She was certain those digressions didn’t occur in public. Rita’s husband, Ben, had some medical problems, which he seemed to manage well. Maybe that was why he didn’t join her on her tours. He stayed home, “batching” and, apparently reluctantly, feeding whatever cats Rita had at the moment. The couple was a ripe source of neighborhood gossip, as their friends wondered about Rita’s glamorous journeys alone, far from home and husband. Though certainly when she was home they had a busy social life, season tickets to concerts and plays, and they were involved in various charity functions, as well as casual dinners with their neighbors.

Charlie was amused by her own sudden interest in her clients’ personal lives. A year ago, she couldn’t have cared less. Only since she’d developed an interest in writing fiction had other people’s lives begun to fascinate her. With one illustrated “book for all ages” in the stores and another in the works, she’d suddenly found the intricacies of other people’s lives piquing her curiosity to the point where she was considering an adult novel. Turning gossip to gold, she thought, amused.

Though most of the gossip on this street was about Ed Becker, who was the handsomest man among the four couples, strikingly tall and lean with well-styled black hair and laughing brown eyes. It was hard not to like Ed, he was so boyishly charming and made such an effort to get you to like him. Max said he was a charming sociopath, and usually Max was right. But this time? She wondered idly if the stories about Ed were true. And if they were, did Frances suspect his deceptions? Or was she as innocent as she appeared?

What a waste, if Ed was a womanizer, when he had such an appealing wife. And if Frances knew about his affairs, why did she stay with him? She was just as attractive as Ed, though far quieter, seeming almost shy. They made a striking couple, Francis nearly as tall as Ed, slim and tanned, with long, dark hair and brown eyes. She was an accountant, so they took their vacation when she’d finished tax season and filed her extensions. Strange, Charlie thought, that if Ed had been intimate with any of the other three women, the four couples were still friends, having dinner together, going on outings that they all seemed to enjoy with one another.

Charlie’s crews had been scheduled to come in today to clean the Chapmans’ refrigerator, to empty the dishwasher, change the linens, do the laundry and the regular cleaning and attend to the list of small repairs that Theresa had given them. Mavity had started working in the other three houses a day or two ago, once the other couples had left. And that, too, was strange.

Little wizened Mavity Flowers, who had worked for Charlie since she began the service, had told her that in all three houses, a number of small items seemed to be missing, an extra camera, a laptop, a tape recorder. Things they thought the householders had probably taken with them. Mavity hadn’t found any indication of a break-in, and everything else was in order: Frances Becker’s lovely antiques all in place, the Longleys’ first editions and paperweight collection on their shelves behind locked doors, and Rita Waterman’s jewelry cabinet securely locked.

Giving Mango a last ear rub, Charlie left the laundry room, closing the kitchen door behind her. Letting herself out the front door, she hurried up the street. The neighborhood was quiet. A couple of Sunday papers still lay in the front yards. She could smell bacon frying, as if for a late Sunday breakfast. The pine and cypress trees among the houses on the downhill side cast short, sharp shadows among the scattered rhododendron bushes. The sun was warm on her back, the rain vanished.

The moment she let herself into the Waterman house, the three Waterman cats came in from outside through their cat door, to rub against her ankles as if feeling ignored or neglected.

“You already lonely?” She knelt and spent some time petting and talking to them, then she went through the house. Entering Rita’s closet, knowing where Rita kept her jewelry cabinet key, she pulled on the cotton gloves to retrieve it, wanting to make sure that, though it was locked, the pieces were safe inside.

The key wasn’t where it should be. She fished around until she found it where Rita had apparently moved it, and she opened the wall case.

All was in place, the ornate pendants and chokers with their faux jewels as rich and brilliant as any collection of multimillion-dollar pieces. It was interesting to Charlie that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, paste gems were often used in the most intricate gold and silver settings. That once the technique for making faux gems was developed, a whole new market was created for beautiful but affordable jewelry. Now, the settings themselves were collectors’ items though they were of more modest value than if they had contained real gems. These were the pieces that Rita collected, and among them were some that Charlie had specially admired, particularly one coral hair clip and an emerald pendant. She was tempted to try them on, but she didn’t take that liberty. If she wanted to spend royalty money on such a piece, fine, but she wasn’t messing with Rita’s treasures. Locking the cabinet, she replaced the key where she’d found it.

She found nothing amiss in the other rooms, or in the other two houses. The Longley book cabinets were locked, and at the Beckers’, Frances ’s antique furniture was all in place. She was thinking hungrily of lunch as she let herself out of the Becker house and locked the door. She was heading for her car when Clyde ’s yellow roadster came up the street and pulled to the curb beside her. The top was down, Clyde and Ryan in the front seat, Joe Grey in the back. She did a double take at all three: Clyde looked angry and distraught, Ryan was trying to hide her amusement, and in the backseat, Joe Grey looked wide eyed and innocent-a sure sign of trouble.

STEPPING CLOSER TO the open roadster, Charlie was afraid to ask what was wrong. Clyde ’s frown was of the helpless variety, which told her that whatever it was, Joe Grey was the cause. She studied Joe. In the backseat, the tomcat sat with his white paws together, his silver coat catching the sunlight, his yellow eyes as guileless as those of a kitten.

She looked at Ryan, whose eyes, complemented by her green sweatshirt, seemed greener than ever. Ryan shrugged, her expression both amazed and amused as she watched some unspoken conflict between Clyde and the tomcat.

Charlie could understand how she felt, this was all new to Ryan. She hadn’t known for very long about Joe’s unusual talents. Only shortly before Christmas had she learned that the tomcat could speak to her; that revelation had unfolded on a memorable Christmas morning that neither Ryan nor Clyde nor Joe Grey would forget. Clyde ’s subsequent marriage proposal had added to the general giddiness of their Yule celebration, and even now, after four months in the Damen household, Ryan still hadn’t settled in completely to this strange new lifestyle that was so often dominated by the smart-mouthed tomcat.

Charlie searched the couple’s faces. “What’s wrong, what’s happened?”

Both were silent.

When she looked again at Joe Grey, the tomcat yawned.

“You haven’t been by the Parker house?” Clyde said.

“No, I came up the lower street.”

“Max didn’t say anything about it this morning before he left? But maybe he didn’t know.” Clyde turned to stare pointedly at Joe. “This time, we have a disappearing body. We have a supposed murder, but there’s no corpse.”

They all three looked at Joe. The tomcat said nothing, his yellow eyes wide and innocent.

Ryan said, “ Davis worked the scene this morning, she and Dallas are still there, stringing crime tape. We’d wanted to take a look at the house, I’d hoped it might be for sale, it’s been empty so long. I thought maybe, depending on what they found, they’d let us take a peek-but you know those two. They weren’t letting us in with it cordoned off.”