Cat's Claw (A Pecan Springs Mystery)

didn’t know eggs came this small, China. If they’re all the size of golf balls, we’ll need a dozen for a decent breakfast.”
    “That one’s just practice,” I said. “They’ll get bigger. I hope.” Still thinking about that mountain lion, I put my spoon down, went to the door, and called Howard Cosell, who had gone out to take care of his evening business. He always goes all the way to the end of the stone fence, where the woods threaten to spill over into our yard. He trotted back without complaint, although I’m sure that if he’d suspected that a mountain lion was lurking out there in the rainy dark, he would have insisted on staying out to patrol the perimeter. But Howard is a well-fed basset and would be a tasty snack for a hungry mountain lion. I wasn’t taking any chances.
    “Do you think the chickens will be okay?” I asked worriedly, closing the door behind Howard.
    “I hope you’re not suggesting that Caitie take them upstairs for the night,” McQuaid said with a chuckle.
    “I’m not, and she won’t—not after she had to clean up after them the last time. Lesson learned. Chickens live in the chicken house.”
    He nodded. “Anyway, I’m sure they’ll be fine. A lion isn’t going to waste his time on a few chickens.
Her
time,” he amended. “She’s probably out looking for a deer, since Tom drove her away from the sheep. And anyway, if she’s the one you saw crossing Limekiln, she’s alreadymiles from here. She and the male that Tom killed were hunting together, I guess. Both the male and female are solitary, except when they’re breeding.”
    We shared a moment of silence. I was glad that Sylvia’s sheep were safe and hoping that the cat I’d seen had found an unwary deer for dinner, out there in the rainy darkness. Mountain lions have been making a comeback in the past couple of decades, with reported sightings and kills—most of them road kills, like my near miss—in Adams County and the counties around us. Hill Country ranchers have been selling out to developers in record numbers, which means that more and more people are moving into prime lion habitat. The Banners’ sheep weren’t the first livestock to be attacked, and they wouldn’t be the last. It was a sharp reminder that the boundaries between our human-built world and the natural world are not fixed, that humans don’t control nature (even though we might like to think we do), and that wild cats are not as tame and well-behaved as the domesticated cats that share our homes and backyards.
    “Mom,” Caitlin called from the top of the stairs. Her tone was plaintive. “I can’t find my camera. I’ve looked everywhere. Do you know where it is?”
    I grinned at McQuaid on my way out of the room. “Better put that egg down. If it gets broken, your daughter will never let you hear the end of it.” Over my shoulder, I added, “Don’t go away. I have something important to tell you. And keep your mitts off my root beer float.”
    Caitlin was with me when I came back to the kitchen, after we found her camera behind the books on her dresser. She took several photos of McQuaid admiring the miniature egg on the palm of his hand, then fixed a root beer float for herself and one for Brian and carried them both upstairs. She was going to email the photographs to her grandmothers—McQuaid’s mother in Seguin and my mother, who lives on a ranch near Kerrville. She hoped they would be her first customers, although McQuaid pointed out that it might be a while before the girls produced eating-size eggs.
    “Something bigger than a marble,” he said, and laughingly pretended to be injured by the girl-size shoulder punch that Caitie threw at him.
    When she was gone, McQuaid picked up our empty mugs, rinsed them off in the sink, and sat down at the table again. “So what did you want to tell me?”
    It took a little while to relate what I knew about Larry Kirk’s death and George Timms’ disappearance before his scheduled arrest.
    As the tale unfolded, McQuaid regarded me with increasing disbelief. He just misses being handsome—his nose was broken in a football game and there’s a jagged scar across his forehead—but he’s ruggedly good-looking, with slate blue eyes and dark hair that falls across his forehead and dark eyebrows that pull together when he’s puzzled. Now, his brows were firmly knitted together, and when I was finished, he gave a low, incredulous whistle.
    “George Timms?” he asked, shaking