"Now I know you're putting me on. You haven't been away from the department since you joined the force."

"Not true. Been to Quantico twice for FBI training. And more conferences on police administration than I want to remember."

"Well, bully for you."

He grinned. "A lot of vacation time to use up. I figure a month's cruise, this fall, before the weather turns."

Her response was so enthusiastic that she startled Harper. The moment amazed them both. It was a while before they opened their sandwiches and the containers of coleslaw and popped another beer. She tried to get hold of herself, but she couldn't. When she started to laugh, she couldn't stop. She leaned against him, laughing.

"So what's the joke?"

She knew her face had gone red. "Just… just excitement," she lied. "I…" She looked up at him. "Just happy!" But what she'd thought of suddenly was about telling Dulcie and Joe Grey. Thinking how happy the cats would be-and then that knowledge sobered her.

That was a hard call; no matter how close she and Max might be for the rest of their lives, there was one secret she could never tell him. One part of her life that she could never share.

Spotlights illuminated center stage. The house lights were dark, the rows of seats marching away empty into the hollow blackness of the theater. Only a few front seats were occupied where Elliott and Vivi Traynor, director Samuel Ladler, and music director Mark King sat together softly talking, and occasionally rattling a script. Elliott had hunched down in his wrinkled corduroy sport coat as if perhaps he felt unwell. On the far side of the theater near the exit door, a dozen actors had taken a block of seats, whispering among themselves, waiting for their callback auditions for Thorns of Gold. Above the house among the rafters, where night clung against the high ceiling, crouched an attentive feline audience of three: two pairs of yellow eyes, one pair of green, catching glances of soft light. No human, below, bothered to look up, to find those tiny spotlights.

"But where's Cora Lee?" Dulcie said softly, peering down at the waiting actors.

"Still backstage," said the kit. "Painting sets like she doesn't care at all about the part."

Of the seven women who had read and sung for the part of Catalina during yesterday's tryouts, Cora Lee was one of two callbacks. Director Ladler felt so pressed for time that he had notified the actors last night before they left the theater, had stood on the patio with the little group gathered around him and read out the names of the callbacks. Then he had quickly turned back inside before anyone could challenge his decisions. No director liked that part of the casting; no one enjoyed seeing the disappointment of those who were turned away.

Below the cats, Vivi leaned over to Elliott, whispering something, then giggling. She leaned forward in her chair, looking down the several seats to question Sam Ladler and to give him orders. Elliott hardly paid attention. Surely he wasn't feeling well, Dulcie thought. Maybe the decisions that should be his had suddenly fallen on Vivi's shoulders and she was nervous about that.

Director Sam Ladler was a lean, tanned man with thinning hair that heightened his forehead into a deep widow's peak. He looked like he ran or played tennis. He was dressed this morning in old jeans and a limp sweatshirt. He was a terse man, Wilma had said, with a dry humor. Wilma said that he and his casts had created outstanding theater for Molena Point. He sat between Traynor and Mark King, the two directors having managed to put Vivi down at the far end of the row.

Mark King was smoothly pudgy, a young man who seemed to have turned middle-aged before his time. He was short, maybe five-four, with straight, faded brown hair down to his shoulders and rimless half-glasses that he kept wiping as if he found it impossible to remove the smudges. He wore wrinkled chinos and a T-shirt with palm trees printed across it. He rose as Ladler called for Catalina and moved up onto the stage, to the piano.

"We'll have Fern Barth," Ladler said, looking down at the little group of actors. Fern was Richard Casselrod's assistant at the antiques shop, a pale, spiritless woman, in Dulcie's opinion, whose singing during tryouts had sounded as if she was practicing for second line in the choir box, hitting the notes okay, but with no more feeling than a china doll. As Fern stepped up on stage, a whiff of her perfume rose to the cats as sweet as cake icing.

"Why," Dulcie whispered, "was this woman called back?"

Joe Grey shrugged, yawning. "Doesn't stand a chance."

"I hope not," Dulcie said uneasily. And her dismay was sharp when Fern had finished, and Vivi smiled and nodded at Sam Ladler. Elliott came to life long enough to give Fern a friendly wink. Sam Ladler looked over at them blankly and called Cora Lee.

Cora Lee came out from the wings rolling down the sleeves of her smock and wiping paint from her face. Moving to center stage, she turned to the piano, smiled at Mark King, then stood quietly looking out at the rows of empty seats, collected and composed.

"Read from where she refuses to marry Stanton," Ladler said. "Then where she's locked in her room, and that first number."

Cora Lee read her lines with cold anger as Catalina was led away to her prison. Watching her, the cats forgot her stained smock and the green smear down her cheek. She stood and moved with the grace and dignity of generations of Spanish queens.

But when Catalina faced the audience from behind her locked door, her movements were restricted and disheartened, her song holding all the misery of imprisonment and of love denied.

"One more number," Ladler said. "Let's hear her plea."

As Catalina begged for rescue, her audience on the rafters above was very still. The kit mewled softly, and Dulcie felt her own heart twist. This was not Cora Lee French, the gentle waitress with gray in her hair; this was a young girl frightened and alone, her pain wrenching their very cat souls. When the number ended, there was not a sound in the theater. Cora Lee bowed slightly to Samuel Ladler and to King, but did not move from the stage. The ghosts from the past that she had summoned clung around her, lingering in the shadows.

"Thank you," Ladler said softly, and watched Cora Lee move offstage. But as she stepped down to sit with the other actors, again Vivi leaned to speak to Ladler, shaking her head. Her whisper rose clearly to the cats. "Too bad, Sam. She's just not right for the part-that gray hair, for one thing. Really too bad, but the part calls for a younger woman.

"And," Vivi said, "to be honest, Elliott doesn't care for overacting." She gave Ladler a bright smile. "Well, Fern is perfect for the part. We're fortunate to have her. So sweet-just the way a young girl would sing, with a broken heart."

Sam Ladler sat looking at Vivi, very still and rigid. He rose, turning to Elliot. "Shall we step out to the lobby to discuss this?"

"There's no need," Vivi said. "We love Fern's performance. Elliott loves her. She's perfect." Beside her, Elliott nodded.

Sam continued to look at Elliott. "I don't discuss the tryouts in front of the actors. Would you like to continue this in private?"

Vivi said, "You notified the others right away, before they left the theater."

"Fern's the one," Elliott said. "No question."

Sam looked across to the waiting actors. "Go home. We'll call you in the morning."

"No!" Vivi snapped. "Let them stay. You know we're short on time." She looked hard at Ladler. "Have you forgotten, conveniently, that Elliott's permission to produce is subject to his approval of the cast?"