“But,” Lori said, “we didn’t win.”

Cora Lee paused by the car, turning to look sternly at her. “You did next best. Your house did better, if you want to look at the financial gain. Think about that, Lori. Your house sold for far more than the winner received. Doesn’t that impress you? You built a wonderful house. You did a fine job on it, and it has given back to you a nice boost for your future, a sizable addition to your college fund. But best of all,” Cora Lee said, looking very serious and cool, “is that it will become a part of the San Francisco Children’s Hospital.” She hugged both girls. “Do you know what an honor that is?” Beside her, Corlie looked up at the girls, her dark eyes bright and needy, as if she very much wanted them to smile.

The cats had watched them drive away, and then, wanting to know what the Bureau man had found in Gabrielle’s computer, and wanting to know what new intelligence had come into the station, they went their separate ways. As Joe Grey headed for the station, Dulcie and Kit raced over the roofs to the seniors’ house.

They had found Corlie already there, snuggled on the living-room window seat with the two dogs, and they could hear Cora Lee and Gabrielle in the kitchen. Joining Corlie and the dogs, pretending to doze but listening to every word from the kitchen, they soon knew that Gabrielle hadn’t even asked if the girls had won, and that she was in no mood to hear the financial good luck of anyone, particularly of little girls.

Mel Jepson had, indeed, been able to bring back Gabrielle’s programs, and he had found all four accounts stripped bare. He had, however, also found Kuda’s accounts, to which Gabrielle’s money had been transferred. The cats marveled at what a skilled computer technician could do. Despite the fact that it was a holiday, Jepson had, with a few personal phone calls, been able to put a hold on the transfer of funds to Kuda’s accounts. “By tomorrow,” he’d told Gabrielle, “if there are no glitches, the money should be deposited back to you.” The cats hoped that would be the case, if only for the sake of the three other seniors. Gabrielle was hard enough to live with, anyway, without this disaster and her resulting emotional furor upsetting the household.

But now, at Kit’s house, trotting across the oak limb and in through the dining-room window to join the party, they put aside Gabrielle’s misfortune as Dulcie and Joe paused on the sill eyeing the long table where that delectable buffet was laid out-and Kit leaped onto a chair, poised to reach up a paw and snag a slice of roast turkey. This was, after all, her own home. She drew back only when Lucinda spied her and gave her a warning look.

But then Lucinda served up three small plates from the buffet and set them on the windowsill: a Christmas feast loaded with rich delicacies that would put down any normal cat, but did not bother these small gluttons. Not until the cats finished every crumb, and looked up, did they see how crowded the room had become.

All their friends had arrived, even Evina Woods. She sat before the fire talking with Max Harper. The cats heard her say she was flying out in the morning, that Cora Lee would take her to the airport when she picked up little Corlie’s aunt Louise. Slipping down from the window ledge and making their way across the crowded room, the cats leaped to the top of a bookcase and settled down to wash, and to listen.

They learned, within the hour, that Dorothy meant to press charges against the Wickens and Leroy for the theft of the mural. That the mural would, indeed, be hung in the main hall of the school. That Max Harper was certain Leroy Huffman would be indicted for the murder of young Marlie James. That Cora Lee was hoping to persuade Corlie’s aunt Louise to stay and visit for a while in Molena Point, to keep little Corlie near her. And that Charlie was so wired about the response to her book, and about the reviews it was getting, that she was already toying with several new writing projects. Comfortably sprawled above the heads of the party, the cats napped, and listened, and enjoyed; and they pronounced the party a success, a needed time of healing for all their friends, a time of comforting one another after a week of distress; a time of getting their balance, again, for the new year to come.

T HAT NIGHT JOE Grey slept in his tower, his windows closed against the icy wind, his cushions pawed into a warm nest around him to replace the warmth of a bed partner, and to block out any private conversation from the rooms below.

I better get used to this, the tomcat thought. This could be the new order of the day.

But Joe had no notion of what was really coming, and how much he would have to get used to. He awoke to thin daylight and the heady aroma of bacon, and decided it was okay to go down into the house.

Pausing a moment to admire the silvery morning around him, he soon slipped in through his cat door onto a rafter, dropped down to Clyde’s desk and then to the Oriental rug. Ryan’s foldout bed was empty. Glancing through the glass door to the upstairs deck, he saw her standing out in the cold, wrapped in Clyde’s warm wool robe, sipping a mug of coffee. He studied her with interest.

Though she had her back to him, Joe recognized clearly the stance and body language that heralded Ryan Flannery’s preoccupation with some new and exciting design problem. Curious, he stood watching.

Ryan had built this upstairs deck atop the carport as part of the total remodel she’d done, which gave Clyde’s one-story house a second floor. Now, Joe thought, what’s she up to? Are we remodeling again? What? Is Clyde planning to enlarge the study?

But even as he stared at her slim back, wrapped in Clyde’s plaid robe, Ryan turned and looked at him, fixing him with a steady green gaze. Eye to eye. Woman to cat, in a too-familiar manner that shocked Joe and made him back away.

“I was just wondering,” she said, stepping back into the warm room, “if the city would let us build a solarium up here-a kind of studio.”

Joe stared silently at her, his heart starting a staccato beat against his ribs. A studio? Clyde has no use for a studio. Why are you telling me? Why are you talking to me?

“Would that be all right with you?” Ryan said.

Joe tried not turn tail and run, or to look terrified. He sat down and washed his left-front paw. Ryan knelt, pulling Clyde’s robe closer around her, and tried to look him in the eye. Joe wouldn’t look at her; he concentrated on his paw.

“Come on, Joe. Did you think I was out cold when you made that call to dispatch? To Mabel Farthy? When you said, ‘Thank God it’s Mabel’?”

Joe looked at her a long time, his heart pounding so hard he felt like he had a herd of drunken mice dancing inside his chest.

“With a concussion,” Ryan said, “it takes a while for a person’s memory to come back. The length of time varies. In my case, it didn’t take long.”

Joe remained safely silent, deeply occupied with his grooming. This was terrible. This was a major crisis. Why the hell wasn’t Dulcie here? She’d know how to handle this woman.

Ryan reached to stroke his ear, but then she drew her hand back. “Joe, I heard Dulcie say, ‘Her cell phone!’ and then Kit raced away. Then, in just a minute, you had Mabel on the line. You said, ‘Thank God it’s Mabel,’ then, ‘Stanhope mansion…’ and then something about thieves hitting me with a hammer.” Ryan smiled. “You told Mabel I was out cold.”

Joe abandoned his pretense at grooming and openly gawked at her.

“Well, of course I kept my eyes shut,” she said. “I didn’t know what I was hearing. Talking cats? I thought I was in really bad shape, having really crazy delusions.”

Joe gave her a look that said he understood. But he wasn’t willing to answer. He could only swallow, his throat as dry as if he’d just eaten feathers.