The Ridge(78)

She’d had one rule for the call—don’t cry. It didn’t take long to determine that was a foolish rule. She couldn’t have cried if she wanted to. Her voice had all the emotion of stainless steel as she told Joe about Wesley, and the cop named Wolverton, and Ira.

“They’re looking for a way to get rid of us, Joe. The villagers coming with their pitchforks and torches. But I’ve been thinking about it all night, and I won’t fight them. This place… this isn’t a good home for these cats.”

“I see,” Joe said. “So you’re asking me—”

“I’m auctioning off my heart,” she said. “And you get an early bid.”

“Excuse me?”

With that the stainless steel melted, and she thought I’ll be damned—I can cry. The tears fell soundlessly down her cheeks, and on the other end of the line Joe Taft waited as if he understood.

“They need homes,” she said finally, when she could speak. “David brought them here so they’d have good homes. You said you could do it once, and I’m asking you to say it again. We have funding. There’s an endowment. Financially, they’d be cared for. I just need someone to actually provide the care. I can’t do it, Joe. I tried, and I can’t.”

He was silent.

“Will you do it?” she said. “Will you take them?”

“There are sixty of them,” he said slowly.

“Sixty-five. We had sixty-seven, but Kino is dead and Ira is gone.”

“That’s a lot of cats.”

“We have a strong endowment. The financial support is there.”

“I’m glad to hear it, but finances aren’t the only concern. I’ve got the acreage for them, but I don’t have the enclosures built. That takes time.”

“I know it does. But when the sheriff comes back here, I’d like to be able to tell him I have a transition plan.”

“Well, you can tell him that, I guess. I’ll need to build, and I’ll need to hire more staff. I can’t take sixty-five in addition to the cats we already have without making some changes. But here’s the more important question. With Wesley gone, can you hold out long enough for me to get this thing in motion?”

She stared out at the trees surging in the wind across the top of the ridge.

“I hope so.”


By the time Dustin Hall arrived, the police were gone, and it was just Audrey and the cats. She met him when he pulled through the gates, and the first words out of his mouth were, “What’s the matter?”

“I look that good, eh?”

He didn’t smile. The wind blew her hair across her face and she pushed it back with one hand and said, “Ira killed a police officer last night, Dustin. The sheriff has promised to shut us down. Plenty of things are the matter.”

Dustin got out of his battered Honda and went to her and hugged her. She accepted it, but the embrace was awkward and stiff, doing little to warm either of them.

“I’ve called Joe Taft,” she said.

“He’s coming down to help?”

“He’s coming down to take them, eventually.”

Dustin looked more stunned at this news than he had been about Ira’s killing.

“Take them?”

“I don’t see another choice,” Audrey said. “I can’t run it alone. Together, we’ll be able to feed them today. Working hard, we’ll be able to handle the feedings. But long term, Dustin? I just don’t see another choice.”

He took his glasses off and rubbed them clean with his shirttail, looking out at the lions, who were massing near the fences.

“They’re hungry now,” he said. “I guess we’d better get to work.”

He walked past her and toward the barn, and Audrey watched him go and felt a crushing sense of failure. Dustin had been one of David’s protégés, a student who fell deeply in love with the rescue center and its mission and its cats. He was disappointed in her, just as David would have been. But what else could she do?

She saw Lily, the blind white tiger, sitting upright and looking directly at her. The cat couldn’t see a thing, but still Audrey felt as if she were being watched. And judged.

“I’m sorry,” she told the tiger. And then, more softly, “David, I’m sorry.”


Robin, the librarian, smiled when Roy came out to her desk.

“Get what you need?”

“A start on it,” he said. “I’d like to know a little more about Frederick.”

“Most of what we have begins with Roger.”

“Frederick is my interest. He seems to have disappeared from the family pretty abruptly.”