Stray Cat

Chapter Twenty

Linda wasn't answering her phone, which left Phil with no choice but to take a bus ride to her apartment. She didn't buzz him in either when he pressed the button on a panel outside the main entrance of the building, and he had to sneak in behind someone. Finally, he was at her door. He still had her key, but he stopped himself from storming in unannounced since that wouldn't help Dan. He pounded on her door. No answer. He pounded harder, making an annoyed neighbor poke her head out her door to glare at Phil. He ignored her and kept knocking.

Finally, the door swung open, and Linda snapped, "What?!"

Phil took a deep breath to begin shouting at her, but he noticed that she was shaking. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her cheeks were damp as if she had just dried them. Phil shook his head because whatever Linda was upset about didn't matter; she was the last person who spoke to Dan, and Phil had a feeling that she had something to do with his disappearance. "I need to talk to you." He glanced at the neighbor who was still watching them, and she was now glaring at Phil, seeming to suspect a domestic argument since Linda had been crying. "Can I come inside?"

Linda nodded and moved to the side so that he could enter her cramped apartment. He heard her sniffle as she shut the door. She stayed facing the door that she had pushed shut, as if she didn't want to turn around and face him.

"Linda, where is Dan?" He watched as her slight shoulders stiffened at his words, and he became surer of himself. She had something to do with this.

"How would I know?" she said against the door. "He's your boyfriend."

"I came home from work and he wasn't there. I had left my phone at home, and when I checked the call's log I saw that he spoke to you this afternoon. Linda, where is he?"

She turned around to face him and there were tears in her eyes. "I was trying to... I thought I was..." His stomach felt like it was filled with lead. He wanted to cross the room and shake her shoulders until she made sense, but Phil waited for her to get control of herself. Finally, she went on, "I had convinced myself that he was bad for you and that he was hurting you, so I called a place that takes Nekos. I just didn't picture that it would be so... awful. He was scared. He looked almost human."

Phil still wanted to throttle her, but he took a calming breath. If he fell apart, he couldn't help Dan. If he shouted at Linda, she wouldn't help Dan. Right now she was showing remorse, and he had to appeal to that. "I'm sure he was scared. Do you know what his life was like before he lived with me? He was 17 when he was sold to a man who physically and sexually abused him. When I met Dan after he ran away from that man, he was covered in bruises. He didn't talk for a day. He cried for almost a week. Of course he was scared if he thought he was going back to a place like that."

Linda's throat spasmed as she swallowed with difficulty. "It's not... it's not always like that, is it?"

"Does it matter? Dan and I want to be together, and he's been taken away from our home. I know that you hate what he is, but he doesn't deserve this. No one deserves this. Please Linda, help me bring him home."

"I'm sorry," she said, and for a moment he thought she was saying that she wouldn't help, but then she walked to her kitchen counter. She handed him an envelope and a brown paper bag.

"What's this?" he asked, but then he saw the letterhead of the papers folded in the envelope: Neko House.

"The bill of sale. And the bag is filled with the money they gave me for him. It wasn't about the money! I wasn't going to do anything with it. I just... well, now maybe you can take the paperwork and the money and undo it. There's an address there. They aren't too far from here."

"I know," he said, remembering that this was the shelter he looked up when Dan first came to live with him. He put the envelope in the pocket of the jacket he borrowed from Martyn. Linda looked like she wanted to say something else, but he was tired of talking to her, so he said, "I think I'll be going now."