Had she, upon awakening, remembered cats talking close to her face, remembered Joe Grey using her cell phone? Oh, my. Kit hoped not.

But concussions could cause visions, and a kind of dementia, Kit thought. She didn’t wish Ryan bad luck, she wanted her to be whole and well again. But if those were possible symptoms, then surely Ryan would blame such wild ideas as talking cats on the terrible wound in her head.

At Millie’s Treasures, two clerks were in attendance, two elderly ladies with purple-tinted hairdos. Lurking in the shadows, Kit went through the same drill, padding along beneath tables of old books-world globes-antique radios-flowerpots-hiking boots-handbags-suitcases-rag dolls-you name it, to the rack of little girls’ used clothes-almost at once, she caught the child’s scent.

It was just a whiff, but enough! She was so excited she almost yowled. The child’s scent right there on a little blue dress. Yes! Quickly she moved along the rack, rearing up, searching for more of that little girl’s clothes.

She found two more dresses, and some folded jeans and T-shirts atop a table that smelled of the child. She was almost at the end of a second rack when she heard a familiar voice and she rose up to look, balancing with a forepaw against the end of the rack.

Juana Davis stood in the doorway, holding the little girl’s hand. She looked frustrated, and the child looked tired, worn-out, so pale and docile that Kit wanted to pat her face with a soft paw-that little girl was like a sick little kitten.

Kit knew Juana had to put her through this, and knew the detective would make it as easy as she could. But the little girl looked so ill. Well, if she saw her father die, that night, Kit thought, then of course she’s sick. Sick deep inside herself. Watching the pale little girl, Kit let out a tremulous sigh. And now, she thought, that man’s body has been found, and the department will be working all out to ID him. So strange, she thought, that there was no record of the prints that Dallas Garza lifted at the plaza and on the evidence they retrieved. Where in the world did that man, and the killer, come from, that there are no prints on file?

Maybe there were a lot of people in the world, as Joe Grey said, who had never applied for a sensitive job or a federal job, who had never been arrested, and who had never been printed in school as a child to help find them if they were lost. Maybe after all, she thought, the human world was still a bit uncontrolled, not all cataloged and accounted for. And that pleased her, that thought satisfied the independent nature of the young cat.

Kit did not like to see everything organized and made docile, she wanted to sense some stubborn independence among her fellow creatures.

Davis headed on into the shop, walking slowly, talking gently to the child. Bring her here, Kit thought. Right here! Bring her right here! These are her clothes! These! Besides the two dresses and the jeans, she had found two little pairs of corduroy pants, another T-shirt, and a pair of pajamas, all smelling of that particular child. And here they came, Juana heading for the children’s rack, while the little girl’s attention wandered around the store-and suddenly the child came alert.

She stopped, and tried to pull her hand from Juana’s, but Juana didn’t let her go. The child’s eyes were wide, and the hint of a smile touched her pale lips-and with sudden strength she jerked her hand free and ran across the shop straight at Kit.

Drawing back, Kit slipped under the chair. But it wasn’t Kit she was after, it was the heap of stuffed animals and dolls in the far corner. The child passed Kit, never seeing her, and plunged into the little mountain of toys, reaching high among them.

At the very top sat a faded cloth doll with ragged, floppy angel wings, a handmade doll with long and tangled pale hair, a doll with a long white dress, torn and dirty, and with a dark stain on the front, like blood. One little white shoe was missing. The child, climbing to the top of the heap, tumbling animals and dolls all around her, grabbed the angel, hugging it to her, and clambered down again. Stood clutching the dingy creature tight, tears running down her face.

As Juana knelt beside the little girl, Kit drew close behind her, close enough to get a whiff of the doll-she knew a cop’s awareness is as sharp as a cat’s, that a cop misses very little; but Kit was quick. She inhaled one deep scent of the doll then she melted out of sight, vanishing behind a stack of baskets-and thinking hard about the additional scent that clung to the faded angel.

The scent of a man. A scent that left the tortoiseshell kit crouched shivering in the shadows, amazed, hardly able to believe what she had smelled. Not wanting to believe it.

But unable not to believe it.

D ALLAS GARZA SWUNG a U-turn on Molena Valley Road and headed back fast for Highway One, turning north up the coast without sirens, where Mabel had cars moving in-two units up the hill ahead, a third coming fast and silent out of the village, its lights flashing. Two more cars coming down out of the westerly hills, no lights or siren. They’d all be visible from the highway, but there were no side roads where the perps could turn off. They had the van and Suburban in a pincer that would soon close tight. It was hard not to floorboard his unit and run down the bastards, tooling along there with the traffic in the fast lane.

The detective’s usual quiet, laid-back approach was out the window. This was Ryan they’d messed with. This was his niece. Ryan was like his own daughter, and he was damn well going to nail their asses. Weaving in and out, wishing he could use his siren, he cursed the drivers who weren’t watching behind or who, seeing a cop car in a hurry, didn’t have the courtesy or the sense to get over.

Damn civilians probably thought he was headed for an early dinner. The blue van sure did look like Charlie’s van, from a distance. It was following the tan Suburban with five cars between. Swinging into the right lane and then the bike path, he overtook seven cars on his left, swerved in at the van, and motioned the driver onto the median. He had two units behind him now, Wendell and Hendricks. Using his speaker, he told the van’s driver to stay put, that he was blocked in. Told him to get out of the van and stand in front of it, hands on his head. He took off as Wendell and Hendricks pulled up. He swung into the left lane and hit the gas, giving it the lights and siren, speeding after the Suburban. There was no nearby off-ramp. The five cars ahead, all in the left lane, slowed reluctantly and pulled over, and the Suburban took off like it had been standing still, straight into the pincer between two units.

Dallas pulled in behind as they forced the Suburban onto the median. He heard three shots-and saw the blue van in his mirror, careening at him from behind. The explosion of two shots from that driver’s window jerked him to attention. He hit the brakes to avoid ramming the two units, but as he turned to fire behind him, another shot exploded. He spun the wheel, wondering if he’d been hit. A jam of cars ahead. The two units and the Suburban filled the median. Two more units coming fast on the other side, pulling over to divert traffic. His shoulder wasn’t working right.

He could smell his own blood. Damn it to hell. He didn’t have time for this. Where the hell were Wendell and Hendricks? Then his radio squawked, “Officer down. Officer down,” and he knew one or both had been hit. Blood was seeping through his jacket. When he turned to look behind him, the blue van was gone. In a second he heard the siren of the EMT.

He swung out of the unit swearing as McFarland jerked the female driver out of the Suburban, and Officer Bean, standing on tiptoe, rammed the burly passenger against the vehicle, hands on the roof, Bean’s weapon jammed in the small of the guy’s back.