“It’s only been a little over a day, Miles,” Sherlock said.
Savich said, “So what does the shrink say?”
“Evidently Dr. Jones called Dr. Raines in Jessborough and that’s why she agreed to see Sam this morning.”
“So what did she say?”
“She said I should do anything to get Katie to marry me.”
They all laughed. Sam looked up, frowned at them, and went back to helping Sean build a block fort, which wasn’t going too well since Sean would yell and give it a karate chop when it got three blocks high.
“So what are you going to do?” Sherlock asked.
Miles sat forward. “You know,” he said slowly, “maybe it’s time I was a buccaneer.”
“What’s a buccaneer, Papa?”
“So you heard that, did you?” Sam, holding Sean’s hand, was standing next to his father. “He’s learned he has to be real quiet if he wants to eavesdrop.”
“Tell us, Papa.”
That serious, so serious voice. “All right, Sam.” Miles lifted both Sam and Sean up onto his lap. “A buccaneer was a pirate who was given permission by his country to plunder enemy ships. They were take-charge kind of guys, Sam, who did things their own way. I’m thinking that it’s time for me to take charge. What do you think?”
“You’re always in charge, Papa.”
Sean burped against Sam’s arm, raised his head and said, “Mama, apple pie.”
Sherlock laughed, got up, and went to the kitchen. “Apple pie coming up. What would the buccaneer like to have?”
“Just bring me an eye patch.”
Sam laughed, the first laugh that had sprung out of that little mouth since they’d left Tennessee.
36
At eleven o’clock that night, Miles landed his plane at Ackerman’s Air Field. Thirty minutes later, he was driving the rental car into Minna Benedict’s driveway.
It wasn’t raining so hard now, but he could tell that it had really been coming down. A low-lying fog had come up, turning everything gray. The mountains brooded, blurred in a soft mist.
It felt like coming home.
He let Sam, so excited he could barely speak, knock on the door.
Minna beamed at them, clearly startled. “Good grief, Miles, Sam! Come give me a big hug, sweetie. You, Sam, not your daddy. Oh my goodness, it’s wonderful to see both of you. Miles, your face looks all sort of romantic.”
While Sam was enfolded in Minna’s arms, Miles looked over her head for Katie. “I called, but there wasn’t any answer, Minna. Where are Katie and Keely? Asleep? It’s nearly midnight. I’m sorry we’re so late. They are asleep, aren’t they?”
Before Minna could say anything, Sam said, “We’re here because Papa decided at dinner that he had to be a buccaneer. My aunt Sherlock couldn’t find him an eye patch, that’s why you can’t tell.”
“What Sam means, Minna, is that I’m here to sling my bride over my shoulder and cart her away.”
“I see,” Minna said. She straightened, keeping Sam pressed against her side. She gave Miles a big grin. “Well, now, isn’t this the funniest thing? Katie and Keely took off in her truck this evening, headed for Virginia.”
“What?”
“Oh wow!”
Minna smiled at the boy and the man, who, she suspected, would be related to her in no time at all. “Come in, come in. You can phone Katie on her cell. I’m surprised you didn’t get her number before you left.”
“She wouldn’t give it to me,” Miles said. “She wanted time to think without my bugging her and without Sam guilting her.”
“Doesn’t matter. Don’t worry, Sam, Keely’s been working on her around the clock.”
“I told her I’d work on my dad,” Sam said and gave her a huge grin.
“That’s my boy,” Minna said. “How long will it take Katie to drive to Colfax?”
Miles felt ready to explode. His heart was pounding, his guts were in a knot. “Minna, please tell me exactly why Katie is driving to Colfax. Spell it out for me.”
“She was coming to marry you, of course. She told me if you agreed, she’d call me and we’d work things out from this end.”
“You’re not joking? She’s really coming to marry me? She and Keely just hopped in her truck and off they went?”
“That’s it, Miles. She’s been stomping around here, driving everyone nuts, she’s growled at all her deputies, snapped at Mayor Tommy because he wanted every gory detail about everything, three times. What with all the rain and all the problems that’s brought, it hasn’t helped. She even snapped Linnie’s head off, blew a fit at Keely for her less-than-subtle hints, cried at her and Keely’s misery, and then she gave it up. Oh goodness, look at you, Miles. I love to see a man who’s trying to think.”
Miles stood there with his mouth open, just shaking his head. She’d been acting just like he had, which had to mean that she was miserable without him, without Sam.
“Katie’s a buccaneer,” Sam shouted. “Just like Papa!” Sam whooped, grabbed his father’s hand, and started dancing around.
“Why don’t I get her an eye patch for her wedding present?” Minna said. “You flew your plane, Miles?”
He nodded, blinking, still getting his wits back together.
“Then I guess you’d best be on your way back home. You don’t want her to get there before you do, do you? And be careful, the weather’s terrible.”
He thought of Cracker and hoped to God she’d let Katie and Keely in the house if Katie beat him back to Colfax.
MONDAY NIGHT
COLFAX, VIRGINIA
“We’re married,” Sam said with a great deal of satisfaction to the group gathered with coffee, champagne, and Cracker’s special triple chocolate cake in the living room.
Savich leaned over and ruffled Sam’s hair. He said, “Yep, it’s all official now, Sam.”
Sherlock, holding a sleeping Sean in her arms, nodded. “You and Keely are brother and sister.”
“Cool,” said Keely, and punched Sam in the arm.
“Well, you can see where my kid stands on this,” Miles said as he handed a slice of cake to Cracker, who was still looking a bit shell-shocked.
Sam leaned over and patted her hand. “It’s okay, Aunt Cracker, Katie’s really nice and she can shoot people dead if they bother you.”
Cracker swallowed the bite the wrong way and began coughing. Sam was slapping her on the back, she was tearing up, and Keely handed her a glass of champagne.
“Just what I needed,” Cracker gasped and downed the champagne.
“Oh dear,” Katie said. “Would you believe, Cracker, that I’m actually known more for keeping our teenagers on the straight and narrow? No kid under eighteen smokes in my town when I’m around.”
Cracker took another bite of cake and said, as she closed her eyes in bliss, “That’s not gory enough, Katie. Sounds like Sam thinks you’re the Terminator.”
But Sam and Keely weren’t listening to the adults. They were whispering to each other in the corner of the living room, every once in a while sneaking looks at their parents.
Savich stood, picked up his boy and gently laid him over his shoulder. “It’s nearly ten o’clock. We accomplished the impossible—got you guys licensed and married, all in one day.”
“Thanks to the no-waiting laws in old Virginia,” Miles said. “Lucky the circuit court clerk is real good friends with one of the judge’s wives.” Miles grinned from ear to ear. “One-stop shopping.”
“Married,” Katie said, and her eyes crossed. “I’ve known Miles for a week, and I’m married.”
Sam evidently heard that clearly. He and Keely both hooted with laughter.
“Not only can she kill bad guys dead, she can even cross her eyes, Sam,” Sherlock said. “What more could a guy ask for?”
“Oh yes, Mama,” Keely said and crossed her own eyes. “I can do that, too, Aunt Sherlock.”
Katie said to Sam, “Are you still going to be happy about this when yo
u do something bratty and I have to nail your hide to the floor? I’m tough, remember, Sam.”
Keely laughed. “I told him that if he acted stupid, you would put him up in a tree, like a cat.”
“Hmm,” Miles said. “Sam’s pretty good with climbing trees, Keely, maybe I should give Katie some pointers.”
“I’m never bad,” Sam said. He smiled beatifically and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.
On that cue, Sherlock and Savich took their leave, Sean giving little snorting snores as his father carried him out.
It was nearly midnight before the kids were in bed, Keely in a lovely bedroom of pale rose and cream connected to Sam’s room through a bathroom. Keely just couldn’t get over that. Katie heard her tell Sam not to step a single foot into her side of the bathroom or she’d bust him. It didn’t matter that her side had the toilet. Sam made sure to stick his toe over to her side before he went to bed.
Cracker had a suite in the large former attic with its curious sloping corners and polished wooden floors. As Katie brushed her teeth, she hoped that Cracker would soon get over the intense suspicion Katie had felt coming off her in waves when she’d opened the door to Katie’s knock. “You’re here for what?” she’d said when she’d answered the door.
“Keely and I are here to see Miles. I’m Katie Benedict. Sheriff Katie Benedict.” She’d stuck out her hand and had it hesitantly shaken, then dropped.
“You’re the one who saved Sam? Oh dear, Miles isn’t here. He said something weird about being a buccaneer, gave me a big hug, told me to wish him luck, and off he went with Sam, I don’t know where. I guess you must come in.” And she’d stepped back and been perfectly pleasant until Keely said, “Mama’s here to marry Miles so Sam can be my brother and Miles can be my papa.”
The woman looked like she’d been slapped in the face. Speaking through a rictus of a smile, she said, “Little girls say the cutest things, don’t they?”
It seemed an eternity ago, yet it had only been the previous evening. Katie brushed out her hair. She started to braid it, then dropped her hands back to her sides. This was her wedding night. How very peculiar that was. Miles was right about the one-stop shopping. They’d plunked down thirty dollars and were in business. During the brief ceremony Sam stood straight and important beside his father, Keely beside her, and everyone else just a couple of steps back. It was a pity that her mother had been fogged in, no flights out at all for the entire day. Minna promised to come in the next couple of weeks. She wanted to give them some time to themselves.
Conrad Evans, Miles’s right hand at the plant, had looked as shell-shocked as Cracker. He’d been quite nice, no choice, really. The man looked like a linebacker for the Titans, and had hair as red as Sherlock’s.
Katie looked down at the plain gold band. Married. She was married again. She’d killed two kidnappers, an idiot former postal employee had burned her house down, and here she was, in Virginia, married. For the second time. She felt very strange, as if her life had taken a one-eighty, which indeed it had.
Her name was now Katie Benedict Kettering. It was weird.
When she came back to the big bedroom after tucking Keely in yet again for the night, making certain the bathroom door was open on both sides, she faced Miles across the length of his bedroom. It was a big airy room with large windows, antique furniture, and a bed the size of the Queen Mary. Katie crossed her arms over her chest, her position defensive, her fight-flight response in high gear.
She couldn’t imagine taking off her clothes in front of this man who was nearly a stranger, and also her husband. She already had in a way, not really thinking about it.
“How tall are you?” she asked.
Miles wasn’t a fool. He didn’t move even a single step toward her. “Six-two, something around there. I’m not planning on jumping you, by the way,” he said and grinned like a schoolboy who’d just shot a three-pointer from twenty feet.
Katie shook her head, both at him and at herself. “This is all just so weird.”
“But just look at what you’ve accomplished in the space of a very short time.” He tapped off his fingers. “You’ve known me for this entire week, enough to know I’ll make a terrific mate, and you’ve made our kids so happy they just might not act bratty for another week. Your new last name isn’t that bad at all. The best thing is that I really like you, Katie. Really. You looked great in your wedding dress.”
“Don’t forget the three-inch heels that brought me eyeball to eyeball with you.”
“Never.” He hadn’t seen her in a dress until their wedding seven hours ago.
“I’m thirty-one years old.”
“Yeah, I heard you tell the county clerk. I’m thirty-five, which means I’ve got more experience than you, a really finely honed judgment, and you should trust me completely.” He held out his hands to her, palms up, fingers spread. “These are perfectly good hands you’re in, Katie.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’ve had more years to learn how to joke around and be an all-around smart guy.” She paused a moment. “I haven’t really trusted anyone—a man, that is—since Carlo.”
“That makes sense, since the guy was such a gold-plated jerk. But I’m me and there’s no gold plating about me. I’m not a shit, Katie, believe me. Now, it’s nearly midnight on a fine Monday night. I’m exhausted, you’re exhausted, and even Keely and Sam didn’t complain about going to bed.”
“That’s a first and likely a last.”
“Come here and let me kiss you. Then we’ll go to bed and get our first good night’s sleep in a week.”
Katie looked at the bed, then back at Miles. “I haven’t had sex in so long I think I’ve forgotten what comes after a kiss.”
He started ticking off on his fingers.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to figure out when I had sex last. I’ve used up all my fingers. This is truly pathetic. Maybe we can figure it out together, sooner or later. What do you think?”
She wasn’t thinking anything, her brain was on hold. She tugged on her sleep shirt that showed a buzzard wearing a cowboy hat singing “Howdy, Howdy, Howdy, I’m a cowboy.” He’d have liked that sleep shirt to disappear. He really liked those long long legs of hers; he’d really like them wrapped around him.
“Which side of the bed do you prefer?”
She pointed to the left. After he climbed in beside her, Katie said, “Those pajamas look brand new.”
“They’re my official wedding pajamas.”
Miles flipped off the lights. Silence fell. After about five minutes, Katie said, “What are you humming?”
“Just an old buccaneer song.”
“Miles?”
“Yeah?”
“How about we try a kiss, and maybe then those wedding pajamas can go back in the drawer.”
A younger man, he thought, rolling over to a beautiful woman who was also his new wife, might feel a little nervous, but all his parts that counted were working just fine.
“We’ll always have fun in bed,” he said against her mouth, “maybe moan and thrash about a bit, and you’ll see, our problems won’t follow us here. You know something else?”
“What?”
“I swear I’ll respect you in the morning.”
When he had her under him, those long legs of hers wrapped around his flanks, and she was panting, biting his earlobe, kissing any part of him she could reach, he said, “We’re going to be just fine, Katie,” and he laid his hands on her then and she would have flown out the window if he hadn’t been on top of her.
37
TWO WEEKS LATER
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Sherlock heard a shout and turned to wave at Sean, who was running after Keely and Sam. Then Sam turned, held out his hand, and Sean latched on to it, shrieking. She smiled as she said to Katie, “They’re really good with him.”
“Yes, Sam told me he had to take care of Sean because he was little and ignorant.”
S
herlock laughed.
“Keely said Sean would grow up fast enough. Then she said since boys had so much to learn, she’d better start teaching him stuff now. She didn’t want to have to wait and cram everything into his head when he was grown up.”
Another shout. Katie looked over her shoulder to see Miles throw a Frisbee to Keely. So much laughter. It warmed her all the way to her bones.
Katie said, “It’s been two weeks and no more math teacher murders. Maybe the madman has simply left the area.”
“Thank God for no more murders, but I really hope he hasn’t left, it would make it that much harder to get the creep. Dillon hasn’t said much, just told me he’s doing good old-fashioned police work, and then he smiles. We’ll see. I’m busy on other cases, so it’s really pretty much in his bailiwick. Calls on the hot line have dropped over the past two weeks to only about fifty a day. You wouldn’t believe how many man-hours it takes to check just fifty calls, and all for nothing.”
“I can’t begin to imagine. I never had to do anything like that.” Katie shaded her eyes and looked over the park, always coming back to Keely who was chasing Sam, Sean running as fast as he could behind them. She didn’t realize she’d stopped walking and was staring at nothing in particular when Sherlock said, “What’s up, Katie?”
Katie gave a start. She looked down at the small woman who could probably knock her on her butt. “Do you fight dirty, Sherlock?”
“Dirty? Hmm. As in would I do anything at all, no matter how rotten, to disarm a bad guy? Oh yeah. Why?”
Katie shrugged. “I was just wondering, that’s all. Would you look at this gorgeous day. Can you believe this Indian summer? In early December?”
Sherlock raised her face to the sun that was bright and warm. A crisp breeze rustled through the nearly naked tree branches, ruffled her hair. Winter was lurking just around the corner, but not today. “Thank God, all that interminable rain has stopped. I swear I was starting to grow mold. At least we’ve got a couple of beautiful days before that snowstorm hits on Monday.”