Split Second

CHAPTER 52

Georgetown

Thursday evening

Savich tossed the kid-size Redskins football to Sean from the living-room doorway across the entry hall as he ran toward the front door. He caught the ball with both hands, then pulled it close to his chest, just as Savich had taught him.

“Way to go, champ.”

Savich had moved the small entry table to the dining room, so there wasn’t much left to destroy. It was dark outside, and it was, after all, football season, so what were he and Sean to do? He laughed at Astro, who saw his job as getting the football away from Sean if Savich wouldn’t give it to him. He was leaping up, trying to grab it with his teeth.

Sherlock said, her voice low, since Sean seemed to be all ears since his fifth birthday, “Ann Marie Slatter is saying when Kirsten heard those two men mocking Bruce Comafield’s death, she just pulled her gun out of her jacket and shot them right there in the diner.”

Savich said after he tossed another football to Sean, “There’s something she didn’t do that I’ll admit surprises me—”

“She didn’t murder Ann Marie, and Kirsten knew she’d talk to the cops as soon as she got herself together again.”

“Exactly.” He caught Sean’s wobbly pass and tossed it back. Sean dropped it, probably on purpose, and Astro went nuts, trying to kill it, barking his head off. Soon the two of them were rolling around on the floor, fighting for the ball.

Sherlock said, “Do you think it’s possible Kirsten left Ann Marie Slatter alive to send us a message? Felt like thumbing her nose at us?”

“I don’t know,” he said, but he was thinking, Sending me a message? Sherlock had been the one who played Kirsten and sucked her in, nearly bringing her down. Even though Comafield had said Kirsten was coming after him, all he could think about was that insane psychopath coming after Sherlock, and it terrified him. He rose, scooped up his son and the football, wet with Astro’s slobber, hauled him over his shoulder, and trotted up the stairs with Astro at his heels. “I’ll take care of Sean; you give Coop and Lucy a call, see how she’s doing and how their visit to the Silvermans went, then finish your soup. You need to get to bed; you need to rest as much as Lucy does.”

A half hour later, with Sean finally down for the count, Sherlock took her final drink of the tepid tea Dillon had made especially for her—spiked with his favorite supplements—and ate the rest of her chicken noodle soup. She felt fine, really, only a bit of rawness in her throat where some sadist had shoved down the tube. It made her shudder to think about it.

She leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes. What would Kirsten do now? She was worried for Dillon, because Kirsten had undoubtedly seen him on TV, maybe even saw him shoot Comafield outside the Texas Range Bar & Grill in Baltimore, and she was crazy enough to go after him. The thought scared her spitless.

But she slept deeply that night, her head on his shoulder, her arms wrapped tight around his chest.