Bran New Death(91)

“Darling, I can’t . . . but maybe . . . okay, all right.” I sat down in a chair and thought quickly. “Look, some way or another I will make sure that someone meets you at the airport.” I took down the flight details, then hung up, since his cab was waiting at the door and his ancient mother was yammering at him in the background.

I raced upstairs, woke Shilo up—she had gotten in very late the previous night—and told her about Becket and Pish and the whole shemozzle. She drowsily agreed that she could go fetch Pish at the airport in Rochester.

I stood over her watching her drift back to sleep. “Maybe I ought to go,” I fussed, glancing at my watch. “I’ll just run out, see if I can get the cat, then . . . if Becket won’t come to me, to heck with him,” I said. “I have too much to do to be ruled by that feline conniver.”

Shilo chuckled sleepily. “Don’t you worry about it. I’ll go and fetch darling Pish. If I can’t figure out how to get to the Rochester airport, I’ll rope McGill in to help.”

I sat down on the side of her bed. “What’s going on between you and McGill, Shi? I’ve never seen you spend this much time with a guy.” I knew his secret, but supposed that he hadn’t actually proposed to her yet.

She sat up and hugged her knees, yawning and rubbing her eyes. Her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders in waves. “Do you remember way back, when Julia Roberts married Lyle Lovett and everyone thought it was so weird?”

I nodded.

“I always thought her biggest mistake was divorcing him,” Shilo said dreamily, and yawned again. “That guy had character, you know? I mean, they got married real quick, and that was because the connection was immediate, intense . . . but she let it get away from her. Dumb girl. You find that kind of guy, you hold onto him.”

I didn’t say another word. She was an adult, and it wasn’t up to me to caution her against moving too fast. Shilo had been beaten up by the world when she was young, I figured, and deserved to find happiness however she could. She didn’t have contact with her family, as I had told McGill—that I knew—so her friends were the only family she had. I remembered how serious McGill seemed about my darling friend. I kissed her forehead, and said, “I’m going to get dressed, see you on your way, then go out to find that little monster.”

A half hour later, after running Shilo through what she had to do, calling McGill, and telling him she’d pick him up in my rental car—I just could not subject Pish to both Shilo’s driving and her car; it would be inhumane—and making sure she knew what flight he was arriving on, I was out the door to look for the cat. Okay, so I had stalled, not really wanting to go search for the wee beastie in the woods alone, hoping he’d come back on his own, but knowing I didn’t have a choice since he hadn’t.

He was probably all the way to Canada by now, I figured, but armed with sliced chicken breast from my dinner the night before in a plastic baggie, I waded through the weeds across the field toward the forest. I paused at the edge, peering into the shadowy depths, as a crow cawed raucously, and a wind came up, tossing the tops of the trees. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” I called, hopeful that I could tempt him out with just the magical sound of my voice.

No kitty.

“Becket, come on, boy! I have chicken!” That would have worked with a dog, but not Becket. I had been seeing his orangey hide on and off for weeks, but now that I wanted him, he had melted into the woods like an Iroquois hunter.

A breeze rustled the long grass behind me; I shivered as I mumbled a stream of invective against Gordy and Zeke, my nonexistent grounds crew. Then I took a deep breath, thinking of how pathetic Becket had looked when I found him near death, and started down the path into the woods.

“Becket! Here kitty, kitty, kitty!” I said, rattling the plastic bag. “I have chicken!”

I peered into the green, shadowy depths every few steps, looking for a streak of orange. Where had that cat gone? And why? I didn’t get it; he had a home, a litter box, food and water and a comfortable bed, with a shirt of my uncle’s draped over it, so the smell would be familiar. He had the run of the castle, his home, even if my uncle was gone. Why had he taken off first chance he got?

As I walked, I couldn’t help but let my mind drift to the troubling mystery of Tom Turner’s murder. I hoped that the mystery was like a sweater I once had, one that had a loose thread. I picked at that thread so much, it eventually unraveled and the whole sweater fell apart. Maybe if I picked at the threads of this mystery it would all fall apart and I’d see the pattern, as I had that knitted sweater.