Nine Lives

Danni blinked rapidly and took a couple of steps backward. On closer inspection, the Dupree woman looked a little too scary to mess with.

Charity spat out the gum she’d been chewing as Cat calmly handcuffed her.

“Hey, honey, button up my coat for me, will ya? I’m freezing here.”

Cat eyed the long stretch of bare legs between the hem of the mini-skirt and the top of the black boots, then the size of the breasts pushing at the low-cut sweater, and snorted lightly.

“Cold boobs are the least of your worries,” she stated, and then took Charity by the arm.

“Wait!” she cried. “My bag. Danni, get my bag out of the cab!”

Danni took the bag and sent the cab driver on his way.

“Please,” she asked, as she held the bag out to Cat. “Can’t she even have her things?”

Cat kept on walking, pushing Charity along in front of her.

“The state of Texas is about to provide all she’s going to need for the next year or so.”

“Danni, keep my things for me,” Charity asked.

“Let me know where you’re going!” Danni called after her.

Cat opened the back door to her SUV and gave Charity a little push as she got her inside. Then she leaned in and buckled the seat belt.

“Thanks so much,” Charity snapped.

Cat eyed her without answering.

Charity opened her mouth to say something else, then Cat leaned in.

“I didn’t put you in this position, you put yourself in it. So don’t give me any crap. I’m not in the mood.”

Charity’s nostrils flared in anger, but she stayed quiet. She didn’t have to like the bitch, even if she was right.

Five

By the time Cat got to the precinct to turn Charity in, she felt feverish. She started getting shaky and weak down in booking. A drunk had thrown up in a waste basket by the door, and two homeless men were trying to report the theft of their shopping cart from outside the alley near a Chinese restaurant. Along with the heat being pumped through the overhead vents, the mingled odors were appalling. She could feel her stomach starting to roll.

The desk sergeant was asking her something about Charity Kingman. She could see his mouth moving, but his words were all running together. When she looked away, the wall behind the desk started to melt. That was when she knew something was wrong.

“I don’t feel so good,” Cat muttered, and slipped her arms into the sleeves of her coat. “If you have any more questions, call Art’s Bail Bonds. She’s one of his.”

She walked away without looking back, telling herself that she would feel better once she got some fresh air. But it didn’t work. The cold blast of air just made her shiver.

She started across the parking lot toward her car, thinking that if she just got inside, she would be okay. But the more she walked, the farther it appeared to be. There was a part of her that knew she shouldn’t drive, but she wanted to go home—needed to go home. There might be word about Mimi. There had to be word. You couldn’t just “lose” a friend like you lost a wallet. She had to be somewhere.

Wilson’s day had been just as productive as Cat’s. He had turned in a bail jumper over an hour ago and was walking through the parking lot to his truck when Joe Flannery hailed him.

“Hey, Wilson. Heard anything more from your girlfriend?”

Wilson frowned. “She’s not my girlfriend, and you know it. At the moment, she’s as pissed off at me as she is at you.”

“She didn’t turn in a missing person’s report,” Joe said.

“Are you waiting for me to say, ‘I told you so’? Fine, I told you so,” Wilson said.

“Yeah, I figure her friend showed up and she’s too embarrassed to let us know.”

Wilson thought about it a minute, then shook his head.

“That doesn’t sound like something she would do. She appears pretty forthright to me.”

Joe grinned.

“She’s pretty, all right.”

But Wilson couldn’t play easy about what he felt for her. He didn’t even know why he kept thinking about her, other than he had that damned charm. Maybe when he got rid of it he would be rid of her, too.

“She’s tough as hell,” Joe said. “’Course, she had to be, to survive what she did.”

“What do you mean?” Wilson asked.

“You saw that scar on her neck?”

Wilson nodded.

“The man who killed her dad, some tattooed guy, also cut her throat. She was just a kid, but his death put her in the system. Eventually she aged out. Word is, she’s in this business because she’s always looking for the killer.”

Wilson felt a little sick to his stomach, imagining what a trauma like that would do to a child.

“Jesus…they never caught him?” he asked

“No.”

“What about her mother?”

“She and Cat were in a car wreck when Cat was six. The mother died. Cat didn’t.”

It was suddenly becoming clearer to Wilson why Cat Dupree kept an impenetrable wall between her and the world. It was too damned painful when she didn’t.

“So…you going home for Christmas?” Joe asked.

“Probably,” Wilson said. “I always do.”

“Tell your folks I said hello.”

“Yeah, sure,” Wilson said, and then Joe’s cell phone rang, and they parted company.