38

THE EVENING WAS pushing on toward nine when Charlie got home from Dr. Firetti's, the wind cold at her back as she hurried from her Blazer into the tiled mudroom that led to both the living room and the kitchen. Something smelled good, and when she stepped through into the big family kitchen, Max was fixing a tray for their late supper. She could see through into the living room where he had set up the folding table before a welcoming fire.

Max had wanted to go down to Firetti's with her, but she'd begged him to stay home, to heat up something from the freezer and maybe make a salad-she couldn't talk to the doctor openly in front of him, and certainly the cats couldn't. She was just thankful that John Firetti was there for them, day and night. There was a clinic up the coast for after-hours emergencies, but Dr. Firetti took care of emergencies for a few of his long-standing clients, as had his father before him, getting out of bed at any hour, and he seemed content with the arrangement.

She and the two cats had told him every detail of their encounter with the coyotes. He'd asked how close they'd been to the animals, had asked the same questions Max asked. When Firetti was satisfied that no one had been bitten, he'd examined and X-rayed Sage's leg, put on a new splint, and rebandaged him. But he'd wanted to keep him overnight. Kit was unwilling to leave Sage, though they had spent most of the week battling and then making up. Maybe the tortoiseshell wanted to stay because they had battled, because she felt guilty that she'd made Sage so unhappy he'd run away and nearly been killed.

Dr. Firetti had fixed a warm bed for the two in his office and tossed a blanket and pillow on the couch for himself. Charlie left with hugs for both cats, hoping they'd sort out their differences; she left Kit snuggled as close to Sage as she could get without hurting his wounds, and before she turned away Kit had looked up at her with such confusion, with worry and hurt for Sage and yet with a clear uncertainty in her wide yellow eyes. Uncertainty about the state of her own heart? Torn between her fear for Sage, and her own needs? Charlie had felt tears start and had turned away quickly, leaving the clinic, worrying about where Kit's hotheaded young spirit would lead her.

Now, at home, Charlie washed her hands at the kitchen sink then followed Max into the living room, where she curled up in a big chair before the fire as he carried in their supper tray. She told herself that everything would be all right, that Kit would sort out her feelings, and as Max pulled his own chair near hers, she sipped her hot tea and reached hungrily for her grilled sandwich.

"Before we got married," she said, grinning at him, "you told me you couldn't cook."

"And you told me you didn't know how to fix a fence or shoot straight."

"This is the best supper I've ever had," she said, taking another huge bite.

"It's only a grilled-cheese sandwich."

"It's your famous grilled cream cheese and salami on rye, and it's delicious. Is there more?" she said, devouring her salad, too, and gulping the sweet, steaming tea.

"All you want, in the kitchen. Did you clean those scratches on your face? You're sure they're only from branches? The coyotes didn't get near you?"

"Not within yards, Max. Will you stop worrying?"

He took her hand. "Just glad you're safe-don't want you frothing at the mouth and biting people." He brought her another sandwich from the kitchen, and fresh, hot tea, then threw another log on the fire and settled down again to fill her in on the events of the evening. She had, while in Dr. Firetti's office, taken a call on her cell from Ryan.

"Joe's fine," Ryan had begun in a preamble to who-knew-what, then gave her such a brief sketch of where they were and why that Charlie had wanted to stop her, make her tell it slowly. "We're headed home now. Joe's asleep on my lap. He had a hamburger and then we stopped for dinner, smuggled him into a little steakhouse," she had said, amused. "I can't believe how much this cat eats."

Ryan had had the speaker on, Charlie heard Clyde laugh.

Joe must have awakened; he had growled, "You'd be hungry, too, if you barely escaped being hauled off to the pound." And the tomcat's yowling harangue had assured her that he was just fine.

Now she waited for Max to give her the details of what had gone down at the airport and in the city. But by the time he'd finished with San Jose and the race to San Francisco, and was recounting how the San Francisco uniforms had decked Ray Gibbs, she was nodding and jerking awake.

"Bedtime," Max said, picking up her empty cup and plate. She rose, yawning hugely. "And Ryder Wolf is dead," she said quietly. She would have thought she'd feel no emotion for Ryder. She was surprised by how sad that death left her.

"What will happen now?" she said as they turned out the lights and headed down the hall.

"The usual," Max said. "SFPD will go over the stolen Audi, Santa Clara County sheriff's office will examine Lindsey's Mercedes and take evidence. Ditto with Gibbs's car. The sheriff will send a unit over to the city to transport Gibbs back to the Santa Clara County lockup."

"To be arraigned for murder," she said, crawling into bed. "What will happen to Lindsey? Is she under suspicion for Chappell's death?"

"Don't know yet," he said, slipping in beside her. "We've yet to identify the woman in the grave. Maybe that's Nina, maybe not. And we have to establish cause of death. Gibbs could be arraigned on that count, too." He looked over at her-and smiled. She was sound asleep.

Strange, Max thought, watching her. Although this case had endangered Mike and Dallas, it hadn't worried her nearly as much as had tonight's events involving the feral cat. The stress of forging back through that black tangle of woods to rescue the two cats-how many people would do that? The stress of having to shoot the coyotes. Her worry and fear for the cats always touched him. And she claimed she wasn't tenderhearted. Smiling down at his unpredictable redheaded wife, Max turned out the lamp and was soon asleep himself as the rising moon sent a first glimmer through the high windows.

BUT LATER, AS moonlight washed broadly through the windows of the Harper house, touching Charlie's face, she woke again to relive the scene in Dr. Firetti's examining room. As the doctor went to fetch some food for the cats, she had stepped out into the hall, leaving Sage and Kit alone, tucked up in the big basket he had fixed for them. But there, she had paused.

Behind her, she could hear them talking and she turned to listen; she was dismayed as Sage begged Kit to come back to the clowder, to join the clowder once more, to stay with him and be a pair.

She didn't want Kit to return to the wild, didn't want her to leave her life in the village, none of Kit's friends wanted that. Yet they all, cats and humans, wanted her to be happy. The question was, what did Kit want? Kit, herself, didn't seem to know. She made up to Sage one minute, snuggling and purring, and the next minute was fighting with him. Tonight she'd told him, "No, Sage. I won't come back."

"But we've always been best friends," he'd said. "You don't really want to stay here among humans, you can't really want to live as a captive, locked up in houses with humans."

"I don't live as a captive," Kit had hissed. "I come and go as I please, I do as I please. I'm not locked up! I belong here!"

"But what about us. If you love me…"

"We will always be loving friends," she'd said softly. "I…I don't know how I feel…Stone Eye is gone," she'd said, "but if another tyrant comes along, will you be obedient to him, too? So he'll protect you?"