“If that’s what you want, Savich,” Maitland said, and Savich knew he was grinning like the cat in the canary cage. When Savich hung up the phone, he told Sherlock, “I’ll say one thing for Victor. Taking out an FBI agent, stealing his ID, taking himself to Memorial to free Lissy—that took guts and steadiness. He’s got to feel really attached to Lissy to take a chance like that. He moved to Winnett, North Carolina, when he was eighteen, evidently right after he graduated. The question is why? What happened?”

Sherlock said, “Lissy was only thirteen when he left.”

He nodded and said, “Did he leave because of Lissy, or maybe a falling-out with his aunt, Jennifer Smiley?”

Sherlock raised her face to his, touched her fingertips to his cheek. “We need to see if he’s got a passport, maybe dual passports, one Jordanian.”

“Yeah, we’ll do that first thing.”

She said, “I wonder why he didn’t want to return to Jordan with his mother and father. Ah, well, we’ll find out everything about him in due course. We don’t know what he’s been doing since he graduated high school, how he’s earned a living. We’ll go first thing to Fort Pessel and Winnett, find out about these two.”

“I’m sure some of that legwork will be in the info Mr. Maitland sends us.”

“Yeah, yeah, you know it’s not the same thing.” She added as she looked at the kitchen clock, “I figure we’ve got another thirty minutes before Sean comes home from the Perrys’ on a sugar high. I want you to tell me everything about Lissy Smiley and how things went down. Paint me a picture, Dillon. I want to hear it out of your mouth again. I know you’ve thought about it, relived it. Now that Lissy is free, I need to know what you think. Talk to me.”

And he did. She didn’t add that the thought of a crazy teenager out to kill Dillon scared her to her toes.

“…Riley saved my bacon, shot Jennifer Smiley through the neck. I will never forget thinking of a blood fountain.”

He’d been so close to death again, she thought, too close. A fountain of blood. She got herself together. “We’ve got to find out what sort of relationship Lissy Smiley had with Victor. It could be the key to what makes them tick.”

Savich agreed, only he really didn’t care at this particular moment in time. He grabbed Sherlock and kissed her. “I’ll get to work with MAX on this tonight. Ah, how much time do you think we have before Lucy brings Sean home?”

“At least fourteen minutes,” Sherlock said, and ran up the stairs.

The only thing missing from this perfect picture, Savich thought as he followed her, was that they didn’t have a ceiling fan in their bedroom. He hoped he’d have time to install one next weekend. He thought about Autumn. He prayed she’d call him again tonight. It had been too long. He’d gotten a couple of phone calls from several small-town sheriffs, but as yet, nothing on Autumn. His Autumn. He was getting really worried about her.

14

TITUSVILLE, VIRGINIA

Sunday

The Washington Post lay neat and unopened on the living room coffee table, delivered as always on Sunday morning from the 24/7 Quick Shop by little Buddy Grubbs, Amy Grubbs’s youngest. Ethan had gotten into the habit of reading the Post when he’d lived in Washington during his three-year stint in the DEA. The idea of putting his bare feet up on his coffee table and reading it on this fine Sunday morning, a cup of coffee in his hand, seemed a world away.

Ethan sat down on the comfortable worn sofa that had cushioned many of his family’s butts over the years, carefully moved the newspaper to the side of the coffee table, and set his cup down on the glass top. He waved a hand. “It’s just as well Autumn’s playing in the bedroom with the cats. I need to talk to you, Joanna. Sit down a moment. You probably heard me on my cell phone. All my deputies are out looking for Blessed Backman, with as much neighboring law enforcement help as they can spare. Unfortunately, he doesn’t appear to have a driver’s license or a Social Security number. And that means, officially, he doesn’t exist.”

“Surely he must drive. How else did he get here?”

“Yes, it only makes sense that he drove up here. It could have been a car, truck, motorcycle, whatever.”

“I know Blessed is still out there, probably real close. He hasn’t got Autumn yet, and believe me, he wants Autumn very badly. I need to get her away from here. I’ve been thinking Colorado might be a nice home for us.”

Her heels looked dug in like a mule’s, and so he said easily, “And what do you intend to do, Joanna? In Colorado?”