The Girl with the Cat Tattoo

Chapter 5

Joe stopped by the next night. And the next.

Very quickly the pretense of the visits being for Max was forgotten.

Joe told Melody he worked at a shelter, and Melody had already confessed that she was a kids’ librarian. Neither flinched or recoiled. Max took this as a very good sign. So good, in fact, that he once again found himself racing through the house and sliding under the bed to come nose to nose with his favorite toy mouse. He nipped it gently on the head and trotted back to the living room with it dangling from his mouth.

Melody laughed the way she always laughed when he appeared with the mouse. “I swear he thinks that thing’s alive.”

Of course he didn’t, but it was the next best thing to a living mouse. Confession time. He actually liked it better than a real mouse. Once he’d seen a real mouse in the basement. It squeaked and jumped out from behind a broom. Max ran like hell, and for quite some time he avoided that area.

Now, his legs weak with joy, he rolled in a strip of sunshine, the mouse between his front paws. He was that happy. The only thing that could have made his world better was if Melody hadn’t closed off the doggy door. But Max’s freedom was a small price to pay for his mistress’s happiness.

The relationship moved quickly.

Too quickly.

Max would have preferred they take it a little slower. Max was all about caution and patience. He could wait all day for a treat, and he could wait all day for Melody to come home. Life was all about waiting, but people were dangerously spontaneous, especially Melody. Humans tended to jump into things with no thought, when in truth the most pleasurable part of life came from the anticipation of catnip, not the crazy buzz.

But he had to step back and give Melody her freedom, and giving her that freedom meant allowing her to make mistakes without his intervention. This was a different kind of love that didn’t come easily for Max. This kind of love took restraint. Sure, it would have been simple to pounce on her back when she was making dreamy eyes at Joe. Sure it would have been simple for Max to fake illness when she was preparing to go out with Joe for the third night in a row, but throwing herself too quickly into a relationship was who Melody was. It wasn’t Max’s role to try to make her more like him. That’s not what love was about.

So, when Melody and Joe came into the house, laughing and hugging, Melody’s eyes bright and her face flushed, Max tried not to worry. And he tried not to feel jealous. But he did try to make her feel guilty for forgetting to feed him any special treats. There was only so much a cat could take.

“I think Max feels neglected,” Melody said.

She and Joe were standing in the kitchen, both holding a glass of wine. Max was in the dining room watching them from a distance, wondering if Melody would think about giving him a treat from the green bag.

“I have been away more than usual, and I think he’s also upset with me for sealing the doggy door.”

Joe pulled the cork out of the wine bottle. “I have an idea.” He poured more wine into their glasses, then recorked the bottle and placed it on the counter. “Why not take him to some of your story hours? He could be kind of a mascot.”

Melody stared at Max as if seeing him in a whole new light. “Wow, I don’t know. I’m not sure he’d like that.”

“He’s pretty social. Think about how he came to the shelter two times. In fact, why not have a story hour at the shelter?”

Max was pretty sure story hour involved kids. He’d been around kids a few times in his life, and it wasn’t something he wanted to repeat. He straightened from a sitting position and rubbed against Melody’s legs, meowing, hoping to distract her, hoping she’d forget Joe’s suggestion.

Melody smiled. “I think he likes the idea!”

“I think you’re right.”

Melody and Joe laughed in shared camaraderie, as if the idea of a cat understanding the conversation was hilarious. Max hated Joe in that moment, and he wished he’d never brought him home to Melody.

Be careful what you wish for. That’s what his sister used to tell him.

It had been better when it was just the two of them-Max and Melody.

Melody said something, and Max spun around to see her smiling at Joe. She’d used the voice. The voice that was for Max and only Max. Kind of soft and sweet.

Max knew it was coming, but he’d hoped it wouldn’t be so soon. Joe and Melody disappeared into the bedroom. Max tried to follow, but the door closed in his face.

Max stood on his hind legs to scratch and paw at the doorknob, trying to turn it. From inside, Melody laughed and told him to behave.

Behave? This was his house. That was his bedroom.

Max wished he could turn back the clock to the morning he decided to find Melody a mate. Oh, how foolish he’d been that day. How naïve. He’d thought they would be a family-the three of them, the way it had been when David was alive. This-being shut out of the bedroom-was unacceptable.

Max wasn’t even sure where to sleep, because he always slept on the pillow next to Melody’s head. There he could keep an eye on her and feel her soft breath on his whiskers.

He strode through the house several times. There was the cat bed he never used. He sniffed it with distain. On the couch was the blanket that plugged into the wall on cold winter nights. The weather was warm now, and the cord lay forgotten on the floor. The blanket didn’t interest him either. Instead, he sprawled on the floor not far from the bedroom door and waited. Maybe someone would come out soon and he could slip inside.

But it wasn’t until morning that Melody shuffled out to the kitchen in her fuzzy pink slippers to get a drink of water. Max shot inside the room and hid in the closet until she went back to bed. That’s when Max began sniffing Joe’s clothes, then his backpack that had been left on the floor. The zipper was down, which made it easy for Max to dig around inside. His paw came into contact with something hard. He dug more, pulling a T-shirt out of the way. There, hidden deep in the backpack, was something Max had hoped to never see again.

For a moment, Max was too scared to move. Too scared to think.

The people in the bed were paying no attention to him. Maybe they were asleep, maybe they were cuddling. He didn’t even want to know. Max finally ran from the room, but once in the kitchen he couldn’t quit thinking about the backpack. He had to look in it again. Maybe he could scare the thing into leaving. Maybe he could pull it into the light where it might not look the same, where it might not look like what he thought it was.

He returned to the bedroom, creeping silently. He sneaked up on the backpack. He gingerly placed a paw inside, pulled hard, and jumped. Carefully, he moved forward again. The light in the room was dim, but his eyes were good. He stepped close enough to make out something metal. Something shiny. A gun, sticking out of a leather holster. Just like the gun that had killed David.