Cat Cross Their Graves by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Read Free Book Online Page B

all over. Thinkingabout Patty, hurting bad inside, like huge hands crushing her. As she huddled there miserable and terrified and lost, she heard, outside and far away, a faint voice calling, calling her. A voice garbled in the wind but one she loved so dearly. She longed to cry out. Oh, she needed Lucinda. She longed to run out—if she could get out. Run to Lucinda where she would be loved and safe.
    But she didn’t cry out, and she didn’t try to get out—not yet.
    Pawing the pictures back into their envelope, she left a mark on one from her dirty pad. Trying to lick the page clean, she only smeared it. She didn’t like to contaminate the evidence; that’s what Joe would call it. Max Harper would need these, they might help very much to convict Irving Fenner.
    Closing both envelopes as best she could after clawing them open so raggedly, she heard Lucinda calling her again, and this time Lucinda was closer, so close that it was all Kit could do not to leap to the window and claw at it, claw at the door and yowl.
    And why not? She had the evidence, amazing and valuable evidence. If Lucinda came now, if Lucinda could let her out now…
    But how could she, if the door was locked, if the windows were locked?
    Snatching the two envelopes in her teeth, she dragged them just to the concealing edge of the crooked bedspread. Heavy to drag, they would be cumbersome indeed to carry. Once, she had helped Joe Grey carry a similar brown envelope for blocks across the village. Such a big, bulging package that ithad taken the two of them together to pull it all the way to Joe’s house and inside, and get it up the stairs.
    Joe wasn’t here to help her now, no one was. You are alone, my dear, she thought primly, as Lucinda or Wilma might say. You are on your own.
    Leaving the envelopes out of sight beneath the edge of the bedspread, she leaped up at the knob of the front door knowing very well the door was locked; she could see the thrown dead bolt. She didn’t hear Lucinda now. Had she gone on, searching in another direction? Moving farther away, along the dark street? Leaping up the door again and again, she fought the bolt until her paws were bleeding; at last she turned away and tried the windows.
    All three windows were locked and were probably stuck, too. They were filled with ancient paint in the cracks, paint chipped off in layers of gray, cream, white, each layer thick between the sill and window. What did people do for fresh air? Even if she could have turned the round brass locks, she doubted these windows would open for anything less than a crowbar in human hands.
    Was Lucinda carrying her cell phone? Inspired, Kit searched the room for a phone. She had long ago learned, from Joe Grey, how to paw in a number; and she had learned from the wild band she ran with how to remember stories, numbers, whatever she chose. When she was running with the wild ferals, the only joy she knew was their tales of the ancient speaking cats, the Celtic cats, and she had absorbed those delights word for fascinating word.
    Finding no phone, circling frantically, she stared up at the ceiling. There was no way out, and no phone,and she could feel a yowl starting deep inside. She heard the car again, he was back, skidding to a gravelly stop. The car door creaked open, then slammed; he scrunched across the drive. As he squeaked up the steps she snatched the envelopes in her teeth and, hauling them, made for the bathroom. She didn’t panic until she was inside. There, trapped in that tiny space, she went shaky.
    The front door banged open. She stared helplessly around her, then pawed frantically at the two little doors under the sink, pawed and pulled until she fought one open. He was coming, his footsteps crossing the hard, gritty floor. Dragging the envelopes into the dank, moldy space, she pulled the door closed with her claws, her heart pounding so hard she thought it would burst.
    The oilcloth beneath her paws