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the nature of the black tom or where he came from but kept his mind on the immediate problem, wondering what other small village businesses the man and cat planned to hit.
    But maybe this had been a one-time deal. Maybe the pair was just passing through, heading up the coast—maybe they’d simply needed some walking-around money. Maybe they were already gone, hadhauled out of Molena Point for parts unknown.
    Sure. The village should be so lucky.
    No, this burglary hadn’t been impromptu. The planning was too precise, the team’s moves too deliberate and assured, as if they had done their research. As if they knew very well that the quiet village was a sitting duck, and they knew just how to pluck it.
    He hated to think that that cat might have been prowling the shops for days—maybe weeks—and he and Dulcie hadn’t known about it, hadn’t scented the beast or seen him. He imagined the cat and the old man idling in Mrs. Medder’s antique shop getting friendly with her, the old man making small talk as he cased the place looking for a safe or a burglar alarm, the black tom wandering innocently rubbing around the old woman’s ankles, purring and perhaps accepting little tidbits of her lunch while he, too, checked the layout, leaped up to stare into the drawer of the open cash register, and searched the shadows for an alarm system.
    He didn’t like that scenario. It was bad enough for a human to steal from the village shops. A cat had no business doing this stuff.
    Leaping from the table to the sink, pacing restlessly across the counter and glaring out the window, Joe wished he’d followed those two last night. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. Dulcie could find excuses to avoid confronting the black tomcat if she chose, but he was going to nail that little team. Licking egg from his whiskers as he watched the rising sun lift above the Molena Point hills, Joe Grey’s lust for justice flamed at least as bright as that solar orb—burned with a commitment as powerful and predatory as any human cop.

4
    C HARLIE GETZ had no reason to suspect, when she woke early Saturday morning, that she was about to be evicted from her cozy new apartment, that by the time most of the village sat down to breakfast she’d be shoving cardboard boxes and canvas duffles into her decrepit Chevy van, dumping all her worldly possessions back into her aunt’s garage—from which she had so recently removed them. Thrown out, given the boot, on the most special day of her life, on a day that she had wanted to be perfect.
    She’d already spent three months sponging off Aunt Wilma, had moved in with Wilma jobless and nearly broke and with no prospects, had lived rent-free in Wilma’s guest room after abandoning her failed career.
    During that time she’d launched her new venture, put what little cash she had into running ads, buying the old van and used cleaning and carpentry equipment, hiring the best help she could find on short notice. She was twenty-eight years old. Starting Charlie’s Fix-It, Clean-It and renting her own apartment, taking responsibility for her own life after wasting six years in San Francisco had been one big strike for independence. A huge step toward joining—belatedly—the adult world.
    Now here she was back to square one, homeless again.
    She had loved being with Wilma, loved coming home to a cozy house, to a blazing fire and a nice hot meal, loved being pampered, but she valued, more, being her own provider.
    Now, waking at dawn before she had any notion that an eviction notice was tucked beside her front door, she snuggled down into the covers, looking around her little studio with deep satisfaction. The one room pleased her immensely, though the furnishings weren’t much, just her easel, her single cot, her secondhand breakfast table, and two mismatched wooden chairs. Open cardboard boxes stacked on their sides like shelves held