Edgar did not open his eyes. He drew her in. "Sleep, darlin'. Just dreams."
Rhoda settled into him, and her breath went slow again, and the house held its breath.
Downstairs, at the end of the back hall, the door of the small storage room opened. Duchess stepped out into the dim corridor. She paused. She shook herself once, a luxurious full-body shake, the way a Himalayan shakes off morning dew. A faint shower of fine black fur came off her silver-cream coat and drifted to the floorboards. She swished her plumed tail across the boards. The black fur lifted, moved, and went where shewanted it to go, which was nowhere a living creature would see it.
Duchess walked down the back hall the way she had walked into the front hall before, like a woman entering a private salon, unhurried, without a care in the world. She owned the place, and hopefully would soon.
Behind her, in the closet, the small dark shape of an old black tom lay folded on the canvas dust sheet, shoved behind a sack of potatoes. His copper eyes were open. They did not see. He did not move.
The first thin gold of the morning came in through the small room's window and crossed the floor and settled across his fur, and the old house gave him the only watching it could.
Chapter 9
The Rainbow
Honey came down the back stairs and grabbed the bayou book from the drawer. The kitchen was cold. She could hear her father at the back of the house with the cats, speaking low to each one. She sat in the chair facing the back door with the book on her knees and waited.
Roam had gone out at first light to fetch Sean, and the two of them slipped in through the back door now, both their coats up against the cold. Sean took the chair across from her. Roam laid the note in its paper square on the table between them, gloves folded. He took the bayou book from Honey's knees and laid it beside the note, open to the page she had marked with her thumb.
Sean's green eyes scanned the page. "Aye." He let out a long breath. "Aye, Honey. That's our perp." He looked up at her. "Show me what ye saw last night."
Honey closed her eyes. She opened her hand on the table, just as she did last night. The pink glitter rose, and laid itself, like an old film, across the kitchen wall above the stove, and the memories played.
Sean did not speak until the wall went dim. "Right then." He folded the linen square back over the note and tucked it into the inside of his coat. "We'll need to keep this one under the hat for the mornin'. Get a confession out. Ye'll have to keep mum to yer folks for now."
Roam reached across the table and laid his hand over Honey's. "Sean and I'll close this today, sweetheart," he said quietly. "I promise."
"They have to know," Honey said.
"Aye. They will. After the formal questioning is done. We don't give it away just yet."
"You want me to lie to my mother."
"Just a wee bit." Sean winked.
Honey looked at Roam, then back at Sean. "So this is part of some sort of master plan, and it has to end today. I'm not sure how much longer the familiar system will hold. The more cats we get the weaker all the bonds become."
"Understood." Sean nodded once. "Roam. Then we act like a normal mornin'. We let him think he's walkin' free. Every step, we'll be on him."
"What's normal anymore?" Honey turned a page she was not reading.
Roam picked a flake of pink glitter out of her hair. "It'll all be over soon enough, sweetheart. Then things'll go right back to how they were. Everyone safe and sound at home where they belong."
"I hope so." Honey furrowed her brow. "But I've got an icky feeling about it all still."
Sean buttoned his coat. "Sleeplessness can do that to ya. I know ye haven't had a good wink since this thing started."
"True." She rubbed her eyes and yawned.
"See there. You need sleep." Roam touched his forehead to hers.
"I've got to get goin'. You two lovebirds need a proper vacation when this is done." Sean clapped Roam's shoulder and went out. Roam followed him as far as the porch door, said a few low words on the threshold, and came back.
"Hide the bayou book," Roam said. "Your folks will be down any minute."
Honey closed the book and slid it into the drawer of the sideboard. Roam went out the back to join Edgar.
By the time Rhoda came down the back stairs in her long grey cardigan, Honey had buttered ten slices of toast and not eaten one.
