Cat Pay the Devil by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Read Free Book Online

the most vulnerable victims. Such was bureaucracy, Wilma thought, shrugging to herself in the mirror as she tried on a gold silk sheath. The lovely dress was very slimming, not that she needed it; she kept herself in fair shape. And she had no occasion to wear such an elegant dress. But it would look smashing on Charlie. Wilma and her redheaded niece wore the same size, and she knew the cut was right. This, she thought with excitement, was the perfect Christmas present—even if Charlie, like Wilma herself, lived most of the time in jeans, sweatshirts, and boots. A police chief’s wife didn’t have much occasion to dress in fancy clothes, nor did Charlie have the desire to do so. But when Charlie’s new book came out, she might need just suchan elegant gown for a gallery opening and book signing. This was Charlie’s first book, which she had both written and illustrated—written with clandestine feline help.
    That secret was well kept by the tortoiseshell heroine of the story. Kit and Charlie shared the confidence only with Joe and Dulcie, and their few human friends who knew they were not ordinary cats: Clyde and the Greenlaws and Wilma herself were all privy to the cats’ secret.
    After buying the dress for Charlie, Wilma found a lightweight summer blazer for herself to wear over jeans, then decided she was done with shopping. She’d hit the stores she liked best, and the afternoon was waning; the sun was low in the west as she headed for her car.
    She clicked the trunk open and fit in the blazer package between the other purchases and her overnight bag; she could not have bought much more, she already felt like she’d made a grand haul. Shutting the trunk, she clicked open the car door, was leaning forward to put the long dress box in the backseat and wondering if she should just check out the two shoe shops she’d missed, when she was grabbed from behind. Big hands jerked her around, bending her arm back painfully and forcing her keys from her fist. Enraged that she’d been caught off guard, she kicked backward, hard, ramming the heel of her shoe down his shin and jamming her elbow into his stomach. He hit her so hard across the neck that she reeled, and saw blackness. In a frantic move she slipped her credit card from her pocket, bent it double, swung around in his grip, and slashed his face with the sharply folded corner. He swore and shoved her in the backseat on top of the dress box. She knew it was Cage before she saw him, but only then did she get a look at him. Cage Jones was grinning coldly at her as he leaned in. He had a rope in his fist.
    â€œBend over. Put your hands behind you! Now!”
    She fought him, tried to kick him in the crotch. His weight was too much on top of her, he was too strong. He jerked the rope so tight around her wrists he probably took the skin off. How the hell did he get out? How did he get out of jail?

6
    D ulcie didn’t see Greeley Urzey as she raced across the roofs above him; she was too preoccupied. It’s nearly dusk. She will be home! No need to call the sheriff in Gilroy, she’ll be in the bedroom unpacking her overnight case and that thin little hanger bag. She probably stopped in the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee or make a drink, and she’s wondering where I am. Right this minute she’s home and everything is as it should be!
    There! Her own shake roof, where she sunned, where she caught birds. And lights on in the kitchen! Yes! She couldn’t see the bedroom windows, but she could see the reflection of their lights across the hill that rose close behind the house. And even as she looked, lights came on in the living room, reflecting across the oak trees beneath her; leaping down the oak to her own driveway, she smelled car exhaust. Oh, the wonderful perfume of that ugly exhaust stink—tonight it smelled as sweet as catnip. Madly she bolted inthrough her cat door, all purrs and mewls and wanting to