Hemlock Bay

“A dozen, maybe more. All across the country. We’ll probably never know unless Tammy decides to tell us, and that’s not likely. Her arm was amputated thanks to Dillon’s shot. She’s not a happy camper. Thank God it’s over and the last two boys are all right.”

Tennyson asked, “You shot her? Did you kill the brother too?”

“The brother’s dead, yes. It was a team effort,” Savich said, and nothing more.

“Those poor little boys,” Lily said. “Their parents must have been torn apart when they were taken.”

“They were, but as I said, everything turned out okay for them.”

Nurse Carla Brunswick said from the doorway, “We don’t have to worry about crooks while you guys are in town. Now, I get to order the FBI out. Time for Mrs. Frasier’s sleeping pills. Say good night—even you, Dr. Frasier. Dr. Larch’s orders.”

• It wasn’t until they were in the hospital parking lot that Tennyson said, “I apologize for not realizing sooner that you’d only just arrived. You will stay with me, won’t you?”

“Yes,” Savich said. “Thank you, Tennyson. We want to be close.”

An hour later, after Savich had called his mother and told her not to worry and had spoken to his son, he climbed into the king-size bed beneath the sloped-ceiling guest room, kissed his wife, tucked her against his side, and said, “Why do you really think Mr. Elcott Frasier called us?”

“The obvious: he was worried about his daughter-in-law and wanted us to know right away. Very thoughtful. He thought it through and didn’t just call your mom and scare the daylights out of her.”

“All right, just maybe you’re right. After that heavy dose of craziness with the Tuttles, I guess my mind went automatically to the worst possible motive.”

Sherlock kissed his neck, then settled back in, her leg over his belly. “I’ve heard so much psychobabble about Lily. She tries to kill herself because it’s the only thing to do if she wants to gain peace. She has to drive her Explorer into a redwood to expiate her guilt. It just doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t sound like Lily. Yes, yes, I remember the first time. But that was then.”

“And this is now.”

“Yes. Seven months. Lily isn’t neurotic, Dillon. I’ve always thought she was strong, stable. And now I feel guilty because we didn’t make an effort to see her over the last months.”

“You had a baby, Sherlock, not a week after Beth’s funeral.”

“And Lily was there for me.”

“She wasn’t there with you—not like I was. My God, Sherlock, that was the longest day of my life.” He squeezed her so hard, she squeaked.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said.

“You never curse, but toward the end there you called me more names than I’d ever been called, even by linebackers during football games in college.”

She laughed, kissed his shoulder again, and said, “Look, I know Lily’s been through a very hard time. She’s been understandably depressed. But we’ve talked to her a lot since Beth died. I just don’t believe she was in a frame of mind to try to kill herself again.”

“I don’t know,” he said. He frowned and turned off the lamp on the bedside table. He pulled Sherlock against him again and held her tight. “It really shakes me up, Sherlock, this happening to Lily. It’s so hard to know what to do.”

She held him harder than she had in her life. And she was thinking how fragile Lily had been seven months before, so hurt and so very broken, and then she’d taken those pills and nearly died. Savich and their mother had flown out to California for the second time, not more than a week after Beth’s funeral, to see Lily lying in that narrow hospital bed, a tube in her nose, an IV line in her arm. But Lily had survived. And she’d been so sorry, so very sorry that she’d frightened everyone. And she’d come back with them to Washington, D.C., to rest and get her bearings. But after three weeks, she’d decided to go back to her husband in Hemlock Bay.

And seven months later, she’d driven her Explorer into a redwood.

She squeezed more tightly against him. “I just don’t know how I’d handle it if anything happened to Sean. I couldn’t bear that, Dillon. I just couldn’t. No wonder Lily didn’t.”

After a long time, he said, “No, I couldn’t bear it either, but you know what? You and I would survive it together. Somehow we would. But I think your instincts on this were right. You said something doesn’t feel right. What did you mean?”