Cattitude (17 page)

Reaching the trees, she paused. She’d already
searched in both directions. Toward the house that looked like a
castle on one side where no one seemed to live and, on the other
side, the house with peeling white paint and two unleashed dogs,
big and mean, their barks ferocious.

Belle turned toward the mini-castle. When she
called Sorcha’s name, her voice rang with urgency. Leaving Max last
night, step by horrible step, had felt like slogging through mud.
Only his T-shirt on her cheek allowed her to leave the bedroom,
taking a part of him with her.

She wasn’t used to denying herself. If she
wanted something, she took it. If she wanted to do something, she
did it. It was her nature.

Now she wanted something in a way she’d never
wanted something before.

She didn’t know how long she could resist
this feeling she had for Max. It was like the rain last night.
Relentless, pounding, flashing with lightning and thunder.

“Sorcha!” she called. “Sorcha! Come to me,
Sorcha. Hurry.”

Hurry before it’s too late.

***

Caroline was in her happy place, a store
dressing room, trying on designer clothes that someone else was
buying for her. So far she’d chosen a silver Stella McCarthy trench
coat, black silky slacks and a scooped neck purple top. Now she was
sipping tea while the efficient store stylist searched for two
dresses that would fit and flatter her.

Wanting to purr like a kitten, Caroline took
out her cell phone and speed-dialed Max. She got his voice mail.
Her mouth tightened, but she glanced at her long-legged reflection
in the mirror and the tension gathering in her chest loosened.

“Max,” she said, “I’ll be in Chicago today
and tonight. Perhaps tomorrow. I’m going to a design convention and
will be staying with a friend I knew from the pageant circuit.” A
warning whispered in her mind.
Keep it simple.
“She wants
decorating advice, I’m afraid, but she’s a sweetheart and I can’t
deny her.” Heels tapped on the floor outside the dressing room and
wheels creaked. “If you need me, call and I’ll come. You know
you’re my priority.”

She grimaced and hung up before she said
anything more. What had she been thinking? She sounded desperate.
As desperate as she felt, knowing he was slipping away so soon. In
less than a minute, she’d gone from purring to crazy.

It was good she wasn’t at Max’s house today.
She was out of control.

The store’s stylist pushed a wheeled garment
rack loaded with dresses into the dressing room. Caroline’s sinking
heart rose to its proper place. She felt like Julia Roberts’
character in
Pretty Woman
. Except, of course, Caroline
wasn’t a hooker. She was just a widow who needed to be spoiled a
bit.

The stylist handed her a lacy top, babbling
that light blue was Caroline’s perfect color. Caroline took the top
with a smile. This was the life she should be living every day. She
needed a man to give it to her. And she could think of only
one.

Not her temporary lover. Before the week
ended, he would be heading back to his pianist wife in Boston.

It was Max, of course. Max who was young and
virile. Max who would always take care of her. Max who would never
throw away his money on unwise investments.

She was so tired of things going wrong for
her. If by some chance he didn’t succumb, she would talk to her
mother. Brenda was good at making wrong things go right.

Like Brenda said, it was amazing what
determination and desire could do—if you were willing to go all the
way and beyond.

Out of nowhere, a memory returned. She was
twelve and a pageant judge wanted to take pictures of her in his
home. His staring eyes had given her a sick feeling in her stomach,
but Brenda insisted she go, that it was just a few pictures and
would be worth it.

She blanked the rest of the memories, but her
skin became clammy and bile rose in her throat.

“Are you all right?” the stylist asked.

She nodded and swallowed the bile, then
grabbed the glass of water the stylist handed her. A real glass,
not a plastic bottle.

Her sweating stopped. Like her mother always
said, “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

And she had won the title, so Brenda was
right once again. It had been worth what happened in the room with
the photos and the bed and the judge with his skinny hairy legs and
bad breath. She’d just learned the lessons of life younger than
most.

She set down the glass and admired a slinky
dress the stylist said would look perfect on her.

She stood to try it on. Yes, it would look
perfect. And, yes, it was worth it.

***

Phil’s stomach felt like a parade ground for
a troop of parasites, stomping and chomping. He sat at the small
table in his motel room, looking out the window at the
three-quarter filled parking lot, watching cars and trucks speeding
on the highway. Wishing he were in one of them, racing far away
from his half brother who’d kept him on hold for the last ten
minutes.

The phone clicked, Bob back. “Any progress?”
he asked.

“I called the area hospitals, with no luck.
So I checked car repair places and found out her car was towed. I
have the address of the guy who paid for it.”

“I knew you’d do it.” Excitement energized
Bob’s voice. “You’re the only person I can trust with a job of this
magnitude.”

The parasites in Phil’s stomach doubled. “I
have a question. Why did you wear a ski mask and muddy your license
plates?”

A sharp inhale came over the phone. There was
a pause before Bob replied. “I hate to tell you. You’ll think I’m
an idiot.”

He paused and Phil remained silent, his
eyebrows contracting so tightly he could feel his skin
creasing.

“She told me she was seeing another high
profile client, and she suspected she was being watched. That was
the reason she wanted me to come to her instead of her coming to
me. And if someone was skulking in the bushes taking pictures, she
thought it would be wise for me to wear a ski mask.”

Phil didn’t reply, running Bob’s words
through his mind, looking for holes, for chasms, for the feeling in
his gut that it was wrong or right. Not finding any of it or
anything at all. Just a blank wall.

“It’s the truth,” Bob said. “I swear on Danny
and Lorna’s lives.”

“Okay,” Phil said. “Okay.”

“Okay, you believe me? Say it, Phil, say
it.”

“I believe you.” The words wrenched out of
his throat.

“Good. You’re doing the right thing. I know
you’ll do whatever you can to help me. We’re family. Blood. And so
are Lorna and Danny. You wouldn’t want to see anything bad happen
to them.”

“No,” Phil said, but it was a whisper of a
word. He cleared his throat and said it louder. “No, I wouldn’t.
Not if I can help it.”

“You can. Only you. No one else but you can
do it. And not for the money, though I’ll keep my part of the deal
and give it to you. It’s good for me to know that you’re doing it
because it’s the right thing to do.”

Phil nodded. They said goodbye and he hung
up.

He buried his head in his palms and hoped to
hell that Bob was right. Because he wasn’t sure he would have
agreed to do it if the money were out of the equation.

Do
it.
Kill.

If he couldn’t even name the act of murder,
how could he do it?

Sweat prickled under his armpits and his
neck. He would do it. He had to do it for Lorna and Danny. It
wasn’t as if he could go to the police. They would never believe
him.

And the money...he couldn’t turn down that
either. His mom and dad needed it too much.

He grabbed his jacket and strode outside. But
even though he gulped in fresh air, the parasitic troop continued
its march through his stomach, chomping and poking his stomach
lining with baronets, inflicting pain that he knew he deserved.

***

“You can’t go outside,” Gwen said to Sorcha
at the back door.

Katie honked the horn. Sorcha jumped.
Everything Katie did made her jump. What parent hired someone like
Katie to be their only child’s nanny? Then left her with them for
months at a time? The robots in the Star War movies had more
compassion than Katie.

“You have to stay in here.” Gwen squeezed
through the back door, blocking the opening with her foot. “We’re
just going to stupid dance lessons. I won’t be too long.”

Sorcha leaped over Gwen’s outthrust leg.

“No!” Gwen called. “Come back!”

The horn honked again. Sorcha sprinted across
the backyard, away from the house and the car...and one small girl
who already loved her too much.

Sorcha heard a backpack thump on the stone
path, then running footsteps.

“Don’t run away. Come back!” Tears thickened
Gwen’s voice, but Sorcha kept running. She had to. If she stayed,
she’d be trapped in this cat body.

The car honked three times, blaring
impatience through the country air.

“I love you!” Gwen called.

Sorcha reached the line of evergreens that
edged the green lawn. She swiveled and crouched, peeking through
the tall blades of grass. Gwen was picking up her bag with her
ballet shoes, her shoulders slumped. She crossed the yard toward
the driveway as the car horn blasted angrily. At the corner of the
house, Gwen glanced back. Her face was to Sorcha, too far away for
Sorcha to see clearly, but she imagined tears made tracks down the
thin cheeks.

I’m sorry.
Sorcha tried hard to send
her apology, picturing her silent words flying through the air,
from her mind to Gwen’s.

She should never have comforted Gwen
yesterday. Fletcher always said she was too soft and that’s why she
needed him to take care of her. But how could Sorcha resist Gwen’s
cry for affection? Especially since she understood how it felt to
be rejected by the people who were supposed to love her most.

The car door slammed shut. A second later,
the car took off along the long driveway.

As if freed from a spell by an evil witch who
looked just like Katie, Sorcha sped toward the road, away from the
trees where dangerous animals might be lurking. What if she saw a
skunk? Even worse, what if it saw her and sprayed her? Did raccoons
dislike cats? She had no clue, but it wasn’t something she wanted
to find out up close and personal.

Just as she reached the edge of the road, a
car sped around the bend. Her heart thumping, she jumped into the
ditch, cowering until the car passed. She started to climb up when
she heard the roar of another car.

Making a snap decision, she changed
direction, leaping into the thicket of trees lining the roadside.
The tall branches cut off the sun, making it ten degrees cooler.
Even so, it was warmer than just a couple days ago. The air smelled
different too. It smelled green, as if buds were popping out and
grasses were growing. Spring had sprung, she thought, the world
reborn for another year.

She was reborn too, but in another body.

The way back seemed shorter than the other
day when she’d been scared, exhausted and grieving. She hadn’t
cared what happened to her. After all, Fletch was gone. Why should
she go on living?

Yet she had run from Deavers, clinging to her
life, miserable as it was. She’d run because she was frightened of
dying, because she was as wicked as her parents said she was.

At every rustle, her heart pounded like a
percussion drum. Time didn’t matter in the cat body and neither did
miles. But it seemed as if she ran too long and too far before she
stumbled onto a piece of a fender. Immediately she knew it was from
her car. She stopped and sniffed it, rubbing her cheek against it,
compelled to mark it with her scent.

This was where the accident happened. The
spot where she and Belle changed bodies.

Her spine shivered, the pads of her paws
numbing. She wondered what happened to the cat inside her body. She
glanced around. Through the trees, she spotted a ranch house set
back in a clearing. That was it. Where Belle must be from. Where
she would return to.

The rumble of a car engine made her glance
back at the road. Instead of zipping past, tires rolled over gravel
and a car, white and anonymous looking, pulled onto the shoulder.
The car door opened, a loud click that made Sorcha leap backward.
As she searched for a place to hide, shoes crunched over twigs and
leaves. Her claws extended. Acting by instinct, she raced up a tree
trunk.

The footsteps stopped beneath the tree.
Sorcha hugged a branch the size of her thigh when she’d been human.
She stared straight down at a man’s thick brown hair, no receding
hairline, no bare spot on the crown.

Not Deavers.

Her frantic heartbeat slowed. This man wore a
dark shirt, jeans and a light jacket. Even as a cat she noticed his
muscles, the straight spine and the tightness of his butt. At least
a dozen years younger than Deavers, she thought, relaxing even
more. Then he looked up.

A stab of fear pierced her. She knew that
face. She’d seen it in Deavers’ office, in a four by six inch
frame, an aw-gosh-ma’am smile on his face. She’d wondered why the
photo was stuck away in the corner of his desk, as if Deavers was
distancing himself from the connection. Compelled by a feeling this
might be important, she asked Deavers who it was.

“My half brother,” he said. Usually Deavers
acted like he was up for the Mr. Congeniality award, but that day
he gave her a dark look and changed the subject.

He’d given off a strange vibe that she hadn’t
delved into. She avoided knowing anything more than necessary about
her clients, wanting her readings to be unaffected by her
knowledge. And now it was too late to find out anything more.

But she didn’t need a return of her psychic
powers to guess why Deavers’ half brother was here.