and pulled, she pulled her own back feet out from under herself. When she tried pushing with her shoulder, the box might as well be nailed to the floor. Straining, lying on her back, pulling, she mewled when the box gave suddenly, was shoved so hard it nearly ran her over. She rolled away as it rammed against the wall.

"Push, Dulcie. Push now!" Joe hissed. In the darkness behind the box, his white face and chest gleamed. But as they fought the carton toward the opening, the beast pushed through, forcing the box back in their faces. He was a huge animal; he seemed to fill the attic.

"Run, Kit. Run." The three cats flew through the dark, dodging between the legs of stacked furniture.

"Here," Joe hissed. "Down through the crawl door." He shouldered the kit toward a thick slab of plywood lying askew on the rough flooring, a crack of blackness showing at its edge.