Midnight had wedged himself behind the filing cabinet and latched all his claws deeply in the carpet, locking himself to the floor. Speedbump had crawled into her desk and kept slithering between the drawers no matter how she tried to catch him. Pirate just bolted away whenever she got near and hissed his worst insults at her.
Her office door rattled.
She popped up, looking over the desk.
In the tall, narrow window beside the door, Cash’s face was visible above the potted plant. One of his eyebrows was lowered.
She stood and unlocked the door for him, cracking it open a scant inch to talk.
He said, “I’ve got my car waiting downstairs.”
“I can’t get them into the carriers,” Rox admitted.
“Why not?”
“They hate the carriers. The only time that they get shoved in the carriers is to go to the vet or to go live in the car, a decision that was highly unpopular among the masses.”
“Just shove them in.”
“I can’t catch them.”
“Let me in. Animals love me.”
She glanced behind her, but all three cats were hiding in her office somewhere. When Cash had come in earlier, they had been sleepy and sluggish, but now they were riled up and might try for an escape. “Okay, come on.”
With the door just barely open, Cash turned his broad shoulders and slipped in. He stepped close to Rox, so close that she could have stepped forward into his arms again.
Pirate slammed into Rox’s leg and dodged between their legs, trying to sneak out.
She grabbed the scruff of his neck and yanked, dragging him backward.
Pirate yowled.
Outside the office in the cubicles, Mel and Daffodil poked their blond heads up over the blue-padded walls, prairie-dogging, as Rox slammed the door. “Dang.”
“Such language.” Cash stooped, looking under the chairs.
Rox still clutched a handful of cottony ginger fur and pinned Pirate to the floor. “I’ve got one. Grab that carrier.”
Cash picked up one of the plastic carriers and swung the door open.
“On the floor,” she told him, crouching beside the cat and holding the fur on his back, too.
Pirate hissed so hard that he spat.
“Hold the door open.”
Cash swung the steel bars aside.
Rox shoved the cat at the carrier.
Pirate grabbed the sides of the opening with three paws and held on with his claws, wedging himself outside as he howled his rage, an ascending screech that raked her ears. As Rox pushed, trying to shove him in, the whole carrier scooted across the carpeting.
Pirate twisted, almost getting loose.
“Hold it!” Rox said.
Cash stuck a knee behind the carrier and reached around, peeling Pirate’s paws off of the carrier.
As he picked away the second one, Pirate lost his grip, and Rox crammed him in the carrier and slammed the door just as the cat whirled and came at her, claws flying. A whiff of cat fart drifted out of the box. That’s how mad he was.
“Okay,” she said. “One down. Two to go.”
Cash’s startled eyes over the top of the carrier made Rox laugh.
He asked, “Are they all like this?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “Pirate’s a little pussycat. Midnight has a heck of a temper.”
THE LAST NORMAL AFTERNOON
Rox had always heard that Cash Amsberg was loaded.
It was obvious from the way that his suits and shirts were precisely tailored far too well to be off the rack and from the car that he drove. The Mercedes Maybach wasn’t an ostentatious, low streak of red lightning like a Lamborghini.
No, it was more deceptive than that.
The paint on the outside was a refined charcoal gray, but the interior upholstery and finishes shimmered in a lighter shade, like sitting inside the palest of Tahitian black pearls.
It looked just like a very nice Mercedes sedan until you realized that it said Maybach on the back, that the leather under your butt was softer than the most buttery leather jacket you had ever felt, and that all those wood and silver finishes meant the price tag had to be around two hundred grand.
Like Cash, it was merely pretty until you saw more of it, and then there was something else, something that Rox had never quite sussed out of him, a luxurious vibe.
When Rox belted the cat carriers into the back seat, the sharp odors of fresh plastic, wood oil, and tanned leather permeated the car.
“Your car smells new,” she said to him. “Did you have it detailed? How did they do that?”
He shrugged. “I got a new one.”
She stared at it. “It’s exactly like the one you had last month.”
“Of course. The dealership kept my order on file.”
“Your new car is exactly like your old one?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”