We had a pretty good idea who’d stolen it too—the tall brown-haired woman who’d murdered my pillow and mattress. But we’d never seen her. A video would be very helpful.
“Sorry, dude. No need for cameras. The people who come here are peaceful. Harm none.”
“Yet you sell knives.”
“Athames.”
“Which are sharp enough to kill.”
The thought seemed to upset Todd so much he went into another sneezing fit.
Bobby lifted his chin in my direction. “Maybe you should…”
I went upstairs to gather cat things—food, bowls, litter box, toys. I had to set Samhain down to do it, but in the apartment she let me.
I came down the stairs, hands full; the cat hovered at my heels as if she were herding me. I reached the last two steps, and Bobby spoke.
“Did the couple with the triplets have a name?”
I paused. Samhain bumped her head against my ankles. I couldn’t move. My ears strained; what was coming next was important.
“Taggart,” Todd said.
Or not. Never heard that name in my life.
I lifted my foot, planning to take the final steps and rejoin them.
“Henry and Prudence Taggart.”
My heel caught. I pitched forward, everything in my hands flew upward, and I fell downward. It was only two steps. I shouldn’t bruise too badly. Then Samhain appeared right in my path. I was going to fall on her if I didn’t— She flew across the floor as if the wood had been greased like a bowling alley. Her claws scrambled for purchase. There wasn’t any. She clumped against the counter at the same time all of her necessities rained around me.
*
The return to New Bergin was uneventful. They’d had enough eventful already.
“You sure you’re okay?” Bobby asked.
“As okay as I was the last three times you asked.”
“Bruises and strains don’t hurt right away.”
“I caught my foot. Scared the cat, dropped the stuff. Not a mark on me. I swear.”
But there was something wrong. Bobby could feel it. Or maybe it was just the cat, which had decided her favorite place in the world was lying across the back of his seat.
If he got too close, she batted at his head. Claws sheathed, lucky him, it was still distracting. Raye had tried to get the animal to rest in her lap, on the seat, the floor, the dash. Samhain preferred staring at the back of Bobby’s neck.
“I should buy a carrier,” Raye said, and Samhain growled. “You can’t just sit wherever you want.”
“Are you talking to the cat?”
“Someone has to.”
He glanced in the rearview mirror. Samhain stared out the back window. “She isn’t listening.”
“Oh, she’s listening. She’s just pretending not to.”
“You’re not going to become one of those cat ladies, are you?”
“Spinster schoolteacher with a cat? I think I already am.”
“Twenty-seven does not make you a spinster, and one cat doesn’t qualify you for cat lady. Relax.”
She was so tense her fingers were white from being wrung in her lap, and he could almost feel her vibrating. No wonder the cat wouldn’t sit by her.
“You should eat,” he said.
They’d skipped State Street Brats, not wanting to leave Samhain in the car alone. But that meant neither one of them had imbibed anything but coffee. If Bobby hadn’t been doing just that for most of his adult life he’d be jittery. Raye had to be.
“Not hungry,” she said.
“What’s wrong with you?”
The question came out too loud and too sharp as evidenced by Raye’s widened eyes and Samhain’s smack on the back of his head.
“I just…” She glanced out the window. “Have so much to do before tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?”
“We call it Monday. First day of the workweek.”
“You’re not going to work.”
“Am too.”
“Someone’s trying to kill you.”
“Thanks to a world full of crazies, the school has more security than Area Fifty-one.”
He cast her a glance. “Area Fifty-one?”
“All I’m saying is that I’m safer at school than at home.”
“I’m with you at home.”
“Twenty-four/seven?”
“Don’t you want me to be?”
She hesitated, and he experienced a moment of uncertainty. He shouldn’t have touched her, but all he wanted was to touch her again. However, if she didn’t want him to— “If you’d rather I stay somewhere else, I can talk to Johnson and—”
“I don’t want you to go.” She set her hand on his leg, her fingers stroked, but absently, a movement meant to soothe not arouse. “It’s just … you will go.”
He would. He had a job, a life, a history in New Orleans. “Maybe you could come with me.”
Her hand froze. “I don’t think so.”
He was more disappointed by her words than he’d thought he could be. “You might like it in New Orleans. You won’t know until you try.”
“It isn’t the place for me. I’m sorry. And the more we…” She shrugged. “The harder it’ll be when you leave.”
It was pretty hard right now. Just her hand on his knee and he was having a difficult time focusing on the road.
The cat batted him in the head—twice. There was something about that cat.