“All right, but you owe me,” Kate said.

“Totaled. Smush city. Looks like an elephant sat on it.”

Anatole turned pale. “It was one of a kind. Special order. I waited six months for that car.”

Dave clucked his tongue in sympathy. “How long have you had it?”

A half-eaten apple rolled from Anatole’s hand and dropped on the floor. “Two weeks.”

“Boy, that’s a shame,” Dave said. “Prime depreciation.”

Anatole ran his hand through his hair, but nothing moved out of place. “How am I going to get home?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Elsie said. “I’ll give you a lift.” Anatole looked defeated, but he followed her outside.

Dave and Kate stood at the living room window and watched Elsie peel away from the curb.

“Anatole deserves it,” Dave said.

Kate agreed. “He needs more excitement in his life.”

A lone fire truck stood vigil, playing a stream of water on the smoldering remains of the gutted building across the street. The smell of smoke was everywhere, penetrating the houses. Outside Kate’s window the truck engine hummed as it continued to pump water. Men called to one another. The truck radio crackled with messages. The flasher on a police car sent pulses of color up and down the street.

Dave wrapped his arms around Kate and kissed her neck. “Now what? Are you hungry? Are you sleepy? Are you sexy?”

“Yes.”

“How about if we go over to my house, where we’ll have more privacy…”

Kate suddenly felt shaky. She’d used up all her bravery, all her energy, all her self-discipline. She wanted nothing more than to be taken care of, to lie in Dave’s arms and feel safe and cosseted. And she wanted to be in a house where she could draw the curtains on the world. “That sounds great. Just let me get a change of clothes from upstairs.”

The unopened boxes and bags from her shopping trip had been dropped in a heap by the stairs, and a scratching post and litter box that didn’t fit in a bag sat beside the other parcels. Kate went cold at the sight of them. The kitten. She’d forgotten all about the kitten. It had been bounding around in noisy exploration just before the explosion, and now the house was quiet. It hadn’t come to greet them. It wasn’t anywhere in sight. She tried to remember if they had left the front door open when they’d all rushed outside, and she was almost certain they had.

Dave saw her face turn white and followed her eyes to the litter box. “Oh, damn.”

Without saying another word, they began a methodical search of the house. It wasn’t difficult. The house wasn’t fully furnished. There were few corners where a kitten might hide.