KnockOut

by Catherine Coulter

  “Wicky and Fisher got out of jail about the same time—six months ago—rented apartments in the same building in Salem for four months, then disappeared. They told the bartender at their favorite dive they were driving cross-country. To see all the beautiful scenery? The bartender didn’t think so, since they were badasses, but he wasn’t about to ask. We don’t know yet how they hooked up with Jennifer Smiley.”

  “I’ll wager Sean’s downsized orange basketball it’s more than just hooking up,” Savich said. “A family tie, some sort of connection, got to be.”

  “Or maybe a friend in common in prison,” Sherlock said.

  “We’re looking. No word yet. Thing is, guys, we never even considered the possibility of Lissy Smiley’s escaping. Damn, makes us look like idiots. Now it’s a whole new ball game.”

  Savich said, “We know Lissy Smiley is a killer, but what about Victor? Any arrests, fights—anything to indicate how he’d behave at crunch time?”

  Maitland said, “Best guess from behavioral sciences—he isn’t a psycho. He didn’t kill Coggins or Daugherty, though he could have. And don’t forget, he was always the driver, never a real player in the actual bank robberies. To verify, we double-checked all the banks’ security videos. Never a sign of him.”

  Sherlock said, “Victor Nesser’s twenty-one, barely old enough to grow face hair. How could Daugherty possibly think he was an FBI agent?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know, but Daugherty says he looked at the creds and never questioned his age.”

  Savich asked, “How old is agent Peter Coggins?”

  There was a moment of agonized silence. “He’s thirty-one.”

  “Ah,” Savich said.

  “I know, it’s obvious Daugherty didn’t pay attention. He says the guy pulled his ID away real fast, that he wasn’t really thinking about anyone gutsy enough to walk right up and flash another agent’s ID.”

  Sherlock said, “Excuse me, sir, but that’s bull.”

  Maitland laughed. “Yeah, it sure enough is. One of my boys calls it caca de toro, and busts a gut laughing at his own law school wit. I bet the guys won’t let Daugherty forget this until next summer, if then.”

  A moment of silence, then Savich asked, “Why exactly are you calling us, sir?”

  “Because Lissy Smiley kept telling Daugherty she was going to kill you for murdering her mama. I want you to keep your eyes open.”

  Sherlock said, “But Dillon didn’t kill her mother, it was Buzz Riley.”

  “I know. Lissy Smiley didn’t mention him, but I called Mr. Riley, told him to take a vacation until we catch her and Victor. I helped him clear three weeks off. No one wanted another employee shot. I suggested Buzz pay a nice little visit to Aruba. I even got him on an evening flight.”

  Savich grinned as Sherlock rolled her eyes. He said, “It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon, sir, and I appreciate the call. I mean, the warning is thoughtful, but now tell us what you really have in mind.”

  Silence on Maitland’s end.

  At Sherlock’s nod, Savich gave it up. “I know you’ve got a team already in place, sir, but with Lissy Smiley on the loose and threatening me, I’d like to be front and center on finding her and Victor Nesser.”

  Savich would hand it to his boss, he put on a good show. Finally Maitland said, “Well, if you really insist, Savich. I’m gonna have to pull some strings. Last thing I want is any turf problems, any duplication of effort, or stumbling over each other. I’ll send links to everything we have to MAX.”

  Savich appreciated that Maitland tried not to sound too pleased with himself about getting what he wanted.

  Savich said, “I think Sherlock and I need to go down to Fort Pessel tomorrow, check it out, then maybe on to Winnett, North Carolina, find out what we can about Victor Nesser. I’d like to get a personal feel for where they lived and the people who know them.”

  “If that’s what you want, Savich,” Maitland said, and Savich knew he was grinning like the cat in the canary cage. When Savich hung up the phone, he told Sherlock, “I’ll say one thing for Victor. Taking out an FBI agent, stealing his ID, taking himself to Memorial to free Lissy—that took guts and steadiness. He’s got to feel really attached to Lissy to take a chance like that. He moved to Winnett, North Carolina, when he was eighteen, evidently right after he graduated. The question is why? What happened?”

  Sherlock said, “Lissy was only thirteen when he left.”

  He nodded and said, “Did he leave because of Lissy, or maybe a falling-out with his aunt, Jennifer Smiley?”

  Sherlock raised her face to his, touched her fingertips to his cheek. “We need to see if he’s got a passport, maybe dual passports, one Jordanian.”

  “Yeah, we’ll do that first thing.”

  She said, “I wonder why he didn’t want to return to Jordan with his mother and father. Ah, well, we’ll find out everything about him in due course. We don’t know what he’s been doing since he graduated high school, how he’s earned a living. We’ll go first thing to Fort Pessel and Winnett, find out about these two.”

  “I’m sure some of that legwork will be in the info Mr. Maitland sends us.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you know it’s not the same thing.” She added as she looked at the kitchen clock, “I figure we’ve got another thirty minutes before Sean comes home from the Perrys’ on a sugar high. I want you to tell me everything about Lissy Smiley and how things went down. Paint me a picture, Dillon. I want to hear it out of your mouth again. I know you’ve thought about it, relived it. Now that Lissy is free, I need to know what you think. Talk to me.”

  And he did. She didn’t add that the thought of a crazy teenager out to kill Dillon scared her to her toes.

  “…Riley saved my bacon, shot Jennifer Smiley through the neck. I will never forget thinking of a blood fountain.”

  He’d been so close to death again, she thought, too close. A fountain of blood. She got herself together. “We’ve got to find out what sort of relationship Lissy Smiley had with Victor. It could be the key to what makes them tick.”

  Savich agreed, only he really didn’t care at this particular moment in time. He grabbed Sherlock and kissed her. “I’ll get to work with MAX on this tonight. Ah, how much time do you think we have before Lucy brings Sean home?”

  “At least fourteen minutes,” Sherlock said, and ran up the stairs.

  The only thing missing from this perfect picture, Savich thought as he followed her, was that they didn’t have a ceiling fan in their bedroom. He hoped he’d have time to install one next weekend. He thought about Autumn. He prayed she’d call him again tonight. It had been too long. He’d gotten a couple of phone calls from several small-town sheriffs, but as yet, nothing on Autumn. His Autumn. He was getting really worried about her.

  14

  TITUSVILLE, VIRGINIA

  Sunday

  The Washington Post lay neat and unopened on the living room coffee table, delivered as always on Sunday morning from the 24/7 Quick Shop by little Buddy Grubbs, Amy Grubbs’s youngest. Ethan had gotten into the habit of reading the Post when he’d lived in Washington during his three-year stint in the DEA. The idea of putting his bare feet up on his coffee table and reading it on this fine Sunday morning, a cup of coffee in his hand, seemed a world away.

  Ethan sat down on the comfortable worn sofa that had cushioned many of his family’s butts over the years, carefully moved the newspaper to the side of the coffee table, and set his cup down on the glass top. He waved a hand. “It’s just as well Autumn’s playing in the bedroom with the cats. I need to talk to you, Joanna. Sit down a moment. You probably heard me on my cell phone. All my deputies are out looking for Blessed Backman, with as much neighboring law enforcement help as they can spare. Unfortunately, he doesn’t appear to have a driver’s license or a Social Security number. And that means, officially, he doesn’t exist.”

  “Surely he must drive. How else did he get here?”

  “Yes, it only makes sense that he drove up
here. It could have been a car, truck, motorcycle, whatever.”

  “I know Blessed is still out there, probably real close. He hasn’t got Autumn yet, and believe me, he wants Autumn very badly. I need to get her away from here. I’ve been thinking Colorado might be a nice home for us.”

  Her heels looked dug in like a mule’s, and so he said easily, “And what do you intend to do, Joanna? In Colorado?”

  “I’m not completely down-and-out like you seem to think, Sheriff. I was an office manager in a big medical facility in Boston. I have a business degree.” She sighed. “Who am I trying to kid? Actually, I was okay at it, but I hated it, being cooped up all day, every single day, living for the weekend. I did it only to help support Autumn. I do speak Russian fluently.”

  “Yeah, so who wants to learn Russian in Colorado?”

  She plowed right over him. “What I’m really good at and enjoy is teaching skiing and snowboarding in the winter and taking people hiking in the mountains in the summer, rock climbing, white-water rafting, camping, that sort of thing.”

  “Autumn told me your husband passed away.”

  “Yes, recently.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Look, Ethan, I might not have much money right now, but I do have enough to get Autumn and me set up in Colorado until I get a job. I’m thinking Leadville.”

  “Leadville is quite a place,” he said. “I was there with my brother and sister once, cross-country skiing and some downhill, of course. I remember a couple of days the city was actually in the clouds.”

  “Yes, well, it’s two miles high, after all.”

  “And all those old Victorians, it made me want to pull on some chaps and climb aboard a horse. So is that why you’ve been coming to Titusville for so long—your parents were outdoors fans? Did you spend a lot of time in Titus Hitch Wilderness?”

  “A fair amount through the years, Sheriff. Why are you smiling? Don’t you believe me?”

  “Sure, I believe you. Actually, I’m glad to hear you weren’t all that happy being a city wuss, all decked out in suits and panty hose and killer high heels. I can clearly see your little nose pressed against the office glass, desperate to get outside.”

  “City wuss? I’ve got some city girlfriends who would deck you for saying that. Some women I know who work in Boston could chop up a mugger and fry him for breakfast.”

  “Urban survival skills, that’s different. I’m more interested in a woman who can set up a camp, cook on a Coleman stove and boil up coffee, kill a snake and bake the sucker if she had to, know when a bear is looking at her like breakfast. See? Different kinds of skills. Don’t get up, Joanna, just relax. I’m not going to bite, all right?”

  She knew he was trying to get her to relax, smile even, so he could herd her in the direction he wanted. He was very good. But she didn’t want to be herded, she couldn’t afford to be.

  He sat back in his chair, laced his fingers over his belly. He said, “Tell me about your folks, Joanna. Did they teach you about the outdoors? Teach you how to ski?”

  Why not? It wouldn’t matter. “My folks were both ski instructors at Whistler Mountain, north of Vancouver. I was raised in British Columbia. As soon as I could walk, they put me on skis. We camped, hiked, swam, rock-climbed, whatever else was available, in the summers, and skied in the winters.”

  “It sounds like a wonderful childhood.”

  “It was the best.” She took another sip of her coffee.

  “Are your parents still in Canada?”

  She shook her head, her lips pursed.

  He sat forward and asked quietly, “What happened, Joanna?”

  She didn’t look at him. He watched her long fingers pleat the afghan beside her. Finally, she said, “My mom passed away when I was fifteen. Then my father was killed trying to save some idiot hotdog French skiers from an avalanche. I swore on that day I never wanted to see another snow-covered mountain.”

  “Once again, I’m sorry. That’s tough.”

  She gave a half laugh. “I was in my freshman year at CSU in Fort Collins. I transferred the next year to Boston University. And became a business major. Then I met my husband in my junior year. Sheriff, it’s time for me and Autumn to hit the road.”

  “When did you begin skiing again?”

  “After I’d worked in an office for a week, it was time to head up to Loon Mountain Resort on White Mountain in New Hampshire. I skied for a week straight.”

  He wanted to ask her if her husband had gone skiing with her, but he let it go.

  He noticed that her mug of coffee said: GOOSE ME OR GIVE ME COFFEE. He pointed to it. “The mug was my grandpa’s, it’s forty years old if it’s a day, holds a good twenty-four ounces. If you chug that all down, Joanna, you’re going to be flying high. Why don’t you tell me why you ran here to Titusville? Other than its being the butt end of nowhere. An incredibly beautiful butt end, but still—”

  “Tollie lives here. We’ve known him since he was good friends with my dad’s older brother. My folks were close to him, and I was too. Tollie knows lots of people—he used to be in law enforcement—and I knew he’d help us.”

  Ethan said, “Yes, Autumn mentioned Tollie. You’re right about his knowing people, he’s former FBI. So you didn’t know about his yearly trek out to the Everglades? You came here without talking to him?”

  “We couldn’t reach him by phone, so we just drove here. We’ve been waiting for him. It doesn’t matter now, it’s too late. They’ve found us.”

  “Who is ‘they’? The Backmans?”

  She nodded. “There’s a nest of them, Sheriff. I thank you for all you’ve done, I really do, but Autumn and I are going to be leaving now. I will keep in touch.”

  “How many times did you rehearse that little departure speech?”

  “Three, four times, in front of the mirror. That doesn’t change the facts. Autumn’s in danger here. I want to take her away from the danger, it’s that simple.”

  “Blessed would have murdered you, probably me as well.”

  “Yes, I suppose so, through Ox.”

  “I’ll bet Ox feels really lousy that it was his finger on the trigger.”

  “Look, I’m really sorry about what happened to Ox.” She set the mug on the coffee table beside his and rose, smoothing down her creased jeans with her palms. He slowly rose to stand in front of her. He was big and barefoot, he hadn’t shaved, and his Beretta was clipped to his jeans. He imagined he looked like a thug who needed a shower. He hoped she might be intimidated, but he gave it up when she merely raised an eyebrow at him and looked amused. He said, “I don’t think it’d be too bright to ignore this. You know, running from trouble might save you for the short term, but trouble always catches up. Always.”

  She stared down at his grandpa’s mug.

  “Look, Joanna, I get that you’re afraid for your daughter.”

  “Yes, and myself.”

  “Tell me about Blessed and the ‘mad old woman.’ Tell me all about the Backmans. Blessed referred to his ma?”

  She sighed. “I could tell you, and maybe you could even talk the local police chief into going to see them, but trust me on this—nothing would be done, and that’s because everyone’s afraid of them, even that good-old-boy sheriff, Burris Cole.”

  “Where is this? Where do they live?”

  Since she ignored the question, he continued, “I can see being scared spitless of them, after seeing what Blessed can do to another human being. What makes you think when we find Blessed our charges won’t stick? After all, he’ll be here, not with his own local sheriff.”

  “Maybe because the judge would look at Blessed and dismiss the case, or the prosecutor would look at him and never bring a case, or, better yet, the cops sent to arrest him would look at him and they’d let him go, maybe even give him a lift to wherever he wanted to go—better yet, even forget why they were there in the first place. This is not what could be possible. This is exactly what would happen. Believe me, Sheriff.”


  He said, “I gotta admit, you’ve hit a solid point there. We’ll get to that in a moment. I don’t want you to think I’m just this boondocks sheriff who doesn’t know his butt from his boots. I was this big law enforcement honcho back in Washington, a DEA agent.”

  That drew her up short. “DEA?”

  “You know, the Drug Enforcement Administration. Maybe I wasn’t a real big honcho, but I think I did some good.”

  “Then how did you get to be a sheriff in the boondocks?”

  He gave her a big grin. “Like you, I couldn’t stand being trapped inside a building, wearing a suit and wing tips. Don’t get me wrong, if they’d let me out in the field, I’d have been happy as a clam, but they wanted me in a Washington tactical desk job.”

  She picked up his grandfather’s mug. “I need a refill.”

  “No, you don’t. Step away from the mug, Joanna.”

  She laughed, couldn’t help it.

  “So tell me about Blessed. All he has to do to hypnotize someone is to look them straight in the eye, that’s it? Can he do it to anyone?”

  How had he gotten her off on this track, and talking? This was bad. She wasn’t amused at his macho show now, probably because he wasn’t playing at it any longer, that hard look on his face all too real. Because she’d known such fear in the last two weeks, felt so paralyzed, it almost hurt to say it, but she did.

  “I don’t know. I guess so. I only saw him do it to one other person besides Ox. It was instant, what he did.”

  Ethan said slowly, “I’ve always heard you can’t hypnotize another person into acting contrary to their wishes. But here’s the thing, Joanna. Last night, it seemed to me that Ox would have killed you, killed me, killed anyone who happened to get in his way of nabbing Autumn. You don’t know Ox, but I do, and that guy last night wasn’t the man I know. He didn’t even sound like himself, exactly—manic, excited, quite mad, really. It was more than hypnosis, I’m thinking. It’s scary, Joanna, what he did to Ox.”