24

FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY

It was a Saturday afternoon, and since Kyle was working, as he sometimes did on the weekends, Wendy would have been alone on the farm, except that she had again invited Danny to spend the weekend. Looking after all the animals was a lot of work, and he was a great help.

Besides the junkyard bobcat, who they’d had for three months, they still had Buzzsaw Bob and Lucky. Two other cats were living at Wildtrax, now, too — a serval and a caracal. They had been donated to Wendy — or as Kyle put it — dumped on her — after some new laws were passed that required owners to build special extra-strong enclosures for exotic cats. The owner said he didn’t have the money to do that, so he had given them to Wendy. Then she had to figure out where to get the money to build not only the kind of enclosures the law required, but extra-large ones that she thought any animal ought to have if it was going to spend its whole life in captivity, as the caracal and serval would have to. There was no possibility of them ever being released. Even if they could have survived in the wild — and they couldn’t, because both had been born and raised in captivity — they were species native to Africa and it was against the law to release animals not native to North America.

Wendy was thinking about people who got exotic animals like servals and caracals and bobcats with the mistaken belief that they would be good pets. Maybe such an animal would be good pet if the owner were willing to spend thousands of dollars creating a proper environment for it and spend a lot of time with it and put up with it behaving like a wild animal, but most people were not willing to do any of that. That was why such animals, once they got past the cute-kitten stage, usually spent the rest of their lives in cages. And would be lucky to have cages as large and well-landscaped as the ones Wendy built for the animals she adopted.

Wendy was also thinking about Kyle, and how he hardly ever complained about all the animals, and how one reason he often worked weekends was to earn extra money so she could afford to build nice big enclosures, call the vet whenever he was needed, and otherwise give her animals the best kind of care.

And she was thinking about Danny, who was, as of today, fourteen. That was why she had again invited him to spend the weekend. She thought his mother might say no, that he should stay home because they were going to do something special for his birthday, but Mrs. Ryan didn’t even mention it. So Wendy made her own plans, beginning with the birthday cake that she was making right now. She looked out the kitchen window and saw Danny in the field playing with Pumpkin. He always went first to the llamas, then took Velvet for a walk, and then visited each of the cats.

Wendy was just taking the cake out of the oven when Danny came in. He didn’t bound in, the way most boys his age would when they were happy and excited. Some part of Danny always seemed to be held in check, like he was never sure how welcome he was, or if the welcome he got yesterday might be gone today. Even though he came into the kitchen quietly, he did seem cheerful, as opposed to the hangdog look he had some days when things were bad at home. Or so Wendy suspected.

The first words out of his mouth were, “Oh man! Something smells good!”

Wendy set the cake aside to cool, then took out a huge amount of ground beef for the cats’ supper from the refrigerator. She dumped it into a big metal bowl and added vitamins and bone meal. Plunging her hands in, she began to mix it. “This is what you smell,” she teased. “Raw hamburger icing, to go on your birthday cake.”

“Great!” Danny laughed. “I can share it with the cats.”

Just then the phone rang. Wendy pointed her chin toward the wall phone and said, “Answer that, will you? Tell whoever it is I’ll call back.”

“Hello?” Danny said. And then, “What blonde?” Danny listened for a second longer, then said, “Yes, but she can’t come to the phone right now. Who’s calling, please?”

Wendy glanced over at the boy. His mouth opened as if he wanted to speak, but couldn’t. His face turned deathly pale. But his eyes, as he turned to look at Wendy, were what startled her. They were filled with terror.

“What is it, Danny?” Forgetting the raw hamburger all over her hands, she crossed the room in three steps and snatched the receiver from him. The only thing she heard was a click, and the line went dead.

“Danny? Who was it?”

“A man,” Danny whispered, flattening his back against the wall as if he needed it to hold himself up. “He wanted … you.”

“He asked for me?”

Danny nodded.

“When you said I couldn’t come to the phone, what did he say? Did he give his name?”

“He said …” Danny’s voice fell to a terrified whisper, “… he’s going to get you.”

Wendy hit the speed dial button for the police station. When the dispatcher came on the line, Wendy said, “Kyle, please. Tell him it’s urgent.”

Kyle immediately came on the line, his voice cool, but worried. “Wendy? What’s up?”

“I just got a threatening phone call. I didn’t take it; Danny did. You’d better speak to him.” Wendy handed the receiver to Danny.

In a shaky voice, Danny told Kyle what he had told Wendy. Then Kyle must have asked him to say the exact words, because Danny hesitated and then said, slowly and precisely, “He said, ‘Is Blondie there?’ I asked, ‘What blonde?’ and he said, ‘Wendy Collins. The cop’s wife.’ I said she couldn’t come to the phone right now and asked who was calling. He said, ‘She knows who I am. But I know who she is, too. And I’m gonna get to her first. You tell her she opens her mouth, she’s d-dead meat.’”

There was a minute of silence, then Danny handed the phone back to Wendy.

“Lock the doors,” Kyle told Wendy. “Keep an eye on the driveway, and if anybody you don’t know pulls in, call the station.”

“Aren’t you coming home?” Wendy asked.

“No,” Kyle said. “I’ve got things to do that have to be done here at the office. But I’ll ask the chief to send some extra patrols out that way.”

Kyle hung up. For a minute Wendy stood there, staring at the telephone receiver, which was smeared with raw hamburger. Then she put the receiver on the hook, and went back to the tub of raw meat to finish mixing the cats’ supper.

“Come on, Danny,” she said quietly. “We’re going to feed the cats a little early today. Then we’ll come inside and have lunch.” She tried to smile. “And some birthday cake.”

Danny did not smile back.

The frightened look in his eyes made Wendy’s heart ache, but what could she do? She was also afraid. It probably showed in her eyes, too.