Naked Once More (36 page)

The eyes didn’t move, even when she unlocked and raised the window. He was there, on the ledge, staring steadily at her through the screen.

Jacqueline stared back. The hairs on her arms were standing straight up, and her throat felt as if it were being squeezed by a huge invisible hand.

Lucifer spoke first. Receiving no reaction, he spoke again, more peremptorily.

“Uh… yes,” Jacqueline said idiotically. “Right away.”

She went to the back door and held it open. There was a thud, as the cat jumped down from the window ledge. He walked in, tail waving, and set out on a careful inspection of the room, sniffing under baseboards and peering into corners.

The sounds from the telephone had risen to unbearable shrillness. Jacqueline shook herself dazedly, and picked it up.

“It’s her cat,” she said.

“Of all the filthy things to do to a person,” Boots shouted. “I’m not well. I’m a sick man. You… What did you say?”

“I said, it’s her cat. Kathleen’s… I mean, Jan’s It was outside my window. Now it’s… Good night, Boots. I think it wants something to eat.”

Her surmise was correct. After checking out the kitchen, Lucifer sat down in front of the refrigerator and stared fixedly at it.

Jacqueline offered milk and opened a can of tuna, both of which were graciously accepted. Lucifer ate voraciously. He hadn’t been fed that day, but a big healthy cat ought to have been able to forage for mice if the need arose. He had, perhaps, had other things on his mind…

Jacqueline realized she was shivering violently. She closed the window; the temperature outside must be near freezing. Then she knelt down on the floor beside the cat. He stopped eating and looked at her. Enigmatic, expressionless green eyes… What was he thinking—what was he feeling? She put a tentative hand on his head, and he pushed it against her fingers. For several minutes she stroked him, until a faint purr began to rumble in his throat. When Jacqueline finally rose to her feet, her cheeks were wet.

“Stupid damned sentimental fool,” she said aloud.

Lucifer said meow. Jacqueline pulled off a paper towel and wiped her face. Yes, talking to a cat was definitely better than talking to oneself.

Lucifer finished his meal and started out of the room. Jacqueline decided she had better follow him and see what he had in mind. I’ve got to do something about a litter box, she thought. Or maybe he’s used to going outside. Damn, I wish he could talk. For several reasons…

What Lucifer had in mind was a nap. He went straight up the stairs to the bedroom. Jacqueline trailed behind like a nervous parent, wondering how he had figured out that her sleeping quarters were upstairs. Jan’s bedroom had been on the first floor. She turned on the lights as she went, and pointed out to her unexpected guest that she was prepared for visiting cats. “See the nice basket, Lucifer. It’s just the right size. Wasn’t it clever of me to buy it?”

Lucifer would have none of the basket, even when Jacqueline picked him up bodily and tried to put him in it. She discovered that a cat can be all bones and sharp angles when it wants to. So she gave up and watched resignedly as Lucifer jumped onto the bed, inspected it from pillow to footboard, and settled down in a soft ball on the former.

Leaving him to his no doubt well-deserved rest, she returned to the kitchen and refilled her cup, then carried it into the study. Her desk chair was more comfortable than the straight chairs in the kitchen, and she could put her feet on the desk while she chatted with Sarah. Sarah was probably awake. Nobody in New York went to bed before dawn.

Sarah had been asleep. And what was more, she had not been sleeping alone. Jacqueline announced herself, with revolting good cheer, and when Sarah repeated her name, Jacqueline heard it echoed in a voice that was only too familiar. “Is that Patrick?” she inquired brightly. “How nice. I was going to call him after I talked to you. Why don’t you put the phone down on the pillow between you, so you can both hear me?”

Sarah was incapable of comment, but O’Brien was not; Jacqueline let him rave on for a while before she interrupted. “Now, Patrick, just listen. This is serious. I’m deeply hurt that you would think me capable of playing that sort of rude joke. How was I to know you were there? I’m delighted, of course, but I couldn’t possibly… Why, Patrick, such language! I called to tell you about my latest murder.”

This produced the silence she wanted, and she took full advantage of it. When she had finished, O’Brien said, “Is it?”

Jacqueline didn’t have to ask what he meant. “Why ask me? There’s going to be an autopsy—”

“That may not do it. Did Darcy have her fingerprints on record? Most law-abiding citizens don’t.”

“I know. And there may be a problem with the dental records, too; Jan Wilson had been in a serious accident, her face was scarred. There could have been reconstruction of her jaw and teeth. Never mind that now. It’s late, and you need your sleep.” O’Brien made vulgar noises, and Jacqueline went on, “I told you, I had no way of knowing you were there. I want to ask Sarah something.”

She proceeded to do so.

“Yes, there was,” Sarah said. “In today’s mail. I had a hell of a time getting it, Jacqueline, Boots told his secretary—What? The file? Not that I could see, but I haven’t had a chance to do a thorough search, that bitch in the office—”

“Well, try,” Jacqueline broke in. “Booton isn’t going to be out of the office much longer. I doubt he’d have kept them—not there, at any rate—but I want to make certain. And send me that letter—with the envelope. Express, first thing in the morning.”

For all his fury at being disturbed—and caught in the act, Jacqueline thought to herself—O’Brien didn’t want to get off the phone.

“Just answer me one question, Jake. Why the hell did you call at this hour? Are those letters you’ve got Sarah looking for so important?”

“Yes,” Jacqueline said flatly. “They’re important, and so is time. I didn’t anticipate this latest development, Patrick; if I had… Well, obviously, I’d have tried to prevent it. It’s too late for Jan; all I can hope to do now is minimize the danger and the damage to other people. And don’t ask me to tell you what I’m planning. I don’t know myself. This is a whole new ball game.”

There was no response from O’Brien for several seconds. Then he said quietly, “You don’t have to tell me anything. But I get the impression you felt the need to talk to someone. If you’re upset—”

“Who, me? Ice Woman Kirby?” Jacqueline laughed. “I’m never upset, O’ Brien. Just because I knew the woman and liked her—”

“Okay, Jake.”

Jacqueline reached for a tissue and blew her nose. “Thanks, Patrick. Sorry I woke you up.”

“You didn’t.” He sounded amused. “But feel free. Anytime. Well—almost anytime.”

Jacqueline was smiling when she hung up. Dear Patrick, he always knew what to say. In this case he hadn’t said it; he didn’t have to. He of all people knew the fury and frustration of hindsight when a human life had been lost. “If I had only noticed, or done this, or not done that…” He of all people understood her need for communication and reassurance at such a time.

He hadn’t even told her it wasn’t her fault.

Feeling illogically consoled, Jacqueline started to get up, and then froze as her wandering eye observed something she should have seen before. She had been preoccupied with other, grimmer thoughts when she and Bill had made their quick inspection of the house.

“Oh, shit,” Jacqueline exclaimed.

The red lights on the strip that powered her computer, printer, and half a dozen other items were dead and dark. The plugs had been pulled out.

Jacqueline replaced them and turned on the word processor. She had known what to expect, but the sight of the blank menus, where correspondence, notes—and the thirty-odd pages of her outline—had been stored, moved her to profuse profanity. She began scrabbling through the litter of papers on her desk. The printed pages were gone too.

Jacqueline started awake from a dream of falling, to discover it had not been a dream. She was almost off the bed; one leg hung down, and when she opened her eyes she found herself staring, not at a nice soft pillow but at a hard wooden floor.

Cursing feebly, she shifted position. It was impossible to roll over; there was something heavy and solid pressing against her back. She had to lift herself up and rotate her body, a performance she would once have considered impossible.

The heavy, solid object was Lucifer. He was stretched out at full length along the precise center line of the mattress.

Jacqueline let her head fall back onto the pillow. She considered dousing Lucifer with the glass of water on the bedside table, but finally decided it would not be a smart move, for several reasons. He had been rather sweet, actually; she had had to shift him in order to get into the bed, but afterward he had come up to lie beside her. Without his warmth and simple physical presence she doubted she would have been able to fall asleep.

She would have to get a king-sized bed.

Lucifer followed her downstairs. He knew what he was doing, which put him one up on Jacqueline; she blinked vaguely at him when he went directly to the door, and he had to tell her twice that he wanted out.

The slant of the sunlight sifting through the branches informed her it was almost noon. She made coffee, but even that inspiring beverage failed to rouse her to mental alertness.

The discovery of her loss the night before had moved her first to profanity and then to frenzied activity. Purely as a matter of form she had checked the box in which she kept the back-up diskettes, and was freshly enraged, but not surprised, to find them gone. The person who had done the dastardly deed was familiar, not only with computers, but with the habits of writers who used them. Pulling the plug had been only a final, derisive gesture; the files had been deliberately erased.

That didn’t necessarily mean that the culprit had been a writer. Anyone who used a computer would have the necessary expertise. But only a writer would fully comprehend how important those lost words had been. Jacqueline could, of course, remember the bare bones of the plot. But the words themselves—the flesh and blood of the book—were gone, never to be recalled in their original, pristine form.

It had taken her two hours to get the bones back into the machine and onto paper. She was afraid to wait till morning; already she had forgotten too much. Not until she had finished, and tucked the folded pages into the pocket of her robe, did she search the room.

It had been a very neat, professional burglary. There was not the slightest trace of disturbance, except for the undeniable fact that her outline was gone, in all its varied forms. The windows were locked, as she had left them. They could not have been opened without breaking the glass. The back door had not only been locked but bolted, until she opened it to let Lucifer in.

She had locked the front door when she left, with the key Mollie had given her. The intruder had to have entered that way. Unless there was a secret panel somewhere in the wall… Under normal circumstances that idea would have appealed to her imagination and even inspired a search, but she was too tired and too depressed to find it amusing. The devices of Gothic fiction were not unknown in the real world; savage persecution of religious and racial minorities in the past had rendered them not only logical but necessary. But they were few and far between.

The front-door lock was a simple old-fashioned type that had probably not been changed since the house was built. Jacqueline’s experience with skeleton keys and picklocks was scanty, but if there had ever been a lock that could be jimmied with a hairpin, this was it.

She had been too tired to examine the lock the night before. With a sigh, she picked up a pencil, pulled a pad of paper toward her, and began making a list.

Two cups of coffee later she had revived sufficiently to think about getting dressed. When she went upstairs she left the list on the table. It read, in part: Cat food. Check lock. Call Sarah. Litter. Find out where the damned reporters have got to. Milk, coffee, bread. Jack, Brunnhilde, Marian, Augusta??? BOOKS. Litter box. Brontës.

With the magnifying glass she had taken from her purse, Jacqueline inspected the lock. It seemed like a professional thing to do. Unfortunately nobody was there to observe her performance except Lucifer, who was palpably unimpressed. She failed to find anything suggestive, so for a while she amused herself by focusing the pale sunlight through the magnifying glass, and moving the spots of light across the ground so that Lucifer could chase them, which he obligingly did.

They went back in together, and Jacqueline opened another can of tuna. She gave half of it to the cat and absently ate the rest herself, out of the can, while she considered her next move. The first and most important thing was to get the reporters off her back. There must be some way she could outwit them rather than waste time and energy eluding them.

If she were a horse—or in this case, a horse’s… Well, of course, Jacqueline thought, brightening. It was so obvious she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it immediately.

The
Sludge
was a weekly, so the next edition wouldn’t be out for several days. The representative of that distinguished journal would move heaven and earth, not to mention hell, his ultimate destination, to keep the story under wraps until the
Sludge
could scoop the world. Since keeping the story under wraps was her present aim as well, it would be strange if they could not reach a mutually satisfactory agreement.

The reporter was on stakeout, in his car. He leapt out when he saw Jacqueline. She snapped shut the padlock and pocketed the key before she turned to face him.

“MacDougal, isn’t it?” she asked pleasantly.

“MacDonnell. We met—”

“I remember. How are you this fine morning, Mr. MacDonnell? And where is your colleague?”

Mr. MacDonnell was well aware that she didn’t give a damn how he was, so he answered the second question. “In the lobby, watching the front door and that babe at the desk. She’s a dim bulb, that one. Does her husband beat her?”