Cat in a Sapphire Slipper Read online

  “Maybe it was that big alley cat of Miss Barr’s, Midnight Louie, miffed at the man for vanishing on her again.”

  “Nice try. A knife did the slashing, a big butcher knife from the block in the kitchen. That’s what grazed me. It probably had a ten-inch blade.”

  “Four inches can kill you.” Alch picked up the empty food bowl, then donned his purse-lipped thinking hard expression. “Seems to me your biggest problem is keeping your B and E secret. That could kill your career. You could go the lawyer route with Nadir, hold him at bay for a while.”

  She thought too. “Maybe I should do something even more draining about him.”

  “What’s that?”

  Molina picked at a loose thread on the bargain percale sheet hem. “Maybe I should talk to him first.” She sighed, and it hurt. What didn’t these days? “When I can stomach it.”

  A Deeper Shade

  of Black

  Black. Black.

  Everything was black.

  He was in a tomb. Or a tunnel.

  Did he see a flicker of light? No.

  Did he feel anything?

  Only the slightest twinge of consciousness after long unconsciousness.

  Or could he be sure of that?

  He was either blind, or his mind was a blank, like a blackboard with no writing on it.

  Wait. Blackboard. That was a concept. He had a mental picture of it, framed in wood.

  His mind was not black. Only his senses were.

  No feeling, no sight, no hearing, no smell.

  But taste. A bad, dry taste in his mouth, like he’d tried to swallow a toad.

  Toad. Another concept. Another mental picture.

  Something or someone was keeping him prisoner like this. Sense deprivation.

  An abstract concept. Not a thing, like a blackboard or a toad.

  He could think in concrete terms, in concepts and analogies.

  He just couldn’t see, hear, taste, smell.

  But he could think. That was a hopeful sign. A spring, a feather, a dove . . .

  Ideas were spinning in the blackness of his blackboard mind, but he felt even that feeble grasp on beingness fade to a deeper shade of black.

  There was no where, no what, no when.

  No who.

  No one else.

  Nothing.

  A Winning Pair

  of Diamonds

  “Oh! I almost squashed Midnight Louie again.” Kit jumped up again before sitting on Temple’s living-room sofa.

  “He’s hard to squash.” Temple watched the big black cat stretch luxuriously, claiming even more territory with his long muscular body and extended legs and tail. “He’s reclaiming the sofa because you used it for a bed before Aldo exported you to whatever hidden love nest you’ve been calling home lately.”

  Kit sat where Louie wasn’t. As petite as Temple, she could fit in the small space the resident alley cat wasn’t hogging at the moment. Temple perched on the sofa arm.

  Their elfin figures and pose made them look like mother and daughter, and they sounded like it, with their matching slightly raspy voices. But they were aunt and niece, roughly thirty years apart. Temple was thirty about to turn thirty-one, and Kit was roughly sixty and planned to stay that way for a good long time.

  Right now they were both going on eighteen.

  “I never saw yours up close at the Crystal Phoenix party,” Temple said, peering hard at Kit’s left hand.

  “I never saw yours at all that night.”

  Midnight Louie suddenly stood, arched his back like a Halloween cat, and thumped his twenty pounds down to the parquet floor.

  “Guess he doesn’t like girl talk,” Kit said.

  They watched him stalk into the adjoining office with its tiny adjacent bathroom and the open window he used as an informal doggie door. Temple had long since given up treating Louie like a cat. He was more like a resident furry godfather, the Mafia kind. She sometimes wasn’t sure who was letting who live with whom. The only certainty was that Louie knew his way around Las Vegas inside and out, turning up as regularly as CSI personnel at crime scenes.

  Letting him roam was less like letting a house cat loose in Sin City than exposing the town to feline muscle of the first water.

  Speaking of the first water, which was a term for diamonds of the greatest purity and perfection, Temple slid into the spot Louie had vacated—hmm, warm—and fanned her left hand alongside her aunt’s. They both sighed.

  “Yours is fabulous,” they said in concert, then laughed.

  “Does ‘yours’ refer to the ring, or the donor?” Kit asked.

  “Both, of course!”

  “Temple, why didn’t you say something the night of the party celebrating the successful close of the Red Hat-Pink Hat case! You didn’t even wear your engagement ring.”

  Temple sobered. “I had mixed feelings. What with Max so recently . . . missing.”

  “Gosh, what has it been now?”

  “Almost six weeks.”

  “Six weeks, really? Aldo and I have lost track of time flying between my condo in Manhattan and looking for new digs here. And still no word?”

  “Kit, a guy who sells his house and leaves town without mentioning it to his girlfriend is not likely to send homesick text messages.”

  “It’s a mystery. You’ll solve it.”

  “I will. Someday. But, meanwhile, we have to get you married to the eldest Fontana brother. All Vegas will be agog at this foreign New York City woman who skimmed the cream of the town’s deeply committed bachelors into her web of bewitchment in a few days flat.”

  Kit, an ex-actress who could look as demure as Miss Muffet when called for, eyed the glittering square diamond solitaire on her petite knuckle. “He did go all out when he finally went over to the wedlock side.”

  “The stone is huge!”

  Kit batted her eyelashes. “I’ve never bought the idea that small women should wear small hats and jewelry, have you?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Besides”—Kit leaned in to examine the intricate ruby and diamond ring on Temple’s left hand—“who’d a thunk an ex-priest would come up with a vintage ring ripe for appearing in the original cast of Broadway Babies of 1935. That’s a work of Art Deco.”

  “He got it at a little shop around the corner of the Strip. Fred Leighton. The wedding ring itself is a pair of ruby circle guards.”

  “I’ll be right there, ogling it at the ceremony.”

  “My matron of honor.”

  Kit teared up. She’d been a big-city career woman since college, and single. Who’d a thunk a Vegas hunk years her junior (who was counting exactly?) would be Mr. Right?

  “Why can’t you be my matron of honor?” Kit said. “That would be so deliciously unexpected. Aren’t you and Matt getting a civil wedding here before going formal and letting your mom and dad back in Minnesota know?”

  Temple sighed. “Maybe. Whatever we do, I don’t want to rush it.”

  “Probably wise,” Kit said, “given the large dangling loose end.” She saw Temple’s expression wilt. “Oh, sorry! Slap me so I bite my tongue! I didn’t remember that Max’s old magic act used suspended animation and bungee acrobatics.”

  Temple nodded, not able to speak for a moment, secretly afraid that Max wasn’t just missing, but dead.

  “Listen, kitten. Just think how flabbergasted Karen will be when she comes for the wedding and gets a load of Aldo. Her old maid sister marrying a devastatingly eligible Fontana brother.”

  “Mom’s coming?”

  “Sure. I mean, she is essential family. Isn’t she? Look, I know you’ve been kinda distant, and I don’t know why, except the same thing happened to me thirty-five years ago when I left Minneapolis for a bigger, more exciting city.”

  Temple had her hands to her face, which made the ring’s dazzle explode in the daylight from the room’s row of French doors. “Mom’s coming! Oh, my God. I hadn’t dreamed of that. I thought Matt and I would fly up to see her
and Dad and everyone in Minnesota . . . later.”

  “I doubt your brothers will come. Weddings are too girly. Bad enough they had to be at their own.”

  Temple laughed shakily. “Oh, God, yes. Men in flannel shirts, wearing Frye boots.”

  “Why did you leave Minneapolis for Vegas a couple years ago?”

  “Yeah, but I did, love. I was doing PR for the Guthrie repertory company when he came through with his magic show.”

  “He must have been some barnstormer to shake you loose of your Midwestern roots.”

  Temple smiled nostalgically. “And . . . it was pretty overpro-tective up north. When my four older brothers stopped dodging me as a hopeless tagalong, no one would let me go anywhere on my own. Max was the Big Bad Wolf who stole Little Red Riding Hood.”

  Kit reached out to stroke Temple’s shoulder-length hair. “Semi-red now. I love that strawberry color you put in over the blond dye job. How many PR women in this town go undercover for homicide lieutenants, I wonder?”

  “You think the hair came out okay?”

  “Great!”

  “Why not? It’s our color, our Pink Lady color.” Temple was referring to her and Kit’s masquerade as Pink Hatters at the recent, and deadly, Red Hat Sisterhood convention at the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino.

  “My blushes, Watson.” Kit put her hands to her cheeks this time. “As an actress I just can’t bear to advertise my age to one and all.”

  “Wearing a red hat does announce one is over fifty these days. Besides, red is not really your color.”

  “Damn right. Unless I’ve put a foot in my mouth again and am emulating a beet. So you do like lilac. We’ll have to hit the high-end shops. No bridal shop regalia at my wedding. Something different.”

  “Maybe vintage?”

  “Maybe. Maybe Italian designer. Aldo is springing for my duds and price is no object.”

  “Ivory leather? I saw a fabulous suit at Caesar’s Apian Way shops.”

  “A leather wedding suit? Love it! You are radical.”

  “It’s a pearlized ivory leather, with the jacket’s puffed sleeves and bodice leather done in cut-lace detail. It has a short skirt with a detachable bustle train that ends in just trailing lace. That would be too long on you, but all the more bridal.”

  “Wonderful! Let’s go get it. We’ll find something for you along the way. I can’t believe I got talked into a formal wedding within six weeks of the engagement.”

  “No problem, Kit. Van von Rhine could mount a British royal coronation in five days flat. All you have to worry about is showing up dressed.”

  “Well, if I wanted to make trouble for myself, I could worry about the bachelor party the other nine Fontana boys are throwing for their eldest brother.”

  “When is it?”

  “Tomorrow night. It’s a Monday, Matt’s night off at the radio station, so he can attend.”

  “Where is it?”

  “That’s the problem. It’s a secret. I know boys will be boys, but these ‘boys’ have been men on the town for a long time. I expect it will be bawdy, involve cigars, and strippers jumping out of things a lot more interesting than giant cakes.”

  “Hey, Kit. Aldo’s not going to blow his first attempt at matrimony.”

  “It’s not Aldo I’m worried about. It’s those fun-loving, hunky brothers of his.” Kit looked closely at Temple. “You’re frowning. You’re worried about the bachelor party too?”

  “Well, Matt will be there, and that’s not exactly his scene. But, no, my mind was moss-gathering.”

  “You’re too young for ‘moss-gathering.’ ”

  “Issue-gathering, then. I just can’t believe Mom is coming to a place like Las Vegas on such short notice.”

  “Kid, with us, the notice is always ‘short.’ “ Kit mugged the line, with an elbow to Temple’s ribs and a wink. Both were five feet flat, which is why they wore high heels. “Your landlady runs a wedding chapel, for heaven’s sake. She’ll help. The ceremony’s going to be held at your main hotel account, the Crystal Phoenix. Everything’s in place.”

  “Except . . . except I wasn’t anticipating introducing Matt to my family so soon.”

  “Why the hell not? He’s as presentable as Prince Charming. An ex-priest, for God’s sake. Any overprotective family has gotta love that. I mean, as Universal Unitarians, they’re very ecumenical, and he comes shrink-wrapped. What’s safer than that?”

  Temple was blushing again. “Don’t remind me. They’ll worry about that. Ask embarrassing questions about his sex life. Matt isn’t used to family interrogations.”

  “Un-huh. He handles anonymous callers with every kind of hang-up imaginable at the radio shrink line six nights a week. What makes you think he can’t handle your mother?”

  “Because I can’t?”

  “Gracious, girl. You’re all grown-up now. You’re a maid of honor for a mature bride. An engaged woman. You have been the paramour of a world-class magician and have an ex-priest lover. You have unmasked murderers.”

  “Kit! You’re plotting a romance novel, not reality.”

  “However you put it, I’d say maybe you’re grown-up enough to face down my sister, Karen. Who can be a teensy bit conservative.”

  “You skipped town to get away from family pressure too.”

  “True. Look, I’ll back you up. She will hit the roof over any off-white, high-end, train-trailing bridal gear of mine. I won’t tell her it was your idea. That ought to take the heat off. And we’ll get you something Miss Muffety in voile and satin with a Victorian high-collar neckline and a bow on the butt.”

  Temple dissolved in laughter. “Kit, why am I having worse bridal nerves than you over this?”

  “Because you’re next?” Kit cackled. “And I do expect to be matron of honor. I can wear the suit without the train, because of course you’ll be in pure, pristine white.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Your mother, and Matt, wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Cleanup Detail

  Carmen didn’t tell Morrie what she’d finally decided to do.

  Father figures were great in theory, but her fathers had been confusing.

  The Anglo mystery man who’d sired her had been driven out of the Hispanic family circle before she was born, her mother caving to ethnic, church, and family pressures. He was a literal ghost: pale, Nordic, blue-eyed. He lived on only in Carmen’s eye color, which had singled her out in every barrio and church and school photo of her early life. She would have hated him just for that if she’d had a chance to know him.

  Her mother had married after her “mistake,” Carmen Regina, girl-child out of wedlock. Carmen had never bonded with her stepfather. As the eldest, she’d been half a mother to the many children they’d conceived in unfettered Catholic Hispanic certainty.

  Every darling toddler seemed a rebuke. She’d loved them, and they her, but it was a sad charade of the half-life she lived. Carmen the half-breed.

  She’d discovered some soul mates, old ladies she’d crossed paths with. They were the eldest children of men killed in World War II. Only children, only survivors. Their young, widowed mothers had remarried and started large fifties families. The lone older daughter who didn’t remember a father became the stepchildren’s quasi-mother from a very early age.

  It didn’t make her crazy to go out and multiply on her own, whatever the church decreed.

  Her liaison with Rafi Nadir was born of mutual alienation.

  And then she’d ended up the mother of an only child in her turn.

  Except she didn’t see hooking up again in her case, having more children.

  Just this one. This precious one.

  So her own only daughter was also a half-breed. Half Hispanic-Anglo, half Arab-American. Really, a quarter-breed.

  People were supposed to say it didn’t matter. Ethnic origin. Skin shade. Eye color.

  It did.

  The knife wound had cut a swatch across Carmen’s olive skin.
/>   Hatred was equal opportunity.

  She felt the severing in her soul.

  She’d been angry, anxious, insecure. Had let it pile up into a mountain of mistakes.

  Why had Max Kinsella become such an obsession?

  He’d gotten away without a scratch. Gotten away in a smart, slick, easy, painless way.

  He hadn’t gotten stuck, as she had. He’d eeled out of a murder rap and even a miffed girlfriend he’d bailed out on for a year. Any other mortal would have paid, and paid big for being at the scene of the crime, skipping town, and coming back an uncatchable shadow. Not Max Kinsella. She hated people who got away with behaving badly. That had been her whole law enforcement life.

  Maybe because she’d never dared to behave badly herself.

  Until now. Breaking and entering. Arranging clandestine surveillance with an undercover cop who might be okay, might be rogue. Getting knifed, goddamn it, off the clock.

  Now that her wound had forced her to lie still and think, alone at home, hurting physically, she realized that she’d made as many unwarranted assumptions as Max Kinsella ever had.

  And she had been wrong! Kinsella was a target, as Matt and even Temple Barr had hinted. Not a perpetrator. He was an undercover operative? Kinsella! Holy Mother of All Things Annoying! She’d been chasing a shadow of herself.

  Her attacker had knifed her while shredding Max Kinsella’s Las Vegas life to bits.

  She’d thought she despised the man. She was a piker. Someone seriously whacked was out there.

  Was Temple Barr safe? She had to think about that. Matt? Or . . . worse. Her attacker didn’t know who she was, just someone there. What if she’d been followed home? What if Mariah was now a target? She, Carmen, and her one-woman pursuit mission, had exposed her daughter to terrible danger perhaps.

  Sitting up in bed made her belly burn as if she was in childbirth again.