Foxes love cats I’m told. Might been a fox, or another cat (male cats will fight for territory and can kill their competitors. Had a family cat, male, got in fight, b got castrated, and crawled up under hood of camper and died we foundit later, and it looked like it had been through hell and back.
I learned that there is a stoat living in the stream behind the house I bought, the month after kitty vanished.
Methinks kitty became stoat food, since I was staying within sight of this house.