Charlie’s attention was snapped away by a flurry of movement beneath the credenza. Pretending to choke on her coffee, she leaned down-staring straight into Kit’s blazing yellow eyes.

The tortoiseshell was so tense and excited suddenly that Charlie was afraid she’d speak. Dulcie must have feared the same, the way she was pawing at Kit. Oh, Kit! Charlie thought as she mopped up her coffee. Be still, Kit! Please be quiet! What had Max said that so electrified the little cat? What did Kit know? Or suddenly remember?

T HE CATS VANISHED from Max’s office like smoke, one instant there, the next instant slipping out the door: three swift shadows, quickly gone. Charlie left close behind them, muttering something about shopping. Max said, “Come back around noon, I’ll try to get away for lunch.” He’d patted her on the backside and sent her out the door.

She’d wanted to follow the cats, but by the time she pushed through the glass door to the street, they were gone. She stood scanning the gardens and then moved to her car, stood looking back at the roof to catch a glimpse of them.

She saw only a flock of pigeons fluttering down as if returning to their strutting ground after being rudely rousted, and imagined the cats flushing them up in a panic as they sped away across the tiles. Sighing, she got in her car, and with no cats to follow, she went shopping.

K IT TOLD JOE and Dulcie on the way, running full out, as wild as bees in a windstorm. “When I went down there,” she said, leaping a narrow span between peaks, “that woman came out of the house and threw a clay flowerpot at me.” She went silent as they raced across an oak branch above the Christmas traffic.

“So?” Dulcie said. “So what’s the excitement? You’re lucky she didn’t…”

But Joe Grey was grinning from ear to ear; and he and Kit raced ahead like Thoroughbreds sprinting for the finish line.

Kit looked back at Dulcie once, with impatience. “Come on. Hurry! Before she throws it away!”

Dulcie hurried, puzzled and irritated. Kit ran so fast she couldn’t talk anymore; not until they were in sight of Kit’s own house did she stop again, long enough to blurt, “Fingerprints! Dallas and Harper want fingerprints, and that woman…”

“Threw the pot,” Dulcie interrupted, getting the picture at last, and they were off again, streaking for Kit’s house.

Above them the sky was deep blue, the clouds white and towering where last night’s storm had given way to a bright and dramatic morning. Kit was crouched to scorch up the oak to her dining-room window when she saw Lucinda looking out-the moment Lucinda saw her, the old lady drew back out of sight.

She doesn’t want me to see her? Kit thought, surprised. Why ever not? That’s fine with me, she doesn’t need to see us around that rental, after she told me to stay away. Maybe she’s wrapping a present and doesn’t want me to see, maybe that’s why she ducked…

Climbing, the three cats waited hidden among the densest leaves of the oak until Lucinda left the room, then Kit leaped to the window and slipped in through her cat door, making not a sound. Racing for the kitchen and pawing open a cupboard, she was out again almost at once, carrying in her mouth an empty plastic bag. She bolted out her cat door as Lucinda came out of the bedroom and they were gone, racing downhill, lunging awkwardly through the sodden leaves toward the old rental.

A S THE CATS paused in the neighbors’ driveway, Kit dangling her white plastic bag, across the village in a small café, James Kuda sat at a table in the far corner among the shadows, though very likely he had no need to hide. He was annoyed at himself for feeling edgy. The place was self-service, there was only the cashier, back behind the counter. Kuda sat mulling over what he’d seen.

A weird twist of fate-or maybe providence-that he’d spotted that homeless guy in the village wearing what looked like his cast-away shoes. The shoes that he’d left in the highway Dumpster. Grizzled old tramp. Well, he’d left them there thinking a homeless man might fish them out. Better than some cop finding them. By the time the guy had walked the highway from that Dumpster into the village, there’d be nothing left clinging in the soles, no trace from the plaza. And what police department would have the time and personnel to check every pair of shoes walking around town, when there wasn’t even a body to investigate? When all they had was a scared kid who probably wouldn’t talk, a little blood, and apparently some phone call that could be the work of some prankster or drunk?

Not likely they had a bullet, he was pretty sure that hollow-point.22 had stayed in the skull where he’d put it. Rising to fill his cup again, he thought about that kid. Still not sure what to do about her.

It would take some kind of miracle for her to tell what she’d seen. He had to laugh, the cops hauling her around from one place to another trying to protect her. Some kind of security. He’d have no trouble at all if he decided to kill her, if he decided she was a threat. That cop taking her up to those four helpless women, that was a laugh. And that old cracker-box house-might as well hide her in a paper bag.

It might come to that, he thought, he might have to go after the kid, if there was some unexpected turn. Or, worst case, he might have to get out faster than he’d planned-and he wasn’t ready, he wasn’t finished, yet, with his business.

Well, he wasn’t going to panic now, and run, turn his back on half a million or maybe twice that. No, he’d be all right. He’d always slipped through slick and fast, and no one to follow him. It would be the same this time, he just had to keep his nerve. Play it cool, keep an eye on the kid, the unknown element, and he’d be just fine.

T HE CAR WAS still gone from the driveway, the shards still lying there on the cement, the shattered pieces of clay scattered among dry earth and dead fern fronds. As the cats hit the drive, the fading scent of the woman hung above them, mixed with the last remnant of exhaust fumes.

Glancing up at the rental and seeing no one at the windows, they began to pick up the sharp fragments of the red clay pot between their teeth and lay them in the plastic bag. They tried not to drool and smear the evidence, could only hope they weren’t obliterating the woman’s prints. Little bits of dry earth dropped off into their mouths, and Kit got the sneezes. Just as Joe placed the last shard in the bag, they heard a car coming. Snatching the heavy bag between them, they dragged it awkwardly away through the wet leaves into the bushes; and there they crouched over the white plastic to hide it, waiting for the car to pull in.

The car didn’t pause, it went on by, speeding away up the hill. The cats had risen to move on when Kit glanced toward home and saw Lucinda’s silhouette in the window of the downstairs apartment-exactly where she had promised Max and Pedric she wouldn’t go. She was standing at the laundry window, looking out; and she was not alone. Behind her, turned away, stood the shorter, dark-clad woman.

“What’s she doing?” Kit hissed.

“Come on,” Dulcie said, peering out from the heavy juniper foliage. “Come on, Kit, we’ll leave the bag here and come back for it.”

“That woman might have been looking out, too,” Kit said. “She might have seen, and what would she think, cats putting something in a plastic bag and dragging it away?”

“Lucinda might have seen,” Dulcie said. “But she would never let a stranger see such a thing. Lucinda’s quick, Kit. She wouldn’t…Don’t be nervous, it’s all right. We’ll just leave it here and-”

“We can’t leave it. What if someone-”

“No one,” Joe said irritably, “would have reason to look under here. If someone did, who would care about a broken flowerpot?” But even so, before they raced away, Joe pawed damp leaves over the bag with deft swipes, effectively burying it until not a trace of white plastic shone through. Then they raced away through woods-To catch Lucinda in the act, Kit thought with a flash of unaccustomed anger at her housemate.