Split Second

by Catherine Coulter

  Your grandmother never really recovered, was never herself again, at least to me, after that night. She kept the ring with her, wouldn’t let it out of her sight, until she seemed obsessed with it, hardly talked to me of anything else. I grew to fear what she might try to do with it, fear who else she might tell and what would happen to her if she did. But I feared most of all for her sanity.

  I thought I must get rid of the thing, but then I thought about how different our lives would be if she had managed to save Claudine. I thought of Josh, numb with grief that night, huddled next to you, Lucy. I thought of you, only two years old and destined to grow up without a mother because an idiot drunk had smashed his car into hers and killed her instantly.

  And so, my dear Lucy, I waited four more years to decide that I must remove the ring from your grandmother. You are now only five years old, and you have no idea what awaits you in the future. The ring will be yours. It can be used for great good, but it is not my place to tell you how. You see, if you have your grandmother’s gift, you will soon discover that for yourself, and if you do not, you will never believe me in any case. For your own safety, tell no one you would not trust with your very life. If anyone deserves this ring, it is you, my dear Lucy.

  I find myself wondering as I write this letter to you how long I knew you before I went to my reward. I also find myself wondering how old you are as you read this. You see, my instructions were for you to be given this letter and ring upon the death of your father. I hope Josh lived a long, satisfying life and you, my dear, are middle-aged, and you have gained wisdom and insight into yourself and your fellow man. Do you yourself have a daughter?

  I wish you joy, and love, and fulfillment in your life, Lucy. I will love you always.

  Your Grandfather, Milton Xavier Carlyle

  Lucy laid the letter on the desk, picked up the ring, and laid it on her palm. She slowly closed her hand around it. To her surprise, she felt warmth from it, and more, the ring felt quite natural in her hand.

  Without thinking, she slipped the ring onto her middle finger. Since it was so large, she curled her fingers to keep it on. She turned on the desk lamp and held it close to the light. She saw symbols etched beneath the three carnelians—a half circle, flat side up; a circle with an inverted cross coming out of it, like an incomplete symbol of Venus or woman; and two small isosceles triangles with nothing at all unusual about them. She had to concentrate to make the symbols out clearly, they were so shallow and faded in the gold. What did the symbols mean? Were they pictographs from a long-ago language? She looked on the inside of the ring. There, in letters large enough for her to see clearly, was a single word etched in black letters: SEFYLL.

  Was that Welsh? She whispered the word aloud, stumbling over the sound.

  She whispered the word again, changing how she said it until the word flowed more smoothly out of her mouth, as if she had the right pronunciation. She said the word aloud, and she would swear there was a gentle rippling in the light from the desk lamp. Strange, but simply a play of the light—nothing, really.

  Her cell phone rang, once, twice, three times, but she ignored it, pressed speaker, and let it go to voice mail. She heard Dillon’s deep voice speaking, but she paid no attention.

  She stroked the ring with her thumb, then said the word again: “SEFYLL.”

  Dillon stopped speaking in mid-sentence. It seemed to Lucy that the very air stopped, but only for a moment, and then her cell blared out the racing trumpet call again, then rang—one ring, two rings, three rings. And there was Dillon’s voice, and he was repeating what he’d said before.

  Like a rubber band snapping back. She fell into the big leather wing chair, heart pounding, too confused to be frightened. What had happened? Dillon was speaking the same words he’d been saying before. She blinked when she heard him say, “So, bottom line, it was Kirsten who struck on Wall Street last night, and she had an accomplice. Call me.”

  It was the oddest feeling, listening to him, knowing what he would say. Had he been cut off, called her twice, repeated the same message? She grabbed her cell. What had he said? “Dillon? Lucy here. Ah, you said there was an accomplice with Kirsten last night?”

  There was a moment of silence, then, “Are you okay, Lucy?”

  “What? Oh, yes, sure, I’m okay.”

  Another brief pause, then, “I know Dr. Judd contacted you about the findings of the autopsy. I’m sorry.”

  So, he’d called Dillon, too. Well, no surprise there. “Thank you, Dillon.”

  “Coop asked me to call you, said you weren’t picking up. They’ve been interviewing Thomas Hurley, and they’ve got a police artist making a sketch.”

  But Lucy couldn’t stop staring at the huge ring still sitting comfortably on her middle finger.

  “Lucy?”

  “I’m sorry, Dillon. Would you tell me something? Did you call me twice just now, get cut off maybe, and called again, or did you call only once?”

  “Just once, and you called me right back.”

  “I must have been mistaken, then. Don’t worry about it. I guess it has been quite a week, Dillon. I’m okay, though.”

  Dillon wondered for an instant if Lucy was drunk, but no, that couldn’t be right. She sounded like she wasn’t really there, like she wasn’t hearing him, or didn’t care. Something was wrong.

  “Lucy, is there something you want to tell me?”

  Tell him? And look mad? Tell him this ring and this letter were scaring her to her toes? Say something!

  “I’m fine, really. The house is no longer a crime scene, they cleared it this morning, but I’m not about to visit the attic, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Tell you what, Lucy, you stay right there, and I’ll be over with some takeout, all right? Sherlock and Coop won’t be back until late, a flight delay. I’ll call you later.”

  She scarcely heard him. She punched off her cell and stared at the ring. That word—SEFYLL—when she’d said it aloud, when she’d said it correctly, time seemed to stop dead for a second or two, then replay itself. That sounded ridiculous. Was she being crazy? Maybe saying the word right on the ring conjured up some sort of weird hypnotic suggestion that made it appear that way.

  Lucy took a deep breath, picked up the Chinese lamp that stood atop a side table, and flung it against the fireplace. As it shattered, she said clearly, “SEFYLL.”

  Everything stopped, and suddenly the lamp was back on the end table, whole, untouched. She saw what seemed to be a small shudder in time itself. Another couple of seconds passed—nothing happened. She ran to the lamp, put her hands on it, and waited. More seconds passed, and still nothing happened, nothing at all. The Chinese lamp she’d hurled against the fireplace and smashed into a gazillion pieces was sitting, solid and unharmed, on the tabletop. She sat down in the large leather chair at her grandmother’s desk and stared in front of her. She wasn’t crazy, and if something unbelievable was happening, something incredible, she wouldn’t let it scare her stupid. She would understand it.

  She began to experiment.

  She held the ring—she learned she had to be holding it in her hand—and said the word clearly. Each time she did, the digital clock on her cell phone stopped, showed a time exactly eight seconds before, and with no pause, began to tick forward again. She hurled the lamp against the fireplace three more times just as she had before, and kept her eye on the second hand of her watch. As before, the lamp seemed to reassemble itself and the second hand on her watch always turned backward exactly eight seconds until it swept forward again.

  Could she change anything she wanted in those eight seconds?

  Lucy sat back down in the leather chair, her grandmother’s ring still on her middle finger, her hand fisted to keep it in place. Her grandfather had stolen it, hidden it, so she couldn’t use it again. Because he was afraid of what she would do with it? No, because she was going crazy, that was why. But her grandfather hadn’t been sure Lucy could make it work. Did it work for her
only because it had been her grandmother’s? Evidently so.

  Her father had seen his mother stab his father to death, but had he known about the ring? He must have known something about it; she’d heard her grandmother screaming about it to him the day her grandfather died.

  The doorbell rang, but she ignored it, barely heard it.

  Then someone was pounding on the door. She heard Dillon’s voice calling out, “Lucy! Come, open the door!”

  She looked over at the giant clock in the corner. It was well past six o’clock. It was dark.

  She slid the ring off her finger and quickly slipped it onto the gold chain she wore about her neck, stuffed it into her shirt. She realized as she ran to the door that her middle finger, once warm where she’d worn the ring, now felt cold.

  “Lucy, open this door or I’m breaking in.”

  “I’m coming, Dillon, I’m coming.” And she thought, tears stinging her eyes, Grandmother, if only you’d had the ring with you when my mother was hit by that drunk. If only.

  CHAPTER 35

  Lucy finally opened the door, wondering whether Dillon would really have broken it down. He looked at the banked excitement in her eyes, watched her as she said in a voice as bright as a new penny, “Sorry, Dillon, I was washing up,” and knew she was closed down tight. For the moment.

  So he handed her the bag stuffed with Chinese takeout that included her favorite moo shu pork, and followed her to the bright kitchen to chow down on his own vegetarian delight. As they sipped the lovely hot tea that Sun Li, his and Sherlock’s favorite waiter, had insisted he take with him, he told her about Sherlock and Coop’s breakthrough in New York at the First Precinct, and showed her a printout of the sketch of Bruce Comafield that Sherlock had e-mailed to him.

  Lucy bounced up and down, hooted. “Sherlock is unbelievable! Oh, yeah, it’s him. This is incredible, Dillon. Can you believe he’s wearing those same aviator glasses? Why don’t we go get him right now? Let’s grab him and haul him in.”

  “Sorry, but we already thought of that. According to Lansford, no one has seen his aide since the evening we visited him at the Willard. No word as to his whereabouts yet.”

  “We spooked him. I guess we should revisit all the witnesses in the other cities, see if anyone else saw this guy with her.”

  Savich nodded and took another bite of the vegetarian fried rice.

  Bruce Comafield. They were nearly to home plate. Lucy looked over at Dillon, marveled at him. And at Sherlock. Would she have been good enough to get that information and sketch out of the witness, Thomas Hurley? She didn’t know, but she’d missed out on an incredible find. She became suddenly aware of the ring pressing itself like a living thing against her skin, her incredible ring that had cost her grandfather his life. It was more than she could begin to understand, or begin to deal with at that moment. No, she had to focus here. She wanted more than anything to find Comafield, and she wanted Savich to trust her again with that assignment, rather than worry about her. She wanted to show him she was ready to throw herself back into the hunt for Kirsten Bolger. It hit her between the eyes that her boss was too perceptive, that any lie she told him, he’d recognize easily as a lie. Maybe he could help her.

  “Lucy, you want some of this rice?”

  She snapped back, fully aware he’d seen her distraction and known it for what it was.

  She spooned up some rice and took a big bite, not caring if it was getting cold, because she hadn’t eaten since that morning and she was starving. As she chewed, she felt the weight of her sins pushing down on her head. She swallowed the last bite, fanned her hands in front of her. “So much has happened. I didn’t mean to worry you or alarm you. It was very nice of you to care enough about me to come over, and then you brought me dinner and told me about Bruce Comafield.”

  A black eyebrow went up. He said in that deep, calm voice of his, “It’d be nice if you’d talk to me, Lucy, if you’d tell me the truth about how you’re feeling, and what you’re thinking.”

  She looked guilty, she knew it to her heels, but she couldn’t help it. She could keep her mouth shut, and so she did. She shook her head.

  He searched her face, then nodded as if to say, So be it. “Coop will catch you up on everything. He and Sherlock will be back from New York later tonight. I’m thinking things will move smartly forward now that we know about Bruce Comafield. If he was her supply line from the real world, he can’t be that any longer. Now he’ll be with her full-time.” He tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “I’m concerned about you, Lucy. Coop told me you visited a safe-deposit box today, picked up something that belonged to your grandfather?”

  She nodded. “Yes, and it upset me, Dillon.” She drew in a deep breath. “The box contained an old ring, but nothing more than that.” She kept her head down so he couldn’t see the lie in her eyes, and pulled the ring out of her shirt and showed it to him.

  He held out his hand. He could tell she didn’t want to, but she unfastened the gold chain, let the ring slide into her palm. She waited only a moment, then gave it to him. She watched him examine it. “Was there any explanation of this ring in the box?”

  Lie, lie, no choice. “No, but I thought it could be the ring I remembered my grandmother screaming about, the ring she stabbed her husband to death over, when he took it from her.” Her words hung between them. He said, “And he left it in a safe-deposit box, specifically for you?”

  “Yes.”

  He waited a beat, then, when she didn’t say anything, he said, “What did you do this afternoon?”

  He was giving her that steady sort of questioning look now, one that made her want to fling herself at his feet and confess every sin she could remember committing since the age of three. “I slept some. I didn’t feel too well, and then I had bad dreams, about my grandfather.”

  Savich sat back, pushed away the remains of his dinner. He looked again at the ring on his palm. “This ring must have meant something significant to both of them. Isn’t that ironic? She killed him, put him in that steamer trunk, covered him with a white towel, never imagining that he’d put this ring in a safe-deposit box for you. And that’s a question, isn’t it, Lucy? You weren’t yet six years old when he went missing, yet what he’d done was save the ring for you. How did you discover it was there, waiting for you?”

  “Our old family lawyer called me, told me my grandfather’s instructions were to give it to me after the death of my father.”

  She knew this raised a lot more questions in his mind, but to her relief, he said, “The ring looks very old, doesn’t it? Is that a triangle of dull rubies set on top of it?”

  “It is very old, and yes, it’s ugly, too, Dillon, not worth much, I don’t think. The stones aren’t rubies; I’m thinking carnelians. I have no clue why Grandfather bothered to save the ring for me.”

  Yeah, right. You’re really a bad liar, Lucy. But what are you lying about? Savich wanted to shake her, but trust was a funny thing.

  He said, “These symbols, I don’t recognize them. Do you?”

  “No. I’ve never seen them before.”

  “They could designate some society, or sect, or cult of some kind. And that inscription, ‘SEFYLL.’”

  Lucy froze. He was holding the ring when he said the word, but he had no reaction. He would have known, he would have been shocked, as she had been, if everything had happened again for him, starting eight seconds ago, or would all he feel be a shimmer in the light? Or was that what her grandfather meant by her having a gift? Could no one else experience what she had?

  She had to ask, had to. “Do you know the word, Dillon?”

  “Easy enough to find out.” He pulled out his cell phone.

  A couple minutes later, they were reading that the word was Welsh.

  He said, “It means to stand, to be or become stationary, to stop moving. Why inscribe that on a ring?”

  She said absolutely nothing.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a couple of photos o
f it with my cell. MAX and I can do some research later, maybe make some phone calls.”

  Great, just great.

  After he’d snapped his photos, he looked at her pale face. “You need to turn in now. Too much has happened in too short a time.” He saw that she was holding out her hand, and so he gave her the ring, watched her thread it back onto the gold chain and put it inside her shirt again.

  “Yes, I’m awfully tired, but I’d like to come back to work tomorrow, help set up the manhunt for Bruce Comafield with Coop. I don’t want to get too far behind on Kirsten Bolger’s case.”

  Savich gave her a long look, wondered what she hadn’t told him, wondered what specifically she’d lied to him about, then nodded. “All right, I’ll see you in the morning.” He said good night, then returned to an empty house, which he hated. Sean and Astro were doing a sleepover with Marty at the Perrys’ house. He realized he missed Astro barking his head off as soon as he walked up the flagstone steps to his front door.

  CHAPTER 36

  Hoover Building

  Wednesday morning

  Lucy slipped into Gloria’s passenger seat, waited for Coop to seatbelt himself in. “So, we’re off to the Willard. I hope we can find out more about Bruce Comafield. Can you believe Dillon pulled ID photos of everyone in that meeting with Lansford and passed them around? Sometimes you want to punch him when he pulls tricks like that. And there was payoff—Sherlock recognized Comafield right away.”

  “We already know everything about him, from the mole behind his right knee to the C he got in poly sci—pretty funny for an aide to a wannabe lawmaker, or should I say former aide.”

  “Former wannabe lawmaker, too.”

  Coop looked over at her. “Do you mind if after we visit the Willard, we drive by my mom’s so she can see what a hot tootsie I picked up in Gloria? Ah, you’d be the first hot tootsie I ever brought around, by the way.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I believe you. Tootsie?”