They chatted about the display Catty would have and how much Graciela should spend. I wasn’t a part of the conversation, but it was too late to move to another table. I was not getting any closer to finding the predator.
I had looked into the sapphire dog’s eyes only an hour before. After I’d seen something so alien and beautiful, the everyday chatter around me made me feel utterly out of place.
Then Hondo stopped by. He greeted everyone enthusiastically, especially little Estrella. Turning to me, he said: “I take it your lady friend decided not to leave after all.”
Someone on the other side of the room laughed uproariously. People were having fun. “What do you mean?” I said.
He was a little surprised by my tone. “Your friend. She paid me a pickup fee for the train station, but it only takes a half hour to drive out there. I’m still waiting for her call.”
Francine noticed the look on my face. “Maybe she has a problem with her phone,” she said in a soothing tone.
Now Hondo was looking concerned, too. “I don’t think so. Arliss at the station knows my cars. He says it’s not there.”
Catherine didn’t arrive at her destination. I dropped my napkin onto my plate. “Excuse me.”
“Hey, man,” Hondo said, “do you need help?” Everyone at the table looked ready to jump up and join the search.
“Thanks, but no. I’m sure she’s fine. I just need to make certain for my peace of mind.”
I pushed my way toward the door. As I passed the firefighters, I heard one of them say he had to get back to his family for Christmas, then they stood, too.
I made my way back to my car. It was nearly three-thirty, and Catherine had left around noon. I had to find out what had happened to her.
CHAPTER NINE
I parked across the street from the B and B. Two people on stilts came down the shoulder of the road. They were dressed in silver costumes, with white masks over the top half of their faces and delicate dragonfly wings on their backs. The costumes were decorated with snowflakes and reflective tape. The rented Acura was nowhere in sight.
I went into the Sunset, still feeling like a bomb ready to explode.
Pro Wrestler was sitting at the little desk in the living room entering figures into a computer. He hunched over the keyboard, carefully tapping the keys with thick fingers, and I felt a startling yearning to be like him. To hell with feeling like a bomb. I’d rather be a human being. I walked up to him and extended my hand. “Thank you for your help this morning,” I said. “I’m grateful. My name is Ray.”
He already knew my name from my credit card, of course, but he took the hint. “I’m Nicholas. Those clothes look a little loose on you.”
We were smiling. “Yeah, but they’re warm.”
“Good to hear. Staying for the festival?” He looked around the little lobby. I did, too. A man in a long tan coat and a wide-brimmed tan hat sat by the fire. Nicholas’s expression was slightly disappointed. Obviously, he’d hoped for a bigger crowd. “Sure,” I said, because why not? “Sounds like fun.”
I was about to ask if he’d heard from Catherine when Nicholas said: “I almost forgot.” He took a manila envelope from the bottom drawer of his desk and handed it to me. My name was written on it in sweeping lines of delicate brown ink. The envelope held something bulky and small.
“Where did this come from?” I asked.
“Nadia found it on the front porch.”
I tore open the envelope. It was a cellphone wrapped in a sheet of notepaper. It was Catherine’s, but I turned to Nicholas and said: “Someone found it. That was nice of them.”
“Does it say who?”
I said the note was unsigned, thanked him, then went to my room. Once the door was locked, I sat on the corner of the bed and opened the slip of paper. It read PRESS REDIAL in the same sweeping hand.
What the hell. I’m good at following directions. The phone rang twice. “Hello?” It was Well-Spoken Woman, and she had me on speakerphone.
“Thanks for the phone,” I said. “I have a pal in Tokyo I’d like to call.”
“We know your name, Mr. Lilly, and we know why you are here. If you would like your friend to live through the night, come to the Grable Motel. It’s out past the Breakley farm. Come right away.”
“Give me an hour or so to wrap up.”
“Unacceptable.”
“I have to wash the blood off,” I said testily. If they really did know why I was here, they would believe that.
“All right then.” She sounded hesitant, which was what I wanted. We hung up.
The bed smelled like laundry soap, and the plug-in pine scent made the air close. God, how good it would have felt to lie back and close my eyes …
There was a knock on the door. I opened it, figuring Nicholas must have another envelope for me.
It was the man in the tan coat. He was a little shorter than me, even with his hat still on, and his skin and hair were the color of sand. “You’re Raymond Lilly, aren’t you?”
I didn’t like the way he was smirking at me. “Yeah. Who are you?”
“I’m Talcott Arnold Pratt. The society sent me here to clean up this mess.”
