Quickly she circled the lower floor, slipping along among the bushes and flowers close to the wall, moving back and looking up at each window to see if it might have been jimmied. In the dark, she could see no damage, they all looked securely locked. No fresh scratches, no tool marks. Coming around to the narrower, front deck, she hopped up there and reared tall to examine the front windows.

Here, along the front, there were no sliding-glass doors, as one would expect to open onto a deck, only windows. Below her, as she padded along, the lights of the village sparkled and shifted between the deck’s rails. Overhead the stars were fast disappearing as storm clouds gathered, carrying the serious smell of rain-then suddenly she caught a human smell, the smell of a woman.

The fact that the intruder was a woman made little difference, a woman could be just as violent as a man, just as cruel to a small cat. Pausing beneath the window where the scent came strongest, she could see tool marks there, all right. Scars on the molding and a tiny slit where the lower half of the double-hung window had been left open a crack. The woman’s scent was strong-cheap bath powder, cheaper hair spray, and female perspiration.

On silent paws Kit leaped to the sill. Pushed up the glass and slipped under, into the long dark family room.

Padding across the big, empty room to the dark hallway, she looked down its length, considering the open doors. On her left were two small bedrooms that she knew had a bath between. On the right, a half bath next to the family room, and behind it the blocked-off stair leading up to the main level. At the back, the original laundry room. Lucinda had installed a new washer and dryer upstairs. There was no sound now. The woman’s scent led up the hall.

Was she waiting there in the dark for Lucinda and Pedric to get home? But why wait down here, if she meant to rob them? Had she thought, breaking in, that she could get up to the main level from inside and burglarize the house while they were out? When she found the stair blocked off, she would have had to change her plans.

So, what did she mean to do now?

But Clyde and Ryan were with the old couple, and those two hot-tempered, younger folk would handle the housebreaker.

Except, what if she had a gun? Neither Clyde nor Ryan, out on a date, was likely to be armed, Kit thought, amused.

How dangerous was this person? Or was she only some homeless woman taking shelter from the winter cold? Kit imagined her luxuriating in a hot shower, to get warm. Would there be, in one of the two small bedrooms, a thin, dusty bedroll or a pad of old newspapers or maybe old discarded clothes and food wrappers? Moving silently, tensed to spring away, Kit had started up the dark hall when she heard the Greenlaw car, on the street above, turn in to the drive. And behind her, light bloomed through the glass door as the outdoor security lights came on. Ahead, down the hall, there was no sound. She heard the garage door rise up on its metal track, heard the car pull in-she heard movement near her again as the woman slipped softly across the front bedroom. Above Kit, the car doors opened and slammed, then the garage door rumbled closed.

At the end of the hall, a figure appeared, a dark silhouette. The woman stood looking, and then started toward Kit.

I am only a shadow, Kit told herself. A smudge of darkness, black on black to human eyes. She heard, above her, the door open from the garage into the kitchen. She heard Lucinda and Pedric cross the kitchen to the living room-and out on the street, two more car doors slammed. The woman had paused again, as if listening. More light bloomed through the glass sliders as additional yard lights went on. She heard the upstairs front door open, then Ryan’s voice, then Clyde. Someone closed the front door and locked it, she heard the dead bolt slide home, then multiple footsteps came along the stone walk above, and down the wooden stairs. The woman had vanished into the far bedroom, stirring about in a flurry. She’s going to run, Kit thought, ducking into a corner. This way, down the hall? Or out a front window? But the narrow deck along the front was a full story above the ground.

She’s trapped, Kit thought. And like any trapped creature, this could make her more dangerous. Kit had to warn her old couple. She spun around, racing back down the hall. Beyond the glass, Clyde and Pedric were talking as Lucinda fit her key into the lock. As the lock clicked open and Pedric slid the door back, Kit flew at them, streaking through the open door, leaping at Lucinda, mewling and crying in Lucinda’s arms, her tail lashing, her claws going in, in a way she never did, and desperately flinging herself at Lucinda’s ear, whispering-she’d hardly gotten a word out when footsteps pounded down the hall and the woman bolted straight at them.

From Lucinda’s shoulder, Kit leaped desperately into the intruder’s face. The woman screamed and grabbed Kit and flung her violently aside and bolted past Lucinda, nearly knocking her down.

Pedric and Ryan caught Lucinda between them as Clyde dove at the dark-clad woman. She tripped him and was past him and out the open glass door, racing down the lower stairs to the backyard, her dark coat flapping, Clyde hard on her heels, and Ryan close behind, as she crashed away though the woods; she was thin, very fast.

Lucinda picked up Kit and held her, burying her face in Kit’s fur. “Are you hurt? Did she hurt you?”

“No,” Kit whispered.

Pedric, when he saw that Lucinda and Kit were all right, followed Clyde and Ryan, running after the woman.

Alone with Lucinda, Kit nuzzled her face. “I heard the water running down here and then I smelled her and I came in to see and then you got home and I couldn’t shout out to you because Ryan would hear, and I let that woman…Oh, she could have killed you. Oh, Lucinda…”

“It’s all right, Kit. You did warn me. Hush now, hush.”

“I saw her face in the light for an instant,” Kit whispered. “Thin. Bony, like a starving stray. Big nose. Thin legs in tight black jeans, and that dark, floppy coat. Dark hair. And I smelled her.”

Kit would not forget the woman’s scent, she would retain that precise identification as unerringly as the AFIS retained the record of a perp’s fingerprints, or as the lab would record the DNA of a felon or of some unfortunate victim.

I N THE COLD night, Ryan and Clyde and Pedric returned from chasing the burglar, panting and ashamed to have lost the fast and elusive woman. “Disappeared in the heavy woods like a running deer,” Pedric grumbled. “All overgrown, tangles of blackberries back in there, catching and slowing us.”

“We were halfway through,” Clyde said, “could hear her crashing, then silence, and in a minute a car started, maybe a block away. Went roaring off without lights-we couldn’t see the plates.”

Pedric leaned against the wall, the thin old man getting his breath. Ryan put her arm around Lucinda. “Are you all right?” She looked at the kit. “This little cat tried to warn you. I’ve never seen such a thing, the way she leaped at you…And then she leaped at that woman, scratching and raking…” She reached to stroke Kit’s ears. “No dog could have done better. She’s a real watch cat, Lucinda. But how did she…Did she come in on our heels? She must have, and then she heard something we didn’t. What a fine cat you are, Kit! I wouldn’t have believed a cat would turn so fierce to protect her human family…Even Rock, who was a trained guard dog, couldn’t have done better!” Kit purred and smiled. Such praise, from Ryan Flannery, was, indeed, a grand compliment.

Holding Kit close, Lucinda smiled shyly at Ryan. “I guess cats are more complicated than people imagine. They’re strange little beings, and often, when they think there’s a need, they’re very creative little souls.”