Davis said, "You think that's wise?"

"In this case, yes."

She nodded, and he motioned Lindsey and Mike over. They read the printout together. Lindsey stood a moment staring at it, then looked up at the detectives, flushed and scowling.

"Who gave you this? Where did you get this?"

"It was left at the station this morning," Davis said. "We don't know who left it."

"Can you fingerprint it?"

"I tried," Davis said. "There's nothing-we'll see what the lab can pick up."

"It's not typed," Lindsey said, examining the paper through the plastic. "It's too even. Looks like a printout. Is there some way you can trace a printer?"

"We'd have to have something to go on," Davis said. "Another example from the same printer, and even then…Were you out of town the week Carson disappeared?"

"No. That was the week of the wedding. May I see the receipt?"

Davis turned the plastic over, to show the Visa receipt. Lindsey looked at it, and nodded. "That's my credit card number. But there've never been any forged charges against it, I check carefully. I've never had any theft."

"Would you still have that Visa bill?" Davis said, clearly not expecting that she would.

"I would if there were any business expenses on that one," Lindsey said. "And there usually are. It would be in my tax returns for that year." She looked at Dallas. "They're in the locker, in the file cabinet." Her hazel eyes were still angry, her cheeks flaming. "This is…What's he trying to do?"

"Who?" Davis said.

"Ray Gibbs," Lindsey said, looking at Davis. "If that body is Nina, then this note has to be from Gibbs. Or…" After a moment, she said, more quietly, "Or…Oh, not my sister?"

"What makes you think it was Gibbs?" Davis said. "Or your sister? This could have nothing to do with them."

"It has to do with Carson's death, and maybe with Gibbs's wife, with Nina," Lindsey said, glancing away, toward the grave.

Davis said, "Why are you so certain the body is Nina?" Davis had taken over the interview, and Dallas seemed content to let her run with it.

"She always wore that bracelet, I don't think I ever saw her without it. Wore it all the time, just as her aunt did, before her. Unless…," she said, "unless the story about there being only one bracelet wasn't true, unless there was another."

"Or," Davis said, "unless Nina gave it to someone."

Lindsey frowned at the detective. "That doesn't seem likely. Nina seemed to place some special, almost mystical value on it."

"Can you explain?" Davis said.

"I don't really know. Maybe sentimental value. I think she was truly fond of her aunt. She said once that the bracelet was the one thing that Olivia Pamillon treasured." She looked toward the now empty grave. "Olivia's bracelet, circling that bare bone." She shivered. "Like a manacle holding Nina there." And she turned away, into the shelter of Mike's arms.

Above, on the roof, Joe watched her intently. What a strange thing to say, to read into a simple bracelet with an innocent cat embossed on the band. Below him, both detectives watched Lindsey without expression. And Joe thought, A bracelet embossed with the emblem of a secret that Olivia Pamillon carried all her life? And as Clyde and Mike and Ryan turned to leave, the tomcat, staying out of sight, headed fast across the roofs toward Clyde's roadster, Lindsey's words repeating in his head, Like a manacle holding Nina there…like a manacle…

But, galloping across the roofs trying to put Lindsey's comment in perspective, he stopped suddenly and crouched, very still, watching the jutting wing of the mansion beyond the grotto, where he'd glimpsed a figure slipping away. Darkly dressed, visible only for a second, moving fast. Someone near the grotto, listening, and watching.

There! He saw the figure again moving swiftly to vanish beyond the broken walls, moving toward the old shed, and then gone.

27

ALONE IN THE BARN, wishing Sage would hobble out and apologize to her and say he'd been wrong, say that Stone Eye had been an evil tyrant and the clowder was better off without him, and knowing Sage would never do that, Kit began to smell a lovely aroma from the kitchen. Charlie's delicious shrimp casserole. Crouching in the straw feeling lonely and neglected and sniffing that heady scent, growing hungrier and hungrier but unwilling to go in the house and face Sage and make up-he'd have to apologize first-she waited. Maybe Charlie would come out and would understand and would maybe bring her some nice shrimp to eat and tell her she was right and Sage was wrong. Listening across the yard to little sounds from the kitchen, she longed to hear the door open and Charlie's footsteps approach. She felt sure Charlie could make everything all right.

But Kit waited a long time before Charlie appeared in the barn, calling out to her. Then she waited a long time more, letting Charlie call and call, before she came out from her hiding place in the pile of straw.

Immediately Charlie picked her up, scowling down crossly but gently stroking her. Charlie did not apologize for Sage's behavior. Nor did she sympathize with Kit. She simply headed for the house.

But before they went inside, into the big kitchen, Charlie sat down on the steps, holding Kit tenderly. "You're hurting, Kit. You feel all alone, and Sage doesn't understand."

Kit sniffed.

"Do you think Sage feels alone, too?"

Kit didn't care.

Charlie took Kit's wild little black-and-brown face in her hands, looked into her angry yellow eyes. "Do you think he understands why you're angry? Really understands?"

Kit didn't care about that either. If Sage didn't understand now, he never would. She'd said it plainly enough.

Hadn't she?

"Do you think," Charlie said, "that you might have been thinking like a kitten who expects to be understood but never really explains what's wrong?"

Kit glared at her.

"Do you think, if you explained to him that the way he sees life is a threat to the freedom you see in life, that he would understand?"

Kit was quiet, thinking. Charlie said nothing more. She rose, carrying Kit, and in the kitchen she set her down on the window seat, at the far end, as far as possible from where Sage was tucked up among the cushions. His head was down, his eyes closed in misery.

Charlie served each of the cats a plate of warm shrimp casserole, each in their own corner, then set her own plate beside a green salad and sat down at the table. She didn't talk as she ate, didn't seem to notice them. She sat enjoying her early lunch and reading some manuscript pages from the book she was working on. The cats ate in grim silence-though anger didn't seem to spoil their appetites. They ate fiercely, as if tearing at fresh kill, glancing at each other only occasionally.

After a long while, as Charlie ignored them, their glances grew more frequent and then gentler. And as the soothing effect of the warm shrimp eased and cheered them, they looked at each other more kindly. Charlie gave no sign that she noticed. When she'd finished, and rinsed her plate, she left them alone and headed back to her studio. But in truth, she was so upset by the cats' battle that she wasn't sure she could work, not sure she could put herself back into the fictional world that she built around her as she wrote.

Oh, Kit, she thought, do you love Sage? Love him enough to follow him back into the wild despite your differences? To follow him even when you can't agree on what's important in life? Indeed, two sets of their deepest beliefs were at cross purposes here, just as could happen with humans, one set of values deeply threatening the other. Oh, Kit, don't go if you can't be happy. Don't go if you can't believe alike, don't go and leave us, only to be miserable…