its full length, exposing its belly to the heat, and released an audible exhale.
Keira couldn’t stop smiling at the sight. She went to the bathroom and found a towel, then gently approached the cat.
“Hey, little guy,” she said, keeping her voice light as she moved nearer. “You’re kinda wet. Will you let me dry you?”
He paid her no attention but stretched into the touch when Keira brushed the towel along his back. She knelt next to him and tried to dry the drenched black fur as well as she could. He must be someone’s pet to be this tame. But we’re pretty far from town. How’d he get out here?
The cat rolled onto his back and stretched his paws into the air. Keira felt a low, rapid rumble under her hands as he started to purr.
“You’re very cute,” she murmured, scratching under his chin. He responded by leaning his head back and sticking the tip of his tongue out between his teeth. “In a weird sort of way.”
She didn’t think he was fully grown. The cat’s body was long and bony, and he seemed to be in that intermediate stage where he wasn’t quite an adult cat but was past being a kitten. She hoped he would stay for the rest of the night. It would be nice to have some company, especially considering what was waiting outside.
The memory of the spirits hovering among the graves flashed through her mind, and Keira squeezed her lips together. She couldn’t do a thing about it, so she tried not to dwell on them and instead turned her mind toward the most persistent presence.
I have a name now: Emma Carthage. This is a small town; even though Emma died decades ago, someone should still remember her.
Her hand had fallen still, and the cat used its head to butt at the towel in a demand for more attention. She obliged.
I wonder why I could see her but not the other ghosts. Is she stronger? Or did she just really, really want to be seen? She snorted. Old Keira probably knew the hows and whys. Old Keira probably knew lots of things, like the most efficient way to shank someone.
“What am I going to do, cat?”
The black creature still had its tongue poking out. The pink contrasted fantastically with his black fur, and his pupils were gradually drifting in different directions as he relaxed. He looked truly demented. Keira bopped his nose, then rose to take the towel back to the laundry. It had developed a distinctive wet-cat smell, so she put it in the washer.
“What am I going to do?” she repeated to her reflection. Big, doleful eyes blinked back, and she narrowed them in an attempt to look fierce. The effect bordered on comedic, so she huffed a sigh and returned to the living room.
She’d told the ghost she would try to help, but that was easier said than done. The spirit hadn’t been able to communicate what kept it trapped on earth, but Keira could make an educated guess. Emma had been murdered. She wanted her killer brought to justice.
Hunger gnawed at her, so Keira set up a pot with rice to boil, then checked on her guest. The cat had contorted into an awkward, yoga-esque pose but looked happy enough. Keira sat next to him and watched his whiskers twitch as he dreamed.
She died more than forty years ago. If the police didn’t catch the killer back then, what chance do I have of piecing together clues now? Everything will either be eroded by time or held at a police station. And there’s the very real chance that the killer might already be dead. Forty years is a long time.
“Stop complaining, Keira,” she told herself, and she stretched her bare feet toward the flames. “You’ve got something the police never had: the key witness.”
Although Emma couldn’t speak, she could move, point, nod, and shake her head. That would be plenty to help Keira narrow down the suspects. Once she identified them, at least.
First order of business: find out how much of Emma’s story was public knowledge. Adage would probably know, plus Mason had said he would visit the following morning, and, in a pinch, Zoe could probably throw around some wild theories.
The hardest part would be coming up with a convincing excuse for asking. “Hey, so a ghost wants me to figure out who killed her” probably wouldn’t get her investigation far.
A hissing noise sent her scrambling for the stove. The