The Maze

"That's a relief," Savich said and slowly hung up the phone. He turned back to her, saw that the sated vague look was long gone now, and there was fear there, haunting fear. "No, no, Sherlock, Maitland thinks it was Erasmus and Marlin. They're way off in Ohio someplace, far away from us. It's okay. They'll catch them." Still, the fear didn't leave her eyes. He said nothing more, just came over her again. He shuddered with the feel of her stiffening beneath him.

He didn't ease his hold on her until he was certain she was asleep. He kissed her temple. He wondered what had happened in San Francisco. Then he wondered if they'd caught Marlin yet and if they'd dispatched him to hell.

Lacey was feeling mellow as she sipped Dillon's famous darkly rich coffee. Morning sunlight poured through the kitchen windows. She was leaning against the refrigerator.

Dillon took her cup and kissed her until she was ready to jump on him. Then he gave it back to her. It took another three long drinks of coffee and a distance of three feet from him before she could function again. He just grinned at her.

When she had her wits together, finally, she told him about her parents, about Douglas. "Douglas was treating my mother like she was his lover. He kissed her, caressed her face, called her by her first name. I'm not wrong about this even though he denied it, denied it quite believably."

He nearly dropped his spoon. "You're kidding me. No? Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. When it comes to your family, I'm willing to believe just about anything. Do you think it's possible that Douglas was sleeping not only with his wife but also with his wife's mother?"

She took a bite of toast, then added another dollop of strawberry spread. "I have no idea. Maybe he wanted all the Sherlock women. After all, he wanted to sleep with me too." She sighed, rubbed her stomach, knew she was going to have to relax or she'd get an ulcer. "It's as if I know them but they're strangers to me in the most basic ways. I found out that Belinda's father, my mother's first husband-his name is Conal Francis-was released from San Quentin just a short time ago."

"Interesting. He's the one your father told you tried to kill him? That he was nuts?"

"Yes. My father told me that was why Belinda shouldn't have kids. She had too many crazy genes in her. My father also told me that Belinda was already well on her way to being as nuts as her father. I think I'll call the shrinks at San Quentin and see what they have to say about it."

He rose. "Go ahead and call San Quentin, that's a good idea. You want to ride downtown with me?"

Ollie greeted her with a hug and began talking immediately about a string of kidnappings and murders in Missouri. "It's the same perps, that's pretty well established. They kidnap a rich couple's child, get a huge ransom, then kill the kid. Actually, it's likely that they kill the kid immediately, then string the parents along. There have been three of them, the most recent one in Hannibal, you know, the birthplace of Mark Twain. These folk are real monsters, Sherlock. They drown the kids in bathtubs, then after they have the ransom, they call the parents and tell them where to get their child."

She felt rage deep inside her. She took a deep breath. After all, monsters were their business. She understood that, she accepted it, and wanted to get them put away, that or get them on death row. But children. That was more than monstrous. Once they had Marlin and Erasmus, she wanted to concentrate on the kidnappers. No, they were murderers, the kidnapping really didn't count.

She went back to her desk and booted up her computer. Dillon had put a lion on her screen, and he roared at her out of the small speakers on either side of the console. She heard two agents shouting at each other. She heard a woman laugh, saw a Coke can go flying past her desk, heard the agent shout his thanks. She heard the hum of the Xerox, someone cursing the fax machine, heard an agent speak in that deep, rich FBI voice on the phone. Everything was back to normal chaos. Only it wasn't, not for her, at least not yet.

Marlin Jones was still free. Belinda's killer, whoever that was, was still out there. She just prayed that both Marlin and Erasmus were in Ohio, with the state police getting really close. She hoped the police would just take both of them out.

She looked up to see Ollie stretching. "Anything new on Missouri?"

Ollie shook his head. "Nothing, nada, zippo. But you know, I got this funny feeling in my gut. I just know that we're going to get the perps. Despite MAXINE being really stumped on this one, I just know it's going to come to an end soon now."

She sighed. "I hope so." But what she was thinking about was smoke and mirrors. Her life seemed filled with smoke and mirrors. Everyone looked back at her, but their faces weren't real, and she wondered if they were looking at her or at someone they thought was she. No one seemed as he really was. Except for Dillon.