Mick's voice faded in and out. Sherlock realized he was pacing the length of his lovely living room. He was saying, "We've got to be calm here. We can't lose it, not now. We've got to find out what she knows, then we can decide what to do with her. You've got to get me out of this, Jane Ann. You owe me."
"All right, all right." Jane Ann was taking slow deep breaths, smoothing herself out. Yoga breathing. "She isn't dead, is she?"
Sherlock heard Mick's footsteps crossing to her, felt his warm hitching breath on her cheek as he came down on his knees beside her. She felt his fingers on the pulse in her neck, smelled the sweat on him as he leaned over her. "I hit her pretty hard, but she seems okay. I've done that in my martial arts classes, but this is my first time I ever hit a real person." He sounded more pleased with himself now than scared.
Keep breathing, keep listening, stay unconscious. Do not puke. Sherlock felt nausea roiling in her stomach, and knew the not puking part could be a tall order. She tried to breathe slowly, lightly, like Jane Ann.
Sherlock knew Jane Ann was standing over her now; she smelled her too, a fresh jasmine scent. "I liked her, you know? I thought she liked me too, but it was all an act. She suspected something was off, but Mick, she really didn't know a thing. Oh, I wish you hadn't lost it-where's my cell?"
He rolled right over her, anger and aggression spilling out of his mouth, "Yeah? Well, she was going to haul you away, and me too, and I don't deserve that, I don't! You are nearly old enough to be my mother! Look what you've got me into. She's a federal agent. Why do you need your freaking cell? Who do you want to call?"
Sherlock heard the sound of Jane Ann's hard slap against his face. Not smart, Jane Ann, not smart, he's nearly boiling over. "I'm thirty-six, you fool. Don't you ever call me your bloody mother again!"
"You hit me! Don't you ever slap me again, Jane Ann."
Sherlock felt the air shimmer with violence, heard Jane Ann's harsh breathing. She heard a smack that sounded like Mick catching Jane Ann's hand when she would have hit him again, knew he'd twisted her wrist because Jane Ann moaned. They were face-to-face, their rage beating the air between them. But when Mick spoke, it was in nearly a whisper, but there was rage in his voice, deep and thick. "You hit me again, Jane Ann, and I'll knock your perfect teeth down your throat, you hear me? Poor old Caskie paid for those pretty teeth, didn't he, just like he paid for all your tennis lessons? Did you ever pay for anything in your life?"
Jane Ann jerked away from him, and, smart woman, she moved to the other side of the living room, cursing under her breath. Sherlock slitted her eyes open to see Jane Ann vigorously rubbing her wrist, trying to regain control of herself and the situation. "Listen, Mick, we're losing it. We have to focus here. None of this is important now. We've got to tie her up."
"Yeah, well, that's the first smart thing you've said."
Sherlock was dead weight when Mick hauled her up and laid her on her back on the sofa. "I know just the thing. I'll be right back. How long is she going to be out?"
"We'll throw some water in her face, that'll bring her back." Jane Ann was moving away. "I'll get some. Then we can find out what she knows."
Sherlock heard Mick coming back into the living room. She moaned and slowly opened her eyes to stare up at the young man who was sitting next to her, a roll of duct tape in his hand, studying her face.
She blinked and gave him a smile. "Mick? Is that you? What happened? Did I faint? Oh good, you stretched me out on the sofa. Thank you."
He froze. "You think you fainted?"
She frowned at him in confusion. "Didn't I? All I remember is you were telling me how you were an actor and then, well, I woke up here on the sofa. My head hurts a bit. Hey, I think it's low blood sugar. It's happened before, my blood sugar just bottoms out and down I go. Mick, thank you for making me comfortable."
"Isn't your blood sugar still low?"
"Well, yes, it is. There's usually a brief spike then it falls again. Do you think I could have a glass of juice? Or maybe a regular soda? It's got sugar in it, and that'll get me back to normal."
Mick called out, "Jane Ann, bring some orange juice in here. Agent Sherlock says it was low blood sugar that made her faint."
"What? Faint?"
"Yeah, she fainted. It's okay, really, just bring in the orange juice."
Sherlock's temple pounded where his fist had struck her. Her palms itched to flatten the jerk. She whispered, "Could you help me sit up, Mick?"
Automatically, he pulled her to a sitting position. "How do you feel?"
"A little woozy, but I'll be okay. Like I said, this has happened before."
"Jane Ann, where's the orange juice?"
"Just a minute."
Still, it was another couple of minutes before Jane Ann wrapped Sherlock's fingers around a glass. Sherlock smiled up at her. "Ah, orange juice. Thank you, Jane Ann." Sherlock drank down half a glass, then leaned her head back, closed her eyes. "Thank you both. This doesn't happen often, but when it does, I'm down and out for a minute. I'm very glad you had some orange juice. It acts really fast, and hey, it's better for you than soda."
Sherlock waited, opened her eyes again, and set the orange juice on the coffee table. She stretched and smiled at the two of them, both standing directly in front of her, both looking worried, both still a bit on the blurry side. She had a ferocious headache, but she wasn't about to tell them that. She hoped she looked nice and pale. She sure felt rotten enough.
They hadn't taken her SIG, it was still clipped to her belt.
She stuck out her hand toward Mick and he took it and pulled her to her feet. She held still a moment to make sure she had herself back together again. "Do you know, a couple of months ago, I was shot. They removed my spleen. I'm all well again, but sometimes, like now, where my spleen once resided, it aches. Isn't that strange? It aches now." And she massaged her side a moment, continuing to smile at the two of them. "Thank you both for taking care of me. Jane Ann, I'll see you when you get back with your sons. Mick, you're a great guy, I know you'll make it in Hollywood."
She walked away from them through the beautiful archway, breathing deeply, evenly, not hurrying. Once she was a good six feet away from them, she pulled out her SIG and turned to face them. "All right, you two, I hope you didn't have great plans for Caskie's money since you won't be able to touch it. It's called ill-gotten gains."
Mick's face went red with outrage. "You were playing us! You were making all that up! Low blood sugar? It was all an act?"
"Well, yes, I had to. You two did take good care of me. Thank you. You know, Mick, it's not all that difficult to shoot people if you have the high ground and two guns blasting away. Then again, you didn't want to hit either of us, did you? I mean you couldn't kill us since we were Jane Ann's perfect alibi. We wouldn't have been any use to her at all dead. Tell me, what did Caskie do when you walked in on him in the laundry room? Did he even know who you were? Before you shot him in the forehead, did you tell him you were his wife's lover? Did you tell him it wasn't personal, you just wanted his money?"
Mick was shaking his head, back and forth. "Listen, Agent Sherlock, I don't know what you're talking about. None of what you said is true. I didn't do anything."
"This grand plan of yours, you both took a huge risk but I guess you thought the payoff would be worth it. We could have so easily killed you, Mick, and for what? For money? That was a very bad decision you made, but you know, I don't think it was your idea.
"You came up with it, didn't you, Jane Ann? You thought it all through, decided to call me so I'd give you the perfect alibi. I can see it on your face. You set up the cold-blooded murder of your own husband. I'd hoped I was wrong, hoped it was Mick here who was the grand manipulator. But no, it couldn't have been Mick's idea, he's too young, too self-absorbed, and frankly, he's not bright enough. But you made sure he was in so far he couldn't get himself out when he discovered how you'd used him.
"I did like you, Jane Ann, and I believed you-t
he poor terrified woman hiding in her closet, waiting for the vicious killers to find her and kill her, just as they killed Caskie. You're the actor here, not poor Mick. But the killers didn't come to find you, did they? And that really bothered me. Too unprofessional.
"What decided you? That Caskie was already in the line of fire? That Schiffer Hartwin would be the natural suspects, and Caskie's murder would look like the revenge killing of a scapegoat? They're rotten enough, but they were innocent of Caskie's murder.
"It was only about two greedy people who wanted money. You're both under arrest for the murder of Caskie Royal. You have the right to remain silent-" While she read them their rights, she tried to punch in Bowie's number on her cell phone as she spoke, but she was having trouble, her fingers didn't seem to be working very well.
Jane Ann said quickly, her hands out, palms up, the supplicant, "Won't you listen to me, Agent Sherlock? Won't you let me defend myself ? Okay, I didn't tell you the truth, couldn't tell you the truth because I was afraid. Caskie pulled a gun on me, said he was going to kill me, I wasn't any use to him anymore. He laughed at me when I pleaded with him. He told me he and Carla were going to leave the country, he had no other choice, not really, since the Culovort scam had blown up in his face, and those bastard bosses of his were going to make him the fall guy. I couldn't let him kill me, I couldn't let my boys be orphans. Mick came in. He saved me. He shot Caskie in self-defense. I had to set things up like I did. I had to think of my boys."
"You need more practice on that story, Jane Ann. It doesn't make a lot of sense." Sherlock couldn't get the numbers on the cell phone to come into focus. It was probably Mick's blow to her temple that was making her uncoordinated. She shook it off and finally got the numbers in. Heard the cell phone ring, heard Bowie say, "Agent Richards here."
Jane Ann broke off and took a step forward.
"Don't move, Jane Ann, really, don't move."
Jane Ann took a step back again, and simply stood there staring at Sherlock.
"Bowie?"
Jane Ann said quite calmly to Mick, "What is taking so long?"
What?
She heard Bowie's voice on the cell phone, saying, "Who is this?"
"It's Sherlock." Nothing else came out. She fell to her knees and keeled over onto her side. Her cell phone skittered across the polished oak floor.
55
Where was she?
In a closet maybe. It wasn't pitch-black, which was a relief, so no, not a closet. She lay quietly on her side, getting herself back into her brain, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the dim light. She realized her wrists and ankles were bound, probably with Mick's duct tape. She gave a couple of tugs, but there wasn't any give. There was a reason men swore by duct tape.
Her brain was only half plugged in. She felt punch-drunk and so tired she could barely keep her eyes open, and why was that? Jane Ann had drugged her, of course. Jane Ann, no dummy, had realized Sherlock was playing Mick with the fainting and the low blood sugar, and she'd mashed some kind of pills into the orange juice. She'd thought she'd pulled it off, but she'd never fooled Jane Ann, not for a minute. She didn't think she was destined for Hollywood any more than Mick was. She didn't think he'd make it as an acting critic either.
At least Bowie knew she was in trouble. Her brain was woozy again. She felt the dragging sweep of drugs and tried not to go under again. She counted to ten a half-dozen times. On the fifth try, she knew she made it to ten without a single short circuit in her brain. She realized her mouth felt desert dry. She made another halfhearted attempt to pull free of the duct tape, but there was no movement at all.
Where was she? She could see in the dim light that she was in a large room. She made out clothes, lots of clothes hanging from a long pole rack. Clothes? More than street clothes-costumes, dozens of costumes, at least that's what they looked like. There were long gowns, yard upon yard of heavy material, short silk 1920s flapper dresses that her great-grandmother probably wore, even a couple of high-waisted Regency gowns that looked flowy and soft.
What was that huge round thing that looked like gold? A gong, she realized, she could just make it out now, its mallet hanging beside it. Who would have a gong? She saw two sofas, one flowery, one dark leather, a dozen chairs, some old-fashioned and frilly, others painfully modern, end tables, lamps, and three rolled rugs not far from her feet.
Was she in an attic?
No, not an attic. Everything smelled too fresh, with maybe a layer of lavender. The room was large, deep. She saw another clothes rack with men's clothes-capes, coats, lots of shoes-modern shoes, disco pointed toes, velvet shoes, boots of all sorts. Was that a ruff hanging over a hanger under that plastic garment bag? A ruff like the men wore in Queen Elizabeth's time? Didn't the women wear ruffs too? She simply couldn't get her brain around that. There were stacks of luggage, looking vintage 1920s.
Was that a guillotine set on the floor, its wicked blade pulled up, ready to whack through a neck with a pull of the rope? That made her shudder. She managed to get herself up into a sitting position. At her back was a-tree? She twisted to look at it. Yep, a fake tree that didn't look very real at all up close and personal.
A ruff ?
She knew then where she was. In the storage room of a theater, probably the Belson summer stock theater where Mick had played Petruchio in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew.
They'd stashed her here until they figured out what to do with her.
She could feel her Lady Colt in its ankle holster. She was very glad they weren't pros or they'd have found it in a matter of minutes. She'd have to get free before it would be of use to her.
Sherlock saw a weapons array-guns, muskets, fake Uzis, a butcher knife, an axe, and a stiletto-all of them fastened to a board set against a wall twelve feet away from her.
She tried to stand up and promptly fell on her side. She tried several more times, but always ended up on the floor. Okay, then-she wriggled over to the weapons board. She stared up at the stiletto, leaned her back against the board and slowly pushed herself up. She felt the weapons digging in her back, but she just kept pushing, pushing, until she was standing straight up. She turned slowly, leaning heavily against the board. The stiletto was still way too high up for her to pull it off with her hands bound behind her back. She went up on her tiptoes and clamped the steel blade between her teeth. It tasted cold and metallic. Since it was a stage knife, it had to be retractable. She'd have to be careful how she used it.
She pushed her back against the board again and slowly sank down to the floor. She dropped the stiletto and twisted around until she managed to grab the handle in her hand. Her first try at poking through the duct tape made the blade retract instantly. Okay, she'd have to saw the tape, not try to punch through it. She was clumsy at first, but she kept at it, sawed away. She cut her fingers, and her hands cramped. The stiletto kept slipping but she forced herself to be patient and repositioned it, aware of the precious minutes marching inexorably forward, bringing Jane Ann and Mick back to her. She couldn't hurry because when she did, the stiletto slipped and she had to start over again.
She stopped counting the times the stiletto cut her. There was slick blood now, making the task all that more difficult. Keep going, just keep going. Focus now, whine later.
Sherlock couldn't believe it when the duct tape suddenly split apart. She was free. She sat perfectly still for an instant, not really believing it. Forever, she thought, it had taken nearly forever, but she'd gotten the duct tape off. She stared down at her bloody hands-just like Lady Macbeth's. She drew a deep breath and shook her hands to get the feeling back, rubbed her hands on her pants. It hurt, but who cared?
She picked up the stiletto and went to work on the tape around her ankles. She cut through it in an instant. She was in business.
She stood and stamped her feet until she felt the pins and needles go away. Then she leaned up and pulled a butcher knife off its hooks. It was blunt, but nice and heavy. Best of all, it wasn't retracta
ble. Evidently the actors had to remember not to hack anyone with it in the plays they performed. She held the butcher knife in her left hand and her Lady Colt in her right. She was good to go. She walked quickly through the shadows to the door of the storage room. It was locked, of course. Okay, now what? She had two bullets in her Lady Colt, she could shoot off the lock and-
She heard footsteps coming. Heavy footsteps. It was a man, and he was coming here.
Her heart stopped. They were back, to deal with her, probably to kill her. At least she wasn't lying on the floor, helpless. No, she wasn't helpless at all.
Sherlock eased behind the closely packed clothes racks, and waited. She heard him fiddling with the lock, and then the door was pushed inward.
56
Bowie shook his cell phone, as if it would give him more information. "It was Sherlock. Something's happened, I can't get her."
Erin took the cell phone from him, hit some buttons, listened. "It's still open on the other end, but no one's there. You're right, someone's got her, Bowie. Do you know where she was going?"
"I think she was going to see Jane Ann Royal, but there are loads of crime scene techs over there. I sent Kel and Joel over there to help work the house since you were with me. I know Sherlock asked them to check on the Royal telephone records. She's not there, she can't be."
"Call them, see what they say."
He took back his cell and speed-dialed Agent Kel Lewis's cell.
"This is Bowie. Have you seen Agent Sherlock? Okay, is Mrs. Royal there? I want you guys to keep an eye out. We'll see you as soon as we can. What? Okay, check out that telephone number right now and get back to me. Kel, put an APB out on Jane Ann Royal. Wait, Sherlock asked me where Millstone was. That's it, she went to Millstone. But-"
Erin grabbed his hand. "Georgie's out of school in ten minutes. We can't leave her standing there. What are we going to do?"