The Night Serpent. Anna Leonard

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СКАЧАТЬ make sure Ms. Malkin gets home safely,” Patrick said, cutting Julia off, and then smiling at her to soften his rudeness. “I’d like to ask her a few more questions first, if we can use this desk?”

      “Yeah, sure.” Julia seemed flustered at being the focus of his attention, which Lily thought was odd, but then the artist gathered herself back into professional mode. “Will you want a copy of the sketch?”

      “That would be wonderful, thank you.”

      Lily watched Julia’s slender white hands gather up her pencils and the sketch, then disappear into the swirl of noise around them. Somehow, it seemed distant from her, even now. She had known about the queens, the female cats. How? How could she have known anything she had told Julia to draw? Extrapolation from a few cages and a smell could only go so far, but—

      But, stop, she told herself, feeling the old, familiar, unwanted distress crawling back. Stop. Breathe, Lily. Breathe in through the mouth, out through the nose. Breathe, and be still. A lifetime of dealing with panic attacks—she might not need the technique on a daily basis anymore, but it still did the job. Her anxiety level dropped until she felt as if she could manage again.

      “Why is the FBI investigating this?” she asked, once her breathing was under control.

      “We have varied interests,” Patrick said, sliding into Julia’s seat with a grace that belonged to a more slender man. If he noticed her momentary distress, he didn’t mention it. “Why do they call you the cat talker?”

      She shook her head, too worn-out to be either angry or amused at his evasion or the appearance of her hated nickname. “Who told you that?”

      “One of the uniforms. Said you could talk to anything feline, get it to do what you wanted.”

      “Anyone who said that knows nothing about cats.” Lily looked up finally, and in doing so was caught again by Agent Patrick’s gaze. Dark, yes, and intense, yes, and totally focused entirely on her, in a scary-nice sort of way. Oh. So that was what he’d done to the sketch artist. You could get lost in those eyes, just watching them watch you. It made her nervous. Something, hell everything about him was making her nervous. Like he thought she was one of his suspects, someone to be interrogated, bullied and pushed around.

      “Oh?” His tone was smooth, inviting; much smoother than the look in his eyes. That voice was another thing the FBI probably issued its agents on their first day on the job, to go with the suits. And the guns, although she hadn’t seen Patrick’s yet. She didn’t doubt he carried one. There was something about him. That intensity, it had a purpose beyond getting answers. Or undressing women visually. She had seen it before; he was a man with a long-term goal, and Lord help the person who got in the way.

      All right, maybe that was unfair. But she could practically smell the ambition in him, and it made her wary. Lily didn’t understand ambition. She had needs, desires, of course. Everyone did. But ambitious people carried a tension around inside them that made her tense up in return. She preferred the company of those who were comfortable where they were, who took days one at a time and who didn’t ask too much of life.

      “There’s an old joke,” she said, shaking off her reaction and responding to his earlier question. “‘Dogs have owners, cats have staff.’ Or, ‘Dogs come when called. Cats have answering machines and might get back to you.’ All true. A cat will do something you ask of it because it chooses to do so. It won’t obey out of loyalty, or fear, or even love—merely choice.”

      Cats couldn’t be used. Not that way. It was one of the reasons why she respected them.

      Agent Patrick nodded, not laughing, or even smiling at her words. “And cats choose to listen to you?”

      No. Cats chose to talk to her. They always had, even when she was a little girl and terrified of them. They would come to her, twine their lithe bodies around her ankles, look up at her as though she could solve great mysteries, and she would curl into a ball against the nearest wall and cry until her mother came and got her. She never got violent, the way some phobics did, and she never got angry—just sad to the point of overwhelming depression. She had wanted to like cats, in a way she never felt with people.

      “My boss at the shelter claims I must smell like catnip, or something.”

      The look in his eyes suddenly shifted. Lily wasn’t sure how, or why, but the interest deepened, his face changing slightly. It made her suddenly uneasy in a way even his previous intensity hadn’t, as though she had suddenly been dumped somewhere unfamiliar, without warning. The other man, the FBI agent, she knew how to avoid, and why. This man, the one with the glitter-bright stare, he was…Seductive was the only word that came to mind. Seductive, and dangerous, and appealing. Which were three words, but all meant the same thing. He was looking at her as if he wouldn’t mind taking a roll in some catnip, himself, right then. Like he wasn’t undressing her now, but was already inside her.

      Lily knew herself pretty well. She was attractive, if you liked brunettes, too short, and had a reasonably curvy, if not stacked, body. Great hair, nice face. A solid B-grade on all fronts. Nice, but nothing that qualified for that kind of fascination. He was interrogating her again, only with a different question in mind.

      “Look, I don’t know what Detective Petrosian thought I’d be able to tell him, or what you think I can do. I’m good with cats, yes. But—”

      “Have dinner with me.”

      “Excuse me?” She should have been expecting that, yet it still caught her off guard.

      His thin lips curved in a smile now. The hint of white teeth showed between the pale red flesh, but the intensity of his eyes was, if anything, even more focused on her. Not undressing her, but getting inside her brain. Inside her soul.

      She recoiled, and then scolded herself for recoiling.

      All right, Lily, stop that, she told herself. You’re tired, stressed and overreacting. He’s just a guy. A cute guy. Why not have dinner with him?

      “I’m a federal agent, miss. You can trust me.” She must have laughed at that. “Seriously,” he went on. “I have a few questions I want to ask you, but I just hit town and I’m starving. And we hijacked you out of your job—the least I can offer is dinner, as a thank-you for your help.”

      Lily was oddly flattered, but shook her head. She wasn’t much for dating, and even if she were, a guy who was in town for two, three days tops? She needed more time than that to make up her mind about a guy. Even if he was as exotic as a Burmese, and friendly as a Maine coon. And on the hunt sure as any big cat she’d ever seen. “Thank you, but no. I’m just going to grab a ride back to the shelter, pick up my car and go home. It’s been a really long day and I’m not feeling particularly social. Detective Petrosian has my phone number and e-mail address, if you need to ask me anything more, but I’m sure there’s nothing I can add.”

      She stood up, and then looked down at the agent, remembering that moment of sympathy she had experienced on the scene, over the bodies of the kittens. “Whoever did this, you’ll find him.”

      It wasn’t a question, and Agent Patrick didn’t pretend otherwise.

      “Yes, ma’am.”

      Petrosian found him half an hour later still sitting at the table, a notepad flat in front of him, the unlined paper covered with circles with words scribbled СКАЧАТЬ