Tailspin

  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 stopped seeing 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 a goner, 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 finally 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 ord
erly 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.”

  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. MacLean’s room.”