It Must Be Magic (2 page)

“About an hour ago,” Roscoe clarified.

“What was he like when you found him?”

Erika folded her body over the cat, hugging him against her abdomen. “He scuttles under the bed or behind the couch if I move too fast. And he hasn’t stopped shivering.”

Definitely some sort of trauma. Lili looked at Einstein. All the cat did was blink.

Lili would have to go in blind. “Let’s get started.”

She leaned into Fluffy and stared into his yellow eyes a long moment. His pupils adjusted even as she watched, her reflection shifting and morphing in his gaze. Staring at an animal could be a sign of aggression, but she’d discovered it also could be a form of hypnotism. Although who was being hypnotized, she was never quite sure. Finally she closed her own lids and found herself sitting in a tree with a long stretch of open meadow before it and the dense forest behind it. Well, she wasn’t exactly sitting, but cowering high up off the ground on a branch, her body scrunched up against the trunk. She smelled wet grass, damp earth and the grape-jelly scent of a carpenter ant. An oak tree. Carpenter ants loved oak trees. The ants tasted good, too, like grape jelly, just as they smelled.

Dead leaves rustled off to the left of the tree. Lili trembled with Fluffy’s terror. Something was out there. A human smell, yet rank, like raw meat left out in the sun. Light filtered through the trees, flashing off a gray object covering a human head, a helmet. And a sound, like the thud of a mallet into a wet, squishy sponge. The human wielded a tree branch or a stick, using it as a weapon. It rose and fell, rose and fell, repeating the horrible squishing sound each time it landed on…something. A misshapen thing on the ground.

Goose bumps peppered Lili’s skin. Her heart raced as Fluffy’s did. She wanted to run, but she didn’t want the human to see her. All she could do was cower in her tree and hide.

Lili couldn’t breathe, terror clogging her air passages and setting loose a drumbeat in her ears. She opened her eyes and dispelled the image. Einstein crouched in the middle of the checkerboard floor, her fur standing straight up along her spine. While Einstein couldn’t see into Fluffy’s mind, she could tag along on Lili’s trip, catching glimpses of what Lili saw and definitely feeling the terror.

It was Fluffy that amazed Lili now. His colors swirled and lightened, then he blinked and started purring. It was the oddest thing, as if sharing the vision eased his burden.

Erika smiled and bent to nuzzle Fluffy. “He’s purring.”

Lili didn’t catch a single sarcastic image from Einstein.

She couldn’t tell Erika or her grandfather what she’d seen. What Fluffy had seen. Lili had to think first. Was it real? Had she misinterpreted?

Roscoe looked at her, the laugh lines on his face distorted into worry lines. “Are you all right?”

She was far from all right. Fluffy was far from all right despite his purring. But she couldn’t tell Roscoe. “I’m fine. I always feel disoriented —” freaked out! “— after I do that.”

Her hands were shaking, and she clasped them in her lap.

“Wanetta never said it took this much out of you.”

It never had before. But then she’d never seen anything like this. She was used to dealing with nothing more severe than cat-box issues and dogs that snapped at their human’s hand.

Lili smiled, and she forced it all the way into her eyes to make Roscoe feel better. “I’m fine. Really.” Though
fine
was a word that could mean anything from “I’m okay but not great” to “I’m totally lying about how I feel.”

She had to act normal. She had to come up with something to tell Erika and her grandfather that wouldn’t worry them. At least until she figured out what to do. “Fluffy was hiding in a tree last night —” she gulped, searching for a lie “— while the coyotes were out. So he’s a little wary right now. I think the best thing is for you to keep him inside at night until he calms down.”

Fluffy hadn’t seen coyotes running some poor animal to ground. Lili didn’t think she’d misinterpreted anything.

Fluffy had witnessed a murder. A
human
murder.

“L
ILI TALKS TO ANIMALS,
and she said we have to keep Fluffy inside until he’s over the trauma of seeing the coyotes rip some little animal to shreds. Lili says there was lots of blood and gore.” Erika shuddered, then peeked through her lashes to gauge Tanner’s reaction.

Tanner ignored his daughter’s dramatic description of Fluffy’s trauma. He had a feeling it was greatly exaggerated to garner his sympathy, especially when he caught Roscoe’s smile before he wiped it off his face. Instead Tanner thought of the couch he’d replaced last year because Fluffy had taken to marking it as tomcat territory. Not to mention the scratches at the bottom of every door in the house and the claw holes in the kitchen screen. Fluffy didn’t like closed doors. The cat didn’t like a lot of things and was the bane of Tanner’s existence, but Erika adored the monster, though it was the furthest thing from a “Fluffy” that Tanner had ever seen. They should have named it Loki after the god of mischief in Norse mythology.

But Fluffy wasn’t the important thing in Erika’s tale. No, it was the lady named Lili. “So this woman claims to talk to animals? What, like Dr. Dolittle?”

They had a crackpot for a new neighbor. He should have paid more attention to who was moving in next door. Wanetta had been sweet as all get-out, and Tanner missed her. She always had a big smile and a kind word, and she’d loved Erika like a granddaughter. But her cats had fertilized his entire backyard. He was forever stepping in their mess when he was able to find a few hours to work in the garden.

“Is that the Dr. Dolittle in that ancient movie from the sixties, or the newer version with Eddie Murphy?” Erika asked.

Tanner rolled his eyes. “You watch too much TV. Roscoe is going to have to cut down your allotment.”

His father turned the volume down on the TV. And smiled.

He’d talk to Roscoe later about exactly what he allowed after school. “Did you get your homework done?”

“Yes, Dad. I did it right after we talked to Lili.”

“And do you think it was all correct?”

His daughter gave him a superior smirk. “Of course. So, can we let Fluffy stay inside? I promise I’ll put him out to go to the bathroom right before I go to bed, and I’ll keep my bedroom door closed, and I’ll let him outside as soon as I get up.” She looked at him hopefully, big blue eyes misting up.

His daughter had him wrapped around her little finger.

“Let me talk to Fluffy.” Not
talk
as the cat woman talked to animals, talk as in staring the tomcat down and letting it know who was boss. Tanner knew he was going to say yes to letting Fluffy stay in for the night, but he had to put on some kind of show.

“Don’t yell at him, okay.” Erika, the little scamp, blinked back patently phony tears and even let her lip quiver. “Lili says yelling damages his delicate psyche. And he’s in a very bad way right now.”

Lili. He’d have to talk to the woman about the nonsense he did
not
want his daughter’s head filled with. “I never yell at Fluffy.”

Roscoe cleared his throat. “Ah, yes, you do, Tanner.”

Erika nodded vigorously. “You do, Dad.”

He pulled the heavy tabby cat onto his lap, and it started purring. Which
was
a tad unusual, at least while sitting on Tanner’s lap, but he took advantage of the cat’s momentary lapse. “If I yell all the time, then why does Fluffy like me so much?”

Erika blinked. “He’s got Stockholm syndrome.”

Tanner gawked at her. “What?”

“Stockholm syndrome. You know, where the captive starts to identify with and feel sympathy for his or her captor.”

“I know what it is.” Then he laughed. Where did his daughter come up with these things? And with the straightest face. God bless. She was only twelve years old and so damn smart, he wanted to cry. How had he managed to raise someone so absolutely wonderful? “Fluffy does not have Stockholm syndrome.”

“Lili says —”

“I don’t care what Lili says.” He was sure Lili
hadn’t
said anything about Stockholm syndrome. Tanner tipped the cat onto the floor, slapped his hands on his knees and stood. “Tonight is fine. We’ll talk about what to do tomorrow night…tomorrow. And right now, what’s for dinner?”

Roscoe jumped to his feet. “Meat loaf and mashed potatoes.”

“What about the vegetable?” It was important for a growing girl to get her vegetables. While Tanner could have picked up fast food on his way home from work, he didn’t want Erika hooked on the stuff.

“Broccoli.”

He hated broccoli. But it was good for Erika, so he’d force it down, too. “Go wash your hands, sweetheart.”

Erika dashed out of the family room, Fluffy tucked under her arm like a bag of laundry.

As soon as she disappeared up the stairs, Tanner turned to Roscoe. “Tell me more about that woman in Wanetta’s place.”

“Lili Goodweather? She’s pretty.”

“I don’t mean her physical characteristics. Did she supposedly talk to Wanetta’s cats?”

“All the time.”

Tanner combed a hand through his hair, then did a wind-up motion with his hand. “And? What else?”

“Wanetta left her the house in exchange for all her help.”

Damn. “She bilked the old lady out of her house?” He definitely should have paid more attention to what was going on over at Wanetta’s place.

“It wasn’t like that. Wanetta thought of Lili like her own daughter. She wanted to help her. And she didn’t want the pound to take her cats. She wanted Lili to take her time to find the perfect homes for them.”

“Fine. So this Lili isn’t a con artist. But taking Erika over there —”

“It did the child good. She was in a bad way when Fluffy didn’t come home this morning. It broke my heart.” Roscoe put a hand to his chest. “And when she did find him after school, it damn near broke my heart
again
watching her try to cheer him up without success.” Roscoe gave him a glower. “So I’m not sorry I took her to Lili.”

Tanner felt the usual stab of guilt that he wasn’t there when Erika needed him. With each successive promotion, his home time was eaten away. He intended to be home by six o’clock, but three nights out of five, it was seven o’clock or later. Not to mention the weekend work he brought home with him.

“Now I have to get the meat loaf out of the oven.”

Tanner halted him. “I’m glad you took her over there. I can see it helped her.” Even if Tanner didn’t approve, Roscoe’s heart was in the right place.

His father smiled. “Lili is a nice girl, Tanner. You’d like her if you’d give her a chance. Go talk to her. See for yourself if she’s a good or a bad influence.” Then he hustled off to the kitchen.

“I will,” Tanner murmured as he went upstairs to change out of his work slacks.

He hadn’t always seen eye to eye with his dad, and he had a load of issues with the way Roscoe had lived his life, flitting from job to job while he’d tried to sell his musical compositions, which he’d never done despite his efforts. In many ways, Roscoe had abandoned Tanner’s mom, left her for weeks on end while he pursued a dream that had never become a reality. Until she’d died in a hospital bed of cancer with only her nineteen-year-old son at her side. Roscoe hadn’t made it home in time to be with her for the end.

Yeah, Tanner had issues with Roscoe, but his father had been a godsend since moving in five years ago. And Tanner forgave everything when compared to how Roscoe loved and cared for Erika. Tanner worked over the hill in Silicon Valley, an hour-plus commute each way, and that was on a good day. But he’d wanted Erika to stay in the same house she’d been born in and have the semirural upbringing she got in the mountain foothills. With Roscoe, there was someone at the house when Erika got home from school so she wasn’t a latchkey kid, or worse, hanging out at a mall. He shuddered to think about the four years before Roscoe had hit hard luck (not that he hadn’t
always
had hard luck) and had come to live with them. For the first few years after Karen had died, Tanner had had to entrust his precious child to day care. He’d woken up many a night in a cold sweat worrying.

Roscoe had saved him from all that. He’d saved Erika.

So now Tanner had put aside the things for which he’d long resented his father. What he cared about was that Erika grew up well loved, with a good, practical head on her shoulders. She would go far in life. He chuckled. Stockholm syndrome. Only
his
daughter would come up with something like that. She was so perfect, he marveled again that she was his.

And that was why he’d be paying Miss Lili from next door a visit. He didn’t want her infecting his daughter’s sensible mind with a bunch of fanciful thinking.

R
OSCOE PULLED THE MEAT LOAF
out of the oven and stuck a knife in it. Ah, perfect.

Even more perfect was Tanner’s upcoming after-dinner trip through the hedge. Sort of like Alice down the rabbit hole. Tanner wouldn’t know what hit him. Roscoe wasn’t sure if Lili could talk to animals, but he’d seen and heard some unexplainable things in his long life, and he was willing to give the girl the benefit of the doubt. Lili Goodweather wasn’t traditional. She wasn’t conventional. She wasn’t prissy. She was sweet, caring and full of vim and vigor, the influence Erika needed.

Tanner was a good father, though he did have a tendency to work too hard and play too little, but there was one big thing Roscoe faulted him on in raising Erika. The poor kid had no dreams. She wanted to be a finance major when she got to college and planned to climb to the top of the big corporate ladder, like her dad, who was a big finance muckety-muck over in Silicon Valley. What kind of dream was that for a twelve-year-old, for God’s sake? Not a
dream
at all. If her mother had lived, God bless her soul, she would have shown Erika the magic in the world. Karen had had the magic herself.

Lili was magic, too.

It wasn’t as if Tanner hadn’t had dreams once upon a time. Why, he remembered the kid talking about growing up to be a great anthropologist who discovered the missing link. But when Tanner had grown up, he’d thrown away his fancies, the good with the bad. Yet some dreams deserved to see the light of day. Roscoe knew; he’d striven toward his all his life. Even now, music played through his mind. He wanted that kind of dream for Erika. Something that made life worth living. Helping Erika do that had become Roscoe’s new dream, replacing the old.

Sending Tanner over tonight was the first step in getting him to see how good Lili could be for Erika. And maybe she was what Tanner needed to get that stick out of his butt. She could be more than good for the boy, if he let himself live a little.

They
all
needed someone like Lili in their lives.

E
INSTEIN HAD BEEN HANGING
close the entire three hours since Erika and Roscoe had left. During the first hour after her “talk” with Fluffy, Lili had made herself three cups of green tea with honey and a slice of lemon. Then she’d started to think realistically. The horror hadn’t worn off; it had…receded.

She wasn’t discounting the severity of it, but you had to control a problem rather than let it control you. When problems took over, they paralyzed the thinking process.

So Lili took control. She’d performed a million Google searches for information on a body found in the local mountains. Nada. Not even a missing person’s report.

So what was she supposed to do? She certainly couldn’t call the sheriff’s department and say, “A cat told me there’s a dead person within a mile of my house. And the cat saw the murder!”

Wanetta’s house was on the edge of town at the top of a winding, paved lane that wasn’t wide enough to have a stripe painted down the middle. The neighboring homes backed onto the forest and meadow, and there were numerous hard-packed dirt roads that led to ramshackle dwellings. Benton had its share of mountain men, like Buddy Welch, who was rumored to be antisocial. Lili had never even seen him. Their small town was as close to country living as you could get in the San Francisco Bay Area. Most people worked over the hill in San Jose or Silicon Valley. Lili didn’t know everyone, and they didn’t know her. She didn’t have an “in” with the county sheriff. She rode her bicycle to work; she’d never even been stopped for a speeding ticket. So
who
was she supposed to tell about what Fluffy had seen? Who would even believe her if she did tell?

Will you quit the pity party.
Which amounted to Einstein flashing her an image of four women sitting around a table with tears streaming down their faces. A scene from
Desperate Housewives?
Einstein loved TV. Sometimes — most of the time — Lili doubted Einstein’s claim that she was the reincarnation of the real Einstein. She could not imagine Professor Einstein being hooked on
Desperate Housewives.

“I’m being realistic. I can’t go to the police without something solid. What do we know right now?”

Nothing.
What Lili got from the cat was the red circle with the line through it. Although for Einstein it was more black than red. Cats weren’t color blind, but they saw more or less in dark and light. They also didn’t have the same acuity as humans, especially up close, so Fluffy’s images were a tad blurry.

“It was a man. I’m sure of that.” With a branch or stick, something with a bulge on one end, a silver tip. Since Fluffy had been looking down, she couldn’t distinguish the man’s height, plus he stooped as he…used the stick. She couldn’t make out his face, only the top of his head, which was covered by a helmet

“Do you think he was a biker?” It had been bowl-shaped like the helmets Harley riders wore. It was gray rather than black, though that could have been a trick of the forest lighting. Or a product of the ways in which cats saw differently than humans. Cats couldn’t actually see in complete darkness, but their eyes let in a lot more available light. To her human eyes, Fluffy’s images looked like daytime, but it could have been much later.

She stared at Einstein. The cat blinked her green eyes. “I should have asked Erika the last time she saw Fluffy before he disappeared. We’d get a better idea of what time it happened.”