She broke off a few small chunks of the bacon and tossed it to the kitten, grinning when it scarfed it down as if it were starving. Which, given the ribs she could make out through the fur, it may well be. Poor little mite. She crumbled the rest of the strips and tossed them down a few pieces at a time.

A tabby for certain, she decided as she looked for and found the distinctive M on its forehead. And a lovely one—or it would be, if it weren’t so scraggly. Fur of what she suspected was a nice brown with those dark grey stripes, and white markings under its chin, down its chest, and on two of its four feet. It reminded her a bit of one of the stable cats they’d had when she was younger. Though it had been too wild to ever let her come near and pet it, it had been her favorite one to watch.

“You seem friendly enough.” She crouched down, and the kitten came immediately over to her, trying to climb up onto her knee. It was either too small or too weak to manage it, but she gave it an obliging scratch behind the ears and smiled at the loud rumble of a purr. “Yes, I think you’re simply a stray, not feral. But I’m afraid that’s all the bacon I’ve brought out with me. See?” She showed it her palm.

It licked her, its sandpaper tongue making her laugh again. “All right, little darling. I’m going down to the beach. But if you’re still here when I come back, I’ll see what else I can find for you to eat. Hopefully when Mabena’s not at home. She prefers dogs,” she said in a stage whisper, just in case her voice was carrying toward the open windows of their cottage. She stood again, after placing the kitten’s paws back on the ground.

“Meow.”

Still smiling, she started down the path, not exactly surprised when the meowing followed her. But the kitten would no doubt tire of the walk and turn back to the shelter of the grasses it must have been hiding in, so she pressed on. And though she caught glimpses of the little tabby several times as she catalogued the flora and fauna over the next couple hours, it did indeed seem more inclined to the grass than the beach.

Around midmorning, her solitude evaporated into the wind-blown laughter and shouts from other holiday-goers bent on seizing the sunny day after twenty-four hours of rain. Though she sighed a bit, she also told herself that this was exactly as she had planned. She could do this. She didn’t really want to . . . but it wasn’t about her. It was about Oliver Tremayne and his missing sister.