“Exactly.” He caught Sean’s wobbly pass and tossed it back. Sean dropped it, probably on purpose, and Astro went nuts, trying to kill it, barking his head off. Soon the two of them were rolling around on the floor, fighting for the ball.

Sherlock said, “Do you think it’s possible Kirsten left Ann Marie Slatter alive to send us a message? Felt like thumbing her nose at us?”

“I don’t know,” he said, but he was thinking, Sending me a message? Sherlock had been the one who played Kirsten and sucked her in, nearly bringing her down. Even though Comafield had said Kirsten was coming after him, all he could think about was that insane psychopath coming after Sherlock, and it terrified him. He rose, scooped up his son and the football, wet with Astro’s slobber, hauled him over his shoulder, and trotted up the stairs with Astro at his heels. “I’ll take care of Sean; you give Coop and Lucy a call, see how she’s doing and how their visit to the Silvermans went, then finish your soup. You need to get to bed; you need to rest as much as Lucy does.”

A half hour later, with Sean finally down for the count, Sherlock took her final drink of the tepid tea Dillon had made especially for her—spiked with his favorite supplements—and ate the rest of her chicken noodle soup. She felt fine, really, only a bit of rawness in her throat where some sadist had shoved down the tube. It made her shudder to think about it.

She leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes. What would Kirsten do now? She was worried for Dillon, because Kirsten had undoubtedly seen him on TV, maybe even saw him shoot Comafield outside the Texas Range Bar & Grill in Baltimore, and she was crazy enough to go after him. The thought scared her spitless.

But she slept deeply that night, her head on his shoulder, her arms wrapped tight around his chest.

CHAPTER 53

Wesley Heights

Thursday night

I’m lying on cement. Well, maybe the mattress wasn’t quite that hard, but with her bumps and bruises and aching muscles from being thrown around her Range Rover, it sure felt like cement.

She finally got up, stiff and hurting, and went into the bathroom to pop some aspirin and move around a little. After she’d taken three aspirin, she managed a few stretches from side to side until she felt a zing of pain in her shoulder and had to stop. She stood straight again and, unfortunately, happened to look in the mirror. She saw a woman with ratty hair, her skin the color of oatmeal, with a big purple bruise on her jaw. Where had that beauty come from?

Lucy hadn’t unbraided her hair before she’d fallen into bed. She did so now, and finger-combed her hair, not bothering to get her brush from the small overnight bag she’d quickly packed at her grandmother’s house. At least the butterfly strips Coop had pressed down over the cut on her scalp looked better than the bandage she’d worn home from the hospital. Her eyes kept going back to the bruise on her jaw.

Of all things, she’d forgotten a sleep shirt, and so she was wearing one of Coop’s white T-shirts. She’d never before worn a man’s T-shirt, and thought she looked rather cute, at least from the neck down.

She said to the pasty-faced pathetic woman staring back at her, her eyes stark and hard, “You’re alive, so no more whining. At least you look kind of sexy in Coop’s T-shirt.”

“I’d say you do. I like the way it falls off your shoulder.”

She turned slowly to see her host standing in the open bathroom doorway, shirtless, wearing only a pair of slacks, zipped up, the top button unfastened. How could she see all that in a millisecond? She’d never seen Special Agent Cooper McKnight without a shirt before, not even at the gym. He had a nice chest, really nice abs and pecs, and that open top button on his pants—

Stop looking at his open trouser button. “Hey, you want your T-shirt back? Looks like you’re in need here.”

He absently scratched his chest. “I heard you moving around. You in any pain, Lucy?”

“I took some aspirin; it’ll kick in soon. Look at this bruise on my jaw. Was it there before?”

He walked to her, lightly cupped her jaw in his hand, and lifted her face to the direct light. But he didn’t look at the bruise, he looked at her, and he knew immediately it wasn’t a good idea.

Who cared?

He leaned down and kissed her.

Lucy forgot about her bruises, forgot about the pain in her head, forgot about every sore muscle. They’d been circling each other for months now, despite what she’d heard about him, despite her distrust of him, and, to be honest with herself, she’d thought about this kiss for a long time. It wasn’t the right time to come in for a landing, but here they were in the guest bathroom, of all places.