She looked around the laundry half expecting to have to clean up mouse blood or whatever might remain after Joe Grey had brought his promised gift to Mango. Scraping up mouse guts wasn’t a job she relished, but she didn’t see a sign of any leftovers. She didn’t remember the dishpan being on the floor by the cat box. She picked it up and set it back on the counter, then fetched a flashlight from the laundry shelf and, kneeling again, sent a beam of light under the washer and dryer, hoping not to see a small dead body where an injured mouse had escaped. She’d at least prefer little beady eyes peering out.

Happily, the space beneath the machines was empty. If indeed Joe had brought a gift, Mango had cleaned it up nicely. She’d brought Mango an apricot this morning, which Theresa had told her the funny little cat loved. Theresa doted on her cats.

Charlie was fond of Theresa. Despite her tendency to make up harmless stories, to change facts on the spur of the moment-Charlie didn’t like to call it lying-she was a gentle, sweet-tempered young woman most of the time. Unless something sent her into one of her upsets, which could put her almost out of control. In some ways, dark-haired Theresa Chapman had plenty of self-confidence; she did as she pleased and didn’t let Carl run her. Yet in other ways, at other times, she showed no confidence at all; she would back off submissively from Carl and allow him to bully her.

Mango, as she left her box to eat the apricot, glanced uneasily at the closed kitchen door. Charlie watched her, petting the kittens and listening again to the house. She knew it was empty-but Mango would be nervous if someone had gotten in last night; she wouldn’t know they weren’t still there. Charlie was just glad that she and her kits were all right, that no one had harmed them. Two of the kits were yellow, two brown tabby, and one a deep rust as red as Charlie’s own hair. Leaning over, she laid a lock of her long hair down across the kitten, who happily snatched at it. The reds matched perfectly, and she thought that would amuse Theresa.

Last night when she’d examined the pry marks on the outside molding, she’d tried to call the Chapmans, thinking that maybe Theresa had locked herself out at some point, and had had to get in that way, that that would explain the damage.

There’d been no answer, and she’d tried again this morning. The trouble with vacationers, they left their cell phones in their hotel rooms, didn’t want to be bothered. They figured they’d return their messages later, and then forgot or didn’t want the interruption from their carefree days. Maybe they’d gotten her messages and thought the scratched door wasn’t serious enough to bother about, as long as the cats were all right. In her message, she had assured them of that. She had no other number to try, no name of any hotel. Theresa said she wasn’t sure, herself, which little towns they would be staying in, that they meant to head up the coast for a few days, that after that Carl had grand plans. All pretty vague, Charlie thought, smiling. Theresa had confided in her that the two had had their troubles, so maybe an unstructured vacation was intended to be low key and healing.

Because Charlie had found Mango safe inside again, thanks to Joe and Dulcie, she hadn’t included that near disaster in her messages to the Chapmans; that would make Theresa frantic. She didn’t like keeping things from her clients but in this case she’d thought it best. Of the four families who were presently on vacation, all four owned cats, but Theresa was by far the most obsessive about her pets’ welfare.

When Charlie had first inspected the damaged door, she’d been concerned about Theresa’s collection of lovely miniature paintings, but they all seemed accounted for. They were all in place this morning, the miniatures, mostly landscapes with a few figure studies, hung close together in multiple rows, covering two dining room walls, light from the big bay window washing over their jewel-like colors. There were no spaces where paintings were missing, and she’d found no change in spacing, where they might have been rearranged. Certainly the most valuable ones were there, the two dozen best-known artists whose work was distinctive. The paintings were dear to Theresa, she would immerse herself in them, as one would get lost in a piece of music, and Charlie understood that.

Charlie tried not to have favorites among her clients, but was that really possible? Theresa was a favorite of the whole neighborhood because of her sunny disposition and, in part, because she was so vulnerable. A slim, tanned, willowy young woman in her midthirties, Theresa had no notion of how beautiful she was. Her dark brown hair, brown eyes, her long face with her rosy, prominent cheeks made a striking combination-though Theresa wouldn’t hear of it. She said her “chubby” cheeks made her look like a chipmunk, and no one could tell her any different. She was not only lovely, but bright and cheerful-except that with any small disaster, particularly one that involved an animal, she would weep. Theresa’s tears came easily, as did her sense of betrayal, and her resulting temper. If Theresa thought a friend had crossed her, her bitterness was cold and complete.

The four families, because of their schedules, were vacationing at about the same time of year. Eleen Longley of course went on vacation the minute school was out, the minute her students vanished from her life for a few serene months. She and Earl usually took a two-or three-week driving trip. He, being an architect, could pretty much plan his trips around hers. Eleen was a small, dark-haired young woman, bright and lively, with a natural charm that drew people to her-more lively and determined perhaps than Earl could easily handle. Charlie had seen her stubborn moods, and some would call her hardheaded. But Charlie liked her; she’d seen the gentle side of Eleen, with her cats and with the neighbors’ small children.

The Watermans’ vacation trip was usually on their anniversary. That was the one cruise a year where blond, willowy Rita Waterman didn’t work as a tour guide. This year, though, they hadn’t booked a cruise. The last time Charlie had seen Rita, they were thinking of spending their first week in San Francisco, and were debating whether to book a last-minute flight to Greece or to the Antilles. Wherever they were, Charlie could reach them by cell phone if the need arose. She imagined Rita on the white beaches of some exotic island, showing off her tan, swimming in the warm Caribbean waters or that of the Greek islands. For a moment, she let herself imagine living that glamorous life, she and Max being waited on by stewards bearing exotic drinks and delicious tidbits-even if for only a few weeks. To see Max have a rest would be worth a lot. And the chance to see new parts of the world attracted her, the beautiful blue waters, a chance to touch a bit of the past among Greece ’s crumbling ruins.

But the downside of a cruise, the busy social milieu, too many people and too much meaningless conversation, didn’t appeal to her, and would drive Max crazy. If she were offered the trade, she’d turn that down in a New York minute and stick to their own quiet joys, with their friends, with the horses and their other animals, in their small village.

But that glamorous life suited Rita Waterman very well; she seemed truly to enjoy the busy life. Rita was a jewelry buff; she dressed in simple, well-cut clothes that showed off various pieces of her striking collection of antique costume jewelry that came from all over the world. With her statuesque beauty and cool manners, Rita seemed always reined in, always in charge of herself. But underneath, Charlie knew, she was as vulnerable as anyone else. Charlie, when she’d first started cleaning their house and had still done much of the physical work, overheard some of their arguments, some real explosions of temper and tears from Rita.