Tail Spin

“In your dreams.” He laughed as he walked to Perky’s desk, turned on her laptop. He played around with it for several minutes, humming as he worked, then sat back in the desk chair, frowning.

“She’s got the sucker passworded. It’d take me a while, but it would be a piece of cake for MAX.” He unplugged the laptop, set it on the floor by the front door.

They looked through the desk drawers, found a checkbook, rubber-banded stack of paid bills, some invoices. The invoices were for repairs, for merchandise for her store, and the only checks used were written to utilities, nothing personal to help them. They found a couple dozen catalogs for Goth stuff, with some of the pages folded down. And an envelope filled with five thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills.

“Her traveling money,” Sherlock said, labeling the envelope and putting it in her jacket pocket.

In the kitchen they found three boxes of Grape-Nuts cereal, all unopened, and not much else in the cabinets. In the refrigerator were several dozen frozen bagels, fat-free cream cheese, and a half-gallon bottle of soy milk.

In the night table drawer by the narrow black-quilted bed, they found nipple rings in bright primary colors, black liquid eyeliner, three pairs of fangs, and two ornate bottles containing ruby red liquid, to simulate blood, they assumed. The best find was a paperback, the cover illustrated with a score of black knife slashes, titled Sex for Vamps: How to Bleed Your Way to Pleasure.

“Hmm,” Sherlock said, picking up the book. “Pictures, you think?”

He laughed at her, grabbed the book, and began to thumb through it. “Now, would you look at this?”

They stared at a man wearing a black leather codpiece, a whip held high in his hand, a mask over his lower face. Beneath him, naked, on her stomach, tied with black leather straps to the four posts of the bed, lay a woman looking over her shoulder at the man.

Savich looked up. “Dare I turn the page?”

“Well, maybe better not. We’re professionals, after all.”

The most interesting thing they found in Pearl Compton’s, aka Perky’s, apartment was an address book, filled with numbers. No names, just initials beside every number.

Hallelujah.

THIRTY

World Gym

Georgetown

Wednesday evening

We’ve got information overload,” Savich said as he increased the speed and incline of the treadmill.

“It beats not knowing anything.” Sherlock matched his speed, but not the incline. She didn’t want to push it, not when she still had plans to throw her husband to the mat at least a dozen times. Never had she considered a bookstore dangerous, particularly the Georgetown Barnes & Noble, but that was all changed now. Perky dashing up that down escalator, black boots pounding, waving a gun around, grabbing that teenage girl as a hostage—the chaos, the screaming—it could have been a disaster. Dillon could have been killed. Perky had tried to shoot her, too, impossible to forget that. But that didn’t bother her. She’d been terrified for Dillon.

Sherlock punched up the speed, viciously, to match her mood, a mix of fury and fear so corroding she thought she’d choke on it. She shot a look at Dillon. He’d already moved on, his run smooth and steady, his breathing easy, moved on just as she would have done if she’d been in his shoes, curse him. But she hadn’t been anywhere near his shoes, and that was the problem. She owed Dane the world.

Sometimes—like right that instant—being married to Savich scared her to death. Because she was who she was, she’d far rather be pissed off than scared. She knew the only thing for it was to let off some serious steam.

Savich slowed a bit and turned to her. “Okay, what we know for sure is that Donley Everett is going down hard. The prosecutor had him sign his confession on the dotted line, so it’s all wrapped up. It’s a pity, but I believe him; he doesn’t have a clue who hired Perky. But maybe he can give us a more specific location for where he buried Clay Huggins’s body.”

“Hypnotize him.”

“Yeah, we could do that. Good idea.”

All right, so he didn’t have a clue that her insides were at the boiling point; he was a guy, after all. More to the point, and the point galled her, she hadn’t said anything.

Everything’s okay, it’s over. Calm down. It’s not like you haven’t faced this before. She cleared her throat, said, “I wonder how Angel’s keepers are doing with her attitude at Fairfax Juvie. Do you think she’s been released yet?”

“Probably. Maybe Angel’s got a chance. She’s a bright girl.”

“Yeah, yeah, so am I, and look what happened to me.”

A black eyebrow shot up as Savich turned to look at her. What was with the snark? He said, “What happened to you is that you married your boss—a pretty cool guy—you get to chase down bad guys, and you get to stay in shape. It’s like the perfect life for you.”

She didn’t laugh, as he’d expected her to. She said abruptly, “It’s a bummer about those phone numbers you got off Angel’s cell phone. You were so happy to think your five hundred dollars paid off.”

No more snark, that was good. Savich pushed the incline higher and breathed deeply, steadily. “Yeah, I was hopeful we might have Roderick Lloyd more in the loop, maybe calling Perky’s boss, talking about killing Rachael in Parlow, but what we got are calls to Pizza Mac’s, ordering double pepperoni, thick crust.”

He still wasn’t breathing hard, Sherlock thought, feeling a line of sweat snake down her back. She wanted to punch him for that, as well.

He said, “And the other three calls to bookies—three different bookies—and he owed all of them money.”

Elvis belted out “Blue Suede Shoes.” Savich pulled his cell off the clip on his waistband.

“Yes? Savich here.” He slowed down and listened. When he punched off, he sped up again and said, “That was Dane calling from Memorial. He said Perky is still in surgery, but it looks good. She should be okay unless something unexpected happens. Then, just maybe, we can cut a deal with her.”

“It could be a week before she’s up to physically visiting Quantico. Maybe we can deal with her at the hospital, have Dr. Hicks visit her.”

“That’s a good thought.”

Sherlock pushed the cool-down button, a bit on the violent side. “I like to impress the boss.”