Daniela nodded and folded her hands, but she made no motion to depart. He took a few steps toward the door, hoping she would get the hint that he was through with her.
She was studying him intently, her hands clasped in front of her, her jaw tight. It was as if she was waiting for something.
Her eyes were different colors. The left one was blue. The right one was brown.
She kept her gaze steady, allowing him to stare, and stare he did. He’d only seen such a thing once before . . . but he was being rude. He looked away, embarrassed, and grabbed his coat and hat from the bed.
“I’ll just get my things from my car and pull it off the street. If you’ll excuse me, Miss Kos.”
“It’s Flanagan, Mr. Malone,” she said. “Not Kos. My name is Dani Flanagan. My aunts are named Kos. My mother was a Kos. But I am a Flanagan.”
“Flanagan,” he murmured. He looked at her again, and realization finally dawned, lighting his weary brain. All the little pieces became a picture.
“Dani Flanagan,” he gasped.
“You remember me, then?” Her mouth bore a hint of a smile, but her brow was furrowed.
“Yes. I do.”
“It’s been fifteen years. It would be quite understandable if you didn’t.”
“Fifteen years,” he repeated.
“Yes . . . to the day, actually. I met you fifteen years ago . . . today.” She swallowed, and a shadow passed over her face. “Now you might not think me so strange. You gave me a bit of a shock out there.”
To the day? Good grief. What were the odds of that?
“You look exactly the same,” she said.
“Well, you don’t!”
She laughed. “I hope not. I was ten years old. I’ll be twenty-five—”
“Tomorrow,” he finished for her. “You’ll be twenty-five tomorrow.”
“Yes.” The shadow was back. Her birthday marked a terrible loss. He couldn’t believe it. “Little Dani Flanagan,” he breathed.
“Yes. And Officer Malone.”
“Nobody calls me that anymore. I haven’t been a patrolman for a very long time.”
“Well, that’s how I always think of you.”
He cocked his head in question.
“I’ve thought of you often since then, and with great fondness.”
“I can’t imagine why. I would think you’d try not to think of me at all.”
“You were kind. It doesn’t take much to make a child love.”
“You were a brave girl.” Brave . . . and extraordinary. She’d said the strangest things. And she’d had the most uncanny ability. It was his turn to feel weak-kneed, and he sank to the bed.
“I’m tired, Miss Flanagan. Forgive me.” He ran a hand over his face.
“Yes . . . I can see that you are.” She searched his eyes and looked away at last. “I hope . . . I haven’t upset you. Maybe we can talk more in the days to come. I would like that.”
“Of course.” He couldn’t imagine what they would say, but he nodded agreeably.
“We will eat at seven. Please join us. It would be good if we all got to know each other a little. I’m afraid my aunts are very old fashioned, and the circumstances in Cleveland right now have made everyone a bit skittish. You have heard that we seem to have a . . . mad butcher . . . on the loose?”
He nodded, and with that she slipped out, closing the door behind her.
3
Malone didn’t want to join the women for dinner, but he was famished, and the thought of going out into the wintry darkness to forage in unfamiliar surroundings was even more unappealing than a dinner with strangers. Better to break the ice anyway. If he was going to live in this house, even briefly, he’d best get past any awkwardness as soon as possible.
It took him two trips to empty out the trunk and park the car behind the house under the cover of the stable-like structure. The funeral home next door had removed whatever outbuildings had once existed on its property in favor of the wrap-around drive and the unloading ramp. The house beyond that, the one used as a medical practice, had a stable much like the Koses, though a wall between the two yards made it hard to see anything other than the roofline. The three houses were probably all built around the same time, so similar were their exteriors and style.
As he opened the back door on his last trip, the box of files in his arms, an orange cat shot past him and ran into the house. It startled him, and he danced sideways to avoid it, stepping on its tail. The cat shrieked in pain and raced into Malone’s new quarters, disappearing under the bed to lick his wounds.
“Is that you, Charlie?” Malone asked, putting the files on the desk. He crouched down beside the bed and lifted up the spread to peer underneath it. A rumbling death rattle sounded from the feline form. Oh yeah. It was Charlie.
“You don’t remember me, but I remember you,” Malone muttered. “If it weren’t for me, you’d still be living in Chicago and not hiding under this nice bed.”
The cat hissed, staring back at Malone with odd-eyed outrage, and the memory of their first encounter surfaced like it was yesterday and not fifteen years ago.
The day after the Flanagan murders and two hours before his shift started, Malone went to O’Brien’s Books, a mere block from the Flanagan residence and right next door to Schofield’s Flower Shop. He and everyone else knew the flower shop was owned by the notorious Dean O’Banion, leader of the Irish gang that ran the whole area. But Malone didn’t go to ask questions or pursue leads. He went to fetch the kitten Dani had talked about.
Connor O’Brien, the owner of the bookstore, had heard about the Flanagans, and when Malone told him who the cat was for, the man gave him an old birdcage Dani could transport him in.
“It’ll do to get her wherever she’s going,” O’Brien said when the cat was settled. “I hear Aneta has family who will take the girl.”
The little orange cat with his furry face and mismatched gaze would not fit in the birdcage for long, and he stared through the thin bars, unamused.