Point Blank

READERS AND CRITICS PRAISE POINT BLANK

“A dizzying dash involving kidnapping, near-misses, murder, and a manhunt. Her readers are guaranteed a happy ending.”

—The Sacramento Bee

“Full-blown intrigue…Coulter deftly orchestrates her fast-paced, intricate story threads and the disparate cases challenging her agents with a concertmaster’s touch.”

—BookPage

“Love in all its forms, some of which can be quite twisted, lies at the heart of this stimulating and gritty new thriller. Coulter’s FBI books have their own special style which, when added to the spine-tingling suspense, supplies edge-of-your-seat thrills.”

—Romantic Times

“Brilliant and enthralling…Fans of Tami Hoag, Iris Johansen, and Kay Hooper will want to read Catherine Coulter’s latest suspense thriller…Ms. Coulter once again delivers a work brimming with action, chase scenes, and terrific characterizations.”

—The Best Reviews

“I just got through reading Point Blank. Great book. The two plots were classic Coulter style, which I love. The way you throw the readers right into the thick of the action is so captivating and thrilling. Congratulations on the book.”

—Lee Shackelford

“I have just finished Point Blank…What a lovely attention-grabber that one was…Such a tricky way to track the evil ones. You do good, and I love every one of your FBI series.”

—Marie Kahler

“Well, you did it again! You knocked my socks off with another great mystery, Point Blank.”

—Joe Nicolo

“You’ve done it once again. I didn’t get anything done because I picked up [Point Blank] first thing in the morning, and by bedtime it was finished. My husband almost didn’t get any dinner. He asked, ‘Is that book really that good?’ Yes, it was.”

—Carol Henson

“You did it again! Another great novel! I love the FBI series and all the characters. Keep up the good work. Your novels are great!”

—Joyce Hemminger

“I just bought Point Blank yesterday and finished it this morning. All I have to say is that it was the best out of all the FBI series. I have read almost all of your books. It was so suspenseful that I had a hard time putting it down to go to sleep at three in the morning. I love Savich and Sherlock together; they make a great team, and I hope they are in more books in this series because I really enjoy them. Once again, incredible book.”

—Francean Baxter

“Well, just this morning I finished reading Point Blank. You did a great job on that book. My thinking is that you are truly amazing. I look forward to whatever is next. Thank you.”

—Ernie Dalleske

“All I can say is WOW!!! Point Blank is one of your best! The first chapter was so graphic and well written I felt claustrophobic as Ruth walked through the cave and I groped through the darkness myself. A wonderful story and a great read! Thanks again!”

—Laurie McGrath

“Oh, it was the best!…You kept me going, Ms. Coulter, you really did. Keep writing.”

—Aimee Sordelli

DON’T MISS CATHERINE COULTER’S FBI THRILLER

SERIES

THE COVE (1996)

THE MAZE (1997)

THE TARGET (1998)

THE EDGE (1999)

RIPTIDE (2000)

HEMLOCK BAY (2001)

ELEVENTH HOUR (2002)

BLINDSIDE (2003

BLOWOUT (2004)

POINT BLANK (2005)

POINT BLANK

AN FBI THRILLER

CATHERINE COULTER

CHAPTER 1

WINKEL’S CAVE MAESTRO, VIRGINIA

FRIDAY AFTERNOON

RUTH WARNECKI PAUSED to consult her map, even though she’d read it so many times it was worn and stained from use, with a smear of strawberry jam on one corner. Okay, she’d walked and crawled down this twisting passage exactly the 46.2 feet indicated on the map. She’d measured it carefully, just as she’d measured all the distances since she climbed down into that first offshoot passage at the end of the cavern’s entrance. A narrow and twisty passage, smelling strongly of bat guano, some lengths of it so low she’d had to crab-walk, it had finally flattened out. So far the distances had matched those on her map to the centimeter.

At this point, there should have been a small arched opening directly to her right. She focused her head lamp some eight feet up to the top of the cave wall then slowly scanned downward. She didn’t see an arch or any sign there’d ever been one. She went over the directions again to this point, rechecked the distances, but no, she hadn’t screwed that up. Again, she shone her head lamp on the cave wall, moved back and forth at least three feet in both directions. Nothing. She was in the right spot, she knew it. Ruth rarely cursed when she was frustrated. She hummed instead. And so she hummed as she began to glide the palms of her hands slowly over the wall, pushing inward here and there. The wall was limestone, dry to the touch, eons of sand filming over it. Nothing but a solid cave wall. She was disappointed, but she knew that was a fact of life for a treasure hunter. Her old uncle, Tobin Jones, a treasure hunter for fifty years, and something of a mentor to her, had told her that for every authentic treasure map, there are more fraudulent ones than illegal aliens in California. Of course that was because every fraudulent map was a treasure in itself if it sucked in the right mark. Problem is, Tobin had said with a shake of his head, we’re all suckers. But that, he’d always believed, was better than those idiots traipsing over an empty ballpark or a beach with their metal detectors, looking for nickels. Actually, she used metal detectors, had a portable one attached to her belt along with two more flashlights. Yes, she understood all about fake treasure maps, but she’d really been excited about this one. All her research had led her to believe it could be the real deal. Even the age of the paper, the ink, and the manner of writing tested out—about 150 years old.

But there was no arch. She felt the crash of disappointment again and kicked the cave wall. There was always frustration, and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been taken before. There were the two fraudulent maps that had sent her after the guys who’d sold them to her; they’d known she was a cop, the morons. Then there was the Scotsman who sold her a map of a cave not a quarter of a mile west of Loch Ness. She should have known better, but he was so charming she’d believed him for one delicious moment. She shook her head. Pay attention. This map wasn’t a fraud, she felt it in her gut. If there was gold here, she intended to find it. If there wasn’t an arch, maybe it had crumbled and filled in over the long years. Yeah, right. She laughed at herself, an odd, creepy sound in the dense silence. What an idiot. The arch certainly could have collapsed, but it would remain visible. Debris from a cave-in would remain in situ for longer than time itself. Nothing would magically occur to fill it in from bottom to top so seamlessly. Only men could do that.

She stepped back, lifted her head so her head lamp shone directly on the wall. She studied every inch of it, pressing inward with her fist everywhere she could reach. Mr. Weaver had told her this part of Winkel’s Cave had never been explored, much less mapped. Even though he appeared worried for her, he still had a gleam in his eye at the thought of splitting any treasure she found. It was the feel of the cave, she thought, the way the silence felt, the hollow sound of her footsteps. She was sure no one had been in this cave for a very long time, perhaps since the gold was left here. Mr. Weaver had installed an iron grate to close off the entrance—fools injuring themselves, suing him, he’d told her. He couldn’t find the key, but that hadn’t mattered. The lock had been child’s play to pick. Finally, she stepped back and hummed some more. If someone had filled in an arched opening, they did it remarkably well. She could find no seams, nothing that looked out of place or staged. She sat back against the opposite cave wall and retied one of her walking boots. She realized she was tired. She pulled out an energy bar, her favorite peanut butter, and slowly began to eat it, washing it down with water from the plastic bottle fastened to her belt. Still sitting, she raised her head to train her lamp again on the opposite wall. She was beginning to hate that frigging wall. She began at the top, and slowly scanned all the way to the bottom again.

She saw something, about two feet above the floor, where the light reflected differently. She crawled to the wall and studied the thin shadow she’d seen. There, that was it, a line of dust and dirt about a half an inch wide.

Ohmigod, it wasn’t just a line; it was shaped like an arch.

She felt her adrenaline spike. She looked more closely and saw that someone had gouged the arch deeply into the wall. She touched it with her fingertip, lightly pushed inward. Her finger sank easily through years of soft, thick dust, up to her first knuckle. She knew one thing for sure now. The accumulation of dust in that grooved arch was decades older than she was. She wondered how many more years would have to pass before the arch outline disappeared entirely. Who had cut this arch and why, for heaven’s sake? Or was it a cover of some kind?

Ruth lightly pushed against the limestone directly below the top of the arch. To her astonishment, it gave a little. She laid her palm flat against the wall and gave a sharp push. The stone fell back some more. Her heart kettledrummed in her chest. The stone was light enough that she could dig it out. She pulled the small pick from her belt and went at it; the limestone crumbled, and suddenly she was staring at a small round hole.

She leaned forward, but the hole was too small for her to see anything in the chamber beyond. And there was a chamber beyond, the chamber she was looking for. Grinning like a madwoman, Ruth continued to use the pick on the limestone below the line of the arch. The stone broke apart, collapsing inward into the next chamber. When she’d cleared it out, it was no bigger than a St. Bernard doggie door, but it was large enough to look into. Shoving dirt out of the way, she stuck her head through the opening. She saw nothing but a floor. Pulling her second flashlight out of her belt she beamed both it and her head lamp straight ahead, then slowly to the right, then back to the left. The light faded into endless black, without reflection.

She pulled back and sat on her heels. The men who’d hidden the gold had cut this slab of limestone out of another part of the cave and fitted it in this space, to better hide the low entrance to the treasure chamber. She was so excited her fingertips were dancing: She was nearly there. She stuck her arm through the opening, felt nothing but the smooth dirt floor, solid and dry, the chamber the map showed beyond the archway. Everything was as it should be. So the precious map hidden in the age-dampened cardboard box of nineteenth-century books she’d bought off that old man in Manassas wasn’t created two weeks ago in a back room in Newark and planted there. Let’s do it, Ruth. It was a tight squeeze, but once she got her shoulders through, the rest was easy.

She swung her legs in front of her, raised her flashlight, and beamed it together with her head lamp around the space. According to the map, the chamber was good-sized, some thirty feet across and forty feet wide. She didn’t see the opposite wall, she didn’t see anything. She pulled out her compass. Yes, the opposite wall had to be due east. Everything was where it should be. She realized in that moment that the air wasn’t stale or dank, which one would expect in a cave chamber sealed for 150 years. She sucked in air that was fresher than the air in the main passage. Now wasn’t that a kick—she had to be close to an unmapped exit, and wouldn’t that have been handy for the men who hid the gold? Slowly she got to her feet and looked straight ahead. It was like standing in a dark pit, but she’d done that before, and with a head lamp you’d see the boundaries, wouldn’t you? She sucked in more of the wonderful fresh air. There was an underlying scent, something rather sweet that she couldn’t quite identify. For a moment she felt disoriented. She paused, and continued to breathe slowly and deeply, waiting for her head to clear, for the world to right itself. She felt a sort of dull heaviness in her arms and legs but then it was gone and her head seemed clear again. Time to move. She took a step forward, carefully planting her foot on the solid earth. What had she expected? To step off into space?

She laughed aloud, to prove she could. Her own voice sounded fresh and alive, clear as Mrs. Monroe’s when she called to Woodrow to finish his business and come in. What a strange thought that was. She felt something familiar niggle at the back of her brain—excitement mixed with fear, she thought, and smiled. Oh boy, was she pumped, even a little dizzy with it. But not stupid. She had no intention of gaily striding forward and stepping into a pit right before the finish line. She had to be smart, like Indiana Jones. She had to feel for trip wires and booby traps. Now that was a weird thought. She felt a shot of dizziness that made her stumble. She eased down to her knees, laid her flashlight on the ground in front of her, and began to slide her palms along the floor. The floor, thank God, continued smooth and sandy, though it seemed to shimmy a bit when she got up close. There weren’t any gnarled old vines tied across the chamber to unleash poison-tipped blow darts or to fire old rifles that surely wouldn’t work anymore. She heard nothing but the sound of her own breathing. Truth was, she was so excited it was hard to keep herself crawling and not do a mad sprint to the short passageway just beyond the chamber. The gold was there, in a small alcove, waiting for her, untouched since those bone-weary soldiers had hauled it in and drawn the map so they could return for it. Only no one had.

She continued to ease forward on her hands and knees. Every little while, she moved the flashlight out ahead of her again. It seemed like she had crawled for a long time. Too long a time.

She suddenly felt disoriented, again felt that strange heaviness in her arms and legs. She stopped, brought the flashlight up, and looked at the map. She could hardly read it and wondered why. She knew it said thirty feet to the opposite wall, she knew that, but for some reason she couldn’t get her brain around the idea. Surely she’d crawled thirty feet. It seemed like she’d crawled forever. Well, all right, maybe she’d crawled for a good three minutes. She looked at her watch. Thirteen minutes past two in the afternoon. She looked at the map yet again, tangible, as real as she was, her guide to the underworld, her guide to the River Styx. She laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. Where had that come from? She tried to concentrate. She was in a cave chamber, nothing more, nothing less. She had to be near the opposite wall, had to be. Then she’d take those three long steps to the right and there would be a small passageway—it was a passageway, wasn’t it?—and it led…

She heard something.

Ruth froze. From the moment she’d finessed the pathetic lock and begun her trek into the cave, there’d been only the noise made by bats and the sound of her own voice, of her own breathing. But now she held her breath. Her mouth was suddenly as dry as the sandy floor beneath her boots. She strained to listen.

There was only silence, as absolute as the blackness.

All right, she’d take silence. Silence was good. She was alone, no monsters hanging around at the edge of her light. She was freaking herself out for no reason, she, who took pride in her control. But why couldn’t she see any cave walls?

She knew the rough distance of a foot, not much longer than her own foot, and started counting. When she reached about fourteen feet, she stopped, stretched out her hand as far as she could, and her flashlight and head lamp cut a huge swath farther ahead of her. No wall. All right, so her distances were off. No problem, no reason to panic.

But she’d heard something—for an instant. What was the noise she heard?

She kept counting and crawling forward. At least another twenty feet. Okay, this was ridiculous. Where was the opposite wall?

She rose to her feet, shone her head lamp and flashlight together in a circle around her. She pulled out her compass again and pointed it. She stared at the needle. West. No, that couldn’t be right. She wasn’t facing west, she was facing east, the direction of the opposite wall. But there was no sign of a wall in any direction. She shook the compass. It still read west. It couldn’t be functioning properly. She stuffed it back in her pocket and pulled her hefty twenty-five-foot measuring tape off her belt. She slowly fed out the metal strip in a line directly in front of her, into the blackness. Finally she reached the end of the tape. There was no wall.

She felt fear, raw and paralyzing, crawl right up her throat. Why was she feeling this way? She was a cop, for heaven’s sake, she’d been in much tougher spots than this. She prided herself on her focus, on her ability to keep panic at bay, on her common sense. Nothing could shake her, her mother had always said, and it wasn’t necessarily a compliment.

But she was shaken now.

Get back on track, Ruth, get back on track, that’s what Savich would say. All right, bottom line: The chamber was bigger than the damned map said it was. Another effort at misdirection, like the arched doggie door covered with a slab of limestone. So what? No big deal. She’d go back out of the chamber and think things over. How many feet had she come? A good long ways. She turned and fed out the measuring tape back toward the archway. Naturally, she couldn’t see the arched opening beyond the dissipated circle of light from her head lamp. She crawled on the tape to make sure she kept in a straight line. When she reached the end of it, she fed out a second twenty-five feet. Nothing. Then another twenty-five feet. She shone her head lamp together with her flashlight all around her. Nothing at all. She looked at her compass. It said she was moving northeast. No, that was absurd. She was heading due west, right back toward the opening.

She looked up again, realized that her flashlight had faded away into a ghostly beam. All right, she’d walked a mile, who cared? And the compass was all screwed up. She didn’t need it to make her think she was crazy. She stuck it in her pocket, picked up the tape and fed it out another twenty-five feet, sure she’d see the archway at any moment. She’d come a hundred feet. At any moment, the tape would slither right through the opening back into the corridor. She crawled more slowly. By the time she’d crawled the full twenty-five feet, she was shaking.

Stop it, stop it. She pressed the retract button and heard the hiss of the tape as it smoothly ran back in. She stood there, holding the tape, knowing she was afraid to feed it out again. What was the point?

No, no, that was stupid. She had to. She had no choice. She fed out the tape again, smoothly and quickly. But even as she worked it out to its maximum twenty-five feet, she knew in her gut it wouldn’t touch anything. Still, she crawled the distance, then stopped, looked. She was nowhere, surrounded by black; she was being pressed in by black. No, no, stop it.

She thought she’d crawled in a straight line, but it was obvious now that she hadn’t; it was the only explanation. She’d veered off to the left or right. But still, shouldn’t the tape measure hit a wall? Of course it should, but you’re not near a wall, are you? You’re not near anything at all. Ruth began to move in a circle, keeping the measuring tape fully extended. No wall, nothing. She was losing it, her brain was twisted up, gone squirrelly. At a wave of dizziness and nausea, she sat on the floor, barely breathing now. She felt cold, raw fear skitter through her, a deadly fear that made the hair on her arms stir. Her heart pounded, her mouth was dry.

And she thought, I’m in the middle of a void and there’s no way out because I’m trapped in a black hole larger than anything I can imagine.

That thought, fully blown and as clear as bright headlights in her brain, shook her to the core. Where had it come from? She couldn’t seem to draw a deep breath, couldn’t seem to focus her brain. This was ridiculous. She had to think her way out of this. There was an answer, there was always an answer. It was time to get her brain working again. All right then. She was in a cave chamber. She’d simply crawled in farther than she’d thought, the ridiculous chamber was much larger than on the map—

She heard the noise again, a soft, sibilant sound that seemed to be all around her, but there were no visual reference points, like a snake slithering through sand, a snake so heavy it made a dragging sound as it pulled itself along. It was a snake that was coming toward her but she couldn’t see it, couldn’t get out of the way, couldn’t hide. Maybe it was one of those South American boas, thick as a tree trunk, heavy and sinuous, probably twenty feet long, dragging itself toward her; it would wrap its huge body around her and squeeze—She jerked the compass out of her pocket and hurled it as far away from her as she could. She heard it thud lightly against the cave floor.

The sound stopped. Once again the silence was absolute.

She had to get a grip. Her imagination was having a hoedown.

Stop it, just stop it, you’re in a damned squiggly hole deep in the side of a mountain, nothing more than a maze.

Maybe now she was at the center of the maze—bad things could happen at the center of a maze, things you didn’t expect, things that could crush your head, smash it into pulp, things…She was lost in the silence, she would die here.

Ruth tried to concentrate on breathing slowly and deeply, drawing in the blessed fresh air, and that strange sweet smell, on cutting off the absurd images that wanted to crash into her brain to terrify her, but she couldn’t seem to. She couldn’t find anything solid, anything real, to latch on to. The fear danced through her. She yelled into the darkness, “Stop being like your father, stop it!” To her relief, the sound of her own voice calmed her. She managed to clamp down on the panic. All she had to do was follow the straight line of the tape measure. It was metal, it couldn’t turn into a circle, for heaven’s sake. She’d follow it and end up somewhere, because there had to be a somewhere. Her heart slowed its mad hammering, her breathing became smoother. She leaned down and spread the map on the floor, held the flashlight close.

The only crazy thing here was the damned lying map. After all, the arch wasn’t where the map showed it to be. The arch, that was it, she’d gone through the wrong arch. Maybe, just beyond where she’d stopped looking, she would have found the arch the map showed and crawled into the right chamber. Or maybe the map was a trap.

But the fresh air, where was it coming from?

Where was a damned wall?

Ruth felt her head begin to pound, felt saliva fill her dry mouth, felt a scream bursting from deep in her gut. She knew in that instant she was going to die. She stood up, weaved a bit, and listened for the noise. She wanted that noise. She would go toward it; there had to be something alive, and she wanted to find it. It wasn’t a huge serpent—no, that was ridiculous. Oh God, her head was going to explode. The pain nearly sent her to her knees. She grabbed her head with her hands. Her fingers sank into her head, into her brain, mixed with the gray matter, and it was sticky and pulsing, and she screamed. The screams didn

’t stop, just kept spurting out of her, louder and louder, echoing back into her head, through her wet brains oozing between her fingers. It took all her strength to pull her fingers out of her head, but they felt wet and she frantically rubbed them on her jeans, trying to wipe them clean, but they wouldn’t come clean. She was crying, screams blocking her throat, then bursting out, so loud, filling the silence. Please, God, she didn’t want to die. She started to run, stumbling, falling, but she scrambled up again, didn’t care if she slammed into a wall. She wanted to hit a wall.

But there weren’t any walls.

CHAPTER 2

HOOTER’S MOTEL PUMIS CITY, MARYLANDEARLY SATURDAY MORNING

WHO WERE THESE people? Moses Grace and Claudia—those were the exact names signed on Pinky

’s kidnap note, the same as on the motel registry. Why would kidnappers advertise? They must have made up the names, Savich thought. Moses Grace and Claudia, whoever they were, didn’t know the cops were there, waiting for them to come out.

Savich was so tired he could feel his thoughts falling out of his brain before he could quite finish with them. Only the bone-freezing bite of the swirling wind straight from the Arctic kept him from falling asleep. His feet were getting numb, and he stamped them hard. They’d been there since eleven o’clock. It was now nearly three on Saturday morning, and they were unable to hunker over their portable stove because Moses Grace and Claudia might see the light. They were hidden in the trees across from Hooter

’s Motel, out in the boonies of western Maryland.

Why this Moses Grace character had picked Pinky Womack to take was another puzzle. Pinky was a middle-aged part-time comedian at the Bonhomie Club who could spout thirty lame jokes in ten minutes if you let him. He didn’t have much money of his own, and his only family was a single brother who had less than he did. He was unusual at the Bonhomie Club because he was one of Ms. Lilly’s token whites. He’d been gone a day before his brother, Cluny Womack, found the note duct-taped to Pinky’s kitchen counter. Hey, Savich, we got Pinky. We’ll be seeing you. And it was signed Moses Grace and Claudia. The handwriting was a young girl’s, all loopy, the i’s dotted with little hearts. It was written specifically to him. Moses Grace and Claudia knew not only who he was but also that he performed at the Bonhomie Club, and they knew Pinky. What did they want?

They were stymied until one of Agent Ruth Warnecki’s informants, who called himself Rolly, had called on Ruth’s cell phone that evening. Since Ruth was out of town, he was forwarded to Agent Connie Ashley. Rolly was a street person, really quite insane, but he’d given her the real juice more than once. Ruth called him her psycho snitch because his information always came for the price of a pint of warm blood, O negative. Ruth had a deal with a buddy at the local blood bank to give her expired pints of O

negative when she needed them.

Rolly told Connie how he’d been testing this new dark brew from Slovenia, or some such weird-ass place, rumored to have a nip of blood mixed in it, but he couldn’t taste it, and, he’d added as an afterthought, he was standing on the east side of a 24/7 on Webster Street, N.E., when he overheard this old man and a girl shootin’ the breeze not six feet away from him about how they’d scuttled old Pinky right out of his apartment as he was watching reruns of Miami Vice on cable. Rolly said the guy sounded like an ancient old buzzard—Rolly had been too afraid to try to get a look at him—but he sounded like he was on the brink of death, coughing like he was going to puke out his lungs. The old guy called the girl Claudia and cutie and sweetheart. She spoke all jivey, sounded Lolita-young, jailbait, like ripe fruit hanging off a low branch.

Rolly knew to his pointed canines that both of them were worse than badass bad, and they’d talked about hauling Pinky to Hooter’s Motel in Maryland, and they’d laughed about Agent Dillon Savich and his Keystone Kops braying around like three-legged jackasses. Rolly didn’t know why they’d picked a boob motel in the sticks of western Maryland. Claudia had laughed and said, “Well, Moses Grace, I’m goin’ to butter Pinky up and stick him in a big toaster if the cops show their face.” Why did she call him by his full name?

When Connie offered him another pint of blood, Rolly remembered they had talked briefly about taking Pinky out of the motel before dawn on Saturday, but they didn’t say where to. Mostly they laughed a lot, weird crazy-like laughter. Even Rolly had shuddered as he said that to Connie. It could be a setup. Maybe. Probably. But the FBI and the local cops were there because they had no other leads. They only knew Savich was at the center of it. On short notice they’d set up this elaborate operation—too elaborate, too complicated, Savich thought. And so they waited on a brutally cold winter night for Moses Grace and Claudia to leave their room dragging poor Pinky with them, FBI sharpshooters at the ready.

Savich rubbed his hands over his arms, then raised his night-vision scope toward room 212, the last room on the second level of Hooter’s Motel. Moses Grace’s old Chevy van hunkered in the parking lot, so filthy they couldn’t make out the license plate.

Raymond Dykes, the owner of the motel, had told Savich the girl signed both their names, with the same loopy handwriting. He couldn’t describe her well since she never took off the oversized dark glasses that covered half her face, but she was white, real pale white, and he knew she was pretty, with all that blond hair, wild and blowy, and a blue fake fur over jeans and a top.

They’d come strutting into his lobby during the evening, he didn’t remember the exact time. Maybe eight or nine, even ten o’clock, who knew? They were carrying bags of McDonald’s takeout under their arms, and they told him they had a sick brother moaning in the back of the van. Mr. Dykes gave them aspirin for the brother. Moses Grace called him Pinky, a funny name, which was why he remembered it. He watched them haul Pinky and the McDonald’s bags up the stairs between them to their room. He thought about the french fries and Big Mac and hoped Pinky wouldn’t puke in the room. When Savich, along with Sherlock and agents Dane Carver and Connie Ashley, had met up with Chief Tumi and half a dozen of his deputies, and given them instructions, Moses Grace and Claudia were already ensconced in their room with Pinky. By 12:15 a.m., agents had evacuated the motel’s other three occupants.

At one a.m. Savich’s directional receiver crackled, and he heard Moses Grace say in an old scratchy voice, “We ain’t heard a single lame joke from the little loser, just look at him, sleeping like a baby.”

Claudia, sounding like a teenager, added casually, “I could wake him up with a little kiss of my knife in his ear, you know, dig it in a little bit, rouse him real fast.” The old man laughed, and then he wheezed and coughed, phlegm rumbling low in his chest, and then there was nothing more. Savich looked down at his receiver, as if willing the unit to come to life, but there was only silence again. He heard a couple of yawns, a snort or two in the minutes that followed. There were the sounds of sleep, but could he trust them? A lone light still shone at the window, but he saw no movement of any kind. At three o’clock, Savich heard Moses Grace say clearly in his aged, juicy voice, “You know, Pinky, I’m thinking I’m gonna stick my fingernail through your left cheek, poke it in deep, twirl it around in your sinuses.” Nothing from Pinky, which meant, Savich hoped, that he was gagged. Claudia giggled. “I wish we took your brother, too, Pinky. He’s like a cute fat little pig. I could stuff him in the ground and roast him, pretend we’re in Hawaii at a luau.” She giggled again. They wouldn’t rush the motel room, not with just verbal threats. They had to wait, and Savich knew it was driving everyone nuts.

Agent Dane Carver whispered, “The old man sounds tired and sick. Claudia sounds hyper, talked so fast I could practically see spit flying out of her mouth. She’s young, Savich, real young. What’s she doing with that old man? What is she to him? They’re mad, no doubt in my mind, like Rolly told Connie.”

Savich nodded.

“Do you have any ideas yet who they might be, why this is all aimed at you?”

Savich could only shake his head. Mr. Dykes was the only one who’d seen them, and there hadn’t been time to work with their forensic artist, not that Savich was holding out much hope since Dykes’s descriptions were both too general and, frankly, lame. Surely he could have come up with something distinctive, if he’d tried. It made Savich uneasy, made him feel there was something wrong about Dykes. On the other hand, if everything went as planned, Savich would be seeing Moses Grace and Claudia for himself real soon now.

In the cold dark night, Savich knew that none of this made a lick of sense. There was no way Moses Grace was going to do what Rolly had overheard him say he’d do, namely take off early with Pinky stuffed in the back of that old Chevy van. And take him where? Something was seriously not right. Maybe Rolly had fed Connie what Moses Grace wanted them to hear.

At ten after four, Agent Connie Ashley appeared from behind Savich, dressed in black, as were the rest of her team, her face nearly completely covered with a black stretch hat and wool scarf. “I just got a call from Rolly. He wanted to talk to Ruth, but I told him she was still out of town, and besides, I was the one with the phone, and the blood now. Rolly told me he remembered something else this old guy said, about leaving with Pinky before dawn so they had plenty of time to get to Arlington National Cemetery.”

“Rolly remembered this now? In the middle of the night?”

“Rolly said something woke him out of a dead sleep and wham—he suddenly remembered.”

“How much more blood did he want for the information?”

“Two more pints.”

Savich said, “I wonder why Arlington National Cemetery? To do what?”

“Rolly didn’t know, said that’s all the old man said. It sounds like Rolly is having us on, Dillon. It makes me itchy. I wish Ruth were here; she’d know if he was telling the truth or not.” She paused for a moment, looked up at the last room on the second floor. The light still burned. “With those thick shades, it’s impossible to tell if anybody’s in there.”

Dane whispered to her, “At least we can hear whatever they say. I think it’s pretty cool that all Ruth’s snitches have cell phones.”

“She gave them all cell phones, told me it paid off big time in the Jefferson case to have her snitch get to her right away, not in an hour or twenty-four. She laughed when she said Rolly really liked it, told her it was the new century and you had to move forward with the times. She enrolled him and all her snitches in a family plan. Anything at all out of those two up there?”

Savich said, “Not in the last couple of hours. But there’s no way out except through the front door or the back window, which you guys are covering, so they’re in there. Even if Rolly was shining you on about their leaving early to go to Arlington National Cemetery, they’ll leave soon. We just have to stay ready.”

Connie nodded and silently blended back into the trees that surrounded this end of the motel to make a wide circle back to the other agents and the local cops.

“I agree with Connie,” Savich whispered. “This isn’t right.”

Dane was rubbing his gloved hands together. “But what else can we do?”

Not a thing, Savich thought, except wait. Why would Moses Grace want to take Pinky to Arlington National Cemetery? Savich frowned down at his hands, flexed his fingers to get the blood going. Nothing made any sense, and that scared him. He’d meant to ask Connie if Sherlock was okay, but of course she was. He hoped Ruth, at least, was having a better time than he was on her caving trip. He frowned as he thought again of Raymond Dykes, owner of Hooter’s. He’d been very cooperative at first, perhaps too cooperative, Savich thought now, only a bare minimum of complaining and general pissiness. Naturally they had told him he would be recompensed by the taxpayers for any loss of income, but still, he should have protested more. Savich suddenly remembered the small chipped red bowl on the end of the green-painted counter in the motel reception room. It held at least half a dozen chewed-up balls of gum, and wasn’t that the oddest thing? Dykes hadn’t chewed gum while they spoke to him to set things up. Were those chewed-up gum balls out of Claudia’s mouth?

Savich looked at his Mickey Mouse watch. It was exactly three minutes later than when he’d last looked. He shivered as an angry slice of bitter wind cut through the wool scarf wrapped around his neck. He pictured his son, Sean, sleeping with his bear Gus wrapped in his arms, a soft blanket up around his ears, all toasty warm, dreaming about tomato soup with popcorn on top, his new favorite meal. He looked over at Dane, hunkered down behind a trash can some six feet away, close to the thick black woods, and wondered what he was thinking after so many hours into this freezing stakeout. Dane wasn’t moving a muscle. He was being a pro, taking no chances that if Moses or Claudia happened to look out the window they would see a flash of movement and Pinky Womack would be dead. Moses Grace and Claudia had to move soon, before dawn. The FBI sharpshooters’ orders were straightforward—kill the old man and the female before they could kill Pinky. Savich knew this was Pinky’s best chance to ever giggle out more blonde jokes at Ms. Lilly’s Bonhomie Club.

A single, unsilenced gunshot popped, obscenely loud, in the night. Both Savich and Dane had their SIG-Sauers in their hands in an instant. But they heard no voices, no sound of a reaction or an argument from the directional receiver, only silence. Not even a whimper from Pinky. Was that single gunshot a bullet in Pinky’s heart?

Savich knew the unexpected shot had instantly chased away the deadening cold and snapped everyone to hyper alert. But it was a surprise. Unless they’d killed Pinky and were now ready to head out. Savich and Dane heard a low rumble of voices from the other side of the motel. No doubt Sherlock and Connie were having trouble with Police Chief Tumi and his men wanting to rush in, guns blazing. Savich said clearly into his wrist radio, “No one move. Is that clear? We can hear you. Stay put, no one talk.”

Police Chief Tumi’s voice returned through the speaker band. “You heard the shot, Agent Savich. They must have killed Pinky Womack. Let’s get the bastards now!”

Savich said again, “Stay put, Chief. Agent Carver and I have it covered from here. I’ll tell you when we move.”

Chief Tumi was pissed, Savich could hear it in the manic breathing pouring out of his radio. “Give us a moment, Chief. A man’s life is on the line here.”

He looked at Dane, whose eyebrows appeared to be dusted with ice chips above the wool scarf tied over his face.

Another gunshot broke the silence, and then the sound of a groan through his directional receiver. Savich whispered, “That’s it, Dane. We’re moving.” He added into his radio, “Chief Tumi, stay put. Agent Carver and I are going in.”

They ran toward the motel together, their pluming breaths hidden behind black wool scarves tied over their faces, bent over nearly double to the ancient paint-pimpled green stairs that led to the second level of the motel. If they were spotted by either of the kidnappers right now, they were dead. Savich kept his eyes on the thick blinds that hadn’t moved since they’d arrived. A trap, he thought, they were probably running right into a damned trap. Now here they were, in the open.

There was no movement from within room 212. Dane, his SIG in one hand and his ancient and beloved Colt .45 in the other, ran crablike under the single draped window. Savich knew the room plan—fourteen by fourteen with a mattress-sagging double bed against the far wall, a small nightstand beside it, a thirty-year-old black-and-white TV on top of a three-drawer fake-wood dresser just to the right of the front window. There was another window along the back wall, looking onto the skinny back parking lot that touched the edge of the woods where Sherlock, three other FBI agents, and Chief Tumi and his deputies were hidden. There was a five-foot-square bathroom to the left, and since this was an end unit, there was a single high window off it that a three-year-old couldn’t squeeze through.

Savich prayed they wouldn’t find Pinky lying on the cracked linoleum floor, his head blown apart. What were they doing? There were two of them, they’d killed Pinky, no doubt in Savich’s mind about that, and yet there was dead silence. Not a single muted breath, not a whisper, no old man’s cackling voice. He held the radio to his mouth and whispered, “Dane and I are going in. When you hear us break down the door, turn on the floodlights. Chief, use your bullhorn to order them to come out, the more noise the better. We know they’re here. They’ve got no place to go.”

Savich hoped the Pumis City police chief would do what he was supposed to and not hotdog it. He nodded to Dane, rose, and bashed his right foot against the doorknob. The door flew inward, slamming against the inside wall.

Dane was behind his left shoulder. He stayed high, Savich went in low. They quickly canvassed the empty room.

Dane shouted, “Come out of the bathroom. Now!”

“There’s no one here,” Savich said. “No one is here,” he said again more slowly. “I don’t understand—

how did they get out?” Then he knew, knew even before he saw the small red light on top of the night table, pointed directly toward the front door. He yelled into his wristband, “There’s a bomb in here! Get down!” He and Dane were out the open door and leaping over the rickety second-floor railing when they felt a tremendous jolt and the whole building shuddered with the force of it.

CHAPTER 3

SAVICH AND DANE landed ten feet away on the cracked concrete parking lot, rolled, and ran all out. A huge ball of flame erupted behind them, bursting outward from the room and through the roof like a volcano blowing. Suddenly the air was hot, a heavy pounding heat, and a noise like hell itself bursting apart. For a second the entire motel seemed to lift off its concrete foundation. They heard the top floor crashing into the rooms below as they ran, trying to protect themselves from the exploded debris flying outward with the force of missiles. Huge pieces of wood and jagged chunks of glass speared high into the air away from the gushing flames and rained down around them. Savich saw a television set hurtle down to the parking lot and smash into bits on the concrete in front of them. The heat was so intense Savich felt it searing the back of his thick wool coat, and wondered if he was smoking. Dane looked all right, so maybe not. He wondered if the Kevlar vests they were wearing had made the difference. When they’d dived into an ice-coated ditch some twenty feet beyond the parking lot, Savich yelled into his wristband, “Sherlock, are you all right?”

One second passed—too long—and then her voice came over, panting, “We’re all okay, but it was close, Dillon. The main explosion was in your direction, not ours. We’ve got lots of flying debris—I’m looking at most of a bed, with the sheets still on it—but we’re hunkered down behind an oak tree. Dillon

—” He heard the fear in her voice when she swallowed. “You’re okay? Dane?”

“Yes, we’re fine, I promise. We jumped over the second-floor railing, managed to land soft, and rolled. All the padding we’re wearing kept us from breaking anything.”

She gave a shaky laugh. “What happened, do you know?”

“When Dane and I went in, the room was empty. I knew in my gut it was a setup even before I saw the device—sitting on the side table, red light blinking right at us—and we got out of there.”

“Which means,” Sherlock said slowly, “that Moses Grace and Claudia got out of that room without us seeing them, somehow hauling Pinky with them. They would have had a remote detonator, a timer, or some kind of trip device.”

Connie said, “They had it all planned out. I’ll bet you anything they used Ruth’s primo snitch to set us up. She’ll rip out his pointed canines.”

Savich said, “That sounds right. We need to find Rolly, Connie, really get in his face. Put out an APB for him. We need to nail him as soon as possible.”

Connie said as she jerked out her cell, “I’ll track him down as quick as I can. They must have gotten out before we ever got here, Dillon. They could have cut through the bathroom wall, since the building is so cheaply built, or maybe they just slipped out the back window in the dark and Dykes didn’t see them. No way they slipped out after we got here.”

Savich said, “Have Police Chief Tumi and his men spread out through the woods and see what they can find. They obviously stashed another car or van somewhere. There’s an access road that runs behind the woods to the east.” But he knew it was too late. They were long gone, enjoying themselves, probably thinking that the cops outside the motel were dead or injured. That he was dead. Savich looked over at the old Chevy van. It was flattened under smoking debris. “Sherlock, we need everyone out here looking for Moses Grace and Claudia. See who you can roust. Dane called nine-one-one, so the fire department should be here soon.”

“Yes, I’m on it. Connie called nine-one-one, too, and probably every other deputy here. You swear to me you’re all right, Dillon?”

He couldn’t believe it, but he grinned into his wrist unit. He had been more scared for Sherlock than for himself. She was okay. “When this is over, I’ll take you dancing.”

He turned to Dane. “At least we’re not freezing to death anymore.”

Dane grinned, his face black with ashes, showing white teeth. “Wasn’t that a kick. A well-thought-out plan, except for that small timing glitch. They wanted you, Savich. I wonder if they saw us jump or if they think you’re dead.”

Twenty minutes later, Savich stood in front of what was left of Hooter’s Motel, watching the fire hoses douse the last of the flames. The smoldering carcass was puffing out black smoke, sending up little spurts of flame, the heat still too intense to get very close. The old building had gone up quickly. He’d had Chief Tumi send two deputies to find the owner, and at that moment he saw Raymond Dykes walking toward him, shoulders slumped, looking white and dazed. Savich wanted to kick the man into the frozen ditch where he and Dane had sheltered after the explosion. He heard Dykes say to himself, “Those bastards. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, this wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m a dead man walking when Marlene finds out.”

The final piece slid into place. Moses Grace had double-crossed Raymond Dykes. It was all a setup, to kill him and as many cops as they could manage.

Dane walked up and stood behind Dykes. In a voice as nonthreatening as a nun’s at vespers, he said, “I can see how you’d be shocked that they blew up your motel, Mr. Dykes.”

“I’ve lost my livelihood here, my whole life.”

“They lied to you and showed you some money and you decided to believe them, right?”

Dykes looked at the smoking bones of his motel. “Only information,” he said, “that’s all they wanted—

information. They gave me five hundred dollars, that fast, all smiles—five hundred dollars for a phone call.” He snapped his fingers and moaned, now holding his belly. “Nothing about an explosion. I’m a dead man. You don’t know Marlene.”

“Your wife?”

“No, my sister.”

“So they paid you to tell them if the cops showed up? That was all?”

Dykes nodded, then as if suddenly realizing he was talking to an FBI agent, and saying things he shouldn’

t, he gulped and shut his mouth.

Dane said, a bit of threat in his voice, “Too late, Mr. Dykes. If you don’t tell me everything now, we’ll make it real hard for you. You phoned their room when we were getting into position outside?”

Dykes began to rock, his arms collapsed over his chest. He nodded.

“What else? What were you expecting to happen?”

“Nothing. They said they’d go out the back,” Dykes said. “I’d let the phone ring three times, that’s all I had to do, just warn them. Nothing more. I heard them laughing later about firecrackers. When I asked them what they meant, the old guy, Mr. Grace, he laughed some more, said he’d like to scare the bejesus out of the cops, if he could, said the lot of you weren’t worth spit. If he only had one firecracker, that’s all he needed, he said. But he didn’t have one, did he?” He looked at the burnt heap of rubble that was, up until an hour before, his main support, then raised smoke-reddened eyes to Dane’s face. Dane wanted to smack him upside the head for being so greedy, so stupid. “He didn’t lie. He didn’t have a firecracker, what he had was a bomb.”

Dykes whispered, “Why did they lie to me, Agent Carver? Why? I did what they asked, called their room when you showed up, let the phone ring three times. This was crazy, mean and crazy. They ruined me.”

Savich said, “No, Mr. Dykes, you did this yourself.” He was still trying to get his brain around what this man had done, for five hundred dollars.

“It was the girl with all that beautiful hair; she paid me to let them know if you guys showed up. But I wasn’t born yesterday, people are always trying to stiff me because they figure the rooms are cheap, the name of the hotel is a joke, but look, I believed them. And she was so pretty, and she liked me. Her stomach was so white and—I guess I didn’t call this one right at all, did I? I’m an idiot.”

Dane said, “Yes, I’d say tonight you were.”

Dykes, skinny as a nail, wrapped up in a coat two sizes too large for him, thick mousse glistening on the half dozen long gray hairs plastered down over the top of his skull, realized fully now that he was in deep trouble. “No, I—I—I’m not an idiot, and it isn’t nice of you to agree with me like that. I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen, Agent Carver, you’ve got to believe me. I didn’t have a clue what they were planning. Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Marlene is going to kill me.”

“You took five hundred dollars knowing that our lives were on the line.” There was no rage in Dane’s calm voice, but it was there, clear as could be, in his eyes, if Dykes had looked up at him. But he kept his eyes on his shoes, and shook his head.

Savich asked him, “They requested room two-twelve?”

Dykes nodded. “Yeah, that’s a prime room since it’s on the end and there’s a window in the bathroom.”

Dane said, “You realize now that they either cut through that thin back bathroom wall or they went out the back window and were gone by the time we walked into your office. They meant to kill as many of us as they could. The bomb was powerful enough. Do you have a family, Mr. Dykes, or are you only at the mercy of your sister Marlene?”

“No, Joyce left me two years past for a trucker whose eighteen-wheeler smoked up every state he traveled through. I’ll bet he told her he’d show her all the sights and the dip believed him.”

Savich said, “Then you can think of Joyce enjoying the Grand Canyon while you’re nice and snug in jail.”

Dane said, “Maybe Marlene will visit you in your cell.”

Dane accepted a pair of handcuffs from one of Police Chief Tumi’s deputies, clicked them around Dykes

’s bony wrists, and handed him over to a deputy, who stared at Dykes like he couldn’t believe what he’d done. The deputy hauled him off, none too gently, to a cruiser. Chief Tumi called out, “Read him his rights, Deputy Wiggins. It’s a right shame that stupidity isn’t a felony.” He turned to Savich. “So the two gunshots we heard—they really were gunshots, weren’t they?”

“They were well timed, whatever they were,” Dane said. “Maybe the arson investigators will find the remains of a tape recorder in the wreckage. Maybe the conversation we heard, as well as the gunshots, was recorded to play at a specific time.”

Chief Tumi nodded, looked over at his deputy, who was stuffing Dykes into the backseat. “Roy, don’t leave that yahoo alone. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Savich said to Dane, “One thing we can bank on—they were long gone out of that room, with Pinky, before we heard the gunshots. They might have been watching.”

Connie said, “You can fry Rolly when I reel the little bugger in.” She shook her head. “This will sure shake Ruth’s belief in her snitches. Do you know the little geek reminded me about his extra pint because he’s throwing a goth party?”

Chief Tumi said to Savich, “My deputies are reporting no sign of them yet, but we’ll find them. I’ve called the State Police, given them descriptions, told them about Pinky. We’ve done what we can.”

Savich knew there was a lot more to do but mostly for the forensic team. Connie said, “That old Chevy van over there—it was bait, the lure to keep us here. I wonder if they really are heading for Arlington National Cemetery.”

“Or is it more misdirection?” Sherlock wondered aloud.

But Savich knew they had no choice but to run another complicated operation, and they only had about four hours to get everything nailed down. He couldn’t imagine how much manpower they’d need to cover that huge expanse of land, with its thousands of white markers and monuments and rest areas. “I hate to say this, I really do, but I have a feeling they’ll actually be there. Find Rolly, Connie.”

“Dillon, do you want to call Ruth, bring her back in?”

Savich started to nod, then thought of how excited she’d been about the trip, about going into a cave this time, and just wait until he saw what she brought back. “No, let her have her time off. There are enough of us here. She’ll be back on Monday.”

They looked up to see an older woman striding toward them, boots to her knees, a head scarf tied tight around her face, a thick wool coat flapping around her calves. She stopped at the cruiser, leaned in, and screamed, “What did you do, Raymond?”

Savich cocked an eyebrow. “Marlene, I presume.”

CHAPTER 4

MAESTRO, VIRGINIAFRIDAY EVENING

SHERIFF DIXON NOBLE shrugged into his leather jacket, pulled on his gloves, and left his office at Number One High Street just before five o’clock. It was colder than Brewster’s nose against the back of his knee in the dead of winter. Snow was coming, forecasted to dump a good one and a half to two feet. He really didn’t want to think about the phone calls it would bring, from downed power lines to car pileups, older citizens with no heat, sick folks without a way to get to the hospital—the list was endless. He’d learned a long time ago to have a solid number of what he called “disaster deputies” he himself had trained to handle the worst that bad luck and nature could throw at them. It had been a slow February anyway, he thought, except for Valentine’s Day. Will Garber had brought his wife, Darlene, a three-pound box of Valentine chocolates as an apology, but Darlene wasn’t buying it. She grabbed up a handful of chocolates and rubbed them in his face, at which point he slugged her, slammed out of the house, got drunk at Calhoun’s Bar, broke Jamie Calhoun’s nose, and ended up in jail.

“Hey, Dix, anything going on this weekend for you?”

Dix paused a moment, nodded to Stupper Fulton, owner of Fulton’s Hardware, as his father had been before him, and said, “Not so’s you’d notice, Stup. Me and the boys will be sledding down Breaker’s Hill along with half the kids in town if this storm coughs up enough snow. If it coughs up too much, I’ll be all over town with a shovel, digging people out of ditches.”

“Don’t think I’d want to sled in a storm,” Stup said. “At my age, I’d break bones if I hit a tree.”

Dix saw Stup was obviously cold but he wasn’t moving. “You got something on your mind?”

“Well, yeah, it’s like this, Dix. Rafer wants a job.”

“Rafe’s fourteen, old enough, but his grades in English and biology stink, and I’ve already told him there’

ll be no part-time job until he gets both of them to a B average. I’m trying to help him out myself, helping him build a model of the double helix for biology in the evenings and even reading Othello with him for English. The guy’s an idiot.”

“Rafer? He’s not an idiot, Dix, he just needs some good motivation.”

“No, Stup, not Rafer, this guy Othello. You know, the guy who murders his wife in Shakespeare’s play.”

“Oh, well then. Rafer wants a job so much he even promised me he’d work extra fast, do all I asked him to do in half the time it would take anyone else, and then he’d study.”

Dix laughed. “That kid’s always got a line. What did you tell him?”

“That I’d speak to you about it.”

“Tell him you pay by the hour, so if he does the work in half the time, he’ll only make half the money. Let

’s see what he has to say to that.”

Stup rubbed his arms and broke into a grin. “That’s good, Dix. He’s supposed to come see me tomorrow, so I’ll try it.”

Before he reached his Range Rover, Dix walked along High Street, as he usually did, and spoke to a half dozen more citizens of Maestro, including Melissa Haverstock, the local librarian, who asked him if he’d like to come with her to the First Methodist Church potluck supper on Saturday night. He kindly refused. When he pulled into his driveway eleven minutes later, it was already getting dark. He was getting real tired of the long winter nights. It was cold, the naked branches shuddering in the frigid air. He sniffed the air. Snow was coming, all right, he could smell it, heavy and moving closer. The house was all lit up, and that meant the boys were home or they had left and didn’t bother to turn the lights off. Who knew?

He heard Brewster bark, knew he was waiting beside the front door, his tail wagging so fast it was a blur. Brewster tended to pee when he got excited, so Dix speeded up, hoping to head off an accident. It was Friday night and he’d have to nag Rob to do the laundry. The three of them had lived through pink shorts and undershirts until Rob finally got clued in to colors running in the washer. Rafer had worn a bathing suit under his jeans for a good two weeks after the guys in gym class laughed their heads off at him for being a girlie-man.

Brewster, whose truly impressive bark exceeded his body weight by at least fifty pounds, tried to climb up his leg when he came in the house. “Hey, Brewster, you hanging in there, fella? Yeah, I’m home and we’re going to have a fine old time. And you didn’t even pee on my boots.” He picked up the four-pound toy poodle and laughed when he wildly licked his five o’clock shadow.

“Hey, boys, you here?”

Rafer sauntered in, shoulders slouched, yawning. “Hey, Dad. I’m here.”

“Where’s your brother?”

Rafer gave a trademark teenage shrug, Like ask me if I care. “Dunno, maybe he went over to Mary Lou’

s house. He said he wanted to get in her pants.”

“If he tries to get into Mary Lou’s pants her dad will skin off his face.”

Rafer grinned at that. “That’s good, I’ll warn him, but you know, Dad, he gets this glazed look in his eyes when he’s with her, like he’s a little nuts. Oh, never mind.”

“Yeah, you warn him, Rafe.” Of course Rob was nuts, he was a teenager. Given those raging hormones, it was a blessing there were fathers like Mary Lou’s. Her parents kept a tight rein on her, but he supposed he’d have to speak to Rob again, for the umpteenth time—the teenage boy and sexual responsibility talk, now that gave him a headache.

“Rob did the laundry,” Rafer said. Dix felt a leap of pleasure, but it folded when Rafer snickered.

“What color are our shorts this time?”

“A real pretty robin’s-egg blue,” Rafer said, “that’s what Mrs. Melowski called it.”

“Great. Wonderful. Why did you show Mrs. Melowski our blue shorts?”

“You know, she’s always coming by, wants to see you, and Rob was holding a pair of his shorts and she looked at them and started laughing. She showed Rob what he did wrong.”

“So have I, countless times.”

“Well, yeah, she said they’d need another couple of washings with lots of bleach and the blue would come out. She left a lemon cake for our dessert tonight. Hey, Dad, what’s for dinner?”

“Not pizza tonight, Rafe, hang that up. I made some stew Tuesday and froze it. I’ll make biscuits to go with it.”

“I’ll see if we’ve got enough catsup.”

“We do. I checked before I left this morning. Is there any of the lemon cake left?”

“I did eat a couple of pieces,” Rafer said.

Dix could easily picture the gutted cake. He pulled his cell out of his jacket pocket and called the Claussons’ house. Sure enough, Rob was there, playing Foosball with Mary Lou and her parents, who were killers at the game. They had the fastest reflexes Dix had ever seen. Rob must have been getting beat really bad because he didn’t sound at all sorry to come home to dinner. “Hey, Dad, can Mary Lou have dinner with us?”

Before Dix could answer, he heard Mr. Clausson say in the background, “No, Rob, Mary Lou’s aunt is visiting us tonight.”

“Come on home, Rob.”

“Yeah, Rob,” came Rafe’s voice loud in the background, “you don’t want Mr. Clausson to skin off your face.”

IT STARTED SNOWING about nine-thirty that night. Dix and the boys were watching TV, he and Rafe having buried Othello and Desdemona an hour before. Rafe, rightfully in Dix’s opinion, wanted to know why Iago didn’t get his guts ripped out, to which Dix replied, “Hey, Shakespeare gave us a body count of five. That’s enough, isn’t it?”

Rafe had finally said, “Yeah, I guess enough of the cast did croak.”

Rafe’s model double helix was finished and sat once more on top of his desk next to his Titans football signed by Steve McNair. They usually watched TV on Friday nights. It was a treat for the boys since he had a no-TV rule during the week.

Rafe fell asleep in the middle of Law & Order, his head on Dix’s leg. Rob, sixteen, long and skinny, was slouched in his favorite chair, snoring lightly. His hair was as black as Dix’s but his eyes were his mom’s blue-green. I’m the old man here in the room, Dix thought, and I’m the only one awake. It made him wonder what the boys had been up to today to wear themselves out.

He got the boys off to bed at ten o’clock and took Brewster out for his night run. Since the snow had only just begun to fall, he didn’t have to worry about Brewster sinking in over his head and getting himself in trouble, a very real concern in the winter. He let him down on the front porch and watched him leap joyfully off the top step and race into the yard, barking and yapping. He twirled back around, bouncing like there were springs on his back legs, trying to catch the snowflakes with his front paws, his fluffy little tail wagging frantically.

Dix walked down the sidewalk and raised his face to the sky. The snow was so lacy and soft it dissolved the instant it touched his face. He stood silently, smiling at Brewster, letting the cold night air fill his lungs. He realized he felt good, felt more whole again than not, and that was surely a step in the right direction. Brewster yelped three times at him and took off toward the woods.

“Brewster! Come back here, you know the woods are off-limits!”

But Brewster had the scent of some animal and wasn’t about to give up the chase. Dix headed after him, pulling on the gloves he’d pushed into the pockets of his leather jacket as he walked. There were lots of feral animals in the woods, 99 percent of them bigger and more vicious than Brewster. Dix called the dog again and again, but all he heard were Brewster’s yelps, growing more distant. He kept talking to Brewster, following the sound of his barks. He’d found something, perhaps an injured animal.

The night sky hung heavy, fat, bloated clouds waiting for some internal alarm to dump their snow, and no more of this penny-ante stuff. “Brewster!”

More yelps cut the night silence, not so distant now. Had Brewster trapped an opossum?

The snow was coming down a bit heavier now, but the trees were thick, shielding them. “Brewster!”

Brewster was barking madly at a dark hump on the forest floor, something that wasn’t moving, something that looked human.

Dix grabbed up his dog, stuffed him inside his jacket, and zipped it up. “Calm down, Brewster, and don’t pee on my shirt.” He looked down at a person lying in front of him, unconscious or dead. Dix fell to his knees and turned the person over. It was a woman, her face covered with blood. He pulled off his gloves, scooped up some snow, and lightly rubbed it over her face. The blood came off easily. He saw a gash on the side of her head, bleeding sluggishly. He touched his fingertips to the pulse at her throat. It was slow and steady. Good. He leaned into her face. “Hey, can you hear me? You need to wake up.”

Her lashes fluttered.

“That’s it. Open your eyes, you can do it.”

She didn’t open her eyes but she moaned low in her throat. Dix methodically felt her arms, her legs, her torso, and nothing felt broken. Not that that meant anything. He pulled his gloves back on. Brewster poked his head out the top of Dix’s jacket. Dix carefully lifted the woman in his arms. She was tall, lanky and heavy enough. He was afraid to carry her over his shoulder because she might be injured internally, so he cradled her in his arms.

As he walked out of the woods, the clouds let loose and the wind came to vicious life and blew blinding snow in his face. By the time Dix got back to his house, it was snowing so hard he could barely make out his porch light.

He stomped the snow off his boots and got himself, Brewster, and the woman quietly into the house.

“Okay, Brewster, you hit the floor and I’ll get her onto the sofa.” She wasn’t particularly wet so he spread two afghans over her, unlaced her boots, and pulled them off her feet. She was wearing thick wool socks, which were still nice and dry.

He pulled his cell out of his pocket and dialed nine-one-one. His dispatcher, Amalee Witten, answered. “

Yo, Sheriff, what’s up?”

“I found an injured woman in the woods by my house. I need the paramedics as fast as you can get them out here, Amalee.”

Amalee was fifty-two years old and weighed 211 pounds, but when it was urgent, she could move out faster than Rob when it was his turn to clean the bathroom. “Hold tight, Sheriff.”

“Hey, Dad, is she going to be all right?”

“I don’t know, Rob, I can’t get her to wake up. Go make some hot tea. Let’s see if we can get it down her.”

Not five minutes later, his son came into the living room cradling a cup of tea between his palms. “It isn’t too hot so she won’t scald her mouth.”

“Good.” Dix lifted her, pressed the edge of the cup to her bottom lip. “Come on, smell that Lipton’s, best tea in captivity. Rob made it just right so you can open up and take a big gulp. It’ll warm your insides.”

To his surprise, her mouth opened and she sipped it. She opened her eyes, looked at him, and drank more tea.

“Are you in pain?”

She slowly shook her head. Her voice came out thin as thread. “Only my head.” She tried to raise her hand, but Dix held it down.

“You’ve got a cut on the left side, above your temple. I’m going to leave it for the paramedics to do it right.”

Brewster jumped onto the sofa and hunkered down next to her. “This is Brewster and he found you in the woods just before the snow started coming down hard.”

“Brewster,” she said, reaching out her hand to his little face, “thank you.”

“I’m Dixon Noble, sheriff of Maestro. The guy who made the tea is my son Rob. Can you tell me your name?”

“I’m…” She nuzzled her chin against Brewster, who was licking her. “This is very strange,” she said after a moment, turning back to look up at him. “Do you know, I really don’t have a clue.”

Dix stood slowly. She looked suddenly scared and the last thing he wanted was for her to freak out. He said calmly, “Whatever else happened to you, you got a big whack against your head. Maybe that could account for you not remembering. The doctor can tell us what’s going on. I’m sure it’s temporary, so try not to worry, okay? Let me check the pockets of your jacket for ID.” He heard the ambulance sirens in the distance. “You don’t seem to have anything at all in your pockets. Did you have a purse or a wallet with you, do you remember?”

He saw her eyes were dilated and that concerned him. “Don’t worry about it. Maybe you’ve got something in your jeans pockets. They can check at the hospital. I don’t want to move you around. Tomorrow I’ll check the woods for a purse.”

“This is nuts,” she said, and he saw her wiggling beneath the afghans. She was obviously searching her jeans herself. Then she lifted her hand and checked the jacket herself. “I can’t find anything. That doesn’t make any sense. Where’s my cell phone? Did I have a purse? No, that’s not likely. I never take a purse.

”

He waited patiently.

“Never.”

“But you know you had a cell phone?”

“Yes. Oh dear, I think so.” She started humming.

Rob said, “Why are you humming?”

“I don’t like to curse so I hum when I’m unhappy about something.”

“That’s cool,” said Rafe, who was standing behind the sofa, looking down at her.

“That’s my other son, Rafer. Okay, things are coming back. Don’t push it. There’s always an explanation for everything.”

“What you just said—that sounded really familiar, like I say that to people.”

The paramedics followed Rob into the living room. Ten minutes later, Dix and the woman were in the ambulance headed to Loudoun County Community Hospital, some twelve miles away. It was snowing really hard, so it took a good thirty minutes to get there. She was pale and her eyes looked glassy. He held her hand. She wasn’t wearing any rings, only a no-nonsense multifunctional black watch. The emergency room wasn’t a zoo yet, but everyone was preparing for the worst. Dix sat himself in the nearly empty waiting room after they had wheeled her away, and prepared to read his way through a National Geographic magazine dated 1997.

He heard her cry out. He rose automatically, took a step toward the curtained-off cubicle.

“Sheriff, we need to do some paperwork here.”

He did his best, but since he had no clue who she was or what her medical history was, there were mostly blank lines left on the forms after her name, Jane Doe.

Dix pulled out his cell and called Emory Cox for a status report. “This is weird, Sheriff, we’ve only had one call. It was a wrong number if you can believe that.”

“No, I don’t believe that. It was probably an abuse call, and chances are the wife will show up tomorrow with a broken nose and bruises everywhere. We’ll see.”

“So far everyone seems to be staying in tonight, not being stupid.”

“Let’s hope our luck holds up, Emory. I’m at the hospital. I do have something of a situation here.” He detailed to Emory how he’d found the woman, knowing of course that Amalee had probably already told half the people in town all about it. “I want you to send two of our disaster deputies—Claus and B.B. Claus can drive his four-wheeler out to my property. They need to find the woman’s car—No, I don’t know what kind of car she was driving because, as I said, she can’t seem to remember anything right now. I want you to check around the county for any reports of missing young women. If she can’t tell us who she is by tomorrow morning, we’ll run her fingerprints through IAFIS; maybe we’ll get lucky. Tomorrow, if necessary, you can take a photo of her, and we’ll send it out. Check all the local B-and-Bs, hotels, and motels within a fifteen-mile radius of Maestro. All I can say is that she’s in her mid-thirties, dark hair, light complexion, really green eyes. She’s on the lean side, a runner maybe. Her arms and legs felt strong when I checked her for broken bones. She’s tall, maybe five-foot-nine, -ten. Of course, the car would tell us everything we need to know. Her ID’s probably in there, or we can identify her from the plates, so emphasize to Claus and B.B. that the car’s the priority.”

Thirty minutes later, Dr. Mason Crocker came over to him in the waiting room. “She seems to be all right, Sheriff, at least physically. The CT scan was clear. There is no evidence of any anatomic injury other than that head wound. She may have suffered a concussion, but I think she’s also got some drugs on board. Her eyes don’t seem right to me; they’re dilated and glassy. She’s restless and her heart rate is up. I can’t quite place it—it’s not one of the usual drug effects we see. We’ve sent off a toxicology screen on her.”

“Do you think she was drugged? Poisoned?”

Dr. Crocker shrugged. “I wouldn’t discount it. She seems to be coming out of it. We’ll need to keep her for a while, though.”

“Yeah, check it out, that’s good.”

“You said you found her in your woods.”

“Yeah. Brewster did, actually.”

“No ID?”

“There could be a purse out there somewhere but she told me she never took a purse out—to do what, she didn’t remember. I’ll send my boys out to look tomorrow.”

Dr. Crocker said, “She says she can’t remember who she is, how she was hurt, or how she ended up unconscious in your woods.”

“Do you think she’s faking it?”

Dr. Crocker shook his head. “No, I don’t. It could be what we call hysterical amnesia. Her memory loss relates to particular memories, and is sharply bounded. For example, she can tell me who the president is, she can talk about the pitiable state of the Redskins. Sometimes when people are badly hurt or terrorized, they need to forget for a while, to protect themselves. Hey, I hope she’s not an escapee from Dobb’s Women’s Prison.”

“I hope not, too. Tell you what, I’ll give them a call, have them do a bed check. That was a joke, Doc.”

“Maybe she was out camping, something like that.”

“In this weather?”

“Hey, maybe she’s from California. You know, Sheriff, if someone struck her on the head to rob her, they could have taken her ID.”

Eyebrow up, Dix said, “Yeah, that occurred to me.”

“So what are we going to do with her? If she does okay tonight, she can be out of here, medically, in the morning.”

“I’ll have to think about that. Hope you stay bored tonight, Doc.”

CHAPTER 5

“THANKS FOR THE lift, Penny,” Dix said to his thirty-year-old deputy, who knew how to box and was married to the local funeral home director, as she pulled into his driveway. “Hope you got a lot of hot coffee.”

“Tommy wouldn’t let me out the front door unless I filled his super-giant-size thermos to the brim with the sludge he calls coffee. I’ll be fine, Sheriff.”

Brewster and both boys were waiting for him and wanted every gory detail. It wasn’t until well after one in the morning that Dix, Brewster curled up against his back, finally got himself to sleep. The snow was back to a light powder the following morning, with about a new foot on the ground. Dix made breakfast while the boys shoveled the driveway and looked in the woods where he had found the woman. Brewster supervised, which meant he ran around them in circles until he was exhausted. Rob brought him back into the house and left him in the kitchen, next to the warm stove. “He nearly bought it in a deep patch of snow, Dad. I think he’s had enough. We didn’t find the lady’s wallet, or a purse, or anything. There’s too much snow.”

“I appreciate your looking. Come and sit down now, breakfast is ready.”

If there was something Dix considered himself good at, it was breakfast. The house smelled of fried bacon, eggs over easy, brown sugar on oatmeal, and blueberry muffins. By ten o’clock, the boys were off with their sleds slung over their shoulders to Breaker’s Hill, where most of Maestro’s teenagers would be congregated along with some of the hardier parents. Dix finished shoveling the driveway and drove to the hospital. On the way, he checked in with his deputies, who, thankfully, had nothing dire to report, no six-car pileups or downed electrical wires. Nor had anyone found an abandoned car. Nor were there any local missing persons reported. And not a single woman of her description had registered at any B-and-B or motel in the immediate area. Dix supposed he’d expected her to be registered at Bud Bailey’s Bed & Breakfast, where most people stayed if they visited Maestro. Someone had obviously hit her. Had they left her unconscious in his woods, or had she managed somehow to get away from them, and then collapsed in the woods? All he needed was her car. Could the people who whacked her over the head have driven it off? Hidden it somewhere?

Maybe she’d come here for a specific reason, a reason someone didn’t like. Or maybe that someone had moved her a good distance away from where she’d been brought down. The main roads were already plowed and the light snow falling wasn’t going to be much of a problem. The forecast was for more snow, though, becoming heavy in the late afternoon. Emory called to check in.

Dix said, “Someone’s got to have seen her, sold her gas, supplies, something.”

“Maybe she’s here with someone.”

“If that were the case, they surely would have called us when she went missing.”

Emory sighed. “Maybe her old man is the one who tried to off her.”

“She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring,” Dix said.

“I don’t either, Sheriff, and I’m so married Marty can finish my sentences.”

“It’s odd, but she didn’t seem married to me.”

Emory wondered what that meant, but he let it go.

Dix found Dr. Crocker, more rumpled than he’d been the night before, a stethoscope nearly falling off his neck, at the nurses’ station on the second floor.

“You ever go home last night, Doc?”

“Nah, I haven’t left the hospital for six weeks now. Just kidding, Sheriff. Now, our girl is trying really hard not to show it, but she’s scared—understandable since she had a pretty rough night of it and still can

’t remember who she is or how she came to be in your woods. The head wound’s okay. Since it’s the weekend, most of the toxicology screen won’t be ready until sometime Monday.”

Dix asked Dr. Crocker a few more questions, then he found room 214. It was a double room, but she was the only occupant. She was sitting up, staring at muted cartoons on the TV. There was a white strip of keri tape over her temple, nothing more. She wasn’t moving.

When she saw him, she said, “Do you use meters?”

“What? Meters? Well, no, I think in feet and inches, like most Americans. Why meters?”

“It popped into my head a little while ago. I realized I know all about meters and centimeters, how to convert back and forth. I don’t sound like I’m from Europe, do I?”

“Nope, you’re American to the bone. I’d say Washington, Maryland, around there.”

“Maybe I’m a math teacher and I teach the metric system.”

“Could be. Sounds to me like you’re nearly ready to remember everything, but don’t push it, okay? Just relax. How’s your head feel?”

“Hurts, but I can handle it.”

Odd, but it seemed to him she could handle about anything. He pulled a small black plastic kit from his jacket pocket, opened it, and spread out the paraphernalia on the bedside table. She watched him a moment, said, “You’re going to take my fingerprints?”

“Yes, that’s right. This is my portable kit since you’re not up to going to the station to scan them in. It could be you had a job that required fingerprints.”

“Could I be in NCIC?” The instant the words were out of her mouth, she froze.

“NCIC—you know what that means?”

He could tell she was trying really hard, and he raised his hand. “No, let it go. I’m sending your fingerprints electronically to IAFIS. That’s the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. If you’re one of the forty million folks in the civil fingerprint file, we should hear back within twenty-four hours.”

“I forgot your name.”

“Dixon Noble. I’m the sheriff of Maestro.”

“Maestro. What a strange name, charming, but strange.”

“I prefer it to Tulip, Montana.”

She smiled, but it wasn’t a simple smile, there were remnants of pain in her eyes. He knew that look when he saw it, knew it to his bones. And he could practically feel her controlling her sense of panic. “

You want some aspirin?”

“No, it isn’t bad. I heard the nurses talking about me earlier. They wondered what the doctors were going to do with me.”

“Not a problem,” Dix said. “I’m taking you home with me.”

THE HOSPITAL INSISTED she ride in a wheelchair to the front door. Once she was seat-belted inside the Range Rover, she turned to watch the sheriff as he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the highway. Then she stared out the window to watch the bright morning sun glisten off the snow. “It’s beautiful, and it feels familiar down to my bones, so I guess I’m not from Arizona.”

“Now that’s interesting. Some deep part of you feels at one with this atrocious weather.”

“Kind of sad, actually.”

“My boys looked in the woods where I found you, but there was nothing there. More snow’s forecasted for this afternoon, but it’s beginning to look like the weather guys are wrong again. Emory’s coming to the house later to take some photos. We’ll show them all over the area. Someone had to have seen you, someone will remember you.”

“I don’t live around here, I’m pretty sure of that, so that means I had to have a room somewhere. I like your Range Rover,” she said, surprising him. “They’re really good off-road, but I think they make me nauseous when I’m a passenger and there are too many bumps.”

“What do you own?”

“A BMW—oh, nice how you did that—but I’m not sure, sorry. BMW popped into my mind, so maybe. I sure hope you find my car, whatever it is, soon. You can find out who I am in about two seconds flat.”

“How?”

“From the VIN, not to mention the license plate.”

“Yes, that’s right,” he said. “I’ve got people out looking for your car. If the person who struck you tried to hide it, he’s in luck. With all this snow it could be well camouflaged.”

She cleared her throat. “Seems like someone tried to obliterate me, and sort of has.”

“You’ll be okay,” he said matter-of-factly. “But I am wondering how you got to my house.”

“Maybe the woods were just handy?” She didn’t sound upset, and that was surely strange for a civilian. She sounded curious, not at all scared, like she had a problem to solve.

“Or maybe you managed to walk into my woods.”

“Who knows?” She laughed, actually laughed. “Here I am as useless as a lifeguard who can’t swim. What could I have been doing here to make someone go to all this trouble?”

“I can see your eyes nearly crossing. Stop straining. Relax. Stuff is coming back really fast now. It won’t be much longer. Do you think your Beemer is one of those SUVs?”

“It’s not an SUV, it’s an SAV. It’s not a pedestrian utility vehicle, it’s an activity vehicle.” She started laughing again. “Oh goodness, can you believe that?”

“Dr. Crocker told me, probably told you, too, that bits and pieces of things may float back to you, but some big chunks might stay out of sight for a while. Like I said, stop straining. When we find your wuss SAV, maybe you’ll recognize it.”

“Your wife must be a very tolerant woman.”

“She was.”

She didn’t say anything to that. Her head was pounding again. To her surprise, before she could say anything, the sheriff handed her a thermos. “You’re hurting. Take one of those pain pills they gave you.”

She nodded, took two, drank them down with coffee, and leaned her head back against the seat. She heard the loud barking as soon as she opened the car door.

“That’s Brewster. He’s quite a watchdog. Be careful he doesn’t pee on you.”

Brewster didn’t pee on her, but within three minutes of her lying on the sofa, he was cuddled next to her, licking her chin. The sheriff pulled two handmade afghans over her. She wanted to sleep on this wonderful soft sofa for at least a day.

She awoke when she heard the sheriff saying, “Keep it down, boys. We have a guest.”

“The lady you found last night, Dad?”

“Yeah, she’s going to be okay, but there are things she can’t remember yet, including who she is.”

Dix saw she was awake and looking toward the doorway at the three of them. He introduced the boys to her again.

“I made you the hot tea,” Rob said.

“Yes, I remember. Thank you.”

Dix said, “I don’t know what to call you.”

“Hmm. How about Madonna?”

Rob said, “You don’t have a space between your front teeth.”

She brushed her tongue over her teeth. “Do you think you could pretend I did? Pretend I’m a blonde?”

Rob said, “Madonna changes her hair color all the time, that’s no problem.”

Rafer said, “Mom liked Madonna, said she was so loaded with imagination she’d just keep reinventing herself until she was eighty, maybe end up buying the State of Florida.”

Unlike his brother, Rafe had light brown hair, and his father’s dark eyes, an odd combination that would slay girls when he was a bit older. Both he and his brother were skinny as rails right now, but when they reached their full size, they’d be big men, like their father. And their mother?

“Okay,” Dix said, “Madonna it is. Rob, you want to make Madonna some more hot tea, maybe a couple slices of toast with butter and jam?”

Rob looked at the woman lying on the couch. She looked really beat. “Sure, Dad.”

There was a knock on the front door.

Rafer took off to answer it, Brewster barking madly at his heels.

It was Emory Cox, Dix’s chief deputy. “I’m here to get the photo, Sheriff. Hi, ma’am.”

Dix introduced him. “Call her Madonna for the moment, Emory.” Emory took six Polaroid shots of Madonna, then Dix took him out of the living room, out of hearing.

Rafe stood in the doorway, watching her. He opened his mouth, closed it. “Ah, do you know anything about the double helix, Madonna?”

“Sure, Rafe, come here and we’ll talk about it.”

“Let me show you my model!”

CHAPTER 6

ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERYARLINGTON, VIRGINIASATURDAY MORNING

THE LIGHT SNOWFALL had stopped two hours before, at seven a.m. The sky was iron gray, the clouds thick and bulging with snow that was forecasted to begin again at about noon. Agent Ron Latham was standing two feet from Agent Connie Ashley, who was perusing a map of Arlington National Cemetery. “Why would Moses Grace come here? I think old Rolly has got some expensive habits he needs to feed—”

“No,” Connie said automatically. “Not feed—drink.”

“The guy’s an alcoholic on top of everything else?” Agent Jim Farland was pretending to speak into a cell phone.

“Well, I don’t think so, no. I’ll tell you later about his drinking habits.”

Agent Jim Farland said into his cell phone, his voice loud enough to be heard ten feet away, “Hello, Mom. Yeah, we’re going to go over to section twenty-seven, where all the former slaves are buried…. Yeah, that’s where all the pre–Civil War dead were buried again after 1900. Listen, Mom, I’ve gotta go, a funeral is expected in twenty minutes. See you soon.”

Ron said to Connie, “They put this op together so fast I’m not sure I’m clear on all the details. We’re supposed to hang out here acting like tourists until Moses Grace and Claudia show up, for whatever reason we don’t know, Pinky Womack in tow?”

“Yeah, that’s what the psycho snitch told me. Ruth said Rolly’s never let her down. He’s reliable and we’

ve got to go with that, until we know for sure. The only reason I’ve got her cell phone is because I’m a woman and Rolly doesn’t relate well to guys. Anyway, time for us to get ourselves moving.”

Ron said with a smirk, “I like that pillow tied around your belly, Ashley. Hey, how many kids you got?”

Connie waved both of them off and paused to rub her back. It wasn’t just for show. She’d been walking around the cemetery for almost two hours, stopping to listen in at a funeral, speaking briefly to other agents, all of them dressed as tourists strolling through the huge cemetery. She’d read in her brochure the astonishing fact that more than two hundred and sixty thousand people were buried here. She wondered if she’d walk by every marker and monument and memorial before she was through. She thought of Ruth, hoped she was having a better weekend than she was. She would have liked to be in the wilds of Virginia with her rather than here, waiting for a crazy old lunatic to appear. Many of the agents and all of the snipers were from the Washington, D.C., field office, the snipers posted wherever they could find cover in the cemetery, in position since eight o’clock that morning. Savich stood by the Memorial Gate in section 30 speaking on his cell to Deputy Assistant Director Jimmy Maitland, his boss. “There’s no sign of them yet.” Just as there hadn’t been an hour before when he’d reported in, but he didn’t say that. “There aren’t that many real tourists around, understandable given the weather, and that’s good since we can’t do anything about it in any case. We’re keeping an eye on them, while we all try not to do anything Moses Grace could spot easily.”

Maitland sighed. “One of my boys is playing basketball today, his first time starting as Maryland’s forward, and here I am sitting in a damned van waiting for a psychopath crazy enough to detonate a bomb on top of my agents in a frigging motel to show up here in the nation’s biggest cemetery. I doubt Pinky’s still alive. You agree, Savich?”

“You’re right, not likely. Anyone who would pull that stunt at Hooter’s Motel wouldn’t bother to keep Pinky alive. I didn’t tell that to Ms. Lilly, though. She’s still hopeful. Pinky’s such a piece of work, no harm in him, not really, just a big mouth, always saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. I’ve got an incoming call I should get. I’ll call you back in an hour with a status report. Can you get your basketball game on the radio?”

“I’m counting on it, Savich.”

Savich raised his face to the steel-gray sky, breathed that fresh wild air deep into his lungs. He could feel Moses Grace was close. He punched up the incoming call. “Savich here.”

“Hello, boy. This here’s your nemesis. Ain’t that a grand word? Claudia read it to me out of a book, said that’s what I am to you.”

Savich stilled, his mind working furiously. He knew, he simply knew. “Who is this?”

“Why, this is the poor old man you’re trying to hunt down and kill, and bury real deep, Agent Savich. I saw you on TV after our fun at Hooter’s Motel—on a local channel, real early this morning. I’ll bet you didn’t get much sleep, did you? I’ll tell you, I was impressed, no question about that. But you see, you’ve got all these rules and you stick to them like a stupid lemming. That’ll do you in when it’s crunch time between you and me. But hey, you sure talk good, boy, all cool and calm for someone who almost got himself blowed up. Too bad you didn’t break your damned neck when you jumped off that balcony at old Ray’s motel. Would have been easier. Claudia, that sweet little girl of mine, said you was an athlete, made her want to jump your bones. Flat-out embarrassed me the things she said she wanted to do to you. As for Pinky, I wouldn’t say he’s in such good shape now.”

“What about Pinky?”

“Let’s say the little schmuck is where he deserves to be.”

Savich felt disgust, his belly slick with nausea. He wanted to squeeze the life out of this man, to shut up that illiterate drawl. “And where is that?”

Moses Grace’s scratchy laugh made Savich’s flesh crawl. Could the evil old monster be watching him now?

“Well, it’s like this, Agent Savich. Pinky is already underground. Why don’t you find Private Jeremy Willamette’s gravestone; young fellow died in Korea, aged eighteen. Exactly Claudia’s age. She’s the one who picked the spot where Pinky would reside until you guys hauled his carcass off to cut it up.”

“How did you get my cell phone number?”

“From Pinky, of course. Turns out Ms. Lilly gave it to him, and guess what?”

Savich remained silent. He was thinking of Pinky, how he’d probably been dead since they hauled him out of Hooter’s Motel. They buried him with a soldier?

“You want me to spell it out for you, boy? Well, here it is. No one beats me, particularly a loser cop like you.” He laughed and Savich could hear the spittle hurtling out of his mouth. “You know Rolly, that little pervert who snitches to your agent Warnecki? I think you’ll have a much harder time finding him.

“I hear that little redheaded agent who’s standing over there is your wife. I told Claudia those cops had more guts than brains but she wasn’t listening. Too excited about all this and who can blame her? Looks like you’ve gone to a lot of trouble to catch me, and I really appreciate that. It makes me feel important. How many of you are there? Twenty? Forty? All for me and Claudia.”

The words were out of Savich’s mouth before he could begin to censor them. “You’re right about one thing, you crazy old man. I’m going to kill you and bury you real deep.”

The old man guffawed and cleared his throat. Savich could hear a sticky liquid sound. Was he sick?

“Nah, you wouldn’t shoot me for revenge, that’s one of your dumb-ass rules. You’d take me in all polite and proper. You’d even help me get a nice ACLU-type lawyer who’d claim I heard the voice of my long-dead mother who locked me in a cellar until I was sixteen, and so I’m not responsible for anything. You wouldn’t want to be cruel to a mentally disturbed person, would you? I might even end up in a nice hospital with a bunch of cute little nurses swinging their asses in my face. My, I do believe this sounds familiar, almost like day-ja vou.

“Thing is, boy, you don’t have the guts to kill me, yet. Hey, would you look at your wife, so serious and alert, all that lovely red hair, thick and real soft, I bet. Claudia doesn’t like her at all. Maybe I could fit her right in with Pinky once Claudia was done with her.”

Then there was silence. Moses Grace had punched off.

Savich called Sherlock, who was checking the names on the markers against a list she was carrying, a pencil in her hand. Moses was looking at her. She’d walked away from the Rough Riders Memorial in section 36, stopped to study the markers around her. Not three yards from her was a real tourist all bundled up in the cold morning, blowing on her hands as she stood in front of a marker and stamped her feet.

Savich was so scared he wanted to puke. Sherlock was a perfect target for anyone with a clean shot and a scoped rifle. He didn’t doubt for a second that Moses had both. He didn’t doubt that Moses could shoot. How far away were they and where? Savich never took his eyes off of her as her cell phone rang.

“Agent Sherlock.”

“Sherlock, down! Find cover right now!” But from where would a shot come?

In under a minute Sherlock was surrounded by agents in Kevlar body armor. A few minutes later, Savich, with Sherlock in lockstep beside him, walked quickly toward section 27, where the cemetery records showed that Private Jeremy Willamette was interred. To Savich’s surprise she hadn’t questioned him when he first told her to get down. And now she accepted the impenetrable shield of men and women surrounding her, all of them with guns drawn and held at their sides. When they’d quickly assembled, Savich looked at each of them and said, “Moses Grace called me. He’s here and he’s crazy and I’d bet the farm he’s got a scoped rifle. We’ve all got to be careful. And he talked to me about Sherlock, threatened her.”

Savich didn’t think he’d ever been more hyperalert in his life. He was aware of every sound, every footstep, everyone around him. And Sherlock walked beside him, her eyes continuously scanning, assessing. At least there would be no more playing tourist in the cold; they could all move and focus on finding the monstrous old man and Claudia.

Savich said to his wife, “Mr. Maitland sent the ME over along with a forensic team and another dozen agents to canvass the whole area again. He knows Moses Grace is here and he’s as worried as we are.”

Sherlock nodded. “If they carted Pinky in here early this morning, they didn’t have much time. Maybe they left something,” she said as her eyes searched the horizon, just as his were. The agents ringed the grave of Private Jeremy Willamette. The marker was identical to thousands of others. There were big carved letters that read: