Tail Spin

THIRTY-FOUR

When Savich called Congresswoman McManus’s office, a staffer told him she wouldn’t be in today, and that was all. It was no problem discovering McManus’s home address. They drove straight to her house in Tenleytown, past the business district along Wisconsin Avenue to Upton Street. “No warning?” Sherlock asked. Savich shook his head. “Nope.”

“I would assume she’s a very busy woman. I hope she’s home and not off at some function.”

Dolores McManus was home. Her secretary, Nicole Merril, brought down her thick dark raised eyebrow when Savich identified them, then she led them to the congresswoman’s home office in the back of the good-sized redbrick Georgian house set back from the busy street, surrounded by oak and maple trees. She knocked once, lightly, then ushered them into a room that wasn’t all that large, but it was beautiful, covered with bookshelves, even a ladder to reach the ones on top, heavy dark furniture you could sink into, too warm for Sherlock’s taste.

Nicole Merril said, “Congresswoman McManus, forgive the interruption. This is Agent Savich and Agent Sherlock from the FBI, here to see you about a Dr. Timothy MacLean.”

As an intro, it did the trick. Savich saw McManus’s hands fall off her computer keyboard and he’d swear she nearly rose straight out of her chair before she got herself together.

Then she straightened to her full height, and stood tall and still, facing them. In person, Congresswoman Dolores McManus was magnificent and well-dressed, standing close to six feet tall, with a sturdy, solid build and an amazing face, all angles and hollows, and deep lines seamed along the sides of her mouth. That mouth was opening right now, and Savich knew to his heels this woman loved to mix it up, no matter who or what the subject. Maybe he’d cheer her on if he agreed with her politics; at least he would if she hadn’t paid some yahoo thug from Savannah to murder her trucker husband.

He looked into those dark eyes, saw both guilt and knowledge. He knew she’d done it. She’d thought about it carefully, gone through a dozen pros and cons, a dozen scenarios, then planned it meticulously, probably scared the spit out of the guy she hired to kill Mr. McManus.

He’d really like to have seen her with Timothy in the room, but of course there was no way she would have agreed to such an arrangement. If she was the one who tried to kill MacLean and indeed killed his tennis partner, Arthur Dolan, did she somehow manage to get out of Washington unnoticed and make the attempts herself, or did she hire someone like she did with her husband?

“Congresswoman,” he said, striding forward, his hand out, giving her an engaging smile. “Thank you for seeing us.”

McManus shook their hands, gave them both a quick up-and-down look, offered them water, which they both refused, and said, “Agents. Let me say, this is unexpected. Nicole said you are from the FBI?”

“That’s right, ma’am.” Sherlock gave her a sunny smile. “We would appreciate your speaking to us, Congresswoman, about Dr. Timothy MacLean.”

McManus was shaking her head as she looked down at the Rolex on her wrist. “I don’t understand what this is about. I mean, what about Dr. MacLean? Look, I have no plans to sue him, so what are you doing here? I don’t have any time right now, there’s always a meeting, and I must go ...”

Guilt and knowledge—Savich saw both again. She knew what MacLean had said about her—she’d just admitted to a motive. She was already flustered, talking all over the lot. He had to keep her off-balance. “This won’t take long,” he said, and his dark eyes became cold and flat. His voice went lower. “It’s to your benefit, we believe, Congresswoman McManus.”

“How could a visit from the FBI be to my benefit? How could anything about Dr. MacLean be to my benefit? I scarcely know the man.”

“I suppose you weren’t aware that someone brought down his plane? A bomb?”

“What’s that? A bomb? No, of course not. It’s regrettable, to be sure. Was it a terrorist act, do you think?” Her voice sharpened, the honey Southern accent became markedly clipped, and she slapped her open palms on the desktop. “Are you here because you believe I’m not tough enough on terrorism? Are you here because you don’t believe I’m a patriot? Do you believe I don’t love my country? Do you believe—”

“No, Congresswoman, not at all,” Sherlock said, running over her smoothly, her voice nearly an octave higher, but it was difficult even with all Sherlock’s experience. “May we be seated?”

“What? Well, yes, all right. But I don’t have much time, as I told you.”

She sat down herself and stared at them from across the expanse of her dark leather-surfaced partners desk.

Sherlock said, “We’re here to speak with you about Dr. MacLean’s claim that you murdered your husband. Surely you remember, Congresswoman—under hypnosis you said you hired someone to murder your husband at a truck stop outside Atlanta?”

Congresswoman McManus jumped to her feet. Savich saw she did indeed have beautiful breasts, as Timothy had said. The lovely silk wraparound dress showcased them quite nicely. She was shaking, he saw, her face remarkably flushed—with rage? Fear?

“That is ridiculous nonsense! I want you to leave now. Do you hear me? I don’t have to put up with this!”

Savich raised a hand. “A moment more, Congresswoman. I realize you can’t begin to understand why Dr. MacLean told us about this, so let me explain. Dr. MacLean has been diagnosed with frontal lobe dementia, a pernicious disease that makes him say inappropriate, even extraordinarily damaging, things—in your case, breaking patient confidentiality—all without meaning to, all without malicious intent.” He paused a beat. “Perhaps you know there have been other attempts on Dr. MacLean’s life? That his office records were hurried?”

McManus’s voice was deep and vibrant, and shook with passion. “You’re here to accuse me of having my husband murdered? That is monstrous nonsense, monstrous. His death, his murder, it was a horrible thing to have happen; my children were devastated. I loved my husband.

“You said Dr. MacLean claims I told him I killed my own husband? And now you say he’s demented? And he didn’t tell his patients that he was demented? I detest that man, he’s an untrustworthy little shite. I abandoned him as an incompetent, but he was more, so much more.”

“If he was only incompetent, Congresswoman, why would you think of suing him?”

That stopped her, but only for an instant. She planted large graceful hands on her desktop. “You listen to me, both of you. I was legitimately elected to the House of Representatives of the United States of America. Do you understand? I am a member of Congress. We do not kill. It simply is not done. All right, I will admit I chanced to hear that MacLean had said some horrible things about me. But that means nothing, do you hear me?”

Sherlock said, ‘Ah, but you hadn’t yet been elected to Congress when your husband was killed.”

McManus threw her head back and her voice vibrated low and hard now, but she looked only at Savich. “I did not kill my husband. I did not hire anyone to kill my husband. I am not trying to kill Dr. MacLean. I have not hired anyone to kill Dr. MacLean.” Her palms smacked hard on the desktop, and she looked up at them, her eyes hot, sharp as glass. “He is a charlatan and a liar. He has slurred my good name, he has obviously told people I supposedly confessed murder to him. It’s more than appalling! It’s slander and malpractice. What else has he made up, and about whom?”

Sherlock raised her hand. “Congresswoman McManus, let me tell you something you obviously do not know. You may not remember Dr. MacLean hypnotizing you and eliciting such a story from you, but know that no confession made under hypnosis would stand up in court, even if it were recorded. The lawyers could tear it down in a matter of moments, if, that is, the judge even allowed it. So you see, there’s no reason to deny being hypnotized by Dr. MacLean.”

There was stony silence. Well, that didn’t work, Sherlock thought.

Savich pulled out his small notebook and settled back in his chair. He asked pleasantly, “So you know nothing about rigging a bomb and putting it on the Cessna you knew Dr. MacLean would be flying in?”

“I know nothing about that! Nothing about the attempts on Dr. MacLean’s miserable life! How many times do I have to repeat myself?”

Savich said, more steel in his voice now, “Would you please tell us your whereabouts on May eighteenth at about three o’clock in the afternoon? That was the afternoon Dr. MacLean was nearly run down by a dark sedan here in Washington.”

She didn’t spew this time. She became quiet and still. Her lips were moving, as if she were whispering a mantra, or ritual words, to get herself back in control. She said, slowly and precisely, spacing her words as if explaining something to an idiot, “I am calling my lawyer. I cannot imagine what you think you’re doing bursting in on a representative in the Congress of the United States of America and conducting yourself in such a manner. I will have both of your jobs for harassing me. If necessary, I will ensure that your supervisors are fired, as well. Do you hear me?”

Sherlock said calmly, “Congresswoman McManus, can you begin to imagine what would happen to your public career if what Dr. MacLean is saying gets out? Just a whiff of it?”

“Now you have the gall to threaten me? You want to ruin me by spreading malicious gossip?”

“No, ma’am, we would not do that. But you know as well as we do that an allegation of that nature, even a mention of it behind someone’s hand, could snowball and ruin you quite effectively.”

Savich raised a hand before she could speak. “We don’t know what the truth is about these matters, ma’am, but we felt it our duty to inform you of these allegations.”

The door opened and Nicole Merril stepped in.

Obviously McManus had pressed a call button.

“Please see these people out, Nicole.” She rose slowly, stared at them both with cold assassin eyes. “If you wish to speak to me again, you may not. You will speak only with my lawyer. Nicole will give you her name. If any of this absurd conversation leaks to the media, I will come after you personally. Good day.”

After Savich fired up his Porsche, he turned to Sherlock. She saw he was grinning like a loon.

“That was more fun than outshooting you at the firing range. I guess that does it for our popularity with her at this point. You think she’s running scared? Or is she planning our destruction?”

Sherlock said, “Oh, we got her all stirred up, that’s for sure. And yes, she’s scared. I could feel the tension pouring off her.” Sherlock leaned her head back against the Porsche’s soft-as-sin leather seat, closed her eyes.

Savich said as he turned into traffic, “Let’s have some lunch, then pay a visit to Pierre Barbeau and his charming wife. I think we’re on a roll.” He nodded to the agent parked down the street. “I wish we could tap her phone. But at least we’ll know if she meets up with somebody.”

Sherlock smiled when the wind tore through her hair as the Porsche swerved gracefully around a big honking SUV.

THIRTY-FIVE

Sherlock said, “Remember how Sean was whooping and hollering, grabbed our hands and pulled us ‘round and ‘round that maypole at DuPont Circle?” Savich shot her a grin as he passed the circle and smoothly turned right off New Hampshire Avenue NW onto Eiger Street.

She was still smiling when they drove by the very ritzy modern condo building where the Barbeaus lived. “I guess I was expecting another huge Georgian set back in a beautiful yard. Although now that I think about it, is it possible their being French makes a difference?”

Savich laughed as he parked the Porsche a half block down, not far from one of the South American embassies. He gave Sherlock a grin, leaned over and kissed her. “You taste like the cheddar cheese from your taco.” He lightly rubbed his knuckles over her cheek. He then ran his fingers through her tangled hair, his fault, she’d told him long ago, whenever she rode with him in the Porsche.

He sat back to admire his handiwork. She said, “You sure no one can tell I was riding in a convertible at wind-tunnel speeds?”

“Nah,” he said, “you’re perfect.”

They looked over the immaculate grounds, at the blooming flowers planted in heavy ceramic pots and wooden flower boxes lining the walkways, everything swept and clean, the grass meticulously mowed. The sun was bright overhead and it seemed to Sherlock that the petunias and purple rhododendron were stretching up to reach it. She thought her deep red rhododendron at home was more brilliant.

“Maybe there’s something to having someone do all the work for you. Everything’s got a high shine.”

Savich shook his head. “I like to sweat over my own lawn mower.”

“A doorman, now isn’t that uptown? And he’s even wearing a spiffy uniform. I believe those are Green Bay’s colors.”

“The French National Police can’t cover much of this expense,” Savich said. “Lucky for him that his income is nicely subsidized by the large number of euros in Mrs. Barbeau’s bank accounts.”

“Her family is big into train construction and maintenance throughout Europe,” Sherlock said, as they walked up the flagstone walkway to the glass-fronted building. “At least we know Pierre Barbeau didn’t work today. You think he’s lying low?”

“Maybe. I heard he and his wife haven’t been seen much. They’re still torn up about their son’s death,” Savich said.

The doorman glittered in his green-and-gold uniform. He was startled, clearly, when Savich showed him their FBI creds, but he recovered quickly. “You wish to see the Barbeaus?”

“Yes, please give them a buzz,” Sherlock said. “We know they’re both home.”

When they stepped out of the elevator on the ninth and top floor, it was onto pristine gold-white marble. The Barbeaus’ condo occupied half of the floor.

On the second ring of the doorbell, they heard the sharp click of heels. A young woman, her complexion swarthy as a pirate’s, and wearing, of all things, a classic French maid’s black-and-white uniform, opened the door. She was a bit out of breath.

“Qui? May I help you?”

As she stepped forward, Sherlock wondered if the maid was the real French deal, or if she was amusing herself. Sherlock pulled out her ID. “I’m sure the doorman called up. As you see, we are FBI. We would like to see Mr. and Mrs. Barbeau.”

The young woman turned quickly and disappeared through an arched doorway to the left. She immediately came back, heels loud and sharp on the marble floor, her face flushed. She apologized for leaving them in the entryway, and showed them into the starkly modern, entirely white living room. Savich hated white on white, but the view of all the historic residences through the floor-to-ceiling windows was very nice indeed. He saw his Porsche hugging the curb, boxed in now by a Beemer and a Mercedes, royalty, to his mind, surrounded by minions.

A good five minutes passed before Pierre Barbeau and his wife, Estelle, appeared in the doorway, both wearing casual chic, which for her meant tight designer jeans, a jeweled belt, and a silk blouse, and for Pierre, a short-sleeved golf shirt, black pants, and Italian loafers. He was holding a Diet Coke. Mrs. Barbeau looked like a thoroughbred—thin, sharp bones, the angle of her head arrogant, her chin high, and she stood straight and tall. She knew her own worth, Savich thought, and her opinion of her own worth was very high indeed. He looked more closely and saw the pain in her dark eyes, the new lines etched around her mouth. How fragile she looked in her expensive clothes. There was no doubt in his mind the woman was hurting.

Pierre Barbeau looked exhausted, like he was slowly bleeding, the life draining out of him. His black eyes were sunken and shadowed, his flesh loose on his face. There was no way this man could have planned and executed an escape for his son, not with his ravaged face and dead eyes. Pierre Barbeau looked like an old man who no longer cared about anything. He said as he paused in the doorway, “Tommy from downstairs told us two FBI agents were here. I do not understand. What would the FBI want to speak to us about?” Neither he nor Mrs. Barbeau appeared to want names or a handshake, which was fine by Savich.

Savich said pleasantly, “I believe you are both acquainted with Dr. Timothy MacLean?” He didn’t move from where he and Sherlock stood by a corner window that looked back toward DuPont Circle over the roofs of a dozen historic buildings.

Because Pierre Barbeau’s face was already stark with misery, Savich saw only a small change at the mention of MacLean’s name. He looked like he wanted to spit in contempt, but wasn’t able to dial it up. He sneered instead. As for Mrs. Barbeau, there was instant dagger-cold viciousness in her eyes, her hatred for Timothy instantly overcoming her grief. Savich didn’t want to, but he knew he should fan that hatred if he wanted to find out the truth as quickly as possible. They walked slowly into the living room and sat together on a white sofa, Pierre still clutching the Diet Coke. Savich and Sherlock sat opposite them.

Pierre Barbeau squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, but not to the same arrogant height as his wife’s, and kept his sneer in place. He said, his voice low, an old man’s tremor sliding through it, “Dr. MacLean? Well, yes, both my wife and I have known Timothy and Molly for many years now, but in reality who can you ever really know?” He shrugged. “Oh, we were friends, shared meals, talked about our families, our children ...” He swallowed, and his hand trembled when he brought up the Coke can to rub his cheek. To wipe away tears he knew could roll down his face any moment? “We knew their children, they knew Jean David.”

If Sherlock closed her eyes and only heard him speak, she’d have thought he sounded very sexy with that lovely accent, not so heavy that he sounded like a cartoon to an American ear. But looking at him, she saw a man utterly beaten down, like Atlas, holding the weight of the world, but ready to drop it.

“Yes, we are acquaintances,” Estelle said, her accent more pronounced. “Most everyone in our circle is acquainted with him. I will instruct Lissy to bring us coffee.”

“We’re fine, Mrs. Barbeau,” Savich said. He watched them exchange a look, then move closer together—protection from more bad news?

Pierre said, “Now, what is this about? What is it I can tell you about Tim—Dr. MacLean?”

Savich said, “You visited Dr. MacLean at his office and told him your son had passed on classified information to a terrorist organization and then two CIA operatives were killed. You asked him if he would provide a psychological defense for your son. Dr. MacLean told you he could not do this, it was both unethical and illegal. He advised that your son turn himself in immediately or he would be constrained to go to the authorities himself since there were more lives at risk.

“You did not want to hear this—understandable, since Jean David was your son.

“A week later your son drowned in the Potomac. You went out despite a bad-weather advisory—winds, rain, fog. When the storm turned violent, you became ill. You said you and Jean David headed back to shore, but you didn’t make it. A speedboat rammed your boat, not seeing you in the thickening fog. You went overboard, and your son went in to save you. The people on the speedboat did what they could. You were rescued but your son wasn’t. Is that what happened, sir?”

“Yes, it is what happened,” Pierre said. “His body still hasn’t been recovered.”

“We know. We’re very sorry. We are here because there have been a total of three attempts on Dr. MacLean’s life. Are you responsible for the attempts, Mr. Barbeau?”

Pierre looked as if he’d been kicked in the stomach, his pale face flushed a dull red. He jumped to his feet and began pacing in front of them, his hands twisting the Coke can. He yelled, “Timothy Mac-Lean is a monster! He’s never understood what it’s like to live in a foreign country where everything is different, everything you do is questioned and doubted, everyone thinks differently and despises you for what you think, and there is always a rush to judgment. I did not wish to believe this of him, but it is true. Timothy was fully prepared to slander my son’s good name, our good name! He is the one who should be in your American jail—not my son, not Jean David, who is now dead because of that man, who was supposedly our friend. Kill him? Gladly, but I did not.”

“Mr. Barbeau,” Sherlock said, “we appreciate that you would feel very strongly about this, that you are grieving. You assured Dr. MacLean that Jean David had no way of knowing the woman he was involved with fronted for a terrorist group headquartered in Damascus, and that she passed classified information to them that he had given her.

“I’m happy to tell you that two days ago, Homeland Security arrested her and most if not all of her associates, a lovely present to our country that Dr. MacLean helped make possible. She has admitted to seducing your son, to manipulating him to get information for her terrorist group.”

“Yes, we heard of the arrests, naturally,” Estelle said, dismissal in her voice, “but I paid no particular attention because that has nothing at all to do with us or France. This woman—it does not matter what lies she tells.”

Estelle rose to stand beside her husband. “None of this had anything to do with Jean David—nothing, do you hear me? He was an innocent boy, and whatever happened, it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t. Don’t you understand? Our son is dead.”

Savich realized he’d thought Pierre Barbeau a strong suspect in the attempts on MacLean’s life, but not now, not after meeting him, watching him, listening to him. This man looked shattered, he looked ready to bury himself in his misery.

MacLean was right. If anyone in this family was trying to off him, it was Estelle Barbeau. Her grief was as great and as consuming as her husband’s, but there was violence and promise in her eyes. She said, her voice calmer now, more conciliatory, “This is very painful for us, Agent Savich. I do not know why you wish to dredge it up. My husband told you we had nothing to do with any attempts on Dr. MacLean’s life. So what is your point? What do you want? Our son is dead, he is beyond your silly American laws.”

“Silly?” Sherlock couldn’t help herself, she lost it. “I wonder how silly you would consider our laws if a terrorist group blew up the Eiffel Tower.”

Estelle flipped her hand. “But such a thing would not happen. We live in peace with our Muslim countrymen.”

Now that was a claim that wouldn’t bear scrutiny.

Savich took a breath and said, “Mrs. Barbeau, if you would please give us your whereabouts on these two dates.” He looked down at his notebook to confirm the dates when Estelle rode right over him.

“Our son is beyond any pain you would inflict upon him for his youthful lapse in judgment. He was a boy, only a boy, an idealist, and a woman trapped him. An old story, to be sure, a tried-and-true one that will happen again and again. Jean David is dead. Let him and his name rest in peace. I hope Dr. MacLean dies. He should die, but neither of us is responsible for any attempts on his worthless life. How many times must we tell you that?”

Savich said, “The most recent attempt put him in the hospital.”

Pierre looked bewildered, Savich thought, no mistaking it. “You honestly believe that Estelle or I would try to kill Tim—Dr. MacLean? That is nonsense, absolute nonsense. Yes, we blame him for Jean David’s death, but to actually try three times to kill him? That is absurd. Your FBI is absurd.”

Sherlock said, “On the contrary, it makes a great deal of sense, sir. There is your belief that he is responsible and there is revenge. And what would happen if Dr. MacLean decided to go public with your son’s activities?

“If this became known, would you still be received at embassy functions here in Washington? In New York? What about your job here?

“Indeed, sir, I can’t imagine you could have happily continued your career with the French National Police. Tell me, sir, did you imagine what it would be like to return to France to face your family and friends, all of them knowing what your son did? Could you imagine bearing that? Could you imagine your wife bearing that?”

It was too much, and Sherlock wanted to kick herself. If they were innocent, she had caused needless pain for these grieving parents.

Estelle waved a fist at them, the diamonds glittering madly off a huge ring on her right hand. “You listen to me. What our son did or did not do, none of it is important any longer. Jean David is dead, do you hear me? He is dead! All his thoughts, his deeds, his beliefs dead, drowned in a tragic accident—your damned Coast Guard couldn’t even find him! And none of it would have happened if Dr. MacLean had kept quiet, as a doctor is supposed to do.

“Let me tell you, doctors in France are discreet, they do not preach. They do not make threats or issue ultimatums! But here? Obviously nothing is sacred here. The ethics of your American doctors, well, they have none, their behavior is inexcusable.”

THIRTY-SIX

Someone found out that Timothy had spoken to his friend Arthur Dolan, and Dolan conveniently died. A coincidence? Savich didn’t believe in coincidence. But how could the Barbeaus have found out about it?

He said, “You are right that Dr. MacLean spoke to several people about your son. Are either of you interested in knowing why Dr. MacLean betrayed your confidence?” Savich studied their faces as he spoke. Estelle’s face was frozen in rage; Pierre looked like he didn’t care, only wanted the earth to open up beneath his feet so he could slip away.

Estelle said, “We are not interested in any paltry excuses. The man is an abomination. We want you to leave now. We have nothing more to say.” She jumped to her feet. Her husband, however, remained seated, rolling the Diet Coke can between his hands.

Savich said, “The last attempt on Dr. MacLean’s life was a bomb placed on board a plane. He survived, barely.”

Estelle shrugged. “What is this? A bomb? We know nothing of any bomb. We do not care what happens to him.” She picked up a framed photo from a side table and waved it in front of their faces. “This is our son. This is Jean David. An elegant, brilliant boy, good, so very good. Look at him! He will never grow older, he will never have a wife and children.”

He was indeed a handsome man, Sherlock thought, studying the photo. Dark hair, deeply tanned, his smile beguiling and utterly charming, his father’s dark eyes shining out of his face. Such a waste, she thought, such a waste.

Savich decided not to tell them about MacLean’s disease. He knew it wouldn’t matter. It would mean less than nothing to them. He said, knowing it was a very risky roll of the dice, “Mr. Barbeau, I have read your statement to the authorities about the day your son drowned after saving you. After some dithering, it was determined to be a tragic accident. However”—he paused for effect— “however, I know that is not the truth. Please tell me what really happened that day.”

Pierre grew very still, and Savich thought, Bingo! He’d known to his gut that something else was going on here. He waited, silent, patient.

When Estelle would have spoken, Pierre raised his hand to quiet her, shrugged, and said, “Why does it matter now? I say it no longer matters at all, nothing matters now that he is dead. Why not? I will tell you all of it.”

Estelle stared at her husband. “What are you planning? No. Pierre?”

“I’m sorry, Estelle, but I knew it would come out eventually. And now, I’m tired, very tired, you see.” He held up his hand to his wife once again and repeated, “It does not matter, Estelle. Agent Savich, Jean David did not die an accidental death.”

Savich said, his heart racing at a fine clip, “Tell us what happened, sir.”

Pierre raised his head, his face leached of color, but surprisingly, his voice was strong and steady. “My son came to me, told me what he’d done, asked me to help him. He knew, you see, knew his superiors would figure out soon enough he was the one responsible. I could not believe it. He gave me the details, convinced me. I told him I had to think about it.

“Two days after he asked me for help, I told him I’d spoken to Timothy, and I told him what he advised us to do, then I told Jean David of his threats. My son looked at me for a very long time, silent, and it broke my heart. He told me that he, just as I, must think about it. He left me. I feared he would try to escape but he did not. I am not lying to you. He did not.

“Two days later, on Friday, he asked me if I would like to go fishing, even though the weather was getting worse.

“And so we fished for striped bass in the Potomac, something we’d done many times, a ritual, a special time for us, to be together. But that day we really weren’t fishing, we were silent for the most part, both of us in misery. I was afraid, Timothy’s ultimatum rang in my mind. I finally broke the silence, told him I didn’t know what to do. I loved him, but what he had done—I had to tell him I couldn’t imagine his getting fooled so completely by that woman. And once again, I shook my head and told him I did not know what to do.

“Jean David leaned over and kissed me. He sat back, his fishing pole in his hand, and said he’d thought about it and decided he was going to kill himself, it was the only way, and that was why he’d wanted to come out in this storm. He told me he couldn’t live with what he’d done, you see, and there were tears in his eyes when he spoke. The woman, he agreed, had made a fool of him, that was true enough, she’d led him to commit inexcusable crimes, to break sacred laws. He was a traitor, an unwitting one, but it was his own fault for being so gullible. He and only he was responsible.”

Pierre’s heavy breathing was the only sound in the large living room. Estelle said nothing, merely stared at this man who was her husband, this man radiating pain. There was no pity in her eyes, there was condemnation. Why? Because he’d told them the truth, and left them both naked.

Savich let the silence and Pierre’s breathing hang thick in the air. He watched a dust mote sparkle in a shaft of bright sunlight.

Pierre said finally, “I told my son I would not forsake him, that I would hire the best lawyers, maybe I could even arrange for him to leave the country, but he only shook his head, smiled at me sadly.

“That storm, he had known it would be bad. The winds roared, the fog began to creep over us, and the rain pounded down, thick and wet, but to be honest, I didn’t even notice. The waves were whipping up around our boat, but again, it simply wasn’t important. Jean David said only, ‘I cannot, Father.’ And I knew in my heart that he was already gone from me.

“The wind became fierce. And I became aware that our boat was rocking wildly. Jean David stood up and I knew what he was going to do. Then a speedboat struck us as he jumped overboard. I jumped in after him. The people on the speedboat tried to help us, and they did save me, but not Jean David. Someone pulled me out, and I was screaming for my son, and then the Coast Guard was there, and they searched for him for hours.

“But he was gone, he killed himself, as he said he would. The truth is, Agent Savich, I was surprised my story was believed, it was so utterly unbelievable, silly really, but it was believed.” He sighed. “But not by you. I suspect others are questioning it, as well. Perhaps they will believe something worse, that we staged the entire thing so Jean David could escape. But he didn’t. He died, just as he’d intended.

“But it doesn’t matter now. My son is dead. He paid for his crime. Hle paid with his life.”

He looked down at the mangled Coke can in his hands, then raised his head once more. “They never found him. I wish they had found him.”

Tears flowed down his cheeks. He didn’t move, merely continued to stare at them, beyond them, really his eyes dead and weeping. “It happened so fast, so very fast, as if someone had speeded up time. My son jumped into that cold rough water. He was not a good swimmer. I tried to teach him how to swim when he was a boy, but he never took to it. He said the water scared him because he knew it just went on and on, deeper and deeper, that there was no bottom. He always believed that. There was no bottom, he’d say. I have thought of that many times, Agent Savich, and I see my son and he is only a vague outline because the water is so deep and it is dragging him down.

“My son died that day. He took his own life. He is gone now, forever.

“I did not tell the police. I could not. The storm, the winds, the speedboat in the fog, all of that is the truth. All of that helped my fiction. Everyone believes it was an accident. An accident. But I have told you the truth and now I will tell you why I believe my son killed himself. He did it to spare his mother and me and his family. He did not want to see us shamed, did not want to see us reviled and humiliated because of what he did. My boy killed himself to save my honor.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

Georgetown

Thursday evening

Sherlock opened the front door to Rachael and Jack, Astro jumping up and down behind her, barking his head off, his tail wagging so fast it was a wild blur, Sean at his heels. Jack went down on his knees and stuck out his hand. “Sean, I’d know you anywhere. You look just like your father.” Sean put out his hand and Jack pumped it up and down. “I’m Jack Crowne and I work in your dad’s unit. This is Rachael Abbott. Hey, it looks like you’ve got a wild dog here.”

“He’s Astro,” Sean said, staring up with his father’s eyes into Jack’s face. He said to Rachael, “I’m Sean. You’re pretty. I like your braid. You’re almost as pretty as Mama.”

“A wonderful compliment indeed,” Rachael said. “Thank you, Sean.”

Jack was scratching Astro’s head. “Hello, Mighty Dog, how you doing, big boy?”

“Mighty Dog,” Sean said, “we never thought of that name, Papa. Mighty Dog.” He said to Jack, “We had fake grass for a while in the backyard and that’s why he’s Astro.”

“Why don’t we make Mighty Dog Astro’s second name?” said his father.

“Astro Mighty Dog Savich,” Sean said, and grabbed Astro around his belly and pulled him over to roll onto the floor. Jack laughed and roughhoused with the two of them, Rachael joining the chaos. Soon shouts and barks filled the house.

It felt good.

When everyone was seated in the living room, Astro on Rachael’s lap, licking her hands, she said, “Jack told me Sarah Elliot was your grandmother, Dillon. That painting over the fireplace, it’s magnificent.”

“Thank you. I agree,” Savich said. “She named it The Lame Man in the Square. I have eight of her paintings on display at the Corcoran. I change them out maybe three or four times a year.”

“I’d want all of them around me all the time,” Rachael said.

The doorbell rang again. Savich, Sean behind him, Astro leaping and barking on his heels, went to answer the door. In a moment, agents Dane Carver and Ollie Hamish walked into the living room.

After Rachael met Dane and Ollie and Astro Mighty Dog had been petted until he collapsed on his back, legs in the air, tongue lolling, Sherlock said from the kitchen doorway, “Mr. Maitland called. He can’t make it. Let’s eat first, then we’ll sort things out.”

“Sort what things out, Mama?” Sean asked.

“Come wash your hands, Sean,” Savich said, and led him to the half bath.

“I’m sorry, Sherlock, I didn’t offer to help you.” Rachael immediately jumped to her feet. “Anything I can do now?”

“Sherlock cooked?” Ollie said, not moving.

“Tell us you cooked, Savich,” Dane said as he walked back into the living room. “Right?”

“Ingrates,” Sherlock said.

Savich laughed as he wiped his son’s now clean hands. “Yes, I did. Meat lasagna for you barbarians, vegetable lasagna for me and Sean.”

“I made the Caesar salad,” Sherlock said.

“Give her a lettuce leaf and she can make it dance,” Savich said.

They all learned about Sean’s first football game with three neighborhood kids, two on a side, and how he threw the best, longest touchdown pass ever, how Maggie had tackled Paul, bloodying his lip, and all the other convoluted details until it was time for dessert.

Sherlock sliced the apple pie into even pieces, every eye at the table on her knife. Between bites of ice cream and pie, Sean told them about his new computer game, Dora the Explorer. “I already know Spanish, so that’s easy.”

“He speaks Spanish with Gabriella, his nanny,” Sherlock said. “I’m thinking Dillon and I should learn Spanish, to keep up with him.”

There was a lot of laughter, something Rachael thought had disappeared from her life. There was no talk of business until Sherlock came back downstairs after putting Sean to bed and Savich came inside after walking Astro Mighty Dog for the night.

“All right,” Sherlock said. “Let’s get to it.”

Rachael sat forward. “Dinner was such fun I forgot all the misery, but now it’s coming back.”

“That’s not the half of it,” Jack said. “We had a big surprise waiting for us when we got back to the senator’s ... to Rachael’s house.”

“What, for heaven’s sake?”

Rachael said, “My ex-fiancé was standing on the doorstep.”

Jack sat back on the sofa, his arms crossed over his chest. “Rachael came to a dead stop when she saw him, and I nearly shot him because for all I knew he was there waiting to kill her. I only made an insignificant move toward him and I thought the little wuss was going to puke.”

Rachael said, “That’s because his bookies were probably after him, and he was already on edge. You’ve got to admit, Jack, he did recover quickly.”

“Yeah, he did, but only because he knew you were looking at him and he didn’t want you to think he was a coward. Then the jerk acted like you were still going to marry him. He even tried to kiss you.”

‘You didn’t clock him, did you, Jack?” Ollie asked.

Jack was silent for a moment, his brows drawn together. “For a moment there, I gotta admit it was close.”

“What is the ex-fiancé’s name?” Sherlock asked as she poured more of Savich’s excellent coffee into Rachael’s cup.

“Jerol Springer.”

“I’ve been wondering what kind of name that is,” Jack said. “I mean, it’s almost like that guy on TV. I tell you, Rachael, I can’t believe you ever considered marrying that idiot.”

“Well, it never came to marriage, and not because of his name,” Rachael said, sipped the coffee and closed her eyes a moment in pleasure. She said, “You know, Dillon’s coffee’s as good as mine.”

There was a discreet snort; no one believed her.

Ollie said, “Why is Mr. Springer an ex? He wasn’t faithful?”

“Oh no, he was faithful as a tick, as far as I know. The moron gambled too much and I found out about it. Actually, his bookie sent one of his yahoos to see me, something that makes a person see things very clearly, let me tell you. Evidently Jerol wasn’t such a hot gambler. He was always looking over his shoulder.”

“He was into the horses?” Dane asked.

“Horses, dogs, football—pro and college—beach volleyball, soccer, the first guy to belch after drinking beer, you name it, he’d bet on it, and lose. So when Jerol saw Jack, he thought he was there to break his kneecaps. When he found out Jack was only an FBI agent, I thought he was going to cry with relief. I hadn’t seen him for a good six months.”

Dane said, “Maybe he was there because he’d heard Rachael was the late Senator Abbott’s daughter, and he saw cash registers cachinging in his brain.”

Rachael said, “Do you know what Jack did? He pretended he was living there with me, cozied himself up all over me, even draped his arm over my shoulder while Jerol was standing there looking hopeful.”

Jack grinned hugely. “It sent him on his way fast.” He frowned at Rachael. “You were being far too nice to him.”

Rachael reached in her purse and pulled out a Smith & Wesson pistol. “If he’d hassled me, I would have shot him in the foot. It was my father’s. It’s got a nice feel to it.”

“Then he wouldn’t have been able to leave,” Ollie observed.

“Oh dear, you’re right.” Rachael fell silent, sipped her coffee, her eyes on Astro, who was sleeping off vegetable lasagna from Sean’s plate on a rug in front of the fireplace.

Jack liked the Sigma Series, you pointed at what you wanted to shoot and fired, but still ... “I don’t like your having a gun; it’s not a toy.”

“Jeez, you think? Jack, you’ve seen me shoot. I’m probably better than you. Be quiet.”

“Moving right along,” Savich said, “time to get you caught up.” He and Sherlock proceeded to fill them in about their meetings with Congresswoman McManus and the Barbeaus.

“The thing is,” Sherlock said, “neither Dillon nor I think Pierre Barbeau is the person behind the attempts on MacLean’s life. Now, Mrs. Barbeau—she’s something else, a real piece of work.” Sherlock shrugged. “She’s grieving hard, as torn up as her husband, but her level of anger at Dr. MacLean ... I don’t know. I simply don’t.”

Ollie said, “Did you guys pick up any vibes about McManus? Do you think she had her husband murdered?”

Savich nodded. “I think she’s capable of having him killed.”

Sherlock said, “She’s got a real temper, but she’s learned how to control it—had to, I guess, since spewing venom at her colleagues on the floor of the House of Representatives wouldn’t make her any friends. She’s an impressive woman, though. I’d rather have her on my side any day.”

Savich shrugged. “Is she the one behind the attempts on Timothy’s life? I hate to say it, but I don’t think so. There’s no motive, unless it would be revenge for his stirring everything up, maybe creating a scandal that could annoy her for a time.”

“I think she has too much to lose for that,” Sherlock said. “Unless she knew there were too many loose ends surrounding her husband’s murder, maybe worried a new investigation would turn up something too easily.”

Rachael said, “Then where does this leave us?”

Astro Mighty Dog raised his head and barked once.

Rachael went over to sit on the floor beside him, petting him until he rolled onto his back, all four feet sticking in the air.

Savich said, “There’s Lomas Clapman, the rich guy who stole his partner’s ideas and may have committed fraud. But again, I can’t see that as a motive.”

Ollie said, “It always comes back to how the killer knew MacLean had talked. The bartender said he wasn’t aware of any other customers listening, but he couldn’t be sure. He said he never told another soul, so this remains a mystery.”

Jack reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a disk. “All Timothy’s files are on this disk. If he hadn’t backed them up, the fire would have destroyed all his patient notes. And just who set the fire?”

Ollie said, “We’ve reviewed all the files with our forensic psychiatrists, done a lot of checking, but there aren’t any other patients they can point to as having the motive to kill Dr. MacLean. Sure, there’s some ugly stuff here and there, but murder?” Ollie shook his head. “And let’s face it, who would kill his shrink on speculation—he hasn’t told the world your secrets, but he might? It doesn’t make sense.”

Everyone thought about that for a moment.

Rachael said, “Tomorrow morning, Jack and I are going to see Jimmy’s lawyer, Brady Cullifer. If there are skeletons, he may be able to tell us about them.”

Savich sat back on the sofa, laced his fingers over his belly. “I spoke to the ME about Perky’s unexpected death. Turns out it wasn’t foul play. She died of a pulmonary embolism—a blood clot to her lungs. It’s a major surgical risk, the ME said. So there you have it.

“I then paid a visit to our two wounded bad guys from Parlow and Slipper Hollow—Roderick Lloyd and Donley Everett. Lloyd still refuses to speak to us, and as for Everett, he’s already signed a full confession. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know who hired Perky. I don’t think he’s lying.” Savich sat forward. “There’s no reason for Lloyd to know that Perky is dead. Maybe we can convince him she rolled. Whatdo you think, Sherlock?”

“I can’t imagine Lloyd’s lawyer not knowing she’s dead, but it’s worth a shot.” She didn’t sound optimistic.

“What about the fourth guy?” Jack asked. “What’s his name?”

“Marion Croop,” Sherlock said. “We’ve got an APB out on him, but no word yet.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

Washington, D.C.

Friday morning

Rachael ladled hot, thick oatmeal into Jack’s bowl. He stared down at it, then up at her.

“What? Come on, dig in while the steam is still pouring off it. It’s good for you, and I make the best oatmeal in Kentucky. Here’s some brown sugar.” She spooned some over the oatmeal.

He gave her a pitiful look. “Could I have some Cheerios instead?”

Rachael punched him in the shoulder. “What is this? Here I decide to cook you my very best breakfast since you’re here as my bodyguard, and reward you because there weren’t any break-ins last night, and you want Cheerios? Out of a box?”

“With nonfat milk?”

She crossed her arms over her chest.

“Maybe some sliced banana?”

She laughed, went to the pantry, and disappeared inside. She came out again a moment later. “Sorry, Jack, no Cheerios. It’s either oatmeal or you’re out of luck.”

He took a bite of oatmeal and chewed slowly, then swallowed.

“Well? What do you think?”

“The truth?”

“Of course. Come on, Jack, I can take it.”

“It’s gotta be the best oatmeal in Kentucky.”

“Yeah, yeah, but we’re not in Kentucky, you jerk.” She threw a napkin at him and dug into her own oatmeal. “All right, all right, I’ll get you some Cheerios.”

They ate in companionable silence. It was an odd feeling, Rachael thought, as she watched the morning sunlight pour through the window over the kitchen sink, having someone at the breakfast table with her. After Jimmy died, and the days were empty and passed slowly until she flew to Sicily, she’d begun to doubt she’d ever begin her morning with a smile again. And then someone drugged her and threw her into Black Rock Lake.

“Thank you, Jack.”

He licked his spoon and held out his empty bowl. “For what?”

“You’re here. I’m not alone. Did you sleep well?”

He’d slept in one of the antique-filled bedrooms three doors down from Rachael. Her father’s bedroom remained untouched at the other end of the long corridor. The bed, in truth, had been hard as a rock and he’d had to stretch for five minutes that morning to get the kinks out.

“It was great,” he said.

“I’m glad. You must be real macho. I slept in that bed once and I thought my back was going to break, the mattress was so hard. I’m so glad no one tried to get in and kill me.” She refilled his bowl, not saying a word. “Truth is, I didn’t sleep all that well because every single sound was a bad guy coming to get me, even though I knew you were close, knew I was safe.”

“Understandable.”

“I kept my gun right beside me. Yes, the safety was on, Jack. Around three o’clock, I started hoping some idiot would show up and press his nose against my window. Question—if you shoot a gun through a storm window, does the bullet go straight through or does the glass throw it off target?”

“These windows? Straight through.” He added without any consideration at all, “You could sleep with me.”

As a simple declarative sentence with only five words in it, it should have flown high and proud. But it didn’t.

Rachael’s eyes fastened on his. “Sleep with you?”

“Ah, you know, as in sleep in my bed. I’d be close enough so that even if a bad guy did get in, he’d have to go through me first.”

Rachael said matter-of-factly, “Yeah, he would. Okay, I’ll think about making you the tethered goat.”

“Well, I don’t guess I was thinking of myself in exactly that way. Not really a goat. You know ...” He shut his mouth.

She let him off the hook, but barely. He looked so interested, his eyes narrowed on her face, unblinking. She said, “I called my mom earlier, told her everything is peachy. She’d called Uncle Gillette and, bless him, he knew it was important to keep what happened under wraps, so he didn’t spill the beans.

“Still, she’s worried about me being all alone in Jimmy’s house, no friends. I think she wants to sleep with me, too.”

Jack choked on his coffee. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “I hope you talked her out of coming here. Three in that bed wouldn’t be good.”

“I told her I’d visit soon. She’s still in shock that Jimmy was murdered and I’m now a rich woman. She was stuttering when I told her Jimmy left me a full third of his estate. I still haven’t called my sisters, and believe me, their mother Jacqueline hasn’t called me. I want to wait to make contact until this is all resolved.”

Jack said, “I checked for any leftover reporters camping on the curb. Evidently, they decided there’ll be nothing exciting happening here, thank God.”

“Yeah, but we should keep a close watch. You never know when one of the vultures will leap out at you from behind a garbage can.”

He nodded, spooned in more oatmeal, frowned. He dropped his spoon. “Sorry, no more. I’ve tried, but it’s the same taste, bite after bite.”

“Doesn’t Cheerios taste the same bite after bite?”

“Nope. The milk softens up the little donuts at different rates, so each bite is a surprise.”

“You’re nuts,” she said, and grinned at him. “You look like such a regular guy, sitting here at the breakfast table, a bowl of oatmeal in front of you, but then I think about who you are, what you do, and what you did for four years—the Elite Crime Unit, that’s what it’s called, right?”

He nodded.

“What was that really like?”

He straightened his bowl, neatly folded his napkin, stared out the large window by the country oak kitchen table toward the lovely white gazebo in the backyard. He looked back at her. “Fact is, every single day brought new horrors, and you couldn’t escape them. They followed you everywhere, even in your dreams. My dreams aren’t so vivid and bloody now, thank God.

“There are scary people out there, Rachael, and you know what? Drugging you and tying a concrete block to your feet so after you drown you don’t come back up to the surface—that qualifies big-time.

“In the ECU, we called them monsters and evil and psychopaths, all to dehumanize them. But what I kept seeing was each of those individuals as a baby—laughing, crying, innocent, and I’d wonder every single day, why? What happened to make that baby grow up to kill and destroy and inflict unimaginable pain and horror?

“We caught a good number of them, put most of them down, no choice. We saved some lives.”

“Why did you leave the unit?”

“Because I knew something would die in me if I stayed. When I first joined the ECU, I was told the time to burnout was about five years, and they gave me a list of symptoms to look out for. One of the main symptoms was ‘feeling death inside you,’ and I knew I’d reached my limit. I only made it to four years. Savich scooped me up before I could go civilian again and return to a prosecutor’s office.”

“Are you glad you stayed in the FBI?”

“Oh yes. Savich’s unit is special, all the agents are smart as a whip, the experience level is very high, and they care. It’s a good unit—cohesive, everyone ready to cover everyone else’s back. Sure there’s the mind-numbing bureaucracy, some idiot agents who act like they should run the world, but most agents I know want to do a good job. They want to make things better. I’m sounding like a recruiting poster, sorry.”

“That’s okay.”

Jack rose from the table, carried his bowl to the sink, and washed it. He wiped his hands on a towel. “First thing this morning, let’s go to Black Rock Lake. I want to see firsthand where all this happened. I want to trace your footsteps back to your house.”

THIRTY-NINE

An hour later, they stood together at the end of the wooden dock and stared down at the blue water lapping gently against the pilings, shimmering beneath the bright sunlight. It was beautiful, and Rachael thought, I could be down there, tethered to that block, my hair waving in the water, dead and gone forever.

She said, “As you can see, it’s not very deep here, maybe twelve feet max.”

He looked down at the water and felt such a punch of rage he nearly lost his breath. Even though he’d seen and heard just about everything one human being could do to another, this was different. This was Rachael. He said, keeping the violence out of his voice, “Two people carried you down this dock, one had your arms, the other your legs. You said you couldn’t tell if they were male or female. Think about it a minute, try to put yourself back there, listen.”

Rachael closed her eyes. She remembered the motion, remembered how she fought to come back, to get her brain working again, remembered them speaking, but what? Who?

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Jack said, “Okay, I want you to think about the weight distribution. Can you picture them carrying you? Is one of them carrying more of your weight than the other?”

She thought about that. “Maybe,” she said, “maybe the person carrying my arms was female. I remember smelling some scent, close to me, not sweet, but not pungent enough for a man to wear it.” She shook her head. “But I can’t swear to it.”

“That’s okay. At least you were aware enough to pretend you were still unconscious. It gave you a chance.” He paused, then lightly touched his hand to her forearm. “What you did, Rachael, it was amazing. You kept your head, kept the terror away, and used your brain. I am very proud of you.”

“I didn’t think I was going to make it. The pain in your chest, it’s unimaginable. You want to open your mouth so badly, but you know it will be all over if you do. When my head cleared the surface—” She stopped, swallowed. “I knew they were still there. I could hear them talking, not ten feet from me, standing on the dock. When I got in enough air to convince myself that I was going to live, I slid back under the water and swam under the dock, and waited. I heard them walking back up the dock, heard the car engine. I came up to see the lights.”

“You couldn’t make out anything? Think back—did you see a profile? Male or female? Can you describe the shape of the car?”

“No, they were gone by the time I was getting out of the water.”

“All right. Let’s go back to that diner.”

Mel’s Diner was charming, right out of the 1950s, with windows all along the front, Formica tables covered with red-and-white-checked tablecloths, and plastic menus. All along the windows were booths, the vinyl dark brown and cracked.

“I don’t believe it,” Rachael said as they walked in the front door.

“That waitress, she’s the same woman who was here last Friday night. Business is light, people in only a few booths, like it was on Friday night. The cook, you can hear him whistling from behind the counter in the kitchen.”

“Hey,” the woman said, doing a double take when she saw Rachael. “I remember you. Last time I saw you, you looked like a drowned rat. You look fine now, all dried out again. You all right, sweetie? Is this your husband?”

“He’s my bodyguard,” Rachael said, read the woman’s name tag, and added, “Millie.”

Millie whistled. “You know kung fu or jujitsu, foreign stuff like that?”

“All of it,” Jack said. “You always gotta go with a pro.”

“I’m thinking I’d like to hire a bodyguard, a hunky one like you, to keep that rat ex-husband of mine away from me. Could you kick him in the face for me? Can you kick that high?”

“Well, maybe a kidney shot instead?” Jack asked. “That’s more in my range.”

“You could start just about anywhere, honey.”

They ordered coffee, and Rachael asked Millie about any customers she’d had last Friday night who were strangers to her. There’d been maybe a dozen tourists driving through who stopped in, but none of them had struck her as being weird or nasty.

She left to pour more coffee into a local man’s cup, then came back, a thoughtful expression on her face. “I’m thinking, I’m thinking. Last Friday,” she said. “Hmm.”

She handed Rachael some creamer she didn’t want.

“I remember this one gent, he came in to get two coffees to go, one black, one blond with three sugars. Now that I think of it, he looked kind of on edge. No nervous tics, nothing like that, but he was impatient, tapped his fingers on the counter while I was pouring the coffee. It was maybe thirty, forty-five minutes before you came straggling in.”

“What did the gent look like?” Jack asked.

Millie pursed her lips. “He was maybe forty, longish black hair, sunglasses on, if you can believe that, like he was some sort of celebrity or some asshole wanting to look like one. He wasn’t big, kind of thin, I think, and his clothes didn’t fit him all that well.” She screwed up her face, thought about it. “Sorry, that’s about it. I can’t think of anything else. But I remember thinking I wasn’t sorry to see the back of him.

“I was pouring a refill for a guy next to the window and looked out. I saw him sitting in the passenger seat of a big dark-colored car, maybe a Lincoln, but I’m not sure. He and another guy were talking, drinking their coffee. Then my boss called me and that was the last I saw of them.”

“Did they seem angry?” Rachael asked. “Or pleased, congratulating each other?”

“Honey, I was too far away and it was too dark, sorry.”

Jack asked Millie more questions, then asked the same ones again, using different phrasing until he knew the well had run dry.

Rachael hugged her before they left. “Thank you, Millie, thank you very much.”

Millie patted her on the back. She looked at Jack again, up and down. “You being a professional bodyguard and all, you see to it you take good care of her, all right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jack said, and smiled at her. “Millie, do you think you’d recognize the gent from Friday night?”

“I might be losing brain cells at a fine rate, but I still got enough to remember that face, even with the dumb sunglasses. He’s the kind you wouldn’t want to see in a bad dream.’’

“Good. I’ll bring you some photos to look at.”

A man shouted out from the kitchen, “Millie! I got the flats and strips for number three!”

“That’s pancakes and bacon,” she said. “I’m coming, Moe!” And she winked at Jack.

Once outside the diner, Rachael threw her arms around Jack, hugged him hard until he grunted. “You’re a genius. I didn’t say anything, but I never thought it would be of any use at all to come back out here. But Millie was here and she remembered me. And that guy. You are so smart, Jack.” She went up on her tiptoes and kissed him. “I’m glad I laid out the big bucks and got myself a real pro.”

He was laughing as his arms came around her. In the back of his mind, the FBI agent was screaming, Stop it, you moron, are you nuts? Step away from the girl, now. The FBI agent was loud and insistent, but he didn’t make any headway. Jack didn’t release her. In fact, he kissed her back and it felt so good he’d have given up his season tickets for the Redskins without a moment’s hesitation just to keep his mouth on hers and his hands—but the unwanted agent finally kicked him in the butt. Jack set her away from him to keep from yanking her down into the backseat of the car.

She looked up at him, her mouth open, face blank, eyes wide. She was breathing fast, which his agent self demanded he ignore. She swiped her hand over her mouth. “What? Oh my God, Jack, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. It’s just that... I lost it. You’re really smart, Jack. Oh damn.”

“It’s standard procedure, Rachael,” and that was true, but wasn’t that about the dumbest thing he’d ever said? He took a step back from her, had to. A beam of sunlight fell directly onto her and he saw the strangest thing. He saw her swinging a baseball bat. She walloped the ball and it flew and flew, and he realized it wasn’t Rachael, it was a little girl with Rachael’s smile and a braid in her hair—

“Stop being modest. I’m going to tell Dillon how brilliant you are.”

“Great Balls of Fire” blasted out of Jack’s jacket.

Jack had never flipped open his cell so fast. “Jack Crowne here.”

FORTY

Jack drove down Wisconsin Avenue past a rare-cigar shop and an outdoor-gear emporium, looking for Brady Cullifer’s law firm. It was in an older building, grand-looking, really, understated, standing proudly next to a holistic healer.

There were five names on the gold-etched sign on the front doors, two of them Cullifer.

A worried-looking receptionist led them to Brady Cullifer’s office, knocked on the door, waited for the “Enter,” and opened it. He stepped discreetly back, giving them a harried, nearly frantic look.

Brady Cullifer came around from behind a large, well-worn desk that looked like it had belonged to his grandfather, which, Jack supposed, was possible.

Jack said as he shook the man’s hand, “What’s with the receptionist? He looks strung-out.”

“Oh, Rowley, he’s the firm’s major worrier, practically fingers worry beads whenever there’s a big case being tried. One of our lawyers just left to hear the verdict in a big personal-injury suit, so Rowley’s worrying big-time. Rachael, my dear, how are you? It’s good to see you.”

Rachael smiled, let Mr. Cullifer hug her. She liked him, probably because he’d always been so kind to her, always seemed to accept her. He was about Jimmy’s age, with a bit of a paunch she remembered Jimmy kidding him about, lecturing him to get to the racquet-ball court. He was immaculately dressed, as always, in a lightweight gray wool suit, a pale pink shirt, and a dark blue tie that, surprisingly, tied everything together.

When he released her, she said, “I’m fine, sir.”

“Like everyone else in this town, I heard the FBI press conference yesterday morning about Jimmy’s death being classified as murder, not an accident, and that a woman shooter was possibly involved. Now she’s dead. Do you know why she died?”

“Complications of surgery,” Jack said.

“I take it you are Agent Crowne?” He raised a brow at Jack.

“Yes, sir,” Jack said, and shook his hand. “We appreciate your seeing us on such short notice.”

Cullifer waved them to a burgundy leather sofa, offered them coffee, and sat himself in a chair facing them. “Rachael, my dear, tell me what I can do to help you.”

Rachael said, “You remember I told you what Jimmy did, how he accidentally killed that little girl. You acted like you didn’t know anything about it. I’ve been thinking that’s not true. Please, sir, tell me what Jimmy said to you about that little girl.”

Brady sat down and drummed his fingertips on his desktop. Finally, he said, “Why would you think I know anything more about thatpoor little girl than what you told me, Rachael?”

“You’re his lawyer,” Jack answered, “his longtime friend.” He raised his hand. “Please don’t invoke client confidentiality. I don’t think it applies anymore. The senator is dead, and this is an official investigation. It’s important, sir.”

Cullifer slowly nodded. “Very well. Shortly before his death, Jimmy told me about his hitting and killing a little girl eighteen months ago.”

Cullifer’s eyes clouded. “I couldn’t believe it, just couldn’t. When he finished, when I couldn’t think of another question to put to him, I asked him why he didn’t tell me sooner, but he said only that he was telling me now to prepare me because he’d decided to go public. He wanted it in the open, he wanted it done and over with. He told me he’d also informed Rachael, Laurel, Stefanos, Quincy, and Greg Nichols of his intentions. He didn’t know if there would be any blowback on me, but he was telling me just in case.

“And I played dumb with you, Rachael, because he was my longtime friend, my client, as well as the whole confidentiality issue. You’re thinking I know more?”

Rachael said, “He wanted all those close to him to be ready to deal with the media and any fallout, business and personal. He told me his family was furious with him.”

“An understatement,” Cullifer said absently. He sat back in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, and tapped his fingers together. “He also told me he’d told Jacqueline and his daughters. They were exceedingly upset, as you can imagine. Jacqueline wanted him to keep quiet. They had several extended phone conversations about it.”

“Were you furious with him?” Rachael asked.

Cullifer said after a moment, “To be honest, I was devastated. You see, I knew something was wrong with Jimmy, knew it to my soul. I remember how distracted he was, how there were new lines on his face—a face, I might add, that was always youthful until the last year or so. But you know, I got caught up in a lawsuit and any concerns about Jimmy dropped out of my mind. Until it was too late. And then you came back from Sicily and told me what you were going to do, Rachael.”

Rachael said, “The guilt was eating him alive; that’s why he was going to confess everything.”

Cullifer said, “Yes, I know. Now, like everyone else who heard the FBI press conference, I wondered and wondered who would want Jimmy dead. Who would take such a risk? And believe me, killing a United States senator is a huge risk. The thing is, even after Agent Savich said he was murdered, for the life of me I couldn’t figure out a motive, not for Laurel or Quincy, not for his ex-wife, who’s very well off financially, believe me, or any of his colleagues. I honestly can’t imagine any of them killing him to avoid a scandal—that’s simply too far out there.”

Cullifer looked thoughtful. “Tell the world what he did—I told him it would mean the end of his career, it would mean a huge scandal, a lawsuit to break the bank, it would have meant beggaring the estate, depending on the sharks the little girl’s family hired. But most of all, I told him he would be tried and convicted of vehicular homicide and go to jail.

“Of course he knew all this. He also fully realized his family would be dragged into it—Laurel and Stefanos, and Quincy, all his staff on the Hill, me because I’ve been his lawyer for nearly forever.”

Jack said, “Regardless, someone took it upon him- or herself to silence him. Rachael is convinced it’s Laurel and Quincy.”

Brady asked, “You’re certain only these people knew what he was preparing to do?”

“As far as we know,” Jack said.

“This was why Jimmy had stopped drinking and driving his car?”

Rachael nodded. “Alter he killed the little girl, he never took another drink, and never drove his car again. That’s what he told me and I believed him.”

“During the press conference, Agent Savich mentioned that a woman was involved.”

Jack said, “Yes, we think so. But we don’t yet know who hired her.”

Rachael said, “Sir, do you think Laurel and Quincy could have murdered Jimmy?”

Cullifer arched a sleek eyebrow at her. “Laurel? Quincy? Kill their own brother? Evidently you believe it. As for me, Rachael, I don’t know. Again, the motive isn’t strong enough. I would prefer Greg Nichols, only because I don’t know him well. And he would indeed go to jail when Jimmy confessed.”

He shook his head. “A real-life assassin, and you brought her down in the Barnes & Noble in Georgetown. Amazing.”

Rachael said, “There’s something else, Mr. Cullifer. Jimmy was committed to telling the truth. After he died, as you know, I decided to make his confession for him because it was what he planned to do, and what he wanted to do. And I told those same people, to prepare them, just as I told you.”

Cullifer didn’t say a word, just continued giving her that emotionless lawyer look until she said, “Someone has tried to kill me— three times.”

It was rare to see a good lawyer caught off-guard. Cullifer leaped to his feet. “No! I can’t believe that, no, Rachael, it simply—” He stopped dead in his tracks. “That’s why you’re with an FBI agent, isn’t it? He’s protecting you?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Because you plan to make Jimmy’s confession for him and someone is trying to stop you.”

“Yes. I can think of no other reason.”

“Are you still going to make his confession?”

“I don’t know. I was sure about my reasons, sure about what Jimmy wanted, but now, I don’t know.”

“It is a difficult question,” Cullifer said, and nothing more.

Rachael said, “Several people have pointed out that it’s an ethical question. How can I presume to have Jimmy’s entire life judged by one incident, and I’m assured that is what would happen. I don’t know what to do, Mr. Cullifer.”

“Are you still certain it’s what he would have done?”

“Yes.”

“Then do it and the fallout be damned.”

They spoke to Brady Cullifer for another ten minutes. When he hugged Rachael good-bye, she said, “Thank you for accepting me as Jimmy’s daughter, sir. Thank you for your kindness.”

“Well, I didn’t want to accept you, Rachael, not initially, despite Jimmy’s enthusiasm. I should tell you I hired an investigator to do a thorough check on you and your mother. That was what convinced me. And I didn’t charge your father for the investigator’s time.” He patted her cheek. “You’re an Abbott now, Rachael, all right and proper. If you choose to be his spokesperson, then I’ll be behind you one hundred percent.”

FORTY-ONE

They ate lunch at a taqueria known for its guacamole and chips, then took an array of photos back to Millie at the diner near Black Rock Lake.

Millie was busy, and they waited. When she dropped into the seat next to them in a booth, Jack handed her a series of black-and-white shots. She looked at Donley Everett’s photo carefully, the man Jack shot in the kitchen at Slipper Hollow. She shook her head and picked up Clay Huggins’s photo, the man he shot and killed at Slipper Hollow, studied it for a good minute, then regretfully shook her head again. The same for Marion Croop. Jack handed her Roderick Lloyd’s photo, the man who walked right into Roy Bob’s garage in Parlow and started shooting. She shook her head again.

Rachael was nearly out of hope when Jack looked down at the last photo, then handed it to Millie.

Millie studied it, then looked up at them. “Now isn’t this a kick? I would have sworn it was a guy who came in last Friday night and ordered the two coffees, but it’s her”—she stabbed the photo with her finger—”all dressed up like a guy.”

Jack and Rachael stared at Perky’s—aka Pearl Compton’s— photo.

Rachael’s heart was pounding. “You’re certain, Millie?”

“Yeah, all that blond hair—if you look at her and think black hair, then it becomes clear. Yes, Agent, it’s her. I’m sure.”

As they drove back to Washington, a light summer rain falling, Rachael said, “So Perky carried me by my arms down the dock. Who was carrying my feet? Donley Everett or Clay Huggins or Roderick Lloyd? Who’s that fourth guy—oh yeah, Marion Croop?”

“If so, then who hired them?”

“Or maybe it was Quincy or Stefanos carrying my feet.”

“Or Laurel,” he said.

The windshield wipers moved slowly back and forth, steady as a metronome. “I’m tired, Jack.”

With no hesitation at all, out of his mouth came, “Sleep with me and you won’t worry about a crook coming in through the window. You’ll sleep soundly. With me.”

Rachael turned in her seat to look at his profile. “How long has it been since you had a date, Jack?”

He laughed. “Fact is, I broke up with a very nice woman about a month before I flew to Lexington to pick up Timothy. It seems like ten years ago.”

“It’s only been a week.”

He increased the wiper speed.

Rachael laughed. “I don’t have an umbrella with me.”

“Old Nemo here has everything in a box in the backseat. Including umbrellas.”

“Nemo?”

Jack patted the dash. “Yep, I gave him that name when I drove into a swamp once. I thought he was agoner, but he started right up and steamed on down the road. I love Nemo, been with me eight years now, still runs faster than my dad when Mom chased him with a skillet.”

Rachael pictured the Toyota Corolla steaming out of a swamp and laughed, then settled back and closed her eyes. “What are we going to do now?”

“How about we take off a couple of hours, take a nap, maybe on one of the sofas in the living room, anything but that rock-hard bed you put me in last night.”

She didn’t answer him. She was asleep. Slowly, she slid into him, her head on his shoulder.

Jack managed to extricate his cell without disturbing Rachael and punched in Savich, told him about Millie’s identification of Perky as one of two people at Mel’s Diner Friday night, not more than a ten-minute car ride from Black Rock Lake.

Savich was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Things are beginning to come together. From what you told me about Laurel and Quincy, I can’t see them killing Senator Abbott and Rachael themselves. Too messy for them. On the other hand, who knows? You done good, Jack. It won’t be long now.”

Jack hoped Savich was right, but he couldn’t see any light at all himself. He wondered as he drove through the thickening summer rain, Who hired you, Perky?

FORTY-TWO

Georgetown

Friday evening

Savich closed and locked the front door, set the alarm. He was tired and stiff, bummed because it was too late to hit the gym. He rotated his neck as he thought about stretching out in his bed and sleeping deep and dreamless, forgetting both cases. He turned to see his wife standing on the stairs, looking at him over her shoulder as she shrugged off her white oxford shirt. He stopped cold. He went instantly from bone-tired to wide-awake, let-me-lick-those-beautiful-white-shoulders lust. Had he really thought he was so tired he was nearly brain-dead? That was very shortsighted of him. Well, perhaps he was brain-dead, but the rest of him was wide awake.

He didn’t move, crossed his arms over his chest, a smile playing over his mouth, and watched the show.

Sherlock said nothing at all—what was there to say, anyway? She licked her tongue over her bottom lip as she unfastened the front clip of her bra. She waited, then slowly shrugged out of it while she shifted to stand nearly in profile to him. She gave him her over-the shoulder smile while her fingers were busy, her movements slow and subtle, leaving just a bit to his imagination.

She pulled off the bra, one strap at a time, and tossed it at him over her shoulder, but it landed three feet short.

“Lightweight,” he said, and she laughed.

“You’re right, lace doesn’t weigh much.” She turned her profile to him again. Savich walked slowly toward her, all his attention focused on those hands of hers playing with the zipper on her pants. Then he saw the slow, downward slide. He did a fast fifteen-foot sprint, nearly tripping over her boots, which lay on the bottom step, her socks hanging out the tops. He saw she’d had the presence of mind to drape her navy blue blazer on the newel post. He loved those beautiful feet of hers.

Savich exercised great strength of will and stopped three stairs below her, waiting to see what she’d do next. He suspected he’d bite his tongue if he weren’t careful, particularly now that she was wriggling out of the pants. She was doing a major tease, slow, really slow, and she knew what slow meant.

He got a glimpse of that beautiful rear end of hers, the white lace panties that matched her bra, cut high on her thighs, and it pushed him over the edge. He ran up the stairs, grabbed her up in his arms, felt her laughter wash over him, and felt her mouth kissing his ear, his eyebrow, her hands tangled in his hair. He wanted to laugh with the sheer joy of it, but the fact was he needed to concentrate on getting to the bedroom without tripping because he was so far gone he didn’t know if he’d make it.

And he really wanted to make it.

It always seemed to him that time became both syrupy slow and galloped to hurricane speed when he was making love to her.

When at last he pulled her on top of him, when at last she had the energy to sit up, her strong white legs tight against his flanks, her palms flat on his chest, he marveled as he always did at the whiteness of her flesh against the darkness of his hands holding her.

She gave him a silly smile. “That was rather nice, Dillon.”

“Oh yes.” He looked up at her beloved face, saw her eyes were vague from pleasure, touched fingers to her fiery hair, tossed wildly around her head, and said, “I never tell you enough. You are my life.”

As he was hers, she thought, but the words fell away when he came deep inside her and she was kissing him, and the words she whispered in his mouth were, “You are so hot I can’t stand it,” and it was enough, too much, really and he didn’t last as long as he would have wished, but she was with him, blessed be, so that was all right.

He was felled, so loose and relaxed it would have taken Sean jumping on top of him for a good three minutes before he moved. His breathing finally slowed, at least enough so he could think. His meager thoughts soon scattered when she began moving down his happy, lifeless body. He grabbed handfuls of hair when he felt her mouth on his belly, and he arched up, groaned.

“Music to my ears,” she whispered against him.

She fell asleep stretched out on top of him, her head tucked into the curve of his neck, her hair against his mouth. He didn’t feel it tickle, though, because his was the sleep of the dead.

When his cell phone belted out the Monday Night Football theme, he came instantly awake and looked with loathing at his cell phone half hanging out of his pants pocket on the floor beside the bed. Sherlock was stirring against him. He didn’t want to move her, but a phone call late on a Friday night couldn’t be good.

He managed to stretch out and grab his cell. “Yeah.”

He listened as he leaned back to rub Sherlock’s belly. She didn’t want to pull away from that big warm hand of his, but she did. She managed to sit up, saying, “What’s wrong, Dillon? What happened?”

“Someone just tried to kill Dr. MacLean.”

They left a sleeping Sean with Lily and Simon, and arrived at the hospital sixteen minutes later.

He’d found hospitals to be eerily quiet at the witching hour, and truth be told, he hadn’t expected excitement there on the main floor, but he heard some raised voices, saw two security people dashing up the stairs. To their surprise, the elevator was empty. When they reached MacLean’s floor, they had to dodge a gurney then two wheelchairs being pushed out of the way, and a good half-dozen hospital personnel, running, yelling, or silent with shock. He saw several patients standing in doorways, one older man holding up his IV bag in his right hand, an orderly trying to talk him back into bed, but he wasn’t buying it.

“Agent Tomlin,” Sherlock said, grabbing one of the nurses. “Where is Agent Tomlin?”

“They’re working on him. Someone walked up to him and shoved a syringe into his neck, but he didn’t go all the way out and Louise noticed something was wrong—you know, he was kind of jerking in his chair, and she called out, but he didn’t answer.” The nurse was nearly hyperventilating. “Louise ran toward him. I don’t know what happened—Louise was gone and there was a gunshot. I didn’t know it would be so loud. It was like an explosion, and everyone was yelling and screaming.”

Sherlock closed her eyes and prayed hard. Please, God, let Tom Tomlin be okay. She was right behind Savich when he shoved open MacLean’s door.

There were half a dozen people around MacLean’s bed, all talking, gesturing, some on cell phones, one security woman talking loudly on a crackling walkie-talkie.

When Savich shoved his way through, he saw MacLean lying on his back, the bed cranked up, his head on a pillow, and he was smiling impartially at everyone, the patriarch surrounded by his family. Hospital security was two deep.

“Timothy,” Savich said, studying him even as he took his hand. “Are you all right?”

“I’m in fine fettle.” MacLean grinned maniacally. “What with all the excitement, I’m ready for some fast music so I can do a victory dance with Louise here. Hot damn, can she ever move. You should have seen her, Savich. Runs in and BAM! Shoots the guy in the arm.”

“Which arm, Timothy?” Savich asked.

“Hmmm, now, which was it? The right, that’s it; it was his right arm. He dropped the needle.”

“You’re Agent Savich? I’m chief of security, William Hayward. I called you.”

Savich quickly shook his hand. “Thank you for calling me.” Hayward was a small fine-boned older man with a good build, nicely pressed pants, and smart eyes. Savich pegged him as a retired cop. “Hell of a business,” the chief said, shaking his head. “I’m thinking I should check into the nurses’ training curriculum—can you believe one of our nurses shot the guy?”

Savich then turned to MacLean. He heard Sherlock introduce herself to Hayward, heard his quiet voice telling her what they were doing.

Savich said, “Tell me what happened, Timothy.”

“Well, the thing is, I was asleep. Then there was a sliver of light, right in my eyes. The door had opened, and the light was from the hallway. This guy walks in, a guy I’ve never seen before. He just strolls in like he belongs, smiles at me when he sees I’m awake, says he’s sorry to disturb me, but he’s a neurosurgeon and my doctor asked him to see me, and sure enough, he’s all dressed in green scrubs, a mask over his face, a stethoscope around his neck, those paper booties on his feet. I’ll admit, at first I simply accepted what he said, so many white coats and green scrubs all over, in and out of here, like Grand Central.

“He comes toward me, talking all the time, telling me everything again, like I’m not a doctor and don’t already know everything he’s talking about, and even repeated how my doctor wanted him to check me out, and he’s sorry it’s so late but he just came out of an emergency surgery, didn’t even have time to change, and I say, ‘Why do I need a neurosurgeon? And what’s with the mask?’

“And the guy stops cold in his tracks and I swear to you, he hisses, just like a snake. He pulls out a needle and I see it’s capped, and right away I know there’s something hinky in that needle, something real nasty bad for me in there. I yell out for Agent Tomlin, but there’s no answer. The man tells me I’m one lucky son of a bitch, but enough is enough. And he hisses again, amazing—like nothing I’ve ever heard before.

“I hear Louise’s voice outside the door, and then the door slams open and there’s Louise, a gun in her hand, and this guy whirls toward her, and bless her heart, she doesn’t hesitate, she shoots him. The guy hisses again, drops the needle, grabs his arm, yells at me that I am a dead man, and bolts to the door. He knocks Louise flat on her ass. I yell after him to stop, and Louise raises the gun again to shoot him, but she hits the bathroom door.”

“Yeah, she did,” Hayward said. “A fine shot. That door’s not moving.”

MacLean said, smiling, “That wasn’t bad, Chief.”

“I’ve got the needle,” Hayward said. He handed the needle, still capped and carefully wrapped up in his own handkerchief, to Sherlock.

Savich asked, “Did you recognize his voice, Timothy?”

“Well, no, he had that mask on. It muffled his voice.”

“It was a man?”

MacLean looked at Sherlock. “I don’t think it was a woman, but it all happened so fast—no, I’d have to say it was a man.”

“Young? Old?”

MacLean looked at Sherlock. “Again, he had that mask over his face, mouth included. I don’t know.”

“All right, that’s good, Timothy,” Savich said. “Tell us again what happened then. Slow down.”

Sherlock saw MacLean was beginning to come off his adrenaline high, and she began to stroke his forearm.

“I’ll tell you, it was wild. Louise was yelling, ‘Code blue! Get security!’ And then Louise was in here with me. She was panting, looking hard at me, and she was shaking all over like she’d had the life nearly scared out of her. Then she folded her arms over her chest, stared at Agent Tomlin’s gun, which was still in her right hand, and she started laughing and crying at the same time. I watched her lay the gun very carefully on the table.

“She started examining me then, feeling me up, that’s what I told her, and then she stopped and cocked her head toward the door. We saw all these hospital people working on Agent Tomlin. It sounded like pandemonium to me. I asked her to call you, Agent Savich, and she told me she’d tell Chief Hayward and he’d do it, that was better.

“Bless her heart, she was so upset, so excited, so relieved that I was okay. She hugged me, real hard, hurt my ribs, but I just hugged her back. She did really good. She saved my life.”

“She certainly did,” Sherlock agreed.

FORTY-THREE

Nurse Louise Wingo said from the doorway, “I’ve never been so scared in my life.” She looked down at her watch. “It’s after one o’clock in the morning, Dr. MacLean. You need to rest.”

“Rest? For what reason, I ask you? Please don’t tell me it’ll improve my quality of life. You can come here if you want to, Louise, and you can hug me some more. You should have seen her, Savich. She came running in, brought the gun up, and shot the guy, no muss, no fuss. No, Louise, don’t bother telling me I need to rest. My brain’s working at a great clip, and I’m fine.” He beamed a happy face at everyone. “I haven’t had this great an adrenaline kick in a very long time.”

Louise said to them, “Mine is probably higher than his.” She fanned herself, and grinned. “Wow, was that ever incredible! No way my husband’s going to believe it. He thinks the night shift is boring. Wait’ll he hears this.

“Thank God you’re okay, Dr. MacLean. I’m so relieved Mrs. MacLean wasn’t here. She left about eleven.”

“You’re right about that,” MacLean said. “Molly would have jumped on him, and he might have hurt her. I’m thanking you for her, too, Louise.”

Sherlock said, “Jack told us that Molly looks after her own. If she saw anyone trying to hurt anybody in her family, she’d go nuts.”

MacLean said, “That’s the truth. Usually I’m the one on her bad side. Louise, she’s going to bring you chocolate chip cookies for a year. Be prepared.”

Louise said to them, “Actually, Mrs. MacLean already brought us homemade goodies. She crochets afghans while she sits with Dr. MacLean. We let her stay as long as she wants to.”

MacLean said, “Molly fusses and nags, she’s always asking me how I’m feeling, what I’m thinking, as if she can stop the dementia from getting worse that way. I finally talked her into going home. She agreed, said I was someone else’s pain until tomorrow, and she kissed me good-bye.” MacLean closed his eyes, swallowed. “If she’d been here, that bastard wouldn’t have hesitated to kill her, too.” He looked over at Louise. “Thank you, Louise. Any of those yahoo doctors give you grief, you just give me a holler. I’ll take care of them for you.”

Sherlock said, “I’ll call Molly first thing in the morning, tell her you’re okay. No sense in worrying her tonight.”

“Careful, Dr. MacLean,” Louise said, “you’ve nearly dislodged the IV line.” Sherlock saw that her hands were steady as she worked on the line. She straightened, lightly ran her hand over his forearm. “You’re good to go now. Please, try to calm down.”

MacLean said, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll have enough time to be calm when I’m dead. How’s poor Agent Tomlin?”

“I heard one of the doctors say it was probably a load of sedative punched in his neck, but since he’s already beginning to come out of it, it either wasn’t much or he jerked away so not all of it went in. He’s stable, still really drowsy. He should be okay, just out for a while. That’s all we have so far.”

Sherlock saw Dillon speaking to Chief Hayward. He looked up and said to her, “Chief Hayward’s got all the hospital security searching the building and grounds, but he could use more people. I’m going to give Ben Raven a call, wake him up. He’ll get more cops down here to help the security people.”

They wouldn’t find the man, Sherlock thought, and she hated that she was so certain. This was well planned, he knew how to get in and out. But maybe— “What about video?”

Chief Hayward said, “I called down to set it up.”

Sherlock leaned down and whispered next to MacLean’s ear, “All in all, none of us can complain.”

“Poor Agent Tomlin can,” MacLean said.

Ten minutes later, Savich and Sherlock went inside the small hospital security room near the front entrance. There were twelve video screens, ten of them running live feeds from cameras at locations inside the hospital.

Chief Hayward said, “We’ve got a camera at the entrance to the hospital, one camera on each floor. I asked Fritz to pull up two tapes of where the assailant would have had to walk to get to Dr. Mac-Lean’s room.”

Fritz said, “I couldn’t locate the assailant coming into the hospital. I will have to look earlier. This tape is from Dr. MacLean’s floor.”

They all watched the screen. Chief Hayward said, “Stop. Look, that must be him, the guy in surgical scrubs, a mask over his face, and a cap on his head. If it was during the day, someone would have wondered who the hell he was since no one wears a mask in the hallway. There’s no reason for that. He’s also wearing surgical gloves, so no fingerprints. Sorry about the quality of the film, but we should be able to make him out okay.”

They watched the man walk toward the camera. He turned a corner just past the nurses’ station and disappeared.

“Okay,” Chief Hayward said. “Fast-forward, Fritz.”

“Stop, there he is,” Savich said a couple of seconds later.

Fritz froze the screen.

Sherlock said, “Okay, three minutes have elapsed and here he comes. And she thought, It took so little time. In three minutes Timothy could have been killed. She said, “He’s walking really fast, and he’s holding his arm. There’s blood seeping through his fingers. He’s got his head down. About all I can say so far is he isn’t fat.”

“He’s still got the mask and cap on,” Fritz said. “Bummer.”

They watched him until he disappeared.

Chief Hayward said, “Okay, let’s see if he leaves through the front. Roll the other tape, Fritz.” The film sped up, then slowly, Fritz brought it back to real time.

Chief Hayward said, “Stop, Fritz, you got him. I think that’s him—the timing’s about right, five minutes have passed. He looks about the same size, same build, and the loose clothes.”

The manonthefilmwaswearingawatchcappulledlowonhis forehead, touching the rims of dark sunglasses. He was wearing loose blue jeans, a large pale blue shirt that hung outside his pants, a baggy off-white linen jacket, and moccasins. For an instant, they were looking directly at his face, only they couldn’t see him clearly.

Chief Hayward said, “He’s still walking slowly and you can tell he’s favoring his arm. It’s gotta hurt like a bear. One of my men found a couple drops of blood on the floor of Dr. MacLean’s corridor and marked the spot for you. It doesn’t necessarily have to be our guy, but it’s likely.”

Savich said, “His blood will nail him when we catch him. He took a big chance, walking right up to Agent Tomlin, shoving that needle in his neck, knowing the nurses’ station wasn’t more than thirty feet away. I’d say he’s really motivated, determined, maybe really angry.”

They watched him walk out of the front entrance of the hospital. Chief Hayward said, “We didn’t catch the guy coming into the hospital. He must have scoped out the camera locations, learned the hospital layout, all the particulars. He’s not stupid. He came late, the optimum time. Sorry, but we don’t have any outdoor cameras.”

“It’s something,” Sherlock said. “Thank you, Chief. I’d say someone is more than motivated, more than just angry. I’d say they’re obsessed.”

Savich said, “We’ll get you some photos of all the players we know of so your people can show them around. We might get lucky.”

Chief Hayward nodded, but he didn’t look hopeful. “This guy is careful. But maybe someone saw him near the OR. All I can say with any certainty is that he’s about average height, average build, and wears really loose clothes.”

Sherlock nodded. “Fritz, can you rewind it again?”

When he did, she said, “Okay, now watch. I’m thinking he looks young, too. Watch him walk, the way he moves.”

“Freeze that frame, Fritz,” Chief Hayward said. “Look, he’s sort of slouching, bent over. Sure, he’s hurting, his arm must feel like it’s burning off, but I’m not as sure as you are.”

“If he is a young man,” Savich said, “he’s probably hired.”

Sherlock was shaking her head. “That doesn’t sound right. From what Timothy said, it sounded like it was up close and personal to me, not like an impersonal hired gun.”

“You’re right,” Savich said, and plowed his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. “My brain’s on default mode.” He looked down at his Mickey Mouse watch. It was nearly three A.M.

Savich looked at Sherlock and said, “Let’s check on Agent Tomlin, then go home.”

FORTY-FOUR

Washington, D.C.

Late Saturday morning

Pierre Barbeau answered the front door, eyed them with resignation, and stepped back. “Tommy called me from downstairs. What is it you want now?”

“We’d like to speak to you and your wife, Mr. Barbeau,” Savich said, his eyes on Pierre’s right arm. He was wearing a ratty old blue velvet bathrobe, with thick, loose sleeves that could easily cover a bandage. He looked like he’d just gotten out of bed. He looked tired, defensive—shattered, and just maybe—afraid. But to Savich’s eye, taking all of him in, he simply didn’t look like he’d been shot in the arm.

Pierre said, “I don’t know why. Listen, Estelle and I, we’re—we’re only trying to cope. We’ve told you everything. My wife won’t want to speak to you, either of you. I can tell you that, and believe me, she usually gets what she wants.”

Sherlock wanted to tell him that she usually got what she wanted, as well, but she merely smiled at him as Dillon said, “We checked with your night doorman. He said both of you were out from about ten o’clock until two a.m. Where did you go?”

“Why? Who cares?” He got two hard-as-nails looks and dead silence, and backed up a step. Then he gave them the French cop-out, a shrug that said nothing and everything. “Oh, I see, something else has happened, hasn’t it? You think we’re behind it, whatever it is, and it happened last night. Is that it?”

“Please tell us where you were, Mr. Barbeau,” Sherlock said.

“Very well. I don’t suppose it matters. My wife and I couldn’t stand looking at each other’s pain, and so we went out walking. It was nice, last night, the moon was nearly full, and so we walked in High Banks Park. Maybe an hour, give or take. We went into a gallery that was having a special showing and was open late. We stayed there until nearly midnight, then we stopped at a bar. We drank too much, but it didn’t help. We came back here. I didn’t check the time. We went to bed. I woke up when Tommy rang up a few minutes ago.”

“The name of the gallery, Mr. Barbeau?” Sherlock asked, her pen poised above her small black notebook.

“The Penyon Gallery on Wisconsin.”

“What was the special showing?”

“American artists, modern stuff, you know, all squiggles and blobs of thick paint, something Jean David did with great enthusiasm when he was three, only he didn’t use paints.” He gave a brief ghastly smile, his voice hitching on his son’s name. He raised his left arm to press his fingers briefly to his forehead. No bullet wound in that arm, for sure.

Sherlock waited a beat, then asked, “The name of the bar?”

“Who remembers the name of a bar? I certainly don’t. We’d never been there before. I remember it wasn’t very far from the gallery.”

Sherlock leaned in close. “What did you and your wife talk about, Mr. Barbeau?”

“Nothing, really. Nothing important. We are both too miserable to do anything but exist right now However, to be honest here, because we can’t seem to help ourselves, we occasionally speak about our son, and we did talk about Jean David while we walked in the park last night. We spoke about how much we loved him, how this shouldn’t have happened, how unfair it all is, how because of the threats from people like you, our son is dead.”

Savich’s eyebrow shot up. “Threats?”

Another shrug. “It would have come to threats if the authorities had gotten their hands on Jean David before he died. They would have threatened to deport us, freeze all our bank accounts, and send him to prison if he refused to sign a confession admitting to everything they could think of, even things he knew nothing about.”

“You have quite an imagination, Mr. Barbeau,” Sherlock said easily. “But the fact is, none of that happened. Your son’s misdeeds died with him. I doubt the CIA will ever discover exactly what and how much your son passed on to the terrorists.”

“He didn’t help the terrorists! Maybe some of it got to them, but the point is, he didn’t realize ... It was all that woman’s fault. She seduced him, twisted him up.” He stopped, shook his head. “Jean David was so young, so innocent until she got hold of him.”

Jean David Barbeau was twenty-six when he drowned. Savich and Sherlock remained quiet.

Pierre said, “At least it wasn’t raining last night. Dreadful weather here, simply dreadful.”

“Your English is excellent, Mr. Barbeau,” Sherlock said.

“It should be. My father was always traveling here to the States with me and my mother in tow. He consulted with Amtrak, you know, and we lived here for long stretches of time. I attended American private schools, attended Harvard for two years before going back to France to finish my education.”

“And your wife?”

“She, too, traveled widely with her family. She is one of those few people who can pick up a language like that.” He snapped his fingers and looked sour. “She speaks five languages. Five. I’ve always believed three languages quite enough, but five? It’s a bit over the top, I think.”

Savich, who spoke only English, said, “So that’s why Jean David was born in New Jersey. You are travelers like your parents.”

“If you must know, we were visiting friends at their beach house in Cape May. Jean David came three weeks early and so he is an American citizen, something we never intended or wanted.”

At that meaty insult, Sherlock said, “As it turned out, it might have been better for everyone if Jean David wasn’t born here. The CIA would have been pleased if he’d joined his father at the French National Police, as well, Mr. Barbeau.”

His breathing sped up. He looked at Sherlock like he wanted to hit her. Just as suddenly, the anger died in his eyes. No, Savich thought it was more like his eyes themselves died. He pictured Sean’s beloved face, and couldn’t begin to imagine the pain of losing his son.

Savich said, “We would like to speak to your wife.”

He started to protest, then simply turned and yelled, “Estelle!”

Mrs. Barbeau, covered from neck to mid-calf in a thick white robe, her hair wrapped up in a white towel, appeared at the end of the hall. She’d known they were there, naturally, but she’d been staying back. “Go away,” she called out. “I am not dressed. It is Saturday morning. Leave us alone. We have nothing more to say to you.”

Sherlock called out, “I understand you and your husband visited the Penyon Gallery last evening. What did you think of the special exhibit?”

“It was pitiful. We saw nothing to interest us. I am not feeling well. I will not come any closer, I do not wish for you to become as ill as I am.”

“Your illness, it came on very quickly,” Sherlock said. “Since you were all about town last night.”

“Yes, it came on quickly. Go away.”

Savich stepped closer to Pierre, clamped a hand around his right arm, to check once and for all that he was not the one Nurse Louise had shot. He felt thick material, but no bandage. Pierre didn’t jerk away, he very slowly pulled away. Had he flinched at all? Savich knew he’d tightened, he’d felt his muscles tense. Perhaps a very minor wound, Savich thought again, if Pierre was the man Nurse Louise shot.

Why couldn’t anything be easy?

Sherlock called out, “So you didn’t like the artists?”

“Not particularly,” Estelle said. “It was all what I call commercial oatmeal—nothing of interest or import. Go away. Leave us alone. I am ill.”

Savich said pleasantly, “If you wouldn’t mind, Mrs. Barbeau, why don’t you join us in the living room. We will be brief and we promise to stay three feet from you so you won’t have to worry about being arrested for infecting an agent.”

Estelle made no pretense of civility. She came to stand in the living room doorway, but no closer. It was true, she didn’t look at all well. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she was very pale. And, Sherlock thought, that bathrobe was very thick for June. Could it have been a woman on those hospital tapes?

Estelle repeated what her husband had told them, probably because she’d listened to their conversation, Sherlock thought cynically.

Finally, Pierre threw up his hands. “Will you tell us what has happened?”

Savich said, looking Pierre right in the eyes, “A man pretending to be a physician tried to kill Dr. MacLean last night around midnight.”

A moment of silence, then Estelle shrugged. “It is a pity, and a pity he failed.

“Oh, I see. You believe my husband is the one who tried to kill that miserable excuse for a doctor? For a friend? I will tell you, he did not. We were together—all night. I want you to leave.”

Sherlock eyed Estelle’s right arm. There could easily be a bandage beneath her robe. No, surely it was a man on the tapes—the walk, the posture, surely, but he wore loose clothing. Estelle was nearly as tall as her husband.

Short of having both Barbeaus strip to the waist, there was no way to be sure.

Savich wanted to go back to bed and sleep for a few hours or have Sherlock seduce him again. Both, actually.

There was light traffic on Wisconsin. Savich’s foot went down heavy on the Porsche’s gas pedal. Then he sighed, slacked off a bit, sighed again.

“You want to know what I’m thinking?”

She touched his hand, felt his fingers slowly relax. “Tell me.”

“This persistence—obsession—you said. I simply can’t see anyone we’ve spoken to being that dogged, that determined to kill Dr. MacLean. Maybe we should speak to Lomas Clapman, maybe he murdered a dozen people and Dr. MacLean’s forgotten about it.”

“I think our killer is right under our noses. We’re missing something and that’s because we’re tired. It’s been a wild week, Dillon We’ve got to spend some time putting everything we know down on a timeline— and we’ve got to take some time to let it percolate.”

Savich thought she was right.

She said,“I’m thinking we could arrange a little party tonight with Rachael’s aunt and uncle, and maybe Stefanos. It would give us a chance to talk to them. You think they’d accept an invitation to the old family manse if Rachael asked them real nice?”

Savich laughed. “Yeah, maybe if we sent a SWAT team with the invitation. And if we brought them in for questioning, they would come with a half-dozen lawyers, refuse to answer any questions, and demand we arrest them or release them. Then they’d try to sue the FBI out of existence.”

Sherlock said, “I guess we’d need some evidence for that—like fourteen eyewitnesses.”

“They’d still sue. Actually, I’ve been thinking about another way to get together with them—a special invitation they might actually accept. I’ll let you know if I can work it out.”

Savich’s cell phone sang out “Camptown Races.” When he punched off, he turned to her. “Roderick Lloyd, the gun-happy yahoo at Roy Bob’s garage in Parlow? Ollie says he wants to deal. He’s willing to testify it was Perky who told him what to do.”

“That’s all well and good,” Sherlock said, “but does he have a clue who hired Perky?”

“No.”

“That’s convenient.”

Savich said, “Lloyd’s lawyer found out Perky couldn’t roll on him because she’s dead, so why not sing? It always warms my heart to see a lawyer at work.”

She grinned, leaned her head back against the headrest. She felt the wind tear through her hair, felt the sting on her face. She looked over at him and said, “It’s Saturday. Let’s get Sean and go play some touch football in High Banks Park.”

Savich said, “Sean’s getting pretty good. He doesn’t try to jump on our backs any longer.” Sex and a nap could wait. “High Banks Park? Why not?”

FORTY-FIVE

Rachael and Jack stood in the open doorway, Jack lusting after Savich’s Porsche as he pulled out of the driveway. He looked around at the well-lit neighborhood. Everything quiet, nothing moving. Still—”I’m going to check around, okay?”

Rachael nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll clean up here. Jack, be careful.”

He nodded and headed around to the side of the house.

She went back into the living room, fluffed two English antique silk pillows, and set them carefully against the back of the sofa. She looked around the magnificent room. This house is mine now, she thought, still having difficulty believing it was true. But she hated what it had cost her. Only six weeks she’d had with Jimmy. With her father.

Rachael was stuffing pizza boxes into the recycle bin in the pantry when Jack called out, “It looks clear.”

“In here!”

“You know,” he said as he walked into the kitchen, only to stop cold, charmed by that skinny braid dipping around her cheek, “it was nice having Savich and Sherlock over. I can see Sean making a diving tackle on his mother to bring her down—”

“—and claiming he had to do it, didn’t think a touch would stop her—”

“—and Savich standing over the two of them laughing his head off.”

Rachael made tea while Jack loaded the few dishes into the dishwasher. “Do you know, what just came to me? I was wondering what Laurel would look like if she changed her clothes, colored her hair, maybe put on a bit of lipstick.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen as long as she’s married to Stefanos,” Jack said. “Seems to me that guy was a jerk from the very beginning.”

“I wonder why she didn’t kick him out? Divorce him and send him packing back to Greece.”

Jack shrugged. “Maybe she will now that her father’s dead. Maybe he forced her to stay with the guy.”

Rachael handed him a couple of clean glasses. “You really think Mr. Abbott senior kept her married to Kostas?”

“Why else would she have put up with him except for threats from the old man?”

Rachael said, “Well, her father took my father away from my mother, threatened my mother while sending her a bloody check.” She realized her voice had gone up. The old man—dear heavens, he was her grandfather—he was dead, his eldest son dead, as well. There was no changing that. And here she was living in their house, alone, a house she hadn’t even known about until such a short time ago. “Jimmy told me when Laurel met Stefanos, she fell really hard for him, never saw any of the rot below the surface.”

Jack turned on the dishwasher. “Seems weird to me the old man wouldn’t have checked him out thoroughly, seen the rot. So why did he let Stefanos marry his daughter?”

“Good question. Jimmy said Stefanos had a big problem—namely he needed a huge influx of money, and Laurel was his solution. And evidently she wanted him badly. She was thirty-five, her biological clock ticking.”

Rachael took the two napkins Jack had wadded up and began to methodically smooth them out and fold them. He watched her for a moment, said, “They’re dirty, Rachael.”

“What? Oh, the napkins. It’s just that they’re so beautiful, so well made and ... Oh, I’m losing it. I’ll wash them tomorrow. By hand.” She stacked them neatly on the counter. “Jimmy showed me some photos of Laurel when she was young. She wasn’t particularly pretty, but she was smiling, full of hope. He said being married to Stefanos made her what she is today. It’s sad.”

A dark eyebrow went up. “Sad? Give her something sharp and she’d slit your throat, Rachael.”

“Yeah, I know. I also know she’s capable of a killing rage because I’ve seen her rage up close and personal. It’s stark and ugly. I can see it breaking over her when Jimmy told her he was going public with what he’d done.

“She could have killed him—for herself, for her family, for the business, any and all of it. But her husband? Would he even care? Does he care about anything? And Quincy? I think he’s got dark wormy things inside him, but kill his own brother? I just don’t know.

“If Laurel was the ringleader, it only makes sense she would want me gone, too. I suppose I could tell her and Quincy that I’m not going to give Jimmy’s confession for him, but—” Rachael shrugged. “I don’t know yet what I want to do. I suppose I could tell them I’ve dropped it, lie straight out. I’m not very good, but I could practice until I convinced myself. Uncle Gillette, now, he would have made a great spy. He could lie his way out of a pig convention even with bacon grease smeared all over his mouth.”

Jack smiled “I’ve learned in my years with the FBI that many times people are never what they seem. We’ll see. Don’t forget, two people carried you down that dock, dumped you into the lake. We only know one of them for sure—Perky.”

He added over his shoulder as he opened the refrigerator, and pulled out a wedge of Parmesan cheese, “Who was the other?”

Rachael pointed to one of the cabinets. “There are crackers on the middle shelf.”

He placed a slice of cheese on a cracker and handed it to her, then made one for himself. He leaned back against the counter. “Savich said all those initials and numbers in Perky’s address book—even MAX can’t crack it. Who knows what it means?”

Rachael bit into a cracker.

“I’ve been thinking, Rachael.”

She said around the cracker, “About what?”

He opened his mouth, closed it, fixed himself another cracker, and ate it.

“What, Jack?”

“Nothing. I’m tired. I think we should both sleep pretty good tonight.”

“What are we going to do tomorrow?”

“I go back to some solid, boring everyday police work, like running in-depth checks on everyone remotely involved in the case, and take another look at Perky and all her merry men.”

She washed and dried her hands. She stood facing the kitchen window, her head bowed. I’m sorry.

He pulled her back against him. “Don’t be stupid. You’ve every right to be freaked out.” He knew it was a mistake, but he did it anyway. He slowly turned her to face him and tugged her into his arms. He hadn’t imagined the shock of her, not only how she felt, but the way she fit against him, like she was made for him, no other guy, only him. But that was plain stupid. He shouldn’t be doing this. He wasn’t thinking right. No, he was simply offering her comfort. She needed comforting, no harm in that. Maybe he needed some comfort, too. He said close to her ear as his hands rubbed up and down her back, “Don’t stiffen up on me. I’m a friend, Rachael, and friends help each other. Remember how you helped me and Timothy when the plane crashed? You didn’t even know at that time what a great guy I am; you just charged right in and saved our bacon.”

She laughed against his neck. Then she kissed his neck, added a little lick, then froze. “Ohmigosh, I’m sorry, Jack, I didn’t mean to do that. It just happened. I mean, you’re here to protect me, not get involved... ” Her voice fell off a cliff.

Jack said, “I guess not.” He knew she could feel exactly how much he wanted to be involved—actually, totally involved with her that very minute, maybe on that lovely oak kitchen table.

He kissed her, and, bless her heart, she kissed him back. He tasted cracker and Parmesan and something else, something elusive and sweet. Then, just as suddenly, she flattened her palms on his chest, pushed back, and said, “I can’t do this. I can’t lean on you like this, compromise you. You’re an FBI agent. I’ll bet you’ve got rules and regulations regarding people you’re guarding. Right?”

“No.”

He pulled her in close again, leaned his forehead against hers. “Not a single rule except common sense, and common sense isn’t all that great a thing in every single situation, now is it? Hey, you’re not a shrimp. That’s good.”

She said against his neck, “I’m so not a shrimp. I’d be licking your eyebrows if I were wearing heels. No, wait, I didn’t say that, did I?”

She felt the laughter deep in his chest. “Yeah, you did. Anytime you’d like to, lick away.”

She ran her fingers over his cheek, and he felt it in his gut. Jack knew he should release her this very instant, knew it, and knew he wasn’t about to. He lowered his forehead to hers again. “I’m not a teenager with my hormones dive-bombing my brain. You’re right, it isn’t the smartest thing we could do at this point in time.” And he cursed low, ripe, pungent curses. Rather impressive, she thought, and smiled. Uncle Gillette could curse like that. She could see him cursing at the rabbits who’d gotten through his tomato cages, digging underneath, hear her mom yelling at him that certain little girls had big ears.

Slowly, Rachael stepped back. She said, “I’m very glad you don’t gamble.”

He threw back his head and laughed.

He saw her to her bedroom, looked at her mouth a moment. “I’m glad you realize I’m nothing like that jerk ex-fiancé of yours. But, Rachael, I’m hurting right now all the way to my heels.”

“No, you’re nothing like him. My heels are in pretty bad shape, too.”

He reached out his hand, dropped it, stepped back. “See you in the morning, Rachael. Sleep well.” To her surprise, and disappointment, he closed the door.

She felt so revved, so ready to rock and roll—with Jack—she doubted she’d sleep at all, but within minutes, she was out.

Black water closed over her head, something was pulling her down, no way to stop until she hit bottom and silt swirled up around her, blinding her until it slowly settled again. She knew she was going to die. It wouldn’t matter if she held her breath for ten minutes, she would die. No, she didn’t want to die, she didn’t—

She lurched up in bed, abruptly awake, breathing fast and hard, sucked in air. But she wasn’t at the bottom of Black Rock Lake. She wasn’t drowning. She was here, in Jimmy’s house, in her bed, but— What had awakened her? Whatever it was, she was grateful. But what was it? She must have heard something that shouldn’t be there, something not part of the fabric of the house. She didn’t move a muscle, listened.

It was Jack, she thought, trying to be quiet so as not to wake her. He was probably checking the alarm, the locks, or maybe he did his best thinking when he walked around.

Still, even as her muscles uncoiled and eased, she kept listening. She realized that ever since her thankfully brief trip to the bottom of Black Rock Lake, she had not completely let go, even with Jack close by. Her brain was always charged, always looking, weighing, assessing, wanting to know if anyone was trying to kill her.

Breath whooshed out of her and she realized she’d been holding it, just like when she was at the bottom of lake. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, ready to go to Jack, to ... what? Have him protect her, chase away her fears, or make love to her until she couldn’t think at all? She stopped cold, simply held very still and listened.

It was quiet outside in the corridor. The summer night air was sweet and still. The nightmare had conjured up the bogeyman, put him so close she’d popped awake, covered with sweat. She looked out the window. The quarter moon lit up the sky. She looked at that moon, kept listening, waited. A minute, another.

Nothing. She lay back down again, forced her muscles to relax, and she waited. She breathed deeply, but the question nagged her mind—Who is trying to kill me? Her brain squirreled around that until finally her breathing slowed, and her head fell to the side.

She heard a sound, a light footfall. Was Jack standing outside her door, his hand on the doorknob, wanting to come in and make love to her? Now, that was a fine lovely thought... .

It wasn’t Jack. She knew it wasn’t Jack. She leaned over and quietly slid open the night table drawer. It made enough noise to awaken the dead. Easy, easy. She reached in, felt the cold shock of Jimmy’s gun against her palm, and curled her fingers around it.

Was that another footstep? Stepping away? No, there was nothing. Nothing at all. She was losing it. She had to get a grip, calm down, use her brain, not let the terror crush her. She heard it again. She swallowed spit and a scream. If a scream burst out of her, she knew Jack would come running as fast as he could to get to her. Would he have his gun? What about the person probably now pressing close, his ear against her door? Would he simply turn his gun on Jack and shoot him? No, no way was she going to take a chance like that.

She lay there, waited. Her fingers loosened on the gun. She stilled. Where are you, you bastard? Wait, maybe he wasn’t outside her door, maybe ... She jerked around to look toward the window again, at the yellow moon, the dark clouds webbing in front of it. Something moved, something at the edge of the window, near that huge oak tree, maybe someone was in that tree, coming toward her, coming to kill her. She didn’t have her gun. Where was it? How could she save herself if she didn’t have her gun? She’d taken it out of the night table, held it close, but it wasn’t there.

She couldn’t find her gun. Had she put it back in the drawer? She lurched to her side, grabbed for the drawer handle, but she couldn’t find it, there was nothing there except blackness that was coming toward her, somehow through the closed window.

She screamed.

FORTY-SIX

“Rachael! Wake up! Dammit, wake up!”

She screamed again, out of control. Jack slapped her, then shook her. “Wake up, Rachael! Come on, wake up.”

She choked, stared at him with panicked eyes.

“Breathe, dammit, breathe!”

She sucked in air, heaved a huge sigh. She fell forward against him.

“It’s all right, baby, it’s all right.”

She burrowed in, her hands clasped tightly behind his back. No way was she letting him go, even if he had called her—

“Baby?” she whispered against his shoulder. His bare shoulder. Her hands were against his bare back.

Reality flipped on like a light switch.

“Yeah, well, baby’s okay, isn’t it?”

“You don’t have a shirt on, Jack.”

“No, only boxers. But they’re quite modest.”

He kissed her temple. “Rachael, you were having a whopper of a nightmare. Can yon tell me about it?”

She heaved a breath and held on. “Give me a moment, just another moment.”

He held her, rubbing her back, then after a while she said against his shoulder, “I heard him outside the window. I knew he would come in and I couldn’t find my gun, the night table wasn’t there, nothing was there, only blackness, and I was sucked into the middle of it, and I couldn’t see, but I knew he was coming to kill me—damn, I got hysterical and lost it. I’ve never been hysterical before. I’ve always scoffed at people who get hysterical.”

“Hysterical’s okay sometimes. You were dreaming. Breathe lightly, don’t talk, that’s it. Keep breathing, slowly, in and out. Good girl.”

She concentrated on breathing, on blocking out that waking nightmare so real she could still feel it.

“That’s it,” he said against her hair. “Center yourself, you know how to do it. Feel me, I’m real here, not that damned dream.”

“Yes,” she said, “you’re real.”

He smiled as he rocked her a bit, and he looked toward the window. The night had been quiet, a light breeze, nothing more than that. But now the wind was picking up, gusting tree branches against the house. Maybe leaves had hit the window.

The alarm went crazy, whooping loud and long.

She lurched back, the braid slapping against his cheek. “Someone’s in the house. Jack, we’ve got to hurry, someone’s in the house.”

“It’s okay, Rachael. Go disarm it, now.”

Jack was out the door even before she scooted off the bed and ran to the keypad on the bedroom wall. He yelled, “Stay put!” She couldn’t get her fingers to work. She tried again, punched in the five numbers. The alarm cut off instantly.

She heard him running. Then nothing. She stood in her bedroom, Jimmy’s gun held tightly in her hand, until she couldn’t stand it any longer. She pulled on jeans under her sleep shirt, and ran out onto the second-floor landing, bent over, her gun at the ready. The entrance hall lights were on. The front door stood open. She threw on all the lights as she ran down the stairs, fanning the gun around her like she’d seen on TV. She felt a sheen of sweat on her forehead. She was so afraid she thought she’d choke on it. Calm down. She ran to the front door and looked out. The moon was directly overhead, and the wind was up, swirling through the leaves, ruffling her hair. She saw a light in the Danvers’ house across the street. It went out. The alarm must have awakened them, but they’d figured it was an error on her part and gone back to bed. She stood on the front steps, the flagstone cold beneath her feet, and she didn’t move.

“Jack? Where are you?”

“Here,” he said a foot from her elbow, and she jumped. She whirled around, thought her heart would leap out of her chest. “How’d you do that? I didn’t hear you. Are you all right? Did you see anyone?”

“He was gone by the time I ran outside. I found an open window in the guest bedroom at the end of the hall. I guess it’s not in the alarm system because it’s not an entry. There’s an oak he could have used to climb in—a big one. He was already in the house when you screamed. He ran down the front stairs and out the front door, and that triggered the alarm.

“In the morning, I’ll check for footprints, particularly by that oak tree. He could have ripped his clothes, maybe left some threads or material on a branch. We might get lucky. Rachael?”

She was shivering now from reaction. “What?”

“Come inside. You’re cold.”

“I shouldn’t be. It’s a warm night. I was even sweating.” She started trembling. Jack took her arm and led her back into the house. “Give me your alarm code.”

He shut the front door, punched in the code to reactivate the alarm. He turned to her. “I’m glad you got hysterical, glad you screamed your head off. You heard something. It was real.”

She walked to a sideboard, poured a shot of brandy for herself and one for him. “Here.” They both drank.

A moment later the phone rang in the living room.

“Yes? Rachael Abbott here.”

“Rachael? It’s Dillon Savich. Are you guys all right?”

She stared at the phone. “How did you know something happened?”

There was silence on the line, then Savich said calmly, “A feeling, a gut feeling, that’s all. Talk to me.”

She told him what had happened, then handed the phone to Jack. The first words out of his mouth were, “What did your gut tell you, Savich?”

“That you were running around Rachael’s house in your underwear.”

FORTY-SEVEN

At ten o’clock Sunday morning, an FBI evidence team converged on Rachael’s house and set up shop around the big oak tree outside the guest-bedroom window, Agent Clive Howard the team leader.

Savich, Sherlock, and Sean sat at the oak kitchen table, Sean next to his mother drinking cocoa and eating a vanilla scone slathered with peach jam, Rachael and Jack opposite him.

“He’s like you, Dillon, a sucker for scones.” A big dollop of jam fell onto the table and Sherlock scooped it back into his scone. She said to Rachael and Jack, “They were releasing Agent Tomlin when we got to the hospital. They said he was fine, he said he was fine, he was great, he wanted to kick himself, but Tom very much wanted to go back to guard Dr. MacLean.”

Savich said, “Poor Sherlock. Agent Tomlin’s no longer looking at her with such tenderness. Now it’s Nurse Louise who’s got his eye. He couldn’t stop talking about how fast she was.

“I sent him back to relieve the agent guarding Timothy. You can bet from now on Tomlin won’t let any hospital staff he doesn’t know come within ten feet of of MacLean’s room.”

Sherlock said, “Unfortunately, he didn’t get too good a look at the guy who shoved the needle in his neck, and couldn’t identify the photos we showed him.”

Jack said, “Tomlin’s one tough mother, I hate to see something like this happen. It was too close. For both him and Timothy, it was too close. I wish you’d called me, Savich.”

“I thought about it, but the fact is, you couldn’t have done anything, Jack, so let it go.”

“Imagine,” Rachael said, “someone going after Dr. MacLean in the hospital. That’s insane.” She stopped cold, gave them a twisted grin. “I guess there’s a lot of insanity going around lately.”

Sherlock nodded. “After hours of interviews at the hospital, we still don’t have a viable witness.” She carefully selected a scone and bit in. She rolled her eyes. “Goodness, this is wonderful. Hey, Sean, can you pass me the jam?”

“The GoodLight Bakery on Elm Street,” Rachael said. “Jack found it, and didn’t hesitate to bring home about fifty thousand calories.”

Savich gave Sean a quick sideways glance, saw that he was focused on trying to trap the evil king Zhor in the Forest of No Escape, and said, “The guy who broke into your house last night—what he did was dangerous for him, and that really worries me.”

Sherlock said, “Dillon’s right. If we can’t predict what he’ll do, we can’t protect you, and that means we need a new plan.”

“Your screaming, Rachael,” Jack said, “for no apparent reason, must have scared the bejesus out of him. That was excellent timing for a nightmare. It scared the bejesus out of me, too.”

Rachael sat forward, her hands clasped so tightly her knuckles were white. “Why can’t we get a search warrant for the Abbotts’ financial records? You know we’d find a record showing payments to Perky and her thugs. Probably huge cash withdrawals, near the right dates.”

Savich said, “I’m sorry, Rachael, but we don’t have enough proof to get a warrant to search the Abbott pool house. With people of their stature, you’ve always got to have every single duck in a row before you go after them.

“So that means we have to go another route, find some way to bring this to a close. Here’s what I propose. I got permission to speak to the vice president before we came over this morning. I told him we know every member of Congress and the president are concerned about the recent allegations that the senator was murdered. He laughed, said I was right. I told him I have a plan to get some closure. He’s decided to help us.

“The vice president has agreed to reschedule the Jefferson Club’s speaker tomorrow night and change the agenda of their dinner meeting. It’s now going to be a remembrance and a tribute to your father, Rachael. Many senators will speak. If you’re willing, you can speak, as well. When I told him it was imperative the Abbotts be present, he didn’t say a word. The vice president agreed to extend a personal invitation to them. And that’s part of what we want.

“The break-in last night—in spite of your having protection right here with you—shows the killer seems to have thrown caution to the wind. He didn’t seem to care about the enormous risk he was taking. Like I said, he’s doing precipitous things, and that makes him even more dangerous. We either get this resolved, or I can see you hidden away in the Witness Protection Program, Rachael. What we’re doing is providing the killer with another physical opportunity, but under controlled circumstances—our control. The killer might suspect it’s a trap, but he also might go for it. What’s happened here makes me think that although our killer might be playing with all his marbles, there’s something out of control driving him.

“If you agree to speak tomorrow night at the Jefferson Club, we’ll alert the media about your father’s commemorative dinner, and the fact that you will be there and you will address the group.

“The media are fascinated already licking their chops over you more every passing day because Jack’s managing to keep you away from them.

“So, the question is, Rachael, are you willing to take this hopefully final step? Are you willing to be bait?”

Rachael said, “When you announce I’m going to speak about my father, the Abbotts will think I’m going to tell everyone what he did. They’ll feel compelled to have another go at me, is that what you think? Even for them, wouldn’t that be short notice?”

“No,” Jack said, “not if they have the contacts. Admittedly, Perky and her band are out of commission. Can they come up with something by tomorrow night? I guess we’ll see.”

Rachael said, “You don’t think they’re still trying to keep me quiet, do you? It no longer applies.”

Savich said, “We all agree that the possibility of your ‘going public’ no longer holds much of a threat—we already know everything you know, and killing you now would make it more likely, not less, that the story would come out. If keeping that story secret is the killer’s motivation, his only hope is that you decide not to go public and that the FBI can never gather enough evidence to indict anyone. And they would be right.”

Rachael said, “Then why is someone still trying to kill me?”

Savich said, “Given his behavior last night, I’m thinking we haven’t cottoned to his real motive yet.”

Jack said, “I know it’s the way to go, my brain recognizes that, but I’ll tell you guys, the whole thing scares me. I guess it’s preferable to being on the defensive. At least it’s proactive. But, Rachael, it’ll still be dangerous.”

“After last night,” Rachael said, “I’m ready to do about anything. I found a gray hair this morning. In my braid. Show me the dotted line. I’ll do it.”

Jack grinned at her, gave her braid a tug. Savich leaned closer to speak, then paused when he saw Sean was at a dead end on his computer game. He reached over and punched two buttons. They listened to a trio of whistles, two loud beeps, and one long, deep bong.

Sean jumped up and down in his chair. “Wow! Look at that! Papa, you got Zhor to run right into the magic prison in the Forest of No Escape! He’s toast now.”

“He could still escape, he’s smart and cunning, so be careful,” Savich said, his eyes on Rachael’s face. He added quietly, “If Laurel or whoever can’t find you tomorrow, and you can bet she’ll try, she’ll have to go after you tomorrow night. Before you speak? I don’t know.”

“Can I carry Jimmy’s gun in my purse?”

“You can carry a machete as far as I’m concerned,” Jack said. “If you decide a gun’s what you need to make you feel safe, I’ll carry it in for you since they’ll be checking bags at the door.”

“We’ll give it a go then,” Savich said. “I have this feeling the Abbotts will act, Rachael.”

Rachael bit into another scone, listened to Sean yell that he’d dumped Zhor into a bog, and hoped she’d still be breathing come Tuesday morning.

She stood up, planted her palms on the tabletop. “Would you look at the time. I’ve got a speech to write. And I’ve got to figure out how to keep myself from getting too scared in front of all those big shots.”

There was a knock on the back door.

FORTY-EIGHT

Jack held up his hand and walked to the door, looked out, and opened it wide. “Hey, Clive, you got something?” Agent Clive Howard, a twenty-year FBI veteran and one of its top forensic specialists, was six feet six inches tall, looked like a windowpane at 160 pounds, and had his grandma’s huge smile. “Of course I’ve got something,” he said in the thickest Southern accent Rachael had ever heard. “Lookee here.” Clive handed him a small rough-edged piece of material. “Our guy should have been more careful when climbing that oak tree to get into the house. Now, this guy has either noticed the rip in his jacket, in which case he’s already deep-sixed it, or he hasn’t noticed, and we might use it to identify him later. Now, I’m thinking this is off a lightweight jacket, and that makes sense since it was pretty warm last night. The material’s a synthetic stew, everything in it but good ole cotton.”

“I know it’s real small, but does the material look new to you, Clive?” Sherlock asked.

“Hard for an average untrained professional to say, but me?” He grinned real big at her. “I’d say it’s gotta he fairly new. We’ll test it, but I’m willing to bet it’s never hit the dry cleaner’s. Given he wouldn’t wear it during the winter, it’s probably a spring buy, maybe three, four months ago.”

Savich toasted Clive with his oolong tea. “Thank the good Lord for you, Clive.”

Clive beamed. “And we know our boy is a boy—a size ten shoe, heavy in the heels, a good-sized guy, maybe one eighty but not too tall—that’s according to Mendoza, who can tell you the foot size of a gorilla swinging through the forest.”

“Forest?” Sean said, coming to attention. “Is someone else trapped in the Forest of No Escape?”

Life never stopped happening, Rachael thought, and laughed as Savich quickly explained to Clive about Sean’s computer game. “Hey Sean,” Clive said, “my little girl really likes Zhor and the Forest of No Escape, tries to zap him whenever she gets done eating her vegetables.”

Sean sighed. “Papa had to help me.”

“That’s okay. I sometimes help my little girl, too.”

“She isn’t big like me?”

“Well, yeah, actually she is. She just turned eighteen.”

Sean giggled.

Savich stood, and the two men shook hands. Savich said, “Thank everyone for coming out on a Sunday morning, Clive.”

“All in a good cause.” Clive nodded to everyone, said to Sean, “Yo, kiddo, good luck cutting off Zhor at his evil knees,” and walked back into the yard.

“That material,” Rachael said. “May I see it?”

Savich handed it to her.

It was dark brown, a smooth fabric, sharp, she thought. Rachael said, “Synthetic stew or not, the guy who’d wear this dresses sharp.”

Savich’s cell sang out the Harry Potter theme. “Savich here. What? Okay, Tom, escort Dr. MacLean back to his room and make sure he stays there. Keep the reporter away from him and on ice until I get there. Yeah, okay, I understand. Yes, we’ll be right there.”

Savich looked at them. “Dr. MacLean is talking to a reporter about Congresswoman Dolores McManus murdering her husband.”

FORTY-NINE

Washington Memorial Hospital

It was nearly noon when they stepped onto the elevator in the hospital. They’d dropped Sean off at his grandmother’s house. She promptly hauled him off to church, whispering in his ear that she’d made potato salad for him, which made Sean beam at her and say in a confiding voice, “I’ll teach you how to fry Zhor, Grandma. You gotta get him into the Forest of No Escape and wrap a monkey vine around his neck.”

“My day will be perfect.”

The six people on the elevator obligingly moved to the side so they could enter. Savich said quietly as he punched the button, “I’ve got Ollie going through purchases made by Laurel, Quincy, Brady Cullifer, Greg Nichols, and three of the senator’s former staffers. We’ll see if a nice brown jacket shows up.”

“It could be a hired thug, Dillon.”

There were still two people on board when the elevator reached their floor.

Sherlock said, “I’ll speak to Dr. MacLean, Dillon; you take the reporter. Scare him spitless, okay?”

“That’s the plan “

The reporter was the Washington Post’s Jumbo Hardy, a smart-ass the size of a well-fed linebacker with both a brain and a mouth. He always looked droop-eyed and worn-out, like he hadn’t slept in a week, only Savich knew better.

Jumbo gave Savich a grin, fanned his big hands in front of him. “Hey, isn’t this something—I got one of the big guns.”

Savich said easily, “I’m surprised to see you again so soon, Jumbo. Don’t you ever sleep?”

“More than you do,” Jumbo said. “I didn’t think you could outdo your press conference, but having you show up in person to get rid of me—what’s going on, Savich?”

“Yeah, you got my attention. Glad you could stick around.”

“Your guy gave me no choice, said he’d arrest my butt and toss it in a janitor’s closet on the fifth floor of the Hoover Building. He said I wouldn’t be found until next month.” Jumbo gave Savich a big toothy smile. “I was just checking out Congresswoman McManus.” He patted his laptop. “It ain’t MAX, but I can still find most stuff, like the details about the death of her husband. Now I hear from her very own shrink that she admitted paying some hit man in Savannah to take out her old man. Now, that’s news, Special Agent Savich, big news.”

“I know you’re not about to write about this until you’ve got verification. And you also know you’re not going to get it. Listen, Jumbo, you know very well Dr. MacLean is suffering from frontal lobe dementia, a disease that makes him talk about all sorts of stuff he shouldn’t, even stuff that didn’t happen. You also know there have been attempts on his life—”

“Nearly more attempts than we poor representatives of the people can keep up with,” said Jumbo. “That deal last night, what a fiasco for you guys. I mean, an FBI agent getting stabbed in the neck with a needle, not to mention a nurse saving the day. What’s that all about?”

“Hang that up, Jumbo. We’ve already made a statement.”

“The people got a right to know, Savich, that’s all I was saying. I heard rumors about this disease of his, but no one ever confirmed it. To tell you the truth, that’s why I didn’t mind staying. I know he’s real sick, know what he says is likely libelous, and that he can’t control himself. Talk to me, tell me what’s coming down here.”

“Off the record?”

“If I agree, when do I get to go on the record?”

“When everything is over. All right, Jumbo, I need your help.” Jumbo whistled, sat back, his arms behind his head, and crossed his legs. “What is this? You need my help? When did the sky fall? What’s going on here I haven’t already guessed?”

FIFTY

Sherlock found the good doctor sulking in his room. A neurologist, Dr. Shockley, was checking MacLean’s reflexes, humming under his breath. MacLean was ignoring him. His eyes narrowed when Sherlock came into the room. It looked to her like he was ready to yell his head off.

Dr. Shockley straightened. “Well, you’re good to go, Dr. MacLean, despite the excitement.”

Sherlock introduced herself, waited for him to leave the room, which he did, with one last very long look at MacLean.

Before he could spit at her, Sherlock intoned just like she would to Astro, “Bad dog, Dr. MacLean, very bad dog.”

“Bad dog?” MacLean said slowly, “Bad dog? That’s pretty funny, Agent Sherlock, but that’s exactly my point. I’m not your damned dog. It’s none of the FBI’s business if I want to talk to a reporter. It’s just talk, a bit of conversation with another sentient human being— wait, he’s a reporter, but at least I was sentient.”

“Hey, that was pretty funny, too. Are you done?” When he would have continued, Sherlock raised her hand. “I understand, Timothy, I really do. But you’ve got to believe me now. It was wrong—you broke patient confidentiality, and to a reporter. Try to think clearly about this for a moment. This is exactly why someone is trying to kill you. Do you understand that your speaking to Jumbo Hardy was inappropriate?”

MacLean shrugged. He looked petulant.

A different tack then. Sherlock punched him in the arm. “I hear your wife was pretty upset about what happened last night. She didn’t want to leave you alone.”

“Yeah, right. Oh, that stupid Molly, she’s always hovering, always checking my pulse, my eyeballs, my goddamned feet. She says my toenails need trimming. I didn’t do anything to deserve it—well, hardly anything, at least in cosmic terms.”

“You told her to go find a lover because you found her disgusting.”

He shrugged. “Well, fact is, she smelled funny.”

Down the rabbit hole, Sherlock thought. “She loves you.”

He was silent for a very long time. Then, “No, she doesn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

MacLean leaned his head back against the pillow and closed his eyes. “When she found out what finally happens to people with this disease, she nearly left me.

“Everyone thinks she’s a bloody saint for sticking so close to me, but I know the truth. I know she’s siphoning off all the money she can out of our joint accounts. I know she’s got a lover, you see. Only thing is, she can’t very well leave me in this sucky condition, now can she?” He paused, shrugged. “It isn’t Pierre or Dolores behind this. No, Molly’s the one who’s trying to kill me.”

Whoa.

“That’s the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard out of you, Tim, and you know it and even the good Lord knows I’ve heard more than my share from you over the past twenty-seven years!”

Molly MacLean stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, her face nearly scarlet with rage.

“Mrs. MacLean,” Sherlock said, smiling at her, “would you please come with me for a moment?”

“If I stay in the same room with this ... individual, I just might kill him,” Molly said, and waved her fist at her husband. “Lead on, Agent Sherlock. Save this idiot’s miserable lying hide by removing me.”

Savich found Sherlock and Molly in the nurses’ lounge, Molly in tears. He paused in the doorway. Sherlock raised her eyes. “Hi, Dillon. I think we’ve got things in some perspective. Do we, Mrs. MacLean?”

Molly knuckled her eyes. “Yes, I’ve got it together again. It’s so easy to forget he doesn’t realize what he’s saying, doesn’t begin to comprehend how his words twist and turn the knife. He doesn’t even know there is a knife. And when I heard him talking about me to you like that—I’m sorry. Oh God, he’s so sick, so unlike himself. Sometimes I can’t stand it.” Molly lowered her face in her hands and wept.

Sherlock lifted her to her feet and held her in her arms, murmuring nonsense to her, really, but kept it low and soothing.

Molly pulled back, sniffed, and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry I lost it like that. I’ve got your blouse all wet. I’m a miserable human being for losing it when I know—I understand—he can’t help it.”

“You’re doing remarkably well under the circumstances, Mrs. MacLean,” Savich said, and he meant it.

Sherlock said, “Dr. MacLean was wound up today, probably as a result of last night. He called a reporter and he verbally attacked you, probably because Dillon and I ruined his fun. We’re so sorry.” And Sherlock hugged Molly. “You’re hanging in there as best you can.”

She sighed and walked away from them to the window. She hugged herself. “Yes, I am. Poor Tim, to be trapped like that in this nightmare, and a lot of the time he doesn’t even recognize he’s in one. I spoke to his doctor at Duke, read what they gave me. It’s not going to be pretty, what happens from here on out.”

Thirty minutes later, when Savich pulled his Porsche out of the hospital parking lot, he said, “Jumbo Hardy agreed to keep this under wraps. He’s going to put Rachael’s announcement in the Washington Post right away.”

“What did you promise him?”

He gave her a quick smile. “Not much. Jumbo sobered up real fast when I told him the course of the disease. He also knew he didn’t have a source he could quote. I did, however, promise him a one-on-one, with the FBI’s approval, of course, when we catch who’s trying to kill Timothy.

“I’ve removed the phone from Timothy’s room. From now on, he’ll have to ask a nurse to dial any phone numbers for him to ensure he doesn’t pull something like this again. The nurses will have to be hard-nosed with him.”

Savich said as he wove the Porsche in and out of traffic, “Hey, you want to tell Congresswoman McManus how she barely escaped the big bullet?”

“That means she’d have to thank you. Fat chance.” She patted his shoulder. “It’s going to end soon, Dillon, both cases. But I’ve got some ideas of my own I want to check out.”

“You wanna share?”

She shook her head slowly.