36

HAVING PRESSED her last twenty into the waitress's hand, Lindsey slipped out through the restaurant's kitchen. Behind her, the plump, motherly server told Gibbs there'd been no woman in there matching that description. She said a man had been sitting at the recently vacated window table, that she hadn't seen the woman he described. That maybe she'd gone into one of the other restaurants along the row. Pausing in the hot, steamy kitchen, Lindsey heard enough to know he was arguing, that he didn't believe her. She spotted the back door and fled among a half dozen busy cooks who turned to scowl at her, never breaking their rhythm of frying and slicing and dishing up. The place smelled of steaming crab and hot fries. And she was out the door, on the side street where she slipped into a group of tourists.

She moved away with them, and ducked into a curio shop, was mingling with the dawdling customers, looking out, when she saw him leave the restaurant.

He headed in her direction. Stepping behind a big, bald man in a pink T-shirt, she looked for another way out of the shop and saw none. She waited until the clerk at the cash register turned away, and slipped past her into a dark little storeroom.

The small, dim space smelled of cheap scented candles. It was crowded with cartons stacked on the floor. The shelves behind these were piled with T-shirts, cheap pottery, piñatas, folded Japanese kites, and Mexican baskets. There was no back door, there was only the one way out of the closetlike space. She turned at a scuffing sound.

Gibbs stood blocking the door. She backed away. He grabbed her, spun her around, and shoved the gun in her stomach.

He wouldn't shoot her here, she thought, encumbered by the crowd in the shop, he'd never escape.

But then she thought about news stories in which the shooter had killed in a crowd, and run, knocking people aside, and had gotten away, with no armed officer to stop him. Gibbs shoved her so hard she twisted, lost her balance, and fell. He jerked her up, gripped her against him as he faced the door, his gun drawn.

Two uniformed officers filled the doorway.

Lindsey didn't wait, she elbowed him as hard as she could in the groin, and ducked down behind a stack of cartons. He turned the gun on her. There was a shot, and another. Gibbs staggered, dropped the gun, fell nearly on top of her. She was grabbed from behind and pulled away.

"For God's sake, Lindsey." Mike held her close as an officer retrieved Gibbs's gun. Gibbs twisted, trying to get up. The other cop sent him sprawling again, and the two officers, snapping cuffs on him, jerked him up and duck-walked him out through the now deserted shop. She could see more uniforms outside herding the tourists away. Leaning against Mike, needing his warmth, she saw Dallas come in from the street.

"You okay?" Dallas asked her.

"I am now," she said shakily.

"You did good," Mike said, tenderly touching her face.

"Ryder's dead," she said woodenly.

Mike held her away, looked deep into her eyes, looked at the blood smeared across her tank top, Ryder's blood. She looked down at herself where she'd held her sister for an instant before Ryder went limp-before she turned and fled, to follow Gibbs, wanting to kill him.

What Ryder's life had been, and then her senseless death, only added to Lindsey's rage, to fury at herself that she'd done so little to change Ryder's life. Hiding her face against Mike's shoulder, she let him lead her out of the shop. She felt weak and hopeless, wanted only to be quiet, to be alone, just the two of them, Mike holding her close. Out on the street she stood within Mike's arms, oblivious to the cops and the staring tourists, stood in a world where there was no one else, where there was no cruelty, no murder, where there was only safety and love.

AS LINDSEY CLUNG within Mike's embrace, some miles away the gray tomcat felt equally safe in the secure embrace of Mike's daughter. The feel of Ryan's shoulder against which he lay, the clean smell of her hair against his nose-and the fact that he was full of a burger and fries-filled Joe Grey with a deep sense of well-being. The team of Flannery and Damen was all right, the tomcat liked this new sense of belonging within a real family.

Where his relationship with Clyde had rocked along on good-natured male confrontation and wisecracking, Ryan added an amused tenderness that Joe hadn't known was missing, she added the gentle understanding that Clyde, too often, didn't like to exhibit.

Though back there in short-term parking, Clyde had stood up for him. Had laughed at the angry mother when she threatened to sue him, threatened to call the dogcatcher and have the cat quarantined-as if Joe had flayed that kid alive.

It was Ryan who'd retrieved the phone. Having double-parked her pickup behind the woman's white van, she'd glimpsed the phone on its roof and, hiding a grin, had put it in her pocket while Clyde fetched the first aid kit. And before Clyde fished out the bandages, she'd fetched her camera and taken pictures of Joe's minute claw marks in the kid's hand, and then of the pudgy mother doctoring the scratch and bandaging it. She made sure to photograph all aspects of both arms and hands, and of the child's face, to prove there were no other wounds.

"The cat didn't bite you?" Clyde asked the child as her mother bandaged the hand.

"I saw that cat-" the mother started to say, but the kid screamed, "It didn't bite me! It scratched me! Can't you see it scratched me!"

Taping the wound, the woman clutched her own cell phone, ready to call 911 and animal control. Until Clyde pointed out that if she did that, the authorities would take the cat away, and he, Clyde, wouldn't be able to give her the five hundred dollars he had intended, to cover her inconvenience. He told her Joe had had his rabies shots. He gave her their vet's name and address and, of course, his own address. When the woman stopped shouting, to accept the money and to sign a release that Clyde hastily wrote out on a scrap of paper, Ryan turned her attention to Joe, taking him in her arms.

"Does this mean a lawsuit?" Joe had asked her when they were alone, slipping into the passenger side of the truck.

"I doubt it. But between Dad, Max, and Dallas, we'll come up with an unbeatable lawyer if we need to. Personally," she said, grinning, "I think she'll drop it. Maybe try to hit us up for more money later." She looked deep into Joe's eyes. "Clyde and I aren't worried. Neither should you be."

Clyde slid into the driver's seat, cutting her a look, but said nothing. Heading home, Ryan kept telling Joe over and over, "It's all right." Holding him close, looking down into his worried face. "It's all right, Joe. You didn't hurt the little brat. We have pictures. Don't sweat it."

Joe had listened, hiding a smile, as Clyde explained to the woman the many steps she would have to go through if she sued him, the forms she would have to fill out, the time she would have to spend with an attorney, and in court, and the probable cost of an attorney. This, and the whining of her restless kids who were hungry and had to pee and wanted to go home, had at last induced her to accept the money, load up her unruly family, and leave the three of them in peace.

One thing for sure, Joe thought, purring against Ryan. He never wanted to see the San Jose airport again. Not in all his nine lives. For a while there, he'd thought if he didn't starve in that oversize concrete crypt or get run over by some hurrying driver racing to catch a plane, he would be picked up by animal control, imprisoned behind bars for maybe the rest of a very short life.