“Sarah Elliott.”
She stared at him, one eyebrow arched, chewing another saltine cracker. “You’re kidding,” she said finally. “You’re telling me the Sarah Elliott was your grandmother?”
“Yes, my mother’s mom. A great old lady. She died five years ago when she was eighty-four. I remember she told me it was time for her to go because the arthritis had gotten really bad in her hands. She couldn’t hold her paintbrushes anymore. I told her that her talent wasn’t in her hands, it was in her mind. I told her to stop bitching and to hold the paintbrushes between her teeth.” He paused a moment, smiling toward a painting of an orchid just beginning to bloom. “I thought at first that she would slug me, then she started laughing. She had this really deep, full laugh. She lived for another year, holding the paintbrushes between her dentures.” He would never forget the first time he’d seen her with that paintbrush sticking out of her mouth, smiling when she saw him, nearly dropping the brush. It had been one of the happiest moments of his life.
“And you were Sarah Elliott’s favorite grandchild? That’s why she left you this beautiful house in the middle of Georgetown?”
“Well, she was worried since I’d chosen the FBI and computer shenanigans for a career.”
“Shenanigans? I like that. But what exactly was she worried about?” She pulled the afghan higher up on her chest. A headache was slowly building behind her left ear. She hated it. Even her arm ached where Marlin Jones had knifed her weeks before.
“She was afraid that my artistic side would stultify, what with the demands of my job and with my constant computer fiddling.”
“Ah, so this place is to inspire you? Get you in touch with your artistic genes?”
“Yes. You look green, Sherlock. I think it’s time you took a nap. Do you have to puke?”
“Not really. May I stay here for a while? It’s very comfortable. I’m a bit on the thready side.”
“No wonder,” he said, and watched her head loll to the side. She was out. The chair was oversized, so he wasn’t worried that she’d wake up stiff as a pretzel. He unfolded another afghan over her, one his mother had knitted, this one so soft it spilled through the fingers. He stroked it as he gently tucked it around her shoulders. She’d French-braided her hair, but it really wasn’t long enough, and so red curls stuck up here and there, curled around her face. The big Band-Aid looked absurd plastered over the shaved spot on her temple, faintly pathetic really, since she was so pale.
All she needed was a little rest. She’d be fine. He lightly stroked his fingertips over her eyebrows.
He saw she had a spray of freckles over the bridge of her nose.
She didn’t have any freckles anywhere else. And he’d looked. He hadn’t meant to, but he had. He really liked the freckles on her nose.
No doubt about it. He was in deep trouble.
SHE woke up to the smell of garlic, onion, and tomatoes. Her mouth started watering even before her brain fully registered food. Her stomach growled. She felt fine, no more nausea.
“Good, you’re awake.”
“What are you cooking?”
“Penne pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, pesto, onions, and garlic. And some garlic toast. You’re drooling, Sherlock. You’ve got an appetite, I hope.”
“I could eat this afghan.”
“Not that one, please. It’s my favorite. The nurses told me you hadn’t eaten much all day. Time to stuff yourself. First, here’s a couple of pills for you to take.”
She took them without asking what they were.
“No wine. How about some cider?”
He put a tray over her legs and watched her take her first bite of Savich pesto pasta. She closed her eyes as she slowly, very slowly, chewed, and chewed some more until there was nothing left in her mouth but the lingering burst of pesto and garlic. She licked her lips. Finally, she opened her eyes, stared at him for a very long time, then said, “You’ll make a fantastic husband, Dillon. I’ve never tasted anything so delicious in my life.”
“It’s my mom’s recipe. She taught me how to make the pasta when I was eighteen and headed off to MIT. She’d told me she’d heard the only thing they ate up there was Boston beans. She said guys and beans didn’t mix well so I needed to know how to make something else. You really like it better than the pizza you devoured a couple of nights ago?”
“Goodness, it was just two nights ago, wasn’t it? It seems like a decade. Actually, I like it better than anything I can ever remember eating. Do you make pizza too?”
“Sure. You want some for breakfast?”
“You cook it anytime you want, I’ll consume it.” They didn’t say anything more for a good seven minutes. Savich’s tray was on the coffee table, close enough to keep a good eye on her. She stopped halfway through and stared down at the rest of her pasta. He thought she was going to cry. “It’s so good. There’s no more room.”
“If you get hungry later, we can heat it up.”
She was fiddling with her fork, building little structures with the pasta, watching the emerging patterns with great concentration. She didn’t look up as she said, “I didn’t know there were men like you.”
He studied his fingernails, saw a hangnail on his thumb, and frowned. He didn’t look up either, said, “What does that mean?”
“Well, you live in a beautiful house, and I can’t see a speck of mess or dust. In other words, you’re not a pig. But that’s extraneous stuff, important, sure, but not a deal breaker. You have a big heart, Dillon. And you’re a great cook.”
“Sherlock, I’ve lived alone for four years. Man cannot live by pizza at Dizzy Dan’s alone. Also, I don’t like squalor. There are lots of men like me. Quinlan, for example. Ask Sally, she’ll say his heart is bigger than the Montana sky.”
“What do you mean you lived alone for four years? You didn’t live alone before that?”
“Your FBI training in action. Very good. I was married once upon a time.”
“Somehow I can’t see you married. You seem so self-sufficient. Are you divorced?”
“No, Claire didn’t divorce me. She died of leukemia.”
“I’m sorry, Dillon.”
“It’s been even more than four years now. I’m sorry that Claire never got to live in this wonderful house. She died three months before my grandmother.”
“How long were you together?”
“Four years. She was only twenty-seven when she died. It was strange what happened. She’d read that old book by Erich Segal—Love Story. She was diagnosed with leukemia weeks later. There was a certain irony in that, I suppose, only I didn’t recognize it for a very long time. I’ve watched the movie several times over the years. Claire’s death wasn’t serene and poignantly tragic like the young wife’s death in the movie or the book, believe me. She fought with everything in her. It wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough.”
He hadn’t spoken of Claire this much since her death. It rocked him. He rose abruptly and walked over to the fireplace, leaned his shoulders against the mantel.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yes.”
“Do you still miss her?”
He looked toward one of his grandmother’s paintings, given to him on his graduation from MIT, an acrylic of a bent old man haggling in a French market, in the small village near Cannes where his grandmother had lived for several years back in the sixties. Then he looked at Lacey, his expression faintly puzzled. “It’s odd, but you know, I can’t quite picture Claire’s face in my mind anymore. It’s all blurry and faded, like a very old photograph. I know the pain is there, but it’s soft now, far away, and I can’t really grasp it. Yes, I miss her. Sometimes I’ll still look up from reading a book and start to say something to her, or expect her to yell at me when I go nuts over a football play. She was an ice skater. Very good, but she never made the cut to the Olympics.”
“That’s how Belinda is now to me. At first I never wanted the pain to lessen, but it did anyway, without my permission. It’s almost
as if Belinda wanted me to let her go. When I see a photo of her now, it seems like she was someone I knew and loved in another place, another time, maybe the person who loved her was another me as well. Sometimes when I’m in a crowd, I think I hear her call out to me. She’s never there, of course.”
He swallowed, feeling tears of bittersweet memory he hadn’t felt in years. Maybe the tears were for both of them.
Her eyes were clear and calm as she said, “You know, I’d fight too. Never would I go quietly into that good night, just sort of winking out and isn’t that too bad, and wasn’t she a nice person? No, I’d be kicking and yelling all the way.”
He laughed, then immediately sobered. Guilt because he’d spoken about Claire, then laughed? Suddenly, he laughed again. “I would too. Thanks, Sherlock.”
She smiled at him. “My head doesn’t hurt anymore. One of those magic pills?”
“Yeah. Now, would you like to watch the news while I clean up the kitchen?”
“No dessert?”
“You didn’t clean your plate and you’re demanding dessert?”
“Dessert’s for a completely different stomach compartment, and my dessert compartment is empty. I know I smelled cheesecake.”
She ate his New York cheesecake while he cleaned up the dishes. She watched the national news. More trouble with North Korea. More trouble in Iraq. Then, suddenly, there was Big John Bullock, Marlin Jones’s lawyer, full of bluff and good nature for the reporters, flinging out answers as they pursued him from the Boston courthouse to his huge black limousine.
“Will Marlin Jones go to trial?”
“No comment.”
“Is Marlin crazy?”
“You know the ruling.” He rolled his eyes and shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Will you plead him not guilty?”
“No comment.”
“Is it true you told everyone that he had a bad childhood, a mother who beat him up, and an uncle who sexually abused him?”
“Public records are public records.”
“But there’s a confession.”
“It won’t be admissible. The cops and the FBI made him confess.”
“But what about that FBI agent? Your client knocked her cold and took her to that warehouse to kill her. They’ve got everything on tape and on film.”
Big John gave an explosive wave of his arms. “Pure and simple entrapment. There wasn’t a thought of killing her in his mind.”
“I heard he even knifed the agent.”
Big John just shook his head. “No more. Just remember, it was entrapment. It was all a setup. It won’t be admissible, you’ll see.”
And one woman newscaster said, “Oh, so you’re saying if he’d killed the FBI agent then it wouldn’t have been entrapment?”
Lots of laughter. And a lot of faces looking hard at Big John Bullock.
“No more questions, folks. Talk to you later.”
A commercial came on for Bud Light.
She felt Savich behind her. She said quietly, “I’m going back to Boston. I’ve got to see Marlin Jones again.”
“They won’t let you see him, Sherlock.”
“I’ve got to try.” She turned slowly and looked up at him. “You see that, don’t you? I’ve got to try. I can’t just sit around waiting for some maniac to come after me again. If you tell them to let me in, they will.”
“He’s not the maniac who’s after you now. Besides, you go talk to him again, and it could all come out that Belinda was your sister.”
“No, I wouldn’t tell him any of that. I wouldn’t tell anyone about that.”
“It’s still a risk. Trust me on this: You can’t begin to imagine what the media would do if they found out you were the sister of one of the murdered women and finding Marlin has been your obsession for seven years. You think the way I said it sounds hard. Wait until the media got hold of it. Big John would certainly squawk about entrapment then.
“I think a more worthwhile trip would be to San Francisco. Why don’t I call the San Francisco office and have a couple of agents go talk to Douglas, your father, and your mother?”
She shook her head.
“As for Marlin, maybe, after you’ve rested a couple of days. Look, it’s Sunday. I want you to take it easy until Tuesday. You promise?”
She stroked the gold chenille afghan. “I guess I could use a good night’s sleep.”
“Two days, Sherlock. I want your promise that you’ll lie low for two days. Then we’ll talk about it.”
She was silent, and he felt a good dollop of anger.
“You’re an FBI agent, Sherlock. That means you do what I tell you to do. You carry out assignments that I instruct you to carry out. You don’t go surfing any wave that catches your fancy. You got that?”
“You’re nearly yelling. How could I not get it?”
He stepped forward, then stopped. “I’ve got a nice guest room upstairs. I also packed you a suitcase. It’s still in the trunk of the car. I’ll take you up, then bring it in.”
She didn’t think about her underwear until she was standing in the Victorian bathroom with its highly polished walnut floor, its claw-feet tub, pedestal washbowl, and plush pale yellow Egyptian towels with small flowers on them. She’d stripped down to her bra and panties, turned and seen herself in the mirror and stared. He’d picked out the softest peach silk set she owned. What had he thought when he picked them out of the drawer? Without thinking, she ran her hand over her belly, the silk smooth and slithery against her palm. What had he thought? No, she wouldn’t think about that.
They were just a bra and drawers, no matter how exquisite, how potentially sexy. He probably hadn’t even thought a thing, just grabbed them up. She loved pretty underwear. This set she’d bought herself for her last birthday. So expensive. Soft and flimsy and wicked. She took off the bra and rubbed the smooth lace against her cheek. She hadn’t worn it in months. Dillon had picked it out.
“Sherlock.”
TWENTY-THREE
She quickly wrapped a towel around herself and looked around the bathroom door. He was standing in the middle of the bedroom, a suitcase in his hand.
“On the bed, please, Dillon.”
He thought she looked beyond tired. He probably should have left her at the hospital, tied to the hospital bed. He looked again. He’d never before realized a towel could look so sexy wrapped around someone. “You need any help?”
That made her smile. “No, sir. I can brush my teeth without you holding my arm up.”
“Then I’ll see you in the morning. There’s no reason for you to wake up early. Sleep in. When you wake up, holler, and I’ll bring you breakfast. Don’t forget, Sherlock, you promised to stay put.”
She hadn’t, but she nodded. “Thank you, Dillon.”
“Oh, another thing. I need to run a couple of errands tomorrow morning. While I’m gone, I want you to leave the doors locked and don’t open up for anybody; I don’t care who anyone says they are. There’s lots of food, even some pesto left over for you. You don’t need to go out. You open it only for me, you got that?”
“I got that.”
“Your SIG is downstairs in my office. Your Lady Colt is in the drawer by your bed. Now, let me decide what we’ll do about this mess. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
“What are your errands?”
He frowned at her. “Not your business. I won’t be gone more than a couple of hours.”
“Would you sing me a couple of lines before you go?”
“You want something down-home?”
“Yeah, real down-home.”
His rich deep baritone filled the room, sounding really twangy this time. “She ain’t Rose but she ain’t bad. She ain’t easy, but she can be had. So am I when she whispers in my ear. She ain’t Rose, and Rose ain’t here.”
“Who’s Rose?”
He grinned at her, gave her a salute, then left, closing her bedroom door behind him.
It was dawn when he shot straight up in his
bed. He hit the floor running when another scream rent the silence.
SHE was wheezing, her arms wrapped around herself. She struggled to sit up in bed.
“Sherlock. You’re awake? What’s wrong?”
She was still sucking air into her lungs. It was as if someone had tried to suffocate her. He sat down beside her and pulled her against him. He began rubbing her back. “It’s all right now. Did you have a nightmare?”
Slowly, so very slowly, her breathing began to steady, but it still hurt to breathe, as if someone had clouted her in the ribs. She couldn’t talk yet, didn’t want to talk. “That’s it, relax. I’m here. Nothing’s going to hurt you, nothing.”
Her face was buried in his shoulder, her arms limp at her sides. Then, suddenly, she put her arms around his back and held on tight.
“Yeah, I’m real and I’m solid and I’m mean. No one’s going to hurt you. It’s okay.”
He could feel her harsh breathing against his flesh, then she said, “Yes, I know. I’m all right now.”
He tried to pull away from her but she still held on tight. He could feel her shivering. “It’s really okay, Sherlock,” he said again. “I’m not going anywhere. You can let go now.”
“I don’t think I want to. Give me a few more minutes.” She tightened her grip around him.
She was still shivering. “Sorry, but I seem to have packed you the wrong kind of nightgown. You must be freezing.”
“You’re a man. You picked it out because it’s sexy and sheer, like my underwear.”
“Well, yes, I suppose you could be right. It feels really soft and nice. Sorry, but my hormones must have gotten the better of me. Listen now. Let me go, Sherlock, and lie back.”
If anything, she gripped him tighter.
He laughed. “I promise you everything’s okay now. Listen, you’ve got to let me go. Come on now.”
“No.”
He laughed again. He sounded like he was in pain. “Okay, tell you what. I’m cold too. Why don’t we both lie back and I’ll keep holding you until we both warm up.”
He knew it wasn’t a good idea, but he was worried about her. Truth be told, he didn’t want to think about his motives. He was wearing boxer shorts, nothing else. No, this was definitely not a good idea.
The Beginning Page 55
