Savich said, “No way. You just had your spleen removed, Sherlock.”

“Come on, Dillon, it’s been months since the surgery. I’m fine. You know I’m fine. Stop playing Mr. Protector.”

“Forget it, you’re still not up to running all out in the woods. I want you and Cully to stay put, keep a sharp eye out. Look at it this way, we’ve got backup in place. I’ll probably be redundant. Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon. Good plan, by the way.” And before Sherlock could jump on him or yell at him, Savich moved away from the front windows back down the hall to the bedroom.

He heard Sherlock say behind him, “Who needs a spleen anyway?”

64

VICTOR NESSER threw his binoculars to the ground. “Where are they?”

Lissy jumped a bit, picked up the binoculars, and looked through them. “There’s still no movement in the house, not even a face looking out the front windows. Even though they couldn’t find our federal cop buddy here—I’ll bet you they called for their crime scene team, Victor, and that’s why they’re still inside the house.”

Victor said, “But why isn’t the crime scene team here yet? Why aren’t they doing something?”

“I remember, it’s forensic team, that’s what they call them on TV,” Lissy said. “You’re right, it’s been way too long.” She handed him back the binoculars.

“Yeah, but, you know, this is a hick town. Where would anybody get a forensic team? Maybe at Bud’s Bowling Bonanza or down at O’Malley’s Dairy Queen? What’s taking them so long to get it together? Why aren’t they coming out of the house?”

Lissy patted Victor’s cheek. “They will, baby, they will. They’re stupid. They don’t know anything. They’ll come trotting out of the front door any minute now and we’ll blow them into a gazillion pieces.” She frowned suddenly, punched his arm. “Some bomb you made, Victor. First you couldn’t manage to stall out that security guard’s car in Washington, and now you couldn’t get the bomb to go off. Some computer expert you are.”

“It should have gone off,” Victor said, rubbing his arm. “I followed the instructions carefully; you watched me do it. Don’t hit me again, Lissy, I don’t like it.”

“Still,” she said, then looked over at Bernie. “We’ve got Mr. Fed here, and that’s something.”

Victor leaned over and punched Bernie hard in the arm. “Hey, wake up, pigface. You know why your buddies aren’t out here looking for you?”

Bernie was awake, had been for some time now, trying to control his roaring headache from the blow on the back of his head. Actually, he’d been whispering hallelujahs. Victor’s bomb hadn’t exploded, thank the good Lord, which meant Savich and Sherlock had disarmed it. Cully was still alive, and that was all Bernie wanted to think about. He’d hoped they’d say something useful if he kept playing possum, but then Victor hit him.

“Come on, pigface, open your baby blues!”

“His eyes aren’t blue, Victor, they’re brown.”

“Yeah? How do you know that, Lissy?”

“He’s all big and dark; no blue eyes for him.”

Bernie opened his brown eyes and stared up at Victor. He didn’t have to fake looking dazed. “What?”

“Hey, were you trying to fake it? Or are you still knocked stupid?” Lissy punched him in the belly with her fist. He barely responded. “See? He’s still stupid. I hit him so hard his cop brains are still scrambled.” She leaned down and whispered in his ear as her palm flattened out on his stomach. “Hey, Mr. Agent, I like the feel of your gut. No fat, good muscle tone. Let me see.” Lissy jerked his shirt out of his pants, ripped the buttons off, and spread it open. “Wow, Victor, look at our buff cop here.” She stroked her hand over his stomach, and, to his horror, Bernie felt her fingers slide down into his shorts.

He tried to jerk away, then coughed, wheezed.

Victor jerked when he saw her hand. “What are you doing, Lissy? Stop that, you hear me? You don’t even know him. Stop it!”

Lissy laughed, pulled her hand out of his pants. “That’s the way to wake up a cop, Victor. All you gotta do is touch their brains.” And she laughed again. “Hey, that’s true of any guy, isn’t it? From what I could tell, our cop here’s got a pretty good brain.”

Victor looked at her like he hated her, then kicked a rock on the ground beside him. “Why’s it taking them so long to come out of the house? Forget the forensic crap. There’s no way they know we’re here; they’ve got to figure we’re gone. So where are they?” But Victor didn’t really care at that moment what the federal agents were doing because his heart was still pounding at what Lissy had done—she’d actually touched another man, she’d actually felt the damned cop, and right in front of him. His hands shook. He wanted to hurt her; he wanted to kill the damned agent. He said again, “They should have come out. Why haven’t they?”