Free Cat Breaking Free by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Page A

his instinct was to stay put, to watch, and let this come down as it would. Tonight every cop was busy, the intruder had to know that. Joe thought he’d better play it by ear, maybe go for the evidence. With every cop in the department either up at the fire or chasing unseen miscreants through the dark streets, it was, indeed, a hard call.

7
    C rouched among the thin, brittle branches, his nose tickling with the sharp smell of lemons, Joe stared in through the dark window watching the housebreaker’s stealthy movements. In the inky-black room, he could make out very little even with his superior night vision. But suddenly he was blinded. Light blazed on, right in his eyes. Backing away, nearly falling, his every nerve jumping with shock, he was caught in the brilliance like a deer in a speeder’s headlights.
    Hunching down, trying to hide his white parts, he had no real cover. Light pooled in through the skinny branches and scruffy leaves. In its glare he couldn’t see the intruder’s face, the hood was pulled nearly together. Black might be melodramatic, but it was effective. There was a bulge in the intruder’s right pocket. A weapon? Skinny guy, even in the oversized black sweatshirt. Opening the dresser drawers, real bold now. What was he looking for? Something in particular, or just any valuables he could find, money, credit cards,jewelry? Or was he putting something in the drawers? He seemed very casual and unhurried.
    Either the lock on this back door had been easy to breach, a credit card lock, or the guy was mighty fast with the lock picks. Or had Chichi left it unlocked? Had she forgotten to lock it? Or did this person have a key?
    Maybe the new owners hadn’t changed the locks, some people just didn’t think of those things. Or had Chichi given someone a key? From the front of the house, Joe could still hear dialogue and canned laughter. The way the burglar was bundled in the dark sweatshirt, it was hard to tell whether this was a man or a woman—until suddenly his quarry flipped back the hood, unzipped the sweatshirt, and tossed it on a chair—and Joe gulped back a yowl of surprise.
    Chichi. It was Chichi. She smiled lazily, fluffed her frazzled blond hair, and ran her hand down her slim waist, pulling down her tight black T-shirt, showing plenty of cleavage. What was she doing sneaking into her own house under cover of darkness, sliding silently into the darkened room?
    And who was out there in the living room watching the tube? Did she have company? Why hadn’t he seen someone before? Those two guys who came to see her, neither acted like he was living here. Suspicions formed in Joe’s mind faster than he could process them; but they added up to nothing. Zilch.
    As Chichi pulled off the tight black jeans and slipped into a red satin robe, he wanted to race around to the front window and have a closer look at that one-person audience. Maybe he could peer under the blind. But he wanted, more, to stay where he was clinging to the skinny branch. He watched her slip a black clothbag from the pocket of the sweatshirt where it lay on the chair; and she stood looking around the room. It seemed like the kind of waterproof silk bag that expensive raincoats come folded into, for easy travel.
    Kneeling, she opened the bottom dresser drawer and reached up underneath, making Joe want to laugh out loud. If she was hiding something, that was the first place a cop—or a burglar—would look.
    But then Chichi seemed to realize this, too. She rose, clutching the bag, and stood considering the mattress—another laughable choice. Go ahead, Joe thought, twitching a whisker. The moment you leave, lady, or go to take a shower, I’ll be in there slashing through the mattress, and out again with the loot…
    But what loot? What did she have in the bag? And could he even get into the place?
    Well, hell, he’d never seen a house he couldn’t break into.
    Kneeling,