Cindy found Ray a bit of a trial.
"I just can't understand it," he was muttering.
"Excuse me?" she asked, continuing to search from horseback the area above the heads of Hay and Ray, who were both on foot.
"I mean, I know it happens all the time, but I still can't feature the kind of sleazeball who'd run off with a little kid . . ."
"You mean the missing girl?" Cindy asked, thinking of the picture. "She looked more like a teenager to me."
"Still, she's a kid."
"It's not like that's any protection," Cindy told him grimly. "If she's been killed by a stranger, that's at least better than having your own family try to do it."
Ray shook his head. "No way would that happen to that girl."
"Don't be so sure," Cindy said. "I mean, my stepmother and stepsisters never sexually molested me, but even before Dad died they did everything they could to make my life miserable—Pam and Perdita used to beat me, burn me, force me to do all the dirty work. Even tried to poison the pony my father gave me, but I found out in time. I was sixteen years old then. I left home—well, the house I grew up in, which my stepmom claims is hers. I've never been back, but Pam and Perdita, those are my stepsisters, came over and hassled me in front of an important client till I lost my job."
"Bummer!" Ray said.
"No kidding. I used to wonder why they should hate me so much. If it hadn't been for Rosie, I don't know how I'd have gotten by. She found me a place to live where nobody hassled me and I could finish school and work in a stable to pay for riding lessons. She also told me that the steps hating me wasn't my fault or anything I did, that they were jealous and greedy and the surest way to let them win was to blame myself or buy into what they were trying to sell me about what a low-life scum I was. They wanted Daddy's money, and that was it. Well, I can do fine without it if I can just find a place to live and ride. Some kids aren't so lucky, though. This girl was kidnapped by someone who had authorization to pick her up from her parents, according to what the Seattle policeman said. She was a teen. Maybe she got away. A lot of times kids are little and it's their own blood parents who are molesting them, hurting them, maybe their dad's doing it and their mom's pretending nothing's happening."
"You sound like you've made quite a study of it," Ray said.
"Well, you tend to, when you've been through it yourself. Rosie says the more you face up to your past, the less likely you are to repeat the cycle of abuse."
"Not everybody does either thing," he said. "Take me. My old man was after me all the time—"
He sounded casual, but Cindy knew the feeling behind the admission was anything but. Maybe he could only tell her because she was a stranger sitting high up on a horse and he'd never see her again.
"But I don't try to screw my kid. Her mother would have said I screwed everything else instead. But not my kid. Not my kid. It's not right. She needs me to protect her. A couple of guys I know—well, sometimes my crowd is pretty, you know, out there—they got after my little girl and I lost 'em. History. But her mother took her away anyhow."
Cindy nodded slowly and kept riding, Punkin stepping forward one foot at a time. She was listening so hard she almost failed to catch the glimpse of red caught on a bush, a little tuft of wool.
They called Hay, who called in the tracker, and down the same narrow deer path, a few feet farther from the campground, they found a red thread.
It was all she and Hay could do to keep Ray from mauling the evidence. Hay gave him a serious talking-to while Cindy, riding parallel to the tracker along an old logging road, kept watch for further evidence that would help the tracker "cut sign," or establish how far the girl had gone since their initial clue. Being on horseback was limiting in one way. For Punkin's safety, Cindy could only ride in cleared areas and on established trails. But there was always the possibility that the girl or her assailant had found the better marked trail and diverged from the deer path to follow it.
It began snowing just as she reached the gully in the road caused by erosion from the feeder creek, which even now sent a ribbon of water along the bed of the washout. She was wondering if Punkin could safely jump the gully or go around it when she heard something, almost like a bird cry, but more guttural and with an anguished, frightened note to it.
Hard as she listened, she didn't hear it again, however, but she turned Punkin's head to return to Hay and report it, just in time to see not only Hay, but the tracker, Jim, and Ray trotting toward her.
"Good," Hay said when he saw her. "Didn't think it was you."
"You heard it too?"
Hay was beaming. "Yeah. And if it's our girl, she's still alive."
Ray wasn't listening. Before any of the others could act, he was sprinting around the washout and up the other side, running down the trail.
"Shit! Damn fool!" Hay said, the grin disappearing as he shouted. "Hey! Kinsale! You're going to mess up the trail and we'll never find her!"
But by that time Jim was way ahead of him, jogging after the overexcited searcher.
Hay got on his radio and called base camp, telling the coordinator what they'd found and heard and asking for a medical team to join them and an ambulance to be standing by out on the road.
"An ambulance?" Cindy asked gravely.
Hay shrugged. "No tellin' what we'll find. Wouldn't it be awful if the poor kid had survived all this time, and just when we're about to find her she's attacked by a bear?"
"Let me ride on ahead," Cindy said. "I can go faster than any of us, and I promise I'll keep to the middle of the trail and keep my eyes open for signs."
"Want to take a firearm with you in case there is a bear?"
"I never learned to shoot," she said, shaking her head. "I was too afraid I'd find an excuse to use it on certain people."
"Keep in hailing distance of Jimbo, then. He'll radio back your position and what the condition is. And watch out for bears and catamounts."
She patted Punkin's neck. "She's got radar for that kind of thing."
She led Punkin around the washout, both of them slipping in the mud on the way up. The snow fell in little distinct flakes on the mud of the trail, melting so slowly that she could see each crystalline pattern before it sank into the trail.
By the time she had remounted and caught up with Jim and Ray, Ray dragging behind Jim now even though Ray was trying to run and Jim was jogging at a steady measured pace, the snow was falling faster.
The trail was seriously overgrown, and she was about to turn back when she heard a rustling in the bushes ahead. At first she thought it was just a toad that came hopping out, heedless of the horse, but she soon realized that the disturbance was too loud and varied to be caused by a toad. It sounded like feet, branches cracking, voices and a sort of a gurgling snore. "Hello!" she called, dragging out the vowels. "Do you need help?"
A voice, not a girl's but a man's, called back, "Help!"
She rode forward as far as she could and saw the men, seven of them, carrying a litter as carefully as they could. On the litter was the agony-twisted body of a girl, covered with a poncho that kept sliding off.
Cindy felt a moment of panic. What had these guys been doing to the poor kid, and would they try to attack a woman on horseback? "What happened?" she asked.
"We don't know. She was like this when we found her."
Cindy rode back to find Jim, who radioed into base camp. Meanwhile, Ray rushed forward. "Sno!" he cried, and to the men, "What did you do to her?"
"Not a goddamn thing except try to save her life. Who the hell are you?" one of them demanded.
"Her father," he said.
As if the whole situation hadn't been confusing enough already! The men yelled at each other until Jim suggested in his quiet but deadly authoritative way that their primary objective should be continuing to transport the girl to medical assistance and finding out what was wrong with her before it killed her.
Once more the procession hoisted the litter made of a sleeping bag. Because of Sno's contorted position, they had to carry her on top of it.
They all trotted ahead, still arguing, which was something Cindy couldn't bear. She let them get out of earshot before she mounted Punkin, then noticed, after they walked a few steps, that the horse was limping badly.
So much for magic horseshoes! Punkin had lost her shoe someplace along the trail. Damn! It would be a long walk home, Cindy thought, releasing Punkin's hoof and remembering that her shiny new rig was going to turn back into Haisley Henderson's bike now that the search was over. She would do fine, but how about poor limping Punkin?
She was still kneeling beside her horse when a toad—surely not the same one—hopped back out of the bushes at the same place she had seen one before, and then seemingly deliberately squatted in front of her and dropped something. She picked it up. It looked like a marijuana joint. Evidence, maybe? Why did the toad have it? It couldn't have thought it was a fly, and toads did not build nests.
The toad looked at her expectantly, its buggy little eyes watchful.
"Wait a minute," she said to it. "Fairy godmother—magic shoe—you're in the wrong fairy tale, bud, and I am not about to kiss you."
The toad gave her what would have passed for a scornful look, had it had eyebrows, and hopped ahead on the trail. She followed, leading Punkin.
* * *
The ferry motored across the Sound, a steel band playing its entire repertoire on the bottom of the hull. Safely concealed by the other cars parked between her and the car in which she had seen the little girl, Rose watched. This time she was going to be smart and notify the authorities. The police could meet the boat in Winslow, and Rose would just have to risk being wrong. If the little girl was Gigi, the man would have a lot of explaining to do. If not, Rose would have a possible lawsuit on her hands.
But that was an improvement from her situation twenty minutes ago.
The car deck was only about a quarter full, with more room between the vehicles than usual. Almost all of the passengers had gone up to the deck above for coffee and papers. Though the flow of traffic from Bremerton to Seattle was enormous at this hour, the flow in the opposite direction was often sparse.
Despite her resolve to report the car rather than take further risks herself, she needed to make sure of the license number and the appearance of the driver first. She walked briskly forward, as if going to her own car, and stopped at the car closest to the driver's side of her target.
Bending down as if she were opening the door and preparing to enter the car, she turned to see the driver's face. Twice before she had seen him only in oblique views, several times she had seen grainy photos in the newspaper. But he had turned at the disturbance her presence made beside her car, and now she was looking him full in the face. This was the governor's good buddy, Norman Hopkins, the family man himself, head of the Washington State Department of Family Services, her boss.
He did not look happy to see her.
She turned and glared at him as hard as he was glaring at her, then stared open-mouthed at the gall of the man. He held the little girl on his lap by her waist. She was clad only in cotton underpants now, and she was bleeding, blood smeared on her arms, legs, and face, her curly blonde hair matted and wild. Her little jeans and T-shirt lay crumpled on the passenger seat, and bruises like blue socks circled her ankles and wrists.
Thoughts of letting a third party handle this safely totally fled Rose's mind. "Open this up right now, you son of a bitch!" she screamed in a most unprofessional and nonempathetic manner.
The door shot open, slamming her back and pinning her against the adjoining car while Hopkins emerged. "Miss Samson, I have already demanded your removal from the system, and this sort of behavior shows me I was right."
"Wrong!" she hollered, not so much out of emotion now as to draw attention to them. "Your behavior with that child shows me that you're dead wrong."
"I am—removing that child from an unsuitable home where she sustained the injuries you see. I was simply examining her for further wounds."
"Right. And I'm the Playmate of the Month. For one thing, you wouldn't remove a child from an unsuitable home if you saw its parents dismembering it with a chain saw. For another thing . . ."
Before she could get to the other thing, she saw the little girl slide out behind Hopkins and scoot toward the front of the boat.
Hopkins saw her too and grabbed for her but Rose blocked him and they stumbled over each other trying to reach the child. Rose screamed and screamed but her voice was lost in the engines and the drumming on the bottom of the boat.
The little girl was screaming too, a high-pitched child's scream that pierced the noise better than Rose's did. Peripherally, Rose noticed crew members running down the stairs, but meanwhile Gigi's tiny, shivering body stood outlined against the gray-green waters chopping against the bow of the car deck.
Hopkins leaped forward to catch the child, and Rose tried to wiggle around the car door to summon the crew, but Hopkins suddenly grabbed her wrist and dragged her forward with him.
He ducked under the chain, towing her along, but she grabbed it and held on. In another moment, the crewman who was running toward them would be close enough to help.
He pulled with both arms, hard, tugging her so that her fingers started to slip. Her nails broke on the chain, tearing back to the quick, and she felt the skin burn off her hand as she tried to hold on, while he gripped her other arm and tried to walk himself forward along her.
Then suddenly a little body hurled itself between them, and he let go of Rose and tried to grab the child. Releasing his grip, he stumbled backwards, and Gigi, still trying to reach Rose, ran behind him. He fell backwards, over the lip of the boat and under it, hanging by his knees, dragging the child with him. Rose lunged forward and caught at Gigi's leg as Hopkins's scream was abruptly cut off, and the little girl bellowed as she followed him overboard.
Thirty
DAME PRUDENCE'S CAR roared past the tollgate at the ferry terminal, where she of course paused to deposit the ferry fare before roaring on into the parking lot.
One lone man stood by his car in the vast but otherwise empty lot, which led to a sheer drop into Puget Sound. The ferry had gone long ago. At the lot's exit, a police car with a prisoner in the back and a witness in the front rolled out of the lot and onto the street, its red light flashing. Atop the hood of the solitary car, a cat sat licking its paws.
"There, Flitters. You see?" Prudence demanded in her infuriating way. "Two of your emergencies have resolved themselves quite nicely without you making stones speak or the Space Needle fly or any of the other extra tricks you seem to think you require. The Quantrill girl is found . . ."
"And in critical condition and perhaps will not survive," Felicity retorted.
"That is up to her now," Prudence said more gently than Felicity actually noticed at the time. "The Ellis girl helped find her, thus enhancing her self-esteem . . ."
"And she will have plenty of healthful exercise as she has to walk her poor lame horse to a home she no longer has . . ."
"And your Officer Moran has just apprehended one of the principals in a child-molesting ring, a man who has used his position to protect others from justice."
"And in the process, he's missed helping his true love, who . . .oh!" Felicity suddenly felt a burst of terror and saw through Rose's eyes as, far out in the Sound, she was dragged forward, after the little girl and the man who even now was being sucked under the ferry. The crew members still weren't close enough to save any of them.
Prudence asked, "Felicity, what is it?" as her colleague, who had gone deathly pale and stone-still for a moment, suddenly burst from the car and ran toward the water.
"Rose! The child!" Felicity cried. "Save them!"
Prudence gave a very slight disgusted shake of her head, then said, "Oh, very well, just this once." She waved her hand and repeated a passage from the navigational engineers' manual.
"What's going on here?" Fred Moran demanded as he strode up to them. "I heard you say something about saving Rose. What do you two know about her?"
"Who's he?" Prudence demanded.
"Officer Moran is Rose's true love. I do think he ought to be involved as well . . ."
"Oh, bloody hell!" Prudence snapped, and Felicity gave Fred a brave wink. Parsimonious Prudence might be, but, like all Godmothers, she was a sucker for true love. Her expression softened and she said to Fred, "Very well, then, on the house. Off you go."
A Coast Guard cutter pulled up in the vacant ferry slip, and Fred ran to the dock and vaulted aboard.
* * *
As Hopkins fell overboard and Gigi was knocked in after him, Rose dove for her and caught her ankle before she fell all the way overboard and was sucked under the boat.
Hopkins thrashed mightily as he was dragged beneath the bow, and although the water was several feet below the level of the car deck, the spray from his struggles wet Gigi's body and Rose's hands and arms, making her grip on the child slippery and her fingers numb with cold.
Gigi dangled and twisted, crying "Mommy, Mommeee!" Trying not to let the child's head go under water as she shifted her grip, Rose slid forward to clutch at Gigi's waist.
Her grip on the leg slipped as if the little girl was a freshly caught fish. She slid farther forward until only her hips and legs were on the bow and her front end hung off over the water. Once more she tried for a more secure grip, felt her fingers closing on the child's trunk.
Suddenly the ferry stopped dead still in the water, and the momentum it had picked up while traveling tore Rose's fingers loose from Gigi and sent her sliding over the bow, her belly and thighs scraping on the narrow metal lip between the deck and oblivion.
She started to scream, thought better of it, and took a deep breath that was almost shocked out of her as she plunged into the bone-numbing, flesh-crystalizing cold of the water. The water closed over her head, and she felt herself sinking.
Automatically, from years of swimming in lakes and off the warmer beaches, she let her arms fall to her sides and shot back up to the surface—panicking a moment before she did so, thinking her head would encounter the bow of the boat.
But she surfaced almost a yard from the boat.
She was almost too cold to think by then, but someone had thrown a life preserver, and the crew lined the bow.
"Where's Gigi?" she called up to them, just as she saw the top of a blonde head, like that of a wet golden Labrador, break the surface of the water. She dived for the child but missed her as she sank again, so she dived deeper.
It was difficult to see in the murky water, but a little sunshine broke through this close to the surface and glinted from the girl's bright hair.
Rose grabbed the hair, felt the weight of the child as the slight body rose to the surface.
She hadn't the strength to hand the girl up to the crew members, and she wrestled with feelingless arms and fingers to lay Gigi over the life preserver. The few feet she swam pushing the preserver was the longest distance she had ever traversed in her life. Nothing she did seemed to bring her any closer.
The words of the crewmen meant nothing to her water-logged ears.
Gigi lay pitifully still and silent across the preserver. The crew members made a human chain, and the woman in front leaned down to lift the child to the deck, then scrambled away so that the male crew member next in line could lift Rose.
But about that time another boat crossed in front of them, and the wake from it swamped Rose.
This time she didn't have the strength or the brainpower left to hold her breath or swim. When the wave washed over her, she swallowed saltwater and sank.
* * *
Fred watched, transfixed, aboard the Coast Guard cutter as Gigi Bjornsen was pushed toward the ferry and hoisted aloft by the crew.
Not until it was too late did he realize the effect the cutter's wake would have on the wet-haired swimmer he barely recognized as Rose.
"Shit!" he yelled as the wake swamped her, and he kicked off his shoes and dove, nearly colliding with a ferryboat crew member who had done likewise.
Between the two of them, they found her and hauled her back onto the car deck and commenced CPR. The other crew members had just managed to get a heartbeat and breath from Gigi.
Fifteen compressions and five breaths later she coughed, spat and sat up to wipe her eyes. "Hi," she said to Fred.
"Hi, Rosie."
"How's the baby?"
"Breathing," he said, smiling at her as if he'd invented her personally.
"I'm cold," she said, though she was wrapped in an assortment of jackets from crew and passengers who had suddenly converged to see what the excitement was about.
"Me too. And wet."
As soon as the Coast Guard cutter loaded the three of them, the engines of the ferry started again as if by magic.
* * *
Rose awoke and promptly wished she hadn't. Every cell in her body ached. Her last clear memory, which she had carried into her dreams, was of kissing Fred good-bye. She didn't remember this room—a hospital room with pale apricot-colored walls and shiny linoleum tiles on the floors and metal furniture and the inimitable hospital smell, part antiseptic, part bandage and part pureed beef and weak soup.
"How are you feeling, dear?" asked the throaty Brit-tinged tones of Felicity, who rose from her chair to come and stand beside the bed.
"Not too bad. Haven't seen much of you lately." Her voice sounded like a whisper.
"Yes, well, there were difficulties. There are a number of reporters waiting to talk to you, and a policeman outside your door. I'm afraid I need to move on pretty soon, but I did want to say good-bye before I go. I want you to know, Rose, that I did the best I could, but I'm afraid I've left a great deal undone."
"How's Gigi?"
"Fine, poor little thing. Her father's with her. The police have located her mother and are questioning her now, but they haven't located her brother yet. I certainly hope they can find that poor boy."
Rose was puzzled by her friend's uncharacteristically worried tone. "Of course they will. We have you to see to that, don't we?"
"Actually—er—not. Not much longer, anyway. I seem to have exceeded my budget, and I need to return for reassignment first. I'm just waiting for Bobby to turn up again."
"Where's he gone?"
"I don't know exactly. I lost him when I was doing a bit of—counseling—at Sno's father's home."
"I don't think you could say you lost him, Felicity. That was one toad with a mind of its own."
"I suppose," she said with a sigh. "It's just that now that I've used up my luck for you, everything I do on your behalf goes wrong—even borrowing a wish from Prudence. When the ferry stopped, according to witnesses, that was when you fell into the water, and when Fred arrived on the cutter, that caused you to nearly drown."
"But I didn't drown, and neither did Gigi."
The door to the room swung open, and another familiar face peered around the corner. This one was dirty, with tangled hair and smelled a bit of horse.
"Rosie, hi. Gee, I can't tell from the crowd outside if you're world-famous or notorious. How ya doin'?"
Felicity sighed. "I'm glad to see you made it back to town safely, Cindy."
Cindy shrugged. "It was no big deal, actually. Once I gave the medics the joint the little toad found . . ."
"Toad?" Felicity asked. "Where?"
Cindy shrugged. "I don't know. I thought he might be yours, but after he brought the joint, I had to tie Punkin up and catch up with the others. I wonder if the toad knew it had strychnine in it and if it knew, how it kept from getting poisoned itself. Anyway, when I came back for Punkin, the toad wasn't there. Burt Stalling took Punkin back to his ranch to board for me, and by that time, Neil had heard about what happened to Rosie so Hay Henderson gave me a lift back here. Sorry I didn't bring any flowers or anything."
"They found Sno, then?"
"Uh-huh. Some guys had her. Apparently they gave her the joint . . ."
"That's not right!" Felicity said. "Didn't she tell them that's not right?"
Cindy shook her head, and a leaf fell to the floor. "I don't think she's able to. Apparently she's on a respirator in intensive care."
"But that's not right, that's not right at all," Felicity repeated.
"She'll tell them when she wakes up, then," Rose whispered, raising a hand whose fingertips were alarmingly black to pat at Felicity's hand.
"But what if she doesn't? This is all going so wrong. If only I'd been more careful."
The door swung open again and Fred entered, carrying a bouquet of supermarket flowers. He was back in brown.
"I just love a man in uniform," Rose said.
He ignored the others to kiss her so tenderly she expected it to thaw all vestiges of hypothermia. "I hope you'll still feel that way by the time this is over, Rosie. Miriam Fagan, the detective in charge of the Throckmorton case, has some very hard questions to ask you."
Rose sighed. "God knows I'll try. But why? Didn't Throckmorton tell them that Hopkins was the other person involved?"
Fred shook his head. "He's claiming you made all that up, that Hopkins was escorting the girl to shelter because she had been at risk in her former situation . . ."
"I'll say!"
"And that your calls to me, the message, the phone thing, were all an attempt by you to get revenge on him for firing you."
"What about Gigi? Where's Hank? Did they check Hopkins's home?"
Fred shook his head. "Hopkins's housekeeper thinks he's been away on business for the last few days. His wife apparently divorced him long-distance from Vegas a couple of years ago and took the kids with her. I think he's got another place where he's stashed the kid, but either Throckmorton doesn't know or he's just not talking. Chuck and Smitty picked up the mother yesterday. She was in bad shape, drug withdrawal and beat to a pulp, but she went nuts when they told her about how Gigi was found and that Hank hadn't been located yet. That woman has one bad conscience. The father's frantic over both kids, but he seems resigned that the boy's been killed. Gigi's been delirious but she calls for her brother, so that seems to me like a good sign." Fred took a deep breath at the end of this recital; then added, gently, "The hard part is, Throckmorton's selling Fagan on the idea that you killed Hopkins . . ."
"How does he explain being in possession of my car?"
"All a part of your criminal genius, I guess. All that's saved you are the witnesses who saw you go into the drink after the little girl. But nobody apparently saw Hopkins fall the way you describe."
"Shit. And meanwhile nobody's searching for Hank?"
"Kind of. But they don't know where to start."
Felicity excused herself. When she returned, she looked somewhat more pleased with herself than previously.
"How are the hands?" Fred asked.
"Yucky. I wonder what else I almost froze off," Rose said. "I hope I won't have a permanent punk manicure."
"Is Sno awake yet, officer?" Cindy asked.
"No, but her parents are at her bedside."
Felicity looked suddenly alarmed. "Both of her parents?"
"Well, yeah. Her father was pretty tired, though. Against orders, he joined the search for Sno and hasn't had any sleep, so the stepmother is keeping the bedside vigil."
"There's not a moment to lose!" Felicity said.
"What?"
"Oh, boy, here she goes again," Rose said. "Somebody get me a wheelchair in case I froze my tootsies off too. I'm not about to miss this."
With Fred looking extremely official, the cop at the door and the reporters made way for their parade as it advanced toward the ICU. Rose in her wheelchair felt like a tank in an invading army, leading Fred, Felicity and Cindy down the hall with herself in the vanguard. She really ought to have a flag to fly.
On the elevator, they met Sgt. Edmonson from the Whatcom County PD. He was on his way to see Sno too. He and Fred exchanged a few words. Under one arm he carried a bouquet of flowers, though there was a briefcase in his hand. In the other hand, he carried a horseshoe made from what looked like crystal. He seemed unaware that something in his jacket pocket was wiggling.
Thirty-one
HANK WAS COLD and scared, and except for the terrible smell of the room, he would have been really hungry. It was dark down there, and he didn't know if he was more afraid of being left alone in the dark or of the footsteps that would come down the stairs to get him. What had happened to Gigi? Where did the man take her? He couldn't hear very much down here, and he knew why. That was so the kids the man had killed down here couldn't be heard when they screamed for help.
After hours and hours, a tiny shaft of light appeared where the newspaper covering one of the basement windows had peeled away at the corner. Hank hung on to that shaft of light, watching it as if there were a TV show playing in it, but it left him alone in the dark again. Even if somebody peeked through that hole, they wouldn't be able to see him here in the dark.
He peed in one corner of the cell and realized that part of the smell was because other kids—the ones whose parts were in jars there?—had done the same thing. He tried to slip his wrists out of the handcuffs, but all that did was cut him up.
There was nothing to do but wait, and dread what would happen when the wait was over.
* * *
"Puss? Puss, I need your help."
Puss was so startled by the voice intruding on her dreams that she sat up and fell from the rail onto the fire escape, where Dico was hanging out with Ding's pack of thugs."Felicity, I was asleep."
"I beg your pardon, but there's another matter I think you could help me on. I want you to ask all of the cats of your acquaintance to ask all of the other cats to ask all of their acquaintances to be on the lookout for a child hidden away somewhere in an empty house or apartment. Can you do that?"
"Sure, and I could run for dog catcher too, but it wouldn't be easy."
"Who you talkin' to, Puss?" Dico asked.
"Felicity. She wants me to organize the area's cats into a search party. She obviously doesn't understand that organization is contrary to the nature of cats."
"What's she want you to look for?" Ding asked.
"A lost boy. The littermate of the little girl I rescued yesterday." Puss yawned. "Really, you'd think human beings with their opposable thumbs and cars and can openers and things could look after their own young!"
"You don't think the other cats will listen to you?" Dico asked.
"Why should they? There's nothing in it for them."
Ding grinned a wily grin. "There might be. If one of the Guerillas went to each neighborhood with some fish heads for a reward if the cat would come to him so he could call you to interpret, would they help then?"
"Only if there are no cracks about how much cats taste like chicken," Puss said.
The plan worked better than she thought. Not all cats cooperated, of course, but there were always those who liked to wander anyway. The hardest thing for Puss was keeping track of which cats were helping where, but there her human speech came in very handy, as she would translate for Ding to write down (since Dico was not a very fast writer). "The gray tom who lives in the house with the red steps down the street from the grocery next door to the McDonald's in the Federal Way Shopping Center" was one address.
"This ain't ever gonna work," Dico said, but as Puss pointed out, it was better than doing nothing, and cats could and did search in places where humans couldn't, just out of general interest, so why not do it with an aim in mind?
* * *
Bronski, a black-and-white neutered male, wasn't normally a joiner, but neither was he normally one to turn down a nice piece of fish. Not that he got much lately. His beat was the weeds and woodpiles of the abandoned development. It boasted only a tiny scattering of occupied houses, and these were few and far between. The rest made fine hunting grounds. No fish ponds, though.
So when Bronski heard about Operation Catnet, as the humans involved so unfortunately dubbed the search, without committing himself, of course, he told his contact that if the human with the fish should be standing on the corner near the ramp to the highway at a certain time, Bronski might have news of interest to relate.
As it turned out, he would have done it without the fish. He had entertained a dislike of a certain house for some time. It used to be empty, one of the best places for finding rats, voles, birds and garter snakes. Bronski had, lamentably, not been the only cat who appreciated this prime location. One big gray-striped queen used to lounge on the windowsill like the place belonged to her. She didn't mind Bronski using the backyard too much, as long as he didn't disturb her nap. She was fat anyway and didn't do a lot of hunting. After the man moved in, Bronski saw him shoo her away a couple of times, and then, one Saturday, when the rest of the neighborhood was a little on the dull side and Bronski went over for a chat, he arrived in time to see the man at the door, offering the queen some tuna.
Bronski's nose was better than hers. He smelled a rat. The big queen followed the man inside and never came out again.
Sometimes the man brought children to the house, but Bronski never saw them playing in the yard afterwards—much to his relief, actually. The children at his own house were one reason he roamed the neighborhood. A couple of times he'd seen one or two other cars there as well, but that was in the evening, which was when Bronski preferred to be at his own food dish and sitting on top of the television warming his weary paws.
The man put up silly-looking wooden things that were too skinny to perch on. Bronski enjoyed jumping on them and knocking them over, but they weren't much good for anything else. And now that the house was occupied, a lot of the small game moved on to less populated places. Bronski only came near the house out of curiosity. Because he was very curious about one thing.
About a year after the man moved in, Bronski had begun to notice the smell. It was an intriguingly bad smell. At first Bronski thought maybe the man had killed the big queen and left her rotting someplace, though humans tended not to do that much. But the smell continued long after the queen would have been nothing but bones.
Bronski had sniffed all over while the man was gone, had jumped up on the little porch and sniffed through the letter slot, sniffed in all the windowsills, but the smell was strongest around the base of the house.
Maybe it wasn't what the Catnet was searching for, but there was something fishier than any reward going on in that place.
Today he circled carefully, sniffing the edges of each of the windows. If what Catnet said was true, there'd be no man coming to chase him away or threaten him.
Finally, he found the little place where the window covering had peeled away and peered inside. From within the house came a shriek that sent Bronski darting toward the human waiting near the highway ramp.
* * *
Gerardine had finally controlled her hysterics after thirty minutes of screaming into the mirror at her mutilation, her ruination. Fortunately, no one had heard her, and she had the presence of mind to realize she wanted no one near until she could find a way to camouflage the warts or hide them.
No one must see her like this. No one. Without her beauty, she had nothing. Raydir would divorce her, her rivals would make fun of her, her enemies (and they were many) would laugh at her misfortune. If it hadn't been for that awful child, she would never have had to call Svenny and make contact with that sadistic monster of a shapeshifting hit man who had bungled the job he was supposed to do and then was crazy enough to blame her. Sexual revenge she could have handled. She had long practice at manipulating the lusts of men and all of their odd little desires. But disfigurement! Her life was over! Since the toad had long ago hopped away, she couldn't just kill it. She never wanted to touch the filthy things again! Not that she had ever deigned to do so previously.
No, she knew who was responsible for her mutilation. How could she have let the little twit die so easily? She should have skinned her alive, cut her into pieces.
Raydir never came home that night at all, and during that period, Gerardine had time to calm down enough to try to decide what to do. She called her plastic surgeon, but he was in Switzerland and wouldn't be back until the following week. She wasn't about to trust a stranger with her secret.
She slathered on a thick mud pack and stayed in her room all day, telling the maid she was preparing for a shoot in Turkey, which would explain both her absence and why she might be wearing veils until she could rid herself of the warts.
Time and again, she returned to the mirror and stared with horrified fascination at her blighted face. Anger grew inside her. Even in death that rotten child had revenged herself.
Surgery, even the best surgery, was bound to leave scars.
She wept again, making mud puddles of her eyes and the pillows she wept against, crying for her lost beauty until she was trembling with dehydration.
She wept until she fell into a fitful sleep where she saw Sno's unblemished face mocking her, her finger pointing at her, and the toad hopping up and down with glee. Hatred woke her and kept her planning all the deaths she would have liked for Sno if she hadn't already killed her.
Then her personal extension rang. She didn't feel like talking to anyone, so she let the machine get it. It was Raydir's voice.
"Gerry? Just wanted to let you know we've found Sno alive but just barely. They've just flown her to ICU at Harborview. I'm—"
She picked up the phone and said, with her appropriately trembling and raspy voice, as if her tears had been for her lost stepdaughter, which in a way they were, "Ray, darling. I'm here. I'll be right there as soon as I can get there."
"You sound—funny."
"I've got a little cold—" she said, and thought of the perfect cover. "I'll wear a surgical mask so as not to infect poor dear Sno. Don't tire yourself too much, darling. Gerry will be right there."
Dressing quickly, she snuck down to the gardener's shed and borrowed one of the masks they wore to spray the garden, and a teensy bit more strychnine powder. Too bad to be so repetitive, after all her planning, but at least this way she would get to watch the little bitch die.
As she drove to the hospital, she felt, in spite of everything, a thrill of vindictive hatred. So darling Sno was clinging to a thread of life after all, was she? Well, little Gerardine was going to be there with the scissors.
Every vein in her body pulsed with hatred when she saw the girl lying there, breathing through a tube, Raydir, her husband, bent tenderly over the little twit.The mask suffocated her and rubbed on the warts as she hugged Ray and told him he had to get some rest, that she would watch over the girl.
Ray, who looked horrible, as if he hadn't slept in years, agreed that he could go outside and smoke and maybe bring them both back something to eat.
That would be time enough. Gerardine, doing her best Madonna with Child imitation, hovered over Sno until the nurses all became occupied with an emergency on the other side of the unit.
Then she pulled the little paper packet of strychnine from her pocket and reached for the tubing to Sno's respirator.
* * *
Rose, her friends and the Whatcom County deputy were all moving toward the ICU when they heard a "Code five, ICU, Code five, ICU" on the PA system, and a couple of doctors ran past them in the hall.
By the time they reached the unit, a cluster of people in scrub clothes was gathered at the door of one of ten glassfronted cubicles opening on three sides of the nursing station, which was situated in the middle of the large room.
Only one person still stood at the near end of the room, an expensively dressed willowy blonde figure, incongruously sporting a scrub gown over her designer suit and a surgical mask on her face. She had been bending over a form animated only by the husky bellows of the respirator to which she was attached.
Ignoring the sign on the door stating that patients in the intensive care unit could have only one visitor at a time, Felicity pushed Rose into the room, hissing, "That's her! The stepmother! That woman must not be alone with that girl!"
"I can see that it's too early to try to question Miss Quantrill yet," the Whatcom County deputy said.
Fred nodded. "We'll let you know if she regains consciousness."
The deputy turned to go, but before he had gone two steps, something hopped out of his pocket and hit the floor with a wet plop, and a small green toad gave two mighty hops toward Sno's cubicle.
"What the hell?" the deputy said.
"Go ahead," Felicity said, seeming to address the floor. "This doesn't take a bit of magic."
The toad turned and cast a stern eye upon them all, its demeanor conjuring up Dirty Harry inviting them to make his day.
Felicity, only too happy to oblige, opened the door to the cubicle. The woman with the mask stopped fiddling with the respirator tubing long enough to look up and see the new visitors. In the hand not holding the tubing, as if ready to yank it loose, the woman held a little package of something yellowish.
"Seize her, deputy!" Felicity cried with a flourish of her silver-clad arm. "She's attempting to murder that poor child again!"
"Ma'am, I can't . . ." he began.
The blonde glared pure hatred at them and then turned back to the girl, the tube and, with a very brief hesitation, the packet.
"Let's see what you've got there, ma'am," Fred said, starting to cross to where he could grab her.
But just then the toad hopped up onto Sno's bed, and onto the woman's hand where it touched the tubing, "Ree," it said. "Deep."
The woman snatched her hand back as if it had been burned and screamed as if demons were chasing her with pitchforks. The hand with the yellow packet flailed, trying to knock the toad away, but the toad hopped, a mighty flying hop, straight into the woman's face, knocking aside the surgical mask.
Rose stared in amazement at the woman, who wore no makeup below the eyes. The rest of her face did not much resemble the flawless, well-publicized features of Gerardine Quantrill, but rather someone suffering the initial stages of the Elephant Man disease. The formerly perfect nose sprouted a massive wart on its perky tip and two or three warts on each perfect nostril. Clusters of warts accentuated the frown lines from nose to mouth on each side and formed a mustache obscuring the cupid's bow of her upper lip. A huge hairy wart wobbled on her chin, flanked by two smaller ones on her lower lip.
"No!" the woman cried, brushing away the toad and the dangling mask at the same time. Raydir Quantrill dashed into the room behind them.
"What's this? My God! Gerry?"
She turned away from him, hiding her face, but the toad danced up to her and she scuttled back from the corner, kicking at it, throwing the little packet of powder at it. "Keep that thing away from me!"
Fred picked up the powder packet. Cindy said, "Why, that's the same color as the stuff in the joint I found near where Sno was picked up!"
"Can you tell us what this is, Mrs. Quantrill?" Fred asked. "We'll have it analyzed anyway."
She glared at him, but about that time the toad hopped on top of her head and sent her into another spasm of kicking and clawing, this time at her hair.
"Take it away, take it away! That damned Svenny! Why couldn't he send me a normal hit man to get the wretched little bitch? Why did I have to get one that turned into a warty little horror?"
Felicity bent down and extracted Bobby from the blonde tangle.
"Excuse me, ma'am, would you care to repeat that?" asked Fred and the Whatcom County deputy simultaneously, and in unison began, "Although you have the right to remain silent . . ."
"What's this all about?" Raydir demanded, sounding exhausted and anxious as he was after the search and his long vigil at his daughter's bedside, as if he were about to cry.
"Ray," Cindy said, sympathetically touching the arm of the man she knew as Ray Kinsale.
"Your wife, sir, has tried three times to murder your daughter," Felicity said.
"Gerry?" He looked down at the grotesque face of the woman on the floor.
She threw her hands up to cover her face and said in a muffled voice, "Don't you 'Gerry' me, Ray Kinsale. That girl had you bewitched. You always felt so guilty about her and her damned mother you never had time for me . . ."
Raydir Quantrill, still clad in jeans and hiking boots and his REI pullover, crossed the room to put himself between his wife and daughter while Fred dropped the powder packet into an evidence bag and the Whatcom County deputy called for backup.
"She's my little girl, Gerry," he told his wife in a tone as cold as her own heart. Turning his back on her, he leaned over the figure on the bed and said, "Sno, baby, come on and wake up. This bitch will never come near you again. I'll stop drinking, stop partying, give up the road and just do recordings. My only wish is to have you well and home again."
"That's my cue," Felicity said, winking at Rose. "New client, fresh magic. So be it!"
The entire medical staff, now finished with their other emergency, had migrated to the door of the room and were pushing their way through to Sno's bed, as Fred and the deputy, who had returned from phoning at the nurse's station, hustled Gerardine out the door.
Suddenly, one of the nurses stopped in her tracks as Sno stirred, no doubt stimulated by all the activity. "Look! She's trying to breathe on her own! Get her doctor over here now. Let's see how she does off the respirator."
Several taut minutes of medical drama later, the machine was gone and Snohomish Quantrill opened her eyes and smiled weakly at her father.
* * *
A little later, in Rose's hospital room, a well-dressed woman detective tapped the pointed toe of her smart purple high-heeled shoe. Two uniforms and three reporters, including a camera crew, were outside too, but the woman shut the door behind them as Felicity wheeled Rose back to her bed.
Fred had gone with the Whatcom County deputy to arrest Gerardine. Ray was allowed to stay in the ICU with Sno. Cindy and Felicity remained behind with Rose, cautioned to remain available for questioning as witnesses to Gerardine's third murder attempt and partial confession.
But the detective was not interested in them, or in Sno. The minute Rose was back in the room, the woman said, "I'm Detective Lieutenant Fagan of the Seattle Police Department and I have a few questions to ask you, Ms. Samson, regarding the death of Mr. Norman Hopkins this morning."
"It was an accident, Detective Fagan," Rose said. "Hopkins made a misstep while he was trying to drown both me and Gigi Bjornsen, but if he hadn't had the accident . . ."
"Well, Gigi Bjornsen is still unconscious, Ms. Samson, and a little young to vouch for you anyway. So in your own words, tell me again what . . ."
Just then the hallway erupted with noise, including what sounded like a cat with his tail being stepped on. The door was flung open once more and another policeman preceded Dico Miller, Puss and Ding and his gang into the room.
Dico was bouncing up and down with excitement. "Rosie, guess what! I found the little boy!"
"We found the little boy, you mean," Puss said, jumping up on the bed, her tail lashing."I'm sorry, but you cannot bring animals in here!" a nurse hollered rather futilely from the doorway, where reporters were crowding to see what was happening.
Just to confuse matters Puss hissed, broadcasting loudly enough that everyone including the reporters could hear. "Don't you go dissin' this cat, woman! Like there was anything in here I'd want. Just chill while my man Dico and me tell my friend Rosie here how I saved her butt and I'm outta here faster than you can pull a Band-Aid off a hairy ass."
* * *
"And that," Felicity told the meeting of the Godmothers' Sorority, "was pretty much that. Of course, none of that nonsense at the end with the police blaming the good for the deeds of the evil would have been necessary had Prudence not cut me off. Because of Raydir Quantrill's wish I ended up invoking magic again anyway in a sort of double-header, but that project was not nearly the magnitude of the one Rose asked of me. I trust that you will find my duties well executed and within the boundaries set . . ."
"Ahem," Prudence said. "There are a few little matters. Gigi Bjornsen, for instance, woke up to verify Rose's story the moment Puss and the gang arrived."
"Children heal quickly," Felicity shrugged, studying her silver fingernail polish.
"Then there's the matter of the police believing the gang members got their information from a cat . . ."
"Many policepersons have cats as companions," Felicity said. "The police are not such fools as people would like to believe."
Her Majesty, no longer a sprite but now a regal dowager, gave Prudence a firm look. "You've performed your task well enough, Prudence. Let us hear Felicity out. What has become of the Bjornsen children, Flitters?"
"They're staying with their father while the mother finishes detox, and the whole family is in therapy with Rose. She convinced the father that the kids had to have treatment after their trauma, and the experience has helped both parents do a lot of reevaluating. I got in touch with Haisley Henderson in a purely nonmagical way, Prudence, when I learned that Hay manages a tree-planting service for an international ecological organization. They've given Harry a good job so he can stay home with the children. Candy will take more work, of course, but both parents do acknowledge their share of responsibility and . . ."
"I suppose you'll try to tell us that happened without the benefit of magic as well?" Prudence said with a superciliously lifted eyebrow.
Felicity was honest enough to blush.
"And Cindy Ellis?" Her Majesty rescued Felicity with the question.
"Yes, and the so-nice men the Sno girl stayed wiz . . ." Dame Erzuli added, the brim of her large straw garden hat quivering with excitement.
"Oh, yes, let's see now. Raydir Quantrill, once Sno was found, was very grateful for the advice he had obtained from Cindy Ellis, but he had been too distracted to remember her name or much about her except that she was quite pretty and had considerable empathy and common sense, a commodity of which rock-and-roll stars seem to have a distinct paucity. He was also grateful to her for supplying the piece of evidence that identified the substance which had harmed Sno. But, since she was there through my devices, no one ever knew exactly who she was or where she lived. All they knew was that she had been riding a horse which later came up lame. That's why the Whatcom County sheriff brought in the shoe. When Cindy identified it, Raydir asked her to return home with him and Sno, when she was released from the hospital, to manage his stables. Actually, if the story runs true to form, he has rather more in mind, although I'm not sure he's as good a match for Cindy as I might wish. I might have to do a little altera—"
"Flitters!" Prudence hissed.
Felicity shrugged. "The seven vets, having duly bonded and cleansed their psyches and bodies of impurities, and having saved a young girl's life, are all back at their former jobs with somewhat greater self-esteem than before, which is all that they ask. My contacts will be keeping an eye on each of those gentlemen, however, and should they run into medical, financial, or employment difficulty, a certain grateful father is willing to intervene on their behalf. This same father has also made a generous contribution to veterans' causes in their names, and has booked benefit concerts for disabled veterans."
"The boy with the cat?" Dame Charity asked. She herself had fifty-four cats, and some considered her more of a cats' godmother than a humans', a charge Her Majesty, ever a patron of woodland creatures, dismissed as discriminatory.
"Ah, Dico! Both he and Ding's Guerillas obtained plenty of publicity from this. Everyone has quite forgotten about Puss . . ."
"Now, how," Prudence said dangerously, "could they forget a thing like that?"
"Well, Ding, who as you know is musically quite gifted, has discovered that he and Dico have that gift in common. Ding learned this when Dico, who has never touched a musical instrument before, played all of 'Scheherazade' on Ding's bamboo flute. Of course, the press also knows Dico as a ventriloquist, which is how they accounted for Puss's speech. Now that the seven-day spell has worn off . . ."
"Wait," said the newcomer in the corner. "I thought spells lasted seven years."
"The life of a cat is rather accelerated, so the spells are briefer accordingly . . ." Felicity explained.
"Reedeep," said a sulky voice from her pocket.
"Except for those who've earned a longer period of rehabilitative enchantment," Felicity said into the pocket. "Your Majesty, I must commend to you Bobby Hunter. Once he figured out which side of the metaphorical lily pad was wet, he got properly into the spirit of things and was of great assistance in the conviction of Gerardine, formerly Quantrill, now Inmate #36984. Back to what I was saying, Dico Miller is now in Ireland studying with the great John Kinsale, who happens to be a relative of Ray's. Puss meanwhile is staying with the Nguyens when she wishes to sleep dry and be fed fish."
"Doesn't young Ding resent his friend for out-achieving him?" asked Dame Erzuli, who knew perhaps even better than the rest the havoc envy could wreak in a human heart.
"But he hasn't, Zuli!" Felicity assured her. "Music is only one of Ding's many talents. He was offered the chance to go with Dico and study with Kinsale, but he's a bit preoccupied at the moment. You see, he and the Guerillas received such praise in the press for his assistance in finding young Hank Bjornsen that interviewers who discovered his problem in getting into school have called for a massive investigation. Meanwhile he and his friends have been offered scholarships to the schools of their choice, and people have sent in money and offers of help. More importantly, because Dico was so intrigued by the stories of Ding's parents, Ding himself decided that the time had come to write those stories down, and he is working on a book about his parents' odyssey from Vietnam to America and all of the tribulations they have braved. It will, of course, become a bestseller."
"Flitters, you are shameless," giggled Dame Charity.
"And how would you assess your fulfillment of Rose Samson's original wish?" Her Majesty leaned forward, her eyes watching Felicity's face intently.
Felicity dropped her eyes. "I tried, ma'am, but frankly, the job was beyond me. If it hadn't been for Rose and all of the other helpful mortals, I wouldn't have made a dent. I'm afraid, considering it strictly as a godmother's assignment, that I made rather a mess of it."
The newcomer stood up, protesting. "That's not true at all! Because Felicity made things happen, the sleazy, corrupt people who kept Family Services from helping people the way they were supposed to were caught and the governor, in view of the publicity, was forced to appoint a new department head. He was practically forced to choose Rose, as a matter of fact. And she learned from Felicity how to cut through the crap and get things done."
Felicity looked embarrassed.
"Not to mention," the newcomer added, "that Rose and Fred are going to live happily ever after. They are, aren't they, Felicity?"
"It's their choice, but, yes, I think so."
"Very good, then," Her Majesty said. "On to new business. But first, We have something We wish to say to Dame Felicity. Flitters, dear, We think you have done very well with one of the most difficult assignments to challenge Our agents since the sorority's creation. If the city of Seattle is not living happily ever after, at least some people are happier than they were, and a great evil within the city's fabric has been vanquished. Besides which, the unselfish young woman who invoked your assistance on behalf of the city has herself found true love, and that is the best that can be hoped for of all fates. Therefore, as a special boon, We wish to grant you a wish. What wish would you have, Dame Felicity?"
"I wish," Felicity said, looking directly at Dame Prudence, "that since chaos and disaster and degradation and pain are so lavishly bestowed upon people, I wish, Your Majesty, that when it comes our time to dole out good fortune and wishes, we might be able to execute our duties under the auspices of those who are—or will become—rather less penny-wise and pound-foolish."
Her Majesty sighed. "That is a very great wish, Flitters, but We will take it under advisement. However, it is not what I had in mind. Have you nothing more tangible you would wish for?"
"Actually, Your Majesty, I have. I would like to grant Rose one more wish . . ."
"Out of the question!" Dame Prudence cried indignantly, but Her Majesty silenced her with a look.
"It isn't. I used my previous magic to grant Rose's wishes, which were all unselfish. Nevertheless I anticipate that her marriage to Fred Moran will be a brilliant success and they will live happily ever after. However, I have recently heard from former trainee Linden Hoff, who has returned to her home in Seattle from our Advanced Wish Fulfillment Training Seminar, which, as you will recall from commencement, she passed with—ahem—flying colors. While beginning her practice as a novice godmother, she will continue keeping tabs on the Seattle area while managing Fortunate Finery on our behalf.
"Linden is, of course, a great friend of Rose's. She tells me that with her new duties as department head, the poor girl hasn't had time to shop for a trousseau. Therefore, ma'am, my wish, which I am wishing on my own behalf, is that I may give Rose a present, that present being an open gift certificate to Fortunate Finery with the stipulation that whichever garment Rose chooses shall fit her to perfection."
Her Majesty smiled and nodded, and all of the other godmothers applauded except Prudence, who tapped her pencil on her ledger a couple of times before setting it down and clapping too, trying to suppress a slight smile that brought out a surprising dimple at the side of her mouth.
"Granted, and so be it," Her Majesty said. "Now, then, Flitters, who, pray tell, is this newcomer?"
"Your Majesty, may I present Snohomish Quantrill, an apprentice who, having been victimized by a woman who cared for nothing but her own beauty, wishes to spend her summers with us learning something rather more substantial."
"And how does your father feel about such a choice, my dear?" the Queen asked the girl, who was now less vocal and quite dazzled by the royal presence.
"I told him I'd be studying Irish folklore with Dame Felicity, Your Majesty," Sno replied.
"And so shall you be, child. So shall you be."