Point Blank

She stared up at him. “Only Tammy Tuttle.”

“Bingo,” he said. “She may have learned at his knee.”

“But we looked at her file. We found no connection.”

“And we were wrong.”

She got to her feet. “Agent Arnold will call back in a minute, then we’re going to nail that crazy old man.” She placed her fingertips against his mouth. “No, don’t undress me and don’t argue. We’re in this together. I’m not going to keel over on you. Hey, I might even sing you another song.”

AT TEN-THIRTY SATURDAY morning, Savich opened his front door to see Ruth with Brewster nestled in the crook of her arm, Sheriff Dixon Noble and his sons standing behind her, grinning.

“Well, this is a surprise. Now, Ruth, I told you guys last night everything’s all right. You shouldn’t have come, you—”

“Be quiet, Dillon, just be quiet. I’ve been so worried, I had to see for myself. Where’s Sherlock?” Then Ruth threw herself against him, Brewster between them, barking manically. “The news reports, Dillon, all those awful clips we saw on TV. It looked like a scene out of hell. Please tell me Sherlock is okay.”

“She’s fine, I promise.”

“Okay, okay. We couldn’t stand it. We had to make sure.”

“In other words,” Dix said, stepping forward to shake Savich’s hand, “you could have been lying to Ruth, could really have been stretched out in a hospital bed, riddled with bullets and burning metal.

“Truth is, we were as worried as Ruth. She was convinced you were being stoic, said she’d belt you one if you weren’t upright and smiling when we got here. Your Porsche—on the news they showed you pulling up in front of the club, panned to all the insane chaos, then they showed the Porsche burning. Some sight that was.”

“All right, Brewster, come here.”

“Be careful, Savich, you know how he is,” Dix said.

“Yeah, I will.” Savich let Brewster lick his chin, then held him slightly away. But Brewster didn’t pee.

Rafe said, “We just walked him thirty minutes ago, so I guess his tank’s empty.”

“I’m convinced he has an auxiliary tank,” their father said.

Rafe said to Savich, “Rob says you can get any girl you like when you drive a car like your Porsche.”

“Yeah,” Dix said, “it’s all over for him now, boys. Tough break.”

Sean walked into the entrance hall, his mother behind him. He stopped and stared at Brewster, who was wildly licking his father’s face. He smiled.

Ruth saw the sling. “Ohmigod, Sherlock, Dillon said you hurt your arm, but just a little bit. What happened?”

Sherlock said, “I’m fine, really. It was a piece of flying metal, hardly touched me. Hello, Rob, Rafe, Dix. It’s great to see you guys. Come in, come in. Oh dear, Dillon, quick, move Brewster off the carpet, he’s peeing.”

Half an hour later, the four adults sat around the kitchen table, drinking coffee and tea and eating raisin-stuffed scones from the new Potomac Street bakery, Sweet Things. The three boys had consumed half a dozen scones and were now in the living room with Graciella and Brewster, who occasionally barked and butted his head against Sean’s hand.

Graciella sat on the sofa, mending a sweater, smiling at the boys and the most adorable dog she’d ever seen.

Ruth said to Savich, “You baited him again. You thought you could break him down.”

Savich shrugged. “I wasn’t getting anywhere finding out who he really is. There simply hasn’t been a case in which I had to kill a woman. But after the bombing and Moses’s call last night, Sherlock and I think we finally know.”

Ruth sat forward, her elbows on the table.

Savich must have seen something in Sherlock’s eyes because he rose, got a pain pill from the kitchen counter, and held it to her mouth. When she’d swallowed the pill, he sat down again, raised his teacup to toast Ruth. “Are you ready for this? The woman was Tammy Tuttle.”

Ruth froze, said to Dix, “That was before I came into the unit, but I heard all about her, how she had this power to make people see what she wanted them to see.”

“Mass hypnosis?” Dix asked, an eyebrow up. “You sure? That’s pretty out there.”

Savich nodded. “You’re telling me. But we had a real hard time tracking her down even though we had her in our sights on two occasions. Thank God Tammy Tuttle couldn’t trick everyone. When she got close enough to me, for whatever reason, I recognized her. Moses had only one fact right—I did nearly shoot her arm off. She was going to kill two teenage boys she and her crazy twin, Tommy, had kidnapped. I had to shoot her in the shoulder, which led to her losing an arm. She escaped from the hospital when she recovered and came after me. She wanted me real bad, like Moses.”