Split Second

“Thank God you’re all right, Dillon,” she said again, reached out her hand and cupped his face in her palm.

“Hey!” It was Coop, and he was panting, frowning at the two of them. “What happened, Lucy? I saw you plow into Savich. Did you see her? What’s going on? You look like you’re freezing.” He shrugged out of his jacket and laid it around her shoulders.

Sherlock, clutching a crying Sean close, was on Coop’s heels. She stared from her husband to Lucy, her heart pounding hard and fast, fear so thick in her throat she could only get his name out before her throat closed. “Dillon—”

He touched her, then lightly stroked Sean’s head. “I’m fine, sweetheart. Hey, Sean, everything’s okay.” He looked at Lucy, who was staring down at her feet. He looked back at Sherlock, and a very clear, silent message passed between them. This can’t ever happen with Sean again.

He held both Sherlock and Sean tightly against him. “Lucy knocked me flat; she was protecting me. I’m fine. Now, Sean, Mommy’s going to take you back to the car, and I’ll be with you guys in a minute, okay?”

But Sherlock wasn’t about to leave him, and so Savich kept talking to Sean, who was still clutching his Frisbee tight in his hand. Savich looked over at Lucy. “How did you ever see Kirsten before she shot at me, Lucy?”

Lucy simply shook her head and turned at the sound of sirens, growing louder by the second.

Coop said, “Remember how Mr. Lansford bragged about how he’d taught Kirsten to shoot a rifle? Thank God she missed you.”

“Yes, she missed me,” Savich said, “but only because of Lucy.” He hugged her to him. “Thank you, Lucy Carlyle, for saving my life.”

If you only knew, Lucy thought. Savich slowly released her. She stood motionless, saying nothing, and she was staring down at the leaf-strewn ground, then over at the oak tree where the bullet had struck, hugging Coop’s jacket around herself.

You’re an experienced agent, Lucy Carlyle, but you’re much more shaken than any of us. Why?

He walked to the oak tree, dug out the bullet casing. If Lucy had been a second later—a split second—he would be dead.

CHAPTER 60

Three teenage boys had told Coop they’d seen this jazzy woman, carrying something under her arm wrapped in a jacket, jump into a dirty dark blue Chevy Monte Carlo, with a ding on the back passenger-side fender.

They talked over one another until a tall, skinny kid won out because his voice was the loudest. “Short red hair, in spikes like a punk, you know. She was tall, and kind of skinny.”

They’d nailed Kirsten down to the “jazzy.”

“Dude, sir, she was flying. Ponce here yelled after her, and she shot him the finger and was outta here.”

“She nearly clipped a fire plug, you know, headed out of the park on Clotter Street.”

“Clotter’s one-way, heads right to the Potomac.”

“That old Monte Carlo, she floored the sucker, rooster-tailed gravel.”

Coop, the dude himself, looked around now at the half dozen agents sitting at the CAU conference table. “Any ideas where she would go? She should be desperate, low on money, no supports left that we know of, having to rob or steal most everything she needs.” Then he frowned. “Of course, we can’t be sure of that.”

Savich said without hesitation, “She isn’t going anywhere until she kills me. Today she nearly did.” He looked at Lucy, who was sitting silently next to Coop. She looked as if she wasn’t there, as if she were far away, in a world no one else could see.

Ruth said, “Bruce Comafield wasn’t just trying to scare you, Dillon. She must be fixated on killing you, given the chance she took trailing you to the park and opening fire on four armed agents.

“So, you’re not going to be alone until we bring her down. No more playing Frisbee in the park. In fact, we all think you should camp out here in the CAU. We’ll bring in veggie pizzas.”

Like that was going to happen, Savich thought. Then he realized he hadn’t eaten, and he was hungry. One of Dizzy Dan’s pizzas sounded pretty good.

Dane said, “I still don’t understand how you did it, Lucy, how you came to knock Savich down the second before Kirsten fired at him. What did you see?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Beneath the table, Coop took her hand, squeezed it. Her skin was cold—not a surprise, given that death had crouched on her shoulder that morning. And what she’d done, knocking Savich down like that, had scared him just as much. Savich had flirted with shock as well when he was standing there digging out the casing in the oak tree, but he’d focused on his son, jollying him out of fright, telling him what an adventure they’d had, how Marty was going to be so jealous she might not speak to him for a day or two. Still, Coop knew both Savich and Sherlock had to be worried sick about Sean, about how death had brushed too close to their little boy.