Читать онлайн «The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape»
Автор Ширли Руссо Мерфи
Dedication
Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
About the Authors
Also by Shirley Rousseau Murphy
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
THE CAT PROWLED the prison rooftops invisible to human eyes, a ghost cat, a spirit cat unseen by anyone living. He could make himself visible when he chose but that wasn’t often. A big, rangy tomcat, long and lank, his golden ears ragged from past battles during his earthly lives. Now, floating free between those lives, his mission was keen as he searched for his quarry, for his dark and indestructible adversary.
Padding across the shingles he paused at a noise from the walk below, dropped to a predator’s stalk and slipped to the edge, to peer over.
But it was only a guard passing between the buildings with a pair of inmates, the men’s shadows cast tall by the lowering sun. The shadow that Misto sought was not among them. When, in the softening light, some unease made the men glance up to the roofline they saw only wind-scattered leaves dancing across the shingles.
The men moved on and so did the ghost cat, scanning the walks below him, alert for that errant shade, for the demon that, unlike the cat himself, harbored no trace of goodness. For the wraith that haunted his human companion, that tormented Lee Fontana. In the windows of the prison offices warped reflections moved about as prison staff finished up for the day.
He heard the casual click of a door closing but not a stealthy sound. Across the roofs the prairie wind scudded, tickling through his fur, turning him suddenly so giddy that he ran in circles, tail lashing, his yellow eyes gleaming. He played and raced unseen until the light shifted, far clouds dimmed the dropping sun and, sobering, the cat turned steady again and watchful.Away at the far reaches of the prison grounds the vegetable gardens shone bright green in the sun’s last rays. Ears sharp forward, he surveyed the dim corridors between the young fruit trees that the prisoners tended, but nothing stirred there, he saw no foreign presence. Tail twitching, he looked up past the gardens, out past the prison wall to the blowing wheat that rolled to the horizon. The ghost cat had, earlier in the day, sailed weightless on the wheat’s flowing crest, diving and somersaulting, giddy with play, forgetting his quarry as he reveled in his ghostly powers, in his weightless and windblown freedom. Now he could see nothing spectral waiting there within that golden pelt. Nor did anything unwelcome move among the farm buildings or within the fenced paddocks where the cows and sheep browsed, casting their own docile shadows. The animals remained content, nothing evil lingered among them. They would know, the animals always knew.
