Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [63]
“Vinnie, I’m thirty-seven,” she laughed.
“Get outta town,” he scoffed. “Thirty-seven. Right. What do I look like, huh?”
“No, really, I am.” She unlocked the door, and he took note of the type of lock. Just in case he needed to know at some future date. “I was thirty-seven last month.”
“Now you’re telling me that I missed your birthday.” He put on a sad face as he followed her inside. “Well, I’ll make it up to you. I know just the way.”
“Oh, Vinnie, you don’t have to do anything. Just”—she smiled, her entire face lighting up—“just . . . well, just dinner out tonight, that will be enough. More than enough.”
“I can do better, but we’ll let that go for now. You go on and do what you have to do, and I’ll just wait for you.”
“I’ll hurry, I promise.” She paused on the bottom step and called, “Cujo, where are you?”
“Cujo?”
“Cujo’s my— There’s my baby.”
A large gray cat ambled out from the dining room, pausing on his way to Dolores to give Vince the once-over. He did not appear to like what he saw.
“That’s my baby,” Dolores cooed, and bent down to scoop up the cat. “Say hello to my friend Vinnie.”
Cujo glared imperiously in the general direction of the intruder.
“What a nice cat,” Vince said, thinking he was expected to say something. He didn’t like cats, never had, but figured that wouldn’t be the appropriate thing to tell her. “He’s . . . big, isn’t he?”
“Huge. Weighs almost forty pounds. But he’s a sweetie. Oh, I should feed him before I run upstairs.”
“Oh, hey, I can do that. Just tell me what to do.”
“You wouldn’t mind? I’m just thinking that it’s already so late, since I got home so late and everything . . .”
“I wouldn’t mind at all.”
“Well, then, there’s a can of cat food on the counter in the kitchen—that’s straight through here, straight ahead through the dining room—and the can opener’s mounted under the cupboard closest to the sink.”
“I’m sure I can find it. You run along.” Vince thought momentarily about giving her backside a tap as she turned to the steps, but decided that might be a bit premature, all things considered. He was going to do a little something a little later to speed up the progress of their relationship as it was. One thing at a time, he cautioned himself as he went to the kitchen.
Dolores’s house was a lot like Dolores. Nothing fancy, but sturdy, practical, functional. Few flourishes, but tidy, with the occasional attempt at decor. A few pots of plants here, a crystal bowl there, colorful candles in assorted holders on the sideboard in the dining room. A nice enough package—as was Dolores—but nothing to get too excited about.
“Come on in here, cat,” he muttered as he turned on the overhead light, and failed to notice that the cat had declined to follow him into the near-dark room.
He found the can, located the cat food, then dumped it unceremoniously into a ceramic dish with raised purple fishes on the bottom and around the rim.
“Hey, cat. Dinner.” He went to the doorway and looked down at the cat, who glared up coolly, calmly whipping his tale snakelike on the hooked rug. “Okay, have it your way. Personally I don’t give a shit if you ever eat again.”
He rinsed the can out in the sink the way his mother used to do, then looked for the trash can, which he found near the back door, which gave him an opportunity to look around. Scope out the yard, check out the back door, the basement door. You just never knew.
He took a minute to play with the lock, listening to the little cylinders tumble, thinking how easy it would be to break in.
“Vinnie?”
“Oh. Hey, that was fast.”
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, I was just checking the lock on your back door. Making sure it was tight, you know.”
“It should be fine. I had them changed after I moved in last year.”
“Never hurts to keep track,” he told her with a comforting smile. “You gotta make sure your home is secure. Jeez, don’t it seem that every night you hear