Chimera and the Cat Burglar (FUC Academy #46)

Chapter 11

Chapter

Eleven

Willy led Boo to an alcove where they could talk freely. “I take it that whatever happened when you saw your mother is still unfinished between you.”

“That’s an understatement.” Boo rolled her eyes. “I barely got two words in before she blamed me for her miserable life and tarnished reputation. I swear she cares more about her public image than me.”

Willy may have felt betrayed by Boo, but she’d allowed herself to be vulnerable with him.

She trusted him now, clutching his hand. Was he just a partner for the time being? Or was he something more?

Blind faith.

“I’ll meet you back at the dress shop,” he said as they headed toward the parking lot.

Once inside his van, Willy fired up the engine and sped away from the Academy, and Boo remained heavy in his thoughts. He tried to calm his nerves even though his heart was running laps behind his ribcage. It was barely nine in the morning. What could go wrong between the Academy and town?

Flat tire.

Herd of steers.

Grass fire.

All right, all right. He shut down his racing mind.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have mused on such a silly question. No sooner did he cross into town than he was greeted by a police siren and flashing lights.

“What the hell?”

He pulled over, and when the officer approached, he only glanced at the license and registration Willy offered.

“Willy Tagger?”

“Yes,” Willy replied, knowing he hadn’t been speeding. “What is this about, officer?”

The officer took a step backward. “I’m going to ask you to please step out of the vehicle and come with me.”

Willy wanted to object, but the officer placed his hand on his weapon, and Willy realized the officer wasn’t in any mood for discussion.

“There has to be some kind of mistake,” Willy said, stepping out of his vehicle and placing his hands on his head to allow the officer to cuff him.

“If there is, then we’ll clear it up at the station.”

Willy tossed a look over his shoulder. “Can you at least tell me what this is about?”

“We received a report from Cecilia Bombay that she was robbed this morning.”

Willy’s mouth dropped open in shock. “And she said I did it?”

The officer said, “You and her ex-con daughter, Boo, yes.”

With that, the officer was done talking. He guided Willy to the police car and opened the door, pushing Willy’s head down as he got in.

The road to town was lined with re-election billboards. Although Willy wasn’t a politician, he mulled over ways to win his freedom.

They arrived at the station just as another police cruiser was parking. Willy’s heart sank as he saw the officer of that vehicle pull Boo out of the backseat.

“My mother’s gone too far this time!” Boo shouted.

Willy’s officer helped him out of his car, and Boo caught sight of him. Her mouth dropped open.

Willy assured Boo, “We’ll call Alyce and get this handled.”

“Shut it,” his officer instructed.

The four of them entered the police station. Willy was guided to the right, while a female officer ushered Boo left.

As the distance grew between them, and before Boo disappeared from his view, she called out, “Save yourself, Willy. Don’t worry about me.”

Only he did.

The holding cell was metal, cold, and hard. A dark stain encrusted the base of the seatless toilet. Willy pressed his face between the bars. He was sure Boo’s holding cell was just as awful, and he feared that she’d be taken back to her last stint in the clink.

He had to free Boo. She didn’t deserve punishment. “I need to make a call. Hey! It’s the law. Let Boo go. She’s innocent.”

His shouts fell on deaf ears, and he retook his seat on the lumpy bunk, hanging his tired head. Where had he gone wrong?

He should have stayed far away from Boo Bombay.

Impossible. He damn well cared for Boo.

No, he loved her.

And loving someone didn’t mean giving up on them when things got complicated.

The sun through the high window stretched the shadows of the bars, resembling three headstones.

Headstones.

Tal Basta

June 22, 1823.

The bedspring complained when Willy shifted his weight.

Back at the cemetery, Willy had taken the name on the headstone at face value. But suddenly, he realized Tal Basta wasn’t a person’s name at all. The ancient city northeast of Cairo in the eastern Nile Delta was noted in his history class.

Tal Basta or Tell Basta, Per-Bastet, meant “The Domain of Bastet,” which linked the cemetery headstone to the golden phallus with the cat head currently locked in Alyce’s safe.

As a history buff, Willy was sure of that.

Not only that, but Zeb had whispered coordinates to Boo, which Willy needed to verify but he was pretty sure they led to some vital clue within Tal Basta.

Certainly, the graveyard held other clues to help spell out Willy’s next move.

Including reaching out to DILDOS, the Detective Interwebs Looking and Decoding Operating System, a multiple hacking and search function tool developed by fellow Academy members.

Willy glanced at his watch when he spotted the sun slipping toward the evening. Only it wasn’t just any date. It was June twentieth, which meant he had forty-eight hours to skate this cell and prove the existence of the portal before the summer solstice struck on June twenty-second.

He lunged to the bars fronting his cell, expecting an impossible escape through an army of officers.

The lone officer had his feet on his desk and a phone pressed to his ear.

The man was preoccupied, which shoved Willy into gear.

“It looks like multiple felonies are in my future,” Willy muttered.

Willy inhaled a cleansing breath. He’d mastered transforming into a big cat. He’d always been on the large size, but cats were known for being liquid.

Willy’s body shook and his bones shrank as he pictured the perfect feline.

He gritted through the pain of transformation. With that discomfort, he accepted that he’d been changed into a chimera for this purpose, that somehow Fate had intervened, making him the chosen one. At least for now.

He closed his eyes as he fell to all fours. Black fur sprouted, overtaking his skin. His whiskers twitched, and he yowled, catching his sleek form in the steel bars’ reflection. He stretched his lanky back and checked over his shoulder, his long, black tail reminding him of Boo’s.

Willy wasn’t her, of course. But he’d used her Bombay breed’s form as a template—a gorgeous feline if he said so himself.

He dragged his clothing to the bed and stuffed it under the mattress, which appeared no less lumpy than it had before. Of course, someone would discover his clothes, shoes, and watch, but he’d be long gone by then.

He squeezed through the bars and sprinted through the building. When an officer opened the door, Willy sprang toward freedom.

Once outside, he took note of his surroundings, spotting bushes that fronted the building. He sprinted toward the women’s side of the jail, not more than fifty feet from where he’d been, and made his way around the building to the back where the jail sat behind the offices.

His heart beat a thousand times a minute when he caught Boo’s scent.

She was inside, behind the block wall, her tiny jail cell window just a foot below the roof’s edge.

Counting the blocks, he measured how to reach her window. If he dangled from the roof line, he could find purchase on the sill.

Luckily, there was a wood fence butting up to one side of the jail. He climbed the fence, jumping from the upper rail to the shingled roof. A few steps and he’d make the window.

He howled his success into the sunset then lowered his body to the window ledge. Balancing, he pressed his nose to the glass, spotting Boo inside.

But she wasn’t alone. On the other side of the bars, facing her, stood her mother.

Oh, this couldn’t be good.

He pawed the pane. “Meow!”

A net fell around him. “Gotcha!”