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she’d be home free.
    Except here came Octavia thundering down the hall, stalking her like a were-beast from some horror story.
    “Go away!” Cate whispered as she frantically flapped her fingers at the cat. “Shoo!”
    The cat sat on her plump rump and eyed Cate reproachfully.
    “Look, I’m sorry,” Cate whispered. “But you belong here and I don’t.”
    Octavia didn’t understand the words, of course. She was a cat, and deaf besides. But she certainly knew how to lay on the guilt with those blue eyes. Cate muttered another apology, got the now-locked door open, and squeezed outside. A quick dash down the stairs, then another around the house through the rain. This was going to work!
    Until a voice stopped her in her tracks.
    Reluctantly, she turned. A woman stood under a red umbrella beside the open door of a silver BMW in the driveway.
    “Willow?” The woman was slim and blonde, stylish in a fur-trimmed leather jacket and heels. Late fortyish. Very put-together. “I thought you’d moved out.”
    Cate reluctantly approached the car. “Amelia told you that?”
    “The officers who came out to tell me about her fall said the house appeared to be empty, and I came over to—” Then Cate saw an emergence of the puzzled expression that was almost familiar. “But you’re not Willow. Who are you? What are you doing here?”
    Cate hastily produced her identification card and an explanation about how and why she’d been here the day before. “And then I found the body out there at the foot of the stairs. A terrible tragedy.”
    “Yes, a terrible tragedy,” Cheryl echoed, although it was a preoccupied-sounding statement as she stared up at the house.
    “I came back today because I’m still looking for Willow. A family member is trying to locate her.”
    “And you were snooping around back of the house because . . . ?”
    With sudden inspiration Cate said, “I was worried about the cat. She got out during all the confusion yesterday, and I wondered if she was okay. She was around back of the house when I last saw her yesterday.”
    “Did you find her?”
    “Not out back, no.” Perhaps not a spandex-cling to the truth, but no actual lies there. Preferring to get away from that subject, she added, “Someone said yesterday that Amelia had a niece?”
    “Yes, I’m Cheryl Calhoun. Amelia was my aunt.”
    “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
    The woman stared up at the house again as she elbowed the car door shut. Finally, as if jerking back from some private thoughts, she nodded. “A tragic loss, yes. Thank you.”
    The words and tone were appropriately solemn, but if Cheryl was in deep mourning over her aunt’s death, Cate didn’t see any real sign of it. The thought occurred to her that if Cheryl was Amelia’s only heir, this property was now hers. Was that also what Cheryl was thinking as she stared up at the weathered hulk? Was it valuable? The house was old, but prices for vintage places were sometimes quite amazing. And the top-of-the-hill, end-of-the-street parcel was huge, probably dividable into several lots.
    “I don’t suppose you’d know where Willow might have gone when she left here?” Cate asked. “Her great-uncle in Texas is really anxious to locate her.”
    “No idea.” Cheryl paused and tapped a glossy fingernail on the handle of the umbrella. “It just seems very peculiar that she took off right after Aunt Amelia’s fall down the stairs, don’t you think? Maybe something a private investigator would want to look into,” she added with a meaningful lift of well-groomed eyebrows.
    “We’re not that kind of agency,” Cate said, even though she wasn’t certain what kind of agency they were. Uncle Joe had assured her that most of his current work was mundane: finding a deadbeat husband, running background checks, serving a subpoena. Not the thrilling car chases and gunfights that occurred regularly on TV crime shows. But there was more than routine work in his past, Cate