Secret's Shadow (Cassidy McCabe Mystery #1)

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Cat

Cassidy McCabe zipped her rattletrap Toyota into the left hand slot of her garage and dodged around garden tools strewn along the wall. Later than I thought. Should've left an hour ago. She emerged from the dark garage into a yellow wash of street lights on Briar, breath quickening at the thought of what might await her on her answering machine.

She rattled down the door, scanning both the alley next to the garage and the street leading to her large corner house. Exhaust fumes and the shriek of sirens floated in from Austin Boulevard a half block to the east. Austin was the demarcation line between one of the highest crime ghettos of Chicago and her own middle-class, struggling-to-integrate suburb of Oak Park. Living so close to Austin, she was always careful. But careful had turned to vigilant since the calls began.

Across the street a woman hurried down Briar from the bus stop, shoulders hunched, one hand gripping a briefcase, the other jammed in the pocket of her corporate-type suit, pepper gun probably clenched in her fist. At the end of the block, a trio of black teenagers standing in the middle of the intersection exchanged high volume, belligerent "Fuck- you's."

A warm spring night, scattered cars parked on both sides of the street. She stepped into the shadow at the corner of the garage, checking quickly for occupants.

Don't be a baby. Only a couple of anonymous calls.

Jogging the ten yards from garage to gate, she allowed her mind to drift back over the evening. Another godawful Wednesday night dinner with her mother. Thirty-seven, divorced, a therapist yourself and you still let her get under your skin.

She sprinted through the gate toward the pool of light at her back door. Spotlighted by the bulb, a cat sat erect in the middle of the mat, watching her arrival with all the aplomb of an official delegation. As Cassidy climbed the steps, the cat undulated to the door and poked its nose into the crack.

"Sorry, your highness. Wrong house." She was turning the key when the ringing began. She bolted through her client waiting room, raced across the kitchen. Her hand grabbed for the wall phone, then wavered. Might be him. The machine could take it.

As the fourth ring faded, Cassidy started toward the door to lock up. But the ringing resumed, drawing her back like a tractor beam to stare at the phone's sleek plastic surface. Chewing her lower lip, she leaned against the refrigerator and counted rings. Four, five, six. Why didn't the machine cut in? The second call followed the first so quickly the machine had not had time to reset itself. She picked at a loose end of tape across the corner of a Sylvia cartoon. Maybe the same caller redialing right away to harass her.

Your imagination's running away. You do occasionally receive calls that are not threats.

After nineteen rings it finally stopped. She took a deep breath, the tension in her neck and shoulders subsiding.

She turned to see the cat, who had slipped in with her, sniffing along the edge of the stove. Small, only a kitten, lean as a dollar bill. She heard her mother's tart voice: Never feed a stray. Once you feed them, you can't get rid of them.

"Hey you. Cat."

Enormous amber eyes looked up, ears and nose forming a tiny triangle, one ear orange, one ear black, small pink nose. White, with orange and black patches. A calico, so it had to be female.

"You picked the wrong person to schmooze. I don't even like cats." She pictured a shabby kitchen with cats on the counter, refrigerator, table, a stink that knocked you out when you walked in the door: the house of her best friend in childhood.

Inching back behind the curling seam in the linoleum, the cat flattened her ears, twitched the tip of her tail. Wide almond eyes seemed to say: I might be willing to overlook this irrational prejudice, but don't expect me to beg.

"I'm broke, I can't afford another mouth to feed. You wouldn't want to live with a cat hater anyway, would you?"

Mrump

"Oh, forget my mother." Ferreting a can of tuna out of the cabinet, she grabbed a used lunch plate from the counter, plopped food on it, and held it out to the cat. "It's not like I usually follow her advice or anything." The cat bumped its head against her hand. "Course I always live to regret it."

As the cat growled over the tuna, she rounded the oak cabinet which separated the kitchen from the client area, crossed the waiting room, and locked the back door. After shredding newspaper into a box, she left the cat scouring an empty plate, closed the swinging kitchen door, and went upstairs to her master bedroom. Flicking on the overhead, she crossed to her executive desk in the corner, eyes instantly drawn to the red light on the answering machine. Three blinks.

Stalling a little longer, she reprogrammed the controls so the first call would pick up on the fourth ring, subsequent calls on the first. One ring would be easier to resist.

Stop procrastinating.

She took a pen out of her ceramic-mug penholder and pushed playback.

"Seven-thirty. Thought you'd be here by now. I made that tuna casserole you always like so much, but it'll get soggy if it has to sit much longer."

Beep.

I'm never on time, she knows that. Tuna casserole-haven't liked it since I was ten years old.

"It's Maggie. Village board was really something. This gay rights debate-it's bringing all the insects out of the woodwork. Somebody actually said, `If people choose to be ho-mo-sexual....' And here I always thought Oak Park was progressive. Oh, and by the way, remember the thing about John Carter getting sued? He just got served. Malpractice against therapists-it's going to be the scourge of the nineties."

Beep.

Gotta be hard for Maggie, listening to that bilge. And why'd she have to mention malpractice? I don't want to think about overdue bills.

"As I told you before, we need to locate your ex." The voice, cool and precise, like a voice on public radio. The instant she heard it, her heart began banging into her rib cage. "You're screening your calls, and it's beginning to annoy me. You parked your beige Toyota in the garage at ten-twenty-five. You walked in the door just as the phone started ringing and refused to pick up. We'd prefer not to hurt you, but if you don't start cooperating, we'll be forced to apply pressure."

Beep.

Oh shit. Worse than oh shit. Watching the house. Kevin, you jerk, you wanted the divorce. What've you done now?

Hugging herself tightly, she rocked up and down on her toes. Third time Public Radio Voice had called. Avoidance wasn't working.

Do something! Call the cops. Get help.

No you don't. No thrashing around. Can't find Kevin. Hasn't shown his face since the last time he tried to borrow money. This guy's scary. Too slick to get caught. Keep your mouth shut, lie low, and maybe he'll leave you alone.

Her eyes darted to the north window, then to the west, one on each side of her corner desk, the interior light creating glass surfaces as opaque as reflector sunglasses. She flipped the overhead off and looked down from the north window. A large maple sporting frilly new leaves obscured the view. She lowered the blinds.

From the west window her gaze swept a wide, well-lighted street, lined with arching trees. A few parked cars, a man walking a lab. Nobody standing under a lamp post. Large older homes, mostly dark now, tucked away for the night.

Everything looked ordinary, reassuring. She pictured her grandmother's bungalow, remembering how safe she'd felt growing up there, back when Oak Park still resembled Hemingway's village of wide lawns and narrow minds. All that had changed now. Late in the sixties, when the west side of Chicago turned black, block by block like dominoes, Oak Park found itself standing squarely in the path of a sociological steamroller. The narrow minds hightailed it out to the all-white land beyond O'Hare, leaving behind a band of resolute citizens determined to stop racial turnover at Austin Boulevard and transform their village into a racially, socially diverse community. Oak Park became a magnet for crusading types who saw the village as a sanctuary for modern urban refugees: minorities of all kinds, interracial families, Unitarians, gays, singles, the handicapped-you name it, a place for everyone.

Cassidy was a firm believer in Oak Park's reinvented identity. But the problem was, the village represented a small, idealistic island surrounded by a sea of predators. It had no moats, no walls to keep out the bad guys.

Public Radio Voice was out there somewhere, but he wasn't likely to wave up at her. She lowered the blinds, did her entire yoga routine, not the usual three stretches and a flex, then climbed into her king-sized bed. After a long stretch of racing and churning, she finally fell asleep.

A small, furry body suddenly plopped on her face. She sat bolt upright. Fur flashed as the cat retreated to the foot of the bed.

"Oh no! Not you."

Two big eyes shone in the dark.

"What do you do, walk through walls?" The kitchen door doesn't close tightly. It's not her fault.

Cassidy lunged but the cat was faster. She leapt off the bed, white fur disappearing into darkness.

* * *

She was in her childhood home. Her mother was in the kitchen making tuna casserole and Kevin was in the bedroom talking and laughing with some woman she didn't know. She was in the living room, deep in telepathic conversation with a calico cat perched on the mantle.

"He's coming," the cat said. "Forget Kevin and your mother. There's nothing you can do to save them. You've got to save yourself."

"Who's coming? I can't run off and leave Kevin and Mom."

"Too late. There's nothing you can do. He's coming."

"Who's coming?"

"The man with the voice."

She sensed a gigantic, shadowy figure at the door. His voice blared through a loudspeaker, enunciating with exaggerated precision. "If you are found hiding Kevin, you will be sent forth naked and alone, to sit on other people's doorsteps and beg for food."

Kevin and the woman laughed louder.

The smell of tuna casserole made her gag.

The cat opened her mouth and emitted a howl . . . the howl turning into a scream . . . the scream turning into her alarm.

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Excerpted from Secret's Shadow by Alex Matthews. Copyright © 1996 by Alex Matthews. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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