Cat's Claw (A Pecan Springs Mystery)

had come with the birds. “The Rhode Island Reds are supposed to lay brown eggs. The other chickens are Leghorns. Their eggs are white. The chicken that laid this egg must have been a Red.”
    She looked confused. “Well, okay.” She carefully put the egg in a saucer in the middle of the kitchen table. “I’m going to get my camera and take its picture. And then I’m going to cook it and
eat
it.”
    “Or maybe save it for breakfast?” I suggested. “You had supper with Grandma and Grandpa McQuaid, and I know how Grandma loves to cook. Bet you had cake for dessert, didn’t you? You’re probably full right up to here.” I put my hand on the top of her head. She giggled, that sweet little-girl giggle that never fails to pull at my heart.
    Caitlin—the daughter of my half brother, Miles—has just turned twelve. She’s small for her age and slender, with pixie-cut dark hair and dark, waiflike eyes. Sad eyes, with good reason. She’s still waking from astring of horrible nightmares that must have seemed unending in her short life: her mother’s drowning, her father’s murder, her aunt’s death from cancer—more awfulness than any child ought to endure. McQuaid and I have adopted her and are trying to help her build as normal a life as possible. And a few months ago, we were rewarded when she said she wanted to call us Mom and Dad.
    “I’m guess I’m sorta pretending,” she admitted. “I know I’ll never have my own mom and dad back. But I’d like it if you’d be Mom and Dad, if that’s okay with you.”
    It was okay with us, and the three of us shared a hug to seal the bargain. I’m not a sentimental person by nature, but I don’t mind saying that I had tears in my eyes. I had put off marriage because I valued my independence and wanted to be free of binding, entangling commitments. For a time, I’d had a law career, and then I had the shop, and in both circumstances, I cherished my freedom and autonomy. I had never planned to have children, and even after McQuaid and I moved in together and I became Brian’s mom, I didn’t consider myself a genuinely domesticated person.
    Now, a husband, two kids, a dog, a house cat and a shop cat, innumerable lizards, snakes, and spiders (all Brian’s), and six chickens later, I’m still getting used to it. But it’s hard to think back to a time when McQuaid and Brian and I weren’t a family, fitting together like pieces of a puzzle, sharing everything that came along. And now there’s another piece, a sweet and fragile little girl, and much more to share.
    Mom and Dad?
    Yes, it was okay. It was definitely okay.
    “I’ll get my camera,” Caitie said now, and scampered up the stairs. When she first visited our house with her father, she had been enchanted by the round room in the turret—the Magic Tower, she called it. Whenshe disappeared from the family picnic that afternoon, I found her asleep on the window seat there, my tattered childhood copy of
The Secret Garden
on the floor beside her. So when she came to live with us, the Magic Tower became hers. She chose two shades of pink for the walls and ceiling and she’s hung her drawings of fairies and filled the shelves with the books and stuffed animals she brought from the life she shared with her parents. She spends a lot of time there, playing her violin and reading and looking out the window.
    And one memorable afternoon, she put all six of her girls in a bushel basket and carried them up to her room. Judging from the clucking, I’d say that they enjoyed themselves.

Chapter Eight

    The Chipotle Chicken was across Blanco Street from Kirk’s Computer Sales and Service, not far from the CTSU campus. From their table at the front window, Sheila and Jack Bartlett could see the shop, which occupied the middle unit in a small strip mall. All three stores in the mall were closed and dark, although the all-night Washateria on the corner of Blanco and Bur Oak was brightly lit and busy—students, mostly.
    Sheila and Bartlett didn’t talk much during the meal, both preoccupied with their thoughts. By the time they finished, the misty rain had turned into a drizzle. They left their cars in the Chipotle Chicken lot and walked across the street, where Bartlett used Larry Kirk’s key to let them in the front door. From his investigation into the earlier break-in, Bartlett knew his way around the shop and swiftly deactivated the alarm unit before it could go off, using the code he’d written in his